Hey Naveen

Thanks for the question!

Bootstrapping vs taking VC money: Both have their pros and cons. There are certain businesses that don't require a lot of capital to grow. There are also many businesses that are not VC investable. It makes perfect sense to bootstrap in these cases.

But if you believe VC money is going to boost your growth by 100X and you are okay with the dilution then go for it by all means. If you are raising from good investors and this money is going to help you achieve your growth objectives faster (and probably beat competitors), then why not? It entirely depends on what your objectives are, how fast you want to grow and whether or not you are okay with losing some amount of control over your business.

We have seen successful businesses in both the categories. So, it's impossible to conclude if one is better than the other. There are trade offs and you need to decide what matters to you the most. :)

Sandeep Panda Thanks for the awesome answer, this answer change the my view on VC.

As of now we support only English. But you can always write in Spanish on your blog and exclude it from appearing on Hashnode feeds.

1. Desktop: 65%, mobile: 34% and Tablet: 1%
2. United States, India, UK & Nigeria are 3rd.
3. We collect feedback and talk to our users on Discord. If there is initial traction, we push more. Or else we just revert it.

Hey Jacob

Thanks for the nice words.

What is the future of Hashnode?

We want to build a platform that helps developers own their content and get readership from day 0. We are just getting started and want to replicate what GitHub did to social coding.

tldr; Our long term vision is to make Hashnode the go-to place for developer blogging.

Any plans to release a mobile app?

We are building a light weight app that helps you discover interesting articles from Hashnode. Nothing fancy -- just a simple feed. Once we ship it, we'll gradually add features and improve.

What is the tech stack being used at Hashnode both frontend and backend?

It's Next.js with MongoDB. A comprehensive article is on the way. :)

How many Tech people are working on the platform?

5 engineers write code full-time including Fazle and me.

If you are using Nextjs for the Frontend then how are you handling redirects whether you are handling redirects at the server-side or client-side?

I am not sure if I follow. Maybe elaborate?

What factors do you think have helped Hashnode to gain lots of recognition recently?

I would say having a niche and solving a specific problem really well was the reason behind recent growth. Then we also have very generous friends like Catalin Pit who were kind enough to spread the word.

What are the hardships faced at the beginning of Hashnode?

Recruitment was a big problem. It's not easy to find and recruit people who are as passionate as you. It takes time and effort.

What key features you people have focused on the start to keep this platform way different from others?

Well, since the beginning we have been pretty clear about that fact that we must help developers own their content. If you are a blogger and you don't publish your content under your own domain and branding you are at a loss. Your content should be on your own domain and then you can republish on other platforms for extra visibility.

This is what separates us from the rest. On Hashnode you can connect your domain for free and get a bunch of features like Analytics, Newsletter, Automated Backups, SEO features, powerful integrations, fast CDN, Markdown editor, free SSL certs and so on. We also make it equally easy to eject from the platform. Just connect GitHub to get automatic backups or download all your content in JSON format anytime -- no lock-in.

You can check out all of the features on the home page (hashnode.com) -- you need to be logged out though.

Hi Bhanu! Thanks for the questions!

How did you know when you hit a product/market fit?

You know you have hit Product Market Fit when you no longer need to ask if you have PMF 😀.

To be honest when PMF happens you automatically feel it. When we launched Hashnode as a blogging platform 2 months back, we instantly onboarded a lot of dev bloggers onto the platform. Every day we monitor whether or not those developers come back to the platform.

Our weekly retention curve looks healthy and indicates that our users love to come back to the platform on a daily and weekly basis. This indicates that our offering definitely has a strong value proposition.

Why did you move away from the initial model of Hashnode? how did you know that it was time to move away from it and focus just on Developer Blogs? Are there some metrics that you used, which helped to make this decision?

To be honest, the old model of Hashnode (i.e Q&A) was more of a vitamin than a pain killer. We wanted to build a conversational community for developers and we succeeded to an extent. However, we were not growing fast enough.

