The real startup killer isn't product — it's building infrastructure from scratch.

There's a pattern I've seen repeat a few times over 20 years building software systems in both startup and enterprise environments. Most early-stage teams believe they are building a product. In reality, they are building two things at once: Their actual product An internal platform they didn't intend to build And the second one quietly consumes man-years of engineering time. The hidden tax on early-stage teams At some point, every startup hits the same phase: The MVP works The first customers a