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A Failed SaaS Postmortem

mattlayman.com

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Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#91

Post by irq11 »

spookthesunset wrote: post #65
madamelic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout, slap an email address on the page and there's your logging and error system. AWS is massively overcomplicated for an indie SaaS business, and it costs way, way too much. You can have a box with plenty of room for $5 - $10 / month and it takes about 25 seconds to launch it. I had 20k concurrent users with a $5 server and Cloudflare. Other people ar…

> Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc? Getting root access to a barebones linux install is conceptually "not complex". But that is only because it pushed all the actual complex stuff up the food chain and into your head.…

”So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc.”

Oh come on. It takes maybe an afternoon of work to do everything you’ve described.

Let’s say you’re utterly clueless about all aspects of sysadmin, and you need to learn how to do it from scratch: 2-3 days, tops.

No matter how much you pad the schedule, it’s far worse to have to learn 5-10 “managed solutions” to do what you can do on a single VPS with an Ubuntu install.

Can you do it all with something like heroku? Sure, but you’ll probably spend at least an afternoon learning heroku (speaking as someone who has extensively used heroku, it’s not a panacea.)

If I heard this objection in the real world, from a dev who worked for me, I’d be seriously reconsidering my hiring decision. You’re either irrationally afraid of basic syadmin, or you lack fundamental knowledge.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#92

Post by acheron »

spookthesunset wrote: post #65
madamelic wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout, slap an email address on the page and there's your logging and error system. AWS is massively overcomplicated for an indie SaaS business, and it costs way, way too much. You can have a box with plenty of room for $5 - $10 / month and it takes about 25 seconds to launch it. I had 20k concurrent users with a $5 server and Cloudflare. Other people ar…

> Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc? Getting root access to a barebones linux install is conceptually "not complex". But that is only because it pushed all the actual complex stuff up the food chain and into your head.…

> Installing a web server from a package manager and configuring it in a repeatable way is not simple and boring. A single person startup doesn't have the bandwidth to do that.

Indeed, which is why there were no web startups before about 2010.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#93

Post by spookthesunset »

dijit wrote: post #90
spookthesunset wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. Deployment is merely a "git push" away. It is amazing how simple it is to get started building a new product. Every second you spend configuring web servers and stuff is a second you should be spending adding value to your business.

Deployment /can be/ a git push away, but that's only on the extreme end with things like heroku. You mentioned cloud. Cloud has cost sinks every so often (in terms of time). Cloud has much value but please dont' consider it a panacea. You can get a lot of value out of those 30 minutes installing a webserver; and it can save you a significant amount of cost. Not to mention when you want to actually scale you'll see th…

Businesses don't exist to save money. They exist to deliver value.

Your goal in a startup shouldn't be all about saving money like some cheapskate penny pincher. Penny wise, pound foolish.

Worrying about $100/mo in heroku bills instead of $10/mo "bobs budget webhost" bills is a waste of time. If your startup cannot afford $100/mo or even $1000/mo in infrastructure costs you probably should exist. Especially given smartly spent infrastructure costs (eg: using heroku) let you deliver value far faster than cobbling together infrastructure yourself.

Penny wise, pound foolish.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#94

Post by mblayman »

I love the discussion about all this. For a bit of context, I kept the article focused on the technical because that is the primary audience of my website. There is a criticism that I focused too much on the technical side in the article. That's entirely possible.

My choice to focus on the technical is because my lessons basically boiled down to:

1. Don't focus on the technical (#1 YAGNI, #2 Ignore software upgrades, and #3 use the tools you know)

2. Deliver something valuable to the customers as fast as possible.

In other words, I tried to say "don't focus on the technical side."

I admit in the article that the technical focus of the article itself was emblematic of why the project failed.

> Up to this point, I’ve written about the technical failings of the project. This is an emblematic example of why the project failed. I didn’t help my customers and was too focused on the technology.

Perhaps I was too subtle on that point.

Thanks for all the feedback. I've enjoyed reading the discussion.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#95

Post by spookthesunset »

irq11 wrote: post #91
spookthesunset wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Or a barebones box from Vultr or Linode then log errors out to stdout So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc? Getting root access to a barebones linux install is conceptually "not complex". But that is only because it pushed all the actual complex stuff up the food chain and into your head.…

”So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc.” Oh come on. It takes maybe an afternoon of work to do everything you’ve described. Let’s say you’re utterly clueless about all aspects of sysadmin, and you need to learn how to do it from scratch: 2-3 days, tops. No matter how much you pad the schedule…

> or you’re just being lazy

LOL. Good developers are the most lazy people on the planet. Laziness is a virtue, not a sin!