Eventually, we felt that blogging was a better problem to solve. Since none of the existing platforms focused on content ownership, we thought we could make a difference by helping developers start a blog on their own domain easily. Developers relied on platforms like Ghost/Wordpress (for publishing) and Medium/devto etc (for community) -- we thought of combining the best of the both worlds and offer developers both content ownership and an active dev community. This seemed like a bigger and more interesting problem to solve. Hence we pivoted.

What other metrics do you guys usually use to measure the growth?

We have several growth metrics such as DAU, MAU, Weekly Active Writers, # of blog posts per week and so on. Apart from that we also measure daily, weekly and monthly retention.

How do you prioritize one feature over another? Is it just intuition and consensus among the team?

We have a feature requests page and our roadmap is driven by it. If we think of building something into the platform, we log a new FR and take opinion from our users on Discord.

How are you guys able to make so many changes that fast to the platform?

Despite being a small team, we believe in shipping and iterating fast. That way we can experiment faster and move on to a different idea if an experiment fails.

What is the high level architecture of Hashnode like?

It's Next.js and MongoDB. A comprehensive article is on the way. :)

Do you have single frontend and single backend? Or do you follow the approach of micro frontends/micro services?

We have a set of geographically distributed nodes so that we can serve content faster. These nodes are on DigitalOcean and AWS both. And we have several micro-services running. :)

Are you guys using Serverless architecture? If not, have you considered using it even in the initial stages of Hashnode?

We are using Cloudflare Workers to implement SSO which is the only serverless component of Hashnode. :)

Thanks for dropping by.

I met Bolaji accidentally through a conversation on twitter! :D Bolaji then introduced us to Edidiong. :)

We hired Girish Patil and Shad from the community itself -- perks of building a dev community! 🙌

Vamsi Rao once messaged me on twitter indicating his interest to work with us and that's how I met him.

All in all we hired good people because we started Hashnode and built a close knit community of developers. That made recruitment relatively easier.

Can I apply as an intern under #hashnode. I just want to learn. If I'll be given the opportunity.

We are not hiring at the moment, but I'll keep you in mind and reach out when we resume. :) Thanks for your interest.

Sandeep Panda Even I'm interested in joining as a part-time intern for without a stipend.

Hey Miguel

Thanks for dropping by! We plan to keep blogging free for individuals, and charge teams/businesses instead.

I wrote more about it here: hashnode.com/post/hashnode-is-changing-more-about…

Yes, tonight! :D Hopefully

What was hashnode as an initial product when you started?

Present day Hashnode is completely different from what it was before. We set out to build a better Q&A community, but eventually pivoted and decided to solve blogging for devs.

I wrote about it here: hashnode.com/post/i-am-helping-thousands-of-dev-b…

There is a huge increase in the growth of Hashnode in recent times. What factors do you think have made it possible?

Having a clear value proposition definitely helped. In our case we make blogging dead simple and hassle free. Just sign up, connect your domain and focus on writing while we take care of the rest. I think that resonated well with developers.

Your thoughts on turning ideas into products.

I always thought idea is everything. But now I realize that ideas are not the sole reason behind your success. It surely plays a role, but the way you execute it matters a lot. If you think you can solve a problem better than someone else, I would say give it a shot and ship it. You will eventually know whether your product solves a genuine need. If it doesn't, you can always talk to your users and who knows you might end up solving a much bigger problem. 😀

Please go to your blog dashboard, visit the domain tab and enter your domain! If you have more questions, please join our Discord server to get help.

Hi Victoria - big fan of your articles. :)

How did the Hashnode team get together to build this platform at first? Do you guys know each other before?

Fazle and I are old friends. Once we got initial traction and raised seed funding, we hired our team mates.

What was your journey as a developer before getting into Hashnode?

I along with my co-founder Fazle started coding professionally in 2013. In 2014, I quit my day job to focus on content creation. You can read some of my old articles here: sitepoint.com/author/spanda.

The idea to build Hashnode was born because of our love for content creation. Fazle and I love solving problems and teaching others what we learn. That was the primary motivation behind building Hashnode.

How did you find the drive and motivation to grow Hashnode into what it is today?

