On building of All Trades

As an extension of this “don’t hire until it hurts” philosophy, Foster notes that Zapier was very hesitant in the early days to bring on anyone with management experience (even though the founding trio themselves didn’t have any). “Our first people managers were just me, my co-founders, and early employees that we promoted into those roles. We were... See more

“We are only leading when we are centered on making others better.”

You can start a company to make an impact and surround yourself with people on a similar journey, or you can seek to maximize the stock price and profits.

At the end of the day, having an exciting vision (even one where illegibility is an asset) does not exempt us from building a product that people actually want.

The thing about smart people is that they tend to think that if they think really hard about something, they might figure it out, when the truth is, in strategy (and life in general), there is never one right answer.

Strategy requires making choices about a future that is not yet known. I’m one of those people that tends to over-intellectualize th

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There are different paths to success in the building of a startup, and it’s important to choose the one that aligns with your goals and values. Do you want to build the biggest business possible, or do you want to build a business you’re proud of and want to continue working at?

Progress is not automatic or inevitable. It depends on choice and effort. It is up to us.

Progress is not automatically good. It must be steered. Progress always creates new problems, and they don’t get solved automatically. Solving them requires active focus and effort, and this is a part of progress, too.

Different backgrounds, different views, different experiences. The best teams are diverse. These are the ingredients that spark innovation.

Generally, teams think about switching costs as the amount of time and money needed to install one solution and remove another. But true switching costs are much more than that: they include the politics, emotions, career ambitions, esoteric business processes, competing priorities, and sheer laziness that all favor the existing solution. Those for... See more