http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt Note that the first cause listed (At the time of writing) is business p

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_debt Note that the first cause listed (At the time of writing) is business pressure. This happens quite often. Sometimes you have to produce slop code to get anything out the door at all. As an example; this whole demo is a hack of the worst sort: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_y3cbIV-Xg http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K_y3cbIV-Xg There was a series of posts on the Bungie website about the development of halo2 outlining just how hackish this thing was. http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99883-Halo-2s-Development-Was-a-Gigantic-Mess http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/99883-Halo-2s-Deve... And some interviews. For the sake of disclosure, I've never done a startup. But if I've been reading the right authors than the right thing to do in this situation is to go ahead with it and fix it later once you're off the ground. EDIT: I also like jeffbcross's advice if that is at all possible.