We believe developers should focus on content creation and solve real business problems instead of trying to build another blogging platform. We want to make it effortless and easy -- this goal drives us every day and keeps us motivated. We want to help each and every developer tell their story and have an audience from day 0.

Wow thanks for much for the insightful answers Sandeep Panda :)

I'm so impressed by the motivation behind building the platform and the journey and creativity of the team to put it together! This is really amazing!

Hey Shad what's up?

Here are my answers:

What was your first job after graduating?

Junior developer at Mastek.

When did you decide that you're going to dedicate your future to Hashnode?

When I left my job to start Hashnode, I knew that it might take years to become successful. So, in my mind I was pretty clear that I would give at least 5 years of my life to Hashnode before concluding whether it would work or not.

Did you encounter any other experience than an engineer, a creator, and a CTO? If yes, what was it and how was the experience.

I have always been passionate about writing code ever since I joined college in 2009. I love shipping products and solve business problems using tech. I haven't had any other experience other than coding in all these years, but I am thankful that I pursued programming seriously when I was a student.

What will you advise a beginner to a mid-level developer on developing expertise in a certain topic?

Two tips -- Build serious side projects using a specific tech (go deep) and write about what you learn. Consider self publishing a book or producing a course.

We know that the startup experience can be a rollercoaster of emotions and challenges. Was there a time when it was too hard and you thought it's not going to work? If yes, what was it and how did you make it work. What advice will you give to someone on dealing with stress in these tough situations?

Well, this is a good question. Not many know that we started Hashnode in 2015 as a Q&A community. We were successful to an extent, but we were not simply growing fast enough (check this answer for more details). We did multiple pivots, launched many experiments and eventually arrived at the present day Hashnode. But it took years to reach where we are right now.

There were times when I thought it was not going to work. Occasionally, I would get upset and feel frustrated. But having a co-founder really helped. If you have good investors, that's also a big plus. Finally, surround yourself with good people and keep hustling until it works. Remember that till the full stop doesn't come the sentence is not complete.

Finally, fall in love with the problem -- it will probably take time but you will eventually find a solution. We all know starting a startup is difficult. If it were easy, everyone would do it, right? 😀

Do you think going on a team trip after this pandemic is over is a good idea?

Only if you agree to enjoy a drink with me! :D

Sandeep Panda That was really insightful. Thanks for sharing.
Waiting to have a drink with you 😋

Thanks for dropping by. :)

Hashnode community is growing quite fast, how do you intend to keep the fire aflame?

We'll keep hustling until every single developer understands the value of owning their canonical URLs. ⚡️

What target do you have for your social media campaigns? Mind to share?

Probably, Edidiong Asikpo and Syed Fazle Rahman can shed some light on this. But we do have a position open for social media manager. :)

Hey Vishu How are you doing?

Which Image Processing library used by Hashnode for uploaded images ?

IMGIX

You guys MongoDB before there was cross collection transaction feature, so how you assure consistency for fields like: followersCount, followingCount, commentsCount etc. ? You perform these operation just one after another without transaction ? What if your process crashed between operation ? So how you will deal with inconsistency ?

Right now we try to mimic transactions as much as possible. But MongoDB 4.0 supports cross document transactions and it's in our planned upgrades. :)

You guys provide GraphQL library for users, but not using in application, so two separate API ? will you guys migrate to GraphQL in future ?

We might move, but as of now there is no pressing need to switch. GraphQL API was introduced to make our data easily consumable. We still need to support a lot more endpoints and document it properly. So, we might switch in future, but not within next 6 months.

Do you see GraphQL as a replacement for REST API ?

GraphQL is certainly powerful, but might not replace REST entirely. There are cases where REST is a more sensible choice. See this: moesif.com/blog/technical/graphql/REST-vs-GraphQL…

Do you guys use any ORM for MongoDB ? (Mongoose), If not then what your model class look like ?

Yes, we use Mongoose.

You directly call Models in Controllers or there is a Layer (aka Service Layer) between them ?

We initially called model methods directly from controllers. But newer code is moving towards service layer.

Hope it helps. :)