The Tech Debt Problem Nobody Talks About in Online Business

Have you ever added a tool “just for now”…
created a workaround…
skipped fixing something because things were mostly working… 
and told yourself you’d clean it up later? 

That might be tech debt. 

And it’s one of the most expensive hidden problems in online business. 

Because tech debt doesn’t usually show up as one giant disaster. 
It shows up as messy systems, random workarounds, duplicated effort, and that constant feeling of… 

“Why is this harder than it should be?” 

Today we’re unpacking what tech debt is, how businesses accidentally create it, and what to do before it becomes a much bigger problem. 

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Transcript

Hook And Why Tech Debt Hurts

Carrie Saunders 0:00

Have you ever added a tool just for now, created a workaround, skipped fixing something because things were mostly working, and told yourself you clean it up later, that might be tech debt for you. And it's one of the most expensive hidden problems in online business that we see a lot because tech debt doesn't usually show up as a giant disaster. It shows up as messy systems, random workarounds, duplicated effort, and that constant feeling of why is this harder than it should be? Today we're unpacking what tech debt is, how businesses accidentally create it, and what to do before it becomes a much bigger problem. Let's dive in.

Welcome To Smarter Online Business

Carrie Saunders 0:39

Struggling to turn website traffic into real sales, you're not alone and you don't have to figure it out all yourself. Welcome to Smarter Online Business, the podcast for course creators, coaches, and e-commerce entrepreneurs who want their websites to convert visitors into buyers without the tech overwhelm. I'm your host, Carrie Saunders, a website strategist and conversion expert with over 20 years of experience. Each episode delivers simple, proven strategies to help you generate more revenue and make your website your smartest sales tool. Welcome back to the show. After over 20 years helping businesses untangle websites, systems, and infrastructure, I can tell you this is one of the sneakiest business killers out there. And it's something most of us don't think about. We even have tech debt here in our own systems because most smart business owners don't create tech debt intentionally. It happens one quick decision at a time.

What Tech Debt Looks Like

Carrie Saunders 1:34

So then let's talk about quickly what is tech debt. What are some examples of what I'm talking about? Tech debt happens when you make short-term technology decisions that create long-term complexity, inefficiency, or future cleanup work. For example, adding a tool because it's fast and easy, duct taping apps together to make them kind of interact. Um, you know, in a sense of we'll fix that later, or keeping outdated systems because migration feels hard. This is a big one that we see a ton. It's something we all fall attrapt to, and you know, we do as well. It can be really hard if you don't keep your systems up to date regularly to do a bigger update migration. It's kind of like home ownership. You ignore that small roof leak because it's manageable until you suddenly are replacing drywall insulation and half the ceiling. But tech debt is really about one bad decision. It's usually a lot of tiny temporary decisions, and that's why this can be very, very sneaky. So some of the reasons this can be very sneaky and really sneak up on you is this shiny object syndrome that can cause tech debt. Buying courses or software with new tool recommendations when you may not need them. Your growth might outpace your systems. You might have multiple people adding tools into your business. You might have DIY fixes that kind of work, but really wasn't the best way to do it. Or outsourcing work without

Real Examples From Client Systems

Carrie Saunders 3:06

overseeing it, without making sure that the people you are outsourcing to are making good technical decisions for the long term of the business. For example, we've seen people have three different email platforms. They may have Zapier connecting over eight different things. They may have spreadsheets replacing actual systems. There are good places for spreadsheets, but not always. They may need to use manual order workflows and it's not automatic. Uh duplicated customer data across their systems. Uh, weird login chaos can happen with tech debt. Many times that's where people come to us first, is they have are they're very overwhelmed and they have a lot of tech debt and they're in a bit of a crisis moment, and we swoop in and help, you know, pull them out of that and get their business back smoothly running again. It's just something we see unfortunately a lot because it's really so easy to do, as I've already explained in here. There was one client that came to us with a brand new WooCommerce site, for example, and they had, I think, over 50 plugins installed into this WooCommerce install, into their you know shopping cart they were transitioning to. And it was just an absolute nightmare. They got hacked. They, you know, their site was super slow because all these plugins were conflicting with each other. We've had other clients come to us with too many plugins and their sites too slow, and we've had to unwind which plugins were causing the site to be super slow. So these plugins are an example of how you can really kind of band-aid things. And I want to also reiterate that fast decisions aren't always bad. What can really cause it to be bad, though, is unreviewed fast decisions. Those can become very expensive. So just quickly band-aiding things is really where it can get you in trouble or not reviewing your systems regularly.

