I've learned that in the early stages of building anything, speed is your most valuable asset. Not because you need to rush, but because the faster you can test assumptions, the faster you can learn what actually works.
This isn't about cutting corners or shipping broken things. It's about understanding that perfect is the enemy of good enough when you're still figuring out what "good enough" even means.
Speed Over Polish
In early-stage ventures, the ability to move quickly and test assumptions matters far more than having everything perfectly polished. The market will tell you what's right faster than any planning session.
Time is the Real Currency
Every day spent perfecting something that might not work is a day you could have spent learning what actually does. Early-stage is about learning velocity, not perfection.
Focus on Signal, Not Noise
When resources are limited, you need to distinguish between what feels important and what actually moves the needle. Speed helps you find that signal faster.
Iteration Beats Planning
No business plan survives first contact with customers. The faster you can iterate based on real feedback, the better your chances of building something people actually want.
The Speed Paradox
The irony is that moving fast often feels slower at first. You're constantly changing direction, throwing away work, starting over. But this apparent inefficiency is actually the fastest path to something that works.
The alternative, planning everything perfectly before building, rarely works because you can't plan for what you don't know. And in early-stage ventures, you don't know most of what matters.
A Personal Note
I've been on both sides of this, projects where we moved too slowly trying to get everything right, and projects where we moved fast and learned quickly. The difference is night and day.
Speed isn't about rushing. It's about creating more opportunities to learn, more chances to pivot, more time to find what actually works. In early-stage building, that's everything.
Exploring new ideas? Me too.
I’m always curious about early-stage projects, especially the ones that move fast, test early, and aim to solve something real.