Richard Golian

1995-born. Charles University alum. Head of Performance at Mixit. 10+ years in marketing and data.

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AI sales forecast: 9 traps so far

Yesterday I could not tear myself away from the computer. When I lifted my head, it was half past eight in the evening. I had been sitting alone upstairs for about three hours.
25 April 2026 285

Will AI take my job?

Will AI take my job? A certified Google trainer told me in June 2024 that my profession would cease to exist. Twenty-two months later, my job title has not changed — but ninety percent of what I do during the day is different. I have delegated more of my thinking to AI agents than I thought possible. I am not afraid. This is why, and what it means for anyone asking the same question.
23 April 2026 163

Is AI Making Us Dumber?

I have conducted roughly one hundred and fifty practical interviews over the past four years. Fifty for data specialist roles. A hundred for advertising and performance marketing specialists. Almost every one of them involved sitting down with a candidate over a practical task — something close to a real problem we actually need to solve at the company. Not theory. Not trivia. Applied problem-solving. Over time, I started noticing a pattern.
14 April 2026 400
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Richard Golian

Hi, I am Richard. On this blog, I share thoughts, personal stories — and what I am working on. I hope this article brings you some value.

€50,000 Quote vs. Two Hours with Claude Code

What AI Coding Agents Change for Custom Development

By Richard Golian

One hour. Fifty-five minutes.

That is how long it took to build what a Czech software firm had quoted at over €50,000. I built it with Claude Code.

A working tool — the one the company needed. By evening, it was running on staging.

THE €50,000 QUOTE FOR A SIMPLE PILOT

The task came from our CEO. A tool that our customers would interact with directly on the website. The scope was specific enough to define. Not trivial — but also not an engineering mystery.

I took over the conversation with one Czech software firm. Colleagues had started it but did not have the capacity to continue.

I asked for a rough idea of price and timeline. Not a binding quote. A range. Enough to plan.

Their reply was a single sentence I will not forget:

"We cannot give you an estimate — not even a rough one."

For a rough estimate, they explained, they would first need to conduct a paid analysis. Two and a half thousand euros. To examine the problem properly.

I did not take the analysis.

ONE AND A HALF PERSON-MONTHS — FOR WHAT

Later in the conversation — without the paid analysis — the number slipped out anyway.

Roughly one and a half person-months of work. Somewhere above €50,000 to launch a simple pilot.

A simple pilot.

For over fifty thousand euros.

Five years ago, I would have taken the quote to our two CEOs. We would have weighed it against an off-the-shelf product and its limitations.

There is a third option now.

BUILDING IT WITH CLAUDE CODE IN UNDER TWO HOURS

I walked into the IT meeting with a short presentation. I had mapped the options — build with the external firm we had already been talking to, or build it ourselves with an AI coding agent.

That same afternoon, I built it.

The development did not need iteration cycles. The agent proposed a plan, started implementing, and within the first few minutes something was already working. The rest was refinement. Adding features. Tightening behaviour. Then handling the edge cases I noticed as I tested.

The only thing I brought to that build was a clear idea of what the tool was supposed to do.

Not a specification. Not an architecture diagram. Just a clear idea.

That turned out to be enough.

In Is AI Making Us Dumber? I described interview candidates who came in with polished AI outputs they could not defend — outputs built on problems they had not understood. They had delegated the thinking before they had done it. This project worked because I had done the opposite. I knew what the tool needed to do. The agent did the rest.

WHAT SOFTWARE AGENCIES ARE REALLY CHARGING FOR

I want to be careful here.

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Summary

A Czech software firm quoted over €50,000 for a simple customer-facing tool. I built the same tool with Claude Code in one hour and fifty-five minutes. For well-defined projects, the pricing model of traditional software firms is breaking. The gap between those who see this shift and those who do not is already deciding which projects get built and which quotes get paid.
Richard Golian

If you have any thoughts, questions, or feedback, feel free to drop me a message at mail@richardgolian.com.

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Common questions on this article's topic

How much does a software agency charge for a custom web tool?
In this case, a Czech software firm quoted over €50,000 for a simple customer-facing pilot — estimated at roughly one and a half person-months of senior work. They also required a paid analysis costing €2,500 before disclosing even a rough range. The article describes how the same tool was built with Claude Code in one hour and fifty-five minutes, exposing how much of that pricing depends on the client having no way to verify the complexity claim.
Can you build a customer-facing web tool with Claude Code?
Yes. The article describes building a working customer-facing tool with Claude Code in one hour and fifty-five minutes — matching the scope a software agency had quoted at over €50,000. The tool was deployed to staging the same day, fully functional and ready for production. The key input was not engineering expertise but a clear idea of what the tool was supposed to do.
What can AI coding agents replace — and what can they not?
AI coding agents like Claude Code can replace the engineering execution when the person guiding them knows precisely what they want to build. They cannot replace the business judgement about what to build, the domain context that defines what good means, or the methodological oversight that catches when the agent is confidently wrong. In the article, the author's only input was clarity about the goal — and that turned out to be enough.
Are software agencies losing business to AI agents?
The first market to disappear is the marginal one — projects that were almost not worth doing at agency prices and would have been either cancelled or replaced with off-the-shelf products. The article argues that the business model of charging a month and a half of senior rates for a simple customer-facing pilot has roughly a year left. Agencies that survive will likely adapt by opening their process, pricing on outcomes, or moving up the complexity curve.
What is Claude Code and who is it for?
Claude Code is Anthropic's AI coding agent that executes technical work inside the terminal based on natural-language direction. In the article, it is used by a non-engineer with clear product judgement to build a tool that a software agency had quoted at over €50,000. This reflects a broader shift — AI coding agents are increasingly used not only by professional developers but by anyone with a clear idea of what they want built and the discipline to guide the agent toward it.