Ashish Bhatia
Sub-processor lists publicly leak the SaaS stack of any B2B company. Learn how to read them to uncover the tools your competitors use - and get alerted when they switch.Want to know what SaaS stack a B2B company runs on? You don’t need a data leak or an insider - the company publishes it for you....
Ashish Bhatia
Few reasons which outsourcing industry gets a bad reputationWe outsource chores all the time. We outsource cooking to restaurants. We outsource travel planning to travel guides. We outsource oil changes to auto mechanics. But software outsourcing is unique in that it often gets a bad...
Ashish Bhatia
Learn how to grow your online presence and monetize effectively with podcasting, newsletters, communities, and more. Discover key strategies to build your audience!The standard journey of influencers Start with podcasting or video blogging (YouTube/TikTok) It is hard to build an audience when...
Ashish Bhatia
Desire for a shortcut is a state of mindPeople love taking shortcuts in real life. Ozempic is a shortcut to losing weight. Tanning beds are a shortcut to getting tanned. Summaries are shortcuts to reading books. Few take shortcuts in the activities they enjoy. A hiker in Patagonia or climber on...
Ashish Bhatia
GitHub stars have no value on their own. But ask yourself, what would differentiate a project on GitHub from GitLab if not for these stars?Sometimes, a product of a company makes no money on its own, but is the underlying product that enables its other products to be sold. Gmail Consider the...
Ashish Bhatia
Even for benign Android-related searches, Perplexity, anecdotally is doing better than GoogleRecently, after doing some Google mandated updates of MusicSync, my music player Android application, I received the following error in Android Studio during the build process. :root...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why separating CI from CD using cloud platforms like AWS or Google Cloud enhances security and efficiency in your software delivery pipeline.GitHub Actions (or GitLab CI) is great for Continuous Integration (CI). However, using it for Continuous Delivery (CD) isn’t necessary. There are...
Ashish Bhatia
Refining questions in projects is key to success. Discover how nuanced inquiries can determine your project’s fate and why stagnant questions signal failure.Here’s a simple project success heuristic. All projects have some element of uncertainty but over time the questions should become more...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover how Temu exemplifies China’s strategic market adaptation, contrasting American and Chinese business approaches. Learn about targeted global expansion. American government goes everywhere exporting its brand of democracy. The Chinese government wants to do business and make money [with...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the complexities of JavaScript, from its varied implementations to the lack of built-in libraries. Learn how to limit its spread effectively.Javascript isn’t a language. It is just a specification. Well, that’s true for many other languages like Python and Java. However, most languages...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover how consumer Internet companies profit through subscriptions or ads, why usage-based subscriptions are tricky, and how ads shift wealth among users.There are two primary ways to generate income on the consumer Internet: through subscriptions or advertising. Additionally, unlike the...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore India’s booming startup scene with Postman, Sharechat, and Oyo! Discover valuations, investments, and market challenges facing these tech unicorns. Bengaluru-based Postman, a API management product, has raised a total of $433 million valuing it at ~$5.6B....
Ashish Bhatia
Tired of WordPress deployments? This is your ultimate guide on how to more to a markdown static site generator like Hugo. Why leave WordPress For more than 10 years, this website has been running on WordPress. Over time, I come to...
Ashish Bhatia
Here’s a simple analysis of why this ground-breaking technology might turn out to be the next undersea cable The true value proposition of LLMs lies in their ability to convert unstructured data from sources like websites and documents into structured information with reasonably high accuracy....
Ashish Bhatia
Avoid committing generated code to version control; utilize CI caching instead. Explore rare exceptions where tracking changes can be beneficial. Discover best practices!Generated code, ideally, should not be committed to version control. Committing generated code can sometimes speed up testing...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover surprising insights on the podcasting landscape from iTunes data: fewer than 50,000 of 1.5M podcasters are active professionals. Read more to understand why.A few years back, I scraped data on podcasters from iTunes. The data was a bit underwhelming and made me realize that podcasters...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover how two Y Combinator-backed crypto exchanges fared differently—Coinbase thrived with 1500X returns, while Buttercoin closed. Timing was key.Two cryptocurrency exchanges came out early on from Y Combinator. One is 2012. One in 2013. One returned 1500X to early investors. The other one...
