Pocket is proof that size of team doesn’t equal scale of impact.

“Evernote (which had made a bid to buy Pocket in its early, early days) employed around 60 people when I first started talking to them. I couldn’t fathom having a team that size. What would they work on? Why’s a team of ten working on what one person can do?”

The more people you add, the easier it is to keep doing what’s not critically important. With a smaller team, it’s very hard not to stay focused. You constantly need to avoid doing what you want to do in the future for that which has to be done now.

With a small headcount, Weiner was able to keep Pocket’s culture concentrated during its formative years. This was possible because its culture wasn’t a fuzzy concept — it meant trust, scrappiness and ownership.

there’s a saying in tech that 80% of your eventual culture is your founder (literally their personality traits).

Think stews not salads when it comes to company culture. Start by letting a few choice ingredients simmer together. Then taste. You’ll have a better palate for what it delivers and lacks than if you toss it all together from the start.

With a small team, those bonds and common world view form more quickly without complex hierarchies in the way.

The advantage of being small is that you find ways to make people outside of your walls part of your company.

The team at Pocket relies on this question to make decisions: how can we make it simpler for all involved?

Not requiring people to reinvent the wheel means first making sure what you’re working with is as simple as a wheel. If it is, they’ll use it and there won’t be much reinventing needed.