Does your side project really require you to run your own node server and mysql server? Do the cost benefit on running those things yourself vs paying more for something like Heroku etc or other services with higher level abstractions.

I think automation is really important at the business process level but at this stage you should probably give yourself a budget to buy vs build in most all but your really core areas. Lay the foundation but defer where you can.

Things I would do right away is:

- Have a credit card just for the business

- Automate your accounting (push orders to accounting system)

- Automate your inventory management (at least have a system)

- Figure out shipping well and automate that.

I leverage Shopify and Xero for these and it works OK for now.

Feel free to email me if you want to compare notes in detail.