The stack doesn't matter (until it does)

I've watched founders spend weeks agonizing over their tech stack before writing a single line of code. Should we use Next.js or Remix? Postgres or MongoDB? Vercel or AWS?

Here's the truth: for 90% of early-stage products, it genuinely does not matter.

What actually matters early on

• Speed of iteration. How fast can you go from idea to deployed feature?
• Your familiarity. Use what you know. Learning a new framework while building a product is a tax on your velocity.
• Simplicity. Every dependency is a liability. Every abstraction is a future refactor.

When it starts to matter

The stack starts to matter when you hit real scale problems — and those are good problems to have. If your database can't handle the load, congratulations, you have users. If your deployment pipeline is too slow, congrats, you're shipping a lot.

These problems are solvable. And by the time you hit them, you'll have much better information about what you actually need.

The real risk

The real risk isn't picking the wrong database. It's spending so long deciding that you never build the thing at all. Analysis paralysis has killed more startups than technical debt ever will.

Pick tools you know. Ship the product. Optimize later.