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Agreed with the automation — I’m a fellow bootstrapper[0] in the SaaS space, and wouldn’t be without it. If there is anything that can be automated, even if sli

Agreed with the automation — I’m a fellow bootstrapper[0] in the SaaS space, and wouldn’t be without it. If there is anything that can be automated, even if slightly prematurely before the need to scale arises, I do so. In terms of infrastructure, this meant using Ansible for quickly deploying new servers where needed and adding them to the right load balancer. Currently all I need to do is spin up a new instance with the right tag & run the relevant Ansible script - this will grab a copy of the site from git, sort out dependencies and any other apps needed (supervisord and so on), and add it to the nginx loadbalancer config as a new upstream server. Same applies for things like billing. Yes I could have started off doing billing manually, sending out invoices etc, but these take time and realistically need to be automated to avoid any errors. These things definitely meant I didn’t get my MVP out in weeks, but meant I could still do this as a solo-bootstrapper and look after a young family and such. [0] https://breachinsider.com https://breachinsider.com

buf 9y ago
Also have a young family. Having a semi-passive source of income is a massive sigh of relief on family life. Been married for 10 years and my wife has never been happier. +1 on slight premature automation. In my case, there are 70k signed up users, so doing anything manually at this point is out of control.
mikeokner 9y ago
> In terms of infrastructure, this meant using Ansible for quickly deploying new servers where needed and adding them to the right load balancer. Currently all I need to do is spin up a new instance with the right tag & run the relevant Ansible script To me, this still sounds awfully manual. You still need to always have an eye on load/health and proactively provision instances or risk not having the necessary capacity. Why go that route and not a template with auto-scaling and an init script or image to pull the dependencies?
- ransom1538 9y ago
  Or, just not use servers. Aws lambda, etc - and never care ever.
  - zenlikethat 9y ago
    Until you run out of your starter account limits. AWS magic still needs to be monitored and alerted on.
    - ransom1538 9y ago
      Click on the email? Create a ticket? really? Compared to devops?
- graystevens 9y ago
  Valid point, and something I considered initially. However we've a security startup – the likelihood hood of us getting a huge wave of visitors, the hug of death, is highly unlikely. Our landing page is static & anything remotely intensive requires an account. We are more likely to be hit by a DDoS, which I would hate to consume by upscaling servers and burning any potential profits we have. Additionally, I have multiple alerts setup for any signs of downtime, so that any deployment can be invoked as soon as possible. However, I completely understand your perspective, and if this was a different type of startup or industry, I would probably implement it the way you mentioned.
  - zenlikethat 9y ago
    I think you’re fine, personally — a workload has to have very well defined characteristics to be automatically scalable. Just paying when health checks fail and figuring out how to fix it when there’s a problem is a much better strategy than implementing “scaling automation” that might go awry.

buf 9y ago

Also have a young family. Having a semi-passive source of income is a massive sigh of relief on family life. Been married for 10 years and my wife has never been happier. +1 on slight premature automation. In my case, there are 70k signed up users, so doing anything manually at this point is out of control.

mikeokner 9y ago

> In terms of infrastructure, this meant using Ansible for quickly deploying new servers where needed and adding them to the right load balancer. Currently all I need to do is spin up a new instance with the right tag & run the relevant Ansible script To me, this still sounds awfully manual. You still need to always have an eye on load/health and proactively provision instances or risk not having the necessary capacity. Why go that route and not a template with auto-scaling and an init script or image to pull the dependencies?

ransom1538 9y ago
Or, just not use servers. Aws lambda, etc - and never care ever.
- zenlikethat 9y ago
  Until you run out of your starter account limits. AWS magic still needs to be monitored and alerted on.
  - ransom1538 9y ago
    Click on the email? Create a ticket? really? Compared to devops?
graystevens 9y ago
Valid point, and something I considered initially. However we've a security startup – the likelihood hood of us getting a huge wave of visitors, the hug of death, is highly unlikely. Our landing page is static & anything remotely intensive requires an account. We are more likely to be hit by a DDoS, which I would hate to consume by upscaling servers and burning any potential profits we have. Additionally, I have multiple alerts setup for any signs of downtime, so that any deployment can be invoked as soon as possible. However, I completely understand your perspective, and if this was a different type of startup or industry, I would probably implement it the way you mentioned.
- zenlikethat 9y ago
  I think you’re fine, personally — a workload has to have very well defined characteristics to be automatically scalable. Just paying when health checks fail and figuring out how to fix it when there’s a problem is a much better strategy than implementing “scaling automation” that might go awry.