What Is Technical Debt? (And How to Stop It From Killing Your Startup)

Picture this: You're building your dream house, but you're in a rush. Instead of taking time to lay a solid foundation, you use cheaper materials and skip some important steps. Sure, you move in faster, but a few months later, cracks start appearing in the walls. The plumbing backs up. The electrical system shorts out. Now you're spending way more money to fix everything than you would have spent doing it right the first time.

That's exactly what technical debt is in the software world.

What Exactly Is Technical Debt?

When your developers rush to build features quickly (often because you need to launch yesterday), they sometimes take shortcuts. They write code that works but isn't built to last. You get what you want now, but you'll pay for it later when those shortcuts cause bigger problems.

Technical debt happens when programmers "release bit of problematic code knowing that it will have to be fixed in the future." It's the price you pay for moving fast instead of moving carefully.

The scary part? Poor software quality cost $2.41 trillion in the United States alone according to a 2022 study by the Consortium for Information & Software Quality (CISQ). That's trillion with a T.

How Do You End Up With Technical Debt?

Here are the most common ways startups dig themselves into a technical debt hole:

1. The "We'll Fix It Later" Mentality

Your developer says, "I can build this feature in two weeks if we do it the quick way, or six weeks if we do it properly." Under pressure to launch, you choose quick. But "later" never comes, and that shortcut becomes a permanent problem.

2. Hiring Only Junior Developers

Junior developers are cheaper, but they don't know what they don't know. They might choose the wrong tools or write code that works now but breaks when you try to add new features. It's like hiring someone to wire your house who learned electrical work from YouTube videos.

3. No Code Reviews or Testing

When developers work alone without anyone checking their work, mistakes slip through. It's like building a car without quality control – it might start, but you don't want to drive it on the highway.

4. AI-Generated Code Without Oversight

AI lets you "crank out code rapidly," but organizations can expect to "see a glut of very mediocre software over the next year or two" if they don't review AI-generated code properly.

5. Changing Requirements Mid-Project

When you keep changing what you want your app to do, developers have to constantly patch and modify existing code. It's like deciding halfway through building a house that you want to move the kitchen to the second floor.

6. Ignoring System Maintenance

When your whole team is focused on building new features and fixing urgent bugs, nobody has time to maintain the existing systems. Software libraries get outdated, security patches don't get applied, and performance slowly degrades. It's like never changing the oil in your car – everything seems fine until your engine seizes up.

The Real Cost of Technical Debt

Technical debt doesn't just slow down your app – it can kill your startup:

• The death spiral effect: As bugs pile up, "tackling it becomes increasingly daunting–resulting in a vicious death-spiral of technical debt"
• Slower development: Every new feature takes longer to build because developers have to work around old problems
• More bugs: Customers get frustrated when things break constantly
• Higher costs: You spend more money fixing old code than building new features
• Security risks: Quick-and-dirty code often has security holes
• Difficulty scaling: Your app might work for 100 users but crash with 1,000

6 Strategies to Tackle Technical Debt

Based on advice from technology leaders, here's how to get your technical debt under control:

1. Measure What You Have

"Debt can't successfully be managed if it's not measured." You need to know exactly what technical debt exists in your app and how it's hurting your business. Don't try to fix everything – just track the problems you actually plan to solve.

2. Set Up Quality Controls

Don't let AI or junior developers push code live without someone experienced reviewing it first. Organizations need "processes and tools" to ensure they're not letting "an unacceptable amount of poor-quality code slip through."

More importantly, change what "done" means for your team. Most teams say a feature is "done" when it's ready for testing. But that just kicks problems down the road. Instead, define "done" as "ready to release to customers." This forces developers to fix problems immediately instead of letting them pile up.

Use tools like Codecov.io to help reinforce automated testing standards. These tools track how much of your code is actually tested and prevent new code from being released if it doesn't meet your quality requirements.

3. Create Governance Rules

Set clear standards for how code should be written and tested. This includes requirements for testing, when humans need to review code instead of computers, and training for anyone writing code.

4. Prioritize What to Fix First

Focus on "fixing the most problematic pieces — the ones that could cost his company the most." Fix security risks and user experience problems first. Some technical debt is okay to live with while you tackle the worst issues.

5. Set Specific Goals

Instead of saying "we need to reduce technical debt," set a specific target like "reduce legacy systems by 12% by the end of 2025." "You can't drive change without a forcing function."

6. Make It an Ongoing Process

Technical debt isn't a one-time problem to solve – it's an ongoing part of building software. Build "the culture of accountability and responsibility so your teams know that just because a project is delivered, it's not done."

Here are three practical ways to stay on top of it:

• Track technical debt like regular work: Don't hide it in a separate list. Include fixing technical debt in your regular sprint planning alongside new features.
• Write tests for every bug: When someone finds a bug, write an automated test that catches it before fixing it. This prevents the same bug from happening again.
• Educate your product team: Make sure everyone understands that technical debt slows down future development. It's not just an engineering problem – it's a business problem.

When to Get Help

If you're drowning in technical debt, you don't have to figure it out alone. Here are signs you need expert help:

• Your development team spends more time fixing bugs than building new features
• Adding simple features takes months instead of weeks
• You're afraid to make changes because something might break
• Your app crashes frequently or runs slowly
• You don't understand what your developers are telling you about the problems

The Bottom Line

Technical debt is like compound interest working against you. The longer you ignore it, the more expensive it gets to fix. But with the right strategy and possibly some expert guidance, you can get it under control and get back to building the features your customers actually want.

Remember: it's better to build slowly and build right than to build fast and rebuild later.

Before you write a single line of code, make sure you have three things nailed down:

1. A clear core problem statement - Know exactly what problem your app solves and for whom
2. The 80/20 rule in mind - Focus on the 20% of features that will solve 80% of your users' problems
3. Analytics from day one - Track how people actually use your app, not how you think they'll use it

When you're confident about what you're building and why, you'll naturally spend more time getting it right instead of rushing out disposable features that just rack up technical debt.

Ready to tackle your technical debt before it tackles your startup? Schedule a one-hour strategy session with our Fractional CTO to strategize how to tackle your debt and get your development back on track.