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How is your mousetrap better than the one I already have?

If you’re building a better mousetrap, it had better catch more mice.

Ultimately, the products we build have to provide value for our customers. This means that if we’re trying to build something better than what exists, it should represent a superior benefit to our customers.

When you’re selling to businesses the overriding factor is utility: does this mousetrap help me catch more mice, or not? Does your software help me to get more done, in less time? Does your service earn or save me money? These are factors that represent value to a business.
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What does it means to be a dad? I mean uniquely a dad, as opposed to being a parent. In today’s modern society, moms and dads generally share parenting tasks equitably; but what makes dad distinct?

The answer is going to depend on the dad, but for me it comes down to two words: wrestling and romance.

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“Hey kids, don’t bother daddy, I’m working.”

“But dad, you’re watching YouTube!”

It should be obvious, but we’ve all rationalized work activities that aren’t real work.  Furthermore, we get caught up doing too many maintenance tasks that don’t earn revenue. What we need to do, on a regular basis, is realign ourselves with work that provides value for our customers.

For me, it’s been helpful to sort my work into 4 categories: Continue Reading →

How do you attract 1000′s of paying customers? By having an amazing product: something that solves a problem, and makes life easier.

Building an amazing product is about being focused. Avoid multi-tasking. Sweat every single detail: your writing, your design, your terms of service – it all matters. Make sure it’s perfect. The entire team has to be focused on producing a great product.

Despite what some people tell you, you do have to work hard. It doesn’t mean you have to work 15 hour days. It does mean that when you do sit down to work, you need to put your head down and work. Get the fuck off of Twitter! If you’re getting distracted every 5 minutes, you won’t get any work done. You really have to tune everything out, and just work. And you have to do that every single day.

It’s not going from 0 to 1000 customers: instead it’s going from 0 to 2. And then 2 to 4. It’s slow. It’s steady. You need to patience. If you have something of value, people will pay money for it. Create something valuable, and people will pay you for it!

- Chris Nagele at his SuperConf talk, 2012

The design is done when the problem goes away.

- Jason Fried

I took both of these shots: the photo of 37signals was taken when I visited in 2010, and the picture at Zappos from my recent visit in early 2012.

My latest visit reminded me of Ryan Carson’s post that compared photos he’d seen from both offices. He wondered which approach was better, in terms of developing happy employees. Here are my thoughts, having spent an entire day at both companies.

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“Cool wears off. Useful is forever.” – Jason Fried

Getting dropped off by Zappos shuttle

Today I toured the Zappos head office in Las Vegas. I had read Tony Hsieh’s book, Delivering Happiness, and was eager to see the concepts he’s talked about in-person.

Wow. I am blown away.

Zappos.com is the world’s largest online shoe store, but they’re probably better known for their amazing corporate culture. During my tour, I was able to experience that culture first-hand.

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Years ago, Chris Rock and I were writing a shitty movie together. We were talking about comedians. We went to Mitch Hedberg’s site (this is before he died) and watched one of his Letterman sets. At the time, Chris and I were (and are) both wind-bag, stage-stalking, hammer a premise to the ground comics. We watched Mitch, who just fired beautiful fastballs one after the other. Joke joke joke. All solid. All amazing. Non-stop. Five minutes of it. We were in awe of it. Much respect to Mitch Hedberg.

- Louis CK