If my developer told me our company could outsource all our sysadmin tasks to some third party I'd be a fool to not listen. If I was a developer and my boss called me lazy for trying to help the company move faster (which is far more important for a startup than saving a few bucks) because boss-person is a penny pincher, I'd reconsider my choice of employer.

A startup focused on pinching pennies is doomed from the start.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#96

Post by swat535 »

aantix wrote: post #68
ericb wrote: post #8

We just did something crazy. We dropped the Ember app that was 3/4th's done in favor of plain JQuery and Rails 6. I'm just done maintaining two apps instead of one and all the hell that involves. And the Javascript ecosystem can keep rolling that Sisyphean upgrade treadmill with deploy dependencies and promises everywhere and I promise to use it as little as possible. Because it is just a giant time suck. Tut tut if…

Stimulus Reflex is probably what you want. https://github.com/hopsoft/stimulus_reflex Lightweight, real-time updates using the same Rails views already built.

Soo.. the response to OP's post regarding the burden of maintaining systems built with JS frameworks is.. yet another unknown JS framework that will cease to exist in 3 months from now on?

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#97

Post by bob33212 »

mblayman wrote: post #94

I love the discussion about all this. For a bit of context, I kept the article focused on the technical because that is the primary audience of my website. There is a criticism that I focused too much on the technical side in the article. That's entirely possible. My choice to focus on the technical is because my lessons basically boiled down to: 1. Don't focus on the technical (#1 YAGNI, #2 Ignore software upgrades,…

Great Article! There is far to few of these in the world. So many companies go under but keep their website and linked-in in a state that looks like they still exist.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#98

Post by barrkel »

spookthesunset wrote: post #93
dijit wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Deployment /can be/ a git push away, but that's only on the extreme end with things like heroku. You mentioned cloud. Cloud has cost sinks every so often (in terms of time). Cloud has much value but please dont' consider it a panacea. You can get a lot of value out of those 30 minutes installing a webserver; and it can save you a significant amount of cost. Not to mention when you want to actually scale you'll see th…

Businesses don't exist to save money. They exist to deliver value. Your goal in a startup shouldn't be all about saving money like some cheapskate penny pincher. Penny wise, pound foolish. Worrying about $100/mo in heroku bills instead of $10/mo "bobs budget webhost" bills is a waste of time. If your startup cannot afford $100/mo or even $1000/mo in infrastructure costs you probably should exist. Especially given sma…

I think this heavily depends on your model. What if you're sticking a hundred darts in the dartboard to see what gets traction? $10K a month is going to hurt.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#99

Post by barrkel »

spookthesunset wrote: post #95
irq11 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

”So instead of talking with customers and growing your business you are busy wasting your time installing a web server, database server, configuring build tools, etc.” Oh come on. It takes maybe an afternoon of work to do everything you’ve described. Let’s say you’re utterly clueless about all aspects of sysadmin, and you need to learn how to do it from scratch: 2-3 days, tops. No matter how much you pad the schedule…

> or you’re just being lazy LOL. Good developers are the most lazy people on the planet. Laziness is a virtue, not a sin! If my developer told me our company could outsource all our sysadmin tasks to some third party I'd be a fool to not listen. If I was a developer and my boss called me lazy for trying to help the company move faster (which is far more important for a startup than saving a few bucks) because boss-pe…

The reason startups die is that they run out of money. Ramen profitable is a thing, and ramen costs less than the kind of outlays you're describing.

If you've hit a seam such that each feature you develop nets you more revenue, you'd be a complete idiot to optimize for costs. But a company in search of a business model hasn't gotten that far yet.

Re: A Failed SaaS Postmortem

#100

Post by powowow »

streetcat1 wrote: post #86
powowow wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I said software business, so I'm not sure why you're bringing up AMD or Intel. As for billion dollar acquisitions.... Visio, GitHub, Yammer, LinkedIn, Instagram, Parse, etc.... shit-tons of them are done for market reasons.

Right, network effects are also moat.

But I thought you said nobody ever did large acquisitions for customers....

weird, I must be thinking of somebody else. Since it would make no sense for you to try to take both of those sides at once.

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