The problem with the race to the bottom is that you might win.
If you are deliberately trying to create a future that feels safe, you will willfully ignore the future that is likely.
Don’t find customers for your products, find products for your customers.
So much easier to aim for the smallest possible audience, not the largest, to build long-term value among a trusted, delighted tribe, to create work that matters and stands the test of time.
If you can’t state your position in eight words, you don’t have a position.
Our best work can’t possibly appeal to the average masses, only our average work can. Finding the humility to happily walk away from those that don’t get it unlocks our ability to do great work.
You don’t launch a popular blog, you build one.
If you need to conceal your true nature to get in the door, understand that you’ll probably have to conceal your true nature to keep that job.
Do your art. But don’t wreck your art if it doesn’t lend itself to paying the bills. That would be a tragedy.
The secret to being wrong isn’t to avoid being wrong! The secret is being willing to be wrong. The secret is realizing that wrong isn’t fatal.
People rarely buy what they need. They buy what they want.
Excellence isn’t about meeting the spec, it’s about setting the spec. It defines what the consumer sees as quality right this minute, and tomorrow, if you’re good, you’ll reset that expectation again.
Most people have bosses who hire them to fill a slot in the work chart and to do what they are told. And most people who are doing what they are told feel safe; it feels reliable.
We fail when we give up too soon.
The only reason to build a website is to change someone. If you can’t tell me the change and you can’t tell me the someone, then you’re wasting your time.
Perhaps your challenge isn’t finding a better project or a better boss. Perhaps you need to get in touch with what it means to feel passionate. People with passion look for ways to make things happen.
You cannot create a piece of art merely for money. Doing it as part of commerce so denudes art of wonder that it ceases to be art.
Soon is not as good as now.
Today, not starting is far, far worse than being wrong. If you start, you’ve got a shot at evolving and adjusting to turn your wrong into a right. But if you don’t start, you never get a chance.
Change isn’t made by asking permission. Change is made by asking forgiveness, later.