The difference between a startup and a big company is not just dollars. Making a product in a startup is sort of a process of discovery. In a big company they w

The difference between a startup and a big company is not just dollars. Making a product in a startup is sort of a process of discovery. In a big company they will generally have a pretty well defined picture of what they want. When a startup says they want to do "X", I don't think that is where the big tradeof in code quality versus timeline. The problem comes when you decide you want to do "Y", but your codebase does, or is working towards doing "X". In my experience that is where there are a lot of decisions to make about how soon you get something finished. And in a startup there are a lot of these changes in direction.