The clock in the sky

Two jets crossed the sky above a building where work once happened. Their trails formed a clock. Five minutes to two. By the time the photo was taken, the jets were already gone. The clock they made had already moved.

Time moves fast. Faster than it looks from the ground.

The photo was not planned. It was found — in the sky above a place where years were spent building something from nothing. The image captured a moment that no longer existed when the shutter clicked. That is what time feels like when you are building. The moment is always already moving. The clock is always already ahead of where you thought it was.

Key Takeaway: Time moves faster than it looks from the ground. The moment you think you are in is already moving. The leader who does not feel this will be surprised by it.

The clock in the sky was already moving by the time anyone looked up.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Section: The clock in the sky

MarvinPro | December 2025

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The startup inside the corporation

Most people think of startups as small companies in early stages, funded by investors, operating outside the established world of large organisations. But some of the fastest building happens inside corporations, in projects that begin with nothing and grow into full operations in a fraction of the time anyone expected.

Every major project of this kind begins the same way. A small group. A brief. A problem to solve or a capability to build that does not yet exist. No history. No established process. No legacy system to work around. Just the work, the people and the time available to do it.

In that environment, time moves differently. The absence of structure that would slow things down in an established organisation means things move faster. Decisions are made quickly because the decision making group is small. Communication is direct because there is no hierarchy yet to route it through. Progress is visible because the baseline is zero and everything above zero is growth.

The person who has built inside a corporation in this way knows a specific kind of speed. The speed of the first year. The speed of building from nothing. The speed that feels, looking back, like it could not possibly have been as fast as it was.

Key Takeaway: The fastest building often happens inside corporations, in projects that begin with nothing. The absence of established structure is not a weakness. It is the condition that makes speed possible.

The project that starts with nothing moves faster than the organisation that has everything. Because nothing has not yet learned how to slow things down.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Section: The startup inside the corporation

MarvinPro | December 2025

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The first three years

In every build, the first three years are the fastest.

Not because more hours are worked. Not because the team is more motivated in year one than in year three. Because the rate of change is highest when the distance from nothing is smallest. Every person added is a larger percentage of the total. Every process built is a foundation that did not exist before. Every decision made is made for the first time, with no precedent to slow it down.

Three separate builds. Each one started with a small founding group. Each one grew to hundreds of people within three years.

The first: six people and a project brief. Three years later, two hundred and fifty people and a fully operational service organisation.

The second: twenty people and a new contract. Three years later, five hundred people across multiple locations.

The third: twenty people and a concept. Three years later, four hundred people and an operation running across multiple European markets.

The numbers are different. The pattern is the same. From nothing to something. From something to an organisation. In a period of time that, looking back, feels impossibly short.

Key Takeaway: The first three years of any build are the fastest. The rate of change is highest when the distance from nothing is smallest. Every addition is proportionally larger. Every decision is made for the first time.

From six to two hundred and fifty. From twenty to five hundred. From twenty to four hundred. Three years each time. The clock does not slow down for the people building.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Section: The first three years

MarvinPro | December 2025

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The scaling threshold

There is a point in every build where the organisation that was running on trust, proximity and informal communication can no longer run that way.

Below that point, the team is small enough that everyone knows what everyone else is doing. Communication happens in the room. Decisions are made in the conversation. Structure is minimal because it does not yet need to exist. The overhead is almost nothing because the volume does not yet demand it.

Above that point, the organisation needs what it could not have afforded before and could not have used if it had it. Workforce management. Real time management. A quality team. Coaches. Trainers. A knowledge base. Hardware support. Administrative support.

None of these exist at the start. All of them become necessary not because someone decided to add complexity, but because the scale demanded them. The organisation grew into them. And the growth happened faster than it felt from inside it.

The leader who has crossed this threshold knows the moment it arrives. Not as a decision point but as a recognition. The team that was running informally can no longer run informally. The structure that was unnecessary is now essential. The organisation that was small enough to manage by proximity is now large enough to require systems.

That moment arrives faster than expected. Every time.

Key Takeaway: There is a threshold where informal communication can no longer carry the organisation. Structure becomes essential not as a choice but as a requirement of scale. It arrives faster than expected every time.

The organisation that was running on trust and proximity crosses a threshold where trust and proximity are not enough. Structure is not a choice at that point. It is a requirement.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Section: The scaling threshold

MarvinPro | December 2025

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What building feels like

When you are building, time does not feel fast. It feels full.

The days are complete. Every hour has work in it that matters. Every week produces something that did not exist the week before. The month that passes has changed the organisation in ways that are visible and measurable. The year that ends looks nothing like the year that began.

It is only when you stop, when you look back from a point of relative stability, that the speed becomes visible. You cannot see it while you are inside it. You can only see it when you turn around and measure the distance between where you are and where you started.

The leader who has built from nothing and looked back knows this feeling. The disbelief at how much changed in how little time. The sense that the years were both very long and very short simultaneously. Long because they were full. Short because they moved without slowing down.

This is what time moving fast feels like from the inside. Not a blur. Not a rush. A sustained fullness that, in retrospect, reveals itself as speed.

Key Takeaway: Time moving fast does not feel fast from the inside. It feels full. The speed is only visible when you stop and measure the distance between where you are and where you started.

You cannot feel time moving fast while you are inside it. You can only see it when you turn around.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Section: What building feels like

MarvinPro | December 2025

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A real example

Three builds. Three different industries. Three different starting points. All three followed the same pattern.

The first started with six people and a project brief in a new service area being brought in-house for the first time. There was no existing team, no established process, no inherited structure. Everything was built from the first day. Within three years the operation had grown to two hundred and fifty people with the full structure that scale requires.

The second started with twenty people and a new commercial contract. The brief was to build a customer service operation for a global technology brand. Within three years the operation had grown to five hundred people across multiple locations, running at a quality standard that had not existed when the project began.

The third started with twenty people and a concept. A new automotive brand entering multiple European markets simultaneously, building service operations, insurance infrastructure, mobility products and customer experience from nothing, in parallel, at speed. Within three years the operation had grown to four hundred people across multiple markets with a P and L that had not existed before.

In each case the first three years were the fastest. In each case the scaling threshold arrived before anyone felt ready for it. In each case the organisation that existed at the end of year three bore almost no resemblance to the group that existed at the start of year one.

Time moves fast. Especially when you are building.

Three builds. Three industries. Three starting points. The same pattern every time. From nothing to something to an organisation. Faster than it felt from the inside.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · A real example

MarvinPro | December 2025

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Chapter Outcome

Build with the awareness that the clock is already moving. The first three years are the fastest years. The scaling threshold arrives before you feel ready. The structure that seems unnecessary today will be essential sooner than expected.

Look back regularly. Not to slow down. To see how far you have come and calibrate how far you still need to go. The distance between where you started and where you are is the clearest measure of the speed at which time is moving.

And when the build is complete, when the organisation that did not exist now runs, look up. The clock in the sky is already showing a different time than it was when you started.

Time moves fast. Build faster.

Think Simple · Leadership · Here is How to Think · Vol 4: The Future · Philosophy 1: Time Moves Fast · Chapter Outcome

MarvinPro | December 2025

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