Where do you start if you want to change the world?
You start right here. At EY, we believe our role, our legacy to the world, is to help it work better.&We have an ambition to build a better working world. And the question is, will it begin with you?
Wanted: builders of a better working world.
Our people are united by a single set of shared values and it starts with a common purpose: building a better working world. And, for us it&s fundamental. For example:
We want to do business with people we trust.
We want to have a purpose beyond a profit.
To take it another step further & it&s about making a lasting impact & a legacy of positive change. We&re proud to work with the innovators and game-changers of today to create new legacies for the world. Through your career at EY, you will become the builders of legacy & for our clients, our communities and yourselves.&
Better questions.
But what does a better working world really mean? At EY, we believe that when the world works better, people everywhere have an opportunity to live better. We&re on a quest for better. And it starts with better, smarter questions. The kind of people who thrive at EY are always looking for better & better ways to connect with each other & better opportunities for our clients & better ways to make the world work better.
Whose tomorrow will you change today?
Making a positive difference in the world is it&s the core of our purpose: building a better working world. We believe we make the biggest contribution to our communities when we take the same distinctive services and competencies we use in our business every day and apply them to help solve some of our communities& most pressing challenges.
In the Americas, we maximize our social impact in three focus areas:
Advising, guiding and recognizing
at their m a cornerstone of the EY brand for more than three decades.
Supporting
means helping young people prepare for and succeed in the global market, an imperative for EY and all business
in the workforce by championing diversity and inclusiveness, which is central to EY&s values.
Tomorrow’s leaders, today’s opportunities.
At EY, we look for people who are inspired by the chance to push boundaries and make the absolute most of every opportunity. And one of the components of our culture that makes this possible is our emphasis on entrepreneurial businesses. By giving our people access to tomorrow&s leaders today, we give them exposure to the ideas will shape the future of our organization.
Entrepreneurial businesses are those that take measured, strategic risks to advance. Their fresh thinking and hard work creates positive social change by creating jobs and wealth. We&ve developed a strong reputation for working with these companies and enhancing their success.
At EY, we are proud to work with these innovators and game-changers of today to create new legacies for the world. Through your work at EY, you will have the opportunity to help some of the most iconic, innovative and powerful entrepreneurs in the world move forward, improving their industries and ultimately the economies of the world.
& 2017 EYGM Ltd. Ernst & Young refers to the global organization of member firms of Ernst & Young Global Limited, each of which is a separate legal entity. Ernst & Young Global Limited, a UK company limited by guarantee, does not provide services to clients.您所在位置： &
&nbsp&&nbsp&nbsp&&nbsp
高露洁2018校园招聘备战-求职应聘指南(笔试真题 面试经验).pdf 83页
本文档一共被下载：
次 ,您可全文免费在线阅读后下载本文档。
下载提示
1.本站不保证该用户上传的文档完整性，不预览、不比对内容而直接下载产生的反悔问题本站不予受理。
2.该文档所得收入(下载+内容+预览三)归上传者、原创者。
3.登录后可充值，立即自动返金币，充值渠道很便利
需要金币：400 &&
你可能关注的文档：
··········
应届生求职大礼包——高露洁篇
第一章、高露洁公司简介5
1.1 高露洁公司信息框图5
1.2 高露洁公司概况5
1.3 高露洁企业文化5
1.4 高露洁主要产品6
1.5 高露洁竞争对手6
1.6 高露洁企业领导者8
1.7 高露洁发展战略9
第二章、高露洁网申笔试经验 10
过来人分享高露洁笔试经验 10
【总结】【笔试】2017 高露洁-商务培训生 11
高露洁笔试 狂虐～ 11
2.4 OT 经验 12
一直拖到现在才做的OT
刚做完OT，分享一下 13
【OT 】经验+一些自己的感悟 13
2.8 OT 归来 14
2.9 CUT-E 在线测评归来 14
2.10 OT 归来，根本来不及做啊。。 15
为2015 年求职奉献笔试模拟题及答案 15
2.12 E-tray test 经验~
关于E-tray 的小经验 16
高露洁在线笔试体会 16
赶在测评失效前新鲜出炉的笔经 17
高露洁在线测试任务一、任务二 17
高露洁棕榄培训生 OT 经验 附练习题 18
刚做完高露洁OT
高露洁Online Test 超级总结帖！ 19
高露洁网测题型20
热腾腾的OT 机经21
2.22 2014 高露洁OT 21
做完Colgate...OT 22
第三章、高露洁面试经验22
高露洁面试经验全程分享22
人力资源管培 -
面经分享28
【总结】【群面】2017 高露洁-商务培训生29
商务培训生北京群面+二面30
高露洁供应链管培面试经历31
“高“家旅途32
【广州】CSL 群面 11.733
不敢暴虎不敢冯河的高露洁之旅34
与高露洁的缘分相遇35
应届生求职大礼包——高露洁篇
伴你成长为高人37
海外党刚结束的热乎乎高家电话面试38
姗姗来迟的CSL 二面面经39
电话面试面经40
面试的小小感受41
3.15 热腾腾火辣辣的面经42
3.16 高露洁棕榄2015 届生产供应链管培生面试经验42
3.17 1112 BJ CD 管培面试43
3.18 高露洁三笑 技术类一面44
成都CD 一面二面终面面经45
3.20 终面归来，坐标BJ 46
3.21 2014 年高露洁销售管培二面+Eentry 面经46
成都FINANCE 面经47
上海一面47
3.24 高露洁CSL 二面48
3.25 BJ CD 群面被bs 49
3.26 热腾腾的北京
正在加载中，请稍后...瀏覽: 人次。
接觸樂高認真玩且獲得引導師證照，在公司主持樂高認真玩會議，已經好一陣子了，把一些紀錄分享在這邊，給自己留存，也分享給或許對這個引導技法有興趣的讀者。用QA紀錄比較簡單一些。
什麼？上班可以玩樂高？樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play到底是什麼？
參看（我翻譯的）可以大致了解。但如果以我的經驗來說，LEGO SERIOUS PLAY是一個「唯有你親身體驗與親身實踐」才能了解個中滋味與不同的會議/思考方式。台面上或字面上的了解僅能非常片面解釋這個方法的價值。
（英文）介紹什麼是LSP，基本架構。
大家都說歐美廣泛在使用樂高認真玩Lego Serious Play開會和聚焦，真的嗎？從哪邊可以知道證據？
是真的，追蹤這個Twitter群組（）就可以知道歐美廣泛在使用，且已經是顯學。不但是商界或學界需求這樣的引導師，光是體驗會議也有很多需求。
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY樂高認真玩最獨特的地方是什麼呢?
