Embracing the 3-Month Rule: A Pragmatic Approach to Early-Stage Development
In the realm of startups, where agility and adaptability are paramount, Paul Graham’s advice to “do things that don’t scale” often resonates with budding entrepreneurs. However, when it comes to practical application in software development, the conversation frequently falls short. After dedicating eight months to my AI podcast platform, I’ve devised a framework that emphasizes experimentation without sacrificing learning: welcome to the 3-Month Rule.
The premise is straightforward: any unscalable hack I implement is allotted a lifespan of three months. Following this period, it either proves its worth and evolves into a more robust solution or is discarded entirely. In a world where engineers are trained to prioritize scalability from the outset, this approach defies conventional wisdom. While large enterprises can afford to optimize for millions of potential users, startups often find such foresight to be a costly exercise in procrastination. The 3-Month Rule encourages me to focus on creating straightforward, albeit imperfect, code that facilitates immediate deployment and reveals true user needs.
Current Infrastructure Hacks: A Bold Yet Effective Strategy
1. Consolidated Services on a Single Virtual Machine
I’ve opted to run my database, web server, background jobs, and caching on one $40/month virtual machine—without redundancy and with manual backups.
This decision has proven beneficial. In just two months, I’ve gained actionable insights into my resource requirements far beyond what capacity planning documentation could offer. For instance, I learned that my platform’s peak resource utilization is a mere 4GB of RAM. The complex Kubernetes architecture I was contemplating would have merely managed underutilized containers. Each crash—yes, there have been a few—has provided direct data on what truly fails, often contrary to my expectations.
2. Simplified Hardcoded Configurations
My application features hardcoded settings for pricing and user limits, eliminating the need for complex configuration files or environment variables.
While at first glance this might seem inefficient, it allows for swift tracking of changes through version control. I can search my codebase for any configuration in seconds, and since I’ve only updated these values three times in three months, the simplicity saves countless hours. Opting for a configuration service would have consumed a week of development time for minimal changes.
3. Leveraging SQLite in a Multi-User Environment
Surprisingly, I’ve chosen SQLite to power my multi-user web application, which
