
How we build an MVP on a budget with BizSpark and Azure - geopsist
http://www.apirise.com/4-reasons-why-we-love-bizspark/
======
GFischer
BizSpark is really great. In the article's case, they're not using Microsoft
technologies, but in my case, I use Microsoft at work and I'm very comfortable
with their tools.

For a side project, we'd started out with an unfamiliar stack (Grails +
Postgre hosted on Amazon AWS), and kept running into roadblocks (not the tech
stack's fault), but we missed some very nice enabling technologies with
Microsoft software.

So, when we signed up with BizSpark, we started using Azure, and we're now
leveraging the SQL geolocation capabilities (which Postgre also has), and our
knowledge of .NET.

As the article says, you don't need to use the Microsoft stack, but if you're
used to it, it's a HUGE enabler (we had discarded using Microsoft at first due
to the perceived cost).

I'm a believer that, for an MVP, you have to keep to whichever technology
you're comfortable with. In my case, it was the Microsoft stack.

~~~
nyrina
Just be careful down the line. Those costs you are talking about are still
there, they are only delayed because of BizSpark.

Having BizSpark did wonders to the company I'm in, but when the 3 years ended,
there was a lot of hard work and even more tears because of it. BizSpark's
entire reason for existence is to lock you into Microsoft products, especially
their SQL server.

~~~
ryanjshaw
What were the problems you encountered?

As a potential BizSpark user my impression was that:

\- after 3 years I get to keep using the licenses I acquired, leaving only
hosting costs to be concerned about

\- if I don't have enough capital/revenue to cover my hosting costs at that
point it's highly likely my business is not worthwhile pursuing further anyway

\- for my particular solution I don't envision needing much server power (and
what's provided is pretty powerful) so additional licensing costs are not a
problem (I can see this being an issue for other businesses)

~~~
avenger123
The problem is that there is always going to be a new Windows Server release,
plus a new SQL Server release. Even if you keep your licenses, are you going
to stay on that version for the lifespan of the system? Likely not. Then you
start to pay. For the database, the OS plus SQL Server Standard is still going
to be around $15K (this was around 4-5 years ago when I was involved with
this). Now this is just one instance. Multiple that by multiple servers and
instances and you will reach upwards of 6 figures for your costs.

I guess the numbers work out differently for cloud but I don't imagine they
would be that far off. For example, if my Azure costs are $10K a month, from
that cost is likely $2K-$3K the Microsoft tax. Keep scaling your VMs and
servers and that margin starts to look a bit less palatable.

If you know the limits of your business, then it's probably not an issue. I
think the sweet spot would be to use Postgresql for the database and Microsoft
for the rest, as most of the cost is SQL Server for systems that aren't in the
full Microsoft eco-system (BizTalk, SharePoint,etc.)

~~~
ktavera
Licensing costs are not really an issue when you're on Azure. If your app ran
fine under the BizSpark program subsidy of $150/month of azure credit then
when you're out of the program you'd just have to pick up the $150/month
hosting cost, not suddenly have to pay $15k+ for a MSSQL or Windows Server
license.

~~~
avenger123
I know that. I didn't make it explicit in my comment. The Microsoft tax I
mentioned with Azure is the licensing costs. Microsoft isn't just going to
give out SQL Server for free and just charge for the VMs and bandwidth. There
is premium pricing for SQL Server and BizTalk and custom licensing pricing for
SharePoint and Oracle software.

Being on Azure doesn't mean you get a break on the licensing costs. They just
amortize the cost over the hour the VM is up.

EDIT: Fair point on the hosting cost being known and acceptable right from the
start. I also don't mean to imply that you are not aware of the licensing
costs, just wanted to make it clear. For real businesses, at some point it
makes more sense to build their own "private cloud" and at this point these
issues become relevant but for most start-ups, it's likely just not going to
be an issue.

~~~
pistle
While SQL Server has and will continue to be an excellent technical option,
the costs can be a drag.

That said, the work various .net-related people have out or are working on
have the very real availability or promise to lift that dependency, if not
provide portability, with DB choice. See RavenDB (document DB) & biggy
(Postgres 1st class). Supporting this for more traditional takes on relational
store is that there is increasing experience in the .net world for applying
coding patterns that can help projects pivot/abstract out the data tool
dependencies.

