March 2012
7 posts
“People without access to information do not have to take responsibility for their actions.” The hallmark of any great corporate culture is high levels of open, honest, robust communication. In today’s world, information is not power; sharing information is what gives you power.”
—Spence, John (2009-08-06). Awesomely Simple: Essential Business Strategies for Turning Ideas Into Action (p. 47). John Wiley and Sons. Kindle Edition.
“Let me conclude with some tactical advice. If you want to take on a problem as big as the ones I’ve discussed, don’t make a direct frontal attack on it. Don’t say, for example, that you’re going to replace email. If you do that you raise too many expectations. Your employees and investors will constantly be asking “are we there yet?” and you’ll have an army of haters waiting to see you fail. Just say you’re building todo-list software. That sounds harmless. People can notice you’ve replaced email when it’s a fait accompli…Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with deceptively small things. Want to dominate microcomputer software? Start by writing a Basic interpreter for a machine with a few thousand users. Want to make the universal web site? Start by building a site for Harvard undergrads to stalk one another.”
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Paul Graham: Frighteningly Ambitious Startup Ideas
Or, to use an example I’ve always loved: want to create the iPad? Start with music playing software, use that as the impetus to create a music playing device, then build a touch screen phone based on the music device, and finally a larger scale tablet based on the phone platform.
(via buzz)