可能因為我的工作是研究員，又在設計部門上班的關係，長期以來都有接觸workshop或腦力激盪，甚至企業團隊建立，Design thinking等相關的理論和方法流程。相較之下，我想分享的是：
樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play最獨特的地方有這些：
強調動手想（Think with Hands或稱Hand-mind connection）：別的其他方法，只有在design thinking的rapid prototyping略有一點動手想的流程，而樂高認真玩全程都非常強調動手思考。老師甚至會鼓勵我們Trust your hands。想不出來的時候，讓手動一動，組合積木，是很重要的。這個技巧帶給會議的也是100％的參與度。和Lean front的積極感。
強調用眼說，將討論聚焦到桌上的模型（Talk with eyes, everything is about the model）：別的其他引導方式，都是重於溝通，所以很容易變成能講的人操縱所有事情，而比較不會表達的只好淪為壁花，或不得不受到引導師的點名。而且大部分人動口溝通時，還多有身份顧忌。而樂高認真玩將討論集中到大家建好的模型上。強調認真思考磚塊的隱喻和可能性。相當吻合「有圖有真相」的現今社會。而且能夠更多維度（立體）的思考。有同學盛讚說「這根本是立體的心智圖（3D mindmap）！太強大了」我還蠻同意的。
至於其他引導師操作的流程，就留給有上引導課程的學員彼此之間分享吧。要主持LSP的會議，經驗一定是有差異的。資深的引導師會設計較流暢的命題或流程，也比較能夠因應變化。資淺的可能就只是按表操課了。此外，引導師的樂高磚塊建造經驗也是很重要的。越會玩樂高，越常玩樂高的引導師我覺得是越好的，不能對磚塊太陌生。
也想要學會使用樂高認真玩，但是樂高積木（尤其是Lego Serious Play套組）好貴？怎麼辦呢？
真的很貴，身為MOC玩家（喜愛自組創意樂高模型的玩家），光看平均磚價（Price per piece），就會覺得LSP套組的（214pc &#$）居然要17.3C（一個磚就要美金17 cent左右）高出一般套組許多，例如城市系列60117一樣是250pc但僅19.99$，平均磚價是8 cent only。可能因為並非「大宗量產」型態，導致磚價是平常套組的兩倍。
60117-1: LEGO CITY SET – Van & Caravan &# pc-19.99$ Price per piece $8 cent
: LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Starter Kit 214 pc &#＄
Price per piece $17.3 cent
其實也有解法。這邊樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play的訓練老師其實對使用的「工具」都是開放心態。包括也可以去購買散磚（）（）或利用現有的套組（）因為積木只是其中的一個環節，並非全部。
而且其實LSP套組在台灣也不容易購買，購買管道必須經由代購或是從Bricklink上購買。2000414還有可能有些知名樂高店會進貨（例如「必買站」）但大型會議用的盒組（景觀組與連接組）。台灣根本就不會進貨。
樂高認真玩Lego Serious Play盒組介紹
購買管道說明
個人盒 : LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Starter Kit
可能有些知名樂高店會進貨例如「必買站」
個人小包 9338 LEGO SERIOUS Play Mini Kit polybag
一箱100包，樂高官網以箱販售，但Bricklink可以單包購買（會是較划算的選擇）
團體箱：景觀箱 2000430 LEGO SERIOUS PLAY
Identity and Landscape Kit 2013
< （有夠大一箱，裡面的金幣與透明得寶磚是罕見磚）
團體箱：連接箱 2000431 Serious Play Connections Kit 2013
<（有夠大一箱，裡面的連接磚幾乎都是高價罕見磚）
（兩個團體箱加起來要13公斤，客官您可想想運費幾多？）
自己購買散磚，自組樂高認真玩Lego Serious Play「個人」積木盒組的技巧？
我的大樂盒
其實上的資深LSP引導師Marko Rillo 與LSP訓練最資深的老師Robert Rasmussen都有提供，可以自己湊樂高認真玩LSP散磚，但需要掌握下列技巧
（依據我配磚的經驗有加上附註）
基本磚（Basic bricks）是必備的：1&#215;2、1&#215;4與1&#215;8 還有2&#215;2、2&#215;4與2&#215;8這些都是必備。最好是多色系而且兩兩一對。（例如白色2&#215;2 要兩個，這樣）：我的經驗是 彩虹色系會很討喜。另外LSP也希望可以使用親和度高的得寶磚（Duplo brick）
造型磚（Bricks with odd shapes）：非基本磚的形狀，例如拱形，坡形，斜角等都是必備。一樣要多色系且兩兩一對。
多重隱喻磚（Multi metaphor bricks）：旗幟磚（Flagpole
4&#215;1 wave 磚號4495），是很好的選擇。較特別的是眼睛磚（磚號 3005）梯子磚（磚號 4175）
單一隱喻磚（Single metaphor bricks）：植物磚、動物磚等。
透明磚：只要是透明色就可以，也是最好兩兩一對
人偶磚：很重要必備，至少一個（頭髮不一定，但頭、身體與腳都要有），身體和腳都以素色為佳。
可動磚：例如輪子、轉軸、旋轉磚等等，方便讓基本磚有變化並可動。螺旋槳磚（磚號 2479）配合單一pin磚（磚號 2460），是最好買到的
轉向磚：也就是不只一面有連接點的磚（這是我特別加的，有轉向磚，建造的時候會方便很多，最常見的轉向磚是1&#215;4（磚號 30414）或2&#215;2的（磚號 99207）
平板（基地磚Base Plates）：建造模型時有一個基本的平台。平板磚不需要太大的。最好的尺寸是4&#215;8的。
我個人認為樂高認真玩Lego Serious Play有代表性的磚，分別是透明藍色岩石磚（ 30342c01 ＝ Part 30286 Rock Arctic Globe, Top + 30342 Rock Arctic Globe, Bottom）以及高柱磚（75347 Support 2 x 2 x 11 Solid Pillar）。明藍色岩石磚石在舊款的是較圓滾滾的樣子，但現在很難買到，所以我是用極地系列較「角形」的取代（ 293 Rock Boulder, Top + 30294 Rock Boulder, Bottom）高柱磚如果很不好買，可以用簍空支架來取代。（Support 2 x 2 x 10 Girder Triangular ）
能湊出樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play團體箱 Landscape kit或Connection kit嗎？
如果懂得在樂高散磚大本營Bricklink上面採購，是可以湊出來的。但許多罕見磚不好買。所以難度比個人盒組要高很多。
連接箱的難度最高，因裡面許多連接用的磚都是罕見磚，市面上有流通但是數量並不多且價格很不一致。（亦有看過引導師折衷的使用橡皮筋的）
這個圖片裡面白色的攀繩就是連接磚的一種（蜘蛛人盒組才有出現）一條繩子就要20-25元台幣。（一杯飲料的錢）但他已經是最好買和最好運用的連接磚了。
景觀箱的難度還小一點。過去景觀箱裡面最不好買的是得寶動物磚，因得寶的動物園合組已經絕版了。還好2016年樂高重新推出（還多了好可愛的大鯨魚！），以及所以難度可以降低一些。
如何買散磚 Lego bricks？
最快的方式是到露天搜尋LEGO加磚號，就能很快網路下單。台灣樂高迷多，所以散磚的賣家也很多的。
比較麻煩是人偶，因為現在樂高迷瘋特殊人偶，所以素色的人偶非常不好買，就算有也很貴。（一個人偶至少75元台幣以上）為了避免過度的隱喻和比較，特殊人偶是不建議使用的。要買到普通人偶，恐怕得直接去「有配人偶的店」，台北地區以樹林的王子一號店有最多的人偶選擇。其次為必買站、或金磚店。
