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Listened to 5 bootstrapped B2C tech startups with 10-30 engineers each sharing details on how their business evolved. Common themes:
1. Infra costs. A huge focus. Almost all use @Cloudflare to reduce bills.
2. "We use pragmatic, proven tech, and are cautious with new stuff."
1. Infra costs. A huge focus. Almost all use @Cloudflare to reduce bills.
2. "We use pragmatic, proven tech, and are cautious with new stuff."
3. On the frontend side: moving over to React. Almost are either in the process, or have done so (most of them were started 4-8 years ago).
4. For native mobile apps, the choice for all of them was React Native thanks to the overlap with Ract.
5. Team growth: slow but steady.
4. For native mobile apps, the choice for all of them was React Native thanks to the overlap with Ract.
5. Team growth: slow but steady.
5. On slow & steady team growth, think: about 2-3 people added per year; rarely more than 5-6 in a single year. When you don't have VC funds, you grow slower ofc.
6. Tech debt. "We're aware our conservative tech choices do contribute to tech debt, which we have to address."
6. Tech debt. "We're aware our conservative tech choices do contribute to tech debt, which we have to address."
7. More focus on commit messages than e.g. how JIRA tickets are written. More companies cared about code quality & PR quality than about "ticket quality". Likely to do with size.
8. Remote friendliness. A given, but all were full remote-friendly. Hard to hire for them otherwise!
8. Remote friendliness. A given, but all were full remote-friendly. Hard to hire for them otherwise!
9. 4 out of 5 run on AWS, one was on GCP.
On new AWS features from one of them: "We stay away from new AWS features as much as we can. We've learned it breaks easily, and changes frequently; we don't want to burn ourselves again. We limit ourselves to the mature features."
On new AWS features from one of them: "We stay away from new AWS features as much as we can. We've learned it breaks easily, and changes frequently; we don't want to burn ourselves again. We limit ourselves to the mature features."
