Why time-and-materials fails

After growing up as a programmer, hating school, and being given a chance to follow his passion via an apprenticeship, Justin Megawarne is the co-founder of Megaslice, a technology consultancy with a difference. Justin progressed to consulting, software architecture and CTO roles. However, he became tired of seeing technically excellent work fail commercially. So, along with co-founder Mikal, he built Megaslice with a mission to let no good idea go to waste.

In this episode, Justin argues that the tech industry is structurally set up to fail its clients - through broken billing models, misaligned incentives, and methodologies that function primarily as ways to transfer liability to the client. He makes the case for value pricing as the more ethical model, explains why the right quality in a founder isn't confidence but arrogance, and outlines his approach to shared risk and long-term client relationships.

In this episode:

• What Nobel Prize-winning economics has to do with your software agency
• Why Hiring a Software Agency Is Like Buying a Used Car
• The difference between outcomes and outputs — and why it matters
• Just what is "the right level of arrogance" in a founder?
• The interview question Justin uses instead of a coding test
• Why Megaslice says 'work from wherever it makes sense' to its team
• Why 'specialisation is for insects'
• The single most important thing founders tend to get backwards

Links: 

More about Megaslice:
https://megaslice.uk/

Connect with Justin on LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jmegawarne/

Chapters:

0:01:06 - Megaslice and Justin's background

0:06:33 - The Lemon Market problem

0:10:41 - Time and materials, Agile, and broken industry incentives

0:13:42 - Interest alignment and giving clients what they need

0:16:33 - Qualifying clients — founder profile, arrogance, and capital

0:21:48 - Why organisations find software so difficult

0:26:14 - Why start a company — and how Megaslice has changed

0:28:27 - Hiring for intrinsic motivation — and the hi-vis jacket story

0:35:01 - The biggest thing founders get wrong

0:38:16 - Who inspires Justin — the crackpots of history

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