人偶是必備的
金色皇冠、高帽、棒球帽等等都是商業會議裡面經常用到的
有配人偶的店資料：這篇樂高迷的文章「」都有介紹。不想要網路挑散磚，也可以在這邊店裡挑的。
對，第一張圖片就是我的LSP個人盒所有磚的樣子，還在整理當中。
如果沒有辦法去「有配人偶的店」想要直接用現成的樂高積木盒組產品，怎麼選購比較好呢？
創意補充包：散磚與基本磚
優先考量的會是以散磚為主的創意補充包（也就是基本磚大盒）這個補充包比較麻煩就是「裡面基地平板磚很少」所以記得要另外再加買底板會比較好
Free Style特大盒的是編號是（約1600塊磚）、（約1000塊磚，但不是很好買）、（約1500塊磚，這個比較好買一點）
Free Style+Classic大盒（約600塊磚）、、、、、10698比較常見。
Classic 中盒（約300塊磚）、、10694這個就更常見了。
人偶補充盒組（兵包）：必備的人偶
樂高套組裡面也有以人偶為主的盒組（俗稱兵包）。但都有職業的區分，那麼以人偶為主的盒組是另外一個好選擇。
年以人偶為主的盒組編號是這些。（固定都是一盒4個人偶，約330-360台幣左右。）消防系列會比起警察和小偷系列來得好，因「救火」在商業應用的領域較多情境可以隱喻）
城市系列（警察與小偷），（以60066較好，因為有一隻鱷魚！還有雷達磚，蛇、樹葉等LSP常用的隱喻磚）
消防系列（消防員），（以60088較好，因為有欄杆磚，輪子磚和垃圾桶與繩子等LSP常用的隱喻磚）60106則是有較多的底板磚
運輸系列（運貨員） （運貨的情境比上面兩個更適合樂高認真玩，這裡有常用 螺旋槳、推車、信箱等隱喻磚）
火山系列（探險家）（樂高認真玩常用的透明球，這一組才有，而且新版橘色透明球更好組裝，這一組我覺得超划算，因為女性人偶有兩位，而且還有可動件呢）
城市系列（公園常見的人） 罕見的城市大型人偶包，應有盡有，輪椅和嬰兒都是首見的人偶。很適合用在景觀箱 Landscape kit裡面。
最好去除樂高人偶身上的印刷
樂高人偶身上的印刷，可能會影響會議進行時的多重隱喻，可否變成素色的？磚上面印刷都是可以去除的，Google一下就能發現樂高迷有各式各樣去除印刷的方式。
砂紙：以人偶來說，最快的方式是用極細水砂紙磨除（沒有味道，而且十分快速）。水砂紙有好幾種，特別細的是用來「拋光」的，所以磨損痕跡較小。如果你怕纖纖玉手受傷，那電動指甲拋光機也是可以拿來用的。方便很多。但這個要很有耐心
除銅油：另一種方式是用臭臭的除銅油，最有名的就是日光牌的，在各大五金店都一定買得到。但是這個算「揮發溶劑」是劇毒的。所以還是要特別小心使用。（以前有新聞說國軍阿兵哥喝這個自殺呢，真的很毒）有影片可以看，要記得戴手套、口罩並在通風良好的地方操作喔
情境補充盒組：Friends系列
上面兩個都買了之後，會有一個問題，就是底板磚不夠，情境磚也不夠（隱喻磚），底板磚建議網路或挖磚店採購，情境磚則可用Friends系列盒組來彌補。Friends系列是樂高的「女孩子」系列，人偶公認十分有爭議（造型很有曲線&#8230;）但其他磚是一樣的，而且更為色彩繽紛。2016年出的一些Friends小型盒組都非常適合用於樂高輕鬆玩的。（人偶除外）
迷你包（動物）
：棕熊的河流，因為一位樂高認真玩引導師推薦，結果現在已經絕版啦（我瞎掰的，樂高每年都會絕版一些東西嘛）可以看一下
：有好用的高柱、拱門、蘿蔔、櫻桃、可動件、錢、成對的兔子、派對帽等都很適合樂高認真玩常用的隱喻磚
小包（情境）
有射箭、靶心、旗幟、金杯、木桶、蘋果等都很適合樂高認真玩常用的隱喻磚
：有小輪子、信箱、窗戶與腳踏車。也很適合樂高認真玩。
也有用到許多得寶的動物偶
高柱和消防梯十分常用
還有「旗子」也是十分常用的
湊好的樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play盒組怎麼包裝？
許多引導師都去買ikea那種塑膠保鮮盒來裝，但其實樂高認真玩，很強調第一次體驗的「驚喜、禮物」感受，所以建議不要用塑膠保鮮盒啦！用塑膠夾鍊袋也不會有好的禮物感。我發現用餅乾禮物袋是很好的（搜尋餅乾袋、禮物袋）或是小紙盒等，都比保鮮盒要來得好。可以在露天拍賣搜尋。許多烘培材料店都是有的。
或者去39元店大創選購（現在有網路店面方便很多）
現成的樂高積木盒組產品只有預算買一盒要用來樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play，有最接近的嗎？
有，2015年出的編號10679的海盜情境，57塊零件。我覺得是最適合的。
年適合的合組，目前覺得 新版叢林系列 60157 也蠻適合的。（有73塊零件，略比10679多一些，還有一隻大鱷魚喔！）
樂高積木好貴，能用第三方積木嗎？
第三方積木在建造的時候手感比較差，而且品質不一，建議不要使用喔！
有沒有中文書籍可以看一下樂高認真玩的詳細內容呢？
有的，老師的英文書已經有繁體中文和簡體中文版了。
博客來或三民書籍都買得到
繁體的版本
樂高認真玩：打造成功優質的企業團隊
Building a Better Business Using the Lego Serious Play Method
作者： 佩爾．克里斯蒂安森, 羅伯特．拉斯穆森 Per Kristiansen,Robert Rasmussen
譯者：連緯晏 Wendy Lien
出版社：洪圖出版
出版日期：
簡體的版本
玩出偉大企業：如何用樂高積木實現商業創新
作者： （丹）佩爾·克里斯蒂安森，羅伯特·拉斯繆森
出版社：中國人民大學出版社
出版日期：
台灣還有哪些樂高認真玩 Lego Serious Play團體呢？
雖然資訊相對並不豐富，但搜尋到相關的連結還是有的，就整理在這邊喔！
練友梅 老師的心得和介紹
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY Club 樂高。認真玩
LEGO認真玩 /
LEGO SERIOUS PLAY &#8211; 認真玩諸事會社
BrixPlay玩出成功引導
BrixPlay 動手說故事
「」分類裡的舊文與新文
3 Comments
Trackbacks / Pings
Random Quote
祇有有耐心圓滿完成簡單工作的人，才能夠輕而易舉地完成困難的事。Only those who have the patience to do simple things perfectly ever acquire the skill to do difficult things easily.
&&席勒 Friedrich Schiller分類
: 抱歉，可能要直接跟學校聯繫才能多知道一些唷
: 出院之後隔週就去上班了的，醫生說可以就去上班。（命苦）20週 又安胎兩週（因為子宮頸有點打開）那之後就變很乖，上班盡...
: 我想要了解,舊金山藝術大學,高爾夫校隊. 我的孩子是在台灣的高爾夫球員, 目前高中一年級.
: 請問你早期宮縮，什麼時候回公司繼續上班，我也屬於早期宮縮9- 10宮縮引起出血，目前16週在家安胎2週
: 哈囉 想請問我目前大二～準備在大三時轉學到美國的大學攝影系，想要朝 時尚攝影，人像攝影這方面，有推薦的學校嗎？
: 我的email:elvisyangyang0604@
: 嗨，可以請問一下關於申請的Portfolio的相關事情嗎～ 因為我也會申請明年Fall的 Design...
: 嗨，可以請問一下關於申請的Portfolio的相關事情嗎～ 因為我也會申請明年Fall的 Design...
: 我剛收到2018 winter design management的offer...Building a Better Connected World()_百度文库
两大类热门资源免费畅读
续费一年阅读会员，立省24元！
Building a Better Connected World()
阅读已结束，下载文档到电脑
想免费下载更多文档？
定制HR最喜欢的简历
下载文档到电脑，方便使用
还剩35页未读，继续阅读
定制HR最喜欢的简历
你可能喜欢Want to start a startup?
