Something special to make up for lost blogtime, herein begins a diatribe about my own opins based on problems I've seen technology startups/teams have.
Scalability, always bank on success, if you don't then why are you starting anyway? When you do hit digg, you want to be ready, because scaling something that wasn't designed to be from the get-go is like getting grandma drunk (it just ain't gunna be pretty or end well).
Agility, be prepared to change fast, and frequently. It's always better to make mistakes faster and recover/adapt than try to do something right the first time. The less code, the easier to change it, having lots of frameworks and models will simply get in your way, not facilitate growth and modularization (contrary to what your OO-hugging programmer will preach). Coders like to code, they're not going to tell you this :)
Culture, what you choose from day 1 will both attract unique kinds of talent, and force you to seek talent in different ways, and lock you in for the long haul. Technology is rife with attitude, every camp has different flavours, be sure to select a camp that matches your mentality and goals (holding a seance to seek such compatibility isn't so far fetched!).
If you have anything MS, you're probably already close minded enough that I'm not sure why you even read this far or got here, but skeedaddle, good by, shoo.
Java... come on folks, startup? Java? Absolutely incompatible, if someone makes the combo work it's by sheer luck. Java will rot an entire endeavor. It fails every single point above in day-to-day use, even though at face value (and often preached by those seeming to be smart about technology) it looks happy, it's like doing bad bad drugs that destroy your sense of reality. JAVA == COBAL (and I apologize for degrading the cobal folks)
Courage, have some! You don't have to do it like everyone else, you're in a statup already, take a few risks. Resist and fight every single experience with past solutions or industry standards. Web/App/DB/Tiers/Appliances/Caches/LoadBalancers, blech, consider it all a last resort, force yourself and the team to think outside the box a little bit, open a few new doors.
Change is GOOD, welcome it, use it to your advantage. Don't be afraid to start over. The idea is more important than the infrastructure and history.
Process is the OPPOSITE of Innovation, know this know this know this, and deeply respect it.
That's enough for now...
Critical Technology Underpinnings, essential for any startup:
Scalability, always bank on success, if you don't then why are you starting anyway? When you do hit digg, you want to be ready, because scaling something that wasn't designed to be from the get-go is like getting grandma drunk (it just ain't gunna be pretty or end well).
Agility, be prepared to change fast, and frequently. It's always better to make mistakes faster and recover/adapt than try to do something right the first time. The less code, the easier to change it, having lots of frameworks and models will simply get in your way, not facilitate growth and modularization (contrary to what your OO-hugging programmer will preach). Coders like to code, they're not going to tell you this :)
Culture, what you choose from day 1 will both attract unique kinds of talent, and force you to seek talent in different ways, and lock you in for the long haul. Technology is rife with attitude, every camp has different flavours, be sure to select a camp that matches your mentality and goals (holding a seance to seek such compatibility isn't so far fetched!).
Now let's get down to my personal nitty gritty.
If you have anything MS, you're probably already close minded enough that I'm not sure why you even read this far or got here, but skeedaddle, good by, shoo.
Java... come on folks, startup? Java? Absolutely incompatible, if someone makes the combo work it's by sheer luck. Java will rot an entire endeavor. It fails every single point above in day-to-day use, even though at face value (and often preached by those seeming to be smart about technology) it looks happy, it's like doing bad bad drugs that destroy your sense of reality. JAVA == COBAL (and I apologize for degrading the cobal folks)
Courage, have some! You don't have to do it like everyone else, you're in a statup already, take a few risks. Resist and fight every single experience with past solutions or industry standards. Web/App/DB/Tiers/Appliances/Caches/LoadBalancers, blech, consider it all a last resort, force yourself and the team to think outside the box a little bit, open a few new doors.
Change is GOOD, welcome it, use it to your advantage. Don't be afraid to start over. The idea is more important than the infrastructure and history.
Process is the OPPOSITE of Innovation, know this know this know this, and deeply respect it.
That's enough for now...
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