On building of All Trades

We get excited about our smart idea; we race it to market; we expect the cavalry to arrive and make this easier. But the reality is that doing a handstand “takes about six months of daily practice. If you think you should be able to do it in two weeks, you’re just going to end up quitting”—or, for the founders who endure, end up surprised by how... See more

ON SMALL TEAMS

Impressive things accomplished by small teams:

• Instagram had 13 employees when they were acquired by Facebook for $1 billion. They had 30 millions users at the time.


• Mojang (the company behind Minecraft) had 37 employees when they were acquired by Microsoft for $2.5 billion. At that time, Mojang had revenue of about $290 million

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To be happy I think you have to be doing something you not only enjoy, but admire. You have to be able to say, at the end, wow, that's pretty cool.

Self-promotion makes me uncomfortable.

Maybe because I (read: most women) am not really great at it?

Or because I never want to sound sales-y.

New approaches will never be embraced by everyone at first. If you need unanimous consent, you’re not going to move forward.

And it’s not convenient. If it were, someone would have done it already.

Finally, it’s not sure to work.

If you need any or all three of these things for your project to move forward, you probably should pick a different... See more

Mihika likens the role of a 0-to-1 team within a large company to that of Hestia in Greek mythology, who is the “keeper of the hearth.” It is Hestia’s job to always keep the hearth burning, even while other gods go out on separate quests. This means always keeping the 0-to-1 project alive and helping it spread to others, mostly through setting... See more

Earn people’s trust, again and again

In a world of factory farmed unicorns that boom, bust, and let their customers down in the process, we have to show that we are committed to sustainability and longevity.

I’m thinking about how the only way to get better at making things is to make things, and to let the thinking happen inside the work – where you can judge a thing based on how it feels – instead of outside the work.