When we talk about startup delays, most people think of the obvious ones:

A nasty bug you can’t squash
Technical debt that keeps piling up
Or feature creep that never lets you ship

But in reality, the hardest delays don’t always come from your codebase. They come from things you never thought you’d waste time on.

For me, that roadblock was something as “boring” as payments.

The Day Payments Took Down My Launch

I was using Replicate, an AI infrastructure platform, and one day my account got disabled because a payment failed.

No big deal, right? I thought it was because I didn’t have enough money in my account. So I quickly added funds and retried. Still failed.

Then I tried again. And again. Nothing worked.

At that point, I thought maybe it was my bank. So I went a step further — I actually ordered a new debit card from another bank account. I was convinced that would solve it.

Weeks went by. My product launch was stalled. And I was still staring at the same “reattempting charge” error.

The Real Culprit

Turns out, the problem wasn’t my funds. It wasn’t my card either.

The issue was India’s e-mandate regulations.

If you’ve never dealt with them, here’s the short version:

Most Indian banks require strict pre-approval for every recurring online payment.
This isn’t a choice; it’s an RBI rule.
The system is clunky, and not all international SaaS companies support it.

So even though I had money ready to go, the charge couldn’t pass through because Replicate didn’t support that flow.

And support? Well, I reached out, but the only response I got was: “We’re moving to prepaid soon.” Helpful? Not really.

The Lesson

This entire mess cost me weeks of progress. Not because I couldn’t code fast enough. Not because I didn’t know how to build. But because of something as silly (and critical) as a payment failure.

Here’s what I realized:

The biggest roadblocks in startups aren’t always the ones you’re told to prepare for.

No one warns you about fighting with banks, payment processors, or government regulations. But these are the hidden battles that quietly delay launches and test your patience.

The Bigger Picture

Every founder dreams of spending their time on the “fun stuff”:

Writing code
Talking to users
Shipping features
Iterating fast

But the reality is, you’ll spend just as much time on the “boring” stuff:

Setting up banking correctly
Making sure billing systems don’t break
Arguing with support teams
Navigating local regulations

These problems don’t show up in startup handbooks or founder podcasts. Yet they’re the ones that can quietly eat weeks of your timeline.

Final Thought

Code is the fun part.
Shipping is the exciting part.

But surviving the boring, frustrating, invisible problems — that’s what really builds resilience as a founder.

If you’re building in India (or any country with complex banking rules), brace yourself. The hardest bugs to fix might not live in your codebase.

Sometimes, they live in your payment rails.

The Hidden Startup Delays Nobody Talks About