Marco Arment on Tumblr Founder David Karp:

Intense focus requires neglecting almost everything else. David’s focus on pushing the product forward meant that he didn’t want to think about boring stuff: support, scaling, paperwork, and money.

Every time we’d get close to needing more funding, I’d try to convince David to hold out a bit longer or try to become profitable, and he’d convince me that everyone was better off if we’d focus on the product instead. And every time, he was right.

4 Main Areas of a Startup

1. Idea
2. Product
3. Team
4. Execution

You should only start a startup if you feel compelled by a problem and you think that starting a startup is the best way to solve it.

Passion is first. Startup is second.

IDEA

On starting with great ideas:

• A bad idea is still a bad idea. Great execution towards a bad idea will get you nowhere. Most great companies start with a great idea, not a pivot.
• Work on the idea that you think about often and you actually love.
• The company should feel like an important mission.
• If you don’t love what you’re building, you’ll likely give up some point along the way. Belief cures the pain of startups.
• One of the most counterintuitive things in starting a startup: It’s easier to start a hard startup than an easy startup. How? The best ideas are in the intersection of what seems like a good idea and what seems like a bad idea. (eg...

Julie Zhou, Product Designer at Facebook, shared this powerful quote on her Medium piece “Why I Design at Facebook”:

But when we talk about priorities, when we talk about the core of what drives a company, for me Facebook has always been about this: the people we build for are the ultimate judges of what’s good or bad and what matters and what doesn’t when it comes to product and design. The people at large — not you or I, not the CEO, not our friends, not all the greatest creative minds in the world — it’s the people we build for that matter the most.

To actual designers, this is an obvious truism. But really, there’s no overstating this fact, because this is what makes design powerful.

Our work is not and never will be about the recognition, praise, awards, downloads, or anything else that’s external. It’s true measure is through its impact on people—how it makes their lives...

Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything—all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure—these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

— STEVE JOBS

Cap Watkins, Design Manager at Etsy shared his and his team’s design process a while ago and I consider it to be one of the most invaluable posts on the topic by far.

I came across his 3-part series before reading Etsy Creative Director Randy J. Hunt’s seminal book Product Design for the Web, but revisiting it afterwards really clarified so much for me. I hope to apply these principles towards my own process and make it work for myself and our team.

Below are a summary of his steps (along with suggested tools), but I highly suggest checking out his entire series because it’s pure gold top to bottom.

1. Product Definition

• What are you doing?
• Why are you doing it? (Problems you’re trying to solve)
• What does success look like? (Qualitatively and quantitatively)

Create your own document answering these questions then pass it around for everyone to scrutinize and discuss with; once...

There’s almost a joy in looking at your ignorance and realizing, ‘Wow, we’re going to learn about this and, by the time we’re done, we’re going to really understand and do something great.

JONY IVE, Apple

It’s easy to get overwhelmed when there’s so much you have to learn. I know this all too well because I’m going through it right now.

For the better part of the year, I’ve been studying different design disciplines but I knew something about it bothered me: Why the need for all of these to be separate? How come they’re not just all plumped into one holistic role?

Fortunately, I came across David Cole’s essay “The Rise of Product Design” and Randy J. Hunt’s Product Design For The Web, and both of them make compelling arguments about the future of design. They claim that the fragmentation in building web products, specifically splitting it into User Experience Design, User...

One of the best and most comprehensive talks I’ve ever read is Richard Hamming’s 1986 speech entitled “You and Your Research”. It’s largely a thesis on how to do outstanding work regardless of industry.

I highly suggest reading the entire talk for better context. But here are some of the best gems I got from it:

On aspiring to do significant things:

Our society frowns on people who set out to do really good work. [As if] You’re not supposed to; luck is supposed to descend on you and you do great things by chance. Well, that’s kind of a dumb thing to say. I say, why shouldn’t you do something significant?

On courage:

Once you have your courage up and believe that you can do important problems, then you can. If you think you can’t, almost surely you’re not going to.

On drive:

You observe that most great scientists have tremendous drive. Given two people of approximately the same...

Ever felt restless like because you’re not doing something you believe you should be doing? Like something inside of you really wants to do this thing but you just haven’t or won’t because of insert excuse here? That’s exactly how I feel right now.

I’ve felt a very distinct feeling of restlessness lately. I realized it stems from having all of this creative energy within that I haven’t taken advantage of in the best way possible. And only I am to be blame.

No, I don’t think that my creativity is going to run out. It’s just that I’m naturally predisposed and eternally haunted by the compelling desire to create. My self-esteem, confidence, purpose, and passion are directly correlated to how much and what I get to put out into the universe. To create things none other than for the sheer pleasure of doing so. Because my soul demands it. It’s an itch that refuses to go away until it’s...

The future will not be like the past. The future will be built by those who will take risks and action to invent the world they want.

A 90-percent probability of failure means a 10-percent chance of changing the world, if the goal is ambitious enough. We may have lost resources in those failed efforts, and naive journalists may have poked fun at them, but without the attempts, we would not eventually have developed the many innovations that revolutionize how we live today – including the personal computer, email, the Internet, the mobile phone, the tablet or any of the endless applications built on these technologies.

VINOD KHOSLA, Khosla Ventures

Everyone has high expectations of us, when really, we’re the ones who have the highest expectations out of ourselves. We battle underlying feelings of fear, doubt, and uncertainty with grit and optimism, yet we’re driven precisely because those things exist.

In turn, recognizing this is an opportunity. It tells us that the very things that daunt us are there because we yearn for something different, and the only way to tip the scale in our favor is to act accordingly.

We have to accept we’ll never make the right decisions all the time. Instead, we have to live with what we choose, and have faith that they will pan out someway somehow. And if they don’t, it means something else out there is waiting for us.

My point is this: Whatever we expect from the universe is only in direct proportion to what we give to it. When we do the work, when we exert our very best efforts, when we...