Boozy Browsing: Pour Decisions in Web Development

Ndevr, Inc.

Cheers! Mix, Click, and Code with Us! Welcome to the digital speakeasy where WordPress wizards and design dabblers come together to sip, critique, and fix the web one cocktail at a time! Boozy Browsing is the podcast that turns technical troubleshooting into happy hour entertainment. What’s on tap? Each episode, our tech-tipsy hosts serve up a fresh themed cocktail while dissecting websites with the precision of seasoned developers (and the honesty that comes after a drink or two). From “The CSS Spritzer” to “The WordPress Whiskey Sour,” we’re mixing drinks and fixing links!

  1. 5d ago

    4 Hard Questions About Engineers, Juniors & AI | Boozy Browsing Pt. 1

    No audit this week. Over the summer people kept asking us the same questions — in interviews, on other podcasts, in LinkedIn comments — so we opened a beer and answered them straight. This is part one, and it is all people questions. What are the two traits that separate a developer from an engineer, and does AI change the answer? Do you still hire junior developers when a model is faster than they are? Should a new hire be allowed to use AI in their first 90 days? And would you promote your best engineer into a job they never applied for? No frameworks, no hot takes. Just what we have actually done and what it cost us.  CHAPTERS 00:00 What we’re drinking 02:36 Why this is a Q&A episode 04:24 Q1 — The two traits that separate a developer from an engineer 08:54 What AI actually changes about that answer 10:01 Waterfall, Agile, and why the mindset shifted 12:10 Q2 — Do you still hire junior developers? 16:07 Q3 — Should a new hire use AI in their first 90 days? 18:49 Q4 — Promoting people into jobs they never applied for 22:34 When someone applies for a role they are not ready for  Part 2 — agents, blame and guardrails — drops next Monday.  📌 LINKS Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F Like & Subscribe: https://www.youtube.com/@boozybrowsing  #BoozyBrowsing #EngineeringLeadership #JuniorDevs #AIinDev #Hiring #SoftwareEngineering #DevEx #WebDev

  2. Aug 17

    Practical AI Demo-Testing the Work: Backstop, Self-Checks, and Human Oversight

    The demo continues. Part one was the agent doing the work. Part two is proving the work is right. Matt and Meeky get into the testing side of practical AI: diffing builds against Figma and against the live site with Backstop.js, masking dynamic elements so media-heavy pages do not throw false alarms, and letting the AI test its own output. Then the twist: agents reviewing each other’s work. The through line is oversight. AI can do the work and check the work, but a human still owns the sign-off. That is not a limitation. That is the setup working as intended.  🍺 Featured Drinks: Meeky: Cavit Pinot Grigio | Matt: Juice Drop (Breckenridge Brewery)  💡 WHAT WE COVER: ✅ Using Backstop.js to compare builds against Figma and against the live site ✅ Masking dynamic elements so visual tests work on media-heavy sites ✅ The AI self-test: running the same checks and getting identical results ✅ Agents reviewing each other’s work, and what that catches ✅ Why human oversight stays in the loop no matter how good the tooling gets ✅ Where a demo like this fits into a real agency QA workflow  🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS: • Visual regression testing is the natural pairing for AI-built work: fast to run, easy to trust • Diffing against the design file catches drift that eyeballing never will • Dynamic content needs masking, or your visual tests cry wolf until you ignore them • An AI that can test its own output closes the loop on repetitive QA • A second agent reviewing the first is cheap insurance • Human oversight is the feature, not the fallback  🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/ Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F  EP 64 (Practical AI, the conversation): https://youtu.be/2EJN9Ml8jA4 Part 1: https://youtu.be/N-Q70OMbVrE  🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit #BoozyBrowsing #AI #PracticalAI #AIDemo #BackstopJS #AITesting #QA #WebDevelopment #Automation #PourDecisions

