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Run less software - The Intercom Blog
Summary
To survive intense competition from copycats and dominant tech companies, software businesses must execute faster and more efficiently than their rivals. Run Less Software is a three-pillar philosophy that helps teams achieve this: choose standard, boring technologies to build deep expertise and reduce operational overhead; outsource undifferentiated heavy lifting like infrastructure to specialized third-party providers; and focus all engineering effort on creating enduring competitive advantage that directly serves customers. For example, Intercom consolidated from MongoDB and Postgres to AWS Aurora and DynamoDB, standardizing on MySQL and gaining 5x throughput at a 30% cost reduction with minimal custom code. By constraining the toolset, teams become expert operators who can make faster, cheaper decisions. The philosophy enables companies to manipulate time and stay ahead of competitors by systematically reducing the cost and risk of their engineering decisions.
Context
The software industry faces a battle against copycat competitors and dominant tech companies such as Amazon, Google, Facebook, and Apple. Companies must execute faster and more efficiently to win market share and survive.
Approach / What changed
Run Less Software is built on three pillars: 1) Choose standard technologies to build expertise and reduce operational costs. 2) Outsource undifferentiated heavy lifting to specialized providers. 3) Focus engineering on creating enduring competitive advantage. Intercom applied this by consolidating databases to AWS Aurora and DynamoDB and standardizing on MySQL.
Takeaways
Standardizing on a small set of technologies makes the team experts and reduces cognitive and operational overhead, increasing velocity.
Complex scalability problems can be solved by breaking them into subproblems that each use a standard building block, requiring minimal custom code.
Run Less Software prioritizes velocity impact over novelty when evaluating new technologies, using a formula that weighs operational costs and risks against speed.
FAQ
What is the core idea of Run Less Software?
Run Less Software means deliberately reducing the amount of custom software you maintain by choosing standard technologies and outsourcing non-differentiating work, so you can focus engineering effort on creating enduring competitive advantage.
How did Intercom solve a database scaling problem?
They deconstructed the problem into two parts, using AWS Aurora and DynamoDB individually, and wrote minimal glue code in Ruby and Go, achieving 5x throughput at a 30% cost reduction.
What formula helps evaluate a new technology choice?
The best way to evaluate any technology decision is to weigh the operational costs and risks arising from it against the impact it has on your velocity, choosing the option that minimizes total cost while maximizing speed.
Source and freshness
- Source
- intercom.com
- Published
- Added to Yomu
Summaries are generated from the original by a language model. Check the original before relying on it.
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