Even though PG didn't say it, a lot of ideas in this essay reminded me of Eric Reis / Lean Startup thinking. Getting off your ass and giving your customers rock star treatment is essentially the same as the "Genchi Genbutsu" philosophy that ER goes on about. The idea of an initial "manual" service like which Stripe provided is the same thing as a "Concierge MVP".
I have to say, as someone who left a big Fortune 500 company (which was a start-up when I joined it) just one week ago to start my own company, it's pretty refreshing to read articles such as this one. It's completely antithetical to being stuck in a large software group where you're trying desperately to have any contact whatsoever with customers to try and figure out what they want.
I have to say, as someone who left a big Fortune 500 company (which was a start-up when I joined it) just one week ago to start my own company, it's pretty refreshing to read articles such as this one. It's completely antithetical to being stuck in a large software group where you're trying desperately to have any contact whatsoever with customers to try and figure out what they want.
EDIT: spelling