Akshay

I love building software. I run a software consultancy and write about development on my blog.

[Akshay @typeangled]

For the past two years, I've been working with a client, an enterprise software company (built with Ruby on Rails, of course), particularly in the niche of software used by enterprises of all sizes + MSPs and IT administrators for real businesses like law firms, municipalities, architects, hospitals, manufacturers, financial institutions, and government agencies.

Working with an enterprise software company has revealed a whole new world of B2B software companies and managed service providers (MSPs) that I had no idea existed before. I guess most people building typical SaaS startups and Rails apps don’t know much about it either. Personally, I’ve had to revisit many of my priors about how a software business works.

So many things work differently in the enterprise world: how the software is developed, how it is marketed and sold, how it is licensed, how it is deployed, and how customers are supported (support is a huge, non-negotiable part of enterprise software, something I learned after handling a ton of support requests lately).

Take authentication, for example. Beyond email and password, there’s SAML, SSO, identity providers, and multi-factor authentication. Then there are the related concerns of SCIM provisioning and role-based access control, along with all the complexity of making these work with an enterprise’s existing systems.

And authentication is just one part of it. Audit logs, backwards compatibility, documentation, support, data retention, and encryption all demand your attention when building for enterprises. So do service-level agreements, disaster recovery, observability, compliance, configuration and customization. Then there’s the work of deploying on-premises, navigating security reviews and vendor assessments, and dealing with licensing and procurement processes.

These products are also not sold directly to the end users of the software. They involve IT administrators, security teams, procurement departments, legal teams, compliance officers, 3rd party software vendors, company executives, and a bunch of other roles you wouldn't come across in B2C or consumer software.

I seriously wish the mainstream software development discourse included these topics as much as growth, raising funding, product-led growth, freemium, going viral, building in public, becoming an indie hacker, or whatever the current SaaS trend happens to be. I also wish universities, colleges, and programming curriculum taught about this side of the industry.

Anyways, the more I work on the enterprise software, the more I'm enjoying working on it. It’s not as visible or fashionable as the typical SaaS apps, but that’s part of what makes it interesting and fun for me. There is a ton I don’t know, which also means there is plenty to learn, and write about.

I also think this industry is very much immune from AI disruption, as the customers (which are real businesses and not developers) are just not interested in building, maintaining, hosting, securing, and debugging their own solution with AI.

On the other hand, with all the power of AI agents we now have, I think there’s a lot of room to speed up all areas surrounding enterprise businesses. Plenty of businesses have software they want to improve and a long list of things they’ve learned to live with. They could use someone who can understand their business, help decide what’s worth fixing, and follow through.

That’s the work I want to do more of.

Going forward, I want to go deep on the topics surrounding enterprise software: MSPs, SSO/SAML authentication, licensing, support, deployment, and the technologies and business models behind enterprise products. In short, anything and everything that touches the enterprise. The goal is to understand this largely invisible world deeply, and then use that understanding to make enterprise software better, using the powerful AI agents we have at our disposal.

In a way, this feels like coming home to me, as I started my career in a 35-year old enterprise software company (CityView) running on .NET that built and sold municipal software to local municipalities all over North America. I don’t think I fully appreciated that world at the time.

If you’re building, buying, selling, or supporting software in this world of enterprise software or managed services, I would love to connect with you.

[Akshay @typeangled]

Again, an excellent time to read this classic 2006 essay by Joel Spolsky.

https://t.co/RlVlLA0cz6

[Klaas @forgebitz]

vibe coders will be in shambles when they discover that every popular piece of software already had an open-source alternative long before ai

soon they will discover what the second s in saas stands for

[Akshay @typeangled]

@collin_jilbert Sorry to hear that your GoRails chapter is ending, but congratulations on the new job. Wish you the best!

[Akshay @typeangled]

Still love Ruby. Still love Rails. ❤️

[Jeff Dean @JeffDean]

@TaliaRinger You're already an exceptional researcher. When the kids are young, there is the tension you highlight, but it gets easier when they get a bit older. In the meantime, enjoy them at their current age, because they grow up fast!

[Sam Lambert @samlambert]

PlanetScale uses rails and we have out-shipped our competitors every year for the last 6 years

[Akshay @typeangled]

@marclou is executing the 37signals playbook very well.

[@levelsio @levelsio]

He seems so incredibly triggered by @marclou 😂

Living rent free in his head for a week now

If he didn't see it as a threat, he wouldn't even react and definitely not try to ridicule Marc

(Which will have the exact opposite effect that he hopes)

So yes he sees Marc as a threat!

[Akshay @typeangled]

Does anyone know the original source of this poem / essay?

[Steve 🤙 @SteveKBark]

Incredibly emotional watching this because I’m painfully aware that “the good old days” are right now.

At 42 I have a perfectly imperfect life with a wonderful wife and two great kids. I don’t long for my younger years. I want to freeze time right now.

[Akshay @typeangled]

@dhh is going to love this 💪

[The Lunduke Journal @LundukeJournal]

Linus Torvalds says, rules prohibiting AI usage are “UTTERLY STUPID” and “idiotic”.

