Dogfooding isn't enough. Founders should use every feature of their product weekly to develop a subjective feel for quality. Combine this with objective metrics like the percentage of unhappy customers and the engineering velocity for adding new features.
Business model innovation is a third, often-overlooked pillar of success alongside product and go-to-market. A novel business model can unlock better unit economics, align incentives with customers, and dictate the entire product and operational strategy.
For startups tackling monumental challenges, complex planning frameworks like OKRs are a distraction. Instead, maintain a clear, ambitious long-term vision and focus the entire company's energy on executing the immediate next step with maximum speed and quality.
Companies mistakenly bundle management with authority, forcing top performers onto a management track to gain influence. Separate them. Define management's role as coordination and context-sharing, allowing senior individual contributors to drive decisions without managing people.
Startups often fail to displace incumbents because they become successful 'point solutions' and get acquired. The harder path to a much larger outcome is to build the entire integrated stack from the start, but initially serve a simpler, down-market customer segment before moving up.
Balance a multi-decade company vision with an intense, minute-by-minute focus on daily execution. This dual cadence keeps the long-term goal in sight while ensuring relentless forward progress, creating a culture of both ambition and urgency.
In industries dominated by legacy players for decades, buyers lose the 'muscle' to evaluate new vendors. If you see low initial pull despite a strong value proposition, it may mean you need to educate the market on how to buy again, not that your product is wrong.
Teams often default to 90-day timelines because it fits the quarterly business calendar, not because it's the actual time required. By simply asking 'How is it that every problem can be solved in exactly 90 days?', leaders can force more first-principles thinking about project scoping.