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Building · 6 min read
Building products before certainty
Why I believe startups should optimize for learning velocity over perfect execution, and how every iteration compounds into better decisions.
Coordination cost is the hidden tax on ambition. Every person added multiplies the number of conversations required before anything ships.
The arithmetic nobody runs
Communication paths grow quadratically while output grows, at best, linearly. A team of five has ten links. A team of fifteen has one hundred and five.
How we keep NVILE small
- One owner per surface, with real authority to decide.
- Written proposals instead of recurring meetings.
- Tools chosen for how little they need to be explained.
- A permanent bias toward deleting work over distributing it.
Headcount is the easiest thing to add and the hardest thing to undo.
Small teams compound because context stays in a few heads. The tenth decision is faster than the first — which is the only kind of speed that survives a year.