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

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

#451

Post by perl4ever »

wpietri wrote: post #433
perl4ever wrote: post #405

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think you understand what you think you understand. For one thing, if you look around, managers do not all have MBAs. The manager I had for the longest was a previous analyst who didn't even have a college degree. The difference between classes or tribes is their value system. The more you rationalize why your tribe is superior, the less chance you will ever be able to switch to another. So ask yourself if yo…

> managers do not all have MBAs. Would you care to show me where you think I claimed 100% of managers have MBAs? > ask yourself if you really want to feel superior, or to prove yourself? Neither. There are more things, Horatio.

>Would you care to show me where you think I claimed 100% of managers have MBAs?

You wrote it was a "vital qualifier" to join the managerial class. You didn't 100% commit to saying it was necessary, but without that implication, I don't think you have really said anything.

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

#452

Post by mleonhard »

arminiusreturns wrote: post #98

I have concluded that existing businesses and other certain factors limit the application of what I am about to say to a subset, but there is great room for a holistic "here is your IT stack" company that focuses on open source tooling, reduction of stack complexity, and working out many of the oft-repeated learning curves. It's a huge market opportunity waiting to happen, because death or at least injury by a thousa…

Yes. I want to pay $500/user-month and get all the internal services and support of a big company, but for my small company. I want all the dev and ops tools to be chosen and integrated already, with maintained tutorials. This product can accelerate innovation.

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

#453

Post by soonnow »

gmueckl wrote: post #299
specialist wrote: post #280

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

One of the first things I got told about databases is that you may build the most beautiful database schema for the domain, but it will never be able to be complete. For the applications that I designed so far, that meant that I always made room for intentional loopholes like free-form comments or ways to override hardcoded processes. It is not 100% perfect and foolproof, but it made using these applications a lot le…

I really like the idea of intentional loopholes. It is a great way ton conceptualize what I have been doing for a long time. In my opinion there is a certain feeling of satisfcation when feeling like the domain is modeled completely. Uncertainty or loopholes leave an itch to scratch. That's why people insist on modelling addresses. Adresses which are a fundamentally easy thing, should be easy to model. Like what, a house is on a street, has a number a city a state and a postcode. All of them are obviously required. And then you get into actual addresses. People who live in a village without a street. Some countries have no states. Some names can be extremely long. For example my condo adresss is 62 characters alone. I think the only thing you can rely on for addresses is postcode, city and the rest is free form. But that feels so unsatisfactory.

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

#454

Post by ehnto »

matsemann wrote: post #24

Not exactly the same, but I have sometimes wondered how many startups are just burning other startups' money, and would collapse if VCs tightened the belt. For instance, startup X seems profitable but all revenue is from other startups not making money yet. Like a big ponzi scheme of sorts. Most products mentioned in the article are now mainstream, but for lots of them a few years back they were small and only used b…

There is absolutely a startup support industry. I am wary of using tools that seem to cater to startups only or that are interops between other startups, because I see the whole industry as brittle. Robust in aggregate, but individual services come and go daily.

I want longevity in my tooling, and I personally feel it's irresponsible to put your product into the hands of thirty companies who are all on the same growth or die cycle.

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

#455

Post by wpietri »

perl4ever wrote: post #451
wpietri wrote: post #433

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> managers do not all have MBAs. Would you care to show me where you think I claimed 100% of managers have MBAs? > ask yourself if you really want to feel superior, or to prove yourself? Neither. There are more things, Horatio.

>Would you care to show me where you think I claimed 100% of managers have MBAs? You wrote it was a "vital qualifier" to join the managerial class. You didn't 100% commit to saying it was necessary, but without that implication, I don't think you have really said anything.

Well if in your view I haven't really said anything, then I don't see much need for either of us to comment further.

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

#456

Post by YZF »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #33

I am the CIO of a mostly remote, cybersecurity startup (50 FTEs). I balance between not single-threading all choices through me and not letting things get too out of hand. That means no one is every really happy. E.g., we use Uberconference for videoconferencing. We thoroughly looked at a bunch of others and chose UC for its functionality, price, and simplicity (every conference gets a simple phone number, no stupid…

I love that toddler bit. Throw a lot of smart people together and you generally just get some sort of chaos. This isn't just tools, it's the software architecture, libraries etc. The problem is if you go ahead and tell the smart people what to do, they get annoyed, if you don't tell them what to do, they go and play with the shiny toys. If anyone has solved this problem I'd like to know! ;)

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

#457

Post by giorgioz »

Truth is you don't need most of SaaS when you start. No-one is saying this out-loud because a lot of SaaS users are also SaaS selles.

Sentry, use free tier or self host or use Bugsnag free tier

Slack, use Skype instead

Notion, use Google Docs instead

AirTable, use Google Sheets

Office/coworking, work from home or cafes!

These huge usage of other SaaS is caused by venture backed companies with a lot of cash looking for an IPO. In practice if you are boostraped instead of venture based you don't want to have a lot of SaaS and/or hire a lot of employees. Some things like bragging about how many employees or SaaS you are using only make sense in venture-back land because by spending more you are getting to the IPO/exit faster but you are sacrificing future long term margins (which you don't care about since you will be long gone).

I'm a solo bootstrap founder and yes you can clearly see how I'm biased against venture-backed startups! :D

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

#458

Post by giorgioz »

I was curious way the author used Slack for 2 people until I saw their SaaS is a plugin for Slack. As I mentioned in my other comments, startups selling a SaaS spend so much time writing copies and doing sales pitch of how their SaaS product is a must-have that they start to believe that also others SaaS are must-have.

SaaS selling to SaaS might turn into a Ponzi piramid scheme if left unchecked.

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

#459

Post by tekknik »

specialist wrote: post #429
nradov wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Complexity catastrophes are rare and seldom actually catastrophic. It's easier to deal with occasional catastrophes than with the delays and inconveniences imposed by paper processes.

I cited definition of complexity catastrophe for purposes of my thesis. What's your definition?

you also didn’t list any pros or cons of either. from my perspective, which is weekly travel for a very large company, moving back to paper is a nightmare. what do i do with my daily receipts? how do i submit this and hope to get reimbursed this year? having to manage this all on paper seems excruciatingly inefficiency

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

#460

Post by yellowapple »

Hnrobert42 wrote: post #33

I am the CIO of a mostly remote, cybersecurity startup (50 FTEs). I balance between not single-threading all choices through me and not letting things get too out of hand. That means no one is every really happy. E.g., we use Uberconference for videoconferencing. We thoroughly looked at a bunch of others and chose UC for its functionality, price, and simplicity (every conference gets a simple phone number, no stupid…

> Of course, he later unilaterally selected NetSuite (for something like $40k a year!)

My condolences.

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