Nobody Knows What They’re Doing

What I Wish Someone Had Told Me

1. Optimism, obsession, self-belief, raw horsepower and personal connections are how things get started.


2. Cohesive teams, the right combination of calmness and urgency, and unreasonable commitment are how things get finished. Long-term orientation is in short supply; try not to worry about what people think in the short t

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The thing is, once it's clear what to do, the technical parts may be challenging, but they're pretty much achievable. What's really complicated is everything that happens before that. Before there's a working piece of software, a bunch of people need to communicate through different languages, since there are only humans in between the customer and... See more

Start with an ambitious, high-potential idea, but challenging and full of ambiguities — the rough shape of a nascent great idea. It typically isn’t new, but solves many problems in a simpler, more intuitive way. It ignites people’s curiosity and self-motivation. At the end, it should seem “obvious” so that others want to copy, because there aren’t ... See more

Confession — I get inferiority complex from all these "How X builds product" posts by @lennysan. Everybody appear to have their shit together, all organized and confident. My experience has been very different. If you want to do something new and hard, it's a constant doubt,… Show more