§ Business philosophies
Up: § Notes Index
This is my Outline Notes for my overall business philosophies. This note mainly collects up notes related to my overall business philosophies which are written in a way that isn’t Buffer specific, but may of course mention Buffer. Anything super specific to Buffer goes in § Buffer thoughts and decisions. On rare occasions it’ll make sense to put something on both of these lists.
Growth
Long-Term
- ■ Examples of long-term founder led companies
- ■ Shareholder letters
- ■ Don’t get stuck in Scaleup land
- ■ It’s natural as a company to have different seasons
Motivation and productivity
- Left and right sides of the road
- See Paris First
- ■ How I work: Input, Processing, Output
- It’s best to aim to progress in other dimensions of life throughout the duration building a company
- ■ The value of walking as a founder or leader
Target customer
- I’m more excited to serve small businesses than the creator economy
- ■ My thoughts on incentives for customer research
Purpose
- Founders start a business to have more freedom, and very quickly give up that freedom
- The business enables the passion, the freedom, the art, doing good
- ■ Building a business comes before artistry and philanthropy
- On forming vision, mission, values over years
Leadership, People and Culture
- The companies you're sad to lose people to, the companies you're proud to lose people to
- Consensus is powerful in tiny groups, unproductive in large groups
- Ask Questions rather than Asking For Questions
- Values should drive unique job requirements
- You should be proud of the work your team does, but it should not always be what you would do
- Stipends within organizations
- Oscillating between details and strategy
- ■ Growing as a leader means covering greater distance between details and strategy
- § 1:1 meetings
- § Performance reviews
- The importance of developing a broader leadership group as you scale
- ■ The CEO role is to be shaped by you
- Managers are individual contributors too
- ■ How hands-on managers need to be is related to company stage
Innovation
- ■ With new innovation, the biggest threat is indifference, not competition
- When innovation happens, it usually happens simultaneously
- ■ Product Market fit is a moving target
Writing
Funding
Stubs
(Note should also appear in a category above)
- ■ Adventure from a business perspective
- ■ Examples of long-term founder led companies
- ■ How I work: Input, Processing, Output
- ■ With new innovation, the biggest threat is indifference, not competition
- ■ Evergreen notes as a way to run a company
- ■ Building a business comes before artistry and philanthropy