While many aspects influence a startup’s success, speed often proves to be the deciding factor. Unlike established corporations that may afford to make thoughtful, hierarchical decisions, startups operate in an environment where quick execution is essential to survival.
People who have experienced “startup speed” intuitively know it when they see it, but speed is almost all the time tangible and could be observed in nature with little effort.
Startup speed will take different forms from company to company, but general signs to look out for include:
- Growth speed: Is your user base growing at least 2x to 3x per 12 months?
- Learning efficiency: Is there a rapid cyclical learning program?
- Development rate: Does code typically ship inside days/weeks, or does it take months/quarters?
- Decision speed: How often are quick decisions preferred over collecting additional data?
- Talent Operations: How quickly are latest employees productive and how quickly are underperforming employees eliminated?
- Problem management: Can problems be identified and resolved without bureaucratic delays?
- Strategic agility: Are plans modified and resources allocated quickly when goals are not met?
- Communication flow: How quickly do necessary changes/results spread throughout the organization?
Startups that fail to maintain sufficient momentum face three predominant threats:
Resource depletion: Lack of capital before product-market fit is achieved.
Loss of market position: Overtaking by faster competitors.
Team condition deterioration: Losing top talent to more dynamic organizations.
This creates a easy but difficult reality: It is sine qua non for startups to maintain exceptional speed across multiple dimensions if they need to thrive in today’s competitive landscape. Dot.
Here are some suggestions to get the right startup speed:
Speed audit
A proper evaluation of a company’s speed is not all the time needed, but it could actually be priceless to an investor undergoing evaluation or to a founder if they think it’s running too slowly.
It’s not an exact science, but a “speed audit” can provide help to locate key sources of friction/speed loss because it prompts you to conduct a thorough review of your organization’s operations and analyze the aspects affecting its speed.
And because you possibly can only solve problems you are aware of, measuring and organizing with a Speed Audit could be used to drive change.
Speed exercises
There is a saying among runners that is price learning: “If you never run fast, you will never run fast.”
The concept in startup land is that you simply don’t know what startup speed is until you experience it. So practicing “speed drills” could be a helpful exercise.
The key to a successful speed exercise is to select a problem that could be solved and then set a goal speed that can break the organization out of its normal rhythm of operation.
I have seen this done successfully in many startups during hackathons. I’ve seen a founder isolate a specific piece of functionality and challenge the team to build and ship it inside a week. I’ve seen landing pages with related marketing tests go live inside 24 hours.
When Brian Chesky was building Airbnbfamously asked, “What is the smallest version of this we can send today?”
Speed drills can prove to the team that they will move fast, and once they know that, they’ll start doing it without prodding. This mindset transforms speed from an abstract concept into on a regular basis decisions you possibly can make.
Speed mentor
There’s nothing higher for a founder than regular conversations with a brutally honest and trusted mentor who knows what it’s like to operate at Startup Speed.
I strongly suggest formalizing your advisor relationship by asking your potential “speed mentor” if he or she is willing to put in the work to learn about your organization and operating style so that he or she will be able to provide meaningful advice when asked. It’s necessary to give them permission to tell it as they see it. I guarantee they’ll challenge you commonly.
Finally, all the time do not forget that startup speed is not about frenetic activity – it’s about optimizing the rate at which you’ll turn capital into learning and learning into value. The most successful startups are not necessarily people who move the fastest in absolute terms, but people who have mastered the art of learning effectively and adapting quickly.
The distinction between priceless launch speed (which drives learning and progress) and wasteful rush (which wastes resources without generating insights) makes a founder a black belt in launch speed.