Weekly Newsletter Friday 5th Sept 2025 - Welcome (and Why Most Software Projects Fail)

Hi there,

Welcome to the very first Dev Partners Friday email.

Here’s what you can expect: once a week, I’ll drop into your inbox with a story, a simple business lesson, and a little bit of humour (the British kind, not the “high five and hustle” American kind).

This isn’t going to be a list of dry technical tips or sales pitches. It’s more like having a chat over a pint — with some useful ideas you can actually use in your business.

So let’s start with a big question: why do most software projects fail?

Picture this. Six months in. Tens of thousands of pounds gone. The deadline’s behind you. And what do you have? A half-finished app that doesn’t work the way you hoped.

I’ve seen this play out too many times. And here’s the kicker: projects don’t usually fail because of bad developers or dodgy code. They fail because of people.

• Unclear goals.
• “Just one more feature” creeping in every week.
• No agreement on what “done” even looks like.

I once joined a project where the task board looked like modern art. Nobody could say what was finished or what wasn’t. There were four tickets all called “Fix login???” The founder still insisted it would be live “next Friday.” It wasn’t. Not that Friday. Or the one after.

The pattern is always the same: too little planning at the start, too much improvisation later on. Everyone dives in headfirst, then wonders why they’re swimming in circles.

The good news? The fix isn’t complicated. Spend time aligning up front. Agree on what you’re building, why you’re building it, and how you’ll know when it’s finished. It feels slower at the start, but it saves you months (and thousands) later.

So here’s your first Friday takeaway:

👉 Software projects fail because of people problems, not tech problems. Get the people and the plan sorted first, and the code will follow.

That’s the kind of thing you’ll see here every Friday: one story, one lesson, one simple idea to help you think differently about software and business.

See you next week,
Rob & Jason
Dev Partners

PS. We’re Dev Partners — helping founders and businesses build better software. Contact us if you ever need a hand.