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My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

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Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#171

Post by julianeon »

ilrwbwrkhv wrote: post #152
julianeon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are a lot of use cases for which you can’t actually save by kicking out Ahrefs. Of all the tools here it is the hardest one to replicate. I agree w the rest - but in many situations Ahrefs is not replaceable.

What does it provide that is so special?

Its provides detailed analytics on the popularity of different websites and the keywords that people search for; it goes really, really deep on this, much deeper than you can go through manual google searches and various scripts. You can easily recreate Vercel on your own if you're willing to forgo some convenience, for example; there's no equivalent to that for Ahrefs - you can't realistically 'roll your own' or code your own Ahrefs. The web largely works on an advertising model, and Ahrefs is what tells you what has value for advertising purposes and what people will visit, or are visiting now. If you're doing something simple, it may not matter. If you're not, Ahrefs is indispensable.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#172

Post by fragmede »

fhd2 wrote: post #160
pembrook wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product? I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starti…

I generally agree, but I'd say it depends. I'm not too surprised that software developers are less likely to spend money on software - they do have another option non-programmers don't have. I'd also not be shocked to hear that trained accountants starting a company are less likely to hire accounting firms than non-accountants. And most software I deal with isn't exactly free of opportunity cost - I dabbled a bit wit…

Yes, but shouldn't I be making more even money by using these services to optimize those other things? If, say, Calendly helps me get booked for appointments, appointments that wouldn't have happened without that app, then isn't that spending money to make money?

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#173

Post by nottorp »

"How to get some not-free services for free for a startup" :)

Good to know that you can get these free credits, but perhaps the OP should also post the total costs when he runs out of free.

Normally, Stripe is not cheap: 2.7% of every transaction is no small slice. Thankfully, I was able to get $70,000 of credits for which Stripe's fees wouldn't be applied.

My AWS bill would be $200-300 a month, except it's free because I got $5,000 in credits from AWS Activate.

I like using Retool as a simple Postgres interface and to do basic data visualization. One seat would cost me $10/month, except I asked them nicely for a startup credit, so now I have it for free.

This would cost me $89.95, but Twilio (Sendgrid's parent) also has a startup program, via which I got $150/month in credits.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#174

Post by anonzzzies »

pembrook wrote: post #155
TheCapeGreek wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree. Use one of the OSS password managers to save on 1P. If you have a cloud sync service you already use, KeePassXC + cloud sync will solve having the passwords available everywhere you are. You can even use Syncthing for free (though I'd at least donate once off) since you can use it peer-to-peer between your devices. SEO really needs disruption here on price. Ubersuggest seems decent. On Intercom: OP can proba…

Does nobody here see the irony in bending over backwards to avoid spending money on software products when the entire purpose of your business is to sell a software product? I could see if we were talking about a side project with no commercial intent. But this post is about an indie Saas founder...if a few hundred dollars a month is a barrier to success, then that's a pretty good sign your indie startup isn't starti…

Is it bending backwards though? The problem is that saas solutions scale in cost as well, so when you grow you pay more. For a small startup, there is always a cut off where the price of the saas service(s) explode well over the utility but you are hooked and you can afford it now. But should you? Personally I enjoy profits and more profits are better. I cannot accept using tools that I don’t really need, but, at success time, I cannot really get rid off anymore easily. And then suddenly that $10/mo is $23k/mo and I knew that when I integrated it in the first place, but thought it will save me 2 hours per year. And the new price utility is not suddenly saving me 100 or more hours a year; more like 4 hours.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#175

Post by arrowsmith »

Balladeer wrote: post #170
intelVISA wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know what you're doing it's easy enough to roll out a multi-region distributed system with HA and backups on a pretty modest ( However, most people do not - some will learn, but most will fall for the cloud marketing depts and become infra renters for life. Teach a man to fish, and so on.

