To be fair, some of the "bloat" can be the fault of developers who wants to use the latest framework that requires a lot of time to learn how to use correctly.

To be fair, some of the "bloat" can be the fault of developers who wants to use the latest framework that requires a lot of time to learn how to use correctly. New frameworks also often has bugs, issues and poor 3rd party support. I'm not against learning new tech as part of the job, as it can be a motivating factor for the developers. At the same time we can't ignore that for a startup, it is probably better to use a known technology so that they don't end up fighting the framework as their needs grow beyond the basic tutorial/blog post Here's a suggestion: If someone finds themselves sending multiple patches to the framework or implementing missing database libraries, they may have chosen the wrong framework/language. It can be very motivating, but the time could have been spent on improving the product.