The Platform vs Product Tension in a Growing Startup
The fintech startup hit the platform question about eighteen months in. We had product-market fit, we were growing, and the engineering team was doubling every six months. The systems that had worked at ten engineers were showing strain at twenty-five. The question became: dedicate engineering time to platform work, or keep all capacity on product features? This is a hard question. The people who get it right aren’t smarter — they’re clearer about what they’re actually trading off. ...