Why tech companies need to think and act like startups: A CTO’s perspective

Tech doesn’t sit still, and neither can we. Even the most established players risk being outpaced if they lose that spark of agility. That’s why, no matter the size of the organisation, adopting a startup mindset isn’t optional, it’s survival.

As CTO at Azentio, I live in this balancing act every day. On one side, the muscle of a large enterprise: proven systems, long-term clients, stable revenue. On the other, the speed and daring of a startup. The trick? Keeping both in play without one smothering the other.

1. Speed of execution: the not-so-secret weapon

Startups win on speed. No endless sign-off loops, no layers of “maybe next quarter.” They ship. Large B2B companies, especially in BFSI, are notorious for moving slower, often dragged down by legacy systems and governance.

But look, our clients don’t care about our internal hurdles. They want fast, safe digital transformation. So, we have to trim the fat: shorter development cycles, rapid prototypes, MVPs that get into client hands sooner. Perfection can wait, feedback can’t.

In my teams, we lean on continuous delivery and automated testing. The more friction we cut from the pipeline, the faster we learn. Speed without compromise, that’s the bar.

2. Collaboration: killing silos before they kill us

If you’ve ever worked in a startup, you know the feeling, everyone crammed around one table, building together. In larger firms, silos creep in quietly and suddenly product doesn’t talk to data, security doesn’t talk to dev, and innovation stalls.

That can’t happen. Not in BFSI where complexity is high and client expectations higher. Whether it’s DevOps pairing with risk teams, or data scientists working hand-in-hand with engineers, cross-functional collaboration must be the default.

One practical move we’ve made: pushing microservices. Each team owns their piece, but the interfaces are clear, so integration happens fast. That transparency keeps everyone aligned and stops the “throw it over the wall” culture that kills speed.

3. Tech stack: flexibility beats everything

Startups start fresh. Big companies inherit baggage. Old stacks, rigid systems, fragile workarounds. I’ve seen it, try to launch one new feature and suddenly you’re fighting two decades of technical debt.

So, modernization isn’t a nice-to-have, it’s oxygen. For us, containerization and orchestration give flexibility to scale without massive rewrites. Pair that with a distributed architecture and we can pivot when the market shifts, without tearing everything down.

Data is another edge. Startups obsess over it, and rightly so. We’re doing the same: collecting signals across the product ecosystem and using them to guide what we build. That’s how you stay relevant, not by guessing, but by listening to the data and to the customer.

4. Fail fast, learn faster

“Fail fast” sounds cliché until you live it. Startups don’t fear small failures; they treat them as tuition fees for learning. Larger firms, though, sometimes cling too long to ideas that aren’t working.

We take a different approach. Launch in a limited sandbox, monitor hard, listen to client feedback, and if it doesn’t fly, pivot. Quickly. Better a small stumble today than a giant mess six months from now.

The key isn’t avoiding failure; it’s designing for recovery. We’ve built the frameworks, real-time monitoring, user feedback loops, agile release cycles, so that when something breaks, we fix and move on.

5. Customer-centric innovation

At the end of the day, clients don’t buy features, they buy solutions. Startups get this because they live and die by customer feedback. Enterprises sometimes forget.

That’s why we’ve embedded client touchpoints all through development. Not just at the end, but mid-build, mid-release, post-launch. We track product use in detail, talk to clients constantly, and adjust. It’s not about adding bells and whistles, it’s about solving the right problems, at the right time.

6. Staying hungry

There are a few principles I keep close:

• Build fast, validate faster.
• Demo every two weeks, even if rough.
• Use our own products before anyone else does.
• Design API-first, mobile-first.
• Pivot when the data says pivot.

These aren’t slogans, they’re survival tactics.

Closing thought

The tech world moves at startup speed whether we like it or not. The choice is simple: either act like a startup yourself, or risk being overtaken by one.

Complacency is the real competitor. At Azentio, we choose to stay restless, to push, to question, because in this industry, failure might be an option, but standing still isn’t.