"Write clean code. You'll thank yourself later."
So I tested it. 70 startup codebases. 146 funding rounds.
Messy code + fast shipping = 60.6% funded.
Cleanest codebases = 44.4%.
Speed beat perfection - at least when capital was cheap.
Full analysis & data: bytevagabond.com/post/technic...
An empirical study of 70 VC-backed companies reveals that technical debt doesn't slow startups down, and the 'move fast and break things' crowd was right all along — at least during the ZIRP era.
