Go Fast Alone. Go Far Together.

There is an old African proverb often quoted in startup circles: “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.”

(Disclosure: I just read this quote and had not heard it before. I am always learning. Back to the blog.)

Like most famous sayings, it is partly true and partly incomplete. In the earliest moments of a startup, speed matters. An idea is fragile. Markets move quickly. Competitors appear overnight. Founders need the freedom to test ideas, pivot fast, and make decisions without death by committee. At this stage, startups often look chaotic because survival favors motion over perfection.

But from an investor perspective, speed alone is not enough. At Titan Angels, we do not invest in ventures with solo founders. We need to see a founding team. Why? Because building a scalable company is simply too hard for one person over the long haul. One founder may possess vision, but teams create endurance, execution, and resilience.

An important point to readdress is that most venture and angel investors don't invest in nice little companies. Venture investors seek investments with a potential ROI (return on investment) of 10 times or more in 5-7 years. Crazy? Selfish? Maybe, but most startups fail and investors know that. Very few startups succeed which is why the high bar for ROI exists.

Now, there are very early seed investors willing to back a solo founder with little more than an idea and caffeine fueled optimism. Occasionally they hit a home run. More often, the failure rate is brutal. The startup world is littered with talented individuals who could not carry the entire burden alone.

That said, teams are not magical either. Founding teams are dynamic organisms. Relationships evolve. Equity disagreements emerge. Stress exposes weaknesses. Some co-founders drift apart. Others become dead weight. Many startups fail not because the market rejected them, but because the team imploded under pressure.

And yet, when you study the ventures that survive, a pattern appears. There is usually an incredibly driven founder at the center of the storm. The person who simply refuses to quit. The startup may pivot many times. Investors may say no. Revenue may stall. Employees may leave. But the founder keeps moving forward with almost irrational persistence (emphasis on the word irrational). That level of commitment matters because being a startup founder is not a normal job. It is gauntlet surrounded by a moat filled with alligators. Chomp. Chomp.

The best ventures combine both elements from the proverb. A driven founder with urgency and speed along with a capable team that provides scale, expertise, accountability, and emotional resilience. Too much individualism creates bottlenecks. Too much committee driven management kills innovation.

The sweet spot is a highly aligned team empowered to move quickly without bureaucracy. Go fast when necessary. Go together when it is time to scale.

And if you are fortunate enough to build a startup that lasts, you eventually discover the real secret: the ventures that go the farthest usually still have one founder at the center who simply would not give up.

John Bradley Jackson
© 2026 All rights reserved.

P.S. A proverb is a short, traditional saying that expresses a universal truth, practical experience, or piece of advice. Passed down through generations, these phrases help make sense of human emotions, relationships, and day-to-day challenges. I notice that proverbs are often expressed orally and tend to morph over time. Many famous proverbs and idioms have lost or inverted their original meanings due to centuries of overuse, cultural shifts, or the intentional shortening of full quotes. People frequently rely on these sayings without knowing their true historical roots or complete phrases. For example, the phrase "Pull yourself up by your bootstraps" has its original meaning back in the 1800s. It was originally a satirical joke to describe something that was literally impossible to do. Today, people use it as sincere advice to work harder to improve their circumstances. Source: Wikipedia