If you have a sensitivity in this area, there are options which, when
calculated with the ancillary benefits of applying existing .net experience
and the great MS free + cloud tools, would pan out very well for many problem
spaces.

Obviously, YMMV, but if you are doing a wide spectrum of cloud + mobile, Azure
is very compelling and Xamarin can become nearly as large a burden cost-wise.
That total burden still can be extremely competitive and the ramp for existing
.net shops a pretty clear winner. But being a C# developer has never been so
promising - and it wasn't ever that awful to begin with.

If anything, the problem of coming from the old MS-dev platform-planning and
having to understand the range of options and optimizing for costs around
those is the weak spot.

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felixrieseberg
Hey guys, Felix from Microsoft here. Some of you may know me as the guy who's
working with YC companies. A quick PSA:

We sponsor YC companies with $60,000 in free Azure usage.

Get in touch with me at felix.rieseberg@microsoft.com if you have any
questions!

------
taude
We used BizSpark and a MSFT stack for our first iteration of the MVP (C#,
ASP.NET MVC3, ServiceStack, etc.). It always raised eye-brows in a negative
way when taking meetings with VCs and Angel investors. I'm not sure why, but
they almost always asked a question "why MSFT? stack" and not XYZ that all
their other companies were building in. I always felt like we should leave the
tech stack off our slides... And they almostnever liked the answer I gave
which was something along the lines "because I could build it fastest this
way"

We've since transitioned into a Python/Java/Postrgres stack. With no real
complaints.

I wonder, though, if there's any stats on companies not liking to aquire tech
built on MSFT vs companies built with Java. I did a project once for one of
the biggest names in enterprise software security, mostly a Java shop, and
they had acquired a C#-based product, and I heard nothing but gripes from the
tech team about that...

At the time, one thing annoying was licensing Bizspark to run SQL server on
AWS. From what I understand, this is fixed now, but back then we had to pay
for a SQL Server instance, despite being part of Bizspark plan.

Another thing that I wonder, if anti-MSFT bias is a regional thing. LIke if we
were based in Seattle, would it be beneficial?

For the record, I still like a lot of the MSFT stack, and it's great to see
them embracing some other technologies, like say Node.JS on Azure and feel
they'll do a lot to promote some of these newer OSS technologies into the
enterprise world.

EDIT: one other thing, we didn't have access to Azure at the time (it was just
starting out, and I don't think it was part of the program). But Azure as a
hosting option for managing the MSFT server licenses and such is a pretty
enticing option.

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karterk
Thanks for writing this. A small feedback: "The power of transformation over
APIs... without the hassle." does not really convey what you do to a potential
customer. People have very short attention spans and you have only a few
seconds at most to convey what your service does. Most people will not scroll
down to read more otherwise.

~~~
spo81rty
I agree. No idea what they do based on that description.

~~~
geopsist
Same here. Thank you for the feedback. We will try to make it clearer! :)

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NicoJuicy
I'm also using Bizspark and the fact that you can do everything with a 115 €
(Europe) monthly budget is probably not well-known :)

~~~
geopsist
Yep this was my original thought. Thank you for the reply :)

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programminggeek
That's cool, but you could also build an MVP using PHP and MySQL on cheap
shared hosting or a cheap $5/month Digital Ocean instance. Unless you are on
the Microsoft stack, you probably aren't saving a ton of money that you
couldn't save by making different decisions.

Probably the more valuable opportunity in BizSpark would be to get any extra
marketing out of the relationship with Microsoft. Being a "success story" can
get you press, links, etc. which is very much more valuable than saving money
on hosting.

~~~
ktavera
You'd still be saving money, you can run PHP and MySQL on Azure and get enough
server power to host your production app for free instead of paying a shared
hosting company $5 for something only sufficient for development.

~~~
geopsist
yes I agree

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batuhanicoz
A bit of topic but I can't seem access apirise.com from Turkey. Connecting via
VPN works.

~~~
cpard
this is strange, we'll have a look at it although you should not have any
problems accessing it from anywhere. Thanks for letting us know though.

