Tech Debt Piling Up? Here's How to Tackle It
Tech debt is like credit card debt for your codebase. With the stress, and the interests compounding.
As a business founder, you have to make tradeoffs. Shipping fast, pivoting quickly, and probably stretching your resources.
In the long run, all those shortcuts can add up to a bigger problem: technical debt.
Tech debt is like credit card debt for your codebase.
It's the accumulation of the quick-and-dirty solutions. It’s skipping best practices and maintenance, in favor of new features.
A little tech debt can give you leverage. But let it pile up and, just like with financial debt, the interest will end up crushing you.
Common Sources of Tech Debt
Where does all this debt come from?
In the early stages of a startup, watch for:
- Rapid prototyping: When you're finding product-market fit, speed is key. MVPs and prototypes rarely use the best architecture and coding practices
- Changing requirements: Pivots are part of startup life. But changing direction means your previous tech choices might not be optimal anymore.
- Lack of documentation: When you're moving fast, documenting the codebase is often (sadly) overlooked. But that makes maintenance and onboarding new developers much harder.
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