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sauldcosta's comments

sauldcosta | 6 years ago | on: Stripe's API was down again

We were literally just about to deploy an updated pricing model when our test suite started failing when using Stripe's API.

sauldcosta | 6 years ago | on: Ask HN: Is it ok to drop IE11 support for SaaS product?

If your analytics show almost no usage and you're not required to by any SLAs or similar, I'd say go for it. We did recently and it's definitely reduced the mental overhead in our development process.

Our official SLA now is to support the current version and one prior for Google Chrome, Firefox, Safari, and Edge. We also don't support any version that is no longer receiving functionality updates.

The most important thing though is communication. If your site isn't going to work well or at all on certain browsers, alert your users to this with a popup. There are lots of libraries for doing user agent detection that makes this trivial.

sauldcosta | 9 years ago | on: How a Large Customer Can Kill a Startup

Disagree. If managed correctly a large customer can help grow your startup in some great ways:

- cash to invest into growth, especially if you can derive a higher profit margin than average from the customer

- increased stability ("battle tested") in the eyes of other large companies

- pushes you to build a scalable and secure product earlier on

In my experience with Codevolve (where we prefer to work with multi billion dollar companies) I've found there is a balance between how much they need you vs how much they are willing to bend to your startup mold. If they want you enough, they'll concede certain points to you. Some important things to stick to your guns on are:

- included support (you want to provide as little as possible, and get paid for it as much as possible)

- non competes (you don't want them to get one, or at least not for very long)

- pricing (leave yourself room to grow the account, especially if you have a product that can be used across multiple departments, and you're just starting with one)

The best way I've found to do this so far has been to go "bottom-up": find a champion in the company who will actually use your product. They're much more likely to work with you than an exec.

sauldcosta | 9 years ago | on: Manhood for Amateurs: The Wilderness of Childhood (2009)

At 24, kids are a long way off for me. But when they do come to pass, my hope is that I can give them a childhood like the one I had: full of rocks, sticks, mud, and band-aids. Thank you for the reminder of how important that is to strive for.

sauldcosta | 11 years ago | on: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

Just want to clear up a few things, since this is getting more attention that I thought it would.

1) I am not saying you should do this. I code this much because I'm a co-founder of a pre-funding startup and am working hard to get my company off the ground, and because I enjoy coding. 2) Programming 80+ hours a week is absolutely insane. I'm not saying I'm anything special because I do it or that people who do it are anything less. I'm just another SV entrepreneur working hard to turn an idea into a company. 3) I wrote this post for other founders like me who are in worse shape than I in hopes that some of the things in here might help them.

sauldcosta | 11 years ago | on: How to Survive 80+ Hours of Programming Every Week

Sorry, I really didn't mean for this post to come off how a lot of people seem to be taking it. I just figured there might be other people out there who run into the same issues I do, so I figured I'd share what has helped me.

I make sure to exercise every day: bike + swim + p90x occasionally. I think that exercise is just as important as the rest of what I'm talking about here, I suppose I should have gone into more depth on that in the post.

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