Startups live at the intersection of existential crisis and everything going perfectly great.
AARON LEVIEStartups live at the intersection of existential crisis and everything going perfectly great.
AARON LEVIEWe didn’t really start the company to go build an enterprise software company.
AARON LEVIEEntrepreneurship: 10% coach, 20% player, 30% cheerleader, 40% waterboy.
AARON LEVIELook for new enabling technologies that create a wide gap between how things have been done and how they can be done.
AARON LEVIEYou 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 LEVIEJeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.
AARON LEVIEIn an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.
AARON LEVIEI think bad politics are incredibly dangerous, so it’s important to make sure that people are communicating well. Culture and morale are super important. It’s best to not force it, but let it happen organically and genuinely.
AARON LEVIEThat’s already been tried before only means the first attempt got it wrong.
AARON LEVIEUber is a $3.5 billion lesson in building for how the world *should* work instead of optimizing for how the world *does* work
AARON LEVIESometimes 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 LEVIEYou 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 LEVIERead these 3 books – Crossing the Chasm, Innovators Dilemma and Behind the Cloud.
AARON LEVIEI’m obsessed with speed. I’m always asking myself, ‘Why can’t we do things faster? Why can’t it happen more efficiently? Why is this requiring three meetings instead of one?’
AARON LEVIEStart with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a ‘toy’ you’re definitely onto something.
AARON LEVIEOpportunity lives at the intersection of what people need tomorrow and can be just barely built today.
AARON LEVIE