Ashish Bhatia
Boost engineering productivity with effective tools like code linters and IDEs, while avoiding distractions like multiple monitors. Balance real and theoretical gains.Some engineering productivity is real. Some are theoretical. Having good code linters has a real engineering productivity impact....
Ashish Bhatia
Explore Axie Infinity’s role in revolutionizing play-to-earn gaming, where financial benefits shift to the network. Are in-game tokens the future or a passing trend?With Axie Infinity, there is a sudden rise of play-to-earn games. At least the way I see is that the core idea is that...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover effective strategies to keep your documentation from going stale. Learn why minimizing documentation and automating updates are vital for accuracy and efficiency.As code changes, documentation becomes stale over time. This happens at big companies. This happens at small companies. Unlike...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the three distinct engineering stacks for startups: Backend compute, backend storage, and frontend. Learn key considerations for each to enhance your strategy.Most startups think of the engineering stack as if it is a single cohesive thing. However, I believe that there are three different...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore engineering guardrails from source code to security, ensuring robust production deployment and data safety while streamlining workflows and enhancing protection.Guardrails are meant to protect us from tripping over. The same can be said about engineering guardrails. Like most engineering...
Ashish Bhatia
Early adopters of Instagram, WhatsApp, and Gmail were not VCs, unlike ClubHouse. Discover why this VC-driven trend questions ClubHouse’s success.The early adopters of Instagram were not VCs. The early adopters of WhatsApp were not VCs. The early adopters of Gmail were not VCs. However, the early...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the mandatory layers of web apps: Storage, Compute, and View. Learn about the standardization trends in compute and view layers and the challenges in storage.There are three mandatory layers of any non-trivial user-facing web application. Storage, compute and view. The view is the...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover how ChatGPT is set to revolutionize online interactions, replacing traditional FAQ pages with intuitive natural language conversational interfaces.In the decade of the 2010s, after Facebook became mainstream, social became a building block for websites. A lot of websites added a concept...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore how the presence of burglar bars in cities influences social dynamics and imagine if social media had emerged in such environments. Discover more insights!Houses in many major cities in Latin America have burglar bars. So, is the case in India. Very few cities in the US have burglar bars....
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why package.json is a developer’s headache. From no comments to variable duplication, learn what’s wrong with this essential Javascript file.package.json is the standard package configuration management file used in the Javascript world. To call it terrible is an understatement. Here’s...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why Obsidian is the ultimate note-taking solution! Secure your notes with Markdown simplicity and ensure long-term access without proprietary limitations.I started using Google Notebook around 2008. Once I received a notice that it will shut down, I switched to Evernote around...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the benefits of serverless as the default choice for 2021 deployments, while exploring the drawbacks of low-code solutions and their impact on coding efficiency.I’m a big fan of serverless. In fact, in 2021, I believe that it should be the default choice and one should have a strong...
Ashish Bhatia
Avoid Google Fi payment issues by purchasing your phone separately and getting a free Google Fi SIM. Simplify number porting and switch carriers hassle-free.There are severalnightmare stories on the Internet regarding Google’s poor handling of payment issues related to Google Fi service....
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the evolution of funding rounds from Seed to Series-Z, and why pre-seed isn’t called a pollen round. Navigate the modern startup investment landscape.Then Seed/Angel Series-A Series-B Series-C IPO Now Pre-seed Seed - If a seed round is too big, it is called a mango seed. Seed extension...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover MusicSync, an Android app replacing Google Play Music with offline playback and podcast support. Enjoy music and podcasts without costly subscriptions.Google Play Music was great. Apart from one missing feature about the inability to upload music from the phone to the Google Play Music...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why React Native may not be the best choice for mobile app development. Explore the pitfalls of using a single codebase, security concerns, and when it is a proper fit.There are tons of hyped-up claims surrounding React Native that are worth addressing. The reasons why companies run with...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the benefits of determinate progress bars over indeterminate ones for enhancing user experience. Understand why the extra effort is worth it.60 milliseconds is when we notice something isn’t immediate. Any user interaction, that involves sending data over the network or doing heavy...
