Entrepreneurs: Using Mindfulness to Build Success
by Miki Saxon
Entrepreneurs are in love with their technology, whether it’s software, hardware, services, food, etc.
Doesn’t matter, given their druthers they would much prefer to tell you why the technology is so awesome and how it will change the world—or at least a part of it.
That’s OK when talking to another techie, but investors are far more interested in the market.
And, other than cutting-edge outliers, the market doesn’t really give a damn about the technology.
The market is strictly WIIFM or, as Asana cofounder Justin Rosenstein puts it,
“Ultimately everything else we do is essentially a means toward an end of providing the user with some experience. We are really constantly grounding the whole company in that empathy of realizing that all the work you’re doing is a means to an end in service of and dedication to other people, an act of service to help others.”
Asana’s numbers are impressive.
It was founded in 2008 (think Recession), exited beta in 2011 (three years), has over 50 employees and is used by hundreds of thousands of teams from the likes of Twitter, Foursquare, LinkedIn and dozens of others.
It has a valuation north of $300 million.
Asana accomplished all this with just $38.5 million in venture funding—a tiny number by today’s standards.
Read the interview of Rosenstein and cofounder Dustin Moskovitz and their use of mindfulness to create a culture that focused on customers.
Then evaluate the focus of your own culture.
Because no matter how cool your technology, it’s worthless if people don’t/won’t buy it.
Flickr image credit: cambodia4kidsorg
February 7th, 2014 at 1:16 am
[…] skills he encourages in his CSRs have sold millions of pairs of shoes, or the Asana founders, who built the company on mindfulness, a philosophy grounded in […]
May 7th, 2014 at 1:15 am
[…] Mindfulness is a conscious way to live life and applies extremely well when building company culture. […]