What tech to use when you are just starting

In the beginning, you are trying to find out if there is a need for your app, which means you personally have to find people to try your app. Since there is no marketing, there is no sudden spike in traffic you have to think about. Therefore, you should aim for quick prototyping instead of scalable solutions. Here is a list with the complex option in the first column and simpler option in the second:

#	complex	simple
1	Mobile app	Progressive Web App
2	MySQL/PostgreSQL	SQLite
3	Queue worker	defer()
4	Broadcast with events	Echo whisper
5	Mailgun	PHPMailer + gmail
6	ElasticSearch	SQL queries

The simpler options also use less resources which means that you can host your app on a cheap VPS for 10$/month.

The role of the CTO

The role of the Chief Technology Officer (CTO):

1. Understand business goals, assess feasibility, and set technical priorities accordingly. Create a technical roadmap.
2. In the early stages of the company, be the lead engineer. As the company grows, hire technical personnel, provide guidance to the team.
3. Review team outputs (code & documentation), ensure effort is aligned with priorities and outputs are clean and of high quality.
4. Review tests and verify that important test cases are included.
5. In case of personnel loss, temporarily fill the gap until a replacement is hired.
6. Oversee IT, CI/CD infrastructure and security.
7. Stay updated with technological trends.
8. Represent the company's technological vision to partners, investors, or at industry events.

Financial projection for startups

If you have a startup and are seeking investment beyond friends and family, you have to offer a product or service with exponential growth potential. Given that most startups fail, linear growth doesn’t justify the risk for investors. Your investors would also like to see your revenue estimates, i.e. financial projection/forecast.

Once you can genuinely convince yourself and others of your startup's exponential growth potential, the next step is to estimate the total addressable market and your projected share of it 12 months after launching your product and beginning aggressive marketing. You should also make a realistic revenue estimate for the first month. Assuming a logistic growth pattern—characterized by rapid early growth that slows as it nears a saturation point—you can then project revenue for each subsequent month.

For example, if revenue at product launch + 1 month is estimated as 30K$, and revenue at +12months as 5M$, the logistic function becomes (n: month):

Using this equation, you can calculate revenue targets for each month: