Why Moving Slow Kills a Business: Luis Munoz Aycart on Deciding Fast

3 days ago

5 min read

Luis Munoz Aycart's napkin fits on one line. Moving slow kills the business, and most single decisions don't. Luis, his brother and their best friend quit corporate life, packed carry-on bags and took one-way tickets from New York City to Mombasa, Kenya. They didn't know a single person there, or the internet industry they now build in. Today their company, Share, sits underneath the thousands of small internet providers already connecting their communities. For many established owners, the risk isn't choosing imperfectly. It's waiting while thinking turns into a place to hide. Luis keeps coming back to a line from his co-founder Omar. The most informative action is doing. When their first approach failed, they changed it in weeks, and the business is still here. This conversation is about telling the decisions that need care apart from the ones that only need movement.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6WEF1E7ZN4

Inspired by Paper Napkin Wisdom Episode 381 with Luis Munoz Aycart.

Why some business decisions can only be answered by acting

Luis grew up in Spain and moved to the US at 14. He studied international business and psychology and worked at LVMH, the luxury goods group, far from telecommunications. Neither of his co-founders studied network engineering either.

They knew a few big things. Over half a billion people didn't have internet access. Kenya was well placed for something to happen. What they did not have was a business plan for how it would get done. They felt they had to be there and build it while they were there.

That choice gave them information no desk research would have. In Kenya, Luis found, you go to a party and quite often meet someone who owns an internet network connecting their community. Look down a street and there aren't one or two cables, there are ten cables from ten different companies. So how could there be thousands of providers and still millions of people unconnected, or barely connected? The answer was fragmentation. Share would not be another internet company. It would be something underneath that lets all of those companies grow, deliver better internet and connect with each other.

Omar's line explains the approach. "The most informative action is doing."

How a fast pivot kept Share alive

For roughly the first six to eight months, Share built the whole company around wireless connectivity through antennas. There are videos of Omar on top of an antenna, installing it, and then the team running tests. Those tests showed congestion. With the number of people in each area, there was no way wireless could connect that many.

The three of them sat down and decided. We cannot be doing wireless. Fiber meant a different team and a different set of skills. Within two months of that decision, they had built 80 kilometers of fiber across Mombasa.

Luis is clear that the specs would never have told them this. In his industry, what the manual says and what happens in real practice can be completely different. And for an early-stage startup with very little runway, that quick decision is what kept them alive.

Some fast calls went wrong. Rushing to set up quickly, they sometimes bought the wrong hardware, which cost money and time. Luis admits another week of research might have caught it. Then they opened in Nairobi, a market ten times bigger, and did not repeat the mistake. The early errors became learnings for doing it at scale. Moving fast stayed the default.

What moving fast costs, and when to slow down

Luis doesn't argue that every decision should be rushed. He says some decisions and priorities do need more time, in business and in life. His point is about the default. Given a choice between the two, moving fast lets him do more with the limited time he has.

He also names what made the leap easier. He was young, with no mortgage and no children. All three founders knew they could always go back. They talked about that freedom openly, and it took weight out of the decision. An established owner with a payroll and a family carries more than that. The principle still holds. What matters is whether this particular decision is one that can kill the business, or one that only feels heavy.

The co-founders use that test on each other. When a small decision drags on, someone ends it. Talking about it longer is what kills the business. This is not a kill-the-business decision, so go ahead and do it.

They are not anti-tools either. Share used AI from day one to move faster. What it could not replace was being there, meeting people and putting the plan into action.

How to move fast and keep trust with partners and co-founders

Speed did not mean going it alone. Delivering connectivity in Kenya is so local that three outsiders could never build it all from the ground up. It would have created a collision of trust. Coming in to give free internet would have been the least trusted move of all, in a place where Luis knows people who pay more for connectivity than for rent. So Share chose a for-profit model that serves existing providers. They compete with neither the small operators nor the big ones. The same model travels. In Nigeria, Luis would still be working with Nigerians who deliver internet to the end customer.

Inside the founding team, the rule is that the best idea wins. Three people usually means a two-against-one, and low ego keeps it from turning personal. Luis has known his best friend for thirteen years. The two co-founders are the people he loves most and probably the people he fights with most. They agree the relationship matters more than how the business goes. Sometimes one of them needs space and comes back with fresh eyes. And when all three say yes, on a hire or a decision, it tends to be right.

Underneath it is a saying from Luis's mother. Sharing is living twice. The company is Share, and the legal entity is Living Twice. For Luis it means that helping someone else lifts you at the same time.

How to apply this in your business this week

Take out a napkin and work through one decision.

Write down the decision you have made heavier than it needs to be.
Ask whether it can actually kill the business. If it can't, set a date this week to decide.
Name the information you are waiting for. Could one small action create it faster than more analysis?
Find your version of the antenna test. A small, real trial that shows what the specs never will.
Agree with your partners on what counts as a kill-the-business decision, so smaller ones stop dragging.
Before a hard disagreement, say out loud that the relationship comes first.

An imperfect choice can be corrected. Luis's wireless decision didn't destroy Share. It told them what the next decision needed to be. You may only need to move far enough for the next part of the road to become visible.