Tech Stack

 What is a Tech Stack?

A tech stack is the set of technologies used to develop an application, including programming languages, frameworks, databases, front-end and back-end tools, and APIs. Choices with your tech stack can have significant downstream effects, including the kinds of integrations you can build and the skills you'll need to hire for.

Product companies usually include tools that measure product and user analytics.

Investing in the various elements of your tech stack is a crucial step to finding success as a software company, since your tech stack gives your product team the tools it needs to build and maintain your product, and to make sure it continues to meet customer needs.

Why is getting your tech stack right so crucial?

The way you build your tech stack influences much about your company: what kind of products you’ll be able to build, how efficiently you’ll be able to work, and even what type of engineers you’ll hire. The process always involves trade-offs—some technologies save time but allow for less customization, others are better for certain audience segments (iPhone users, say), still others are more scalable but require more ongoing maintenance. However, it is possible to assemble a stack that can both meet your needs now and evolve as your company matures.

When possible, start building with tools that can scale as you grow. Many well-known backend solutions, like AWS, give you the option automatically add additional servers as you need them rather than having to estimate usage and pay for capacity upfront. For utilities and business apps that aren’t part of your core product, try to invest in options that have low switching costs or pricing tiers to accommodate future growth. For example, a small eCommerce company might start with an affordable Shopify plan, which as the company grows is easy to update to Shopify Plus, or migrate to a custom site that they can now afford to maintain.

The product analytics tools you add to your stack deserve extra care in selecting. They tell you how your current product is performing, what features are being used, and what parts of your product give people trouble. For this reason, they’re quite useful for helping plan your product roadmap (which in turn shapes your plans for your tech stack.) Because analytics tools give you such valuable insight, using the wrong one can derail your product development process and potentially produce lots of wasted effort.