Get funded by
March 2005(This essay is derived from a talk at the Harvard Computer
Society.)You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with
good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend
as little money as possible.
Most startups that fail do it because
they fail at one of these.
A startup that does all three will
probably succeed.And that's kind of exciting, when you think about it, because all
three are doable.
Hard, but doable.
And since a startup that
succeeds ordinarily makes its founders rich, that implies getting
rich is doable too.
Hard, but doable.If there is one message I'd like to get across about startups,
that's it.
There is no magically difficult step that requires
brilliance to solve.The IdeaIn particular, you don't need a brilliant
to start a startup
The way a startup makes money is to offer people better
technology than they have now.
But what people have now is often
so bad that it doesn't take brilliance to do better.Google's plan, for example, was simply to create a search site that
didn't suck.
They had three new ideas: index more of the Web, use
links to rank search results, and have clean, simple web pages with
unintrusive keyword-based ads.
Above all, they were determined to
make a site that was good to use.
No doubt there are great technical
tricks within Google, but the overall plan was straightforward.
And while they probably have bigger ambitions now, this alone brings
them a billion dollars a year. [1]There are plenty of other areas that are just as backward as search
was before Google.
I can think of several heuristics for generating
ideas for startups, but most reduce to this: look at something
people are trying to do, and figure out how to do it in a way that
doesn't suck.For example, dating sites currently suck far worse than search did
before Google.
They all use the same simple-minded model.
They seem to have approached the problem by thinking about how to
do database matches instead of how dating works in the real world.
An undergrad could build something better as a class project.
yet there's a lot of money at stake.
Online dating is a valuable
business now, and it might be worth a hundred times as much if it
worked.An idea for a startup, however, is only a beginning.
would-be startup founders think the key to the whole process is the
initial idea, and from that point all you have to do is execute.
Venture capitalists know better.
If you go to VC firms with a
brilliant idea that you'll tell them about if they sign a nondisclosure
agreement, most will tell you to get lost.
That shows how much a
mere idea is worth. The market price is less than the inconvenience
of signing an NDA.Another sign of how little the initial idea is worth is the number
of startups that change their plan en route. Microsoft's original
plan was to make money selling programming languages, of all things.
Their current business model didn't occur to them until IBM dropped
it in their lap five years later.Ideas for startups are worth something, certainly, but the trouble
is, they're not transferrable.
They're not something you could
hand to someone else to execute.
Their value is mainly as starting
points: as questions for the people who had them to continue thinking
about.What matters is not ideas, but the people who have them.
people can fix bad ideas, but good ideas can't save bad people.
PeopleWhat do I mean by good people?
One of the best tricks I learned
startup was a rule for deciding
who to hire.
describe the person as an animal?
It might be hard to translate
that into another language, but I think everyone in the US knows
what it means.
It means someone who takes their work a little too
someone who does what they do so well that they pass
right through professional and cross over into obsessive.What it means specifically depends on the job: a salesperson who
just won't t a hacker who will stay up till
4:00 AM rather than go to bed leaving c a PR
person who will cold-call New York Times reporters on their cell
a graphic designer who feels physical pain when something
is two millimeters out of place.Almost everyone who worked for us was an animal at what they did.
The woman in charge of sales was so tenacious that I used to feel
sorry for potential customers on the phone with her.
sense them squirming on the hook, but you knew there would be no
rest for them till they'd signed up.If you think about people you know, you'll find the animal test is
easy to apply.
Call the person's image to mind and imagine the
sentence "so-and-so is an animal."
If you laugh, they're not.
don't need or perhaps even want this quality in big companies, but
you need it in a startup.For programmers we had three additional tests.
Was the person
genuinely smart?
If so, could they actually get things done?
finally, since a few good hackers have unbearable personalities,
could we stand to have them around?That last test filters out surprisingly few people.
We could bear
any amount of nerdiness if someone was truly smart.
What we couldn't
stand were people with a lot of attitude.
But most of those weren't
truly smart, so our third test was largely a restatement of the
first.When nerds are unbearable it's usually because they're trying too
hard to seem smart.
But the smarter they are, the less pressure
they feel to act smart.
So as a rule you can recognize genuinely
smart people by their ability to say things like "I don't know,"
"Maybe you're right," and "I don't understand x well enough."This technique doesn't always work, because people can be influenced
by their environment.
In the MIT CS department, there seems to be
a tradition of acting like a brusque know-it-all. I'm told it derives
ultimately from Marvin Minsky, in the same way the classic airline
pilot manner is said to derive from Chuck Yeager.
Even genuinely
smart people start to act this way there, so you have to make
allowances.It helped us to have Robert Morris, who is one of the readiest to
say "I don't know" of anyone I've met.
(At least, he was before he
became a professor at MIT.)
No one dared put on attitude around
Robert, because he was obviously smarter than they were and yet had
zero attitude himself.Like most startups, ours began with a group of friends, and it was
through personal contacts that we got most of the people we hired.
This is a crucial difference between startups and big companies.
Being friends with someone for even a couple days will tell you
more than companies could ever learn in interviews.
[2]It's no coincidence that startups start around universities, because
that's where smart people meet.
It's not what people learn in
classes at MIT and Stanford that has made technology companies
spring up around them.
They could sing campfire songs in the classes
so long as admissions worked the same.If you start a startup, there's a good chance it will be with people
you know from college or grad school.
So in theory you ought to
try to make friends with as many smart people as you can in school,
Don't make a consciou that
doesn't work well with hackers.What you should do in college is work on your own projects.
should do this even if they don't plan to start startups, because
it's the only real way to learn how to program.
In some cases you
may collaborate with other students, and this is the best way to
get to know good hackers.
The project may even grow into a startup.
But once again, I wouldn't aim too directly at either target.
just work on stuff you like with people you like.Ideally you want between two and four founders.
It would be hard
to start with just one.
One person would find the moral weight of
starting a company hard to bear.
Even Bill Gates, who seems to be
able to bear a good deal of moral weight, had to have a co-founder.
But you don't want so many founders that the company starts to look
like a group photo.
Partly because you don't need a lot of people
at first, but mainly because the more founders you have, the worse
disagreements you'll have. When there are just two or three founders,
you know you have to resolve disputes immediately or perish.
there are seven or eight, disagreements can linger and harden into
You don' you need unanimity.In a technology startup, which most startups are, the founders
should include technical people.
During the Internet Bubble there
were a number of startups founded by business people who then went
looking for hackers to create their product for them.
This doesn't
work well.
Business people are bad at deciding what to do with
technology, because they don't know what the options are, or which
kinds of problems are hard and which are easy.
And when business
people try to hire hackers, they can't tell which ones are
Even other hackers have a hard time doing that.
For business people it's roulette.Do the founders of a startup have to include business people?
We thought so when we started ours, and we asked several
people who were said to know about this mysterious thing called
"business" if they would be the president.
But they all said no,
so I had to do it myself.
And what I discovered was that business
was no great mystery.
It's not something like physics or medicine
that requires extensive study.
You just try to get people to pay
you for stuff.I think the reason I made such a mystery of business was that I was
disgusted by the idea of doing it.
I wanted to work in the pure,
intellectual world of software, not deal with customers' mundane
People who don't want to get dragged into some kind of
work often develop a protective incompetence at it.
Paul Erdos was
particularly good at this.
