In The Misunderstood World of Product Growth Joe Van Os makes some great points about the importance of focusing on making your product resilient to negative impacts:

Since it is impossible to forecast when positive opportunities will appear, it is important to be in a position to take full advantage of them when they do. If a product team is in fire-fighting mode (dealing with the fallout of negative circumstances), opportunities with plenty of upside may be missed.

Limiting downside (technical debt, red-tape, etc) allows a product or business to quickly recover from negative impacts, as the negative impact will be contained. It is building a tough product.