Lever co-founder Sarah Nahm breaks down the hierarchy of beliefs required when launching a startup.
Opinion
Nahm: Silicon Valley grants engineers an unearned seat of privilege
“Silicon Valley has actually this deeply ingrained stereotyping around technical, People. And, like, for the most part, I think that's a seat of privilege. Like, if you are an engineer, if you've got, like, coding chops, if you're a hacker, like, there's all th…”
Opinion
Nahm: Facebook shifted Silicon Valley to see young founders as innovators
“And my freshman class at Stanford was the first class to start with Facebook. And I think that that really changed so much in Silicon Valley where young people now were seen as people that could innovate and that could bring kind of game changing ideas to mark…”
Insight
Nahm: Founders should treat their startup as a product
“Hey, you know, I still work on a product. The product is this company and I still have to do user research. It's just that my users are my employees and my customers. And that same process for, you know, generating a clear strategy around user needs was just a…”
Opinion
Nahm: More designers should become startup founders
“I really got to say that to me I think more designers should be founders. I think that that skillset is so, so relevant to the work it takes to actually get a lot of people together to work in a system and to create value from scratch.”
Insight
Nahm: A product's true identity is defined by customer word-of-mouth
“Like you can think that you're delivering this game changing such and such platform, something, something, but like what your customers say about you or what they say to their friends when they're talking about your software, I mean, that's ultimately who you …”
Insight
Nahm: Founders hold startups back unless hiring is a core strategy
“Hiring is, like, hiring is the strategy when you're a startup. Like, there's a period at which, like, you know, like, you can be the best founder on the planet, and you will be holding your own company back if you haven't figured out how to truly prioritize hi…”