I would also add to your comments that it really depends on the startup idea I think. If its not anything that really needs to be realtime, or has minimum inter

I would also add to your comments that it really depends on the startup idea I think. If its not anything that really needs to be realtime, or has minimum interactivity on the frontend and web is the only platform that matters, or if its an idea with lots of textual content i.e. newssite then separating it out into a pure frontend is probably not the right choice. I'd also add that running full integration tests and getting a continuous deployment solution working becomes a very non-trivial tasks the more separated your services are. Just something to keep in mind. Having said all that I agree in the general case and for everything I build these days as well its a backend api with various gui components (mobile/desktop/web) that consume it, which has all the benefits you enumerate.