how I’d build a startup
the founder is the guardian of the company's Soul
Founders Podcast • #365 Nick Sleep's Letters: The Full Collection of the Nomad Investment Partnership Letters
Obsess over perfection.
If you are designing something that a customer is going to use or that will represent us in public, it’s not good enough unless it’s flawless and extraordinary.
Especially in software, many situations have winner-take-all dynamics due to network effects and switching costs. Being the winner means being in the
... See moreJoe Lonsdale • Lessons from Peter Thiel
Peter Thiel
As competition intensifies, founders rush to get their products out into the market. Product teams literally work in sprints. Craftsmanship was replaced with growth hacks. It's not just the software itself that lacks personality; has every tech company hired the same illustrator? Our once so lively dreams have become positively lifeless.
- ReadMe
it reflects how the best software products aren’t just assemblages of functionality , exposed by particular formal elements (links, buttons, icons, menus). Rather, they organize and shape how you think, and they create or sustain a particular lifestyle:
Celine Nguyen • research as leisure activity
It = research as leisure activity
“Take our own example,” he says. “Say we’re successful in cellular, in data centers, in WiFi and wired. We could go down the stack and build our own ASICs (application-specific integrated circuits, or custom chips). I just don’t see how we don’t do it if we’re successful. Just think, it’s 2032 or 2030 or something, and I get to go learn about... See more
‘They know they should do one thing but they feel they should do something else. And they can’t reconcile the two things. Generally you should go with what you feel that you should do. Because your emotional system is a great deal smarter than you give it credit for. You have to figure out how to make your emotional system make decision so you can
... See moreSimilar to the brain and mind idea that Isabel talks about in her article .
Easy to find an idea
Transformational ideas for software—the ones that could become huge businesses and change the world—are rare and hard to spot. Even when they do work out, they often take tremendous effort and require an appetite for risk.
In contrast, incremental improvements to existing software are far easier to find . If you’re opinionated... See more
Transformational ideas for software—the ones that could become huge businesses and change the world—are rare and hard to spot. Even when they do work out, they often take tremendous effort and require an appetite for risk.
In contrast, incremental improvements to existing software are far easier to find . If you’re opinionated... See more