Embracing the 3-Month Rule: A Pragmatic Approach to Developing Unscalable Solutions

When it comes to startup culture, one piece of advice stands out: “Do things that don’t scale.” This well-known advice from Paul Graham can sometimes feel abstract, especially when it comes to the practical aspects of software development. After eight months of building my AI podcast platform, I’ve implemented a straightforward framework to leverage this concept: every unscalable solution I explore is given a three-month lifespan. Within this period, it either validates its worth by evolving into a robust feature or is phased out.

As software engineers, we’re often conditioned to consider scalability right from the outset. We dive into the world of design patterns, microservices, and complex architectures designed to accommodate vast numbers of users. However, this mindset is better suited for large corporations and can often distract startups from focusing on immediate user needs. My three-month rule encourages me to prioritize simplicity and practicality, allowing me to produce rapid prototypes that get valuable feedback—rather than spending time crafting the perfect solution upfront.

Current Infrastructure Innovations: Understanding Through Simplicity

1. Single Virtual Machine Setup

All my essential services—database, web server, background processes—run on a single $40-per-month virtual machine. While this may sound risky, the insights I’ve gained about my resource requirements have far outweighed the potential downsides. After just two months, I learned my “AI-focused” platform only requires 4GB of RAM at peak usage. The sophisticated Kubernetes setup I contemplated would have offered unnecessary complexity.

When the system has crashed (twice, so far), I’ve gathered concrete data about the causes—information that has been enlightening, and not what I had initially anticipated.

2. Hardcoded Configuration

Instead of relying on external configuration files, I have constants laced throughout my code:

python
PRICE_TIER_1 = 9.99
PRICE_TIER_2 = 19.99
MAX_USERS = 100
AI_MODEL = "gpt-4"

While this might raise eyebrows, the ease of tracking changes through Git history and the speed of implementation has proven invaluable. In just three months, I’ve altered these values three times, which took a mere 15 minutes to redeploy compared to the significant engineering hours it would have taken to create a dedicated configuration service.

3. SQLite as My Production Database

Yes, I’m