Everything we wish founders knew before they hired an AI agency.
Decision-stage content for founders evaluating AI development partners. Vendor checklists, cost breakdowns, build-vs-buy frameworks, and real timelines from real projects — written by the founders who run them.
"Should I add AI to my product? And what should I build first?"
Most founders we talk to know they need AI somewhere — they just don't know where, or whether to build now vs. wait. These posts are the frameworks we use on every discovery call.
Building AI Products for Startups: A Technical Decision Framework
The 4-question filter we use to decide what's worth building, what to defer, and what to never touch.
AI Proof of Concept vs MVP vs Prototype: What You Actually Need
Three words founders use interchangeably. Pick the wrong one and you'll waste a quarter.
AI Prototyping: Validate Your Idea in 72 Hours
The exact 72-hour prototype process we run with new clients. What gets built, what doesn't, and why this beats writing a spec.
Build vs Buy AI: The Decision Framework for Seed-Stage Founders
When to use OpenAI's API as-is, when to wrap it, and when to actually build something custom.
Why Most AI Products Fail (And How to Avoid the Common Traps)
Pattern matching from 20+ AI builds across consumer, B2B SaaS, and vertical industries.
"How do I pick an AI development partner without getting burned?"
Choosing the wrong AI dev partner costs you a quarter and $20–50K. These are the questions, frameworks, and red flags we tell founders to apply to every agency they evaluate — including us.
AI Product Studio vs Dev Agency vs Freelancers: The Real Comparison
Three flavors of "we'll build your AI for you." Each works for different stages, budgets, and risk tolerances.
How to Choose an AI Development Company in 2026
Eight questions to ask any AI agency before signing. Five of them disqualify most agencies in five minutes.
Hire AI Developers: Full-Time vs Agency vs AI Product Studio
When a $200K full-time AI engineer makes sense, when an agency does, and when neither does.
5 Questions I Ask Every Client Before We Write a Single Line of Code
If your prospective AI agency doesn't ask these five things before quoting, walk away.
The Discovery Call Checklist: How We Scope AI Projects in 30 Minutes
A 30-minute discovery framework you can use on us, or on any agency you're evaluating.
How We Evaluate AI Agencies: A Founder's Checklist (From an Ex-Google Engineer)
Anil's writing a deep-dive on the technical and operational checks we'd apply to any AI dev shop — including ourselves. Coming Day 45 of the queue.
"What will an AI product actually cost me?"
Most agency quotes are 2–3x the engineering cost, with markup hidden in "infrastructure" and "ongoing support." These posts break down what you're actually paying for.
The Real Cost of Building an AI Product in 2026
Engineering hours, model costs, infrastructure, observability — line-by-line for a typical AI MVP.
How We Estimate AI Projects: The Formula We Use for Every Scope
The exact estimation formula we use, including the buffer constants for AI-specific risk (model drift, eval debt, retry logic).
What Clients Underestimate About AI Product Costs
Token bills, API throttling, evaluation infrastructure, vector DB scaling — the four cost categories most founders don't budget for.
Why AI Projects Run Over Budget: What We've Learned After 20+ Builds
The five patterns that consistently blow timelines and budgets. Spot them early or pay later.
Why Your AI POC Succeeded but Your Product Failed
The 80% engineering work that lives between a working POC and a shippable product, and why most teams skip it.
What It Actually Costs to Build an AI Product in 2026: An Engineering Cost Breakdown
Anil's engineering-cost view of typical AI project pricing. Hourly rates, infrastructure margins, what "AI premium" actually buys you. Coming Day 47 of the queue.
"Show me what you've actually built."
Every project here was built by Kalvium Labs engineers and supervised by Anil. Each link is a how-we-built-it engineering writeup, not marketing copy.
Browse every project: 10 case studies, 6 verticals, 1 client
Content engine for fertility care (Fertilia, named), call analyzer (anonymous, 95% QA cost reduction), assessment platform, document intelligence, more.
Fertilia Health: AI Content Engine
0 → 5,000 weekly impressions in 5 weeks. 109 patient consultations. Cited by ChatGPT in AI search results.
Sales Call Compliance AI
95% QA cost reduction, 40% compliance improvement, 2-week deploy. Built on top of LeadSquared/Meritto integrations.
AI-Powered Assessment Platform
Automated coding evaluation that scores submissions on correctness, style, and complexity in seconds.
AI Course Content Creator
95% reduction in course development time — from 3-4 weeks to 1 day per course module, end-to-end.
From Prototype to Production in 6 Weeks: A Week-by-Week Breakdown
Anil walks through the actual week-by-week timeline of how we ship — what gets built when, where projects always stall, and the engineering deliverables at each milestone. Coming Day 51 of the queue.
Talk to a founder, not a salesperson.
Anil (CTO) and Venkat take founder calls directly. No SDR, no qualification gauntlet, no "let me transfer you." If you have an AI product idea and want to know if we can prototype it in 72 hours, message us — we'll tell you yes or no within a day.
Usually reply within hours, max 12.