Mission & purpose

Given that your project isn’t for everyone, the goal isn’t for everyone to understand it. The goal is for people who might take action to understand it enough that they will take action. Every great brand that I know of has as the unspoken next line in their brief: “This might not be for you.”

Clarity matters: Being specific and consistent and clear in what you do and what you stand for is challenging work, but worth it. It requires less compromise and a willingness to walk away from all the soft edges that the committee might be insisting on.

We know what the Bat Signal means. We know who’s going to show up, what he’s going to be... See more

As the hero, you get to stand up to those notions and reframe who you are. You get to teach those around you about who you have become. And this last phase—the landing, the integration, the return—cannot be avoided. Because if you refuse to return home, if you refuse to integrate, then your life just gets heavier. You end up with all of this... See more

Techno-Industrials are addressing larger markets than most software companies can.

They use whichever tools they need to provide better solutions to key bottlenecks with better unit economics than incumbents.

They are more capital efficient than most investors expect.

And they have to be more strategically sound than the average software company.

B... See more

When I tell the others about what you do, do I feel smart or stupid? Can you establish the conditions where sharing your core ideas and mission is tempting, generous and affirming for the people you need to have talk about it? If your name or logo get in the way of that, please change it.

I wanted the brand to have my face. I wanted the product to convey the culture, life, lifestyle, dignity of work. We are a listed company, and I wanted to manufacture a product with dignity. I wanted a profit with dignity. Because the press all talk about the moral ethics of profit. Why can’t we have a dignified profit then?

Would you buy something... See more

A brand is not a logo. A brand is a promise, a story and a shorthand. A brand tells us what to expect the next time we engage with you.

Being named Fred is not a brand. Fred is your name, not your promise. If you’re an unreliable, selfish hustler, that’s your brand.

One thing that distinguishes the persistent is their energy. At the risk of putting too much weight on words, they persist rather than merely resisting. They keep trying things. Which means the persistent must also be imaginative. To keep trying things, you have to keep thinking of things to try.

Energy and imagination make a wonderful combination.... See more

Resilience means not having one's morale destroyed by setbacks. Setbacks are inevitable once problems reach a certain size, so if you can't bounce back from them, you can only do good work on a small scale. But resilience is not the same as obstinacy. Resilience means setbacks can't change your morale, not that they can't change your mind.