Ship Fast and Break Things
Move quickly, accept that some things will break, learn and fix rapidly.
Explanation
Facebook's original motto (later modified): prioritize speed of learning and iteration over perfection. In early stages, the cost of moving slowly (missed opportunities, late market entry) usually exceeds the cost of occasional mistakes. Breaking things teaches you system limits and user tolerance—valuable information.
Real-World Example
Facebook pushed code daily, sometimes breaking features temporarily. This rapid iteration let them test features quickly and respond to user behavior. Netflix famously caused outages while optimizing their platform. Amazon's 'disagree and commit' culture accepts that some decisions will be wrong but moving fast matters more than being perfect.
How to Apply
Set up systems that allow safe breaking: staging environments, feature flags, rollback capabilities. Measure how quickly you can detect and fix problems, not just how rarely they occur. Create processes that favor speed: daily deploys, quick decision-making, rapid feedback loops. Remember: in early stages, going slow is often the biggest risk.