Archive for the ‘ Software Architecture ’ Category

Pre-Launch Prep

I’ve been advising a few pre-launch startups that are getting ready to do their first ever product launch.  From first-hand experience I know that the first product launch can be nerve-wrecking.  You expect the product to be pixel perfect, and all the features to be fully functional and bug-free.  But there is such a thing [ READ MORE ]

Think About Scale from the Start

If you are thinking about scaling a web application or service, congratulations, because you have users that liked you or were curious enough to sign up and stick around! You will of course be acquiring more users shortly.  While the trajectory of user growth is unknown, and depends a lot on your usage model (viral [ READ MORE ]

Presentation for Code Camp ‘08

Part III. Rapid Development I’ve covered three of the areas that are very important to becoming a web-service (latency, throughput, and quality), and I’m sure this seems daunting or overwhelming. But keep in mind I’m talking about how Mint’s code and service evolved; we didn’t do everything at once because we did not have the resources [ READ MORE ]

Presentation for Code Camp ‘08

Part II. Web Application to Web Service Creating a prototype is very challenging, but its not sufficient. Many companies fail to actually create a service, because they simply take a prototype and add more features to satisfy the demands of the users. Transforming a prototype into a product is what I call the app to service [ READ MORE ]

Presentation for Code Camp ‘08

I will be giving a presentation at Code Camp in about one month. The title of my presentation is “The Evolution of a Scrappy Startup to a Successful Web Service”. In the following posts I will attempt to flush out some of the ideas I plan on presenting. Please feel free to comment on my [ READ MORE ]

Performance: Part II Address Scalability Before Its Too Late

As your product and user base grows you want to ensure that your customers both old and new have a good user experience. You want their experience to improve and not stagnate or diminish over time; scalability is another key element to address to ensure the success of your website. Scalability is defined as the [ READ MORE ]

Performance: Part I Develop a Monitoring Scheme

Two years ago Aaron Patzer was frustrated with Quicken and Money, because setting up the service alone took over an hour. His painful experience led him to ditch both these products, and create his own product Mint.com, in hopes of delivering a faster and more useful personal financial service. Unfortunately, not everyone is a programmer, [ READ MORE ]