Big Pixel

05/29/2026

After more than a decade spent building and scaling products across e-commerce and payments, Bill Rollinson, Founder and CEO of Surfitlocker has learned a few things about what actually lasts.

His advice is surprisingly simple:

💡 Keep it simple
💡 Learn to say no
💡 Stay curious

A lot of founders get pulled in a hundred directions early on. Bill talks about the importance of focusing on real value, resisting the urge to do everything at once, and continuing to learn from the people around you.

05/29/2026

You message a company's support because they charged you after you canceled.

The bot sends back the "how to cancel" help article.

You already canceled.

That's the whole problem, and the bot can't see it.

What you wanted was a person who could pull up the charge and refund it.

Instead, someone put AI in the one spot where a human was the entire point.

We build the opposite.

We use AI heavily to move faster, and we keep it out of the moments where a person is the reason the product works.

Human Focused. AI Driven. Those four words decide what we will and won't build.

Drop AI in the wrong place and you don't save money.

You lose the customer, and that costs more than the headcount you cut.

What we believe, and the team behind it: thebigpixel.net/about-us

05/28/2026

You have probably visited a dozen software development websites this quarter and could not tell me what distinguishes any of them.

The stock photography overlaps from one site to the next, the copy reads as if it was generated from a shared template, and the case studies line up almost shot for shot.

Safe is what makes them all sound identical, and identical is the reason most of them give you nothing you can use.

The new Big Pixel website was built specifically not to do that.

https://www.thebigpixel.net/articles/human-focused-ai-driven-the-philosophy-behind-the-new-big-pixel-website

05/28/2026

So you want to move your build offshore to cut costs?

The hourly rate is a fraction of a US team's, and on a spreadsheet it's an easy yes.

Price the whole thing before you sign.

The number that matters isn't the hourly rate, it's the rate times the hours it actually takes to finish.

Add the rework when something comes back wrong, the day you lose waiting on a fix from a team twelve hours offset, and the cost of re-explaining your business to a new developer every few months.

The cheapest rate often builds the most expensive system.

We're 100% US-based, and not because it's the lowest sticker price.

It's because the total comes in lower when the work holds up and the person fixing your bug is awake when you are.

thebigpixel.net/strategy

05/28/2026

The new Biz/Dev episode with Bill Rollinson, Founder of Surfitlocker is live.

Everything moves fast right now; products, AI, development cycles, expectations.

But Bill talks about the balance between moving fast and making sure what you are building is actually ready for the people using it.

We also get into:

💡 What it takes to build products that actually get adopted
💡 Why systems and operations matter more than most people think
💡 How ecommerce and payments environments are evolving
💡 And what companies misunderstand about scaling

https://www.thebigpixel.net/podcasts/riding-the-next-wave-w-bill-rollinson

05/27/2026

Say you want to add AI that autofills your order entry...

Faster orders, fewer clicks, an easy yes on paper.

We'd talk you out of it.

Order entry has to be exact.

The moment a model guesses a quantity and gets it close instead of right, you've turned a process people trusted into one they double-check.

That is not where AI earns its place.

Everyone will say yes to adding AI.

Far fewer will tell you where it doesn't belong before it's built.

We turn down AI features regularly, usually in the same places:

-Order entry that has to be exact, not guessed
-Financial steps regulators expect to be predictable
-The customer moment where being wrong costs trust

The firm worth hiring is the one that draws that line for you.

How we think about it:

Technical expertise and the insight to know when technology can help–or get in the way. Whether it's AI, or the latest API, thoughtful intent puts the Human First in an AI-driven world.

05/27/2026

One of the best parts of this week’s Biz/Dev conversation with Bill Rollinson:

There is no perfect formula. No single roadmap every successful founder followed.

The common thread is usually the willingness to keep learning, keep adjusting, and keep moving after things do not go to plan.

A simple but important reminder in a time where everyone is looking for a shortcut.

https://www.thebigpixel.net/podcasts/riding-the-next-wave-w-bill-rollinson

05/27/2026

RTI came to us needing a mobile app for people managing a complicated daily health regimen.

It had to be clear enough that someone could open it at 7am, half awake, and know what to take and when.

We designed the experience for MDI Align: clear education screens, interactive survey flows, and audio that walks people through the moments that matter.

We tested it with focus groups and refined as we went, because in health, the gap between "mostly clear" and "clear" is whether someone sticks with their treatment.

It went into a pilot study and came back with a 100% success rate, with positive feedback heading into the next phase.

See the work: thebigpixel.net/projects/rti

05/26/2026

The new Biz/Dev episode with Bill Rollinson, Founder and CEO of Surfitlocker is LIVE.

There is so much focus right now on new tools, AI, and speed that a lot of teams skip the most important question entirely: what problem are we actually solving?

Bill talks about why strategy, people, and understanding the real operational challenge matter far more than chasing technology for the sake of it.

We also get into:

💡 What it takes to build products that actually get adopted
💡 Why systems and operations drive long-term growth
💡 How ecommerce and payments environments are evolving
💡 And what companies misunderstand about scaling effectively

https://www.thebigpixel.net/podcasts/riding-the-next-wave-w-bill-rollinson

05/26/2026

A board member spent the weekend building something in Claude Code.

Now they're in the Monday meeting asking the question you've been trying to avoid:

Could someone really just rebuild our whole product in a few weeks?

The honest answer is uncomfortable. They could probably rebuild the screens.

Someone who knows your customer and has a few weeks can stand up a working copy in Cursor or Lovable with no engineering team at all.

The build stopped being the hard part.

What they can't copy is everything underneath: the data you've collected over years, the workflows you only understand because you've lived in the industry, the integrations that took real expertise to get right.

That's the conversation we have before you spend a dollar on the next build.

Not what to add, but what actually makes you hard to replace.

Have it with us: thebigpixel.net/strategy

05/25/2026

The Cost of Over-Automation Isn't What You Think

We can track output.

We cannot track what happens to how a business thinks when more of its reasoning moves into systems it did not build and cannot fully see, when fewer people stay close to the underlying work, when core capabilities get externalized into tools the organization depends on but does not own.

Those conditions are forming right now, inside organizations that moved fast and are only beginning to understand what they built.

https://www.thebigpixel.net/articles/the-cost-of-over-automation-isnt-what-you-think