Two Clocks

Startups are told to act fast. Usually for good reasons.

Speed creates learning. Waiting has costs. Customers lose interest, competitors move, and a decision that takes three months may be worse than an imperfect decision made today.

I generally agree with that. But not always.

Sometimes waiting is useful because, if I wait, I may know more.

That creates a question I think “act fast” hides:

What happens to the decision while I’m waiting?

1. Waiting has value

There are good reasons not to act immediately.

• Some decisions are hard to reverse.
• Important information may be about to arrive.
• Waiting may cost almost nothing while acting commits us to something expensive.

In those situations, waiting can preserve flexibility.

The value of waiting comes partly from what you expect to learn.

If tomorrow I will know much more and nothing important disappears overnight, acting today may be unnecessarily expensive.

2. But the option is moving too

The other side is that doing nothing does not freeze the world.

While I wait, I may gain information. But the opportunity may become more expensive, a deadline may get closer, or I may make other commitments that are difficult to unwind.

The option may still technically exist, but it may no longer be the same option.

3. Two clocks

So maybe every delayed decision has two clocks running.

The first is:

If I can wait a little, learn a lot, and lose almost nothing, patience probably makes sense.

The second is:

If I am unlikely to learn much more while the opportunity becomes more expensive or disappears, speed probably makes sense.

The difficult case is when both clocks are moving quickly: I am becoming more informed while also becoming less free to act.

The more useful question may be:

Which is changing faster: what I know, or what I can still do?

Doing nothing has a trajectory

Acting creates a visible consequence. Waiting feels like leaving things as they are.

But:

Waiting moves us into another state too.

Sometimes that state is better. Sometimes it is worse.

Waiting has value, and that value changes over time.

So before acting—or waiting—maybe the useful questions are:

What am I likely to learn by waiting?

What becomes harder, more expensive, or impossible while I wait?

Will I still be making the same decision later?

I still think startups should move quickly.

But not because speed is always good.

Sometimes acting early is valuable because the option is deteriorating faster than our information is improving.

Sometimes waiting is valuable because information is improving while the option remains intact.

The difficult part is knowing which clock is moving faster.