La Startup
Where Code Betrays, Lovers Lie & $15M Disappears
FinPulso raised $15 million to revolutionize Colombia's payment sector. Six months later, the codebase is chaos, the lead developer has vanished, and the CEO is hiding the truth from investors.
Because the code doesn't lie. But people do.
For founders, CTOs, and lead engineers dealing with delivery unpredictability, burnout, and release risk.
What You'll Learn
- Trunk-Based Development & CI: How continuous small changes eliminate integration friction and reduce merge conflicts
- Test-Driven Development: Why writing tests first forces design clarity and prevents brittle architectures
- Bus Factor: The real cost of knowledge concentration and why expertise must be distributed
- Technical Debt: How velocity pressure creates shortcuts that compound into paralysis
- Sustainable Pace: Why perpetual crisis mode leads to burnout, attrition, and delivery collapse
- Deployment Frequency: The relationship between release risk and deployment rhythm
- Outcome-Based Work: Moving from feature factories to validated business outcomes
Each episode demonstrates these patterns through dramatic storytelling. The telenovela format makes complex concepts memorable — but the engineering lessons are real.
The Characters
Don Hernando
The Patriarch
Alejo Vega
The Villain
Sebastián
The Dreamer
Diego Vargas
The Genius
Isabella
The Heart
Luciana
The Traitor
Camila
The Rising Star
Stefan Richter
The Developer Advocate
Marco
The Italian Seducer
Pipe
The Survivor
Laura
The Keeper of Secrets
Mariana Ríos
The Investor
Episodes
El Pitch Perfecto
December 25, 2025Champagne flows on a Bogotá rooftop as FinPulso celebrates its $15 million Series A. Six months later, the dream has become a nightmare. The lead d...
La Nueva
January 01, 2026Don Hernando hires a German specialist to fix FinPulso's technical crisis. But Stefan Richter doesn't arrive with solutions — he arrives with quest...
Los Secretos del Código
January 08, 2026Stefan receives production credentials from an anonymous source — Diego, watching from the shadows. What he discovers goes beyond technical debt: f...
Fantasmas del Sprint
January 15, 2026The emergency board meeting convenes, but Alejo arrives prepared with a counter-attack that threatens to unravel everything. As accusations fly, a ...
El Demo Day
January 22, 2026With Alejo removed and Diego back, FinPulso seems poised for recovery. But Mariana announces she's bringing partners from her São Paulo fund for an...
Cenizas
January 29, 2026The demo disaster has left FinPulso in ruins. Mariana convenes the board for a final decision: invest more or cut losses. Stefan presents a radical...
Desde Cero
February 05, 2026The recovery is underway. Pair programming fills the office. Tests turn green. Deployments happen daily. But transformation breeds resistance, and ...
Engineering Lessons (Patterns Behind the Drama)
Every dramatic scene demonstrates a real pattern. Here's what the story actually teaches.
Don't Miss an Episode
New drama every week. Subscribe and follow FinPulso's fate.
🌳 Trunk-Based Development & CI
Diego's missing documentation reveals a codebase built on continuous small changes. Stefan demonstrates how trunk-based development eliminates integration friction — but only when the whole team commits to it.
🧪 Test-Driven Development
Stefan's pairing sessions with Camila show TDD as a design tool, not just testing. Writing tests first forces clarity about what code should do before implementation begins.
🚌 Bus Factor & Knowledge Distribution
Diego's disappearance exposes FinPulso's critical vulnerability: knowledge concentrated in one person. The team's scramble demonstrates why expertise must be shared through pairing and documentation.
📊 Technical Debt & Architecture
Alejo's pressure for feature velocity created shortcuts that compounded over time. Speed without sustainability leads to paralysis — every new feature becomes harder to add.
⚡ Sustainable Pace
Pipe's burnout, Camila's near-collapse, and Diego's flight illustrate the cost of perpetual crisis mode. Sustainable delivery requires rhythm, not heroics.
🚀 Deployment Frequency & Risk
Stefan introduces the concept that deploying more frequently — with smaller changes — reduces risk. The team's fear of releases stems from accumulating large batches of untested changes.
💡 Intrinsic Motivation
Camila's transformation from code-factory worker to engaged engineer shows what happens when developers understand the "why" behind their work. Autonomy, mastery, and purpose drive better outcomes.
📈 Observable Signals vs. Status Reports
Stefan shifts the conversation from status meetings to measurable signals: lead time, deployment frequency, defect escape rate. Real progress shows up in production, not PowerPoint.
🎭 The Cost of Methodology Theater
Marco's Agile ceremonies exist without the underlying technical practices. Rituals without engineering discipline create the illusion of progress while masking dysfunction.
👁️ Ownership & Accountability
Don Hernando's hands-off trust in Alejo allowed fiction to replace reality. Accountability requires visibility into actual system behavior, not reassuring narratives.
Behind the Scenes
Exclusive glimpses of our cast on and off set — from Bogotá streets to candid moments between takes
🎩 Don Hernando — The Patriarch
🦊 Alejo Vega — The Villain
💭 Sebastián Duarte — The Dreamer
🧠 Diego Vargas — The Genius
❤️ Isabella Moreno — The Heart
🗡️ Luciana Ortiz — The Traitor
⭐ Camila Torres — The Rising Star
🇩🇪 Stefan Richter — The Developer Advocate
🇮🇹 Marco Benedetti — The Italian Seducer
💪 Pipe — The Survivor
🔐 Laura Méndez — The Keeper of Secrets
💰 Mariana Ríos — The Investor
🛠️ Ricardo Bermúdez — The Backend Veteran
About This Series
La Startup is a serialized fiction that uses the format of a Latin American telenovela to explore real challenges in software delivery: knowledge silos, technical debt, the gap between demos and reality, burnout, and the politics that undermine engineering excellence.
Each episode introduces concepts familiar to anyone who has worked in software — bus factor, continuous integration, sustainable pace — through characters you’ll love, hate, and root for.
The story is fiction. The dysfunction is all too real.