Go after the customers that are working in the future, but haven’t totally lost their minds.
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?’
More Aaron Levie Quotes
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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.
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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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Focus too much on the near-term and you won’t get tomorrow’s customers, focus too much on the long-term and you won’t get today’s.
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I’m certainly not into money and prestige. For me there is simply nothing more exciting than people involved in the creation of great products. That is what drives me.
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In the enterprise you want to start intentionally small.
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Execute like there’s no tomorrow, strategize like there will be.
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Better to be too early and have to try again, than be too late and have to catch up.
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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.
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Startups live at the intersection of existential crisis and everything going perfectly great.
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If there could’ve ever been a magical time to build an enterprise software company, now is absolutely that time.
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You can keep ‘consumer’ DNA at the center of your product. That will always mean that adoption is easier.
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Start with the assumption that the best way to do something is not the way it’s being done right now.
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Jeff Bezos is opening a retail store and owns a newspaper. Turns out everything we thought about the Internet is wrong.
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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.
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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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If you don’t go to every level of your company, you distance yourself from the marketplace and from your people.
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The only way to avoid disruption is to constantly do what you would if you were just starting out.
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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.
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Do things that incumbents can’t or won’t do because it’s economically or technically infeasible.
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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.
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The 10% between 90% done to 100% done takes most of the time, causes most of the stress, but is all of the value.
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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.
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If every customer is using your product “correctly”, you’ll never learn anything interesting about what to do next.
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Modularize, don’t customize. Build a platform as opposed to building all of the custom technology and custom vertical experiences.
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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.
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I think people are always able to achieve more than they think they can. While that’s cliche, I don’t know if managers think about that enough. You have to set your sights extremely high.
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