A league with 30 intense competitors requires a culture of finding new, better ways to solve repeating problems. In the short term, investing in that sort of innovation often doesn’t look like much progress, if any. Abraham Lincoln said “give me six hours to chop down a tree and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe.”
When my dad and I started Philz, we didn’t open our second store until nearly 5 years after founding. It takes time to set the foundation. The beauty of brick & mortar is you learn in real time and can iterate in the moment.
Kai Krause on how short-lived software is relative to other art forms:
You can hum a tune you once liked, years later. You can read words or look a painting from 300 years ago and still appreciate its truth and beauty today, as if brand new. Software, by that comparison, is more like Soufflé: enjoy it now, today, for... See more