Speed vs patience

Speed creates opportunity. Patience compounds it.

Moving fast will generate more chances. But if you quickly jump from thing to thing, growth will stall.

Get moving and find what works, then do it for decades.

– James Clear

In indie hacking, there’s always this fetish about moving fast. 12 startups in 12 months. Move fast and break things. First mover advantage.

But that’s just part of the picture, which Mr Clear called out.

It’s not just speed that counts, but also patience.
Speed first, then patience.
One proceeds after another, in that order.

If all speed and no patience, you have shiny object syndrome. Each experiment doesn’t have enough time to bear fruit. And you thought this was the way because it suits your ADHD brain. The market doesn’t care.

If no speed and all patience, you might be narrowed down too fast, and grind on the wrong thing for decades. Nothing’s more frustrating than talent wasted on a bad business.

If no speed, no patience, you have the 99% majority of people who have loads of ideas but never jump into the arena, always waiting for the perfect time. Or they try something for a while and give up because no fast results. They look for shortcuts.

If all speed and all patience 24/7, you get the classic formula for burnout. You’ll never sustain running a marathon on 100m dash speeds. No one can. Not even you. The top reason for startup failure is founders dropping out. It’s true.

Speed, then patience.

Nuance nuance nuance.