---
title: "The Zeroic Journal - notes on shipping AI and software"
description: "Engineering notes from Zeroic's senior team: shipping AI products, rescuing vibe-coded and Bubble apps, and hiring engineers - by the people who built them."
url: https://zeroic.in/blog
---

Blog

# The Zeroic Journal

What we've learned shipping AI products, rescuing vibe-coded and Bubble apps, and scaling FormulaBot to 1.5M+ users - written by the engineers who did the work.

[ AI development

## [GPT vs Claude vs Llama in production: choose by task type](https://zeroic.in/blog/gpt-vs-claude-vs-llama-production)

Four kinds of LLM work, the model tier that wins each one, and the volume at which running open weights yourself starts to make sense.

Prashant Abbi Sep 29, 2026 · 8 min read

[ For founders

## [Fixed-price MVP development: the scope discipline that makes it work](https://zeroic.in/blog/fixed-price-mvp-development)

What has to be true about the scope for a fixed-price MVP to work, what it costs in 2026, and the red flags in any fixed quote.

Khushi Arora Sep 28, 2026 · 7 min read

[ AI development

## [AI voice agent architecture: the four parts that decide if it ships](https://zeroic.in/blog/ai-voice-agent-architecture)

Where each layer of a production voice agent breaks on live phone calls, and the order we'd build them in, from voice agents we run in production.

Prashant Abbi Sep 27, 2026 · 10 min read

[ For founders

## [Senior engineer retainer vs. full-time hire: the real math (2026)](https://zeroic.in/blog/senior-engineer-retainer-vs-hire)

What a US senior hire costs in year one, line by line, next to a retainer - and the four cases where hiring full-time still wins.

Khushi Arora Sep 26, 2026 · 7 min read

[ For founders

## [Code Rescue vs a full rewrite: the real math for vibe-coded MVPs](https://zeroic.in/blog/code-rescue-vs-rewrite)

How to tell whether your cracking Lovable or Bolt app needs a targeted fix or a clean rebuild, and what each one costs.

Khushi Arora Sep 25, 2026 · 7 min read

[ No-code

## [Five production failure modes in every Lovable and Bolt MVP](https://zeroic.in/blog/vibe-coded-mvp-production)

Auth holes, silent errors, N+1 queries, no monitoring, fragile schemas: what breaks a Lovable or Bolt app under real users, and the order to fix them.

Khushi Arora Sep 24, 2026 · 8 min read

[ AI development

## [pgvector vs Pinecone: when Postgres stops being enough](https://zeroic.in/blog/pgvector-vs-pinecone)

The four signals that tell you pgvector has hit its limit, and the fixes to try inside Postgres before you pay for a second database.

Prashant Abbi Sep 23, 2026 · 8 min read

[ No-code

## [Lovable vs Bolt vs Cursor: which vibe-coded MVP survives to production (2026)](https://zeroic.in/blog/lovable-vs-bolt-vs-cursor)

What breaks first in apps built with Lovable, Bolt and Cursor, what each costs to fix, and how to pick the tool that fits your team.

Khushi Arora Sep 22, 2026 · 7 min read

[ No-code

## [When to rebuild your Bubble app in code - and when to stay](https://zeroic.in/blog/when-to-rebuild-your-bubble-app)

The four signs a Bubble app has outgrown the platform, and how to move to code one piece at a time without freezing the product.

Khushi Arora Sep 21, 2026 · 8 min read

[ AI development

## [English-to-SQL at a million users: what breaks, in order](https://zeroic.in/blog/english-to-sql-at-1m-users)

The five things that broke as FormulaBot's English-to-SQL pipeline grew to 1.5M+ users, and the order we'd build the fixes in.

Prashant Abbi Sep 19, 2026 · 9 min read

## Hear from us within 24 hours.

**Prashant and Khushi** Partners @ Zeroic

Stuck on something we’ve written about? The people who wrote these are the people who’d build it. Tell us what you’re working on - one of us replies within 24 hours.

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