Article · ~15 min read

Prioritizing at startups

Lenny Rachitsky · Lenny's Newsletter Freemium Intermediate

Lenny addresses prioritization specifically for early startups, where the usual scoring frameworks break down and speed matters more than spreadsheets. It helps you decide what to work on when you have almost no data and everything feels urgent. Practical and grounded in how real early teams actually choose.

  • Heavy prioritization frameworks are usually overkill before product-market fit.
  • Bias toward the few bets that could actually move whether people want the core thing.
  • Shipping and learning fast matters more than perfectly ranking your backlog.

It answers 2 questions

  1. How do I decide what to build next?
  2. How do I decide which features to cut from v1?

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