The Costs Money Time Opportunity

Carrie Saunders 5:06

So, what is the real cost of tech debt? This is where it can get really expensive. For example, with money, you may have duplicate subscriptions, you may have software that overlaps in what it can do, and you don't necessarily need both tools, and it can cause expensive fixes later. It can also cost you a lot of time, manual work, it can cause you a lot of time and troubleshooting or paying somebody to troubleshoot for you. It can make your team more inefficient. You may be also missing opportunities. You may have delayed launches because your tech is too busy and you know, duct tape together. You may have broken customer journeys because of it, you might have slower growth because of it, and you also have a higher risk. Like I mentioned, that one client got hacked. So you can have a higher risk of security holes when you're duct taping things together. You may have unsupported software, some of it might be out of so out of date, it's unsupported. You might lose data, you may have integration failures. So tech debt can really hit you in several places: money, time, opportunity, and risk to your business. This is where we get pulled in a lot trying to untangle these spider web masses of a tech, and you know, whether it's somebody gotten hacked, their site's too slow, or it's just not cutting it anymore, and they realize they're in a bit of a crisis situation. And this is where it can get really sneaky because the cost of tech debt is very usually invisible until it isn't, and then it rears its ugly head.

Signs You Might Be Stuck

Carrie Saunders 6:43

So I want you to help you see some signs of what could potentially mean that you have some tech debt. I want you to ask yourself, do you manually move data between systems? Do you forget what tools you paid for? This is something a lot of my business friends do. They audit what tools they're paying for at the beginning of the year, every year, or every six months, just to make sure they understand what they're paying for. Do you avoid updating things because you're afraid they'll break? We have clients that do this a lot. Do you have multiple tools doing similar jobs? This is also something we see very, very commonly. Do you rely on that one person who knows how it all works? Well, that's great to have that one person. We need to also make sure that you know we pass the bus tests. If something happens to one person, is your business going to fall apart? And if you say, don't touch that about part of your tech, those can be really big red flags. You have some tech debt. That's a very hard to say side by side, and that you might need someone to help you unwind that tech debt.

A Practical Plan To Unwind It

Carrie Saunders 7:48

So I want to encourage you that we can probably fix this tech debt without burning the whole thing down. I don't ever want to see a client have to do that. It doesn't mean we need to rebuild everything. So the first step I want you to do is I want you to audit what tools do you actually use versus what ones do you pay for? What tools overlap? I want you to look at how you could consolidate these. What tools overlap here? Document on what software depends on what or what business flow depends upon what tools. And then I want you to prioritize your risk. We want to look at security first and foremost. Having a security issue is one of the biggest costly mistakes we see our clients have. And then I want you to also look at broken systems. What is broken? What's not quite working right? That you, you know, maybe you want to work a little bit better, maybe get customer complaints sometimes on it. And then the third thing on the prioritizing risk is annoyances. That's the third thing. If there's something that's kind of bugging you, inconvenient, that would be the third priority on a risk assessment. And then I want you to build intentionally. New tech must solve a real problem and not add to any of these things we're talking about either. Simpler usually scales better. It's something we've been working with our clients with a lot lately because it's pretty common to have lots of tools here and there. But nowadays it's so much easier to have one system or just a handful of systems that can really gracefully work together to really support your business.

Keep Systems Simple And Get Help

Carrie Saunders 9:22

If this episode seems uncomfortably familiar, it's something, like I said, throughout this episode, we've seen a lot, and I don't want you to feel bad about yourself. It can just happen. Most businesses don't realize they've built this tech debt until growth gets harder. So if you're ever needing help auditing your systems or figuring out what's hurting versus helping, feel free to drop us an email, contact us, just head on over to our podcast show notes website, smarteronlinebusiness.com, to get a hold of us if you need help with any of that. So let's do a quick gut check before we wrap up today. I want you to ask yourself, could your team or you explain your systems and what they do? Do you know what every tool does? Are things harder than they should be? Are you afraid to change anything? Now that last one is got a little bit of caveat. Sometimes that's just normal, but if it's because you things seem to be too duct taped and glued together, then that's a bit of a sign of a deck of a tech debt. So if yes, that means you might have tech debt creeping in. So here's what I love to help our clients with is that we want to make sure that tech makes your business easier, not heavier. If it's feeling like it's making it heavier, then you may have too many systems, or you might need a tech partner to help support you. So if you they feel chaotic, frustrating, or fragile, it is worth paying attention to and it's worth paying attention to sooner than you might think. It's kind of like hiring that first hire. You know you need to do it, but you haven't done it yet. It's it's one of those things along those lines where if you're feeling heavy on your tech, you either probably need to simplify your systems or have somebody that you can call upon that you trust whenever you do have questions on your tech. Because small cleanup now can prevent a very expensive cleanup later. I hope this episode was super helpful for you and helped open your eyes a little bit to what tech tech can be, help you prevent getting in a big messy middle of it, and help you get your systems simplified and working much better for you. And we will see you next week.