Contributor Content

Building better together: A glimpse into Lightning Kite’s collaborative DNA

By Chris Gallagher , Content Contributor Published June 12, 2025

Lightning Kite, a forward-thinking custom software development company, stands out for the technical solutions it builds and how it builds them. Prioritizing transparency, flexibility, and human connection, it champions a collaborative ethos evident in its processes. Lightning Kite focuses on forming lasting partnerships by engaging in open dialogue and fine-tuning the development journey to ensure clients feel heard, involved, and empowered from the first inquiry to long after launch.

Lightning Kite / Lightning Kite

Lightning Kite, established in 2006, crafts custom digital tools, such as web apps, mobile apps, and backend systems, for businesses with unique visions. Its team covers the full software development lifecycle. Lightning Kite’s reputation has grown largely through word of mouth, attesting to the quality of the relationships it builds and the results it delivers.

Recommended Videos

The company’s success stems from its highly personalized client journey that begins with a conversation. New projects are typically sparked by a phone call or cold email from a prospective client. Many of them find Lightning Kite through personal referrals. From that initial contact, the team sets aside dedicated time to delve into the idea.

“We don’t believe in cookie-cutter pitches,” Lightning Kite President Dan Ostler remarks. “We spend hours with each prospect exploring the vision, asking critical questions, and scoping out technical feasibility.” This early collaboration results in clickable wireframes and a clearly defined user experience. It helps everyone visualize the path forward.

The team maps out a phased plan after the alignment stage. Lightning Kite breaks down development into digestible pieces, including what comes next and how each part serves the larger goal. This structure is supported by a hybrid, agile methodology that enables the team to ship working software every few weeks.

Clients are engaged throughout. They receive regular updates, typically three times weekly via phone, email, Zoom, or Slack. These frequent touchpoints demonstrate Lightning Kite’s commitment to collaboration. Clients get to know the developers, designers, and testers working on their projects. They’re invited into Slack channels, welcomed into brainstorming sessions, and encouraged to give honest feedback at every step. “We think of our clients as our extended family,” Ostler shares.

The defining shifts in Lightning Kite’s process came when the company moved away from fixed-bid contracts. Pricing software development based on rigid scopes usually leads to inevitable friction. “Clients would change their minds or develop new insights mid-build, and suddenly the original agreement no longer fit,” Ostler explains.

Lightning Kite switched to hourly billing upon recognizing that software, like ideas, evolves through iteration. This model allowed the company to give clients more flexibility to adapt their goals without renegotiating contracts or feeling constrained by initial assumptions. “It’s a mature, transparent model that has improved our clients’ satisfaction,” Ostler says.

Dan Ostler / Dan Ostler

Lightning Kite emphasizes that it doesn’t walk away even after launch. Its team provides ongoing support and treats each project like a living organism that deserves care and attention. They stay involved for the long haul, whether patching aging codebases, adding new features, or adjusting to changing business needs. Lightning Kite is proud to share that some clients have remained with it for over 15 years, proving the depth of the relationships cultivated over time.

This long-term mindset mirrors Ostler’s philosophy. The president doesn’t view software development as a fast track to wealth. “Software development will never make me rich, but it makes me absolutely happy,” he says. This sense of purpose is apparent in Lightning Kite’s culture.

Software development is a field where miscommunication, missed expectations, and inflexible contracts are the norm. Lightning Kite shifts away from this with its transparent, flexible model that allows innovation to flourish, as well as its people-first culture that builds trust.

Digital Trends partners with external contributors. All contributor content is reviewed by the Digital Trends editorial staff.

Chris Gallagher

Chris Gallagher is a New York native with a business degree from Sacred Heart University, now thriving as a professional…

Contributor Content

“AI Alone Cannot Save Disjointed Data Systems,” says Coginiti Founder

Artificial Intelligence has grabbed the attention of every business around the globe, driven by visions of automation and smarter decision-making. This has fueled a race to integrate AI into their operations. And yet, as per Gartner’s latest update, at least 30% of AI initiatives will be abandoned this year.
Why? “It’s not because AI doesn’t work,” states Rick Hall, founder of Coginiti. “It’s because most companies haven’t done the foundational work. They expect AI to clean up their mess, but it can’t. Companies need to clean up their own data before inviting AI in.”

