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.
Saved by phoebe and
I think we are trying to build a company that serves the people that use it rather than serves the company that we founded.
... See moreI've consulted. I've done client work. I've advised. I've served on boards. I've invested. I've written books. I've spoken on the circuit. I've blogged for years.
I have to say, I've found no greater professional joy than working with a tight group of people to ship and support our own products. And for those products to find people willing to trade
The thing that was really most important, as a startup—though by then we weren't really a startup—by then we were public, but a young company—is the relationship that we had built with our customers. We wanted them to feel that a) they were given a decent deal and that b) they trusted us to lead them to where they needed to go. So
Most 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 moreWe want work to be financially valued without compromising our integrity. We want to make meaningful work that we're proud of, not please an algorithm. We want to share work in ways that feel right to us, not compete for attention on a feed. We want to feel seen without our creativity and identities being exploited.
It’s making a bet that, if it delivers a product built according to values that customers support (for example, American jobs), customers will spread the word virally through their social networks.