Rachel Willmer is a developer and entrepreneur who started an ebook price comparison site called Luzme in 2008. She discusses her career path from working for various tech companies to starting her own startup. She details how Luzme has grown from just her running it to having thousands of users worldwide and employing various technologies to scale it. She ends by providing advice and resources for others interested in starting their own business or side project.

1. A Techie’s Adventures
in Startup Land
Rachel Willmer
rachel@luzme.com
Slides: http://slideshare.net/rwillmer
Website: http://luzme.com
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

2. Who Am I?
• Developer & enterpreneur
• Worked for : PAFEC, MARI, Spider Systems
• Customers : London, Rome, New York
• Co-organiser in Edinburgh:
– TechMeetup
– ‘Disruption in Publishing’ Conference
– Edinburgh Financial Cryptography Engineering Conference
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

3. Freedom
Freedom by kliefi is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

4. Luzme Is Born
Anguilla beach by Lionel Eric is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

5. Luzme
• Luzme is the ebook price comparison site
• 1000 4000 registered users worldwide
• USA, Canada, UK, Australia, India
• And now Germany and Spain
• 25 35 VMs in 4 7 countries
• 1 dev/ops/support/marketing/sales = ME 
• Written in Django/Python
• And now also Meteor/Javascript
• Started in 2008
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

6. • Switching to OmniGraffle for architecture
walkthrough…
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

7. And now in words…
• Original: webserver + database + cron job
• #1: Extra worker nodes: scraping, API lookups
• #2: Datafeed node
• #3: Overseas workers (geographical location matters!)
• #4: Queueing (celery/rabbitmq)
• #5: Caching (redis)
• #6: Search (elasticsearch)
• #7: Host Monitoring (zenoss)
• #8: Business metrics (logstash, graphite, statsd)
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

8. PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

9. My First Job
Strelley Hall by veggiesosage is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

10. [Photo of Harris Computer]
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11. The Two Rules of Business
• Rule #1: Stay in Business
• Rule #2: Profit is a concept; Cash is reality
(note rule #1)
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

12. My Dot-Com: Intertrader
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13. 2003: Now What?
• Back to freelancing…
• With some sideprojects for fun:
– WiiFit price checker
– “How Safe Is Your Money”
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

14. And Then…
ebooks => $$$
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

15. There’s More Than One Way To Do It
• WordpressTheme
• Single function website (e.g. wiifit)
• Self-published ebook
– e.g. “How to do <SHINY NEW TECH>”
• Training Course on Udemy
• Self-funded growth (like I’m doing)
• VC-funded growth (but you give up control)
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

16. And Finally…
One last piece of advice for anyone thinking of
jumping in at the deep end…
DON’T DO IT!
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

17. Resources
• PODCASTS:
– http://www.earwolf.com/show/startup-school Seth Godin
– http://startupsfortherestofus.com
– http://tropicalmba.com
• BOOKS:
– http://rachelandrew.co.uk/books/the-profitable-side-project
• Use “PYCON” discount code for 20% off
– http://doubleyourfreelancingrate.com
• Use ‘rachel’ discount code for 20% off
– http://nathanbarry.com/authority/
– http://www.startupbook.net “Start Small, Stay Small”
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014

18. QUESTIONS?
• Slides are available on slideshare
• http://www.slideshare.net/rwillmer
• Twitter: @rwillmer
PyCon IE, Dublin, Oct 2014