[RamblingCTO]

If someone chooses the 1h free hack, sorry, you're doing business wrong and focus on the wrong things. A mindset that keeps you small. You gotta invest in stuff that makes you money and solves your problems. If that's what makes me sound like a salesman, again, I don't think you own a business as well or are struggling to make a living with that.

Theres a whole lot between "I waste my time and do non-scalable things" and "I need an enterprise contract as a SMB".

> Shitty python script with DuckDB running locally on laptop, can get you long long way.

Yeah ... no. You do you, but if you want to get your business to a good size you need proper tools. Like a chef needs a good knive, your business needs good tools as well. That's not to say that a quick DIY integration is off the table, but the one thing you don't get back is time, not money. So when you waste time by doing shit that can go away with minimal investment, you're preventing your business from getting traction.

Sorry but that's a coder mindset. "I can do this myself". That's what's keeping you stuck. You need to think about every decision as an investment. Time vs money. What's the ROI for all alternatives? Then you decide on what moves the needle. It's that easy.

The calculation is simple: every minute you do stupid stuff like coding shit, you can't sell to someone paying you to make things. So you lose twice by doing something yourself: a) you can't sell your services or time in the mean time and b) you add complexity and maintenance to your very complex business life as well. For me, the biggest problem is too much to do and not enough time. So to scale my business I need to reduce complexity. If I can throw reasonable money for that to go away: good, I'll do it. Most business owners I know think like that. That's business, not sales.

There are so many good SaaS for cheap or even with a good free tier that get you started that it's just incredibly junior to just build it yourself.

[ChicagoDave]

Big difference between a startup or small business and any company with 500+ employees.

[RamblingCTO]

Not sure I get your point, care to explain? I wasn't talking about enterprises at all anyway.