Strategy

Business

• When a tech startup is creating its first product, it is not so much creating a product as it is creating a business

Technology

• It is a natural weakness of technology companies to put too much weight on technology
• Even though technology is its product, at heart a tech company is a business
• A tech company does not live and die by its technology, but by its business
• If a tech company has excellent technology and poor business, it will fail
• If a tech company excels in business, technical excellence will follow
• Business should always drive tech

Team Building

• Some say, "The leaders of a tech company need to be excellent with technology"
• Product-specific domain knowledge is helpful for a leader to have, but ultimately cannot be relied upon
• Being good at business involves being good at employment
• Good employment involves being good at hiring people that are excellent in domains that the employer is not excellent in
• A leader needs trustworthy experts, and needs to trust those experts
• A business can have great strategy and a great team, but having a single critical role placed in the hands of a bad team member can ruin the venture

First to Market

Pioneers are often the ones with arrows in their backs

• Being first to market only provides a temporal boost to competitiveness
• Competition isn't a sprint, it's a marathon
• For a business to truly compete, it can't depend on the temporal boost of being first to market

Planning

Or what king, going out to encounter another king in war, will not sit down first and deliberate whether he is able with ten thousand to meet him who comes against him with twenty thousand? And if not, while the other is yet a great way off, he sends a delegation and asks for terms of peace. - Luke 14:31-32 ESV

Measure twice, cut once

Weeks of programming can save hours of planning