Be Bold, Be Scrappy

Move fast, don't break things.

In the startup journey, the early days are often about how fast you can move to get something working. It's usually an exciting period of time full of more optimism than doubt. Tradeoffs are much easier and they are countless. Decisions are made incredibly quickly, and the pace is relentless.

What I've learned through many startups is that it's not always just about speed, but scrappiness. To me, that means choosing to do things certain ways that may not scale. Building a feature that may feel like a prototype, but can become good enough to ship internally or possibly even externally. It doesn't always have to fit the current patterns that exist. In fact, it's healthy to break them to help you revisit why they exist in the first place.

Fast forward to years down the line and it becomes harder to be scrappy. You often have to make sure your new idea fits the current patterns that exist, it becomes too natural to make sure you do. You stop thinking outside the box. You probably have to convince someone what you are thinking is a good idea. Meetings are required to move anything, and there are more stakeholders to get buy-in from. For engineering, it may be trying to coerce data into an existing model schema in your database. For designers, it may be starting from an existing feature interface to make sure a new idea fits the theme.

I challenge you get your teams to break the norm and be bolder. Those that do often are the ones who help push their teams in the right direction with new ideas. Please don't dismiss new ideas too early. Don't overestimate risk and underestimate an opportunity.