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Why we built a company before building a product and why it worked

Mahfuz Shaikh
April 30th, 2017 · 3 min read

Hello, world! This is a demo post for gatsby-theme-novela. Novela is built by the team at Narative, and built for everyone that loves the web.

In my experience, the challenges that growing companies struggle with rarely stem from a lack of good ideas. Good ideas are everywhere. In my experience, the challenges that growing companies struggle with rarely stem from a lack of good ideas. Good ideas are everywhere. In my experience, the challenges that growing companies struggle with rarely stem from a lack of good ideas. Good ideas are everywhere.

In my experience, the challenges that growing companies struggle with rarely stem from a lack of good ideas. Good ideas are everywhere.

But it takes more than good ideas to build and grow a business. It takes people to bring them into reality. Are those people collaborating and sharing their expertise, or are they in conflict and keeping it to themselves?

Do they have the resources necessary to execute on their ideas? Or are they constantly under pressure to pluck only the lowest-hanging fruit through bare minimum means, while putting their greatest ambitions on the back-burner?

These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself.

1import React from "react";
2import { graphql, useStaticQuery } from "gatsby";
3import styled from "@emotion/styled";
4
5import * as SocialIcons from "../../icons/social";
6import mediaqueries from "@styles/media";
7
8const icons = {
9 dribbble: SocialIcons.DribbbleIcon,
10 linkedin: SocialIcons.LinkedinIcon,
11 twitter: SocialIcons.TwitterIcon,
12 facebook: SocialIcons.FacebookIcon,
13 instagram: SocialIcons.InstagramIcon,
14 github: SocialIcons.GithubIcon,
15};
16
17const socialQuery = graphql`
18 {
19 allSite {
20 edges {
21 node {
22 siteMetadata {
23 social {
24 name
25 url
26 }
27 }
28 }
29 }
30 }
31 }
32`;
33
34function SocialLinks({ fill = "#73737D" }: { fill: string }) {
35 const result = useStaticQuery(socialQuery);
36 const socialOptions = result.allSite.edges[0].node.siteMetadata.social;
37
38 return (
39 <>
40 {socialOptions.map(option => {
41 const Icon = icons[option.name];
42
43 return (
44 <SocialIconContainer
45 key={option.name}
46 target="_blank"
47 rel="noopener"
48 data-a11y="false"
49 aria-label={`Link to ${option.name}`}
50 href={option.url}
51 >
52 <Icon fill={fill} />
53 </SocialIconContainer>
54 );
55 })}
56 </>
57 );
58}

But it takes more than good ideas to build and grow a business. It takes people to bring them into reality. Are those people collaborating and sharing their expertise, or are they in conflict and keeping it to themselves?

This is a primary heading

Do they have the resources necessary to execute on their ideas? Or are they constantly under pressure to pluck only the lowest-hanging fruit through bare minimum means, while putting their greatest ambitions on the back-burner?

Blockquotes are very handy in email to emulate reply text. This line is part of the same quote.

But it takes more than good ideas to build and grow a business. It takes people to bring them into reality. Are those people collaborating and sharing their expertise, or are they in conflict and keeping it to themselves?

This is a very long line that will still be quoted properly when it wraps. Oh boy let’s keep writing to make sure this is long enough to actually wrap for everyone. Oh, you can put Markdown into a blockquote.

These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself. These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself.

This is a secondary heading

1import React from "react";
2import { ThemeProvider } from "theme-ui";
3import theme from "./theme";
4
5export default props => (
6 <ThemeProvider theme={theme}>{props.children}</ThemeProvider>
7);

These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself. These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself. These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself. These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself.


Hyphens


Asterisks


Underscores

These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself. These are the circumstances that suffocate creativity and destroy value in an organization. That’s why I knew that if I was going to start a company, our first product would have to be the company itself.

Do they have the resources necessary to execute on their ideas? Or are they constantly under pressure to pluck only the lowest-hanging fruit through bare minimum means, while putting their greatest ambitions on the back-burner?

Emphasis, aka italics, with asterisks or underscores.

Strong emphasis, aka bold, with asterisks or underscores.

Combined emphasis with asterisks and underscores.

Strikethrough uses two tildes. Scratch this.

  1. First ordered list item
  2. Another item ⋅⋅* Unordered sub-list.
  3. Actual numbers don’t matter, just that it’s a number ⋅⋅1. Ordered sub-list
  4. And another item.

⋅⋅⋅You can have properly indented paragraphs within list items. Notice the blank line above, and the leading spaces (at least one, but we’ll use three here to also align the raw Markdown).

⋅⋅⋅To have a line break without a paragraph, you will need to use two trailing spaces.⋅⋅ ⋅⋅⋅Note that this line is separate, but within the same paragraph.⋅⋅ ⋅⋅⋅(This is contrary to the typical GFM line break behaviour, where trailing spaces are not required.)

  • Unordered list can use asterisks
  • Or minuses
  • Or pluses

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