I'm not disagreeing that you can make a good product with old tech, but I'd contend that producing a good product and using some of the newer tools are not unrelated, on a number of levels.
I'm not disagreeing that you can make a good product with old tech, but I'd contend that producing a good product and using some of the newer tools are not unrelated, on a number of levels.
There's so many ways for a startup to screw up - marketing, financing, hiring, pure bad luck - without throwing the whole unknown of an unfamiliar language or framework into the mix.
Unless you actually need new tech to solve a specific problem, use what you know.
I also don't think the argument that Java or C# is somehow a worse fit for agile development is valid. Sure, I might be able to get my app out more quickly with Python or Ruby, but long term it's not like I'm adding thousands of lines of code a week. A startup takes a long time to build, if you are still writing a ton of code half a year out and you aren't making revenue, I think you should take a step back from coding and focus on business development.
I think agile development is hindered or bolstered by your tools (using git instead of svn, for example) more than the language you write your program in.