Jocelyn K. Glei - Make Your Mark: The Creatives Guide to Building a Business with Impact

THE 99U
BOOK SERIES

Manage Your Day-to-Day:
Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, and Sharpen Your Creative Mind

Maximize Your Potential:
Grow Your Expertise, Take Bold Risks, and Build an Incredible Career

Make Your Mark:
The Creatives Guide to Building a Business with Impact

Text copyright 2014 by Adobe Systems, Incorporated
All rights reserved.

No part of this work may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission of the publisher.

Published by Amazon Publishing, Seattle

www.apub.com

Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Amazon Publishing are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

ISBN-10: 1477801235
ISBN-13: 9781477801239

For the Makers

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Foreword: Making an Impact in What Matters Most to You
by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance

Finding Your Purpose and Living It
by Keith Yamashita

Becoming a Lean, Mean, Learning Machine
by Aaron Dignan

Q&A: Launching Ideas That Will Change the World
with Tim OReilly

Solving a Real Problem
by Emily Heyward

Asking the Right Questions
by Warren Berger

Getting One Thing Right
by Andy Dunn

Making Experiences, Not Products
by Scott Belsky

Q&A: Iterating Your Way to Innovation
with Sebastian Thrun

Treating Your Users Like Collaborators
by Jane ni Dhulchaointigh

Designing Your Product to Work, Like Magic
by Julie Zhuo

Recruiting an Army of Allies
by Chris Guillebeau

Acting (and Listening) Like a Human Being
by Sean Blanda

Q&A: Instilling Confidence Every Step of the Way
with Neil Blumenthal

Inviting Your Customers into Your Story
by Craig Dalton

Focusing on Small Kindnesses
by Shane Snow

Getting Rid of Reluctant Manager Syndrome
by Rich Armstrong

Making Transparency an Essential Part of Your Culture
by Joel Gascoigne

Q&A: Reframing Leadership From a Makers Perspective
with John Maeda

Communicating for Speed, Clarity, and Innovation
by William Allen

Building a Team of Leaders, Not Followers
by David Marquet

Are You Ready?
by Seth Godin

WHAT IS 99U?

For too long, the creative world has focused on idea generation at the expense of idea execution. As the legendary inventor Thomas Edison famously said, Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration. To make great ideas a reality, we must act, experiment, fail, adapt, and learn on a daily basis.

99U is Behances effort to provide this missing curriculum for making ideas happen. Through our Webby Awardwinning website, popular events, and bestselling books, we share pragmatic, action-oriented insights from leading researchers and visionary creatives.

At 99U, we dont want to give you more ideaswe want to empower you to make good on the ones youve got.

PREFACE

What do Dropbox, Nest, Uber, and Airbnb all have in common? Each began as a two- or three-man start-up operation that has been transformed, in seven years or less, from a small idea into a serious businesswith a multibillion-dollar valuation to boot. When you step back and look at lightning-fast growth trajectories like these, its clear that the rules of business have changed. Many of the classic tenets that have guided great companies for decades are now outmoded or irrelevant at best.

To craft companies that can thrive in this fast-paced, e-commerce-driven, socially connected world, we need a new playbookone that reflects the values and the strategies of this new breed of creative business. To create just that with Make Your Mark, we went straight to the source, tapping twenty-one leading experts and entrepreneurs for their insights on whats new and different about building a business right now.

To share just a sampling: Warby Parker co-founder Neil Blumenthal explains why customers BS detectors are more sensitive than ever (and what that means for building a brand), Google Xs Sebastian Thrun discusses the importance of relentless iteration and fast failure, Buffer founder Joel Gascoigne articulates the unexpected benefits of adopting a policy of radical transparency, and Facebooks Julie Zhuo makes the case for an approach to product design thats so simple and streamlined its almost invisible.

As the book came together, I noticed certain themes bubbling up again and again that epitomized the core values of this new guard of creative entrepreneurs. And, refreshingly, they arent about money or profitdespite the billion-dollar examples mentioned abovebut rather about making an impact. I observed a renewed commitment to craftsmanship and the desire to create truly beautiful product experiences, a powerful focus on the importance of both giving and serving (your customers and your team), and a fierce dedication to building businesses that will change the world for the better.

Whether youre about to launch a new company or are considering how to retool an existing business, my hope is that this collection will offer you fresh thinking, practical advice, and the moxie to get out there and make something that matters.

JOCELYN K. GLEI, editor-in-chief, 99U

FOREWORD:

MAKING AN IMPACT IN WHAT MATTERS MOST TO YOU

Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance and Author of Making Ideas Happen

Creativity has many definitions.

For me, creativity is solving problems in new ways and conceiving new ways of looking at the world.

Creativity can be expressed in many forms, like art, science, and thought.

But creativity is all too often undiscoverable and incomprehensible.

Art, without distribution and discovery, moves nobody. Did it ever exist? Science, without clear explanation and advocacy, wont be understood by the masses. Will it make an impact?

Thought, if not written down and shared with others, changes nothing. Does it matter?

Your ideas, if not captured and executed, affect nobody. Are they relevant?

Creation must be made accessible for consumption. This is your real job.

Execution, distribution, packaging, marketing, messaging, strategy, leadership... this is business.

Without great management and stewardship, creativitylike fireworkswill flash and then dim to dust.

The potential of creativityand your ability to sustain yourself and serve others through creativityis more about business than it is about ideas.

This book is about applying the forces of business to creativity. Its not about making money; its about making an impact.

Its about channeling, packaging, and delivering your talent for others to consume it.

Its also about scaling your talent for more people to benefit from it. With creativity comes a drive to succeed.

But unlike traditional measures of successlike money, titles, or statusthe creative mind is driven by a desire to see creativity come to life. Success is making an impact in what matters most to you.

To make an impact with creativity, you must love what you do.