I wanted to make a product and sell it directly to people who’d care about its quality. There’s an incredible connection possible when you align your financial motivations with the service of your users. It’s an entirely different category of work than if you’re simply trying to capture eyeballs and sell their attention, privacy, and dignity in bulk to the highest bidder.
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... See more“If Stripe is a monstrously successful business, but what we make isn’t beautiful, and Stripe doesn’t embody a culture of incredibly exacting craftsmanship, I’ll be much less happy. I think the returns to both of those things in the world are really high. I think even beyond the pecuniary or financial returns, the world’s just uglier than it needs
Many people would view this approach as advice for building a charity or aiming a business only at your close friends — it couldn’t possibly be applied to a business that makes enough money to put clothes on the children, keep food on the table, and pay the rent. But this is precisely how I built a business that, for over a decade, has had a waitin
... See moreMost of the revenue came from sellers, so we had a strong incentive to find ways to please sellers, but we soon realized that the real reason sellers loved us was because we provided them with buyers. This realization led to a critical principle that stated, “In cases where the needs of the buyers and the sellers conflict, we will prioritize the ne
... See morePour yourself into your product and everything around your product too: how you sell it, how you support it, how you explain it, and how you deliver it. Competitors can never copy the you in your product.
The easiest, most straightforward way to create a great product or service is to make something you want to use.