“In a user lead model, users are bringing in their own technology… and you can build software then, around the user.”

There’s a lot of pride that business owners have. It’s actually really critical that pride and ownership extends to everyone in the organization. I think of everyone is in the same boat in driving the company forward.

All we’re really doing is repeating technologies that were tried 10, 20, 30 years ago… it’s just that it was too expensive, too unusable, and we didn’t have the enabling technologies to make it possible.

If people don’t think the odds are against you, you’re doing it wrong.

Read these 3 books – Crossing the Chasm, Innovators Dilemma and Behind the Cloud.

That’s already been tried before only means the first attempt got it wrong.

If there could’ve ever been a magical time to build an enterprise software company, now is absolutely that time.

Innovation is hard because solving problems people didn’t know they had & building something no one needs look identical at first.

My dad is a chemical engineer, and my mom was a teacher. They were pretty serious about education, but I always thought about things a little bit differently.

Always look for these changing technology factors- any market that has a significant change in the underlying raw materials …or enabling factors, is an environment that is about to change in a very significant way.

Startups often win because it’s easier to see what comes next when you don’t have to worry about maintaining what came last.

In the enterprise you want to start intentionally small.

We didn’t really start the company to go build an enterprise software company.

You can look at the cost structure of an incumbent company and discover: where are they not going to be able to drop their prices… because that business model is fundamental to the existence of the company.

Everything about the enterprise, and then by definition the software the enterprise uses has changed – just in the last 5 years.

Too little process and you can’t get good work done. Too much process and you can’t get any work done. Most companies never find the middle.

Start with the assumption that the best way to do something is not the way it’s being done right now.