The Founder Who Chose Slow Over Scale

Speed vs Focus is a tension every founder wrestles.

Every week I meet with founders around the world. Some are just getting started. Others are past $5M ARR. But every now and then, a conversation stops me cold. This one did.

His name is Dushyant Sapre, the founder of SwishClub in India. He’s built a fintech-meets-hardware business that helps companies lease and manage devices instead of buying them outright. In just 13 months, he’s scaled to 170 customers and raised $4.5M in funding.

But those aren’t the impressive parts. What hit me was his clarity.

“I’d rather go slow now so I can go faster later.”

That’s what he said when I asked why he wasn’t expanding into new markets yet. In a world where every investor, advisor, and LinkedIn post screams “scale faster,” he’s intentionally holding back.

Most founders wouldn’t. Most are sprinting after growth, chasing every new market, every new logo, every AI headline. But Dushyant has something most founders lose once things start working. He has restraint.

I’ve now spoken with 190+ founders across 25+ countries. And there’s a pattern. The ones who win early don’t win because they move fastest. They win because they move most deliberately.

They say no more than they say yes. They narrow their ICP instead of broadening it. They know that “more” is not a strategy.

It reminded me of what I learned back at Outreach. Our first ICP wasn’t “every salesperson.” It was SDRs at tech companies. One niche. One clear user. One repeatable motion.

That focus changed everything. And now, watching founders like Dushyant, I’m convinced the same rule applies. You don’t win by being early or loud. You win by being focused.

Every founder I meet is in the same tension. Speed versus focus. Urgency versus patience. The truth is, you can’t scale chaos. You can only scale clarity.

That’s why I built the 100 Founders Research Report. Three months of data from tech founders under $10M ARR. The patterns are clear: ✅ The best founders slow down before they scale. ✅ They build frameworks before hiring sales teams. ✅ They find their niche before chasing new ones.

Founder-led sales isn’t broken. It just needs its own framework.

When he said, “I’d rather go slow now so I can go faster later,” he wasn’t talking about being cautious. He was talking about building a foundation that can handle speed when it comes.

It’s not fear. It’s focus. That’s what discipline looks like at the founder level.

If you’re a founder in that same phase, caught between momentum and pressure, you’re not alone. Sometimes slowing down is the boldest move you can make.

Because growth doesn’t start with more. It starts with less.