Recap
In this first edition of Software Engineering Entrepreneurship I will take you through the journey of laying the groundwork for an ambiguous future as a technology leader.
Edition: Feb. 2023
Issue: 2
Dates covered: Feb. 2-5
Subject: Resilient people and systems
Why now and not yesterday or tomorrow?
I'll admit that in earlier stages of my life I would not be ready to take on the challenge we're about to endeavour. In fact, it was only an epiphany in the last year where I realized everything is lined up to not just start a business, but start executing a strategy that is resilient to failure. A combination of experience building Bold in the e-commerce space and developing skills over several years has enabled me to have a clear vision on starting a tech. company of my own.
Backstory: Waiting for just the right idea
Consistently since being young I have said to myself and those around me "I'm going to start a company one day." Meanwhile, all around we see talented people of all ages successfully starting up companies or failing to. For me however, it was always about waiting for the big idea that would come when the stars perfectly aligned; it would be a sure success.
Realization: The "big idea" is a fallacy
I have grown to realize over the years the idea of there being a "big idea" is a distraction from reality. That's not to say dreaming of a crystal clear business idea hasn't help me personally - but it doesn't paint the right picture to how successful companies come into existence.
If you listen close enough to successful companies and individuals you'll always hear a common theme: The first idea is never what got them where they are today; it's not even who they are today. They've had highs and lows, been defeated in the market and in many cases pivoted business altogether.
Our mission: Fail-fast with big infrastructure
Throughout this series we will dive deep into constructing a fail-fast infrastructure. The infrastructure will support a culture of continuous innovation and shorten the path to go-to-market on new ideas. It will support all the following requirements:
- Launching a new app or API in days. Including:
- A containerized development environment.
- A staging and production environment.
- A CI/CD pipeline with support for JS and Go applications.
- Auto-scaling to meet new demands.
- Deploying mobile apps, web apps and APIs.
- An API gateway to reduce the network complexity (rate limiting, authentication, middleware, etc.) of individual apps or APIs.
With this infrastructure we have accepted the fact that there is no silver bullet to successful startups. Rather, we are preparing ourselves to hit the ground running on any given app idea. Further, we are preparing ourselves to be able to quickly develop and deploy multiple branches of the same business (e.g. multiple related apps) in short succession.
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