Jul. 22, 2010 at 8:12am View comments
startup infrastructurestartup advice
Kitting Your Agile Startup Infrastructure

It is sooo much easier to get your startup infrastructure going now than it was in the past.  In just two years, the choices have exploded! 

My story?  Infrastructure or as a few friends call it - administrivia - gets in the way of one big thing: making money.  For a few months now, I’ve had another startup on the back burner and since we’re getting closer to launching, I thought I would focus on it’s infrastructure. 

My goals?  No monolithic infrastructure.  No one app fits all approach.  I’ll leave that to big companies.  We need just enough to get the job done without it costing more than $100/month.  We need accounting, contact management and communications, dev tools, and some marketing tools. 

Here’s something else that smart people consider…  Your startup is already risky enough without relying upon someone else who is a startup too – that is, unless they’re going to benefit you in some interesting way.  Pick someone who is going to be around a while.

As for features, I’ve found that I’ve given up on specific niche features that I thought I needed and have just focused on those products and services that will do the job.  (My apologies go out to those companies who know me to be a pain in the ass.)

Here’s what I’ve come up with – and coincidentally enough, AppSumo has a great rollup bundle that will get you there!  They were just covered in Techcrunch.  I’ve followed all of them for more than a while now – they’re legit and are here to stay.  You can’t go wrong at $55.

Batchbook - Contact Management, we’re targeting more than 10,000 customers.  The product is powerful but lite enough to not get overloaded with management.

MailChimp – For consistent communications out to existing and potential customers.  I’ve had friends try ConstantContact with a great deal of success.  I would classify Mailchimp as a little more technical – a good thing for me.

Moo – Gotta have cards in case I go anywhere.  Anyone that knows me knows I’ve experienced with pieces of metal, old floppy disks, fortune cookies, hand scanners and follow up emails.  Now, back to a more traditional approach.  I just tried SquizCards too.  Their design and order process is really simple and just in case you don’t have any graphics, they’ve got some great looking stock.

Freshbooks – Accounting - I haven’t tried this but I’ve been a Quicken hater from since you were a gleam in someone’s eye.

Formstack – Contact and onboarding forms.  There are more than a few tools out there.  I have tried their interface and its brainless.  I don’t want to get caught up in coding, I want to make $$s.

I’ll add a couple more that I’ve found to be critical for development:

Mockflow – shareable screen mockups – Mockflow has really saved me a great deal of time with its reusable elements and markup features.

Pivotal Tracker – The perfect agile dev tracking tool.  I’ve had clients who have put entire dev projects in it successfully.  It does the job without overloading.

PBWorks – Need a wiki for your business?  I can’t think of an easier one to set up!

Now, what to do for your hosting? I’ve got twenty or more domains hosted at GoDaddy.  Despite their really screwed up management interface and overloaded marketing, they’re rock solid.  I’ve tried Rackspace as well.  If you need scaling from the gitgo, of course, there is EC3 and Azure.

Now, on to the really hard stuff!  Messages, putting it all together and making it rock!  Stay tuned!

Here’s a few other links that you might find helpful:

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