The software words founders keep hearing, made plain.

Each term is one page: what it means, why it matters to you, and what to do about it.

No condescension and no padding. If a term comes up in a quote or a contract, look it up here before you sign. When you want to see how these ideas shape real work, read our services or the guide to building without a tech team.

• Vibe coding, building from AI prompts without judging the result, and where it falls short.
• Secure by design, building security in from the start instead of bolting it on later.
• Acceptance criteria, the written test for whether the work is done.
• Scope creep, how a project quietly grows past its budget and deadline.
• Technical debt, the cost of shortcuts you pay back later, with interest.
• Total cost of ownership, what software really costs over its whole life, not just to build.
• MVP (minimum viable product), the smallest version that proves the idea works.
• Vendor lock-in, being trapped with a supplier you cannot leave without recoding everything.
• Fractional CTO, a part-time technical leader, and what they do and do not do.
• Technical due diligence, the review a buyer runs on software before an acquisition.
• Source-code escrow and handover, how you get a system you can run without the vendor.
• Key-person IT risk, when the knowledge to run your software lives in one head.
• SOC 2 readiness, being built and documented so a SOC 2 audit can pass.
• ISO 27001, the security standard enterprise customers often ask for before they sign.