How to Burn a Million Euros with a Smile
The Modern Art of Over-Engineering

Welcome to tech 2025:
5 frontend buttons.
10 roles.
47 meetings.
€1M/month burn rate.
Still no launch.

"The Product Comes First" Problem
Sounds noble. Humble.
Also turns every role into a background NPC quietly agreeing their job doesn’t matter.

Imagine telling an orchestra:
"Your instrument doesn't matter, the symphony does".
Then the clarinet rage-quits.

Focus is Dead.
Last seen between:
"Can we align real quick?"
and
"Why don't you behave like I want?"

You've replaced deep work with:
Slack pings
Calendar chaos
Agile rituals
1 brain cell split across 8 tools

But the Jira board? Adorable.

When Nothing Ships:
"Maybe we’re just not Agile enough"
No Karen, the framework didn’t fail.
You did.
With passion.
And six retros.
None of which helped.

What If We Just… Thought?

Build a 10-person “cross-functional” team
→ Burn €1M/month
→ Everyone owns everything, so no one owns anything
→ Meetings breed like rabbits

Meanwhile…
4-person focused teams
~€300K/month
Ship faster
Think clearer
Learn and grow
Deliver real value

Bonus: They still like each other.

Every time a tech person says:
"Hey, costs? Risks? Waste?"
Management responds:
"That's not your concern, code wizard".

Radical Thought: Let People Think
Let engineers engineer.
Let thinkers think.
Let humans do what they were hired to do.

Wild, I know.

About Unicorns:
Not every engineer is:
DevOps + Infra + Architect + Therapist + Evangelist + Espresso Machine
And that's okay.

Some are introverts.
Some are quiet builders.
Some are fixing prod right now.

Hire for mindset, not magic.
Stop gatekeeping with 1997 brain-teasers in fake conditions.
No AI. No docs. No team. No realism.

This is IT, not Hogwarts.

TL;DR
• Build small, focused teams
• Respect strengths
• Trust your people
• Don’t worship frameworks
• Let engineers engineer
• And stop setting fire to your budget

You know what's faster than scaling a broken system?
Not breaking it in the first place.