Unless you are building tools, products, or services for other engineers.

> Build your business for your customers, not for your technological pride or to demonstrate your technical prowess to friends.

I'm going to assume that if someone is going into business for themselves then they are planning on having customers. There are ways to show off that don't put your mortgage and credit rating on the line.

> Remember, your customers care 0% about the backend technologies you're using as long as they are getting the value you promised them.

I'm going to assume, this too, is obvious. What I mean is that anyone who has written a fair amount of software has probably already realized this.

What is it that makes people think programmers are a bunch of navel-gazing narcissists that take great pleasure in impressing other programmers? We do, but we're also rather intelligent people.

I say: be seduced by technology. Programming is beautiful. Hard problems are a joy to solve and bring great value to the world. Do what pleases you. Life is short.

The specific business advice I have is: learn to be a leader. Take responsibility for outcomes, give ownership to your team, and learn to guide people. If your business grows and takes off you might find you won't have much time to program everything and will have to act more like a guiding hand and lead your team in the mission and trust them to take you all there.

My other advice is: avoid intuition and gut-instincts. Use data: analyze commit history, watch your issue manager, track performance indicators just as much as sales and marketing. A business is always shifting and changing. Rely on data to help you identify trends and make effective decisions. A gut decision should be a last resort.