A small team cannot outspend anyone. It can out-think and out-learn, and it can change its mind in an afternoon. That is a real advantage as long as it is used deliberately.
What first principles means in practice
It means refusing to inherit a default because it is common. It means asking what a timetable, a record or a workflow actually is before deciding how it should look in software. Most of the time the conventional answer survives the question. Sometimes it does not, and those are the moments where a product becomes distinct.
Rules we try to keep
- Talk to the people doing the work before designing the work.
- Build the smallest version that can be genuinely used, then watch it closely.
- Write down what we assumed so we can notice when it was wrong.
- Keep the team close to the system in production.
We are early. We do not pretend otherwise. But the habits formed now are the ones a larger company will inherit, so we are choosing them carefully.