via slideshare.net
Thanks so much to Seattle 2.0 for having me here at StartupDay 2010. It seriously was a blast talking to so many excited entrepreneurs and pre-entrepreneurs.
Above are my slides from my talk. It's pretty straightforward, in as few words as possible:
- First, hate the problem. This means you really connect with something that SUCKS A LOT and you know is a real problem. Come on people, we work in tech. There are a lot of things that are terrible. PC LOAD LETTER, what the heck does that mean!?
- Second, ship the solution. The product. Get the smallest possible quantum and don't boil the ocean. You don't know whether your product is goodt il it's out there.
- Third, love your users. If you build it, they won't come. Building consumer web startups is absolutely not like building a car, but that's how we think about building them. It's logistics and technology and mechanisms. No, no, no. It's more like throwing a really awesome party. And nobody throws parties for people who they don't love.
So that's what I got in a nutshell. I can't believe how many people have helped us along the way (and we are so far from done!) but it feels great to be able to give back and help more people get to fulfill their dreams.
Seattle is probably the biggest collection of amazing software engineers and product creators outside of the Bay Area -- but they're all locked up in massive vaults called Microsoft and Amazon. Come on out guys, the water's fine.