Why Moving Fast and Breaking Things Lets Startups Win When Giants Freeze

At a cramped table in a Boulder coworking space, two friends hacked away at yet another prototype. Their last three ideas had fizzled—one quietly, another with embarrassing public feedback. But this time, they didn’t waste months perfecting slides or debating on endless calls. They gave themselves a strict 10-day window: Build a testable product, show it to ten people, and then decide. Halfway through, their code was sloppy, their user interface ugly, and nerves frayed; still, they kept moving. When the feedback was tepid, they scrapped it in two hours and tried a radically different approach the following morning.

At a nearby multinational, a project team spent months in planning meetings, reviewing requirements and weighing reputational risks. Every mistake risked someone’s promotion, so proposals rarely left the intranet. Meanwhile, the startup duo released their fourth prototype in six weeks. Their friends joked about them ‘failing faster,’ unaware that this rhythm of rapid action and learning was quietly their only advantage.

One afternoon, an investor visited. He asked, "What have you done this week?" The founders rattled off a list: launched three user surveys, deleted features, released a new payment button, talked to five actual customers, and rewrote a section of marketing copy. The investor grinned, remembering a phrase: 'Do More Faster.' The secret, it turned out, wasn't just working hard, but moving quickly enough to gather real data and get ahead of slow-moving giants.

Behavioral science backs this up. Research on psychological safety and experimentation shows that organizations willing to act, tolerate mistakes, and learn—as opposed to only those prioritizing consensus or perfection—are much more likely to stumble into breakthroughs. In fast-changing markets, speed is not a reckless risk, but the main survival strategy.

Start by picking one thing you've been overthinking—maybe it's sending a proposal, launching a first product version, or organizing your collaborators for feedback. Instead of waiting until it’s perfect, give yourself a tight deadline—it could be one day or one week. Get it out there, see what comes back, and treat whatever happens (good or bad) as valuable information. If you hit an obstacle, don’t pause indefinitely—hack together the simplest solution that lets you keep moving. If something fails, take a deep breath, reflect on what you learned, and try again with adjustments. Fast action, honest results, and quick pivots—that’s how you turn nimbleness into your superpower. Give it a try this week.