Good Enough Is a Strategy

"Your competitors aren't building perfect code either. If you spend 6 months building the theoretically perfect architecture, they'll ship something "good enough" in 2 months and eat your lunch. You'll have beautiful code that nobody uses. Tech debt is the cost of moving fast enough to win. The biggest risk in software isn't technical debt-it's being irrelevant. Markets move fast. User needs evolve. Competitors iterate. While you're refactoring for the third time to achieve "clean architecture," your competitor is talking to users, learning what actually matters, and shipping features that solve real problems."

"'Good enough' doesn't mean sloppy. It means understanding what matters right now versus what might matter later. You need code that works reliably for your current users and can evolve as you learn more. You don't need code that handles edge cases for users you don't have yet or scales to traffic you're not seeing. Tech debt gets a bad reputation, but it's just a tradeoff. You're trading future refactoring work for faster learning today."

"Never ship insecure code. Never ship code that could lose user data. Never ship code you know is broken. The key is being intentional. Take on debt when it accelerates learning. Avoid it when it creates real risk. Shipping fast gives you options. You learn what users actually want versus what you think they want. You pivot based on real feedback versus theoretical product requirements. You build momentum versus getting stuck in analysis paralysis. Perfect code locks you into decisions before you have enough information to make them."

Moving quickly and accepting intentional technical debt enables faster learning, earlier user feedback, and competitive advantage. Perfect architecture delays delivery and risks irrelevance while competitors ship usable features and learn from users. 'Good enough' code should be reliable for current users and designed to evolve, not trying to pre-solve every edge case or future scale. Avoid debt that creates real risk, especially security or data-loss issues, and avoid knowingly shipping broken code. Once product-market fit and scale demands emerge, slow down to refactor and strengthen foundations. Build for early users first, then optimize for larger scale based on validated demand.

Read at trevorlasn.com