A customer will often tell you what they want to see added. They’ll never tell you what to remove.

Let them get pissed off. Let them tell you why. And then build a product they’ll love forever.

David Spinks on why it’s okay to piss off your customers.

Communities are like your family—they’ll get mad. They’ll tell you how they really feel. And in the end, everyone will be better off.

These guys have cracked the community code in a way that no one else is even trying to do. Being part of a movement is very different than trying to optimize a service.

Scott Weiss on why Andreessen Horowitz invested $60M in Lyft

We’re so happy for all our friends at Lyft, making a great name for community and collaborative consumption.

Our wonderful officemates with The Great Discontent have another must-read profile: Jason Fried, co-founder and President of 37signals. Jason gives insight to his world, living in Chicago, and how his experiences built up to creating the 37signals we know today. Our favorite part? His emphasis on company culture and creating a real community where people feel comfortable: I put the culture ahead of a lot of other things that we could do, like making more products, making more money, or gaining more influence. None of those are worth damaging our culture…We’ve grown slowly over 14 years. If you bring on a couple great people at a time, I think you can grow a much larger company and maintain a culture, but you have to do it carefully, slowly, and thoughtfully along the way. People need time to understand the culture and become assimilated into it; you want them to feel part of it, instead of just floating on top of it. Company culture is a crucial part of community—both internal and external. 
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Our wonderful officemates with The Great Discontent have another must-read profile: Jason Fried, co-founder and President of 37signals.

Jason gives insight to his world, living in Chicago, and how his experiences built up to creating the 37signals we know today.

Our favorite part? His emphasis on company culture and creating a real community where people feel comfortable:

I put the culture ahead of a lot of other things that we could do, like making more products, making more money, or gaining more influence. None of those are worth damaging our culture…We’ve grown slowly over 14 years. If you bring on a couple great people at a time, I think you can grow a much larger company and maintain a culture, but you have to do it carefully, slowly, and thoughtfully along the way. People need time to understand the culture and become assimilated into it; you want them to feel part of it, instead of just floating on top of it.

Company culture is a crucial part of community—both internal and external. 

While empathy rises as a major buzzword, false ‘scripted’ understanding is easier to sniff out than ever. Harvard Business Review shows how to really understand someone else’s point of view.  Show that you get the it: the situation, opportunities, obstacles Show that you get them: their strengths, fears, hopes, concerns Show that you get their path to progress: empower them, offer possibilities to make it better Great advice for anyone working in a client or customer-facing role. Nothing diffuses issues faster than some simple (genuine) empathy.
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While empathy rises as a major buzzword, false ‘scripted’ understanding is easier to sniff out than ever. Harvard Business Review shows how to really understand someone else’s point of view. 

  • Show that you get the it: the situation, opportunities, obstacles
  • Show that you get them: their strengths, fears, hopes, concerns
  • Show that you get their path to progress: empower them, offer possibilities to make it better

Great advice for anyone working in a client or customer-facing role. Nothing diffuses issues faster than some simple (genuine) empathy.

We took a field trip to the Warby Parker flagship store last week to get some online-to-offline inspiration! Visitors can try on every pair of frames, meet with an optometrist on-site, and browse their stunning book collection. And while the rolling library ladders won our hearts over, we couldn’t help but imagine a few digital integrations to bring the true spirit of Warby Parker to life!

Half the fun of ordering your box of Warby Parker frames is asking your friends for their opinions—so why not give shoppers a chance to do the same with digital photobooths where they can upload and ask for advice?

And what if all those long glass tables were actually digital touch-screens, where you could interact with Warby Parker’s history and watch videos about their Do Good program?

Though we kept imagining little touches that would show off their disruptive business model, the store was an incredible experience. We even walked out with a new pair of frames! 

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