> some will learn, but most will fall for the cloud marketing depts and become infra renters for life Do you have any learning recommendations for someone looking to start down this path? I've only ever worked in an infra-renter context, and I've begun exploring the 'rent from Hetzner, manage your own infra' for personal projects, but I would love to learn from the paths of experts where possible.

I would also like to hear some recommendations as I've been considering making a similar switch.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#176

Post by TylerE »

pembrook wrote: post #159
zeroonetwothree wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it’s just because it’s described as “frugal”.

I take frugal to mean being smart or conservative with spending. However, optimizing to the extent some people are talking about here would redefine the term to mean "irrational" for me. In the context of a business, nearly any piece of software is a trivial cost compared to hiring a human (or yourself) to do a task.

The Einstein quote is as applicable as ever: "Make it as simple as possible, but no simpler."

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#177

Post by jmduke »

nicbou wrote: post #145
jmduke wrote: post #38

Love this! I published a similar one last month: https://buttondown.email/stack --- A couple notes on where I differ/concur from OP: 1. ahrefs is absolutely worth its price in gold. 2. IMHO intercom is overpriced relative to competitors depending on how you use it, with the caveat that I hate in-app messaging widgets and consider them a blight on the modern web. (HelpScout is my preferred app.) 3. I deeply miss my Fr…

What do you gain from Ahrefs? I know what it does, and have a free account there, but I don't actually use it.

I use very little of the outbound/link-building things, but find the alerting on broken content and notifications of which specific pillar pages are hitting traction very actionable and useful.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#178

Post by intelVISA »

Balladeer wrote: post #170
intelVISA wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you know what you're doing it's easy enough to roll out a multi-region distributed system with HA and backups on a pretty modest ( However, most people do not - some will learn, but most will fall for the cloud marketing depts and become infra renters for life. Teach a man to fish, and so on.

> some will learn, but most will fall for the cloud marketing depts and become infra renters for life Do you have any learning recommendations for someone looking to start down this path? I've only ever worked in an infra-renter context, and I've begun exploring the 'rent from Hetzner, manage your own infra' for personal projects, but I would love to learn from the paths of experts where possible.

I'm no expert but hopefully I can still point you toward the happy path: start very small and increase distributed complexity at your own pace until you can fully appreciate the entire end-to-end system and all the processes involved. The book: DDIA is a well-known 101, if a little primitive, and has references you can dig into as well.

Ideally, you also have some exposure to this at $job as simply building DIY infra horrors without seeing the real-world context, tradeoffs, etc. in which they typically operate will be misleading.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#179

Post by n0us »

SOLAR_FIELDS wrote: post #80
xyst wrote: post #45

It would be nice if we can see a breakdown of P&L. I see the indie dev claims to have “over 7500+ businesses” as customers. But also a very generous free tier. I see the post is getting eviscerated in the comment section. But if this person is spending mere cents in operating costs when compared to the profit earned each month or year (I think in business terms this is known as customer acquisition costs). Then I wou…

I think people want to nitpick certain things they have expertise on and say that you can save $XYZ if you know what you’re doing. Well, duh. On the other hand, while OP’s stuff generally looks like some good decisions were made, there are a few items in there that just seem like criminally bad value for what you get and you wouldn’t spend near that much time and effort switching to something much cheaper. Vercel stu…

Yeah but let's say your time is worth $60/hr. If you save only 40 minutes per month then you've broken even. Basically one lunch break. Some things are just a hassle to do, personally I would try to self host the Next app but I definitely see where the author is coming from purchasing Vercel.

Re: My frugal indie dev startup stack (2022)

#180

Post by tmshu1 »

nottorp wrote: post #173

"How to get some not-free services for free for a startup" :) Good to know that you can get these free credits, but perhaps the OP should also post the total costs when he runs out of free. Normally, Stripe is not cheap: 2.7% of every transaction is no small slice. Thankfully, I was able to get $70,000 of credits for which Stripe's fees wouldn't be applied. My AWS bill would be $200-300 a month, except it's free beca…

How’d you get $70K in credits for which Stripe fees wouldn’t be applied?
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