By seeming unable even to cut a grapefruit
in half (let alone go to the store and buy one), he forced other
people to do such things for him, leaving all his time free for
Erdos was an extreme case, but most husbands use the same
trick to some degree.Once I was forced to discard my protective incompetence, I found
that business was neither so hard nor so boring as I feared.
are esoteric areas of business that are quite hard, like tax law
or the pricing of derivatives, but you don't need to know about
those in a startup.
All you need to know about business to run a
startup are commonsense things people knew before there were business
schools, or even universities.If you work your way down the Forbes 400 making an x next to the
name of each person with an MBA, you'll learn something important
about business school.
After Warren Buffett, you don't hit another
MBA till number 22,
Phil Knight, the CEO of Nike.
There are only 5 MBAs in the top
What you notice in the Forbes 400 are a lot of people with
technical backgrounds.
Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Larry Ellison,
Michael Dell, Jeff Bezos, Gordon Moore.
The rulers of the technology
business tend to come from technology, not business.
want to invest two years in something that will help you succeed
in business, the evidence suggests you'd do better to learn how to
hack than get an MBA. [3]There is one reason you might want to include business people in a
startup, though: because you have to have at least one person willing
and able to focus on what customers want. Some believe only business
people can do this-- that hackers can implement software, but not
design it.
That's nonsense.
There's nothing about knowing how to
program that prevents hackers from understanding users, or about
not knowing how to program that magically enables business people
to understand them.If you can't understand users, however, you should either learn how
or find a co-founder who can.
That is the single most important
issue for technology startups, and the rock that sinks more of them
than anything else.What Customers WantIt's not just startups that have to worry about this.
I think most
businesses that fail do it because they don't give customers what
they want.
Look at restaurants.
A large percentage fail, about a
quarter in the first year.
But can you think of one restaurant
that had really good food and went out of business?Restaurants with great food seem to prosper no matter what.
restaurant with great food can be expensive, crowded, noisy, dingy,
out of the way, and even have bad service, and people will keep
It's true that a restaurant with mediocre food can sometimes
attract customers through gimmicks.
But that approach is very
It's more straightforward just to make the food good.It's the same with technology.
You hear all kinds of reasons why
startups fail.
But can you think of one that had a massively popular
product and still failed?In nearly every failed startup, the real problem was that customers
didn't want the product.
For most, the cause of death is listed
as "ran out of funding," but that's only the immediate cause.
couldn't they get more funding?
Probably because the product was
a dog, or never seemed likely to be done, or both.When I was trying to think of the things every startup needed to
do, I almost included a fourth: get a version 1 out as soon as you
But I decided not to, because that's implicit in making
something customers want.
The only way to make something customers
want is to get a prototype in front of them and refine it based on
their reactions.The other approach is what I call the "Hail Mary" strategy.
make elaborate plans for a product, hire a team of engineers to
develop it (people who do this tend to use the term "engineer" for
hackers), and then find after a year that you've spent two million
dollars to develop something no one wants.
This was not uncommon
during the Bubble, especially in companies run by business types,
who thought of software development as something terrifying that
therefore had to be carefully planned.We never even considered that approach.
As a Lisp hacker, I come
from the tradition of rapid prototyping.
I would not claim (at
least, not here) that this is the right way to write every program,
but it's certainly the right way to write software for a startup.
In a startup, your initial plans are almost certain to be wrong in
some way, and your first priority should be to figure out where.
The only way to do that is to try implementing them.Like most startups, we changed our plan on the fly.
At first we
expected our customers to be Web consultants.
But it turned out
they didn't like us, because our software was easy to use and we hosted
It would be too easy for clients to fire them.
thought we'd be able to sign up a lot of catalog companies, because
selling online was a natural extension of their existing business.
But in 1996 that was a hard sell.
The middle managers we talked
to at catalog companies saw the Web not as an opportunity, but as
something that meant more work for them.We did get a few of the more adventurous catalog companies.
them was Frederick's of Hollywood, which gave us valuable experience
dealing with heavy loads on our servers.
But most of our users
were small, individual merchants who saw the Web as an opportunity
to build a business.
Some had retail stores, but many only existed
And so we changed direction to focus on these users.
Instead of concentrating on the features Web consultants and catalog
companies would want, we worked to make the software easy to use.I learned something valuable from that.
It's worth trying very,
very hard to make technology easy to use.
Hackers are so used to
computers that they have no idea how horrifying software seems to
normal people.
Stephen Hawking's editor told him that every equation
he included in his book would cut sales in half.
When you work on
making technology easier to use, you're riding that curve up instead
of down. A 10% improvement in ease of use doesn't just increase
your sales 10%.
It's more likely to double your sales.How do you figure out what customers want?
Watch them.
One of the
best places to do this was at trade shows.
Trade shows didn't pay
as a way of getting new customers, but they were worth it as market
We didn't just give canned presentations at trade shows.
We used to show people how to build real, working stores.
meant we got to watch as they used our software, and talk to them
about what they needed.No matter what kind of startup you start, it will probably be a
stretch for you, the founders, to understand what users want.
only kind of software you can build without studying users is the
sort for which you are the typical user.
But this is just the kind
that tends to be open source: operating systems, programming
languages, editors, and so on.
So if you're developing technology
for money, you're probably not going to be developing it for people
Indeed, you can use this as a way to generate ideas for
startups: what do people who are not like you want from technology?When most people think of startups, they think of companies like
Apple or Google.
Everyone knows these, because they're big consumer
But for every startup like that, there are twenty more
that operate in niche markets or live quietly down in the infrastructure.
So if you start a successful startup, odds are you'll start one of
those.Another way to say that is, if you try to start the kind of startup
that has to be a big consumer brand, the odds against succeeding
are steeper.
The best odds are in niche markets.
Since startups
make money by offering people something better than they had before,
the best opportunities are where things suck most.
And it would
be hard to find a place where things suck more than in corporate
IT departments.
You would not believe the amount of money companies
spend on software, and the crap they get in return.
This imbalance
equals opportunity.If you want ideas for startups, one of the most valuable things you
could do is find a middle-sized non-technology company and spend a
couple weeks just watching what they do with computers.
hackers have no more idea of the horrors perpetrated in these places
than rich Americans do of what goes on in Brazilian slums.Start by writing software for smaller companies, because it's easier
to sell to them.
It's worth so much to sell stuff to big companies
that the people selling them the crap they currently use spend a
lot of time and money to do it.
And while you can outhack Oracle
with one frontal lobe tied behind your back, you can't outsell an
Oracle salesman.
So if you want to win through better technology,
aim at smaller customers.
[4]They're the more strategically valuable part of the market anyway.
In technology, the low end always eats the high end.
It's easier
to make an inexpensive product more powerful than to make a powerful
product cheaper.
So the products that start as cheap, simple options
tend to gradually grow more powerful till, like water rising in a
room, they squash the "high-end" products against the ceiling.
did this to mainframes, and Intel is doing it to Sun.
Word did it to desktop publishing software like Interleaf and
Framemaker.
Mass-market digital cameras are doing it to the expensive
models made for professionals.
Avid did it to the manufacturers
of specialized video editing systems, and now Apple is doing it to
Henry Ford did it to the car makers that preceded
If you build the simple, inexpensive option, you'll not only
find it easier to sell at first, but you'll also be in the best
position to conquer the rest of the market.It's very dangerous to let anyone fly under you.
If you have the
cheapest, easiest product, you'll own the low end.
And if you
don't, you're in the crosshairs of whoever does.Raising MoneyTo make all this happen, you're going to need money.
Some startups
have been self-funding-- Microsoft for example-- but most aren't.
I think it's wise to take money from investors.
