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Startup Development Best Practices
Startups need to move fast while building products users actually want—and doing it before runway runs out. GitScrum provides just enough process structure for small teams without enterprise overhead, with features like MVP tracking, rapid iteration support, and lightweight sprint management. The key is knowing when to take shortcuts and when to invest in foundations.
Startup Stages
| Stage | Focus | Dev Approach |
|---|---|---|
| Pre-PMF | Validate quickly | Speed over polish |
| Finding PMF | Learn and iterate | Balance speed/quality |
| Post-PMF | Scale reliably | Invest in foundations |
| Growth | Sustainable scale | Process and quality |
Development Philosophy
STARTUP DEVELOPMENT PRINCIPLES
SPEED WITH INTENTION:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Move fast, but know where you're cutting │
│ │
│ ✓ Intentional trade-offs: │
│ ├── "We're skipping tests here because..." │
│ ├── "This is temporary until we validate..." │
│ └── "We'll refactor after we learn..." │
│ │
│ ✗ Unintentional debt: │
│ ├── "We'll fix it later" (forgotten) │
│ ├── "Nobody will notice" (they will) │
│ └── "It works" (barely) │
│ │
│ Track intentional debt, schedule payback │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
LEARNING OVER BUILDING:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Pre-PMF: Fastest path to learning wins │
│ │
│ Before building: │
│ ├── Can we validate with mockups? │
│ ├── Can we use no-code tools? │
│ ├── Can we do a manual version first? │
│ └── What's the minimum to test the hypothesis? │
│ │
│ Build only what you need to learn │
│ Don't build features, build experiments │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
MVP Development
MVP APPROACH
MINIMUM VIABLE PRODUCT:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Viable = Solves one problem well enough │
│ │
│ Define the core value: │
│ ├── What is the ONE thing users must do? │
│ ├── What makes us different? │
│ └── What can we cut without losing value? │
│ │
│ MVP Scope: │
│ ├── Core feature: Must have │
│ ├── Auth: Simple (email or OAuth) │
│ ├── Payment: Use Stripe (don't build) │
│ ├── UI: Functional, not beautiful │
│ └── Mobile: Responsive web, not native app │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
MVP QUALITY INVESTMENTS:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Worth investing in (even pre-PMF): │
│ ├── CI/CD: Deploy multiple times per day │
│ ├── Monitoring: Know when things break │
│ ├── Core path tests: Auth, payment, main flow │
│ ├── Data integrity: Can't lose customer data │
│ └── Security basics: No obvious vulnerabilities│
│ │
│ OK to skip (pre-PMF): │
│ ├── Perfect code architecture │
│ ├── Comprehensive test coverage │
│ ├── Performance optimization │
│ ├── Edge case handling │
│ └── Documentation │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Architecture Decisions
STARTUP ARCHITECTURE
SIMPLE DEFAULTS:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Start with: │
│ ├── Monolith (not microservices) │
│ ├── Single database (not distributed) │
│ ├── Standard framework (not custom) │
│ ├── Managed services (not self-hosted) │
│ └── Third-party tools (not build your own) │
│ │
│ Why: Fewer moving parts, faster iteration, │
│ easier to change when you learn more │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
BUILD VS BUY:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Buy (SaaS/API) when: │
│ ├── Not your core differentiator │
│ ├── Proven solutions exist │
│ ├── Time-to-market matters │
│ └── Team lacks expertise │
│ │
│ Common "buy" decisions: │
│ ├── Auth: Auth0, Clerk, Firebase │
│ ├── Payments: Stripe │
│ ├── Email: SendGrid, Postmark │
│ ├── Hosting: Vercel, Railway, Render │
│ └── Monitoring: Datadog, Sentry │
│ │
│ Build only your unique value proposition │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
EVOLVING ARCHITECTURE:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Stage 1 (0-10 users): │
│ └── Simple stack, deploy to PaaS │
│ │
│ Stage 2 (10-1000 users): │
│ └── Add caching, optimize obvious bottlenecks │
│ │
│ Stage 3 (1000-10K users): │
│ └── Scale vertically, add redundancy │
│ │
│ Stage 4 (10K+ users): │
│ └── Consider splitting services, horizontal │
│ │
│ Don't optimize for Stage 4 at Stage 1 │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Team and Process
STARTUP TEAM PRACTICES
SMALL TEAM EFFICIENCY:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ With 1-3 engineers: │
│ ├── Minimal process overhead │
│ ├── Direct communication (no tickets for tiny) │
│ ├── Shared ownership of everything │
│ ├── Pair when stuck, async when flowing │
│ └── Ship daily or more │
│ │
│ As you grow to 5-10: │
│ ├── Add lightweight process │
