Platitudes & Wisdom
Scott Tolksdorf
- UW & Velocity
- Co-founder of Smile.io
(formly Sweettooth) - Freelanced (MappedIn, DraftingSpace, Linkett...)
- Currently at Thamic, Rapid Prototyping team
Fun facts
- Have over 150 Open source projects
- Written core code for jQuery
- Had one of my prototypes demo'd to the richest man in the world.
History
Platitudes And
Wisdom
Platitudes
- Fail fast
- Build the right thing, then build it right
- A founding team is like a family
- Last 20% takes 80% of the time
- Only hire employees who love your company
- Focus on your "AIMUs"
(an Acronym I Made Up)
- Don’t try to stick square pegs in round holes
- Don't Imitate, Innovate
- Market, team, product.
- Make Something that Makes a Difference
You've probably heard a lot of these.
Good Culture
Right Market
80/20
Have a Good Culture
Really easy to do early on
Only crazy people want to work at startups
Where we fucked up:
Nepotism, Management Rot, & Blackberry
Loss of culture isn't a conscious decision
it's a slow burn
Find the right Market
"Market, team, product, in that order"
TBH, Myo just a cool piece of tech
Interest
Money
Publicity
Potential Markets
- Military & Medical
- Hackers & Creators
- Business Professionals
Where we fucked up:
We chose a market that didn't need our product
Last 20% Takes 80% Time
Where we fucked up:
Humans are hard
It's really easy to make a demo/prototype
Very difficult to make a polished product
Every additional percentage of accuracy took exponentially more effort then the last
In Conclusion
you hear these things,
but it's hard to know these things
Thanks
Questions?
Doesn't have to be about the talk.
Platitudes & Wisdom
By Scott Tolksdorf
Platitudes & Wisdom
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