Seven Hard-Earned Lessons for First-Time Founders

1. Your first idea is probably wrong. That’s okay.

Most founders overestimate how close they are to product–market fit. They build too much, too soon, only to realise they’ve solved the wrong problem.

Your real job in the early days isn’t to scale—it’s to learn.
Where’s the real value in what you’ve built? Who cares enough to pay for it? What do they actually need?

You’re not looking for traction—you’re looking for truth.

Also worth remembering:
🧠 First-time founders obsess over the product. Second-time founders obsess over go-to-market.

2. Speed is overrated. What you need is product velocity.

You can have the fastest team in the world, but if they’re moving in the wrong direction, it’s all wasted effort.

Velocity = speed with direction.
Product velocity means you're shipping meaningful stuff, not just ticking off tickets.

Don’t just ask “how fast are we going?” Ask “are we heading somewhere that matters?”

3. Don’t build more than you need to.

Founders love to ship. But most of what you think you need, you don’t.

Before you invest months into building something, test whether people will care. Sell the vision. Run a concierge version. Take pre-orders. Fake the backend.

Build just enough to learn. Then iterate.

4. Make decisions quickly—unless they’re irreversible.

Most decisions aren’t permanent. Choose something, try it, adjust. It’s better to be 80% right and moving than 100% right and six months late.

But some calls are sticky:

• Choosing co-founders

• Giving away equity

• Setting your pricing model

• Defining team culture

Those? Take your time.

5. Not everything that’s on fire needs to be put out.

Startups are messy. Everything will feel urgent. It won’t be.

Your job is to figure out which fires are just smouldering (tech debt, low-priority bugs) and which ones will burn the whole thing down (a toxic team, no growth, no runway).

If it doesn’t threaten survival, let it burn for a bit.

6. Hire for momentum.

You won’t be able to afford the most experienced people. But you can hire people who are hungry, smart, and on a steep learning curve.

Look for teammates who can grow as fast as your company does. Maybe your designer isn’t ready to lead a team today—but they could be in 12 months with the right support and a few stretch goals.

Don’t just hire for what you need now—hire for who they can become.

And if you do hire great people? Let them stretch. Give them space. And—this one’s important—listen to them.
They’ll often see things you don’t. Trust goes both ways.

7. Your company won’t grow faster than you do.

You are the rate-limiter. If you don’t level up—on hiring, sales, fundraising, strategy—your startup stalls.

This means carving out time to learn, even when you’re drowning. Talk to other founders. Get a coach. Read. Reflect. Repeat.

Your personal growth is your company’s growth curve.

Bonus: Culture is what you tolerate.

Not what you put in a values deck. Not what you say at offsites.

Culture is the behaviours you reward. The shortcuts you let slide. The standards you uphold when it’s inconvenient.

Set the tone early. It gets much harder to change later.

Got questions? Wrestling with one of these right now?
Drop a comment, send me a message, or check out The Growth Equation if you’re looking for a deeper dive into early-stage traction and startup growth.