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

Aaron Levie

In the enterprise you want to start intentionally small.
AARON LEVIE

Building Enterprise Intention Small Want
If every customer is using your product “correctly”, you’ll never learn anything interesting about what to do next.
AARON LEVIE

Correct Customer Interest Interesting Next
The chance of failure is almost always better than the guarantee of never knowing.
AARON LEVIE

Always Chance Failure Guarantee Know Knowing
The only way to avoid disruption is to constantly do what you would if you were just starting out.
AARON LEVIE

Constant Disruption Out Starting Way
Opportunity lives at the intersection of what people need tomorrow and can be just barely built today.
AARON LEVIE

Bare Build Need Opportunity People Tomorrow
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
That’s already been tried before only means the first attempt got it wrong.
AARON LEVIE

Attempt First Mean Tried Wrong
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
The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.
AARON LEVIE

Adopt Benefits Customer Friction Kind Technology
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
The 10% between 90% done to 100% done takes most of the time, causes most of the stress, but is all of the value.
AARON LEVIE

Cause Done Percentage Stress Time
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.
AARON LEVIE

Done Little Much Person Process
It’s unfortunate biologically we have to sleep.
AARON LEVIE

Biological Sleep Unfortunate
Startups live at the intersection of existential crisis and everything going perfectly great.
AARON LEVIE

Crisis Existential Great Perfectly Startup
Go after the customers that are working in the future, but haven’t totally lost their minds.
AARON LEVIE

Building Customer Future Lost Mind Working
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable

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

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

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