“Moving fast enables us to build more things and learn faster. However, as most companies grow, they slow down too much because they’re more afraid of making mistakes than they are of losing opportunities by moving too slowly. We have a saying: “Move fast and break things.” The idea is that if you never break anything, you’re probably not moving fast enough.”
“My advice for entrepreneurs: Wake up terrified every morning. If that intimidates you, consider working for somebody.”
Again, if you build an application that solves a problem you are having chances are that it will also help other people. You are the customer, you are the person with the problem and you know exactly what is needed to solve it or make your life less painful using technology. One of the main reasons I see people wanting to become entrepreneurs is to be able to make their own decisions and to be in control, my advice is do what you want, do what your gut tells you!
Fantastic advice! Following this reasoning we started ‘scratching our own itch’ a few weeks ago and are just now kicking our new project into high gear. When you’re building it for yourself there’s no question whether or not your product meets a specific need.
Jason Fried talks Basecamp, 37signals, and taking a product to the next level at @Chicago_CM.
Tattly is a temporary tattoo store for design-minded kids and kids-at-heart. After applying many bad-clip-art tattoos on her daughter, swissmiss decided to stop complaining and take matters into her own hands. Tattly was born. Now, let’s rock the tattoo world together. Which one do you like the best?
Brilliant idea! I can see this taking off. The image above is from Frank Chimero’s Knuckles tattoo available for $5.
“Do what you think is right and apologize later.”
Excellent quote from Scott Wilson’s, founder of MINIMAL and creator of the LunaTik, boss Ed Boyd while working at Nike. Go to The 99 Percent and read the full article—Scott Wilson: Do What You Think Is Right & Apologize Later on design, entrepreneurship and taking risks—in fact I think I should read it again.
My boss at Nike, Ed Boyd, told me: “Do what you think is right and apologize later.” That really gave me free rein. And I fell in love with that culture and way of doing things. It’s very entrepreneurially focused. There’s a lot of people at Nike, they go under the radar, and they incubate something, and then they spring it on you.
Nike really opened my eyes about how you actually talk to a consumer, and how you craft a story.
Here is a summary of the five pieces of advice, but make sure you click through to get all the nuggets of wisdom.
Co-Founder of Tumblr and the one-man-force behind Instapaper.
The 26 year-old serial entrepreneurs Spencer Fry—creator of Carbonmade—shares his thoughts on focusing on one idea at a time and fighting off entrepreneur A.D.D.
Thankfully, there is a cure for “Entrepreneur’s A.D.D.” and that’s to fall in love with a single idea, what I like to call an “I’m in Love Idea”. You’ll know it when it happens.
Over the summer I have been actively turning down client work in an effort to focus on my “I’m in Love Idea”. During this shift from running a consulting and service based digital studio to creating and selling digital goods I will be sharing my ideas and thoughts about the process—tag: shift.
His name: Christian Owens. His age: 16. He made his first million dollars in two years, “inspired by Apple’s CEO Steve Jobs”. This is how he did it.
Reblogged from soupsoup
Founder of Skullcandy, Rick Alden Entrepreneur magazine’s Entrepreneur of 2009, talks about the birth of the action sports brand. After noticing a wall of generic black and silver headphones in every electronics store Rick Alden started Skullcandy to appeal to snowboarders and skaters with unique headphones. Started in 2003 the company experienced quite a few difficult patches as demand was high, but manufactures were reluctant to take on the risk of the unconventional product. Now in 2009 the company is expected to reach $120 million in revenue.
It also appears that much of the success of the company can be credited to the internal culture. A surf trip to Costa Rica for all the employees and families is always a great way to motivate a team to hit numbers. In the interview with Entrepreneur magazine Rick gives a lot of credit to the support of his wife. Strong support from a wife is an incredible asset.
Alden says his wife made it an easy leap: “Her response was, ‘Listen, the worst thing that could possibly happen is the business fails, and we start all over again. That’s just not that bad.’ “
“If you review your first site version and don’t feel embarrassment, you spent too much time on it.”
Reid Hoffman, as quoted in Mark Goldenson’s 10 lessons from a failed startup, a post-mortem of what PlayCafe’s founders did right and wrong.
