[holdenc]

Getting from zero to paying one's living expenses is probably the most difficult growth phase of any start-up. In my personal experience, this phase is best funded by technical debt. I suspect this is an unpopular opinion because cleaning up technical debt is no fun. None-the-less, I've seen it over and over -- a quasi-technical founder knows someone willing pay for XYZ, then that person makes it just well enough to work. A company is born, the rent gets paid, and perhaps an acquiring company cleans-up the tech stack.

[raunometsa]

I agree that it's the most difficult growth phase. "Funded by technical debt" is an interesting way to say about building something quickly and well enough to work. Loved it.

[reillychase]

HostiFi was for sure funded by technical debt. I hacked the MVP together on WordPress plugins and Python scripts. That got us to over $1M in ARR then we spent about $100K to rewrite the entire thing and migrate to Laravel PHP and (better) Python scripts.