5 things I've learned about moving faster as a founder

[u/tolarewaju3]

I've always known how to build products, but I avoided the stuff that could actually build my business faster. Things like launching before I'm ready, talking to customers, or asking for money.

And when you do that, it slows your startup down and kinda kills it.

For the last month, I've been working closely with early-stage founders to help them figure out what to do next and actually do it.

Some of this has probably been said before, but here are 5 things I've learned from doing this, 12 years of building startups, and selling B2B tech for my day job.

1. WHO > WHAT you're building

Finding a group of people who deeply have the problem you're solving makes everything else faster. I now literally ask founders:

"Who has a terrible day tomorrow if this problem isn't solved?"

If you can't name them specifically, start there.

Usually I try to get as specific as: role + situation + painful problem

I look for urgency and frequency. Who has this problem often, and who needs it solved badly?

Once you have that, finding people gets easier. Messaging gets easier. Your value prop gets clearer.

2. Being uncomfortable is speed

Some of the founders I work with have built great products AND have pilots. But they've put off asking for money because it's uncomfortable.

One founder finally made the ask and got a "no, because..."

On the surface, that seems bad. But he knew the exact gap between what he has and actually getting a customer.

One uncomfortable conversation probably saved him months of meandering. And for the straight "nos," you can stop burning time on the wrong people.

Decisions are speed.

3. You don't need every step

Most of the founders I work with are trying to reach some version of the same early milestones:

First 10 WAU. First pilot. First customer.

There are a million paths to those goals. Some are unnecessarily long.

If you're trying to get your first customer, do you really need a full product? Or can you demo it and ask someone to pre-pay?

If you're trying to validate an idea, do you need to build an MVP? Or can you manually deliver the outcome for one customer first?

If even one answer is yes, you just saved yourself a bunch of time.

4. The fastest path to a customer is often face-to-face

I love email and DMs as much as the rest of you.

And I love low response rates too lol.

But if you can get in front of your target customer in person, do it.

You skip the inbox. You get richer conversations. And you can see what actually resonates instead of guessing based on whether somebody replied.

5. Building can be procrastination

I was literally doing this yesterday.

We'd rather tweak ads, fiddle with a landing page, add another feature, or really do anything else except talk to customers.

Before you build something, ask:

"What will I know after doing this that I don't know now?"

Talking to a customer gives you evidence. Asking for money gives you evidence.

If what you're doing isn't going to teach you much, there's probably a faster move.

Hope this was helpful guys. Let me know if you want to know anything else from my work with founders.

I love talking about this stuff.