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The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

Aaron Levie

The best technology is aimed far enough in the future that it stands out, but close enough to the present that it blends in.
AARON LEVIE

Close Enough Out Present Standing Technology
Tip: Take the stodgiest, oldest, slowest moving industry you can find. And build amazing software for it.
AARON LEVIE

Amazing Industry Moving Slow Software Stodgiest
You want to find the really crazy but still somewhat reasonable outliers within the customer ecosystem.
AARON LEVIE

Crazy Customer Ecosystem Reasonable
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
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
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
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
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.
AARON LEVIE

Change Market Material Raw Significant Technology
Read these 3 books – Crossing the Chasm, Innovators Dilemma and Behind the Cloud.
AARON LEVIE

Book Building Chasm Cloud Clouds Innovator
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
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
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.
AARON LEVIE

Ago Done Enabling Repeat Technology Year
Startups often win because it’s easier to see what comes next when you don’t have to worry about maintaining what came last.
AARON LEVIE

Come Easier Last Startup Winning Worry
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.
AARON LEVIE

Extend Organization Ownership Pride Thinking
Do things that incumbents can’t or won’t do because it’s economically or technically infeasible.
AARON LEVIE

Building Incumbent Infeasible Technical Thing
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

The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

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The benefit to building a startup is that customers don’t have the same kind of friction when they adopt new technology.

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