How to push code at an extraordinary speed

Running a Saas business as a single person means focusing on the things that matter.

Eliminating everything that bogs you down.

And using the right tech to help you push code quickly.

Here, I'll be going through the important bits in my tech stack and how they help me push code quickly. Plus some notes on the longer term view.

Vuejs

Frankly, I love vuejs. Vue 2 specifically. They did a lot of things right and really nailed developer ux.

I code react on the side and I still can't code as quickly as I would in vue. Vue3 brings more complexity to the table that I don't need and I'm holding off upgrading to vue 3 until sometime mid next year.

Cleavr

Cleavr is a server management tool. Basically, its updated your server automatically whenever you do git push. Their UI could use some polish but really useful tool otherwise.

Directus

Directus is a headless CMS. Think of it as a better Wordpress alternative without a frontend. Nearly all Swipekit's landing pages are powered by Directus. I use it to populate blog articles(like this one), faqs and even testimonials.

Digital Ocean

Hosting provider, can work as an alternative to AWS. I personally prefer Digital Ocean since AWS's UI is horrible.

Edit: We've since moved to render.com. We still keep a couple of DO droplets around, but only for staging, testing purposes.

Cloudflare

Cloudflare gives us free CDN as well as storage. They have an offering similar to S3, called R2. Best part is that they only start charging once you exceed their quota, which is extremely generous.

Netlify

Netlify is similar to a CI/CD tool - like Cleavr. But instead of hosting our apis, we use Netlify for static pages, such as the Swipekit webapp.

Notes

Not all tech is equal. Some frameworks(and languages) will definitely bog you down.

For instance, PHP is undoubtly faster to code in. No setup required, just chuck your php files inside cpanel's drag and drop file UI. But I loathe PHP so that's that. Vuejs 2.0 is quicker to develop in, rather than react/typescript combo. And so on.

I'm not saying ditch nodejs and vue for php and react. But think about these choices before you start developing your saas.

Work on One Feature at a Time.

Early on I would code 2-3 different things and this technique would introduce bugs and complications. This is a horrible way to code for a Saas. A better way is to understand customer needs and decide on the functionality needed. Then start coding away on that feature until it is fully developed. Do not working on any other feature simultenously(unless you absolutely need to)

Don't neglect Developer experience(DX)

Prioritise speed above anything else.

If adding 10-20$ per month on tools that will increase your execution speed, go spend that money. Chances are, the quicker you can push changes, the more revenue you'll be eventually be able to make.

For this, prioritise speed about anything else. Don't go for the fastest tech, or the cheapest tech. Go for the tech that will get you from point A to point B asap.

Also, this will change as your business gets established. Eventually you'll need to prioritise tech that specialised in a certain area. But that will come much later on.

Conclusion

I hope this provided some insight into how I rapidly iterate for Swipekit.