Opening Conference Keynote
summary
StoryGraph scales from a few hundred to over a million users while keeping the stack simple and shoestring costs: a Rails monorepo, background jobs to generate recommendations, a frantic rewrite of the Goodreads importer, and a migration off Heroku → Cloud 66 that cuts server spend by ~80%. Mobile arrives via Hotwire/Turbo adapters and native wrappers. Early validation: 1,400 pre‑orders ≈ $50k and conversion climbing to ~6.6%, trial‑to‑paid ~21%, then profitability after monthly costs fall.
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chapters (18)
- 0:00Opening keynote
- 1:25From RailsConf to StoryGraph
- 2:11First 100 users and 2020 relaunch
- 5:47Going public and viral growth
- 10:28Dark bathroom moment and scaling
- 13:22Early life and pivot to coding
- 15:53First side project and founding
- 18:19Pillar 1: Keep tech simple with Rails
- 21:08Pillar 2: Keep talking to customers
- 29:21Pillar 3: Keep costs low
- 34:01Sustainable business model
- 38:14Premium plan and beta launch
- 41:06Mobile app with minimal resources
- 43:55TikTok growth and server meltdown
- 45:39Migrating off Heroku to cut costs
- 49:32One million users and metrics
- 51:37Luck grit and the three pillars
- 52:41Closing and next steps
