Things I learned when working on a small startup

Lightning talk presented in the Ruby User Group in November 2015.
Some lessons I learned while working on a small startup.

1. THINGS I LEARNED WHEN WORKING ON A SMALL STARTUP by @eljojo
2. PRAGMATISM first learning
3. YOU WANT TO DO MORE, WITH LESS
4. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION
5. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed?
6. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it?
7. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first.
8. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first. ➤ Arik: Why not?
9. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first. ➤ Arik: Why not? ➤ Jojo: You just don't do that!
10. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first. ➤ Arik: Why not? ➤ Jojo: You just don't do that! ➤ Arik: Why is that?
11. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first. ➤ Arik: Why not? ➤ Jojo: You just don't do that! ➤ Arik: Why is that? ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME.
12. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: How do we proceed? ➤ Arik: Why don't you just go and upgrade it? ➤ Jojo: WHAT? Are you NUTS?!! You cannot just go and upgrade your database without testing it first. ➤ Arik: Why not? ➤ Jojo: You just don't do that! ➤ Arik: Why is that? ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME. ➤ Arik: So what's the problem with that?
13. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME. ➤ Arik: So what's the problem with that?
14. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME. ➤ Arik: So what's the problem with that? ➤ Jojo: Well, our users wouldn't be able to visit our website for about half an hour, maybe an hour at most.
15. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME. ➤ Arik: So what's the problem with that? ➤ Jojo: Well, our users wouldn't be able to visit our website for about half an hour, maybe an hour at most. ➤ Arik: How would we proceed if we wanted to ensure that there's no downtime?
16. POSTGRES UPGRADE CONVERSATION ➤ Jojo: We could have DOWNTIME. ➤ Arik: So what's the problem with that? ➤ Jojo: Well, our users wouldn't be able to visit our website for about half an hour, maybe an hour at most. ➤ Arik: How would we proceed if we wanted to ensure that there's no downtime? ➤ Jojo: I'd probably spend a day preparing an upgrade strategy, testing it and ensuring everything's goes fine.
17. PRAGMATISM: WEIGHTING-IN PROS AND CONS
18. PRAGMATISM: WEIGHTING-IN PROS AND CONS ➤Your fears might have horrible consequences 
 in other contexts.
19. PRAGMATISM: WEIGHTING-IN PROS AND CONS ➤Your fears might have horrible consequences 
 in other contexts. ➤If you're Amazon and have one minute of downtime, you loose thousands of dollars.
20. PRAGMATISM: WEIGHTING-IN PROS AND CONS ➤Your fears might have horrible consequences 
 in other contexts. ➤If you're Amazon and have one minute of downtime, you loose thousands of dollars. ➤If we have one hour downtime at non-peak hours,
 we might only loose a couple customers,
 but gain one or more days of work.
21. NO DOGMAS IN THE HOUSE
22. SURVIVE CHANGE second learning
23. THE PROBLEM Because we discover how users use our product every day, it's not uncommon that features take 180 degrees turns.
24. DEFENSIVE PROGRAMMING
25. DEFENSIVE PROGRAMMING ➤How will this feature evolve?
26. DEFENSIVE PROGRAMMING ➤How will this feature evolve? ➤What's the craziest turn this could take?
27. DEFENSIVE PROGRAMMING ➤How will this feature evolve? ➤What's the craziest turn this could take? ➤Will my architecture stand such changes?
28. “ I don't want programming to be the thing that slows us down as a company. - jojo
29. REAL PEOPLE USE YOUR SOFTWARE third learning
31. go.switchup.de/developer we're hiring!
32. images from http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2012/20/image/f/warn/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2014/18/image/a/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/c/warn/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/d/warn/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/e/warn/ http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/archive/releases/2015/12/image/f/warn/