Scale Before Optimizing
Principle
Prioritize getting a product into the market and loved by customers before spending too much founder attention on financial optimization.
Why it matters
Do not confuse important-but-later work such as COGS optimization, tax planning, or margin engineering with the early bottleneck. Early, the bottleneck is usually whether enough customers want the thing at all.
How to use it
- Ask whether the current bottleneck is market/customer learning or optimization.
- Prefer fast learning when the decision is reversible or cheaply correctable.
- Slow down when mistakes are existential: quality, financing, inventory risk, executive hires, or reputation-damaging moves.