#119: Decade Build
April 5, 2026 – DevTools Brew #119
I’m Morgan Perry, co-founder of Qovery. Every week, I share the raw, often uncomfortable lessons from building and scaling a tech startup… from 0 to 1, and now from 1 to 10 and beyond.
This edition is about about it really means to build over a decade.
Decade Build
What it really takes to build something that lasts
It’s been almost 9 years since I started my own business, and it still feels like we’re just getting started.
In 2017, I left my job without a clear plan. I just knew I wanted to build.
Before Qovery, there were probably five or six projects. Some I built alone, others with my co-founders. Most of them failed. A few had traction, people were interested, but it didn’t go further. I worked on a sports data product with early traction but no real business. I tried a marketing SaaS. We built with my co-founders a machine learning product around image and text analysis. We explored a database backup tool. Each time, something was missing.
It wasn’t just bad luck or wrong ideas. Most of the time, we weren’t deeply obsessed with the problem we were solving, on a market big enough to matter. Sometimes, it was also simpler than that, we just weren’t the right people to build it. But in the end, it always came back to the same thing: no strong and deep obsession for the right problem, on the right market, at the right time.
So we stepped back.
We looked at where we had the most leverage. A market with knowledge, one we understood. A space where we already had some network and early entry points. And a team of four co-founders, three of them deeply technical, with strong infra expertise.
Then we decided to build from that.
It didn’t click immediately either. We went through multiple iterations… from database-as-a-service, to container management, to what Qovery is today. Each step felt closer, but never fully there.
Today, it’s been more than 6 years since we started Qovery.
We got traction early, crossed $1M mostly through inbound, customers were coming, revenue was growing. From the outside, it looked like we had figured it out. Internally, I wasn’t sure.
Because at some point, the question changes.
At the beginning, you’re asking: does this work?
Later, it becomes: can I do this again?
Do customers use the product? Yes.
Do they pay? Yes.
Do they stay and expand? Yes.
But can you find “more of them”, and can you do it again, in a predictable way?That’s a different problem. And it takes much longer than you think.
That’s where we are now. Moving upmarket, reworking how we sell, being much stricter on what we focus on. Not by adding more, but by removing what doesn’t matter.
Looking back, a few things are clear. Starting from a solution instead of a problem cost us years. Things that almost work can keep you stuck longer than failure. The wrong customers slow you down more than having none. And the people around you matter more than anything… you need people who move without waiting on you.
What I optimize for now is simpler but harder. Staying deeply focused on the problem. Really listening to users, not just what they say but what they mean. And building with the idea that this takes time.
Because even at $1M or $2M, you don’t “have it.” You’re just getting closer.
Getting to 1 is hard. Getting to 10 is different. Getting to 20 is something else. Being able to do it consistently, that’s the real work.
There’s a lot of noise in startups. Big fundraises, fast growth, companies sold in a few years. It makes everything look faster than it really is. But after more than 6 years, what I see is different. Qovery doesn’t feel like a short story. It feels like a decade.
That’s probably the biggest shift for me. I’m not trying to build something fast anymore. I’m trying to build something that lasts.
And it goes beyond Qovery. On the side, I’ve been building a Pilates Reformer studio with my family. We’re opening the second one. Same approach. Built from day one to still be there in 10, 20 years.
That’s what I optimize for now.
That’s it for me today and thanks for reading :)
— Morgan
You can reach out to me on LinkedIn.
Ps: The most meaningful things are built over decades. It’s the same with relationships. It takes time, iterations, failures, restarts. You try, you adjust, you keep going. It’s never really “done.”