Execution speed is the most powerful tool a startup has against competitors, against the market, and against incumbents.
Execution speed shows quickly. Not in delivery, but already in the earlier planning phase. Execution speed shows when asking “when” or creating plans: where large companies create yearly plans or roadmaps with quarterly deliverables, others plan not for “next month” but for “tomorrow” or “give me an hour.”
The test is simple. If you plan, do you plan in years, quarters, months, weeks, days, or hours? The smaller the planning unit, the higher the execution speed.
This is contagious: if you commit to short timelines (“done in two days”), others will not get away with planning for “next month.” At the same time, if you plan something for next month, is it actually important enough for your goals to assign resources to?
People get comfortable quickly. Give them a task with a deadline in a month; it will take a month. Give them the same task with a deadline for next week; it will take a week. But with a deadline for tomorrow—in most cases, it can be done tomorrow.
Be conscious of this. Don’t fall into the large-company trap of quarterly plans or “we will do this in 4 weeks.” Measure in the smallest unit possible. And for most early-stage startups, that should be days.