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

Aaron Levie

The only barrier to entry you can create is to consistently build a great product.
AARON LEVIE

Barrie Consistently Create Entry Great Product
If you’re waiting for encouragement from others, you’re doing it wrong. By the time people think an idea is good, it’s probably too late.
AARON LEVIE

Encouragement Idea People Thinking Wait Wrong
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
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
I have a lot of faults. I often interrupt in meetings. I talk too loud. I talk too fast.
AARON LEVIE

Fast Fault Loud Meeting Talk
Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.
AARON LEVIE

Entrepreneur Execute Like Strategize Tomorrow
Everything about the enterprise, and then by definition the software the enterprise uses has changed – just in the last 5 years.
AARON LEVIE

Change Definition Enterprise Software Use Year
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
Start with something simple and small, then expand over time. If people call it a ‘toy’ you’re definitely onto something.
AARON LEVIE

Definite Expand People Simple Toy
We’re enamored with the concept that there’s always a price. But sometimes, your goal is to build a great company, not sell it.
AARON LEVIE

Build Company Concept Enamore Goal Great Sometimes
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
Better to be too early and have to try again, than be too late and have to catch up.
AARON LEVIE

Catch Early Late Too Try Trying
In an IT lead world, incumbents generally win because they have the existing relationship with the IT organization.
AARON LEVIE

Incumbent IT Organisation Organization Relationship Winning World
Uber is a $3.5 billion lesson in building for how the world *should* work instead of optimizing for how the world *does* work
AARON LEVIE

Billion Doe Instead Optimize Uber World
You can keep ‘consumer’ DNA at the center of your product. That will always mean that adoption is easier.
AARON LEVIE

Adoption Consumer DNA Easier Mean
Why we do what we do: that moment when you get to see the future on your computer screen before the rest of the world.
AARON LEVIE

Computer Future Moment Screen World
Innovation in tech favors the naive and the stubborn. If you are too rational you won’t tackle problems that others once failed at.
AARON LEVIE

Favor Innovation Problem Stubborn Tech
Any time where the delta b/w what is possible and how things work today is at its widest, that’s an opportunity to go build new technology.
AARON LEVIE

Delta Opportunity Possible Technology Today Wide
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
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
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
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
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable
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
Jeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.
AARON LEVIE

Internet Newspaper Retail Store Wrong
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
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

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

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

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