For the Linux kernel, Torvalds says, “we’re not going to make stupid rules that say ‘you can’t use tools for X’”.

[Akshay @typeangled]

Read the full post on the Write Software, Well blog:

https://t.co/wdgtcYO0tM

[Akshay @typeangled]

For the past two years, I've been working with a client, an enterprise software company (built with Ruby on Rails, of course), particularly in the niche of software used by enterprises of all sizes + MSPs and IT administrators for real businesses like law firms, municipalities, architects, hospitals, manufacturers, financial institutions, and government agencies.

Working with an enterprise software company has revealed a whole new world of B2B software companies and managed service providers (MSPs) that I had no idea existed before. I guess most people building typical SaaS startups and Rails apps don’t know much about it either. Personally, I’ve had to revisit many of my priors about how a software business works.

So many things work differently in the enterprise world: how the software is developed, how it is marketed and sold, how it is licensed, how it is deployed, and how customers are supported (support is a huge, non-negotiable part of enterprise software, something I learned after handling a ton of support requests lately).

Take authentication, for example. Beyond email and password, there’s SAML, SSO, identity providers, and multi-factor authentication. Then there are the related concerns of SCIM provisioning and role-based access control, along with all the complexity of making these work with an enterprise’s existing systems.

And authentication is just one part of it. Audit logs, backwards compatibility, documentation, support, data retention, and encryption all demand your attention when building for enterprises. So do service-level agreements, disaster recovery, observability, compliance, configuration and customization. Then there’s the work of deploying on-premises, navigating security reviews and vendor assessments, and dealing with licensing and procurement processes.

These products are also not sold directly to the end users of the software. They involve IT administrators, security teams, procurement departments, legal teams, compliance officers, 3rd party software vendors, company executives, and a bunch of other roles you wouldn't come across in B2C or consumer software.

I seriously wish the mainstream software development discourse included these topics as much as growth, raising funding, product-led growth, freemium, going viral, building in public, becoming an indie hacker, or whatever the current SaaS trend happens to be. I also wish universities, colleges, and programming curriculum taught about this side of the industry.

Anyways, the more I work on the enterprise software, the more I'm enjoying working on it. It’s not as visible or fashionable as the typical SaaS apps, but that’s part of what makes it interesting and fun for me. There is a ton I don’t know, which also means there is plenty to learn, and write about.

I also think this industry is very much immune from AI disruption, as the customers (which are real businesses and not developers) are just not interested in building, maintaining, hosting, securing, and debugging their own solution with AI.

On the other hand, with all the power of AI agents we now have, I think there’s a lot of room to speed up all areas surrounding enterprise businesses. Plenty of businesses have software they want to improve and a long list of things they’ve learned to live with. They could use someone who can understand their business, help decide what’s worth fixing, and follow through.

That’s the work I want to do more of.

Going forward, I want to go deep on the topics surrounding enterprise software: MSPs, SSO/SAML authentication, licensing, support, deployment, and the technologies and business models behind enterprise products. In short, anything and everything that touches the enterprise. The goal is to understand this largely invisible world deeply, and then use that understanding to make enterprise software better, using the powerful AI agents we have at our disposal.

In a way, this feels like coming home to me, as I started my career in a 35-year old enterprise software company (CityView) running on .NET that built and sold municipal software to local municipalities all over North America. I don’t think I fully appreciated that world at the time.

If you’re building, buying, selling, or supporting software in this world of enterprise software or managed services, I would love to connect with you.

[Akshay @typeangled]

Would love to, thank you! I've already learned so much from your podcasts and posts here.

For now I just hope and wish you either start your own podcast or join Aaron and Ian on the mostly tech pod! It's already my fav podcast but having you as third host would make it even better ❤️

[Akshay @typeangled]

Learning marketing and sales by reading Jesse's tweets (especially replies) on X 💪

[˗ˏˋ Jesse Hanley ˎˊ˗ @jessethanley]

@gregmberry PostShiba can send emails on your behalf and receive emails. When you receive emails it sends a webhook to your app which you can parse and do whatever with. It also retains it's own inbox which an agent can fetch emails from if you would like.

[Akshay @typeangled]

But they all made their mark in the USA, the land of dreams and opportunity.

[JJ @JosephJacks_]

Satya was born in India.
Lisa was born in Taiwan.
Elon was born in South Africa.
Jensen was born in Taiwan.
Sergey was born in Russia.

[Akshay @typeangled]

@markjaquith @cremieuxrecueil Link please?

[Akshay @typeangled]

@brandur Wow thanks for the details, appreciate it. Sounds like a fun codebase😅

[Akshay @typeangled]

@yarotheslav Congratulations 🎊

[Akshay @typeangled]

@LewisCTech Wait, what silver spoon? As far as I know, he was a Microsoft developer and then started his consulting company, before founding Fog Creek and creating Stack Overflow + Trello, etc.

[Akshay @typeangled]

Everybody wondering why Omarchy is succeeding should read this classic Joel on Software essay:

https://t.co/RlVlLA0cz6

[Amanda Brooke Perino @AmandaBPerino]

@jorgemanru I posted for the first time yesterday. And indeed, I guess that community is not for me either.