I'm not so sure it's a luxury. Maybe it is if your startup is servicing a group of techies who have knowledge of what problems lay in the background but most cl

I'm not so sure it's a luxury. Maybe it is if your startup is servicing a group of techies who have knowledge of what problems lay in the background but most clients don't know and don't care. It's not that hard to keep up really. It's a question of a day or two of setup and then the hardish part of constant discipline to not take the "easy way out" and poke holes into the segregation you've set up. Mainly it takes a single team lead or CTO or whatever to be really explicit that you just don't break the steps and you'll avoid a LOT of problems. You'll still have problems, problems are inevitable, but in general you'll have mitigated them and with a proper backup and merge procedure you'll minimize downtime.