Britt Gage

Disruption, as theorized by Clayton Christensen in the early 1990s, is a process by which a startup offers a lower-cost product that performs worse along standard dimensions of performance for a small subset of customers outside of the mainstream. The product gets adoption, though, because it performs better on a new dimension of performance that... See more

Why Are We Surprised That

Startups Are So Freaking Hard?

We think they can be hacked, but the only enduring moat is effort

We get excited about our smart idea; we race it to market; we expect the cavalry to arrive and make this easier. But the reality is that doing a handstand “takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting”—or, for the founders who endure, end up surprised by how... See more

How do you become a 100-year company?

Taste is a double-edged sword. Because it is ephemeral, you’re untouchable if you have it. Competitors won’t be able to copy it—what is there to copy?

It’s easy to be excited about what the company seems to do... to choose our path based on the public’s perception of the output. But once the company has more than one person in it, most of our day is about satisfying the customer, meeting supplier requirements and dancing with the tension of doing our jobs.

Often, we use the product we make as a... See more

When talking to people, look for two things: pain and pull . Pain tells you there’s an opportunity to solve a problem. Pull tells you that you’re actually solving the problem.

Here’s what pain and pull look like in practice:

1. People pay you money: Several people start to (or offer to) pay for your early product, ideally people you don’t have a direct

... See more

Creativity is born of limitations, not freedom

When I’m in writing mode for a novel, I get up at four a.m. and work for five to six hours. In the afternoon, I run for ten kilometers or swim for fifteen hundred meters (or do both), then I read a bit and listen to some music. I go to bed at nine p.m. I keep to this routine every day without variation. The repetition itself becomes the important... See more