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I agree with you. I wouldn't blindly recommend my stack to everyone, one could argue it's probably even overkill for my SaaS project right now. At this scale I

by amzans 6y ago

I agree with you. I wouldn't blindly recommend my stack to everyone, one could argue it's probably even overkill for my SaaS project right now. At this scale I could get away with a couple of $20/mo instances, and call it a day. However, it just made sense for me due to the simplified operations, and re-using most of the learnings from my full-time job. It has enabled me to move faster in shipping customer-facing features. If I wanted to start a new project, I can leverage the same stack and be up and running in minutes. Which means I can take advantage of my cumulative efforts for any future project. It's definitely not for everyone as you said, but it might be a good solution for many :)

ignoramous 6y ago
> However, it just made sense for me due to the simplified operations, and re-using most of the learnings from my full-time job. It has enabled me to move faster in shipping customer-facing features. As someone who is mostly in the same boat as you, you have got a strong point in terms of favouring tricks you know best. The amount of code I have had to throwaway made me not want to invest in things that require lots of resources to run and maintain (in other words, things I'd not be comfortable with managing all by myself). I almost always default to managed and serverless products: This won't necessarily be a winning strategy for everyone to say the least as it brings its own complexity to the table. It is pragmatic; however (like you call out), to trade one set of complexities (one that I am comfortable with) for another.
- amzans 6y ago
  Hey that's great! I think everyone should do what works for them. Using a tool "just because" it worked for others, seems to be what often drives many decisions in this industry. For example, would you go for the 2,200+ microservice architecture from Uber[1] just because they say it solved all their problems? They probably have their reasons, and they are unlikely to be the same as everyone else. I know my stack as a solo founder is unconventional, but it's what has worked best for me. And I'm happy with my choice. If serverless does the trick for you, then focus on that, and keep building the features that your customers actually care about. [1] https://eng.uber.com/microservice-architecture https://eng.uber.com/microservice-architecture
segmondy 6y ago
Your stack is great. If anything, I think many one-man SaaS will benefit from using k8s. That's the superpower of k8s, one person can go from 1node to 1000nodes if they need that scaling with minimal effort. Cobbling together shell scripts and tools for one or two servers is just as much work as using k8s, so long as you don't run your own and use a managed service. Best of luck, I think your list is pretty reasonable.
- blandflakes 6y ago
  Eeesh I dunno. I agree that the paradigm has broad scaling capablities, but the amount of time I spent chasing down weird behavior in our (managed) cluster at my last job was a total waste, and the company would have been much further along if we'd spent that time on literally anything else. Somebody still needs to manage the managed cluster, IMO.
bonestamp2 6y ago
It is more complex than what I'm looking at right now, but I still appreciate the read as it helps me think about some things I can do now to be better prepared for a more scalable environment later. Thanks. Oh, and I had one (serious, but off topic) question... what are you using to brew your fresh cup of coffee?
- amzans 6y ago
  I like my coffee dripped, preferably from my home country (Costa Rica).
  - bonestamp2 6y ago
    I completely understand. I spent some time working in South America and the coffee was unbelievable there too.
nullsense 6y ago
I think the key thing is that you already know the stack and didn't have to learn it. I wouldn't recommend it to someone for whom the learning curve will be brutally steep, but if you already know it I'm sure it's pretty game changing in terms of scale you could handle just being a solo dev.

by amzans 6y ago

ignoramous 6y ago

> However, it just made sense for me due to the simplified operations, and re-using most of the learnings from my full-time job. It has enabled me to move faster in shipping customer-facing features. As someone who is mostly in the same boat as you, you have got a strong point in terms of favouring tricks you know best. The amount of code I have had to throwaway made me not want to invest in things that require lots of resources to run and maintain (in other words, things I'd not be comfortable with managing all by myself). I almost always default to managed and serverless products: This won't necessarily be a winning strategy for everyone to say the least as it brings its own complexity to the table. It is pragmatic; however (like you call out), to trade one set of complexities (one that I am comfortable with) for another.

amzans 6y ago
Hey that's great! I think everyone should do what works for them. Using a tool "just because" it worked for others, seems to be what often drives many decisions in this industry. For example, would you go for the 2,200+ microservice architecture from Uber[1] just because they say it solved all their problems? They probably have their reasons, and they are unlikely to be the same as everyone else. I know my stack as a solo founder is unconventional, but it's what has worked best for me. And I'm happy with my choice. If serverless does the trick for you, then focus on that, and keep building the features that your customers actually care about. [1] https://eng.uber.com/microservice-architecture https://eng.uber.com/microservice-architecture

segmondy 6y ago

Your stack is great. If anything, I think many one-man SaaS will benefit from using k8s. That's the superpower of k8s, one person can go from 1node to 1000nodes if they need that scaling with minimal effort. Cobbling together shell scripts and tools for one or two servers is just as much work as using k8s, so long as you don't run your own and use a managed service. Best of luck, I think your list is pretty reasonable.

blandflakes 6y ago
Eeesh I dunno. I agree that the paradigm has broad scaling capablities, but the amount of time I spent chasing down weird behavior in our (managed) cluster at my last job was a total waste, and the company would have been much further along if we'd spent that time on literally anything else. Somebody still needs to manage the managed cluster, IMO.

bonestamp2 6y ago

It is more complex than what I'm looking at right now, but I still appreciate the read as it helps me think about some things I can do now to be better prepared for a more scalable environment later. Thanks. Oh, and I had one (serious, but off topic) question... what are you using to brew your fresh cup of coffee?

amzans 6y ago
I like my coffee dripped, preferably from my home country (Costa Rica).
- bonestamp2 6y ago
  I completely understand. I spent some time working in South America and the coffee was unbelievable there too.

nullsense 6y ago

I think the key thing is that you already know the stack and didn't have to learn it. I wouldn't recommend it to someone for whom the learning curve will be brutally steep, but if you already know it I'm sure it's pretty game changing in terms of scale you could handle just being a solo dev.