Make Velocity Your Personal Brand

If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,
And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son! ‘IF’ by Rudyard Kipling

Last week, I was on a call with a potential partner discussing their involvement in an event I’m helping to organize. The call went great, and the partner was happy and excited to be part of the event. Just before we exchanged final pleasantries, she remarked to my colleague G, “I am really impressed with how fast and quick Sandeep responded to my queries.”

I didn’t even notice that comment in the moment—being quick to respond is just how I usually operate. But clearly, she noticed, and it left a strong impression. Reflecting on it made me wonder: are we undervaluing something so simple and easy to achieve?

Early in my career, I realized that workplaces, far from being the high-pressure, boiler-room environments popular media often portrays, are usually filled with mostly relaxed people. I’m not saying that’s a bad thing—it just doesn’t align with my natural behavior. I feel uneasy when tasks (at work specifically) aren’t completed quickly. By extension, I assume that when I don’t act swiftly, it must unsettle others too. Over time, I developed what I’d call an uncanny ability to “compress time,” which has since become a defining feature of my personal brand.

What does that look like in practice? Replying to emails within 24 hours—and almost instantly on IM. Ensuring all tasks are completed ahead of deadlines. I’ve rarely met anyone who isn’t impressed by this approach. After all, we’re all impatient by nature when it comes to things we care about or need.

Think about how irritated you feel when the customer service team of [insert your favorite ISP here] tells you they’ll respond to your query in 48 hours (let alone resolve it). Now imagine the same complaint being fixed within an hour. You’d probably want to say “I do” to your ISP in a chapel!

In most cases, velocity is a good thing. It’s a small but impactful way to stand out—and one that’s often overlooked.

👍 rule -   Always do what you would expect others to do.

but why?

It is also worthwhile to discuss why I think velocity is so highly sought after:

1. Impatience - In this age of almost instantaneous access to information and superfast computation at our fingertips, waiting can feel almost unbearable. For instance, having to wait two days for your junior analyst to make a simple font change on a presentation feels like racing in a shopping cart during an F1 race. The gap between expectations and delivery grows, making velocity increasingly valuable.

2. Decisiveness - In my experience, leaders who are highly decisive are also remarkably quick—almost as if the two are mutually dependent. Velocity signals decisiveness. I can’t stand it when people leave you hanging without making a decision or fail to communicate one way or the other.

3. Sortedness - There is a noticeable positive social effect when someone is organized and sorted with their work. Having the discipline to stay organized means you’re typically on top of things, and very few details slip through the cracks. Most high-performing leaders I’ve observed, despite their busy schedules, are incredibly organized and reply at blazing speeds.

   In fact, when we raised funding from VCs for my startup, the speed of their email replies often indicated their quality. The good ones were impressively fast, while the bad ones were unusually slow—and frustratingly so. Subconsciously, I often form my first impression of someone based on how quickly they respond to a communication. Interestingly, a majority of the famous people I’ve interacted with¹ have been impressively fast responders.

4. Agility - The ability to move quickly is what keeps a company² or individuals³ competitive. In highly uncertain or dynamic scenarios, where conditions change rapidly, responding quickly can be the difference between success and sudden failure.

and this is how!

If you’re a newly minted college graduate joining the workplace or a mid-career professional facing plateauing prospects, I highly recommend using velocity at work to catalyze your personal brand—I guarantee people will notice. However, as with all advice⁴, it’s easier said than done.

As I alluded to earlier, my uneasiness with a lack of velocity stems from my personality—almost like an obsessive-compulsive tendency. But I’ve also cultivated it as part of the culture in my startup, so rest assured, it’s a skill that can be acquired (the skill, not the OCD⁵). Here are a few process mechanisms you can adopt to build your own velocity:

1. Get organized with your time - The most effective way to be quick is to stay organized. There are many ways to do this, but I find timeboxing⁶ to be the most effective. Think of it as to-do lists on steroids (or speed, or [insert your drug of choice]‌). Allocate 30–45-minute chunks on your calendar for specific tasks—checking email, replying to IMs, or even stalking your favorite influencer’s feed. This cadence ensures things get done and nothing slips through the cracks.

2. Tackle low-hanging fruit first - When replying to emails, if a task can be completed in 2 minutes or less, do it immediately. Otherwise, mark the email as unread and move to the next one. This ensures that the majority of tasks are handled quickly, impressing 90% of people, rather than spending an hour on one lengthy response. It feels more strategic and productive.

3. Prioritize high-leverage ⁷ tasks - Focus on tasks where you’re the rate-limiting step—anything that’s waiting on your input to move forward. By prioritizing these, you ensure the entire team’s progress isn’t stalled. This high-leverage approach not only boosts your productivity but also increases the velocity of your team by minimizing downstream delays, where each bottleneck can compound delivery times.

4. Take pride in velocity - Completing tasks quickly can be incredibly satisfying. That feeling of accomplishment motivates you to reinvent processes for greater efficiency. For example, throughout my career, I’ve identified repetitive, time-consuming tasks and explored automation to streamline them. This not only impressed my managers⁸ (it felt like magic⁹ to them) but also fast-tracked my growth. In today’s AI-driven world, automation is even easier to implement—you don’t always have to work smarter yourself; let AI do it for you.

5. Communicate revised timelines proactively and immediately - If you ever need more time with communications or tasks, communicate revised timeline immediately. Don’t leave people guessing about when they’ll hear back from you—it’s frustrating and unnecessary. In my experience, people’s frustration with delays often stems from uncertainty, not the delay itself. Communicate with velocity - don’t wait until 11:59 PM to tell someone you can’t deliver by midnight. Let them know the moment you realize the deadline isn’t feasible. People hate surprises—unless it’s a party.

🗺️ Universal rule: There is no such thing as overcommunication.

more than semantics - speed vs velocity

You might have noticed that I’ve used the term velocity instead of speed. This choice was intentional. Speed is a scalar quantity, while velocity is a vector. Without delving too much into the technicalities, this distinction means that merely doing things faster isn’t enough to bring you success. What truly matters is doing things faster while maintaining output quality.

Far too often, in the pursuit of speed, people make critical mistakes—reports riddled with errors, emails sent to the wrong recipients, or decisions made in haste. These missteps undermine the very purpose of working quickly and should be avoided at all costs. The time compression you achieve is only valuable if the output is of the highest quality. Never compromise quality for speed.

Speed gets noticed. Velocity sets you apart.

I find it incredibly powerful to have velocity as my personal brand. Surprisingly, something so simple is an extreme rarity in the workplace. Once velocity becomes your defining trait, it can turbocharge your career, open new doors, earn you admiration, and even make you a role model at work. Once you make velocity your brand, you can outrun your competition,destiny and your potential!