Blog
Thoughts on AI, startups, SaaS, and building technology companies.
The Rise of AI Agents: Why 2025 Is the Year of Autonomous Software
AI agents are moving from demos to production. Here's what startups need to know about building autonomous systems that actually work.
Related: HN discussion on Devin, OpenAI agents, and the 'agentic coding' wave (Feb 2025)
Lessons from the SaaS Slowdown: What Surviving 2024 Taught Us
The SaaS market contracted in 2024. The startups that survived share common traits — here's what we observed working with dozens of them.
Related: HN discussion on 'SaaS is dead' and the rise of usage-based pricing (Jan 2025)
Open Source AI Models Are Closing the Gap — Fast
Llama 3, Mistral, Qwen — open-source AI models are getting good enough for most production use cases. Here's how to evaluate them for your startup.
Related: HN discussion on Meta's Llama 3 release and open-source vs closed-source AI (Nov 2024)
RAG Is Not Enough: Building Production Knowledge Systems
Everyone implements RAG the same way and wonders why it doesn't work well. Here's how we build knowledge systems that actually deliver accurate answers.
Related: HN discussion on 'RAG is just a hack' and the future of knowledge-grounded AI (Sep 2024)
The Startup Technical Debt Trap: When to Rewrite vs. Refactor
Every startup accumulates technical debt. The question isn't whether to address it — it's when and how. Here's the framework we use with our clients.
Related: HN discussion on Joel Spolsky's 'Things You Should Never Do' and the rewrite myth (Jul 2024)
Kubernetes for Startups: Overkill or Necessity?
The Kubernetes debate never ends. After running K8s for dozens of startup clients, here's our honest take on when it makes sense and when it doesn't.
Related: HN discussion on 'You Don't Need Kubernetes' and the complexity trap (May 2024)
What the YC W24 Batch Tells Us About Where Startups Are Heading
Analyzing the Y Combinator Winter 2024 batch reveals clear trends in what founders are building and what investors are funding.
Related: HN discussion on YC W24 Demo Day and the AI saturation in startup applications (Apr 2024)
Why Your AI Feature Needs a Kill Switch
AI features fail in production in ways you can't predict. Here's why every AI-powered feature needs a manual override and how to implement one.
Related: HN discussion on AI safety in production and the 'human in the loop' debate (Mar 2024)
The Founder's Guide to Hiring Your First Engineer
Your first engineering hire will define your company's technical culture. Here's what to look for and what to avoid based on patterns we've seen across dozens of startups.
Related: HN discussion on first engineering hires and the '10x engineer' myth (Jan 2024)
API Design Mistakes That Will Haunt You Forever
Bad API design decisions compound over time. Here are the mistakes we see startups make repeatedly and how to avoid them.
Related: HN discussion on API versioning hell and the Stripe API as a gold standard (Nov 2023)
How We Migrated a Startup from Heroku to AWS in a Weekend
A step-by-step account of migrating a production SaaS application from Heroku to AWS with zero downtime. Lessons learned and tools used.
Related: HN discussion on Heroku's pricing changes and migration stories (Sep 2023)