If anyone hacking away or at the very earliest stages of a startup is reading this - run away. I'm sure this was a great learning process for the creator. However, as a new startup you should be aiming to take as many shortcuts as possible. Use every hosted or managed service that makes sense for you. Use anything that saves you time. Your job as the "technologist" is to deliver value (in the form of software) in the shortest time possible. Every hour you spend on distractions such as self-hosting is a self-own.