Archive for 1995

“Evolve. Or die.”

Every one of the companies I’ve ever started I’ve adhered to those three words.

Companies endure because they evolve with the changing markets, with changing styles.

Those companies that refuse to evolve and remain stagnant go out of business within, at most, a few decades.

Building something complex is easy.

Any idiot can build a complex software architecture that nobody understands.

Any idiot can build a complex mechanical device that is difficult to operate.

Building something simple, what we refer to as an elegant solution, even if it has hidden complexities, takes time, patience, skill, knowledge and wisdom is hard.

Remember this because it is important.

In life, start-ups, raising capital, closing the sale, getting laid, or entrepreneurship: “Confidence is the secret to fucking everything.”

I leave it up to you as to which part of the sentence you place the vocal stress on.

If you want to have someone to pay attention to you, you need to learn to talk about them, not you.

Whether you want an audience of a hundred-thousand or an audience of just one, the stories you tell, the conversations you have with your audience has to focus on the audience’s needs, wants, desires and pain points.

Nobody cares about your product (or service). They care about what it can do for them.

What need does it fulfil?

What pain does it take away?

People will always pay attention to you when you are talking about them.

When corresponding via email or chat the most powerful key we ever attached to a computer was the one marked “delete.”

Anything you do that is habitual that has a positive outcome on your start-up by definition will increase demand for whatever it is your startup does.

Bookshelves are designed by people who don’t own books.

Kitchens in homes are designed by people that don’t cook.

If you don’t feel the pain of the problem you are trying to solve, you’re most likely providing a sub-optimal solution.

If you want to lead you have to work at staying out in front so as not to get trampled by the herd following along behind you.

The difference between an entrepreneur and just about everyone else is that entrepreneurs seek pro-active value creation for themselves (for “free”) as opposed to reactive value creation for someone else (that’s paying them).

Your receptionist, the very first person in your organization that most of the people that call on you will have contact with, must be more passionate about your business and your business’ future than you are.

Why put in place someone who wants nothing more than to make this pesky potential customer go away as quickly as possible?

Ever notice how, as an organization grows, it forgets how to market?

Advertising is “easy.”

Throw dollars at the problem until something works.

And when it doesn’t work.

Throw more dollars at it.

“We’re trying everything we can! But the customers aren’t interested in our ads!”

It’s easy to find people who can readily and unwisely spend money on advertising.

It is incredibly difficult to find people who don’t need a lot of money for their marketing.

Unless you are in the news business, you don’t need the news.

You pay attention to news, because it’s easy.

You don’t have to think about the news too deeply, you can catch up a little, form an opinion, make small talk, then go on to the next piece of irrelevant information that will be obsolete tomorrow.

Instead of paying attention to the news of what your competition is up to, imagine what you could do with all that time building a product or service that outlasts them.

If you optimize your business (and your life) to deal with the urgent, the only things, customers, or problems you will ever deal with are those that are urgent.

Which is acceptable if you are a firefighter, a police officer, an ER doctor or a paramedic.

But if you are a writer, an engineer, a software developer, a marketer, an event organiser, a banker, a baker, or those people who make obsolete lighting sources, then you most likely aren’t building a sustainable business.

Why don’t storage locker locations rent shelving units as an up-sell rental service along with the storage locker?

Storage lockers rent by the square foot not the cubic foot.

Most storage lockers are barely using 30% of the storage space.

I rent a storage locker to store a bunch of office crap.

I have my storage locker shelved and all of the items that can fit in boxes are in boxes.

The boxes are labeled and the contents photographed.

An Excel spreadsheet maps out where each box is and what’s in it.

I probably use close to 70% of the capacity of the storage locker.

Whilst it might be in the storage locker rental company’s interest to not encourage renters to maximize space, it would actually be an up-sell.

People don’t think “I’m out of space, let’s rent something bigger.”

They think, “I’m out of space, let’s just cram more stuff in and make it badly organized.”

Never trust a CTO who doesn’t own a computer that is personally his.

There’s a lot of different types of laziness in this world.

Not all of them have names.

But there’s two types you should definitely be aware of.

To a manager, laziness is the worst.

Fire him!

Get rid of him!

He’s lazy!

He’s good for nothing!

He told me himself was lazy.

To an engineer, or anybody who is very smart, a certain kind of laziness can be a good thing.

The lazy software developer will automate a boring or error prone process.

A lazy engineer would rather take a walk, thinking about a problem for a few hours and then implement the solution in just a few minutes than to spend countless hours banging their on the desk.

The worst thing a software developer or engineer can do is tell their non-technical managers “I’m lazy” and then actually show pride in their statement.

To admit laziness (no matter how clever) will never do a developer’s career at the company any favours.

You have to create a job (and the right work environment) that allows people to fail if you want them to produce the best work you have ever seen.

Productivity Hack: Don’t respond to people who “want to chat” or otherwise spend your time unwisely.

There’s a time for talking and there’s a time for doing, and you should be the one picking that time, not someone else.

A hopeful entrepreneur asks a software developer if he will work on the entrepreneur’s idea for a 90% equity share.

“Of course!” replies the software developer.

“Will you do it for 3% equity with a four year vesting period and 2 year cliff?” asks the entrepreneur.

The software developer blinks, “Do you think I’m stupid?!” he responds.

“We’ve already established that,” quips the entrepreneur, “now we’re just negotiating price.”

Ba-dum tis.

You of course know the original joke.

The problem is not complicated.

The solution might be complicated.

But I have yet to meet any problem that is complicated.

If you hustle, you get the sale.

If you build relationships, you get a customer for life.

There are many people in your life that will inform you that you will regret not working for them, partnering with them, or launching a start-up with them.

In all my years of business I have not once come to regret any decision where I turned them down.

I doubt that you will either.

Convenience is a double-edged sword.

There are entire industries built on that premise.

Don’t expect to dine at the Savoy when your budget barely extends to the McDonald’s value menu.

Professionals cannot afford to purchase cheap products.

There is a reason that professional tradesmen such as audio engineers, software developers, mechanical engineers and photographers stay loyal to a brand or a service provider even when a new brand offers competitive features at a much lower price.

People who rely on their tools, equipment and service providers for their livelihood, and even their life, pay for reliability, for reduced risk, for known quantities.

Often, going cheap will break your budget, just not in ways you think.

You have to create a work environment that encourages people to work with you rather than for you.

When people work with you, they engage, they contribute, they produce stunning work, and they care.

When people work for you, they do exactly what they’re told, produce exactly what’s required, and keep all of their best ideas and output for themselves.