In 1999, James Dyson made a controversial decision.
After a decade of painstaking invention and a wildly successful UK launch, Dyson—the man and the company—relocated vacuum cleaner manufacturing from Wiltshire, England, to Malaysia. The move provoked public outcry. How could a proudly British inventor, one who’d made a name railing against poor design and shoddy performance, outsource to Asia?
For most startup founders, product velocity—the speed and consistency with which your team ships meaningful updates—is an obsession. And rightly so. In the early stages of a company, momentum is everything. The ability to move quickly can be the difference between winning early users or losing them to a better, faster-moving competitor.
But speed alone isn’t enough. High product velocity isn’t about frantic execution or cutting corners. It’s about consistently delivering value in a fast, focused, and sustainable way. And after working with dozens of early-stage startups, I’ve found it typically comes down to seven key principles.
In 1949, a crew of elite smoke-jumpers parachuted into Montana’s Mann Gulch to fight what looked like a routine wildfire. But within hours, the fire turned deadly. As the flames roared up the slope, their leader, Wagner Dodge, made a radical move: he lit a fire of his own. By burning the grass ahead of him, he created a patch of scorched earth the wildfire couldn’t cross. He lay in the ashes as the main fire swept over.
Starting a company is a crash course in humility. You’re juggling 100 decisions a day, half of which you’ve never faced before. You’re trying to build a product, grow a business, and stay sane—all at once.
Here are seven principles I’ve seen trip up first-time founders (myself included). If you're just getting started, I hope this saves you some scar tissue.
It starts, as these stories often do, with a bold vision.
A founder has an idea — one they’re convinced is going to change the game. It’s innovative. Disruptive. The kind of idea that turns heads and opens investor checkbooks. Before long, there’s money in the bank, a team in place, and the runway to bring this vision to life.
From the founder’s perspective, the stars are aligning. The idea has been validated — after all, someone just put money behind it. Now it’s just a matter of execution.
But this is where things often go wrong.
For many early-stage founders, hiring team members from FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) companies feels like a shortcut to success. "These folks excelled at Google! Surely they'll turn my fledgling startup into the next unicorn!"
But reality often has other plans. Here’s why hiring FAANG alumni might not be your startup’s golden ticket: