Lessons from the Infancy of a Titan: Christine.net on Google

11:00 AM May 17, 2006

Christine Herron of the Omidyar Network takes an intriguing tour of Google's scrappy startup days and the strategies that paid off for them -- most of them broadly applicable to the evolving new constellation of needs and opportunities in the nonprofit sector.  The lessons learned, for the most part, work for mission-focused nonprofits just as much as tech providers:

1. Build a great product that users love
2. Think big
3. Solve an important problem
4. Rally the company around a vision, and be focused on doing one thing well (and this is easier for small companies)
5. Hire the best people you can
6. Question accepted practices, and invent the right ones for you; try new things quickly and learn from the results
7. Base decisions on data, and wait for the information you need to do the right thing
8. Make decisions for the long term

We like to think we resemble those remarks, but then, that's just what you'd expect us to say...

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