5 ms·

Ask HN: Those who run dev shops – what products do you pay for?

19 points by samblr 7y ago

Those who are running/part-of development shops which build web/mobile products - what products do you pay for ?

davismwfl 7y ago
I don't run one anymore, but when I did. - Basecamp, CRM + marketing automation, email services, SEO (moz), google business services, twilio (phone/sms) and AWS were all common. I'd also pay for plug-ins and stuff when it made more sense then building stuff. But those are kinda the base level things I always had available. SEO tooling was really critical when doing web dev work for people, that way I could show proof of results from before and after. Part of the key for me was to make sure I looked like a firm even when I was just one person but wanting to grow. So I always kept a professional website, business email addresses, phone numbers etc. I would never lie if someone asked me a direct question about how many people worked at the company, but if they said how big are you guys, I'd usually give number of projects done in the past 3 months or 12 months etc. And I'd include all the little projects even if I did them as favors or as pre-sales activity to gain a larger deal. As long as I was doing it professionally and to further the business it counted IMO.
ep103 7y ago
aws, jira stack, twilio, visual studio, resharper, mongo 3t, ms sql server, various sql monitoring/helpful tools, google suite, 1password, etc
psv1 7y ago
On a somehow related note: Am I alone in thinking that sometimes a lot of software development feels almost like a giant pyramid scheme with multiple steps in between? You build software for companies that build software and provide services to companies that build software for companies that...
- Someone1234 7y ago
  Only if you ignore the value that is generated in-between layers. Aside from software development tools and technologies, everyone below is generating actual value to the market (even if it utilizes technology to do so). Pyramid schemes are primarily focused on value flowing upwards, whereas in your example the value is flowing downwards and outwards.
  - psv1 7y ago
    I'm not being snarky or argumentative - I genuinely don't understand what you're saying. What's below/upwards/downwards, what's the value between layers?
    - Kkoala 7y ago
      I think he is trying to argue, that every company in between these "layers" produces some kind of value. Which is why other companies are willing to buy from them in the first place. Every industry has and always will have "snake oil" sellers, but the meaningful companies in 99% of the case produce real value to their customers.
- epkatz 7y ago
  I pay for a bunch of services but if you add them all up then you get less than the cost of two engineers. As good as my engineers are, I don't believe that two engineers could produce the same amount of value for the company in the same time-frame (including all the maintenance). There are times where we opt for google sheets rather than pay for a service but we never build anything ourselves if there is something we can buy / rent out there.
indigodaddy 7y ago
If you're going to pay for just one thing only, it should be Datadog.
- CoffeePython 7y ago
  Datadog seems like a fantastic product but it is very expensive. I work at a consulting company and we had a company needing some monitoring setup. Ended up going with Grafana and some AWS resources over Datadog. The cost difference was huge. Datadog would have been around $20k/mo. The grafana and AWS solution was about a tenth of the cost. What are you using Datadog in a custom dev shop for, and how do you justify the cost? My impression was Datadog is for very large and very profitable companies.
asfarley 7y ago
AWS, Losant (iot platform), Gsuite, Pipedrive, resharper, Sublime Text, AdWords, Adobe Premiere Essentials, password management, Xcode, stock photography/video, monitoring services
quickthrower2 7y ago
Loads of stuff. Github; Slack; npm; Azure; segment; aws; Microsoft office; zendesk; jira; Travis; Appveyor; filestack; browserstack; probably a lot more stuff i forgot!
JamesBarney 7y ago
Azure, office. Visual studio, datagrip, linkedin, vsts
girishso 7y ago
Linode/DO vps, aws, technical books/videos

19 points by samblr 7y ago

Those who are running/part-of development shops which build web/mobile products - what products do you pay for ?

I don't run one anymore, but when I did. - Basecamp, CRM + marketing automation, email services, SEO (moz), google business services, twilio (phone/sms) and AWS were all common. I'd also pay for plug-ins and stuff when it made more sense then building stuff. But those are kinda the base level things I always had available. SEO tooling was really critical when doing web dev work for people, that way I could show proof of results from before and after. Part of the key for me was to make sure I looked like a firm even when I was just one person but wanting to grow. So I always kept a professional website, business email addresses, phone numbers etc. I would never lie if someone asked me a direct question about how many people worked at the company, but if they said how big are you guys, I'd usually give number of projects done in the past 3 months or 12 months etc. And I'd include all the little projects even if I did them as favors or as pre-sales activity to gain a larger deal. As long as I was doing it professionally and to further the business it counted IMO.

ep103 7y ago

aws, jira stack, twilio, visual studio, resharper, mongo 3t, ms sql server, various sql monitoring/helpful tools, google suite, 1password, etc

psv1 7y ago

On a somehow related note: Am I alone in thinking that sometimes a lot of software development feels almost like a giant pyramid scheme with multiple steps in between? You build software for companies that build software and provide services to companies that build software for companies that...

Someone1234 7y ago
Only if you ignore the value that is generated in-between layers. Aside from software development tools and technologies, everyone below is generating actual value to the market (even if it utilizes technology to do so). Pyramid schemes are primarily focused on value flowing upwards, whereas in your example the value is flowing downwards and outwards.
- psv1 7y ago
  I'm not being snarky or argumentative - I genuinely don't understand what you're saying. What's below/upwards/downwards, what's the value between layers?
  - Kkoala 7y ago
    I think he is trying to argue, that every company in between these "layers" produces some kind of value. Which is why other companies are willing to buy from them in the first place. Every industry has and always will have "snake oil" sellers, but the meaningful companies in 99% of the case produce real value to their customers.
epkatz 7y ago
I pay for a bunch of services but if you add them all up then you get less than the cost of two engineers. As good as my engineers are, I don't believe that two engineers could produce the same amount of value for the company in the same time-frame (including all the maintenance). There are times where we opt for google sheets rather than pay for a service but we never build anything ourselves if there is something we can buy / rent out there.

indigodaddy 7y ago

If you're going to pay for just one thing only, it should be Datadog.

CoffeePython 7y ago
Datadog seems like a fantastic product but it is very expensive. I work at a consulting company and we had a company needing some monitoring setup. Ended up going with Grafana and some AWS resources over Datadog. The cost difference was huge. Datadog would have been around $20k/mo. The grafana and AWS solution was about a tenth of the cost. What are you using Datadog in a custom dev shop for, and how do you justify the cost? My impression was Datadog is for very large and very profitable companies.

asfarley 7y ago

AWS, Losant (iot platform), Gsuite, Pipedrive, resharper, Sublime Text, AdWords, Adobe Premiere Essentials, password management, Xcode, stock photography/video, monitoring services

quickthrower2 7y ago

Loads of stuff. Github; Slack; npm; Azure; segment; aws; Microsoft office; zendesk; jira; Travis; Appveyor; filestack; browserstack; probably a lot more stuff i forgot!

JamesBarney 7y ago

Azure, office. Visual studio, datagrip, linkedin, vsts

girishso 7y ago

Linode/DO vps, aws, technical books/videos