A two-person startup already uses twenty-eight other tools

Post by Macha » Sat, Feb 29, 2020, 11:49 PM UTC

ska wrote: post #380

davidjgraph wrote: post #44

From the other side (vendor perspective) we see this SaaS fatigue a lot. We have a free, open source, unlimited use product that has a very good, commercial, alternative. What we hear in calls is that there are just too many SaaS tools in the company and the monthly cost (or security review of all tools) ends up with the management saying "pick your top 5,10,15 most important" and drop the rest. The GSuites, Slacks,…

As an aside, draw.io (now diagrams.net I see, why the change?) is a nice tight project. I was an early adopter (i.e. from beta releases) of lucidchart and really liked their first few years; convinced two companies to get a bunch of licenses. Over time they've become a hot mess of bad patterns in SAAS and I won't touch them for a few years now (and let a license for ~100 people expire). Congrats on keeping things sim…

Post by CalChris » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 12:08 AM UTC

fizixer wrote: post #372

robenkleene wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your point in principle, and it's my natural tendency to optimize out dependencies on recurring charges for services. But I actually think this perspective is wrong, or more precisely, focusing on this type of optimization will make your business less likely to succeed. The problem is ROI, $227 a month adds up to $2724 a year, which, assuming you're in the US (or similar cost of living area), is just suc…

Cost is the not the only issue. My first impression was, do you really need all that. And is it making your life as an entrepreneur worthwhile. You could easily overdo if you only think about $227 a month. "Well, $227 is nothing. We could easily allocate $1000 a month on tooling. Therefore, let's go on a 6-month adventure of finding the best of the best tools, that are the hottest trend in the market".

Post by CuriouslyC » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 12:28 AM UTC

zbentley wrote: post #260

wpietri wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, almost exactly 20 years ago, I sat next to somebody at a wedding who had an almost-identical story about cleaning up after an SAP rollout, but all of the numbers had an extra zero or two. It amazes me that what the SaaS shift appears to have achieved is that now much smaller companies can get stuck in the same "solve everything" money pit. But I guess the fundamental problem hasn't changed: executives want t…

> executives want to believe in magic solutions that give them all the feelings of control with none of the actual work Corollary: R&D wants to believe they can build magical solutions that solve all the problems--solutions that will scale better and cost less to keep up than off-the-shelf ones made by people with extensive domain expertise--in a week or two, promise. As with most things, the problem is complicated,…

Post by nradov » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 1:28 AM UTC

specialist wrote: post #280

wpietri wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Weirdly, almost exactly 20 years ago, I sat next to somebody at a wedding who had an almost-identical story about cleaning up after an SAP rollout, but all of the numbers had an extra zero or two. It amazes me that what the SaaS shift appears to have achieved is that now much smaller companies can get stuck in the same "solve everything" money pit. But I guess the fundamental problem hasn't changed: executives want t…

Maybe we'd all do better de-digitizing our processes. Return to paper. -- I've been struggling to articulate a thesis, for way too long. But here it goes. Complexity catastrophe occurs when cost of change outweighs benefit. Or simply can't be done in time to make a difference. Whereas databasization makes processes inflexible, humans are relatively more flexible. Like being able to make notes on forms, or quickly mod…

Post by dasil003 » Sun, Mar 01, 2020, 2:06 AM UTC

wpietri wrote: post #371

dasil003 wrote: post #329

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand the contradiction you're getting at. The way capitalism works is that individuals are free to pursue their own interests. The way a corporation works is that they pay you a salary in order to pursue their interests. There's plenty of delegation happening in corporations, but ultimately there has to be some accountability controls since you are acting as an agent. What mechanism do you propose for l…

You really can't see the contradiction? I'll try again: Many fans of capitalism believe it superior to communism because free markets and high individual initiative produce better outcomes than central planning. However, they also believe in the awesomeness of corporations, which are generally run with central planning and no individual initiative. Is that clearer?