To be self-funding,
you have to start as a consulting company, and it's hard to switch
from that to a product company.Financially, a startup is like a pass/fail course.
The way to get
rich from a startup is to maximize the company's chances of succeeding,
not to maximize the amount of stock you retain.
So if you can trade
stock for something that improves your odds, it's probably a smart
move.To most hackers, getting investors seems like a terrifying and
mysterious process.
Actually it's merely tedious.
I'll try to
give an outline of how it works.The first thing you'll need is a few tens of thousands of dollars
to pay your expenses while you develop a prototype.
This is called
seed capital.
Because so little money is involved, raising seed
capital is comparatively easy-- at least in the sense of getting a
quick yes or no.Usually you get seed money from individual rich people called
"angels." Often they're people who themselves got rich from technology.
At the seed stage, investors don't expect you to have an elaborate
business plan.
Most know that they're supposed to decide quickly.
It's not unusual to get a check within a week based on a half-page
agreement.We started Viaweb with $10,000 of seed money from our friend Julian.
But he gave us a lot more than money.
He's a former CEO and also
a corporate lawyer, so he gave us a lot of valuable advice about
business, and also did all the legal work of getting us set up as
a company.
Plus he introduced us to one of the two
angel investors who supplied our next round of funding.Some angels, especially those with technology backgrounds, may be
satisfied with a demo and a verbal description of what you plan to
But many will want a copy of your business plan, if only to
remind themselves what they invested in.Our angels asked for one, and looking back, I'm amazed how much
worry it caused me.
"Business plan" has that word "business" in
it, so I figured it had to be something I'd have to read a book
about business plans to write.
Well, it doesn't.
At this stage,
all most investors expect is a brief description of what you plan
to do and how you're going to make money from it, and the resumes
of the founders.
If you just sit down and write out what you've
been saying to one another, that should be fine.
It shouldn't take
more than a couple hours, and you'll probably find that writing it
all down gives you more ideas about what to do.For the angel to have someone to make the check out to, you're going
to have to have some kind of company.
Merely incorporating yourselves
isn't hard.
The problem is, for the company to exist, you have to
decide who the founders are, and how much stock they each have.
there are two founders with the same qualifications who are both
equally committed to the business, that's easy.
But if you have a
number of people who are expected to contribute in varying degrees,
arranging the proportions of stock can be hard.
And once you've
done it, it tends to be set in stone.I have no tricks for dealing with this problem.
All I can say is,
try hard to do it right.
I do have a rule of thumb for recognizing
when you have, though.
When everyone feels they're getting a
slightly bad deal, that they're doing more than they should for the
amount of stock they have, the stock is optimally apportioned.There is more to setting up a company than incorporating it, of
course: insurance, business license, unemployment compensation,
various things with the IRS.
I'm not even sure what the list is,
because we, ah, skipped all that.
When we got real funding near
the end of 1996, we hired a great CFO, who fixed everything
retroactively.
It turns out that no one comes and arrests you if
you don't do everything you're supposed to when starting a company.
And a good thing too, or a lot of startups would never get started.
[5]It can be dangerous to delay turning yourself into a company, because
one or more of the founders might decide to split off and start
another company doing the same thing.
This does happen.
you set up the company, as well as as apportioning the stock, you
should get all the founders to sign something agreeing that everyone's
ideas belong to this company, and that this company is going to be
everyone's only job.[If this were a movie, ominous music would begin here.]While you're at it, you should ask what else they've signed.
of the worst things that can happen to a startup is to run into
intellectual property problems.
We did, and it came closer to
killing us than any competitor ever did.As we were in the middle of getting bought, we discovered that one
of our people had, early on, been bound by an agreement that said
all his ideas belonged to the giant company that was paying for him
to go to grad school.
In theory, that could have meant someone
else owned big chunks of our software.
So the acquisition came to
a screeching halt while we tried to sort this out.
The problem
was, since we'd been about to be acquired, we'd allowed ourselves
to run low on cash.
Now we needed to raise more to keep going.
But it's hard to raise money with an IP cloud over your head, because
investors can't judge how serious it is.Our existing investors, knowing that we needed money and had nowhere
else to get it, at this point attempted certain gambits which I
will not describe in detail, except to remind readers that the word
"angel" is a metaphor.
The founders thereupon proposed to walk
away from the company, after giving the investors a brief tutorial
on how to administer the servers themselves.
And while this was
happening, the acquirers used the delay as an excuse to welch on
the deal.Miraculously it all turned out ok.
did another round of funding at a
company finally gave us a piece of paper saying they didn't own our
and six months later we were bought by Yahoo for much
more than the earlier acquirer had agreed to pay.
So we were happy
in the end, though the experience probably took several years off
my life.Don't do what we did.
Before you consummate a startup, ask
everyone about their previous IP history.Once you've got a company set up, it may seem presumptuous to go
knocking on the doors of rich people and asking them to invest tens
of thousands of dollars in something that is really just a bunch
of guys with some ideas.
But when you look at it from the rich
people's point of view, the picture is more encouraging. Most rich
people are looking for good investments.
If you really think you
have a chance of succeeding, you're doing them a favor by letting
them invest.
Mixed with any annoyance they might feel about being
approached will be the thought: are these guys the next Google?Usually angels are financially equivalent to founders.
the same kind of stock and get diluted the same amount in future
How much stock should they get?
That depends on how
ambitious you feel.
When you offer x percent of your company for
y dollars, you're implicitly claiming a certain value for the whole
Venture investments are usually described in terms of
that number.
If you give an investor new shares equal to 5% of
those already outstanding in return for $100,000, then you've done
the deal at a pre-money valuation of $2 million.How do you decide what the value of the company should be?
is no rational way.
At this stage the company is just a bet.
didn't realize that when we were raising money.
thought we ought to value the company at several million
I thought it was preposterous to claim that a couple
thousand lines of code, which was all we had at the time, were worth
several million dollars.
Eventually we settled on one millon,
because Julian said no one would invest in a company with a valuation
any lower. [6]What I didn't grasp at the time was that the valuation wasn't just
the value of the code we'd written so far.
It was also the value
of our ideas, which turned out to be right, and of all the future
work we'd do, which turned out to be a lot.The next round of funding is the one in which you might deal with
But don't wait till you've burned
through your last round of funding to start approaching them.
VCs are slow to
make up their minds.
They can take months.
You don't want to be
running out of money while you're trying to negotiate with them.Getting money from an actual VC firm is a bigger deal than getting
money from angels.
The amounts of money involved are larger, millions
So the deals take longer, dilute you more, and impose
more onerous conditions.Sometimes the VCs want to install a new CEO of their own choosing.
Usually the claim is that you need someone mature and experienced,
with a business background.
Maybe in some cases this is true.
yet Bill Gates was young and inexperienced and had no business
background, and he seems to have done ok.
Steve Jobs got booted
out of his own company by someone mature and experienced, with a
business background, who then proceeded to ruin the company.
think people who are mature and experienced, with a business
background, may be overrated.
We used to call these guys "newscasters,"
because they had neat hair and spoke in deep, confident voices, and
generally didn't know much more than they read on the teleprompter.We talked to a number of VCs, but eventually we ended up financing
our startup entirely with angel money.
The main reason was that
we feared a brand-name VC firm would stick us with a newscaster as
part of the deal.
That might have been ok if he was content to
limit himself to talking to the press, but what if he wanted to
have a say in running the company?
That would have led to disaster,
because our software was so complex.
We were a company whose whole
m.o. was to win through better technology.
