Competent Speed: Building Fast Without Breaking Trust, with Harold Hughes

All right.

Harold, I want to start out with you.

From bandwagon to infinite and now divvy, you've always been incredibly fast at building critical mass around an idea.

The product, the brand, the outreach, the funding, the engagement.

Tell me about that early stage.

What does it look like for you? What are you prioritizing and how do you reach critical mass so quickly?

Yeah, I think that I look at speed as a very critical part of demonstrating intention.

So you think about it as a person who's been married for a few years, you've been married on 13 years.

You could think about it in the example of if your significant other asks you to do something.

The time in which it takes for you to do it probably is going to have an impact on your how pleased they are that it got done, your intention on being able to deliver it, right? So if I tell you, hey, Keith, I'm building this new thing, and then you don't hear from me for three months, that lack of speed probably speaks to my intention.

It probably speaks to my focus.

And so when I think about whether building Bandwagon or Infinite or even now as we talk about Divi, Speed is such an important part of the intention demonstration because it shows that you are motivated, that you are resourceful and how you are able to learn faster than others.

There's some quote that I know butcher and so I won't try and actually land it.

But ultimately, the idea is, is that the person who's taking like their time and trying to make things perfect is.

It's going to move much slower than the person who is going really fast and failing and failing and failing over and over, because by the time you've got your perfect version, I've already failed five or six times and now have a better version for myself.

And so when it comes to speed, those are the things that I've tried to use in every one of my companies, because I think that it helps with knowledge transfer and education, but also demonstrating the intention of how important I think what I'm building is.

That's excellent.

I want to also ask, touching on that, and I've seen all of that in action, like in the actions you take.

It has, as a partner to you, investor, advisor, I can tell you that you are at the cutting edge of responsiveness and communication, and I appreciate it.

That intention does, in fact, communicate to me.

It's why I love working with you.

How do you think about also the pieces? Because I do see you hitting on all cylinders at once almost, which is crazy, but you do it.

How do you think about these pieces?

I think that when it comes down to delivery, as a person who likes to cook, I love to cook.

And for many of the people who see my food and content on Instagram, they're not actually ever getting to eat it.