Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Inc. here. People are busy, especially in a startup environment. Because of that, it’s easy to stick to the status quo and forget to sit down and think outside the box. But that’s not how you delight your customers and that’s not how your team gets better. So if … Continued
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: “I’ve never met a person who’s gone broke buying books before.” I love reading, because I love learning. So much so it’s baked into Drift’s leadership principles: Be a curious learning machine. Last month, I offered a list of the five business books I was excited … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Inc. here. I was talking to someone the other day, and he asked me what I thought about the idea of “hiring for cultural fit.” The problem with hiring for cultural fit is that people tend to only hire people who look and sound like them. But the culture … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Inc. here. My co-founder and I wanted to establish rituals in our company to help people understand why we do the things we do, and to answer questions like: “How does what I’m doing help the company?” “What are our overarching goals?” “Why do we care about this number … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. We now have over 300 people at my company Drift, and when you move so quickly, it’s easy to forget what got us here. What really helped us build this brand and this community. And that is this: We built the brand one person at a time. We focused on every interaction … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. I talk a lot about role models and mentors. And one of the things I do when looking for a role model is to look for lessons, experts and authors who have stood the test of time. I’ve found that most of what you need to learn can be found … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. I recently had lunch with a fellow CEO. He told me that some of his weaknesses are also things he thinks I’m especially good at. And that’s getting out there, being a public speaker, and serving as the face of my company. But in reality, this doesn’t come to me naturally. … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. As teams grow, it’s inevitable to feel like it’s harder to get things done. This is normal. There are many theories for why this is, like Dunbar’s Number, which claims that humans are only capable of supporting a small number of stable social relationships. But whatever the reason may be, … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: The balance of power has shifted. Today, customers have all the control. But unfortunately, a lot of executives still haven’t gotten the memo. While they’re busy worrying about raising capital and pleasing shareholders, their customers — the real lifeblood of their … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. Failure is necessary. Without it, we cannot hope to achieve the things that others have not. But school teaches us to be afraid of failure – afraid to fail a test, a class, fail out of school. I believe this to be one of the great disservices of the modern … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published in Inc. Magazine here. Over the past few years, we’ve undergone an undeniable shift in the way we buy, sell and consume content online. According to Cisco, by 2020 about one million minutes of video will cross the internet every second. And just a year later, 82 percent of the world’s internet traffic will be … Continued
Editor’s Note: This article was first published by Inc. here. People who know me (or who’ve been reading this column) know I’ve learned a lot from Charlie Munger and Warren Buffett. I particularly admire their mental model known as the Circle of Competence. Buffett and Munger initially developed the Circle of Competence to limit where to make financial investments (based on their … Continued