A Tech Guide to Staying Scrappy

A Tech Guide to Staying Scrappy in Startup Land

Presented By

www.returnlogic.com @returnlogic

WHAT IS RETURNLOGIC?We are a SaaS platform utilizing analytics and data science to prevent retail returns and improve

bottom lines and customer experiences.

WHAT WE ENJOY

TALK TO US

James MuirPeter Sobotta Robert Sell

Passionate People Great Ideas Delivering Value

@dukeofnode@jmuir@psobotta

Our Story

Returns are Bad

1/3 of all orders get returned.

Returns damage the customer experience.

$26 billion dollars a year are lost to returns.

Prevention is Good

Identify areas that are performing poorly

Remediate supply chain deficiencies

Improve customer experience and bottom line

Initial Services

• 3PL handling returned CE products.

• Warehousing portal to provide transparency.

• Mobile application to collect supplementary data.

• Good but not great. Too slow to detect trends.

Current Services

• Data ingestion and transformation.

• Trend detection and customized notifications

• Root cause analysis of supply chain defects

• Predictive and prescriptive feedback

Our Approach

Scaffold infrastructure and base functionality Acquire data to validate value proposition Deliver MVP

Generate case study

Customer acquisition

Growth

Application Stack

We Open Source

Angular 1 + 2

Bootstrap

D3

(we also Javascript)

Node.js

Express

Seneca

Postgres

MongoDB

Client Server Persistence

Free!

Dev Tools

Core Tools

Webstorm ($50 / year)

Javascript IDE

Atom(free)

DataGrip ($100 / year)

Database IDE

PgAdmin3 (free)

RoboMongo(free)

Git (free)

Source Control

SourceTree (free)

Additional Resources

Chrome Developer Tools (free)code debugging

Box ($5 per month / user)secure file sharing

JIRA ($10 per month / 10 users)project management / ticketing

Bitbucket (free up to 10 users)remote source control

NPM ($7 per month / user)private package repository

Office 365 ($99 per year / 5 installs)productivity tools

Outlook 365 ($99 per year / 5 installs)communication

Slack (free)communication

Environments

Internal (dev/test)Cheap ass hardware + virtualization =

WIN!

Current Hardware

Dell R710 Server X 3 (~ $300 per server on Ebay)(the important stuff)

Synology RS815 Network Array Storage ($ 717.02 on Jet.com)

APC Smart UPS 1500 X 3 (~ $60 per UPS on Ebay)

Dell Server Console (Dumpster find!)

Trendnet TK 803R KVM Switch ($75 on Ebay)

Dell 42u Server Rack ($179 on Ebay, suggest recycler)

Netgear GS724T Network Switch ($80 on Ebay)

Total Cost~ $2100

Alternatives(infrastructure on the cheap)

Dell R710 Server X 1 (~ $300 per server on Ebay)

APC Smart UPS 1500 X 1 (~ $60 per UPS on Ebay)

Netgear GS724T Network Switch ($80 on Ebay)Total Cost~ $440

Proxmox

• Open source virtualization layer• Scale up new instances as needed• Web UI, easy to manage

• Open source, Debian based server OS• Large market share, highly reliable• Supported by most cloud providers

Ubuntu Server

Virtualization Fun

The best part? They’re both FREE!

External (production)Embrace the

Cloud!

We use AWS

• Highly scalable object storage• Static assets and content• Images, documents, public content

Amazon S3

• Resizable compute capacity

Amazon EC2

• Multiple flavors of OS

• Cost-effective email platform

Amazon SES

• Helps ensure reliable delivery

• Vastly configurable

• Built in feedback loop

• Scalable RDBMS

Amazon RDS

• Optimized images for a variety of DB’s• Automated backups

Most services offer a limited free tier

Alternative Providers

Resources

Considerations

Considerations Cont.

Outsourcing vs.

Technology Debt

Roles

build

sell

Creative

Sales

Developers

Ops

DBAs

Marketing

Sourcing

Software teams want to hire people with aptitude, not a particular skill set

- Joel Spolsky# The Guerrilla Guide to Interviewing (version 3.0)

• Capacity to learn

• Team fit

• Motiviation

• Cost

Conclusion

It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so

- Mark Twain

Like what you’ve heard? Talk to us!