[jimmont]

I'm not sure long timelines are a requirement. Finding product-market fit seems the aim and having components that facilitate quickly iterating makes sense--especially if the designers and developers can independently iterate in parallel (which is incidentally easily achieved with the right experience and management--and frankly the prior expertise is the time specific benefit). Startups as much or more than any group fail so I don't think anyone has found a formula otherwise the failure rate wouldn't be as high. If the staff can take the design system and leverage it for the next job that doesn't seem as poorly considered as many startup's direction. They did after all get hired to design something so if that system takes less and less time and becomes increasingly effective it might become their own automated side thing.