Infrastructure Planning: Right‑Size Your Stack for Growth
Early on, your stack should be simple and fast to change. As you grow, you’ll make choices about hosting, data, and architecture that affect cost, reliability, and speed. The aim is not to design for millions—it’s to plan a path from dozens to thousands of users without surprises.
Start with what works now
If your app runs well on Next.js with Vercel and a managed data service like Supabase or Firebase, keep it. Measure real usage and improve where users feel pain. Premature complexity slows learning and wastes budget.
Plan for known growth points
- Traffic spikes on a few popular pages
- Background work that takes longer as data grows
- Third‑party limits on requests or rate caps
Add light solutions only when numbers show a need: caching results that rarely change, paginating large lists, or moving heavy tasks out of the critical path.
Keep ownership clear
Document what runs where and how to change it. A half‑page diagram beats a mystery. Include deploy steps and who owns each piece so handoffs are smooth as the team expands.
Cost with eyes open
Managed services save time at MVP and often remain cost‑effective well into growth. Review usage monthly. If a line item surprises you, that’s a cue to optimize or negotiate—not necessarily to replace a tool.
When to revisit architecture
Reassess when measurements show persistent bottlenecks or when a new product direction needs capabilities your current stack can’t support. Make one change at a time. Keep user journeys green throughout.
If you want help planning a practical path from MVP to growth without gold‑plating, Spin by fryga can outline a lean infrastructure plan and help you land the first steps.
Plan lightly, measure often, and change only where users feel the benefit. That is sustainable infrastructure for AI‑first teams.
A practical 90‑day plan
Days 1–30: Measure. Identify slow pages, peak times, and provider limits. Tidy quick wins: limit initial lists, compress large images, and add a friendly error page.
Days 31–60: Shore up. Add simple caching for stable data, move non‑critical tasks out of the first paint, and ensure environment settings match across dev, preview, and production.
Days 61–90: Prepare for spikes. Add a basic runbook for deploys and incidents, confirm backups or exports, and test a small load with preview links. Keep changes small and visible to users.
Founder FAQs
Do we need Kubernetes? Not at MVP. Managed platforms (Vercel/Netlify) and services (Supabase/Firebase) cover most early needs. Choose complexity only when measurements demand it.
When should we add background jobs? When user actions start to feel slow. Move heavy work (exports, bulk operations) out of the main path and notify users when it finishes.
How do we avoid vendor lock‑in? Own your domain and your data exports. Keep code portable. When you outgrow a service, you can move with less pain if your data and routes stay consistent.
Case study: growing without a rewrite
An AI‑generated app on Next.js and Supabase slowed under heavier usage. The team measured, paginated the heaviest lists, and cached stable data. They also added a simple incident runbook and confirmed backups. Growth continued, incidents dropped, and there was no need to switch stacks.