Ivan’s note: This is one of those essays that I often come back to. I can’t find it online, so I wanted to have a copy here to share with people. It is adapted from a talk Mike Cassidy gave on October 23, 2010.
Ivan’s note: This is one of those essays that I often come back to. I can’t find it online, so I wanted to have a copy here to share with people. It is adapted from a talk Mike Cassidy gave on October 23, 2010.
## Why speed matters
The faster you can roll out a product, the harder it is for competitors to keep up with you.
One example is my third company, Xfire. It was an instant messenger for PC video gamers, and we released a new version of the product every two weeks. There were major competitors in instant messaging, including AOL. AOL identified us as a competitor and started designing a response to our product. But at a large company, the process of identifying a threat and defining the product to compete with it took approximately 12 months. By then, we already had 24 releases. Their plan for counteracting us was not going to work.
The second advantage is team morale. I’m a huge believer in the importance of morale. Whenever I have a one-on-one with someone in my company, the first thing I ask is, “Are you happy?” I think happy people are literally ten times more productive than people who aren’t happy. If your company is moving quickly, people tend to be happy and excited about its pace and prospects.
Third, speed is great from a PR perspective. You can meet with someone from the press and say, “We have two million users,” and they can respond, “I just met with you two months ago, and you only had one million.” The press loves that kind of momentum.
Finally, fast growth drives higher valuations—both when you raise money and when you sell the company. I believe that, to maximize value, you should sell while the company is still growing exponentially. Exponential growth is exciting because of what the future might hold. Once growth becomes linear, it’s easy for an acquirer or investor to project exactly where the company will be in two years.
## The typical startup and the rapid startup
Let’s contrast a typical startup timeline with a rapid one. These numbers may be too slow to be typical anymore, but consider a company that spends three months kicking around ideas, three months raising money, two months hiring the core team and opening an office, 12 months building a good product, and another three to six months building initial market awareness and attracting early customers. The whole process takes 23 to 27 months.
All four of my companies have been quite different, but this is the timeline I aim for.
Exploring ideas is a two-week process. I honestly believe you shouldn’t spend longer than that, because you’ll just find reasons not to do it: another company is already doing it, the risks are too great, and so on.
I put one day for raising money. Sometimes when I give this talk, people throw things at me. This is aspirational, and I’ve been very fortunate. I’ve raised eight rounds of venture capital, and in seven of those eight rounds I received a signed term sheet on the day I pitched. I’ll explain how you can try to raise money the same day you pitch.
Then comes hiring the core team and opening the office. Execution is where it’s at, and we’ll talk about how we handled those steps.
> # [Speed Is THE Primary Business Strategy](https://www.ivanbercovich.com/2026/speed-is-the-primary-business-strategy)