# SaaS startup tech stack advice ## Opinion 1 - Rule number one. Use what you know - Rule number two, use what can last you for the first three years - Rule number three, build with considerable haste. Don’t choose anything from 1 & 2 that limits that ## Opinion 2 - Use whatever you already know - Start building now - It’s okay not to write unit tests at the beginning. - It’s okay to run everything on a single ec2 instance - It’s okay to not have “forgot password” flow when you launch your project v0.1 - It’s okay to ssh into server to deploy code at the beginning ## Opinion 3 - The #1 problem you have as developers is marketing - The #2 problem you have is validating demand from customers - Force yourself to do the uncomfortable steps ASAP, while also making it easy to pivot by launching with the smallest possible stack ## Opinion 4 - Testing your hypotheses should be your primary goal - Use whatever you're the most comfortable with! Most of the code/infra you are building in the early stages is likely to be nuked at some point anyways - Sticking to your existing toolset also has the benefit of allowing you to get faster over time, as you gain familiarity with your toolkit and build reusable abstractions to reuse in your next pivot ## Opinion 5 - Use Keycloak - Use Docker/Kubernetes - Think about metrics - Use Stripe - Use Cloudinary for images