The original headline is: "Technical Debt in SaaS Companies: Why It's a Runway Problem, Not a Code Problem"

Short summary

Technical debt in SaaS compounds silently as sprint velocity declines, surfacing during fundraising or acquisitions—often shaving millions off deal value. Three root causes persist: MVPs built for today not tomorrow, no clear ownership of codebase health, and inability to quantify debt's cost relative to new features. Use 'effective engineering capacity' (healthy: 60-70%, unhealthy: <40%) to measure debt's impact and make financial cases for paying it down.

• •Technical debt surfaces most painfully during M&A due diligence and fundraising, not during normal operations
• •Three root causes: architecture built for MVP not scale, no clear ownership of codebase health, inability to monetize debt reduction
• •Measure impact using 'effective engineering capacity'—healthy teams allocate 60-70% to new value, unhealthy teams <40%

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