Dive into building SaaS, or watch for memes
The full video is here: https://youtu.be/3g6ajNg0eEQ
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My approach
We want to reduce the specs:
Well, we can
not have a login system - no reset password etc...
do not use big fancy js libraries - HTMX and old-fashioned SSR
We can just use SQLite.
So that’s what we’re going to do
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SaaS Building Episode 01 Concept & Idea
You want to build a SaaS,
or optimize your workflow,
then you’re the right place my friend
Todays’ episode we’ll go through the conceptualization and ideation of my mini SaaS
It isn’t actually a SaaS as I wont try to sell it
but all the steps are illustrative of how to build a SaaS
So you’ll see how to improve your own work flow
or guide through the your own creation of a SaaS
Simple Tools
I like simple tools
Simple tools get things done
However, most tools are overengineered
so this is where we are going to start
Just a simple txt (short)
The problem we’re going to solve is my own
My todo list is a txt document
yes, it is not fancy
but it is fast, easy and understandable
The problem is I can’t share it easily between devices
And I don’t want to complicate it as I use it everyday.
I don’t want to have slow, bulky click click todo lists.
I just want to keep it simple
So let’s make that
Maybe ways
I want to be able to share a todo list between my devices
There are many ways to do this,
Maybe an app,
Maybe common login
But we want to get it out of the door fast and efficiently.
then we can iterate on our expansion ideas to make a
global todo list that will take over the world
while making the world a better place
So let’s keep it simple
My approach
We want to do to reduce the spec:
Well, we can
not have a login system - no reset password it etc..
do not use big fancy js libraries - HTMX and old fashioned SSR
And we can just use SQLite, or even an txt file
So that’s what we’re going to do
Downsides
The downsides of not having a login system for your app
is that you cannot collect emails to try to upsell people
but we will gain so much speed in developing our software
that it is worth this risk
Also, remember if people can signup,
then we’ll need to ensure that spammers do not signup
Of course we could use FireBase etc..
but now we have even more distractions
and we’re using a company that deleted their motto of
“Don’t be evil”
Yes, they acutally did that
Initial Design
This is how I make sketches for webapps
I tried all the tools
but if you want to get stuff done
then simple is the key
less is more, usually
and thus I ended up with using either ExcaliDraw
or just simple drawings
Let me show you here
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Take a Dump
Full video is here: https://youtu.be/z6LUgup3bs0
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Backing up a sqlite database is extremely simple.
Now, you can just copy the file of the database
but in some rare cases that might corrupt some data
It is better to run the
.dump
you can do this by having a cronjob just doing
`sqlite3 yourdatabase.db “.dump" mybackup.sql`
There’s also newer solution such as litestream
but again I like to be conservative
and dumping works well.
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SaaS Building Episode 00 Intro
You want to build a SaaS,
Or get inspiration for your workflow?
Then you’re the right place my friend.
This is a no bs step-by-step guide
on building an simple SaaS product
you’ll see all the tools needed
and how they’re used
and mindset that helps you build faster
Maybe this can inspire you to start your own thing
It is not as hard to build the thing as you might expect
and this video series is for free
So how about subscribing so you wont miss the next video
What we will cover
What we will cover are:
Conceptualization
Business Plan
Domain hunting
The actual programming
Setup the production environment
CDN to work globally
This will be a fictional example,
but it will give you an idea of what steps are required
Let’s rock and roll
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Cheap SQL? Really?
Full video is here: https://youtu.be/z6LUgup3bs0
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For example, PocketBase uses SQLite and boasts a 10k connection on just a 4-euro Hetnzer machine
That’s enough for 95% of the websites out there.
So don’t worry about it until it becomes a problem
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I know right...
Full video is here: https://youtu.be/z6LUgup3bs0
---
N+1 is a problem, but not for the SQLite
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YouTube? How to Start
You wanna start YouTubing?
Well, you found the right place
I’ll go over
how I started
How is it going and
how you can do it as well.
Why should you listen to me
instead of Mr Beast?
If you’re just starting out
it’s better to learn from people
at your level
The things that work for Mr Beast
probably won't work for you or me
Let’s get to it
Succeed on YouTube?
How do you succeed on YouTube?
