The Founding Engineer’s Checklist: Every Essential System for a Battle-Tested Launch

I've developed products for startups. Most of them have failed and not because of the code. The backend was functional, queries were fast and the infrastructure could handle actual users, even if the traffic was small. Why did them fail? Lack of PMF, scope creep and tedious operation management that made the 24/7 IT support guy for months. The real world of startup software development is not as easy as deploying your app and asking users to come; you also need to be able to add new features and see how users interact with your app. I had to learn these things with downtime and scope creep, but they will ensure you have a battle tested launch. Note: This blog goes beyond rate limiting and using environment variables, often times, real world services are not mentioned in coding bootcamps or university. 🔴 Critical - Infrastructure and Deployment Provisioning: Ensure you have your infrastructure documented, whether in Terraform, Pulumi or simple documentation if your product doesn't have