The clock is ticking for businesses that handle online payments. The latest Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) 4.0 requirements become mandatory on March 31, 2025. If your website processes, stores, or transmits credit card information, failing to comply with these new regulations could result in penalties, security vulnerabilities, or even loss of the ability to process payments.

In the past - most small merchants use third party services (via iframes or "hosted fields") to avoid the need to go through PCI compliance scans every year. With 4.0 - though - there are requirements that you must meet even if you are using a third party hosted solution to accept payments.

Here are some things that you should do before the deadline to ensure that you are in compliance:

Alright! You have the new eCommerce site live and people are buying things. Your revenue is starting to move – but not fast enough to hit your goals.

In this situation – most people look to increase their audience. It is a logical path to go; more people on the site means more people buying things and more revenue.

So you look to start a new PPC ad campaign with some marketing budget to get more site visitors.

Big success! It works! You get more visitors, which translates into more buyers and more revenue. You even hit your revenue goal for the year.

So far so good, right?

The problem is you spent $20K in PPC ads to get those added visits. This means that – while you hit your revenue goal – your profitability suffered.

But was there another way? Possibly.

When building out any application – the experience that all users have with it is critical to the end result. A poor user experience can lead to frustration with your customers – which translates to less conversions and more support calls.

There are a lot of good stories about the costs of poor user experience.

For instance – back in 2014 NBC started using the hamburger menu for their desktop navigation. Their users mostly stopped using the navigation altogether. They tried several things – like adding an informational overlay to tell people about the menu and changing its color – but the navigation was not being used. They eventually redesigned their site again to bring back a standard horizontal navigation – because frustrated users mean less users – and less revenue.

The thing that isn’t talked about very much is the poor user experience of the administration interfaces for these systems – and the costs that are incurred as a result.

You may see a ton of information online about why a discovery is great for an agency (hint: agencies absolutely love when they can sell a paid discovery) – but why would you want to sign up for one?

Realistically – a paid discovery can feel like a weird kind of project when you are looking to have a website or app built. The deliverable you are paying for is information, most often in the form of some documentation and recommendations. It may feel like the work you need to get done is just getting delayed.

So just what is a discovery getting you?

In 2010 the graphic designer Ethan Marcotte coined the term Responsive Web Design. With this concept he talked about the concept that websites should be built to look good and work on any screen – no matter how large or small.

Over the ensuing decade since then this term has become mainstream. It's hard to find a development agency that isn't talking about RWD today.

Ten years from now the same will be true of the Progressive Web App.

This is a term that you see bandied about a lot in developer circles and on Google. Indeed – developers at Google coined the term in 2015.

Our recent article – The Ins and Outs of Mobile App Development – explored some common questions we hear from prospects thinking about building an app.

But the bigger – and often better – question is: Should I even build a native mobile app at all?

We are often approached with questions like cost and approach by prospects with ideas for native mobile apps. Through conversation we often find that a Progressive Web App would be a better value for their need.

What are the questions that we explore to determine the proper path forward?

Over the last 16 years the world changed quite a bit. Mobile phones became smart and then ubiquitous.

Now you can't build an online presence without thinking about mobile phones – and we get a lot of questions about building native mobile apps. How much does it cost? Should I hire a freelancer, an agency, or a team?

Let's explore these questions

You just signed up with a new support agency. It is an exciting step for your company – finally you are going to have the support you need!

They install remote monitoring tools, rework your entire network, and even rewire your server room (the most organized you have seen that room in years). Everything is going great.

Then your site goes down! You put an urgent ticket in. They take a look and tell you that everything on the server looks correct. It must be something with the site code, but that is outside of the scope of your support.

It has been a long road, but the new website is live! After getting it live the agency you were working with reminds you of the ongoing support agreement that you haven't signed on for yet.

The agreement has all sorts of terms in it that you don't really understand, but when you try to piece it together it sounds like "pay me a monthly fee, then if something goes wrong you can open a ticket and pay this hourly rate to get it fixed." It might note a certain number of hours in a month that are included before you pay hourly – but the gist of is the same. You pay a monthly retainer, and they help you when something goes wrong.

"But what can go wrong" you think to yourself. "If they did a good job then it should just work!"

So, you decline the agreement.

When you look around for why development projects fail – you will inevitably come across many articles about Project Management and Communication. Then you will come across articles about how developers are terrible at estimating time. And then you will read about the perils of scope creep.

There is truth in all of these. And all of them can result from a failure with the Thought Barrier.

In our global economy - it is not a new thing to hear about companies sending development overseas – to countries like India. The cost benefits of sending development overseas can be significant:

• Most of the time you pay $10-25 per hour of development.
• You can get a whole team of developers for the cost of a single person in the US.
• Since the developers work for another company – you save on benefits as well.
• You need less office space, equipment, etc.

That said – less discussed are the problems with overseas development firms.

You just launched a flashy new website! Congratulations! This is a huge step forward for your business.

Most companies have this launch moment. A time when everything is looking great and the whole team is excited to find out just what this will do for the business.

The new site starts doing its job and your business is growing. Your team is posting and updating content on the site, responding to leads and/or orders. The excitement fades and you fall into the new normal.

Then something goes wrong. The site stops working, even goes offline altogether! You reach out to the agency that developed the website, and they quote you an hourly rate to fix the issue. You agree to pay without too much question because the situation is urgent.

The world of IT (Information Technology) and Applications (software, development, programming, etc.) can be very confusing. There are a lot of technical terms and different types of services.

Because of this confusion - it is extremely common to see people group Applications into a big generic IT bubble.

While not quite accurate – it is not truly inaccurate to say that Applications is an IT discipline. This is because the worlds of IT and Applications are quite enmeshed. They need each other to be effective and most professionals find they need to have some level of skill in both disciplines.

So – just what are these two disciplines?