Then reality hits, and most SaaS's typically only need to handle about ~10 reqs/day, those of the "founder".
The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
21–30 of 334 posts
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#22How do you start learning this breadth of software engineering? I consider myself good in the python / django space, but where do I start with learning these infrastructure technologies? I find that I use them once or twice periodically, and then don't touch them for so long, so I forget much of what I have learned.
It only takes two things – curiosity and time.
When you are working on a project, if you hit the edge of your current knowledge / skills, push just a little bit further when it’s something that interests you instead of just aiming to hit the basic requirements / lean on other people.
This minor effort compounds over time; do it for twenty years and you’ll be an expert in multiple disciplines and also an expert in how to tie them all together into one cohesive whole. Aim to be a “T-shaped” person, and just expand over time.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#23How do you start learning this breadth of software engineering? I consider myself good in the python / django space, but where do I start with learning these infrastructure technologies? I find that I use them once or twice periodically, and then don't touch them for so long, so I forget much of what I have learned.
My strategy over the years has been to build a whole lot of otherwise useless side projects with incrementally different stacks, optimizing for doing it well with different technology instead of cobbling them together quickly.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#24I always feel like these write-ups about SaaS's are written by people who make SaaS's for other SaaS's. Application monitoring, email marketing, etc.
I've done a few of these for people at home (albeit not quite so complex) and for myself. I built the application/infrastructure monitoring systems where I work as well. As one poster said above, document everything, even the commands. It works, although it is tedious. But there is a certain joy using something you created, even if it is something of a "labor of love" to maintain it.
I want to get out of IT after 20 years, but there is no way I will stop tinkering with OSs, Raspberry Pi IoT devices, SoC, light coding, etc. It's different when it's a hobby than when you're faced with time constraints, budgets, and nagging bosses.
A project I'm about to start at home is taking an existing 1080P dash cam (front and rear) that features great night vision and hack it using a Raspberry Pi that handles motion detection, sends stills, and uploads to the cloud. Sure, I could go buy an extant system that just works, but what's the fun in that? It's like Legos. I could go buy my kid a fully-assembled car or spaceship, but I'd rather him learn how to follow instructions, see cause and effect, and experience the pride of a job well done. YMMV. There is something really uplifting in seeing "complex" technical stuff working that you yourself built. It doesn't even have to be as good as existing tech.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#25How do you start learning this breadth of software engineering? I consider myself good in the python / django space, but where do I start with learning these infrastructure technologies? I find that I use them once or twice periodically, and then don't touch them for so long, so I forget much of what I have learned.
For me, it's mostly learning by doing. At my day job as well as with my hobby projects. I initially started learning about the containerization and Kubernetes stuff mostly out of interest before I realized that there is a massive benefit to them, even during the development phase. I guess that's the reason why they are parts of most DevOps toolkits.
While hobby projects can be a great start, the best way to learn is in a team of experience coworkers. The basic concepts of something like Kubernetes are very easy to grasp, leading people to believe Kubernetes is easy and completely missing the giant complexity the system introduces (that's way many people on here say its overpowered for 99% of projects, which I tend to agree on). Even with seemingly simple things like Docker, there is a massive amount of depth that's in my experience very hard to find in blog articles or YouTube tutorials.
That being said, if you have to chance to learn about such things from your coworkers by applying them on your day job, I think the best choice is stell do have hobby/testing projects and combine the learning by doing aspect with some good books. I also recently learned about two YouTube channels that do a pretty good job with explaining such tools and applying them to the real world in a beginner friendly way. [1][2]
[1] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdngmbVKX1Tgre699-XLlUA
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#26I always feel like these write-ups about SaaS's are written by people who make SaaS's for other SaaS's. Application monitoring, email marketing, etc.
It's probably a function of to whom a one man band can effectively market. Consumers don't buy SaaS and a single person couldn't afford a consumer level brand ad campaign anyway. Big companies mean big company sales cycles and demands - procurement departments, compliance etc. Other SaaS companies are easier to find in places like HN, and they're maybe more predisposed towards buying from lone hackers like this one.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#27This looks solid. And k8s makes total sense, since you are avoiding vendor lock-in. I'm just wondering why you don't also run your managed services in k8s?
It makes sense to leave managed services outside. Do you really want to be responsible for maintaining your Postgres database? Dealing with upgrades, backups, replication etc...
Much better to leave that to the cloud provider to manage.
From the article:
> However, as a project grows, like Panelbear, I move the database out of the cluster into RDS, and let AWS take care of encrypted backups, security updates and all the other stuff that’s no fun to mess up.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#28My one-man-SaaS setup:
- Static frontend hosted on Netlify (free unlimited scale)
- Backend server on Google App Engine (connecting to Gcloud storage and managed DB via magic)
I realize I'm opening myself up to vendor lock-in and increased costs down the road (if I even get that far), but I've wrangled enough Docker/k8s/Ingress setups in the past to know it's just not worth the time and effort for a non-master.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#29Has there ever been a one-wo(man) SaaS founder to take a company public?
Do you mean taking a company public without any co-founders and employees, or starting originally with none, then later taking some on?
If the latter, I would think Dropbox would count, since at least originally it was a single founder.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#30Anthony - if you're reading this, thank you!! To arrive at this architecture takes 100s if not 100s of hours, and to share it with the community is dang inspiring.
I was feeling a bit down on my projects, but this has me amped up seeing how the ultimate goal of working on features rather than deployment is possible, and very real!
Best of luck with Panelbear!