Article

How to handle early startup technical debt

Michelle Gienow · Cockroach Labs Free Beginner

A calm, stage aware walkthrough of when to ignore debt and when it starts to matter. It makes the point that before product market fit you often should not think about debt, because your product may be rewritten anyway, then flags the signals that it is time to pay attention. Good for setting expectations with a nervous cofounder.

  • Before product market fit, some debt is not worth worrying about
  • The signal to act is when things break and changes get painful
  • Debt in code you may soon delete is cheap, take it freely
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The question it answers

  1. We ship fast but our codebase is turning into a mess. How much should a two-person startup care about tech debt?

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