I have done with before, ran and one man b2b saas platform with 30clients from around the world. Infrastructure was the easiest part. We where processing roughly 100million messages a day, about 5 nodes. Monitoring was good, application performance tracking was good. Business ran for close to 7 years, making about 1.3mill a year on an average year.
The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
61–70 of 334 posts
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#62How 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.
Give yourself an ambitious pet project that requires you to learn and practice new things. Add to it over time so you continue to revisit the project with new requirements. And read all the docs, not just the parts you need to know.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#63My 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.
People here underestimate google app engine a lot. But I doubt if there is better one person Saas service out there.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#64This goes against the HN trope that "you don't need Kubernetes unless you are Google-size". It turns out Kubernetes is actually perfect for small teams as it solves many hard operational issues, allowing you to focus on the important part of the stack: the application. The key is to stick to a simple setup (try not to mess with networking config) and use a managed offering such as GKE. We may need a Kubernetes, The G…
> We may need a Kubernetes, The Good Parts guide
What is the closest thing out there today? Or at least a tutorial for sane, small production setups?
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#65A lot of people are going to jump on the "he used k8s and he doesn't even work at Google scale!" part of this writeup, but I think it's a perfect demonstration of the concept of innovation tokens [1]. He admits in TFA that clickhouse was the only new piece of tech in his stack, and he was already familiar with k8s et al - so he's able to focus on actually building the products he wants. I could see somebody unfamiliar with k8s (but very familiar with all other pieces of tech in the system they want to build) being able to learn it as part of a side project, if it's the only new thing. Where the wheels come off is when you've never touched k8s, postgres, aws, rust, graphQL or vue - and you try to mash them all together in one ambitious project.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#66My one man SaaS setup: t4g.micro (Free Trial) on AWS Ec2 - one mod_perl module + a bunch of python/perl scripts. ( https://poidata.xyz ). Startup costs so far=$1 (domain registration).
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#67My 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.
People here underestimate google app engine a lot. But I doubt if there is better one person Saas service out there.
Digital Ocean is fantastic.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#68How 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.
> 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.
This is why I "write". I started a decade ago capturing short notes for myself about the technologies I use. Writing it down helps me remember it in two ways. First, the act of writing (primarily by pen) is proven to increase your memory of a thing. Second, I can open my notes for step-by-step reminders.
You don't have to blog publicly. Checkout the Zettelkasten method if you want to use Index cards. Keep a set of Markdown files in a private repo. Whatever floats your boat.
If you keep notes in a notebook I found that labeling mine as "Stray Thoughts" was one of the best things for me. That prevents me from moving away for that notebook trying to categorize my thoughts. If they are just stray thoughts, I can put any random thought in that same notebook. The same thing works in a set of text files or a Zettel.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#69Anthony - 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!
Thank you! I appreciate it. Glad you found it helpful.
Fantastic, well written, detailed post, please share more of these.
Re: The architecture behind a one-person tech startup
#70I use Nomad for this after 2 years Kubernetes and it has been a revelation that things shouldn't be complicated. Won't change back again.