The old stereotype says that startups are born in garages and dorm rooms. This is still true, but there is a newer path: starting a startup as a part of scaling.
When you do this, you have the speed of a seed-stage team with the leverage of an established company. Managers and investors needs to be interested in this because this model can unlock latest product lines, retain revenues and retain talent without having to recreate the wheel.
This is how we built SailyeSIM travel service launched from inside Nord security (company for NordVPN). In 19 weeks, a seven-person team went from a blank page to a working product. Just over a yr later, we expanded to tens of millions of users, offering plans in over 200 locations. We didn’t invent every thing from scratch. We reused what worked and quickly checked every thing else.
Incubation reduces two risks that the majority founders underestimate
Every latest product faces two existential risks: market and execution.
Inside Nord, I helped launch at least half a dozen latest products before Saily. The pattern was consistent: great ideas die when they are targeted at the incorrect market or under-executed. With Saily, timelines and infrastructure were aligned: eSIM demand was accelerating, the pain points were clear, and we were able to leverage Nord’s backend, payments, application and distribution teams.
This allowed us to run at launch speed without launch fragility.
“Product Organization Alignment” is a great idea
Founders are obsessed with product-market fit. When scaling, you furthermore may need what I call “product organization alignment,” which is coverage of the latest product and what your organization already does well.
When worker overlap is high, you ship faster, hire smarter, and avoid costly retraining. In Saily’s case, the overlap was obvious: we knew security technologies (virtual location, network protection, and ad blocking) and app development knowledge that we could leverage for on-the-go connectivity.
Competition helped greater than it hurt. “No competition” normally means “no demand.” We treated competition like free market research, reading hiring signals, product movements and financing announcements to understand where the market was heading.
And we made security a product, not a function. Travelers don’t desire one other app – they need reliable connectivity that won’t dangerous on unknown networks. Building privacy and protection into the network layer means security works across the entire phone, without any tinkering.
Autonomy inside the structure
The hardest part is not technical, but cultural. Large firms operate on a process basis. Startups operate on autonomy. We built Saily as a company inside a company: a dedicated product and marketing team with rapid decision-making and shared services (legal, financial and design) when needed. Think of it as an internal accelerator where the platform handles overhead so the team can focus on products.
We kept one rhythm: send, learn, repeat. These 19 weeks weren’t about perfection, but about launching a useful product and gathering feedback.
Experimentation only works when you measure what matters: speed, unit economics, and retention. For example, independent third-party testing has confirmed that blocking Saily ads at the network level reduces data usage by 28.6%, which suggests real money savings for travelers. This is a signal that needs to be doubled. If a feature or tool adds complexity without value, remove it quickly.
What founders (and operators) can steal
- Derisk in two songs: Verify market pull and feasibility of execution before scaling spend. If the market is not growing and your organization is not overlapping, think twice.
- Reuse before reinventing: Borrow talent, systems and channels wherever you’ll be able to. Any overlap eliminates weeks of risk.
- Measure what matters: Do a easy before/after study of ship speed, customer acquisition cost, and customer retention. If the needle does not move, remove it.
- Build dynamics in sight: Share milestones and learnings. This sharpens the team and attracts partners.
Saily is still in its early stages of development and the market is still developing, but the model is as essential as the product. Many future founders already work in growing firms. Give these startups the autonomy and leverage to scale, and amazing things can occur—in months, not years.