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Giacomo Balli
Complex decisions. Clear thinking.

Independent advice for business owners navigating technology decisions, challenges and opportunities.
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Building technology products since 2010 · 100+ apps

Your IT person is the wrong one to ask about a $200,000 build

The person who keeps your network running is usually the first one an owner asks about a $200,000 build.

They will answer. That is the problem.

Keeping systems up, running backups and managing licences is real skill, and none of it is the skill of reading a development proposal, pricing an assumption, or knowing what a change order rate of thirty percent means about the vendor who quoted it. Those are different jobs that happen to share a vocabulary.

To a non-technical buyer, competence in one technical domain reads as competence in all of them. It rarely is, and the person being asked is in an awkward position: saying "this is outside what I know" sounds like an admission, so most people give it their best guess instead.

Ask them what they are confident about and what they are guessing about, and make it comfortable to say the second one. The answer tells you whether you have a reviewer or a witness.

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Published: Wed, Sep 16 2026 @ 20:17:37
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