The most successful start ups and products I've ever had the pleasure of building or working on were complete and utter nightmares as far as modern development methodology is concerned. Heck, I remember when we wrote MyBlogLog we didn't even have source control. The key is to get the product to market as fast as you can. You can fix your process later, you know, when you have more than one employee.
I'm not so sure about that. Speaking as a one-man startup who has moved recently from pre-modern to modern development methodology, using modern techniques like continuous deployment and dvcs (git) pay off pretty quick. Having a one-command deployment, for example, it's a huge time/stress saver when makin bug fixes or small feature changes several times a day.
Oh we had 1 click deployment too. It was FTP. :) That said, Capistrano is an easy way to make deployment much easier/fun/dangerous. I wish we'd had SCM and a deployment tool back in the day, but back then we just... didn't. Instead we had to focus on getting it right the first time, because there was no going back.
On my side projects I use cap+deprec+svn, so I completely understand the appeal. My point is that you don't have to use a bunch of tools, have tests, and/or use modern methods to be successful. Sure, it makes the journey easier, but its certainly no requirement for having a great product.
Yes, 1-click deploy ROCKS. I can't believe how I lived without it, FTP-ing files to a server, updating the code would take like an hour or more, now it's a matter of pressing 1 button and waiting a few minutes.
