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In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.

Aaron Levie

Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.
AARON LEVIE

Entrepreneur Execute Like Strategize Tomorrow
Sometimes things are the way they are and can’t be changed, other times it’s because no one ever tried. Your job is to find the latter.
AARON LEVIE

Change Jobs Latter Sometime Tried Way
Entrepreneurship: 10% coach, 20% player, 30% cheerleader, 40% waterboy.
AARON LEVIE

Cheerleader Coach Entrepreneur Player Waterboy
Listen to your customers, but don’t always build exactly what they’re telling you. This is a really key distinction around building enterprise software.
AARON LEVIE

Building Customer Distinction Key Listen Software Tell
Better to be right about the trend and wrong about the implementation, than the other way around.
AARON LEVIE

Around Better Implementation Right Trend Way Wrong
Innovation is hard because solving problems people didn’t know they had & building something no one needs look identical at first.
AARON LEVIE

Build Innovation Need People Problem Solve
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.
AARON LEVIE

Dad Education Mom Pretty Serious Teacher
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.
AARON LEVIE

Company Cost Discover Fundamental Look Structure
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable
What happens to the Microsofts, Oracles and IBMs of the world is that when they get big enough, they don’t think they need to bring that same level of focus and energy to the end-user experience.
AARON LEVIE

Energy Focus IBM Microsoft Oracle Thinking World
The product that wins is the one that bridges customers to the future, not the one that requires a giant leap.
AARON LEVIE

Bridge Future Giant Leap Require Winning
It’s unfortunate biologically we have to sleep.
AARON LEVIE

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

Building Company Enterprise Magical Software Time
You intentionally start small, because you will not be able to compete with an incumbent… because the incumbent is always going to go for the full solution.
AARON LEVIE

Able Building Incumbent Intention Start
My workday begins around 11 A.M., with a cup of black coffee in each hand. If I had more hands, there would be more coffee.
AARON LEVIE

Begin Black Coffee Cup Hand Workday
I don’t use many apps. I use naps.
AARON LEVIE

App Many Nap Use

In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.

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In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.

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