Most builders get stuck because they're optimizing for the wrong stage. They obsess over perfection when they should be shipping. They sprint when they should be sustaining. They grind without adjusting course. Every successful thing I've built, and everything I've watched other people build, follows the same three-stage progression: speed, iteration, consistency.

Get these in the wrong order and you either burn out, stagnate, or build something nobody wants.

Speed

What you can do today, do not leave to tomorrow. Faster is better in almost every circumstance. Accelerate your decision making, your execution. Time is the denominator.

When you're starting something new, speed is the only thing that matters. Not quality. Not strategy. Not the perfect plan. The goal is to compress the time between "I have an idea" and "I have something real in front of me." Most people dramatically overestimate the knowledge they need to get started. Most of the learning happens when they actually do it.

In the beginning, your skills are raw, your knowledge is sparse, and you lack experience. At best, you will be able to produce work that is "just okay." Nobody wants to produce something that is "just okay." You'll feel like it's beneath your standards. But it is impossible to reach the next stage unless you are willing to work through your current stage. The courage to be "just okay" right now is how you become exceptional later.

The enemy of speed is over-thinking. How fast you get from "I have to do this" to actually doing it is a great indicator of how far you'll get. Right away is better than end of day. End of day is better than end of week.

Iteration

Speed without iteration is just activity. You moved fast, you shipped something, you have data now. The question becomes: what did the market tell you? What did reality tell you?

Having ideas allows us to paint idealistic pictures of potential future outcomes. Executing makes us recognize that our imperfections color our future. That gap between what you imagined and what you built is where all the learning lives.

Track revenue, usage, and iterations early on as your KPIs. Not vanity metrics. Not "engagement." Did someone pay? Did they come back? Did they tell someone else? If the answer is no, iterate. Product/market fit is when more than 40% of your customers say they would be very disappointed if they couldn't use your product anymore. Everything before that number is iteration.

The biggest perspective changes in a business come from people who can think in multiple perspectives. Steelman the opposite side of your own argument. The highest leverage decisions come from perspective shifts, something that was plainly obvious where you just couldn't look at it differently, and someone from the outside comes in and makes the most obvious suggestion that changes everything.

Consistency

This is where most people fall off. Speed is exciting. Iteration is intellectually stimulating. Consistency is boring. It's doing the same correct things over and over until they compound.

Your current standing is not what you do today, but what you have been doing the last few weeks, months, years. Create 10-20 small habits you can do daily and then make the decision that you will do them for six months no matter what. See where you end up.

It's ironic how most things in life are simple, but hard. Getting in shape, finding a diet that works, getting good sleep, achieving business success. Simple things that if you do over a long time horizon achieve the outcome you desire. We just get confused and society invites us to be the worst versions of ourselves.

The execution is consistency. That's the boring answer. But every person I know who has built something real will tell you the same thing. They didn't have a secret. They had a process they refused to abandon.