“Build the right platform, everything else will come,” says Frank Mashraqi, Director of Business Operations & Technical Strategy at Fotolog. By focusing on scalability from the beginning, startups will set themselves up for success in the long run and will avert future growth issues.

What should you focus on?
• Focus on Horizontal scalability, as vertical scalability can be very expensive.
• Go Asynchronous—Synchronous processes are costly.
• Architect so you don’t have to re-architect—you won’t ever have to come back.
• Consistency, availability, and Partition-tolerance. Choose the two that matter most to you.
• Measure utilization first—don’t worry about performance.