A business startup in itself comes as a great display of its values and prepositions. The concept of “startup” is all about conceiving an innovative idea and then getting taking it up to a higher execution level and reap the results. All these; however, depending on the technology which is picked by the business administrators, which may give a powerful start and ongoing scalability to run the business operations with a proper technology toolkit.
In broader terms, a technology stack for any business is an inventory of software including programming languages to develop a website or mobile applications, a database to store information, and support for hosting, etc. When you start with a business for which one needs to go through various steps, the real issue is of choosing the apt, reliable, and solid technology to meet the objectives. Here, we will discuss a few essentials for the startup business owners in terms of picking the right technology.
Developing a talent pool
With a big number of technology tools available in the market, the technology stack choice may become an intensive debate and must be based on the most competent units. The technology choices should be made by an experienced technology architect and not the mere developers or administrators. The users may suggest a tech stack which they are familiar or with instead of the most effective solution from a business point of view.
However, remember that the technology stack should not be taken as gospel. One should learn the requirements in-depth and try to find a middle-ground in terms of time and cost. It may be difficult and costly to replace a team member in light of technology. So, it is always worth to ask to assess the expertise of the team members in terms of technology tools to make a final decision.
For example, putting a Dot Net developer into a Java development stack doesn’t make any sense. Instead, if it is only some minor technology utilities which your team member has not expertise, it can be easily patched.
Technology platform
There are two most appealing houses not to choose for you as web and mobile. There are more than a dozen factors to be considered to find which could be ideal, but still, it may remain as a controversy. In fact, whichever choice you make, it won’t negate the other fully as both of these needs to be healthily co-exist in the modern-day technology gadgets.
The solution is to now the end-product of your business well. You should be aware of what and why it stands for and how to leverage it at best. Is it best to have your application a naturally looking mobile app, if in case it can be operated through simple swipes like authenticators, messengers, food ordering, or taxi services, etc.)? On the other hand, if the application requires many tons of options for filling data, more precise clicks, etc. for the best user experience like managing forums, torrent tracker, or movies platform, then web version can be a winner.
Business database, database migration, and security
The database is the heart of any online business. You may have come across Microsoft Excel and may agree to the usefulness of this stool to store and manipulate data effectively. Similar to it, the databases like MySQL or MS Access also helps you store digital data in tabular forms as tables with rows and columns. However, unlike MS Excel, the featured database is packed with a lot of advanced features to enable users to add and retrieve data using different criteria, do cross-reference of data with other databases, perform the most sophisticated calculations, and also use the tools for data visualization.
It is important to set up the startup business databases in a structured manner from scratch to ensure usability and scalability at a later stage. For organizations to ensure effective database management and security, it is advisable to avail the service of expert DBAs like RemoteDBA.com, which is fully worth the money spent on their services. There are desktop databases and server databases for startup businesses to choose from.
Some of the major desktop databases are:
- MS Access
- FoxPro
- FileMaker Pro
- Paradox
- Lotus Approach
Desktop databases are much cheaper than server databases, being suitable for the low-intensity databases accessed and updated by a single person and one at a time.
Server databases are:
- MS SQL Server
- Oracle
- MySQL
- IBM DB2
- Cloud-based Azure etc.
Compared to desktop databases, server databases are much powerful and multi-functional. You can customize them easily through programmer-friendly APIs. For bigger web applications, multiple users may have to access and edit the data, so server database is advisable.
Database security
Security is a crucial part in database administration as data is the most valuable asset of businesses and hackers out there may try to steal it. Poor database management practices also may lead to corruption of data and loss. As databases grow bigger, they also become more vulnerable, and you need to enhance the protection with the help of a firewall, digital signature, and malware protection, etc.
Technology trends
Despite the various options in the market, the startup businesses can still see the patterns as to certain technology tools being preferred over others when it comes to administering the startup projects successfully. Here, let’s have a quick over of some of such latest technology startups tend to consider in their stack in 2019.
- Programming languages: Python, PHP, Java, JavaScript, TypeScript, Go
- Frameworks: Angular.js, Node.js, Django
- Databases: MySQL, PostgreSQL, MongoDB (NoSQL)
- DevOps: GitHub, Docker
- Servers: Apache, NGINX
- Business tools: Trello, Slack
- Utilities: Google Analytics
All these general overviews about technology stack for startup business we discuss actually only touches a minor fraction of the actual technology combinations one can consider to forge a system. Whether you choose .NET, Java, LAMP, RAR, or MEAN stack, one should take into consideration the scope and size of the future projects too as many a time it would be more important than the real perks offered by the aforementioned tech stacks.
Anyways, reliability is the key factor to consider while picking up your tech stack for startups. As a rule of thumb, the more matured tools you add to it will ensure the most consistency in performance and make the life of the technology administrators and stakeholder much easier and efficient.