Just start
Don’t overthink
don’t overlearn it
You can only learn by doing and failing
Don’t get held up on making things perfect
But remember to experiment
And you’ll find out what works for you
Growth
Are you not growing on YouTube
or other social media?
don’t be discouraged.
Let me show you something here real quick here
I had my YouTube channel for 1 year and 1 month
In the first year, I got 70 subscribers with 95 videos
40 of those subscribers were my friends and family etc..
that I begged to get on
The next Month (this month)
I have 100 subscribers with around 10 videos
Meaning I more than doubled in a month.
So don’t be discouraged
Keep going
But also keep experimenting
you won't grow with the same material
or the same approach
How to get an initial boost
When you’re starting out
you won't get any views or subscribers
Ask your friends to reply and like your videos
or your other social posts
Replying is super important
It won't make bad content go viral
but it will give it a little boost
On YouTube 7 friends - 40 views
If the content is good, it might get 400
or even go viral
So it’s super important
You can also boost with shorts
By repurposing a bigger video into shorts
What doesn’t work
YouTube content that does not work for new accounts
Vlogs and FAQs do not work
But let’s back up.
Where do you get your views from?
People see your video and click
People see shorts and click
You share with friends
When you don’t have a following,
A FAQ with a random person is not interesting
And you can’t make good shorts of this
So you mainly get views from your friends
which isn’t enough to make a difference
What do work
Do you want to make content that actually gets watched?
This is what worked for me
Things you’re a specialist in and it’s a bit controversial.
My video SQLite is Enough got 3700 views and 150 likes
Why?
I am a specialist in this,
and I have a controversial opinion about how you should
run your servers.
How to record
You’re making videos
but how do you do it?
And what equipment?
I’d say buy a cheap microphone
and use your phone as a camera
That should be enough for most things
But the most important thing
buy this little circle light
that will improve your videos tremendously
and it costs almost nothing
Editing
Your YouTube content should be edited
and you should put some nice memes in
People's attention is like a goldfish
and they want to be entertained
So make informative videos,
yes
but make it easier for yourself to get subscribers
Now, basic editing is easy
So just get started
and remember don’t think about perfection
You’ll learn as you go
If you have the money for it,
hire an editor instead
and spend the time on making better videos
If you like our edits here,
then contact me and we can find a solution
for you
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Why Do Meetings Sucks?
The full video is here: https://youtu.be/RlebNi4N-tU
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Let’s be honest,
Meetings suck
You know it,
I know it
Everyone knows it
Let’s improve on that
But first
Why do meetings suck?
Why do meetings actually suck?
There can be a lot of reasons
but I think it stems from one main attribute
When you have a meeting,
usually, one person is talking
and others are listening
This is unengaging for all except the talker
Also, you talk about the work,
but you don’t do the work
which is boring
Add long meetings without a worthwhile agenda
and you have something that sucks
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No meetings? But what?
The full video is here: https://youtu.be/RlebNi4N-tU
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But there is an even better way to deal with meetings
Use Async
Don’t have meetings
Instead, use async comms.
with screen recording software helping you.
This way people can rewatch
and they can watch on their own time
There’s of course Loom,
but there’s an even better alternative
which is called VideoFeedbackr.com
There’s a free version
I might be a bit biased here because my team made it
But, there’s a generous free version without signing up
So take it for a spin
You won't regret it
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Better meeting? Or…
The full video is here: https://youtu.be/RlebNi4N-tU
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Make better meetings
How do you have better meetings then?
I like to keep my meetings
Short - generally 10 minutes
Have a clear agenda
Only invite people who are actually needed
Shut up. the leader should shut up and let other people talk. It’s hard, I still struggle with that, but it is important.
Easy, Robust, Fast
Full video is here: https://youtu.be/z6LUgup3bs0
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Why?
Why would you use SQLite in production?
In short:
Simple and easy
That makes it robust
Extremely fast as there’s no server
If you’re not convinced
then check my video called “SQLite is enough”: https://youtu.be/qo_VXNVOtWI
You can find that in the description
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SQLite in Production - Master Course
SQLite is perfect for production of most websites
And here I’ll show how to run SQLite in production
It is short video
as there are not much to learn
with sqlite
We’ll also see why it is possible
and why you want to do so
Let’s get to it
Why?
