What Does a Tropical Paradise and a Tech Startup Have in Common?

I’ve been living in Bali working on my startup for 2 months, and I can confirm:

Bali is a tropical paradise.

This Indonesian island checks all the boxes:

• Beautiful beaches
• Waterfall jungle hikes
• Ocean sunrise & sunset
• Quality services
• Cultural flair
• Delicious food
• Unlimited fresh coconuts

Yet, this idyllic picture of paradise is not as it seems…

The teal water and palm tree beaches on instagram are real and even more spectacular in person, but zoom in a bit closer and you’ll see what instagram conveniently hides:

• Mosquitos buzzing just out of reach
• Ants swarming any crumb that falls to the ground
• Twitchy spiders bouncing on the bed
• Horned beetles bumbling about
• Slimy snail orgies
• Vengeful wasps
• etc.

From top left: giant spider, snail, grasshopper, horned beetle, some large beetle, mantis, orgy, lots-o-legs.

My life in this tropical paradise is plagued by bugs of all kinds, but none more bothersome than those I’ve encountered building a tech startup — software bugs.

While these bugs don’t fly, crawl, or sting, they have caused more problems and pain these past couple months than all others combined.

A Life of Bugs

Just as the social media life of a traveler in paradise may obscure the awful parts behind breathtaking vistas and streams of fomo-inducing content, the true experience of a startup founder may not be as flashy and fun as it seems.

The networking events at glamorous villas and cherry-picked news of up-and-to-the-right growth on LinkedIn are not representative of the founder life. In reality, founding a software startup means constantly facing uncertainty, juggling multiple initiatives, and squashing lots and lots of bugs.

As a product manager, I’ve seen how often our meticulous plans can careen off course with a single line of code.

If you didn’t immediately notice this bug, you’re not alone — this inconspicuous authentication function delayed an app release by over 3 weeks.

My life as a founder has been a constant battle with these tenacious bugs.

I have immense respect for the expert engineers that turn my designs into functional code and fight valiantly against that age-old enemy of all software products.

The First Software Bug in History

In 1947 Grace Hopper and her team of software engineers worked tirelessly to program the Harvard Mark II machine — one of the earliest and most innovative technologies in the history of computers.

One day, the computer crashed.

While searching for an explanation, the team discovered a moth trapped in a relay within the giant machine that caused an error in its operations. As the story goes, they humorously referred to this incident as the world’s first software bug.

I can say from experience, if they had built the Mark II computer in Bali, they would’ve encountered a lot more “software” bugs…

Pest Control

In Bali, it’s not uncommon to end the day with a dozen new itchy bites. Bugs run this jungle — us humans are either guests or intruders.

Our Uluwatu villa is almost entirely outdoors, so we’ve adapted to life with thousands of pesky housemates. As I sit here at my office desk writing this essay, I’m reminded of the constant battle with the bugs.

To be clear, I have no problem with most of the critters. In fact, I find myself on the same team as many of them — befriending the bats at night and welcoming the web-building spiders. Even the loud squawking geckos have a spot on my team.

Our common enemy is the mosquito, and for them, I reserve no sympathy. It’s an ongoing conflict with the mosquitos and I find myself on the losing end more days than not.

It’s a good thing this photo doesn’t have an object for size comparison or it would be much more terrifying…

Part of the battle with the bugs is prevention. Playing defense with anti-insect chemicals and strategically placed candles.

Part of the battle is going on the offensive — spraying wasps and swatting flying beetles with a towel.

But most of the time, our only tool is the stoic philosophy of acceptance.

From left: JD swatting a beetle, Kasey capturing content, my back after a day of battle.

My tools for preventing and managing software bugs are similarly limited.

As someone who strives for high agency and individual competency, relying on our team of devs to squash bugs has been one of my greatest lessons of patience and trust.

Personally, I neither cause the bugs nor resolve them. I try to manage them by learning from my more technical teammates, problem solving with them, and encouraging best-practices, but in the end, most of it comes down to stoic acceptance.

Our actual Jira report at time of writing.

Bugs are responsible for nearly a fifth of all tickets so far in my startup. While many of these issues are unavoidable, I still strive for effective pest control.

Here are some of my lessons learned about preventing and resolving software bugs:

• Test locally and on device.
  All production code should be tested locally and on a device before releasing externally. This is probably super obvious to anyone working at a larger tech company, but it applies to startups too.
• Deep technical review of critical code.
  For mission critical features, QA testing is not always sufficient. Make sure another technical team member has a chance to review the code before release.
• Document solutions.
  Maintain technical documentation for the overall architecture of the system, for each new feature, and for all significant bugs and solutions. This helps the team learn from mistakes and helps new developers onboard more effectively.
• Focus on one thing at a time.
  Developers are more likely to avoid bugs — and faster to resolve them — if they are focused on one feature or story at a time. Be wary of part time developers splitting their problem solving energy across multiple projects.
• Test quickly.
  It’s easier to find and squash bugs if the code is tested quickly while it’s fresh in the developer’s mind. Bonus points if your team builds adequate unit testing to catch bugs before they become a problem.
• More devs doesn’t always mean a faster solution.
  Just like cooks in a kitchen, adding more developers to a problem doesn’t necessarily mean a quicker resolution.
• Call in backup if you need it.
  Sometimes, a 3rd party perspective can help find new solutions. On one occasion, we recruited a smart developer friend to have a crack at an especially nasty bug and they squashed it within hours.
• Use GPT (or another LLM).
  LLMs are tremendously useful problem solving partners. Even if they don’t have access to your entire codebase, they can help flesh out ideas and generate new angles of attack.

Don’t Bother

Bugs are a part of life in Bali. If you’re not ready to deal with bugs on the regular, maybe think twice before moving to a tropical paradise — and definitely don’t bother starting a software business.

As for me, I’m learning to live with the bugs.

I picture myself years in the future… I just sold a software business for 9 figures, and I’m sitting atop a Bali cliff sipping a piña colada, watching purple clouds roll by as the sun dips below the ocean. A mosquito starts buzzing in my ear and a trail of ants crawl between my toes — and I’m not bothered at all.

Special thanks to Nate and Elizabeth for help editing this essay.

Thanks to Jordan and Lucas for sharing their software development wisdom.

Shoutout to my housemates, Jordan and Kasey, who also fought in the battle of the bugs.

Photos are always by me. Sketches are always by me. Images are generated in Midjourney and edited by me.