Currently Gridspy has a centralised server where each user gets a dashboard online to read their power usage. Originally we planned to have these dashboards hosted inside each building on simple servers. Our first prototype simply used a small PC, our IO range and simple sensors. The PC logged the data and also hosted the dashboard.

It seemed sensible at the time. It seemed easier to have one device both logging data and providing a website. A locally hosted dashboard would ensure a nice fast connection between the user and the dashboard. We found ourselves a nice cheap low power PC and created a nice blend of custom software and great open-source technology. The custom part was a sensor-polling database stuffing daemon. This plan let us develop rapidly and we planned to take it to market.

Update - we are now now working full-time, in our own office!

Most startups seem to embrace 60-80 hour weeks, you keep reading about them and begin to believe that this is normal. After 12 hour marathon coding sessions ‘typical entrepreneurs’ walk 10 metres from desk to bed and collapse in their shared accommodations. Living in such lean conditions makes those crucial first months of business far cheaper. This work ethic and minimial living costs maximises the runway before the seed money runs out.

Paul Graham is one of my favourite bloggers, and in his essay entitled The Other Road Ahead he paints a clear picture of how lean a start-up can be, stating “You can literally launch your product as three guys sitting in the living room of an apartment, and a server collocated at an ISP. We did.”