Build Something Beautiful
The craft of building great things
Yoshio Goto and
Build Something Beautiful
Quality software deserves your hard‑earned cash
Quality software from independent makers is like quality food from the farmer’s market. A jar of handmade organic jam is not the same as mass-produced corn syrup-laden jam from the supermarket.
Industrial fruit jam is filled with cheap ingredients and shelf stabilizers. Industrial software is filled... See more
If you want to sell music, you must love those songs. If you want to succeed in journalism, you must love those newspapers. If you want to succeed in movies, you must love the cinema.
But this kind of love is rare nowadays. I often see record labels promote new artists for all sorts of gimmicky reasons—even labels I once trusted such as Deutsche Gr... See more
But this kind of love is rare nowadays. I often see record labels promote new artists for all sorts of gimmicky reasons—even labels I once trusted such as Deutsche Gr... See more
Do: make creative decisions that don’t (or do) scale + makes the heart sail.
Don’t: make creative decisions based on PnLs, on balance sheets, on gimmicky trends that appeal to a short-term audience.
For a long time shareholder capitalism reigned alone: businesses exist to make money!
Then one day came the benefit corporation (B corp): businesses exist to make impact!
BUT WHAT IF... companies weren’t primarily vehicles to make money or vehicles for customers to receive value. WHAT IF... companies were vehicles for people to contribute vibrantly... See more
Then one day came the benefit corporation (B corp): businesses exist to make impact!
BUT WHAT IF... companies weren’t primarily vehicles to make money or vehicles for customers to receive value. WHAT IF... companies were vehicles for people to contribute vibrantly... See more
Bree Groff • The E Corp
in order to will any meaningful new project into existence, I actually must be untethered from reality. I need to view the world as bendable and controllable, not as this unchangeable force for me to analyze and carefully dodge around. So for me, “becoming more agentic” has really been a project in carefully maintaining a state of delusion.
An hour on Bets
Brie set a 60-minute timer to answer the question “how can startups maintain a culture of innovation without losing focus on the core? ” “Innovation is less an act of intellect than an act of will” –Joseph Schumpeter, economist What is a bet? A bet is something the company wants to accelerate p...
docs.google.com
On balancing focus with flare
There are essentially two business models right now: boring, useful things that can print money and tastemaker brands that can brute force cultural relevancy. Dumb $ is funding the middle: stuff that is neither useful nor cool enough to make it past current startup headwinds.
Craft is the new "growth hack".
Investing in craft, means you invest in quality of the experience, and that benefits in all of areas of the business.
People talk about you. People want your product. Sales is easier. You create customer champions. Retention is higher.
As you become an adult, you realize that things around you weren't just always there; people made them happen. But only recently have I started to internalize how much tenacity *everything* requires. That hotel, that park, that railway. The world is a museum of passion projects.