Startups are like blitz chess

Watch your clock

Your author playing blitz against world chess champion Magnus Carlsen, with a young Roelof Botha looking on

In blitz chess each player has only a few minutes to make all of their moves. “Watch your clock” is a phrase you’ll often hear blitz veterans nudging beginners with. Classical chess players – those that are used to 6-hour games – often have difficulty adjusting to blitz. They focus too much on the position on the board and don't pay enough attention to the time left on the clock. In blitz, if you run out of time you lose, even if you're one move away from checkmating your opponent! Classical chess players will sometimes lose badly on time and say something like "but my position was winning!" It shows a lack of understanding of the game. It doesn't matter how winning your position is if you’re badly losing on time. Accomplishing things and the quickness with which you accomplish them are equally important in blitz. 

Startups are like blitz chess. What you achieve is important, but just as important is how quickly you achieve. When a startup raises a seed round they often think about their Series A milestones – what they need to accomplish to unlock their next round of funding. They might set the following goals to unlock their A: “Launch the product, derisk a key piece of the technology, and get at least 3 customers signed for $100k+ contracts.” That's classical chess thinking. Why? No speed goals. In classical chess, players can afford to sink into long bouts of strategic contemplation. But in blitz chess, every second counts. Spending too much time finding the perfect moves can cost you the game because time – not just the position on the board – is an ultimate arbiter. Founders should think just as much about how quickly they can achieve milestones as they do about the milestones themselves. Better goals would be “Launch the product within 4 months, derisk a key piece of the technology within 8 months, and get at least 3 customers signed for $100k+ contracts within a year.”

Why is this important? Because speed unlocks speed.

Investors care about how much progress has been made per time per dollar spent. If you achieve the same milestones in 6 months that it would take an average team 1.5 years to accomplish, investors will be tripping over each other to give you money, helping you accelerate further. If you hit those same milestones in 4 years, you might not be able to raise at all.

Talent looks to see how quickly a team has been moving. Jeff Bezos says that the number one thing that drives away top talent is slowness. When you move fast, it's easier to recruit the best people, which helps you move even faster, creating a virtuous cycle. If you’re slow to reach your goals, good people won’t want to be on your team, slowing you down further, creating a vicious spiral. 

The desire not only for progress but quick progress is rational because speed compounds. The faster you move, the faster you can move. The best indication of how quickly a team will move over the next year is how quickly they’ve moved over the last year.

In both blitz chess and startups, your position means little if you lose track of time. So next time you plan your milestones, don't just focus on what you need to achieve – focus also on how quickly you need to achieve. The time you have on the clock is just as important as your position on the board. Watch your clock.