The money is important. We were a small company with limited resources but we invested in marketing. We invested in creating beautiful things because we knew we’d amortize the hell out of them. We used every expensive, gorgeous photo in a thousand different places; we played every high-quality video everywhere we could. The team picked the elements that would have the most impact—that we could use and reuse for years—then spent the money to do them well.

Today, ten years later, Google Nest is still using some of the photos and assets we created before we even launched our company.