Agency mode
Most startups don’t lose because they picked the wrong idea. They lose because they ran in low-agency mode.
Most startups don’t lose because they picked the wrong idea.
They lose because they ran in low-agency mode:
waiting for permission
waiting for perfect clarity
waiting for “the right owner”
waiting for the next meeting
The shift that changed everything for me is Agency Mode:
Assume you’re allowed.
Assume you’re responsible.
Assume speed is a feature.
What Agency Mode looks like in practice
1) Start with the outcome, not the process
If a customer issue appears, the goal isn’t “file a ticket.”
The goal is: customer is unblocked today.
2) Replace handoffs with loops
The best teams don’t “throw” work over walls.
They close the loop end-to-end: observe → decide → ship → verify.
3) Default to a Version 1
In startups, a good V1 beats a perfect plan.
V1 creates reality. Reality creates clarity.
4) You don’t need more people - you need more agency per person
One high-agency engineer with tight customer feedback can outperform a whole committee.
Why this matters even more now
AI is compressing the cost of execution.
So the bottleneck is shifting:
less “can we build it?”
more “do we have the agency to decide, ship, and learn fast?”
At Zalos.ai, we’re building computer agents for finance operations—because finance teams are buried under approvals, exceptions, and “someone needs to…” workflows.
But the meta-lesson is universal:
The companies that win will be the ones where agency is the default setting.