Execution gets you moving. Strategy makes sure you're moving in the right direction.

Startup culture values and celebrates speed of execution.

And it makes sense. It is what ensures that customers are served, resources are directed towards the most important activities and investors have a chance of seeing a return on their investment.

The urgency is justified. More than two-thirds of startups never deliver a positive return to investors, according to research discussed by Harvard Business Review. The margin for error is therefore extremely small.

The earlier the idea and startup thesis collide with reality, the less costly the experiment becomes. Because let’s not forget that a startup is a budding company trying to find product-market fit. It is a scientific experiment where an organisation is trying to validate whether there is a market for its products or services.

This is why rapid experimentation matters. Strategyzer recommends testing the assumptions carrying the greatest risk before investing heavily in building and scaling. Its experimentation library contains 44 different methods for collecting evidence about a business idea.

However, the over-the-top glorification of execution has led to an underappreciation of strategy and strategic thinking.

Startup Genome studied more than 3,200 high-growth technology startups and found that approximately 70% showed signs of premature scaling—investing in areas such as customer acquisition, product development, hiring or expansion before the business was ready.

That is not necessarily an execution problem. In many cases, it is a sequencing and strategic judgement problem.

CB Insights reached a similar conclusion after studying more than 400 startup failure post-mortems. Startup failures rarely result from one isolated mistake; they emerge from recurring problems involving the market, business model, finances, team and competitive environment.

Speed helps a startup test its assumptions.

But strategy determines which assumptions are worth testing, which customers are worth serving and where limited resources should be allocated.

A startup can ship quickly, hire quickly and scale quickly and still move rapidly in the wrong direction.

Startups do not need less execution. They need enough strategy to ensure that their execution is worth the cost.