In this episode, Toby and Krisztian tackle the challenges of startup engineering, drawing on experience helping companies scale from nothing to tens of developers. They explore the two main startup archetypes: the bootstrapped zero-to-one prototype phase and the well-funded one-to-many scaling phase. Topics include picking the right tech stack, when to use vibe coding versus proper infrastructure, the danger of over-engineering early, unit economics, multi-account cloud environments, avoiding the trap of rebuilding your data centre in the cloud, and why unblocking other teams is always the highest-value activity.
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Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/tech-league/id1852602975
Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/1zx8UIe2EjawuVU3I31fdP
Chapters
0:00 Introduction
0:26 Setting the scene: two types of startup
2:07 Phase one: zero to one, get out the door fast
5:33 Defining MVP and avoiding scope creep
9:57 Zero to one vs one to many: different problems
13:42 Real startup examples: from vibe coding to Kubernetes
15:48 Security, compliance, ISO 27001, GDPR
17:58 Build vs buy
20:00 Practical tech stack for a solo founder MVP
22:56 Scaling with three developers and early funding
24:47 Unit economics: know your cost per user
28:04 Managing technical debt consciously
30:04 Use boring tech and popular languages
33:14 Organisational structure first, then tech
36:16 Standards, contracts and avoiding API chaos
40:41 Multi-account cloud strategy from day one
43:57 The real cost of blocking engineers
47:52 Unblocking other teams is always highest priority
50:03 Data architecture to avoid cross-domain dependencies
54:14 When to use consultants and fractional expertise
56:03 Summary and key takeaways
Technologies Mentioned
Replit - https://replit.com
Next.js - https://nextjs.org
Vercel - https://vercel.com
Supabase - https://supabase.com
GitHub Actions - https://github.com/features/actions
AWS EKS - https://aws.amazon.com/eks
Kubernetes - https://kubernetes.io
