1/ I hate giving sage advice, but I can't stop thinking about this one.

to go "fast", you HAVE to go "slow first." when I look at all my friends that have built billion dollar startups, the first 2-3 years look so slow, but then they get big all of a sudden.

a few observations

2/ going slow early on allows you to really get the product right. product is ultimately what customers buy, and it's the only thing that scales with your biz.

forcing it down ppl's throat via fb/goog ads only gets more expensive at scale and is a FALSE signal of success.

3/ anecdotally, I scaled my last biz "too fast", and then it became "too slow" because growth stalled with a mediocre product. we got to $150M val in 2 years, and then flat lined.

It is hard to fix your product/company when you scaled your team to match your "ad-powered" sales.

4/ btw, the ppl who join your company at 5 ppl are very diff than the people who join your co at 50-100 ppl.

5 ppl = adventurers/risk takers
50 ppl = want a little risk, but can't handle pivots

morale will plummet and ppl will panic.

5/ someone I admire a lot is @alexandr_wang at @scale. I saw him at 2 employees and he's now at 100+. he also runs a multi-$B co.

from day 1, he made sure he hired the right ppl who could scale the culture he wanted to build.. but it looked so slow at first...

6/ going slow and giving yourself time also gives you/your team TIME TO LEARN.

startups are abt making mistakes and re-directing the ship quickly. HOW FAST you re-direct = key to success.

going fast and scaling too quickly increases your burn rate, giving you less time.

7/ you can see this in the public markets too. they look so slow and flat... then a catalyst occurs and they explode.

the story: you won't be rich tomorrow, but if you go slow, stay the course, iterate/learn non-stop, build great things, etc you will be very rich one day.