Wiz 👋🏻’s Post

It’s tempting to go after everyone—from hobbyists to Fortune 500s—when you’re a new company. But the better choice is usually to do more of what works. Since the rise of Heroku, the default for dev platforms has been to start by marketing to developer hobbyists and then, over time, develop a user base that will lead to acquiring larger customers. We’ve had the opposite experience at Aptible. We started by serving a niche market: growing healthcare tech startups that needed to update their security and compliance protocols to suit HIPAA regulations. We found that we were well-positioned to provide the infrastructure they needed as they scaled. Soon, our customers’ businesses were growing. They asked for our help managing their infrastructure as they scaled, and we had a choice to make: we could go the Heroku route, expanding our market share using the product we’d already developed; or we could focus on improving our existing product to retain our current clients. We chose the latter. And as our product developed, we found that we’d built the perfect platform to serve tech clients who were already scaling. By focusing on retention, we built out our own niche. Staying narrow means we’ve been able to focus on very specific customer needs, like increased container sizes. Our customers love that they can scale up their container sizes all the way to the limits of AWS, while other providers, for various technological reasons, have smaller size limits. Our unique ability to give scaling companies the infrastructure they need—infrastructure that can handle complex requirements and works for development teams of dozens of engineers—turned into our market. Going broad sounds fun if you’re serving a niche industry. But our experience at Aptible tells me that staying in your lane can make all the difference. We are now in a position to call ourselves the best (and only!) platform for scaling companies because we focused on customer retention…in other words, we stuck with what works.

Question to tech/SaaS folks: This is in terms of getting investment — Is it better to make an MVP that looks good and "kind of works" or to build something scalable that works, but will need work and can work moving forward? I'm asking in terms of dev and cost (and retention if people first see the "just put it out" MVP). Is spending 3 months making a "fake product" worth then having to start it from scratch?

Here’s the full list (and monthly cost) of all the SaaS services I use to run Onward, my 10-person, bootstrapped (and profitable) B2B startup: I. Dev tools: 1. Domain - GoDaddy ($2) 2. Hosting - DigitalOcean ($321) 3. Files - Amazon Web Services (AWS) ($3) 4. CDN - Cloudflare ($0) 5. Errors - Sentry (sentry.io) ($31) 6. Logs - New Relic ($79) 7. Code - GitHub ($37) 8. Testing - CircleCI ($15) 9. Provisioning - Cloud66 ($68) 10. Corp Site - Webflow ($33) 11. Design - Figma ($82) 12. Passwords - 1Password ($15) II. Ops & Comms: 1. Workspace - GSuite ($122) 2. Tasks - Asana ($210) 3. Wiki - Notion ($150) 4. Messaging - Slack ($135)  5. Video - Loom ($15) 6. Standups - Spinach.io ($0) 7. Support - Front ($400) 8. Emails - Postmark ($125) 9. Data - Metabase ($75) 10. Analytics - Plausible Analytics ($0) III. Finance 1. Equity - Carta ($300) 2. Accounting - Pilot.com ($600) 3. Banking & AP & Expenses - Brex ($0) 4. Taxes - Accountfully ($100) IV. Sales 1. Scheduling - Calendly ($11) 2. Outreach - LinkedIn ($49) 3. Email - Superhuman ($60) 4. CRM - Airtable ($40) Most of these have free plans and early on you can get credits for these services through Ramp or Brex, accelerators, or even startups like Secret. I avoid complex tools like Salesforce that have features that are too robust for us at this stage. For example, at StackCommerce we used Looker (now owned by Google) - which is 10x more expensive than Metabase with a bunch of functionality we don't need and is vastly more complex. The main takeaway? Keep it lean, focus on what you actually require, and channel resources towards growth. h/t 🗽 Gil Greenberg for the image and post inspo! 

SaaS founders demo their products to me every day. Quotes I hear almost EVERY time are... 'Huh that's weird, usually this loads immediately' 'We're working on getting this to be a bit faster' 'While we wait, I'll just explain what we're aiming to do' I get it... I know what it takes to build lightning fast tech with a great user experience. But how much are you prioritising product experience for users? It's critical to do the work. Because those frustrating moments are when you lose a customer to a competitor with a better product. There's a technical rule at play. It's called the Doherty threshold. Productivity soars when a computer and it's users interact at a fast responsive pace. It means neither has to wait on each other. The optimal speed is <400ms which is a rate at which a computer response feels instant. When things slow down it doesn't only affect productivity, it also becomes frustrating for the user. If this persists, their relationship with a product is associated with frustration and boredom. It stops users actually wanting to use the software. So, if you're planning that back end rebuild and a new tech stack, can you really put it off that much longer without losing more customers?

A micro-saas with 2 amazing genius founders* went in 5 months from 0 to 5-figure revenue. - 100% made with no-code - idea inspired by a popular tweet - using data to solve a problem for 1 group of users *It's us! Me and Lee Launches 🚀 sharing the story of Build The Keyword See link in comment to read the full story

No fluff - just the starting point you need… 👌 Have you been meaning to reevaluate your current tech stack—yesterday, last quarter, or even last year? Navigating tech stack optimization might feel like a daunting task at the start. Fear not! Here are some helpful things to consider that point you in the right direction. Time to turn those intentions into actions! 🎯 Read it now 👉 https://lnkd.in/gePbDdm8 #RevOps #GoToMarket #TechStack #Tools #Solutions

Do you know that scaling your application doesn't have to be costly or complex? Nobox offers scalable backend services that grow effortlessly with your business needs, ensuring optimal performance at every stage✅️ #TechInnovation #BackendAsAService #CloudComputing #BusinessGrowth #StartupSupport #AviationServices #DataManagement #SocialNetworking - #EfficientTech #BusinessEfficiency

HOT TAKE: I see too many companies and startups implement AWS/Google devised solutions WHEN They are nowhere near the scale to have the problem that the solution solves in the first place Most software does not have the scale problems that huge tech companies have You are solving your business and client problems, not Google's These problems and their solutions are in two different universes Don't blindly adopt another software solution Solve your business and client problems where they are at Don't bring on extra complexities and dependencies that are not needed

Need help amping up your CTO game? We'll arm you with savvy insights as you navigate the realm of Cloud-Native Tech. Let's explore together: https://lnkd.in/dwwTVifK #cto #cloudtechnology #techinsights #strategy #explore

Ever wondered how tech giants like Google handle their massive workloads? 🤔 They have a secret weapon...it's called Kubernetes! 🚀 ✪ Key Points about Kubernetes : 1️⃣ It's a portable, open-source tool for managing apps running in containers – think of it like your tech infrastructure's conductor 🎼 2️⃣ Google originally built it to power their massive systems, so it's got serious muscle 💪 3️⃣ Think automated deployment, scaling, and updates – it's like having a robot assistant for your apps! 🤖 #opensource ✪ Why do people love Kubernetes? 1️⃣ Handles big, complex apps like a champ – perfect for growing businesses 📈 2️⃣ Massive open-source community behind it – help is always a question away 🤝 3️⃣ Flexibility! Works across clouds, giving you options ☁ 4️⃣ Automation features keep your devs sane, letting them focus on building cool stuff 😉 5️⃣ Self-healing capabilities – so your apps stay online even when something hiccups 🩹 #devops ✪ A few things to consider : 1️⃣ Yep, it's got a learning curve, but the power is worth it if you have complex needs 📚 2️⃣ Setting it up can be tricky, especially at first 😅 3️⃣ Updates happen often, so staying on top of them is key for security 🔐 #cloudnative P.S. If you're just starting out and have a simple app? Kubernetes might be overkill. But if you're scaling fast, it's worth learning!💬 #kubernetes #cloudnative