Next on the Web 2.0 keynote speaker list was Maria Thomas of www.etsy.com with her talk The DIY Guide to Growing a Company.
If never heard of Etsy before – Your place to buy & sell all things handmade, interesting site. Most companies start small, and stay small. Only 0.1 of 1% grow to any size (e.g. > $250 Million) Esty, this year has 100M in revenue, Amazon is about $2 billion.
The opening lines included the message “Don’t loose the essence of who you are, and what you want to achieve.” and the term Filotimo.
Filotimo (Greek)
- Operating with integrity
- a clarity of purpose
- a sense of social responsibility
It was an interesting point about qualifications “I got my Internet Degree at Amazon.com, then building digital media business at NPR – National Public Radio.”
Some more quotes from this discussion.
- Listen to end user, but be clear about when you want to go.
- Set you goals, communicate them, measure them.
- Practice Filimato – Keep it human.
- Go behind the resume, talk to people, be direct, be honest. Believe in employees.
- Understand that small decisions and impact bigger decisions.
- Just because your a DIY company doesn’t mean you have build everything.
- Get products out the door, get them out fast.
- It takes an effort of will, and a very good process to do this well.
- The perfect is enemy of good enough.
- Launch products off at platform and build more quickly.
- The marketplace has social, it’s personal, it’s playful.
- Visits to etsy become habit forming, it makes connections to real people with unique products.