Jay Meattle

Author: meattle

  • Customers

    A customer is the most important visitor on our premises. He is not dependent on us. We are dependent on him. He is not an interruption of our work. He is the purpose of it. He is not an outsider to our business. He is part of it. We are not doing him a favour by serving him. He is doing us a favour by giving us the opportunity to do so. — Mahatma Gandhi

  • Product Progression

    “Good startups, however, think about the whole wedge from the start. They build an initial user base with simple features and then quickly iterate to create products that are enduringly useful, thereby creating companies that have stand-alone, defensible value.” — Chris Dixon

    Amen to that.

  • Every big market or successful business will attract competitors

    […] It’s good to know the market but the competition is irrelevant. The market is big. Winning comes by knowing the customer better, executing better, and continuing to work on the problem after sane people have cashed out. If a competitor is going to scare you, you shouldn’t have started a business in the first place. Every big market or successful business will attract competitors anyway. Always assume competition. — Babak Nivi, Venture Hacks

  • What is the best way to evaluate a potential startup to work at full-time?

    One vector:

    “I always recommend to select an early-stage start-up by evaluating who your manager will be, a far narrower task and one that is often manageable earlier in your career with less beta than assessing the prospects for a startup.

    If your manager is stellar, at a minimum, you will learn and stretch your abilities. Moreover, if your manager is an outstanding engineer or director of something or first-class entrepreneur, he will have many exciting opportunities in next 1-10 years and if you are talented and display an outstanding work ethic he will be begging you to join him at his next endeavor.” — Keith Rabois

    This is very accurate. Well said, Keith.

  • Humans optimize short-term happiness vs. long term healthiness

    Our brain’s pleasure circuits lead us to optimize short-term happiness (cake!) over long-term healthiness (obesity, coronary heart disease, diabetes). — Aza Raskin, Mozilla

    Something to reflect on.