Startup CXO

Chapter 97Technical Strategy: Proportional Engineering Investment and Managing Technical Debt

As a product or technology leader at a startup, you have an opportunity to build the first version of the product, grow the team, and set the culture and strategy for your organization. That's a great and humbling responsibility. I started this Part on Product Development by introducing a challenge that Return Path was facing around getting the product development organization aligned with the rest of the business and firing on all cylinders again. Startups don't begin with those types of problems but I think it's important to look at the impact that decisions have on a fast‐growing company and learn from those lessons. No one will get their product, infrastructure, or culture right—even when they have the opportunity to start it from scratch. However, being intentional about where you want to go and diligent about changing things that break—or end up being wrong—is the key to long‐term success. You can't avoid technical debt as you grow, but you can be intentional about amortizing it as you go so that it doesn't compound and negatively impact innovation and velocity.

So, how did Return Path get there, with a big pile of technical debt? We held on to an approach that worked really well as a startup and then we didn't change it as the company grew, as markets evolved, as technology choices broadened, or as new competitors emerged. We didn't invest proportionally.

When you're working ...