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Four Clouds in Three Years: What Running a Side Project Actually Costs

Four Clouds in Three Years: What Running a Side Project Actually Costs

EventSpotter has run on AWS, two different Azure setups, and now Hetzner. There was no grand plan. Here's how it actually happened, what each era cost, and where things stand today.

EventSpotterInfrastructureAWSAzureHetznerCloud Costs
Andreas Schöngruber
Andreas SchöngruberApril 2, 2026·8 min read
What I Learned From My First Startup Job

What I Learned From My First Startup Job

A year at an Austrian startup taught me more than I expected, mostly through things going wrong. Here's what I'd do differently, and what surprised me most on the way out.

CareerStartupLessons LearnedGDPRAustria
Andreas Schöngruber
Andreas SchöngruberMarch 31, 2026·9 min read
I Founded a Legal Entity for My Side Project. Then I Dissolved It.

I Founded a Legal Entity for My Side Project. Then I Dissolved It.

Most side projects stay informal forever. EventSpotter briefly had a registered legal entity, a board of directors, and its own bank account. Here's why we formed it, why we dissolved it, and why the project is doing just fine.

EventSpotterSide ProjectAustriaKulturverein
Andreas Schöngruber
Andreas SchöngruberMarch 1, 2026·5 min read
SBÄM Fest 2023: Great Bands, Questionable Everything Else

SBÄM Fest 2023: Great Bands, Questionable Everything Else

We spent two days at the SBÄM Fest 2023 at Pichlingersee in Linz. The lineup delivered. The organisation, the pricing, and the so-called 'cashless system'? Not so much.

FestivalMusicSBÄMLinz
Andreas Schöngruber
Andreas SchöngruberJune 7, 2023·3 min read
How a One-Line Bug Cost Me $159 in a Single Night

How a One-Line Bug Cost Me $159 in a Single Night

I deployed a small change to my Spring Boot service on ECS, went to bed, and woke up to 10 budget alert emails. Here's what happened, how 238 GB of logs appeared overnight, and what I now have in place to stop it happening again.

AWSCloudWatchECSCloud Costs
Andreas Schöngruber
Andreas SchöngruberJune 23, 2022·4 min read