I have found that small teams in small companies are more vulnerable to critical failures personally. That doesn't mean that the TDD mantra needs to be followed

I have found that small teams in small companies are more vulnerable to critical failures personally. That doesn't mean that the TDD mantra needs to be followed word for word but covering your core functionality with test cases allows you to manage risk and getting another set of eyes on the problem tends to pick up obvious problems you are blinkered to. It also enables large changes to take place effectively whic is a big problem when you have very few people working on a project. Without coverage you end up with something people are afraid to change which means every fix is snowballing it into a muddy mess because the shortest path is taken, not the most architecturally sound solution. While defects happen, it's massively more expensive to handle them with the end user even if they are in the same office. You're costing their time as well as yours. I'm middle of the road but I'd rather sleep easy knowing my ass is covered at least. This experience comes from watching a company fail miserably due to their internal software failing. It cost a rewrite in the end which the company couldn't foot the bill for so spiralled into decline. Massive cock up and bad failure mode but a real one I'm afraid.