By Judit Mora
Startup culture often celebrates speed, risk and all-in commitment. But in complex, regulated sectors, moving fast can be a liability rather than an advantage. Building gradually, alongside other work, can create better decisions, stronger trust and more sustainable growth. Slow beginnings, done with intent, often scale further.
In start up culture, we often hear that speed is everything. If you want to succeed you have to move fast, ship early, raise capital, quit your job and go all in. In reality, many successful businesses begin incrementally, alongside other professional commitments, yet are approached with long-term intent rather than as short-term experiments.
In these cases, starting slowly is not a constraint but a strategic advantage. It allows founders to test assumptions, build resilience into the business model, and earn trust with customers and partners before scaling. With this foundation in place, growth becomes more sustainable, deliberate and confident over time.
Healthcare leaves no room for shortcuts
In regulated sectors such as healthcare, speed can be unforgiving in the best possible way and there is zero room for error. A feature that is slightly wrong is not an inconvenience, it is a risk to patient safety and a clinician’s professional licence.
In recent years, we have seen a surge of health tech products launched quickly under the banner of innovation, often driven by hype around AI. Many of these tools are unfinished, medically inaccurate, or poorly tested and don’t last long. Once a clinician’s trust is lost, it is almost impossible to earn it back.
In this context, a slower approach is not a lack of ambition but a necessary safeguard. Every product decision needs to be evaluated not only on cost, effort, and scalability, but also through the lens of digital clinical safety. Frameworks used in other high-risk industries like aviation offer a useful perspective here. Asking whether a decision could plausibly cause harm changes how teams prioritise, design and test.
That mindset is incompatible with a rush-to-market mentality.
The hidden strength of building part-time
Developing a product slowly may look inefficient from the outside, but it often leads to stronger early outcomes. When foundational work is done properly, initial pilots tend to succeed because core functionality already works as intended. Growth can then focus on extending workflows rather than repairing fragile systems.
Starting a business alongside part-time work creates a safer space for this kind of discipline. Without the pressure of external investment or artificial growth targets, the focus shifts to building something robust and usable. Too often, early investment creates incentives that work against patient safety, pushing teams to prioritise speed and revenue over quality and rigour.
Confidence comes from competence, not hype
One of the most underestimated benefits of starting incrementally is how it builds confidence. Working across multiple roles and responsibilities forces prioritisation. Limited time becomes a forcing function and anything that does not move the work forward is cut. While demanding, this discipline sharpens judgement and decision-making.
The same applies to spending. When resources are limited and decisions have direct consequences, founders become far more intentional. Over time, this leads to clearer thinking and better choices, even once constraints ease.
Listening to users also changes when time is scarce. In UX research, there is a difference between opinions and insights. An insight emerges when a clinician can explain the broader context of a request, how it affects patient care, risk, and workflow. We often play out what-if scenarios with users, exploring unintended consequences together. Although these conversations take time, they also lead to better decisions.
Knowing when to go all in
Starting part-time does not mean a lack of commitment. In many cases, it reflects long-term intent paired with pragmatism. Parallel work provides stability while allowing founders to build capability, test assumptions and learn across different environments. Exposure to varied organisations, roles and ways of working often becomes an asset later, particularly when teams begin to scale.
The transition to full-time focus rarely happens overnight. It tends to be the result of accumulated evidence: growing demand, increasing complexity and a clear signal that the work now requires undivided attention. When that moment arrives, founders who have built slowly often step into it with greater confidence and resilience.
Building slowly is not playing small
There is a side of entrepreneurship that is rarely discussed. Many founders operate without financial or family safety nets, absorbing costs quietly while building something they believe in. This reality is far more common than public narratives suggest.
Despite these challenges, a slower path can be a powerful one. It allows values to guide decisions, creates space for learning and reduces the likelihood of harm, particularly in sectors where the consequences of failure are severe.
In healthcare especially, progress does not come from urgency alone. It comes from patience, evidence, empathy and care. Building steadily is not an absence of ambition. In many cases, it is what makes lasting impact possible.
Judit Mora
