# Effective Technical Documentation for Startups
Most startup founders hate documentation. I get it. When you have a small team and need to ship features fast, writing instructions feels like a waste of time. But then comes the moment when a new developer spends three days trying to set up the local environment, and your CTO goes on vacation while nobody knows how to deploy a critical fix.
# Documentation Audit for Startups
Let's start with an honest conversation with yourself. Open your GitHub, corporate drive, or Notion. Look at what you have there. Most likely, you'll see a bunch of half-written README files, a couple of outdated Confluence pages, and that "Important Information" document that nobody has opened in six months.
Instead of doing a perfect audit, just talk to your team. Ask everyone: "What annoys you most about our current documentation?" The answers will be painfully specific. One person will mention API documentation with examples that don't work. Another will bring up deployment processes described so confusingly they seem like some voodoo ritual.
The worst documentation is often not what's missing, but what exists but is outdated. A new person spends hours trying to follow instructions that stopped working three months ago. So before creating anything new, delete everything that's definitely not current.
Technical documentation should cover the basics: how to set up the dev environment (and what to do when something goes wrong), how your architecture works overall, where to look for logs when everything crashes. If a new developer can become productive in a day without asking colleagues every 10 minutes, your technical documentation is fine.
Business processes are harder to document because they constantly change. But at least the critical stuff should be described: how we interact with customers during problems, who's responsible for what, how the decision-making process works. This is especially important for remote teams where you can't just walk over and ask.
User documentation is often the most neglected, especially in B2B products. Founders think: "Our clients are smart, they'll figure it out." No, they won't. Or they will, but they'll write you an angry email about how confusing your product is.
# Documentation Specifics for Different Types of Startups
SaaS companies live and die by the quality of their API documentation. If a developer can't understand how to integrate your product in 15 minutes, they'll go to competitors. Complex technical writing standards don't work here. Simple code examples that can be copied and run do work.
E-commerce projects have completely different specifics. Operational processes are critical there. What to do with returns, how to handle disputed payments, procedures for different shipping countries. If this doesn't exist, every new case becomes a headache for the entire team.
The most interesting are regulated industries. Fintech, medtech, gambling - documentation there isn't nice-to-have, it's a survival requirement. Example: gambling sites without [GamStop](https://www.vso.org.uk/) operate outside the UK's self-exclusion system, creating tons of specific compliance requirements. You need to document not just technical processes, but responsible gambling policies, user verification procedures, complaint handling. One undocumented process can cost you a license.
B2B services have their own pain - SLA and expectations management. Clients should clearly understand what they're getting for their money and what happens if something goes wrong. Here documentation becomes part of the product, not just an internal tool.
# MVP Documentation
When time is short but you need to get a lot done, start with what gives maximum impact. First candidate is the README file of your main repository. Not that skimpy README with just the project name and one line description, but a real getting started guide.
A good README answers three questions for a new developer: what this is, how to run it, who to contact if something doesn't work. That's it. Don't write the project's history or philosophical thoughts about architecture. Just working instructions.
API documentation comes second if you have external integrations. Start with one or two most popular endpoints. Make working examples for them that can be copied into Postman and immediately get results. You'll add the rest later.
Onboarding instructions save incredible amounts of time. You don't need to write a 20-page manual. A simple instruction is enough: what to install, which accounts to create, first task for self-verification. Every hour a new employee doesn't spend asking questions is a productive hour for the entire team.
Deployment instructions are critical for any team larger than two people. Even if you have a fancy CI/CD pipeline, there should still be instructions for manual deployment in case of problems. And definitely rollback procedures - when everything's on fire, nobody will think about logic.
Customer support knowledge base forms gradually. Start by documenting the most frequent customer questions. Every time a support agent solves an unusual problem, ask them to add the solution to the base. In a couple of months you'll have a solid foundation for helping new customers quickly.
# Tools and Workflows
Choosing a tool is a question of workflows, not technology. If your team lives in GitHub, GitBook or README files will be the most natural choice. If all discussion happens in Slack, Notion will be more convenient.
Confluence is popular in large companies for a reason - it integrates with Jira and has good collaboration features. But for a small team it might be excessive. Notion is easier to set up and more flexible for different types of content.
Main rule: documentation should live where it will be read and updated. If developers spend all their time in IDE, API docs are better generated from code comments. If product managers work in separate tools, they'll find a separate wiki more convenient.
Automation makes sense only for documentation that changes frequently. API endpoints, database schema, deployment procedures - these are good candidates. User guides, onboarding materials, process documentation are better updated manually when there are real changes.
# Keeping It Current
The biggest problem isn't creating documentation, it's maintaining it. Every team plans to update docs regularly, but in reality this only happens when someone new comes and complains about outdated instructions.
A simple rule works: every feature or process change should include documentation update as part of definition of done. Not as an additional task, but as a mandatory part of the work. Just like code review or testing.
If documentation doesn't get updated along with code, it's dead. Better to have three current pages than thirty outdated ones.