Tom Preston Werner at Startup School 2012

Preston-Werner says company decisions are made by people, so choosing the right team matters. He and Chris Wanstrath brought complementary skills to GitHub, then added PJ Hyett to build billing and Scott Chacon for his Git expertise. Their different strengths helped the team make decisions together.

Preston-Werner argues that product design shapes how customers experience a company’s work, and that leaving features out matters as much as adding them. GitHub’s early mission was to make Git hosting easier, then expanded as the company learned more about developers’ needs. He recommends starting with a problem small enough to solve and building from there.

A popular product can remain a small lifestyle business or become a larger effort to solve a broader problem. GitHub chose to reinvest its earnings and raise $100 million to pursue its opportunity. Preston-Werner also argues that a strong product can succeed even in a crowded market, pointing to the iPad after earlier tablets.

Preston-Werner connects people, product and philosophy: a team’s values shape decisions, which shape its products. He describes GitHub’s values as optimizing for happiness, letting the best argument win, working from first principles, creating superfans and aiming to change the world. He gives Drinkups and enthusiastic customer support as examples of creating superfans.