Online, we need to make the big feel smaller, in the right ways. The challenge to start small from something that is currently controlled by Facebook and Google, is very hard. But people are doing it. Look at The Correspondent, or Open Culture, or Brain Pickings, or thousands of other small projects that have good communities around them. We need... See more
You sometimes hear that a team built something great despite being small - we think that teams most often build great things because they’re small (with strong talent, passion, and chemistry, of course). So our hiring approach thus far is hiring only people that are so talented they could have been co-founders in another sequence of events. We’re... See more
You walk down your high street. What do you prefer to see there? The economist will say: Walmart, Best Buy, the Gap. Scale economies — cheaper prices — better for “consumers”! But the human being will say: an independent cafe, a good bookshop, a boutique clothing store. Why? Because they offer many things that mega scale organizations don’t.
What do they got?
A big team, lots of money, a strong brand, seemingly unlimited resources, panache, reputation, all that. They’re established.
They’re your competitors.
You want to look away, but you see them everywhere. Their ads on your social, their name in... See more
All of my startup experience summed up:
The right person with the precise right focus and completely unshackled is 10x as effective as 10 pretty smart people working hard in a vague general direction