1. The perils and rewards
of working on
stuff that matters
Alex Payne
Brooklyn Beta 2012

2. Work
Simple
Twitter
startup that never launched
information security stuff
campaign & non-profit tools
Not exactly work
Programming Scala (O'Reilly, 2009)
10+ years of writing online
Emerging Languages Camp
speaking & teaching
investing & advising

3. “work on
stuff that
matters
– Tim O'Reilly, 2009

4. What matters?

5. Jurisprudence Economics
✖
Ethics Aesthetics

6. Stripe
Nest
GitHub
Kickstarter
Etsy
…

7. What happens
if I take on
something
like this?

8. Perils

9. “ Entrepreneurship is not cool,
it's not sexy, and it's totally
uncomfortable.
It's boring and grueling,
and that part is never part of the
movie.
– Eric Ries

10. Peril 1.
All the stuff that's hard
about doing anything,
plus the crazy thing
you're trying to do

11. Peril 2.
Incumbents
(as competitors or partners)

12. Peril 3.
Naysayers

13. Peril 4.
Investors

14. Rewards

15. Reward 1.
Tangible impact

16. Reward 2.
Recruiting is easier

17. Reward 3.
Publicity comes naturally

18. Reward 4.
Support flows freely

19. The big
caveat

20. Thank you.
Questions?