Differentiate on quality.
Lately I’ve been ordering cortados instead of lattes. They have less milk, so the espresso comes through punchier, complexier, sophisticated. I’m increasingly drawn to this posture in other areas. For example, I receive newsletters from tech billionaire Andrew Wilkinson, who months ago shared his friend’s mechanical keyboard startup Norbauer and Co., where a keyboard costs more than $5,000. For a keyboard. I thought they were nuts. Or very niche. And perhaps that’s the case, but I think I get it now.
There’s so much slop in so many aspects of our lives—AI slop, of course, but also in the refrigerator fan that stops working the weekend you all get the stomach bug. Or the dishwasher motherboard that burns out the night before you give birth to your second child. Or the “the best” white-collared shirts that fray after six months. I just want the damn things to work, whatever it is. I just want it to work.
Norbauer is known as an “atelier,” a word I loved since I first heard it. The French term denotes a high-end studio, like for fashion designers or artists. I’m sure the keys give you the thwack you’re supposed to feel with each keystroke, like the way a luxury car door fits shut, or the way a new pen feels writing on receipt paper. I’m sure their customer support doesn’t make you wait on a two-hour phone tree. I’m sure it’s just nice—it probably makes you feel like you’re alive, man!
Another project that I keep returning to is a Bible publisher called Bibliotheca by designer Adam Lewis Greene. I saw this thing ten years ago, and again thought it was beautiful but impractical. Now, maybe genius. Custom typography based on the Ark of the Covenant’s dimensions, produced by a third-generation family company in Germany, Smyth-sewn lay-flat binding, unbleached cotton bookcloth from the Netherlands, limestone chalk paper milled in Austria by a four-hundred-year-old company, a walnut slipcase, a custom translation by a team of scholars. It’s all just beautiful.
This is the way it ought to be working in and leading a company. You feel like your team’s hummin’, your marketing captures you who you really are, where every pixel and word is earned, where you can instantly feel the difference in your body. Of course, that kind of beauty costs more, but I’m betting it’s the key way to differentiate in the coming years.
The standard I’m presenting feels daunting, but I keep coming back to the dignity in making beautiful things, even in marketing. And I’m betting the performance is there too.
As always, we’re grateful to serve.
