Working with startups often leads to accumulating technical debt for three main reasons: (1) the need to get products out quickly to validate ideas, (2) a preference for solutions that are easy to implement using familiar skills and concepts, and (3) prioritizing new features over refactoring due to time pressures and financial needs. The top ways to minimize resulting damage include incrementally refactoring without stopping product development, carefully considering whether paying down technical debt principal is less costly than accumulating more interest, and decomposing monolithic systems into independent components.

1. what i have learnt
working with
startups.
phil calçado
@pcalcado
http://philcalcado.com

2. hi, i am phil.

3. i work here:

4. mandatory “we are hiring” plug:
http://soundcloud.com/jobs

5. but i used to work here:

6. “we are in trouble.
get those agile people
in.”

7. often too late.

8. how it all begins

9. startups take on debt

10. startups take on debt
financial
technical

11. financial debt
(oversimplified)

12. Weekend hack

13. Uh? People are
using this...

14. We are on
TechCrunch!

15. Pump in new features!

16. More people!

17. A-Round
Investment

18. tech debt
(oversimplified)
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html

19. Weekend hack

20. Uh? People are
using this...

21. We are on
TechCrunch!

22. Pump in new features!

23. More people!

24. A-Round
Investment

25. More
engineers!

26. More
Features!
Fast!

29. we solve financial
problems with re$ources

30. technical problems
require re$ources and
time

31. why it happens

32. cause #1:
getting shit out.
http://martinfowler.com/bliki/TechnicalDebt.html

33. you don't want to be

39. “I thought we were
going to build a better
Facebook,[But] within
30 minutes I realized,
Oh my God, it's broken.
Holy shit, we totally
fucked up.”
http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/160/bill-nguyen-startups

40. a startup
needs to
validate
its idea.
soon.
http://tinyurl.com/leanstartupbook

41. we all know what that
means

43. cause #2:
we like it easy.

44. simple:
●one role
●one task
●one concept
●one dimension
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

45. easy:
●near, at hand
●near to our
understanding,
skill set
http://www.infoq.com/presentations/Simple-Made-Easy

52. top 3 measures for
minimising damage

53. #1
don't stop the world.
the industry won't wait
●
until you have it all
fixed.

54. #2
careful with interest
vs. principal.
measure investment made
●
because of tech debt;
paying principal may be
cheaper in the medium
term.

55. #3
break the big ball of
mud.
componentise your
●
infrastructure; even if
this means duplicated
code for a while. use
queues and webservices.