Why founders build the wrong thing first
Building fast feels productive, but building the wrong thing is the real mistake. Get the "what" right before you worry about the "how."
There's an old Swahili saying I like: Haraka haraka haina baraka. It means "hurry, hurry has no blessing." In other words, rushing causes problems.
I think about it a lot when I see founders rush to build. You have the idea. You can already see the product in your head. And writing code feels like you're getting somewhere. I get it. Building is the fun part. Doing something feels better than just thinking about it.
But here's what I've learned. Bad code is not the big mistake. You can always fix bad code. The big mistake is building the wrong thing, and building it well. You spend months making something clean and finished that nobody actually wanted. And that time? You can't get it back. For a young startup, time is everything.
The fix is simple. You don't have to slow down. Just spend the first few days on one question. Not "how do I build this?" but "what should I build, and who is it for?"
Get the what right before you worry about the how. Building fast will never save you if you're building the wrong thing.