How do you handle tech debt in startups?

Question

I often see tech debt as a common problem in early stage startups. Startups ship fast for good reason, with velocity as a higher priority than stability. This shows up later with frequent crashes, slower development speeds, frustrated senior engineers who join later, lower retention rates.I also feel that the problem can be somewhat mitigated by some simple strategies and probably just one person as a focussed resource for this.Has anyone come across a tech consultant specialising in just startup SRE? Not suggesting that tech debt is an easy problem or can be completely solved. Wondering if there's a more generally available solution.

mrbishalsaha · Accepted Answer

For me, I believe building a small MVP myself, scaling it and then building a proper v1 with a better foundation and team.Repeat every 3 years minimum (if viable after PMF), learn design principles, core USP offerings, remove spaghetti code and building documentation.