The Long Shelf Life of Software
Startups are often seduced by the mantra of “move fast and break things.” In good times, when capital is cheap and customers are forgiving of bugs, rapid iteration appears to be the only viable option. But downturns tell a different story. When the air gets thin, what keeps a company alive isn’t how fast it shipped, but whether the code it built actually lasts.
Durable code is like infrastructure. It’s the plumbing and wiring that keep a city livable long after the mayor who ordered it is gone. Founders who treat their software like disposable experiment material forget that software compounds. Every line written is either an asset or a liability. The shelf life of that code, the ability to survive, evolve, and serve customers years down the road, becomes a competitive moat when new money dries up.
Disposable vs. Durable Code
A throwaway prototype can get you through a demo day. It will not get you through a recession. Startups often mistake hacky velocity for progress. The cost shows up later, in the form of bugs that slow growth, ballooning infrastructure bills, or engineers spending months untangling spaghetti instead of building new value.
Durable code doesn’t mean over-engineering. It means writing with the expectation that the system will outlive the current market cycle. Think in terms of;
- Clear boundaries: where it makes sense, prefer modular systems instead of one monolith of hacks.
- Documentation: so institutional knowledge isn’t trapped in one developer’s head.
- Tests: not as bureaucracy, but as insurance.
In downturns, the teams that can continue shipping without constantly rewriting win.
The Economic Angle
Rapid iteration burns cash. Durable systems save it. When you’re flush with VC money, you can afford to pay down technical debt later. When funding tightens, “later” becomes “never.”
Downturns expose which startups are built on brittle codebases that can’t adapt without massive rewrites. Investors look at the runway. Customers look at reliability. Both punish fragility. Software that lasts becomes a quiet but powerful differentiator: lower burn, higher trust, slower decay.
- Basecamp never chased growth at all costs. Their philosophy of simple, maintainable software gave them staying power through multiple cycles.
- GitHub started as a side project but invested early in strong foundations—version control and collaboration at the core. Even as it scaled, the product remained dependable enough to attract millions before acquisition.
In contrast to many “move fast” darlings of the 2010s, who collapsed under technical debt once investor patience wore thin. Some became case studies in a state of perpetual revision.
The Founder’s Perspective
As a founder, your job isn’t just to ship quickly. It’s to ensure that what you build today can still generate value five years from now. Every downturn is a reminder that you might have to live with your early choices far longer than you planned.
Durable code has compounding benefits. Most importantly, it buys you time. In a downturn, time is survival.
- Reduces future hiring needs by lowering maintenance load.
- Keeps morale higher by sparing engineers from constant firefighting.
- Improves customer retention through reliability.
Startups that treat code as disposable may look fast, but they’re sprinting toward fragility. Startups that write for durability build antifragile systems that outlast capital cycles. The long shelf life of software is not about perfection. It’s about respecting that what you build today may need to carry you through tomorrow’s storm.
When the market turns hostile, code that lasts becomes the founder’s best friend.