│ ├── Weekly planning sessions │
│ ├── Simple task tracking │
│ ├── Code review (not just merging) │
│ └── Document decisions │
│ │
│ Scale process with team, not before │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
HIRING APPROACH:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Early stage priorities: │
│ ├── Generalists over specialists │
│ ├── Ship fast over deep expertise │
│ ├── Comfort with ambiguity │
│ ├── Self-directed learners │
│ └── Will do whatever it takes │
│ │
│ As you scale: │
│ ├── Add specialists for specific needs │
│ ├── Senior hires to mentor and scale │
│ └── Process people when you need process │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Feature Development
FEATURE DEVELOPMENT APPROACH
EXPERIMENT-DRIVEN:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ For each feature, define: │
│ │
│ Hypothesis: │
│ "We believe [feature] will cause [outcome]" │
│ │
│ Validation: │
│ "We'll measure [metric] and expect [result]" │
│ │
│ Timeline: │
│ "We'll learn within [timeframe]" │
│ │
│ Exit criteria: │
│ "We'll keep/kill/iterate based on [data]" │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
FEATURE FLAGS:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Use feature flags for: │
│ ├── New features (gradual rollout) │
│ ├── Experiments (A/B testing) │
│ ├── Risky changes (quick rollback) │
│ └── Enterprise features (customer-specific) │
│ │
│ Benefits: │
│ ├── Ship to main without risk │
│ ├── Test with subset of users │
│ ├── Roll back in seconds │
│ └── Decouple deploy from release │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
SAYING NO:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Startups die from doing too much, not too less │
│ │
│ Before adding a feature: │
│ ├── Does it validate a core hypothesis? │
│ ├── Do multiple users ask for it? │
│ ├── Is it on the critical path? │
│ └── What won't we do if we do this? │
│ │
│ Default answer is "no" or "later" │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Technical Debt Strategy
MANAGING TECH DEBT
ACCEPTABLE DEBT (PRE-PMF):
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ OK to defer: │
│ ├── Perfect code structure │
│ ├── Comprehensive testing │
│ ├── Performance optimization │
│ ├── Edge case handling │
│ └── Documentation │
│ │
│ NOT OK to skip: │
│ ├── Security basics │
│ ├── Data integrity │
│ ├── Core path reliability │
│ └── Deployment automation │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
DEBT TRACKING:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Keep a "debt ledger": │
│ │
│ Debt Item Impact When to Fix │
│ ────────────────────────────────────────── │
│ No tests for auth High If auth changes │
│ Manual deploy DB Medium At 10 deploys/wk │
│ Hardcoded config Low When we scale │
│ N+1 queries Medium At 1K users │
│ │
│ Review monthly, prioritize when triggered │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
WHEN TO PAY DEBT:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Pay now when: │
│ ├── It's slowing down daily work │
│ ├── Bugs are increasing │
│ ├── Onboarding takes > 1 week │
│ ├── You've found product-market fit │
│ └── Scaling is imminent │
│ │
│ Post-PMF: Allocate 20% to debt paydown │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Monitoring and Learning
STARTUP MONITORING
ESSENTIAL MONITORING:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Application: │
│ ├── Error tracking (Sentry) │
│ ├── Uptime monitoring │
│ └── Basic performance metrics │
│ │
│ Business: │
│ ├── Key user actions (events) │
│ ├── Conversion funnel │
│ └── Engagement metrics │
│ │
│ Infrastructure: │
│ └── PaaS usually handles this │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
LEARNING FROM PRODUCTION:
┌─────────────────────────────────────────────────┐
│ Track user behavior: │
│ ├── What features are used? │
│ ├── Where do users drop off? │
│ ├── What errors do users hit? │
│ └── What do users search for (and not find)? │
│ │
│ Weekly review: │
│ ├── Top errors this week │
│ ├── Feature usage stats │
│ └── User feedback themes │
│ │
│ Let data guide feature priority │
└─────────────────────────────────────────────────┘
Best Practices
- Validate before building — learning over coding
- Ship small, ship often — daily deploys if possible
- Buy don't build for non-core features
- Start simple — monolith, single DB, managed services
- Track intentional debt — know what you're deferring
- Monitor from day one — know when things break
- Use feature flags — decouple deploy from release
- Scale process with team — not ahead of it
Anti-Patterns
✗ Building perfect architecture pre-PMF
✗ Microservices for a 3-person team
✗ Building auth/payments from scratch
✗ No monitoring until "later"
✗ Heavy process with 2 engineers
✗ Never paying down debt