Founder & Indie Hacker Guide

You're building fast. You need monitoring that doesn't slow you down or break the bank. Here's how to set up essential monitoring in under 5 minutes.

The 5-Minute Setup

# 1. Sign up (no credit card needed)
curl -X POST https://api.quismon.com/v1/auth/quick-signup \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{"email": "you@example.com", "org_name": "My Startup"}'

# Save the api_key from the response

# 2. Create your first check
curl -X POST https://api.quismon.com/v1/checks \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "Homepage",
    "type": "https",
    "config": {"url": "https://yourstartup.com"},
    "regions": ["na-east-ewr"],
    "interval_seconds": 300
  }'

# 3. Add email notifications
curl -X POST https://api.quismon.com/v1/notification-channels \
  -H "Authorization: Bearer YOUR_API_KEY" \
  -H "Content-Type: application/json" \
  -d '{
    "name": "My Email",
    "type": "email",
    "config": {"email": "you@example.com"}
  }'

What to Monitor (Priority Order)

1. Your Landing Page

If this is down, you're losing signups.

{"type": "https", "config": {"url": "https://yourstartup.com"}}

2. Your Signup Flow

Use a multi-step check to verify the entire user journey.

{
  "type": "multistep",
  "config": {
    "steps": [
      {"name": "Homepage", "type": "https", "config": {"url": "https://yourstartup.com"}},
      {"name": "Pricing", "type": "https", "config": {"url": "https://yourstartup.com/pricing"}},
      {"name": "Signup", "type": "https", "config": {"url": "https://yourstartup.com/signup"}}
    ]
  }
}

3. Your Core API

Whatever your users hit most often.

{"type": "https", "config": {"url": "https://api.yourstartup.com/health"}}

4. SSL Certificate

Don't let your cert expire.

{"type": "ssl", "config": {"host": "yourstartup.com", "alert_days_before": 14}}

Free Tier Limits

Free tier includes:

• 1 region per check
• 60 second minimum interval
• 50,000 checks per hour
• Email notifications

Verify your email to create permanent checks (unverified = 14-day expiring checks).

When You're Ready to Scale

Paid tiers unlock:

• Multiple regions per check
• 30 second intervals
• Slack/webhook notifications
• More checks per hour

Pro Tips

• Use Terraform: Even for small projects, IaC means you can recreate monitoring in seconds
• Set up on day one: Don't wait until you have users to start monitoring
• Monitor from customer regions: If your users are in Europe, check from Europe
• Alert on business metrics: Not just "is it up" but "can users sign up"