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You’re moving fast.
You’ve got a vision, a deadline, and a shoestring budget.
There’s no CTO, no senior architect but just you, maybe a dev or two, and a product you need to get out the door.
So you build.
You ship.
It works.
It validates.
It’s a win.
Until… it isn’t.
MVP Launch
When “Just Make It Work” Comes Back to Bite You
It starts small: a feature request that should take an hour ends up breaking half your product.
Changing pricing logic sends your developers into a week-long rewrite spiral.
A “quick” dashboard takes three weeks.
Sound familiar?
We hear this from early-stage founders every single week.
Here’s the uncomfortable truth:
It’s not bad code that kills MVP momentum. It’s rushed architecture.
What’s Really Going Wrong?
Most MVPs are built like duct-taped demos that are impressive enough to show off, but not built to evolve.
Here’s what typically gets skipped in the early rush:
- Architecture decisions
- Data modeling
- Separation of concerns
- Test strategy Instead, the dev team is told: “Just make it work.”
And it does work until the product needs to grow. That’s when the pain starts.
3 Red Flags That Your Architecture Is Slowing You Down
1. Small Change = Full Rewrite
If a minor new feature requires major surgery, your system isn’t modular. You’re replacing code instead of extending it.
2. New Developers Need Weeks to Ramp Up
If your codebase feels like a maze, it slows down hiring, increases bugs, and adds cost.
3. You Can’t Test Without Hitting Production
No testing = no confidence.
If you’re scared to deploy, you’ve built a trap and not a product.
How to Avoid the “Rebuild Trap” from Day One
You don’t need a full-blown engineering team or fancy infrastructure to build it right the first time. You just need a few guiding principles:
1. Use Opinionated Frameworks
Frameworks like Next.js, NestJS, or Ruby on Rails come with built-in structure. They help enforce good habits when no CTO is steering the ship.
2. Separate Business Logic from UI
Even if it’s a small MVP, don’t hardcode logic into your front end. A clean separation now saves months later.
3. Spend a Day or Two Designing Your Data Models
It may feel like a delay, but well-thought-out models prevent massive rework later.
4. Ask This Before You Ship Any Feature:
“Can we add this feature without touching anything else?”
If the answer is no, your architecture needs attention.
What Happens When You Get It Right?
“We wasted 4 months rewriting our onboarding flow just to add a new pricing tier.
After switching to a modular setup using Better Software’s architecture checklist, we started shipping features in days, not weeks.”
— Founder, Pre-Seed SaaS Startup (YC W23)
Build Smart from the Start
Your MVP shouldn’t be a dead-end prototype. It should be a launchpad.
That doesn’t mean gold-plating every feature or over-engineering early. But it does mean thinking a step ahead.
If you’re in the early stages of product development, take the time to:
- Choose opinionated frameworks that enforce structure
- Separate business logic from your UI
- Design your data models with scalability in mind A few thoughtful decisions upfront can save you months or even years of painful rewrites later.
Before writing your next feature, ask yourself:
“Will this still work when I need to scale?”
If the answer isn’t clear, it’s worth slowing down now to go faster later.
To read the original article, please visit the post on Medium. Learn more about our work at BettrSW.
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