Ask HN: Idea Validation
4 comments
There are some people who have done things like this. I think the problem it runs into its just a very specific way to do the thing and any engineer with any experience is going to have their own set of preferences. Its going to end up feeling constraining.
Just looking at this list, personally i would instead go with shadcn, trpc, node test for node, drizzle, pulumi, next auth or clerk, etc.
The time saved with a plug and play stack imo will not be significant compared to the long term time spent building on and maintaining the stack, so a developer would be rational to pick and choose based their specific needs.
Also I think typically its more natural to build incrementally than all at once. Like are they certain they are going to need graphql? Maybe they could worry about analytics in a few months?
I think its super easy to become over-invested in your own preferences, and lose site of how complex and varied real world requirements are.
Just looking at this list, personally i would instead go with shadcn, trpc, node test for node, drizzle, pulumi, next auth or clerk, etc.
The time saved with a plug and play stack imo will not be significant compared to the long term time spent building on and maintaining the stack, so a developer would be rational to pick and choose based their specific needs.
Also I think typically its more natural to build incrementally than all at once. Like are they certain they are going to need graphql? Maybe they could worry about analytics in a few months?
I think its super easy to become over-invested in your own preferences, and lose site of how complex and varied real world requirements are.
> - Monorepo with FE, BE and shared types - React + Next.js (frontend) - pnpm - Nest.js (server) - Tailwind - Material UI - Apollo (GraphQL) - Jest (Testing) - Typescript + ESLint + Prettier + Husky - Turbo - TypeORM - Segment - Database migrations - Docker - Logging (Pino.js)
How will non-tech founders develop their product on this stack? That's a stack for developers to build the product.
This is a very hard problem, when you see a fragmented ecosystem its because players in the ecosystem have wide ranging and demanding requirements.
You will have to acquire your target customer when they are ready to setup this stack but before they have done so themselves. This would require very high brand awareness. Like "Oh I was going to setup on AWS but XYZ makes it so easy". Only a few companies have achieved this type of awareness in the devops space. Heroku comes to mind. None of them are indie-hacker projects.
How will non-tech founders develop their product on this stack? That's a stack for developers to build the product.
This is a very hard problem, when you see a fragmented ecosystem its because players in the ecosystem have wide ranging and demanding requirements.
You will have to acquire your target customer when they are ready to setup this stack but before they have done so themselves. This would require very high brand awareness. Like "Oh I was going to setup on AWS but XYZ makes it so easy". Only a few companies have achieved this type of awareness in the devops space. Heroku comes to mind. None of them are indie-hacker projects.
Thanks, Codewithcheese. To clarify, it's not for non-technical founders. It's the opposite—it's for first-hire engineers or technical founders exclusively.
You raise a good point with Heroku, but that's a "managed service," like Aptible or Vercel, which offers simpler alternatives to AWS and is used throughout the lifecycle of your app. I'm specifically providing a service for initial setup and deployment only. 'Pay-once, use-once'.
For the MVP, this is targeted at a market that wants to host on AWS, along with an array of other extremely common web-based SaaS services, such as authentication, feature flagging, and monitoring etc
You raise a good point with Heroku, but that's a "managed service," like Aptible or Vercel, which offers simpler alternatives to AWS and is used throughout the lifecycle of your app. I'm specifically providing a service for initial setup and deployment only. 'Pay-once, use-once'.
For the MVP, this is targeted at a market that wants to host on AWS, along with an array of other extremely common web-based SaaS services, such as authentication, feature flagging, and monitoring etc
[deleted]
I’m working on a project to streamline the setup of tech stacks for startups. There are countless free repos on GitHub designed to help startups hit the ground running, but they usually just give you the code, leaving a lot of configuration work to be done. My solution is different: I want to offer a unified platform that integrates with a range of 3rd-party vendors and automatically sets up their cloud environments using API keys or OAuth.
The Vision: In my dashboard, users will provide the necessary API keys, and we'll take care of the rest, automatically configuring and deploying the entire tech stack. At the end of the process, they'll have a backend and frontend deployed on AWS, a working RDS, and everything fully terraformed. Think of it as a one-click solution to build and deploy a comprehensive, ready-to-go environment.
What’s in the box:
The repo is comprised of a monorepo with a FE with a basic auth page for login/logout, backend, shared types, an admin FE dashboard and a whole bunch of necessary and modern technologies to get your *SaaS portal* up and running. (SEO is available but the expectation is that this product is behind a paywall/authwall.
The Code:
- Monorepo with FE, BE and shared types - React + Next.js (frontend) - pnpm - Nest.js (server) - Tailwind - Material UI - Apollo (GraphQL) - Jest (Testing) - Typescript + ESLint + Prettier + Husky - Turbo - TypeORM - Segment - Database migrations - Docker - Logging (Pino.js)
Configuration:
- Terraform - GitHub Actions (CI/CD) - Local DB env with docker compose
Deployment (3rd Parties):
- Sentry - Auth0 - Analytics - Stripe - Managed staging/production on AWS - Storage with S3 - Langchain (ChatGPT) - Feature Flags (LaunchDarkly) - Mail (mailgun) + Notifications (SNS) - Postgres (RDS) - Lambdas with SAM
Features:
- Shared types - Langchain - Admin dashboard - CLI - Docs
Extras:
- Storybook - SEO - i18n
The Value Proposition:
- Unified Setup: Quickly deploy a production-ready tech stack with minimal configuration. - Reduced Complexity: Even with bots and automations, setting up AWS and other tools can be complex. This tool simplifies the entire process.
Why Build This:
- Complexity Management: Managing roles and deployments across various cloud platforms can be a headache. This tool pulls together all the essential components and simplifies the deployment process. - Engineer-Level Setup: You typically need an engineer to set up AWS, but this solution makes it trivial for non-tech founders to deploy a professional-grade infrastructure across a wide range of necessary services to run your start up.
I'm looking for feedback and validation on this idea. What do you think?
Some Initial Questions:
- I’m not presenting vendor alternatives for the MVP. Maybe later I can present more vendor options, but for now I’m trying to take the vendor decision-making process away from the startups so they can just focus on building the products. Will this present some problems? - I’ve chosen AWS because startups often have to spend time learning about AWS and having users, env, compute, DBs, storage etc auto set up will allow them to focus on building their product and not on complex infrastructure. Once they’re in the ecosystem, they can leverage more of it. I know there are more modern and streamlined alternatives to some of these services e.g. Vercel, Cloudflare, Firebase, Railway, Digital Ocean app platform, Render, Aptible; or when it comes to databases; planetDB or SurrealDB etc.
Business Model:
- Offer the code for free, once off fee for auto deployment and set up