  3. Aug 10

    Practical AI Demo : Watching an AI Agent Actually Do the Work

    Talking about AI is one thing. Watching it work is another. Last episode, Matt and Meeky talked about how they use AI day to day. In part one of this follow-up, they put it on screen: a live demo of practical AI working real tasks. How an agent picks up a job, works the problem, hits a wall, and keeps going until it gets there. No slides, no hype reel. Just the actual workflow, including the parts where you have to steer. 🍺 Featured Drinks: Meeky: Cavit Pinot Grigio | Matt: Juice Drop (Breckenridge Brewery)  💡 WHAT WE COVER: ✅ A live, unscripted demo of practical AI on real work ✅ How an AI agent picks up a task and works the problem end to end ✅ The persistence factor: what happens when the AI hits a wall ✅ Where the human stays in the loop, and where you can step back ✅ What this looks like in an actual agency workflow, not a keynote ✅ Setup, prompts, and the little details that make the demo work 🔑 KEY TAKEAWAYS: • Demos beat descriptions: seeing an agent work a task tells you more than any feature list • Good agents are persistent problem-solvers; they retry and adjust instead of stopping at the first error • The human’s job shifts from doing the work to defining it and checking it • Most of the value is in unglamorous tasks nobody wanted to do anyway • If you want to evaluate AI tooling, watch it work on your tasks, not the vendor’s • Part two continues the demo  🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/ Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F Practical AI, the conversation: https://youtu.be/2EJN9Ml8jA4 🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit #BoozyBrowsing #AI #PracticalAI #AIDemo #AIAgents #Claude #WebDevelopment #Automation #DevTools #PourDecisions

  4. Aug 3

    The Platform Trap: Shopify Price Hikes, Magento’s Slow Exit, and the Real Cost of Replatforming

    Your ecommerce platform may be costing you more than the invoice says. Shopify Plus pricing is up. Magento’s role is shrinking. SaaS platforms still come with limits your team has to live inside. And when a brand finally decides it’s time to move, the real cost of replatforming usually shows up somewhere other than the sales deck. In this episode of Boozy Browsing, Meeky and Matt break down Shopify Plus price hikes, Magento’s slow decline, the hidden cost of replatforming, and why a migration is rarely as straightforward as vendors make it sound. This one gets into the strategic questions leaders should ask before making a move. Pricing pressure, contract lock-in, feature limitations, SEO risk, workflow disruption, cleanup work, and the pain of migrating a system that was never built cleanly in the first place.  💡 WHAT WE COVER: ✅ Why platform pricing pressure is forcing harder ecommerce decisions ✅ What Shopify Plus increases actually change for teams evaluating cost and value ✅ Where Magento still fits, and where it no longer does ✅ Why replatforming is expensive, risky, and sometimes still necessary ✅ What to evaluate before touching data, SEO, workflows, or integrations ✅ How to think about total cost of ownership instead of headline platform fees  📊 KEY TAKEAWAYS: • Shopify Plus price increases are forcing teams to re-evaluate whether the platform is still earning its keep  • Replatforming is rarely just a software decision. It affects data structure, workflows, SEO, integrations, and internal operations • Magento’s decline in the US does not mean it is irrelevant everywhere, but its long-term direction matters • SaaS limitations become expensive when they constrain the workflows your team actually needs • Most migration pain is not caused by the move itself. It is caused by bringing bad structure, bad data, and bad assumptions into the next system • Total cost of ownership matters more than the platform’s headline fee  🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/ Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F  CHAPTERS: • 0:00 Introduction to Outdoor Digital Crisis Series • 5:06 The Platform Trap: E-commerce Pricing Concerns • 10:08 Replatforming: Options and Risks • 11:09 Adobe Magento: The End of an Era • 17:04 Future of E-commerce Platforms • 17:33 Understanding SaaS Limitations • 20:12 The Replatforming Dilemma • 23:19 Key Considerations for Replatforming • 26:17 Data Migration and Workflow Optimization • 29:09 SEO Implications of Migration • 31:51 Final Thoughts on Migration Risks  🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit  #BoozyBrowsing #Ecommerce #ShopifyPlus #Magento #Replatforming #AdobeCommerce #SEO #DTC #WebDevelopment #PourDecisions (00:00) - Introduction to Outdoor Digital Crisis Series (05:06) - The Platform Trap: E-commerce Pricing Concerns (10:08) - Replatforming: Options and Risks (11:09) - Adobe Magento: The End of an Era (17:04) - Future of E-commerce Platforms (17:33) - Understanding SaaS Limitations (20:12) - The Replatforming Dilemma (23:19) - Key Considerations for Replatforming (26:17) - Data Migration and Workflow Optimization (29:09) - SEO Implications of Migration (31:51) - Final Thoughts on Migration Risks