The strategic decisions
were mostly decisions about technology, and we didn't need any help
with those.This was also one reason we didn't go public.
Back in 1998 our CFO
tried to talk me into it.
In those days you could go public as a
dogfood portal, so as a company with a real product and real revenues,
we might have done well.
But I feared it would have meant taking
on a newscaster-- someone who, as they say, "can talk Wall Street's
language."I'm happy to see Google is bucking that trend.
They didn't talk
Wall Street's language when they did their IPO, and Wall Street
didn't buy.
And now Wall Street is collectively kicking itself.
They'll pay attention next time.
Wall Street learns new languages
fast when money is involved.You have more leverage negotiating with VCs than you realize.
reason is other VCs.
I know a number of VCs now, and when you talk
to them you realize that it's a seller's market.
Even now there
is too much money chasing too few good deals.VCs form a pyramid.
At the top are famous ones like Sequoia and
Kleiner Perkins, but beneath those are a huge number you've never
What they all have in common is that a dollar from them
is worth one dollar.
Most VCs will tell you that they don't just
provide money, but connections and advice.
If you're talking to
Vinod Khosla or John Doerr or Mike Moritz, this is true.
advice and connections can come very expensive.
And as you go down
the food chain the VCs get rapidly
A few steps down from
the top you're basically talking to bankers who've picked up a few
new vocabulary words from reading Wired.
(Does your product
So I'd advise you to be skeptical about claims
of experience and connections.
Basically, a VC is a source of
I'd be inclined to go with whoever offered the most money
the soonest with the least strings attached.You may wonder how much to tell VCs.
And you should, because some
of them may one day be funding your competitors.
I think the best
plan is not to be overtly secretive, but not to tell them everything
After all, as most VCs say, they're more interested in the
people than the ideas.
The main reason they want to talk about
your idea is to judge you, not the idea.
So as long as you seem
like you know what you're doing, you can probably keep a few things
back from them. [7]Talk to as many VCs as you can, even if you don't want their money,
because a) they may be on the board of someone who will buy you,
and b) if you seem impressive, they'll be discouraged from investing
in your competitors.
The most efficient way to reach VCs, especially
if you only want them to know about you and don't want their money,
is at the conferences that are occasionally organized for startups
to present to them.Not Spending ItWhen and if you get an infusion of real money from investors, what
should you do with it?
Not spend it, that's what.
In nearly every
startup that fails, the proximate cause is running out of money.
Usually there is something deeper wrong.
But even a proximate cause
of death is worth trying hard to avoid.During the Bubble many startups tried to "get big fast." Ideally
this meant getting a lot of customers fast.
But it was easy for
the meaning to slide over into hiring a lot of people fast.Of the two versions, the one where you get a lot of customers fast
is of course preferable.
But even that may be overrated.
is to get there first and get all the users, leaving none for
competitors.
But I think in most businesses the advantages of being
first to market are not so overwhelmingly great.
Google is again
a case in point.
When they appeared it seemed as if search was a
mature market, dominated by big players who'd spent millions to
build their brands: Yahoo, Lycos, Excite, Infoseek, Altavista,
Surely 1998 was a little late to arrive at the party.But as the founders of Google knew, brand is worth next to nothing
in the search business.
You can come along at any point and make
something better, and users will gradually seep over to you.
if to emphasize the point, Google never did any advertising.
they sell the stuff, but they know better than to use
it themselves.The competitors Google buried would have done better to spend those
millions improving their software.
Future startups should learn
from that mistake.
Unless you're in a market where products are
as undifferentiated as cigarettes or vodka or laundry detergent,
spending a lot on brand advertising is a sign of breakage.
if any Web businesses are so undifferentiated.
The dating sites
are running big ad campaigns right now, which is all the
more evidence they're ripe for the picking.
(Fee, fie, fo, fum, I
smell a company run by marketing guys.)We were compelled by circumstances to grow slowly, and in retrospect
it was a good thing.
The founders all learned to do every job in
the company.
As well as writing software, I had to do sales and
customer support.
At sales I was not very good.
I was persistent,
but I didn't have the smoothness of a good salesman.
My message
to potential customers was: you'd be stupid not to sell online, and
if you sell online you'd be stupid to use anyone else's software.
Both statements were true, but that's not the way to convince people.I was great at customer support though.
Imagine talking to a
customer support person who not only knew everything about the
product, but would apologize abjectly if there was a bug, and then
fix it immediately, while you were on the phone with them.
And we loved them, because when you're growing slow by
word of mouth, your first batch of users are the ones who were smart
enough to find you by themselves.
There is nothing more valuable,
in the early stages of a startup, than smart users.
If you listen
to them, they'll tell you exactly how to make a winning product.
And not only will they give you this advice for free, they'll pay
you.We officially launched in early 1996.
By the end of that year we
had about 70 users.
Since this was the era of "get big fast," I
worried about how small and obscure we were.
But in fact we were
doing exactly the right thing.
Once you get big (in users or
employees) it gets hard to change your product.
That year was
effectively a laboratory for improving our software.
By the end
of it, we were so far ahead of our competitors that they never had
a hope of catching up.
And since all the hackers had spent many
hours talking to users, we understood online commerce way better
than anyone else.That's the key to success as a startup.
There is nothing more
important than understanding your business.
You might think that
anyone in a business must, ex officio, understand it.
Far from it.
Google's secret
weapon was simply that they understood search.
I was working for
Yahoo when Google appeared, and Yahoo didn't understand search.
know because I once tried to convince the powers that be that we
had to make search better, and I got in reply what was then the
party line about it: that Yahoo was no longer a mere "search engine."
Search was now only a small percentage of our page views, less than
one month's growth, and now that we were established as a "media
company," or "portal," or whatever we were, search could safely be
allowed to wither and drop off, like an umbilical cord.Well, a small fraction of page views they may be, but they are an
important fraction, because they are the page views that Web sessions
start with.
I think Yahoo gets that now.Google understands a few other things most Web companies still
The most important is that you should put users before
advertisers, even though the advertisers are paying and users aren't.
One of my favorite bumper stickers reads "if the people lead, the
leaders will follow." Paraphrased for the Web, this becomes "get
all the users, and the advertisers will follow."
More generally,
design your product to please users first, and then think about how
to make money from it.
If you don't put users first, you leave a
gap for competitors who do.To make something users love, you have to understand them.
bigger you are, the harder that is.
So I say "get big slow." The
slower you burn through your funding, the more time you have to
learn.The other reason to spend money slowly is to encourage a culture
of cheapness.
That's something Yahoo did understand.
David Filo's
title was "Chief Yahoo," but he was proud that his unofficial title
was "Cheap Yahoo."
Soon after we arrived at Yahoo, we got an email
from Filo, who had been crawling around our directory hierarchy,
asking if it was really necessary to store so much of our data on
expensive RAID drives.
I was impressed by that.
Yahoo's market
cap then was already in the billions, and they were still worrying
about wasting a few gigs of disk space.When you get a couple million dollars from a VC firm, you tend to
feel rich.
It's important to realize you're not.
A rich company
is one with large revenues.
This money isn't revenue.
It's money
investors have given you in the hope you'll be able to generate
So despite those millions in the bank, you're still poor.For most startups the model should be grad student, not law firm.
Aim for cool and cheap, not expensive and impressive.
For us the
test of whether a startup understood this was whether they had Aeron
The Aeron came out during the Bubble and was very popular
with startups.