Hall believes AI is still in the early phases of a decade-long transformation, one that will redefine nearly every business operation. But for that transformation to succeed, organizations must first tackle three persistent problems: poor alignment to business goals, bad data, and failed integration.

Companies often rush to implement AI without understanding how it will actually improve their business. “They start with the technology, not the outcome,” Hall states. “They can’t articulate what success looks like.” Without a clear hypothesis of what AI will do and the value it will drive, the initiative flounders.

Messy, redundant, and poorly labeled data is one of the most common obstacles to AI success. One of Coginiti’s clients, for example, had been using a cloud-based sales system for years. They wanted to deploy AI to optimize their sales pipeline. But their sales opportunity record had ballooned to 250 columns with four different fields just for purchase orders.
“Over time, processes change, people add fields, create nicknames, and now AI has no idea which one to use,” Hall explains. “You’re asking an algorithm to make sense of something even your sales team doesn’t fully understand.” Without clearly named, clean, and integrated data, no AI can deliver value.

Even when an AI model is successfully trained in a pilot program, many businesses struggle to scale it. That’s because they haven’t built clear bridges between their test environments and real-world operations. “You might have something that works in isolation, but integrating it into your existing systems, your workflows, your infrastructure, that’s where everything breaks down,” Hall says.

To solve these problems, Coginiti helps organizations build a digital twin, a virtual representation of how the business actually works. A digital twin isn’t just a model or a dashboard; it’s a semantic representation that maps your business processes, data, and systems in a structured, meaningful way.

“When you have a digital twin integrated into your system,” Hall says, “you can simulate change. You can say: ‘If we improve this process, we’ll see this benefit.’ It aligns your AI efforts to business value from the beginning.”

The digital twin acts as a translator between your messy, physical reality and a logical business model that AI can understand. It defines your data layer clearly and exposes it to AI tools in a way that is consistent and scalable.

A digital twin starts with understanding how your business actually runs. What are the key value chains? What are the metrics for improvement? This means data will be well-defined, consistently named, and logically organized. “The semantic model is the heart of a digital twin,” Hall says. “It’s what allows AI to interface with your business meaningfully.”

A true digital twin links clean, logical models to real-world data across systems: CRMs, ERPs, call centers, data warehouses, and more. A digital twin further pulls from across departments and platforms, ensuring a single, unified source of truth. With the integration in place, businesses can use AI agents to model changes, test new processes, and develop rapid pilots that can easily be deployed in production.

Ultimately, AI is not a magic bullet. It’s a powerful tool, but only as powerful as the foundation it rests on. “Think of AI as a new room in your house. If the blueprint is vague and the bricks are cracked, even the best architect can’t build a stable structure,” Hall compares. “The companies that invest in doing this the right way today will be tomorrow’s leaders.” Coginiti can help you with the transformation.

Contributor Content

Shaping Enterprise resilience through cybersecurity and software quality

The lines between software quality and cybersecurity are starting to blur in the online world. Companies can’t afford to think of them as separate issues anymore. A bug in the code can just as easily become an open door for hackers, and security gaps often trace back to how the software was built. According to Cybersecurity Ventures, cybercrime is expected to cost the world $10.5 trillion annually by 2025, highlighting the significant risks for companies, governments, and national defense systems. Cybersecurity today involves protecting private data, safeguarding critical infrastructure, maintaining public trust, and supporting the stability of economies. Gopinath Kathiresan is working to bridge these critical areas. As a seasoned quality engineering expert, he’s helping businesses build safer, stronger systems.

The Business Imperative: Quality and Security as Two Sides of the Same Coin
With more than 15 years working at the forefront of software quality and automation, Kathiresan understands that getting software ‘right’ is not just about avoiding bugs; it’s also about maintaining trust. Currently, each mistake incurs hundreds of thousands of dollars in the digital economy. Customers do not just want perfection—they expect it. When something goes wrong, they will not just lose users; they will lose their reputation and earnings as well.

Contributor Content

Sunseeker’s X3 Plus brings high-precision mowing home for a budget-friendly price

robot vacuum face

Sunseeker recently introduced its newest consumer-grade product, the X3 Plus Wireless Robotic Mower, to improve how households handle lawn mowing.

Product release is timely for Sunseeker. Having recently entered the U.S. market and achieved commercial success with its professional X7 series, the company is now focusing again on the residential market. The X3 Plus is tailored to small to medium-sized lawns.