Tech-Thoughts

Want to know what SaaS stack a B2B company runs on? You don’t need a data leak or an insider - the company publishes it for you. Look at their sub-processor list. Most B2B companies are contractually required to disclose every third-party vendor that touches customer data. These sub-processor pages are public, they’re kept up to date, and they quietly reveal a competitor’s entire tech stack: cloud provider, monitoring, customer support, AI/ML vendors, and more. ...

We outsource chores all the time. We outsource cooking to restaurants. We outsource travel planning to travel guides. We outsource oil changes to auto mechanics. But software outsourcing is unique in that it often gets a bad reputation and causes a loss of expectations. I believe there are a few reasons why software outsourcing gets such a bad reputation. Lack of discernment A Peruvian restaurant would refuse to serve you Indian food. They might suggest some good vegetarian options, but would not cook Paneer Tikka for you. ...

The standard journey of influencers Start with podcasting or video blogging (YouTube/TikTok) It is hard to build an audience when you don’t have one Start with interviewing other podcasters/creators to bring yourself to the front of their audience Alternatively, build an audience via engaging (tweet replies) high-value customers or by catching the trending topics Build a one-way connection with your audience via newsletter on email/WhatsApp The goal is to connect directly with your followers and not be dependent on social media algorithms for too long Build a community via Facebook/Slack/Telegram/Circle groups Once you have a critical number of connections, invite them to a community In the initial phase, maintaining and running a community requires work Eventually, the community becomes self-sustaining Monetize Selling branded merchandise Large-ticket affiliates like insurance Paid consultation calls Fan funding (Patreon) for exclusive content access Organizing a Conference

People love taking shortcuts in real life. Ozempic is a shortcut to losing weight. Tanning beds are a shortcut to getting tanned. Summaries are shortcuts to reading books. Few take shortcuts in the activities they enjoy. A hiker in Patagonia or climber on Mt. Fuji is not looking for a shortcut to finish the journey. There is a genuine desire to enjoy the experience. There is a genuine desire to improve one’s ability and skills. ...

GitHub stars have no value on their own. But ask yourself, what would differentiate a project on GitHub from GitLab if not for these stars?

Recently, after doing some Google mandated updates of MusicSync, my music player Android application, I received the following error in Android Studio during the build process. Plaintext 1 AAPT2 aapt2-8.8.0-12006047-osx Daemon #1: Daemon startup failed I tried to search for the error on Google, and got zero results. ...

GitHub Actions (or GitLab CI) is great for Continuous Integration (CI). However, using it for Continuous Delivery (CD) for docker images isn’t necessary. And there is a better approach.

Here’s a simple project success heuristic. All projects have some element of uncertainty but over time the questions should become more refined. If that’s not happening, then the project is almost certainly failing. The company might still succeed via a pivot but the project is unlikely to. Consider the progression of questions for a consumer (B2C) product. Would anyone use this? Would a million people use this? What’s the total addressable market? Would people pay for this? Is 10$/month too high or can I increase the price further? Notice how questions keep becoming nuanced. ...

American government goes everywhere exporting its brand of democracy. The Chinese government wants to do business and make money [with these autocracies] in Asia, Africa, and South America - Lee Kuan Yew In many ways, American companies take the same approach. They build one product, localize it a bit for the target countries, and try to win big there. However, Chinese companies seem to take a different approach. China utilizes lower labor costs than its American counterparts and builds targeted products for markets. And Temu is the perfect example of that. Temu’s parent company’s flagship product is Pinduoduo. Pinduoduo is designed for the Chinese market. A completely unrelated E-commerce product, Temu is designed for the American market.

Javascript isn’t a language. It is just a specification. Well, that’s true for many other languages like Python and Java. However, most languages have just one de facto implementation. For example, CPython for Python. Java has two major ones - Oracle’s JDK and Google’s Android Java. That’s not true for Javascript though.