  5. Jul 27

    Service as Software (Part 2) — Build, Buy, and the SaaS Stack Reckoning

    Part two gets more specific. When does it make sense to keep renting software, and when does it make more sense to build something your team actually owns? Meeky and Matt get into internal products, stakeholder reporting, lock-in, and why “just add another app” keeps producing the same mess in better packaging. If the stack is now the bottleneck, building software for the service might be cheaper than paying rent forever. This is the part leaders skip when they only compare subscription prices. Ownership, clarity, portability, operational control, and whether your team can get the answer it needs without exporting three CSVs and praying in a spreadsheet.  💡 WHAT WE COVER: ✅ Why lock-in changes the real cost of software, even when the sticker price looks fine ✅ When internal products make more sense than layering more vendors onto a broken process ✅ Why stakeholder reporting falls apart when every team lives in a different system ✅ The tradeoff between speed now and ownership later✅ What teams should ask before building instead of buying ✅ How to tell whether the stack is supporting the business, or quietly running it  📊 KEY TAKEAWAYS: • SaaS waste is not just about unused seats. It is also about duplicated tools, fragmented data, and teams working around the stack instead of through it • Business units now control most software spend, which makes centralized visibility harder and redundancy easier • Build-vs-buy decisions should include lock-in, reporting needs, workflow fit, and exit cost, not just monthly fees • Internal products make sense when they remove recurring complexity, not when they recreate it in-house • If leadership cannot get a clean answer without manual reconciliation, the reporting stack is already broken • Service as software is less about ideology, more about reducing friction in systems you depend on every day  🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/ Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F Part 1: https://youtu.be/UNPyqAw3elk  🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit  #BoozyBrowsing #ServiceAsSoftware #BuildVsBuy #SaaS #InternalTools #DigitalOps #WebDevelopment #Ecommerce #DTC #PourDecisions

  6. Jul 20

    Service as Software (Part 1) — The Hidden Cost of Too Many Tools

    Most SaaS stacks do not break all at once. They bleed you slowly. One more tool. One more subscription. One more integration somebody swears will only take an afternoon. Then six months later your team is paying for overlap, living inside disconnected dashboards, and spending more time stitching systems together than using them. In part one, Meeky and Matt break down the cost of SaaS sprawl, why cheap tools get expensive fast, and why “service as software” starts to make sense when the stack itself becomes the problem. Okta’s Businesses at Work 2025 report says the average company now uses 101 apps. Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index says organizations waste an average of $21 million a year on unused SaaS licenses. That is before you count the integration tax, the reporting mess, and the hours burned keeping brittle systems talking to each other.  💡 WHAT WE COVER: ✅ Why too many subscriptions create operational drag long before finance flags the line item ✅ How cheap tools turn expensive when each one adds another process, login, and integration ✅ The hidden cost of DIY tool stacks, and where the cleanup work actually lands ✅ Why discounted software can still be a bad deal if it adds complexity your team has to carry ✅ What “service as software” means in practice, and why internal products are back in the conversation ✅ Why consolidation is usually a workflow decision, not just a budget decision  📊 KEY TAKEAWAYS: • The average company now uses 101 apps, up 9% year over year (Okta Businesses at Work 2025) • Zylo’s 2025 SaaS Management Index says organizations waste an average of $21M annually on unused SaaS licenses • Zylo’s updated shelfware data says businesses now average more than 305 SaaS apps in the portfolio, with 53% of licenses unused or underused • The invoice is only part of SaaS cost. The rest shows up in integration work, reporting friction, duplicate workflows, and internal confusion • Tool sprawl usually looks manageable right up until a team needs one source of truth and discovers it does not exist • Consolidation is not anti-software. It is anti-friction  🔗 LINKS & RESOURCES: Boozy Browsing: https://www.boozybrowsing.com/ Submit your site for a free 3E audit: https://boozybrowsing.com#submit Matt Dorman on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewdorman/ Meeky Hwang on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meekyhwang Full episode playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY0olkZyu52_N6UPh9c0PXRGDm_I0lF3F  🎯 Want us to look under the hood of your site? Submit at https://boozybrowsing.com#submit  #BoozyBrowsing #ServiceAsSoftware #SaaS #WebDevelopment #Ecommerce #DTC #SoftwareSprawl #DigitalOps #InternalTools #PourDecisions

About

Cheers! Mix, Click, and Code with Us! Welcome to the digital speakeasy where WordPress wizards and design dabblers come together to sip, critique, and fix the web one cocktail at a time! Boozy Browsing is the podcast that turns technical troubleshooting into happy hour entertainment. What’s on tap? Each episode, our tech-tipsy hosts serve up a fresh themed cocktail while dissecting websites with the precision of seasoned developers (and the honesty that comes after a drink or two). From “The CSS Spritzer” to “The WordPress Whiskey Sour,” we’re mixing drinks and fixing links!