[ryandvm]

I believe you, but would the startup even exist if they had spent 2 or 3 times as long developing the MVP?

The reality is that good engineering has higher upfront costs than quick-and-dirty. Sure, it's usually cheaper in the long run, but initially it either takes longer to plan or it takes more expensive engineers to execute. And for a lot of startups, getting that cheap MVP out the door is the only path to additional investment.

I'm all in favor of quality engineering, but I'm also pragmatic enough to realize that sometimes you have to sling a little shit in order to gain the luxury of doing it the right way.

[aahortwwy]

This is the standard rebuttal, but I don't buy it.

> would the startup even exist if they had spent 2 or 3 times as long developing the MVP?

It does not take 2-3 times longer to write good software. Arguably a non-shitty version of our MVP would've actually been faster to develop, because we have a custom web framework, ORM, and build tool when we could've used mature open-source projects in their place.

> it takes more expensive engineers to execute

This is probably true, or perhaps "more carefully selected" (which just means a more expensive recruitment process).