Especially the type, all too common then, that was
like a bunch of kids playing house with money supplied by VCs.
had office chairs so cheap that the arms all fell off.
slightly embarrassing at the time, but in retrospect the grad-studenty
atmosphere of our office was another of those things we did right
without knowing it.Our offices were in a wooden triple-decker in Harvard Square.
had been an apartment until about the 1970s, and there was still a
claw-footed bathtub in the bathroom.
It must once have been inhabited
by someone fairly eccentric, because a lot of the chinks in the
walls were stuffed with aluminum foil, as if to protect against
cosmic rays.
When eminent visitors came to see us, we were a bit
sheepish about the low production values.
But in fact that place
was the perfect space for a startup.
We felt like our role was to
be impudent underdogs instead of corporate stuffed shirts, and that
is exactly the spirit you want.An apartment is also the right kind of place for developing software.
Cube farms suck for that, as you've probably discovered if you've
Ever notice how much easier it is to hack at home than
So why not make work more like home?When you're looking for space for a startup, don't feel that it has
to look professional.
Professional means doing good work, not
elevators and glass walls.
I'd advise most startups to avoid
corporate space at first and just rent an apartment.
You want to
live at the office in a startup, so why not have a place designed
to be lived in as your office?Besides being cheaper and better to work in, apartments tend to be
in better locations than office buildings.
And for a startup
location is very important.
The key to productivity is for people
to come back to work after dinner.
Those hours after the phone
stops ringing are by far the best for getting work done.
things happen when a group of employees go out to dinner together,
talk over ideas, and then come back to their offices to implement
So you want to be in a place where there are a lot of
restaurants around, not some dreary office park that's a wasteland
after 6:00 PM.
Once a company shifts over into the model where
everyone drives home to the suburbs for dinner, however late, you've
lost something extraordinarily valuable.
God help you if you
actually start in that mode.If I were going to start a startup today, there are only three
places I'd consider doing it: on the Red Line near Central, Harvard,
or Davis Squares (Kendall is too sterile); in Palo Alto on University
or California A and in Berkeley immediately north or south of
These are the only places I know that have the right kind
of vibe.The most important way to not spend money is by not hiring people.
I may be an extremist, but I think hiring people is the worst thing
a company can do.
To start with, people are a recurring expense,
which is the worst kind.
They also tend to cause you to grow out
of your space, and perhaps even move to the sort of uncool office
building that will make your software worse.
But worst of all,
they slow you down: instead of sticking your head in someone's
office and checking out an idea with them, eight people have to
have a meeting about it.
So the fewer people you can hire, the
better.During the Bubble a lot of startups had the opposite policy.
wanted to get "staffed up" as soon as possible, as if you couldn't
get anything done unless there was someone with the corresponding
job title.
That's big company thinking.
Don't hire people to fill
the gaps in some a priori org chart.
The only reason to hire someone
is to do something you'd like to do but can't.If hiring unnecessary people is expensive and slows you down, why
do nearly all companies do it?
I think the main reason is that
people like the idea of having a lot of people working for them.
This weakness often extends right up to the CEO.
If you ever end
up running a company, you'll find the most common question people
ask is how many employees you have.
This is their way of weighing
It's not just random even reporters do.
And they're going to be a lot more impressed if the answer is a
thousand than if it's ten.This is ridiculous, really.
If two companies have the same revenues,
it's the one with fewer employees that's more impressive.
people used to ask me how many people our startup had, and I answered
"twenty," I could see them thinking that we didn't count for much.
I used to want to add "but our main competitor, whose ass we regularly
kick, has a hundred and forty, so can we have credit for the larger
of the two numbers?"As with office space, the number of your employees is a choice
between seeming impressive, and being impressive.
Any of you who
in high school know about this
Keep doing it when you start a company.Should You?But should you start a company?
Are you the right sort of person
If you are, is it worth it?More people are the right sort of person to start a startup than
realize it.
That's the main reason I wrote this.
There could be
ten times more startups than there are, and that would probably be
a good thing.I was, I now realize, exactly the right sort of person to start a
But the idea terrified me at first.
I was forced into
it because I was a
The company
I'd been consulting for seemed to be running into trouble, and there
were not a lot of other companies using Lisp.
Since I couldn't
bear the thought of programming in another language (this was 1995,
remember, when "another language" meant C++) the only option seemed
to be to start a new company using Lisp.I realize this sounds far-fetched, but if you're a Lisp hacker
you'll know what I mean.
And if the idea of starting a startup
frightened me so much that I only did it out of necessity, there
must be a lot of people who would be good at it but who are too
intimidated to try.So who should start a startup?
Someone who is a good hacker, between
about 23 and 38, and who wants to solve the money problem in one
shot instead of getting paid gradually over a conventional working
life.I can't say precisely what a good hacker is.
At a first rate
university this might include the top half of computer science
Though of course you don't have to be a CS major to be a
I was a philosophy major in college.It's hard to tell whether you're a good hacker, especially when
you're young.
Fortunately the process of starting startups tends
to select them automatically.
What drives people to start startups
is (or should be) looking at existing technology and thinking, don't
these guys realize they should be doing x, y, and z?
And that's
also a sign that one is a good hacker.I put the lower bound at 23 not because there's something that
doesn't happen to your brain till then, but because you need to see
what it's like in an existing business before you try running your
The business doesn't have to be a startup.
I spent a year
working for a software company to pay off my college loans.
the worst year of my adult life, but I learned, without realizing
it at the time, a lot of valuable lessons about the software business.
In this case they were mostly negative lessons: don't have a lot
don't have chunks of code that
don't have a sales guy don't make a high-end
don't let y don't leave finding bugs
to QA don't go too l don't isolate
d don't move from Cambridge to Route 128; and
so on. [8] But negative lessons are just as valuable as positive
Perhaps even more valuable: it's hard to repeat a brilliant
performance, but it's straightforward to avoid errors. [9]The other reason it's hard to start a company before 23 is that
people won't take you seriously.
VCs won't trust you, and will try
to reduce you to a mascot as a condition of funding.
will worry you're going to flake out and leave them stranded.
you yourself, unless you're very unusual, will feel your age to
you'll find it awkward to be the boss of someone much
older than you, and if you're 21, hiring only people younger rather
limits your options.Some people could probably start a company at 18 if they wanted to.
Bill Gates was 19 when he and Paul Allen started Microsoft.
Allen was 22, though, and that probably made a difference.) So if
you're thinking, I don't care what he says, I'm going to start a
company now, you may be the sort of person who could get away with
it.The other cutoff, 38, has a lot more play in it.
One reason I put
it there is that I don't think many people have the physical stamina
much past that age.
I used to work till 2:00 or 3:00 AM every
night, seven days a week.
I don't know if I could do that now.Also,
startups are a big risk financially.
If you try something that
blows up and leaves you broke at 26, a lot of 26 year
olds are broke.
By 38 you can't take so many risks-- especially
if you have kids.My final test may be the most restrictive.
Do you actually want
to start a startup?
What it amounts to, economically, is compressing
your working life into the smallest possible space.
Instead of
working at an ordinary rate for 40 years, you work like hell for
And maybe end up with nothing-- though in that case it
probably won't take four years.During this time you'll do little but work, because when you're not
working, your competitors will be.
My only leisure activities were
running, which I needed to do to keep working anyway, and about
fifteen minutes of reading a night.
I had a girlfriend for a total
of two months during that three year period.
Every couple weeks I
would take a few hours off to visit a used bookshop or go to a
friend's house for dinner.
I went to visit my family twice.
Otherwise I just worked.Working was often fun, because the people I worked with were some
of my best friends.
Sometimes it was even t}