Ashish Bhatia
Enhance code changes with a toggle for easy rollback! Learn how two-commit strategies and command-line flags prevent major bugs and ensure smooth deployments.We all have to make significant code changes from time to time. Most of these code changes are large. Consider the scenario that you merged...
Ashish Bhatia
Avoid pitfalls when using user contact books in apps. Learn about prefix-free country codes, number formats, shared codes, and verifying phone ownership effectively.If you are building an app that uses the user’s contact book then their certain gotchas to avoid. Telephone country codes are...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the roles of money and how cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin and Ethereum battle to become the ultimate medium of exchange in the blockchain arena.Money serves three purpose - unit of accounting, a medium of exchange, and a store of value. Cryptocurrencies have been compared to...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the art of angel investing as a software engineer. Learn crucial tips on starting, choosing investments, and understanding deal flow while maximizing returns.Software Engineers peak early in their career and especially in places in the San Francisco Bay area, New York, and Seattle...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why tech careers attract MBA grads, explore beyond Product Manager roles, understand company stages, and get insider tips on job applications.Why Tech In the past decade, interest among MBA grads towards tech companies has drastically gone up. If you are one of those, take a pause and ask...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the distinctions between stock, commodity, and forex exchanges and how crypto exchanges compare. Learn why liquidity and regulations are crucial.Background There are three major types of financial exchanges Stocks and bonds Commodity exchange Foreign exchange (Forex) Stock exchanges,...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover how a custom link checker tool can protect your website from unwanted links after a security breach. Safeguard your domain with ease.For 6-months, this website was compromised. I am not sure what exactly happened, but it was most likely password-reuse, which lend itself to this problem....
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the new “closeum” software model, blending open-source cores with closed-source enhancements. Explore innovative licensing and cloud dependencies shaping tech today.Earlier, the Software world was rigidly divided between closed and open-source software. Microsoft Windows is closed-source,...
Ashish Bhatia
Learn to craft engaging beta invitation emails that capture early adopters with clarity. Discover key strategies to ensure your startup stands out and gets the response you need.Consider this email, And now consider this one, Hi Ashish, You signed up for the Orchard beta not too long ago, and...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the risks of losing cryptocurrency private keys and explore potential solutions for secure storage. Are there truly effective decentralized methods?All cryptocurrencies are eventually tied to a “private” key. You lose this key, and the funds are gone, forever. Millions worth of...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the key differences in running code on servers versus mobile devices, highlighting control, platform constraints, network issues, and resource management.When the code runs on your servers, you have much more control over the “context” in which it runs. On the mobile devices, the device OS...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover the latest Android development best practices, including adopting Kotlin, AndroidX, RecyclerView, and more, to boost app performance and user experience.Highlights All android support library code is moving to the androidx namespace. No more android.support.v4 or android. support.v7...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the latest in Android architecture and performance, including Android Vitals, emerging markets strategies, and slimming app sizesInfrastructure - Architecture & Performance Android Vitals - More visibility in Google Play dev console on battery drain, wakelocks being held for too long,...
Ashish Bhatia
Explore the evolution of iPhone vs. Android’s Nexus and Pixel brands. From iconic launches to naming snafus, discover how these tech giants compete!iPhone iPhone iPhone 3G -> iPhone 3GS iPhone 4 -> iPhone 4S iPhone 5 -> iPhone 5S iPhone 6 -> iPhone 6S (and plus sizes) iPhone 7 (and...
Ashish Bhatia
Discover why audio is less engaging than video and how this affects our attention. Understand why most audio consumption occurs during multitasking activities. Our brain loves distractions, and multitasking gets bored quickly. When we read text or watch a photo, it engages us...
Ashish Bhatia
Learn how to properly compare system reliability and understand why focusing on unreliability offers a clearer, impactful measure of performance improvement.Consider two systems: the first is 90% reliable and the second is 99%. The wrong to compare them is to compare the reliability and conclude...