Running a Web Service as a Single Developer

Andreas Zecher talks about the ups and downs of running the Rails-based web service Promoter (www.promoterapp.com) on Heroku as a single developer. He will share numbers, technical details and lessons learned the hard way during four years of service.

This presentation was created for the Stockholm Ruby meetup (http://www.stockholmruby.com) in March 2014.

Fonts used: Aperçu Mono and FF Chartwell

Transcript

1. RUNNING A WEB SERVICE AS A SINGLE DEVELOPER PRESENTATION FOR STOCKHOLM RUBY BY @ANDREASZECHER MARCH 2014
2. PROUCT BACKGROUND PRESS TRACKING FOR GAME+APP DEVELOPERS FIRST VERSION MADE IN 4 HOURS FOR HOME USE 1500 COMMITS OVER 4 YEARS COMMERICAL PRODUCT SINCE SEPTEMBER 2011 SELF-FUNDED WITH FREELANCE WORK NO INVESTORS
3. UPGRADE PATH HEROKU STACK ASPEN � BAMBOO � CEDAR RUBY 1.8.6 � 1.9.3 � 2.0 RAILS 2.3 � 3.0 � 3.1 � 3.2 WEBSERVER THIN � UNICORN DATABASE SHARED � PRODUCTION+FOLLOWER RUBY VERSION MANAGER RVMRC � RBENV GEM DEPENDENCIES 10 � 54 BACKGROUND JOBS CRON � DELAYED JOB � SIDEKIQ � SIDEKIQ PRO
4. RAILS PROS/CONS RAPID DEVELOPMENT SENSIBLE DEFAULTS RICH ECOSYSTEM TECHNICAL DEBT DEPRECATION MAINTENANCE
5. CRITICAL GEMS RAILS FEEDZIRRA SIDEKIQ-PRO ACTIVEADMIN
6. SEARCH VOLUME (~30 MIN PER BATCH) 2081= 2096 ACTIVE PRODUCTS 1210= 1212 RSS FEEDS
7. CONVERSION RATE (FREE�PAID) 2. 94%
8. PURCHASES PER PAID PLANS SOLO (75 EUR/YEAR) STUDIO (150 EUR/YEAR) COMPANY (1500 EUR/YEAR)
9. PAID PLAN LENGTHS (MONTHS) 1M,3M,6M,12M
10. REVENUE PER MONTH (FEB 2013–FEB 2014) 16+52+52+40+20+77+74+69+76+45+100+74 8568 SEK-  1389 SEK- 
11. SERVER COST PER MONTH (FEB 2014–) HEROKU  2 WEB DYNOS (1X)  1 SIDEKIQ DYNO (2X)  2 CRANE DATABASES  PAPERTRAIL  REDIS TO GO  SENDGRID 221 SEK 461 SEK 640 SEK 44 SEK 250 SEK 64 SEK HARVEST 76 SEK GECKOBOARD 58 SEK TOTAL 1814 SEK
12. TIME COST (FEB 2013–FEB 2014) 295 HOURS @ 900 SEK/HOUR OPPORTUNITY COST PER MONTH 265500 SEK 22125 SEK
13. WORTH THE OPPORTUNITY COST INTERNAL USE INTRINSIC REWARDS CUSTOMER VALUE FULL-STACK EXPERIENCE DIVERSIFY INCOME
14. ADVANTAGES DOMAIN EXPERTISE RAPID CUSTOMER SUPPORT DO THINGS THAT DON’T SCALE PERSEVERANCE & PATIENCE
15. CHALLENGES ALWAYS ON CALL UPTIME & PERFORMANCE SECURITY PATCHES GEM DEPENDENCIES PAYMENT PROCESSING PRICING USER INTERFACE USER EXPECTATIONS BACKLOG
16. REFERENCES STARTING + SUSTAINING STARTINGANDSUSTAINING.COM START SMALL, STAY SMALL STARTUPBOOK.NET PATRICK MCKENZIE NEWSLETTER TRAINING.KALZUMEUS.COM RAILSCASTS PRO RAILSCASTS.COM THOUGHTBOT LEARN LEARN.THOUGHTBOT.COM