Season 4 - Episode 33: When AI let's all of us build - How to build like you’ve done it before
- PIMM Sthlm
- Jun 3
- 3 min read
Building something new often starts with energy.
A strong idea. A clear problem. A team that wants to move fast.
But energy alone does not always show you what is coming next.
In this episode of Simply Briefed, Kristine Lium speaks to Siavash Habibi, co-founder of Team Scaleup, about the experience advantage in company building and what it takes to move from early energy into sustainable traction, structure and growth.
Because many first-time builders are not failing because they lack ambition or intelligence. They are often facing things they have never seen before.
Key topics
Why learning by doing is powerful, but learning alone can be expensive
How experience helps builders spot risks earlier and ask sharper questions
Why structure matters when early energy is no longer enough
How limited resources force builders to choose what deserves attention
Episode 33: When AI let's all of us build - How to build like you’ve done it before
– With Siavash Habibi, CEO & Co-founder, Team Scaleup
This week’s episode
Building something new means making decisions in situations you may never have seen before. This episode explores why experience, support systems and structure can help more builders move forward before mistakes become too expensive.
In the early stages of building, energy matters. It helps teams start, test and create momentum.
But as the journey continues, the questions become more complex. The risks become more expensive. The opportunities become harder to choose between.
That is where experience can change how you build.
Not because experienced founders have all the answers, but because they often recognize patterns earlier. They know which signals matter, what risks can become expensive later and when a new opportunity might become a distraction.
Learning by doing should not mean learning alone
There is no way to build without learning through action.
You need to test, make decisions, try things, adjust and keep going. But one of the strongest ideas in this episode is that learning by doing does not have to mean learning alone.
Building for the first time often means facing challenge after challenge you have never dealt with before. That is not a sign that builders lack capability. It is a sign that building is full of unknowns.
The right support can help expose those unknowns earlier
Energy needs structure
Early-stage energy can take a team far.
Small teams can move quickly, stay close to the problem and create momentum. But as a company grows, energy needs to be complemented by structure, systems and process.
The challenge is not to remove the energy, but to support it.
At some point, builders need to ask what kind of structure will help them keep moving without draining the team’s bandwidth.
Which plant should get the water?
One of the clearest analogies from the episode is the image of ten plants and one litre of water.
If you try to water all ten plants equally, none of them may get enough to grow.
For builders, that becomes a question of opportunity selection. The challenge is not only finding opportunities. It is choosing which ones to feed.
That is where experience can help. Not only in knowing what to chase, but in knowing what not to chase.
Who is helping you see what you cannot yet see?
Whether you are building a startup, a product, a team, a new offer or something inside an existing organization, the same question applies:
Who is helping you see what you cannot yet see?
Because learning by doing is powerful.
But learning with the right support may be what helps more great ideas become something that lasts.
🎧 Listen now on Spotify!
Host: Kristine Lium
About the guest
Name: Siavash Habibi
Title: CEO & Co-founder, Team Scaleup
Background: Siavash has spent 15 years building, scaling, and advising companies — from both sides of the table. He has been Co-founder and COO at TechBuddy, helping them grow from a small team to 50 employees across four markets, completing three acquisitions along the way.
At McKinsey, he worked as a green business building expert, helping greentech scaleups from Inception to pre-IPO with growth acceleration.
He's been a mentor in the Swedish Institute's She Entrepreneurs program, and part of scaling a London-based TV venture that grew from startup to 40 million viewers globally. Siavash has also worked with non-profits such as Matt Damon's Water.org, and the Clinton Foundation - working on solutions to addressing global challenges at scale.
Today he runs Team Scaleup, a Swedish investment readiness accelerator that helps scaleups build the foundation that Series A investors expect. He has a fascination for business building, and a passion for closing the information gap between the well connected and the hidden founders.
👉 Listen to the full episode of Simply Briefed Listen to explore how builders can move from early energy into sustainable traction, structure and growth.
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