Good luck with the startup. TBH, I think going for as much managed solutions as possible while you bootstrap makes sense. Something more tailor-made often doesn't make sense until you start scaling.

Thank you! Yes, totally agree. I do hope to get there one day and would LOVE nothing more than to have a DBA take this to the next steps when we're bigger.

the temptation to do it all yourself is strong when you're technically capable. but offloading to managed solutions is a huge benefit