Building Smaller, Faster, Stronger
Published October 20, 2025
This is a practical way to simplify your stack, lower your bill, and improve reliability. It is written for business leaders who want results without new jargon.
What a simple and strong setup looks like
- App: One deployable unit that your team can run locally and in production.
- Web tier: NGINX or HAProxy in front for routing, TLS, and rate limits.
- Database: Postgres or MySQL with one replica, daily verified backups, and a short restore runbook.
- Background jobs: A small queue for emails, reports, and batch work.
- Storage: S3 compatible object storage, with a clear way to export.
- Monitoring: A short list of alerts for latency, errors, disk, and replication lag.
Why this works
- Fewer moving parts means faster fixes and fewer outages.
- Costs are easier to predict and tie to revenue.
- New hires can understand the system in days, not months.
Benchmarks before you change anything
- Load test your current app on a single large VPS or one bare metal node.
- Record p95 latency, CPU, memory, and IOPS.
- Compare the numbers to your current cloud bill and performance.
A simple 90 day plan
Days 1 to 30
- List your managed services and decide which ones you truly need.
- Stand up a staging environment with Postgres, NGINX, and your app.
- Add daily backups and a short restore guide that anyone on the team can follow.
Days 31 to 60
- Run load tests and right size compute.
- Practice failure. Stop the app, stop the database, and restore into staging.
- Add a CDN and set basic rate limits.
Days 61 to 90
- Move a slice of traffic, then cut over fully once metrics hold steady.
- Watch latency, errors, and spend. Clean up unused cloud services.
- Document the new runbooks and train the team.
What success looks like
- Lower and more stable monthly spend.
- Faster page loads and fewer incidents.
- A system your team can explain and repair without waiting on a vendor.
If you have not read it yet, see The Indie Infrastructure Mindset for the decision framework and Why the Cloud Is Failing Us for the business case.