Startup Observations

I believe “what effect do you want to have on people” is one of the most important questions we should ask when we are making something. Life isn't just a series of problems to be solved but experiences to be had.

If you're small, you're in a position where it's to your advantage to be weird—you can have a point of view that the big tech companies never could. In the world of chairs—you're not going to build a cheaper chair than Ikea. Why not build something they couldn't—like a more interesting one?

Work isn't war https://t.co/ZxvOISXi84

Idk who needs this but I’ve seen a few startups fail because of founder burn out. I haven’t seen any startups fail because a founder took a couple days off.

Build the company you want to work for, that’s how you become an entrepreneur. Write the book you want to read, that’s how you become an author. What you do will become who you are—you become xyz not by watching others, but by doing it yourself. What you create creates you:

When startups start taking off, the founders usually can't tell what's changed. It's some combination of all the random things they did to make it take off, but it's hard to say which ones.

the ability to take your work very seriously without taking yourself that seriously is a lowkey superpower

Being a founder requires constant calibration between arrogance and humility, optimism and pessimism. You need the arrogance to believe that you have something important to say, but the humility to know most people won’t care. You need the optimism to convince yourself and others (employees, investors, customers) to believe in you. But you need pes... See more

Self-doubt kills more early stage companies than competition or lack of funding ever will. We talk about companies needing financial capital, but rarely about the importance of emotional capital.

For most people, adjusting their self-image accounts for the difference between giving up and reaching their potential. Want to make the world a better pla... See more