Why would you use SQLite in production?
In short:
Simple and easy
That makes it robust
Extremely fast as there’s no server
If you’re not convinced
then checkout my video called “SQLite is enough”
You can find that in the description
Configuration
SQLite is a so called zero-configuration database
and that’s mostly true
Now, I’d like to highlight 3 configurations that you should probably do
1. journal mode
You probably want to configure SQLite to use
the journal mode WAL = Write Ahead Log
You do this by
PRAGMA journal_mode = wal;
and you only need to do this once
What this does is it sacrifices a little bit of atomicity for a shit tonnes performance.
I always put this on.
I also heard there’s a new wal2
but I have no experience with this
But you should probably take a look at that
2. Foreigns keys
In Sqlite3 the foreign keys are not enforced by default
You can do this by using
PRAGMA foreign_keys = ON;
This have a small effect on performance,
but you should probably do it.
Now I haven’t done it,
and I already shot myself in the foot a few times because of
I will do that in the next project
3. Strict table
Sqlite forgives you if you do weird shit
Such as inserting string into a int
Now that’s usually not a good idea
and since version 3.37
you can now make a table strict by adding prepending “strict” when creating a table
CREATE TABLE Goleko(age INTEGER) STRICT;
Now I haven’t done this as well
and again
I shot myself in the foot a few times
So I’ll probably do this in my next projects
Intersting opportunities as files
Your sqlite database is just a file
and it gives interesting opportunities to play around
Let’s say you make a system that have have organizations
Then you could have a database for each organization.
Futuremore, you could distribute those databases to an region
Making it easier to be GDPR compliant and improve latency for the users
You can also very easily just copy the prod db to testing environments
Indices / indexes
Indexes are some of the most important things in databases
not only in traditional databases,
but also in sqlite.
So, if your database is slow
checkout how to do indexes
as they will greatly improve performance
Performance consideration
You don’t need to worry that much about performance of SQLite databases
For most cases,
if you put write ahead logging on it is good enough
However, if you’re in a write heavy environment you might need to do
connection pooling as writes are serialized.
Now, this is the champagne problem,
and so be happy when you are gifted that problem
Example PocketBase uses SQLite and boast a 10k connection on just a 4 euro Hetnzer machine
That’s enough for 95% of the websites out there.
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SQLite? Why to use WAL?
The full video is here: https://youtu.be/z6LUgup3bs0
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Journal mode
You probably want to configure SQLite to use
the journal mode WAL = Write Ahead Log
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Get What You Want
You want to get what you want?
Of course, it’s a tauntology!
Here are 3 ways to get what you want.
1. Collaborate with people
Don’t try to optimize every part of your day
instead learn how to work with others.
When you go from 1 to 2 you get 100% more done.
Most likely you’ll get even more done
as people can specialize
they will do things faster than you would ever be able to do
Collaborating is hard,
and finding good people is harder,
but rewarding
I am soon making a video about this,
so don’t forget to subscribe and follow
2. Win-win. put into their shoes
When you work with others always make things a win-win
Win-win situations mean that both parties have a reason to continue
if you employ people
don’t look at just how little you can pay
or how much you can squeeze out of people
Instead, figure out how you can pay people
Let’s say
You’re working for someone
don’t just think how much you can squeeze their wallet
while doing minimum work
Instead, think how can I contribute
How you can learn
How you can take over responsibility
Now you’re an essentiel part of the organization
And they’re forced to find a way to pay you
and if they don’t you can another job
Make all situations a win-win.
People will do repeat business and work with you if you make everyone get a win.
It doesn’t mean being a push-over
that is actually the opposite
as now you don’t get the win
3. Don’t be an a-hole
You don’t want to be a-hole
People usually don’t get what they want if they’re a-holes.
Instead, learn what is important and ignore everything else
If you combat every decision,
then even the trivial decisions will consume too much time
And shutup and listen.
I haven’t learned that completely yet,
But we’re all learning
You made it so far!
So why not subscribe
See you in the next one
Conclusion
This video is part of a longer video,
You can find the link below
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Ideal Project Structure
#programming #software
How do you structure the ideal project structure and what does it entail?
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