1) The tech *is* the product.
So there's no need to negotiate with other parts of the business about conflicting priorities. The only factors questions in deciding whether to take a user story forward are: "Will it increase revenue, cut operating costs, or both?"
2) It's 2021!
Thank goodness for the cloud. Gone are the days when we had to predict what our compute and storage requirements would be in five years time. Storage technology with an 99.999999999% durability rating is just a mouse click away. And it's pay as you go too!
3) Users.
You might have ambitious plans for growth, but for now enjoy the benefits of being small enough to really get to know your customers and understand their needs. All feedback is good feedback and helps you improve you product to make it even better for the next customer.
4) You're the CTO.
And that means no protracted, ideological debates about technology choices. It really is okay if you use proprietary software as well as open source. In fact, at Records Transformation we think if you've you built a platform that doesn't make use of a mix of open source, proprietary and bespoke components then you've probably something wrong.
5) The first sale.
Whether you've built a Weissman-busting lossless compression algorithm, or simply arranged some Lego bricks in a way that nobody has ever done before, there's nothing quite like the feeling of validation you get when someone signs on the dotted line. You already knew you had a great product, but now you know you have a great product that people actually want to buy.