Technical debt isn't necessarily bad
Today’s advice post is by Dan Lesley, Founder of Homestar. Dan has over 20 years building, growing, and selling SaaS tech startups.
Starting Homestar has been wild - picture me juggling while trying not to drop everything. Our small team switches roles constantly, and yeah, we deal with technical debt daily. But you know what? Technical debt isn’t the monster everyone makes it out to be. Sometimes it’s helpful.
When we kicked off Homestar, we faced that classic startup dilemma: perfect or fast? We went with fast. Had to. Real estate agents needed our product, and we couldn’t spend forever polishing features nobody would use.
Technical debt reminds me of taking out a business loan - used right, it helps you grow. I’ve built several startups before Homestar, and here’s what I’ve learned the hard way:
- Focus on your core features. We wasted weeks perfecting minor details in my first startup. Now I know better.
- Deliver faster, gather feedback faster. Our early versions had rough edges, but users told us what needed fixing.
- Iterate as you go. Ship it, learn from it, make it better. Repeat.
I used to be such a perfectionist about code. Looking back, that mindset probably cost my first venture precious months of development time. Now I know better - the market waits for no one, perfect code or not.
Technical debt needs managing. Ignore it completely and it’ll bite you later. But knowing when to tackle it versus when to let it ride? That’s the real skill.
At Homestar, we check our technical debt regularly. Sometimes messy code is fine if it’s not causing problems. We developed a simple system:
- Maintain a technical debt tracking list. We use a basic Trello board - nothing fancy needed.
- Regularly revisit this list. Once a month we tackle the worst offenders, just enough to keep moving forward.
This approach helped Homestar evolve quickly. Real estate agents would tell us they needed something specific, and we could pivot fast without getting bogged down in perfection. Made us really understand their daily grind of chasing leads and closing deals.
Your dev team feels this pressure too. They want to write beautiful code, but they also want to ship features users need. Supporting them means accepting some technical debt while keeping the bigger picture in mind.
Technical debt isn’t good or bad - it’s just a tool. Young companies especially need to accept it strategically. Know your priorities and don’t let perfect be the enemy of good enough.
Building a startup teaches you something new every day. If technical debt helps you learn faster and ship products people want, then it’s doing its job.
Time matters more than anything when you’re starting up. Technical debt, managed thoughtfully, buys you that time. I’m still learning this balance with Homestar, but each venture gets a little easier.
My journey with technical debt continues to evolve. It’s part of building something real users love, even if the code underneath isn’t always pretty. Worth it though.