Agreed. Maybe the 2. ??? was "How the heck did they go from unknown to a recogni...

weavie · on Jan 9, 2017

I think it is more something like :

1. Write really popular blog.

2. Create Stack overflow and make it the goto for developers.

3. Create todo list

etc..

The brand was there before they even started the todo list. All it took was a blog post "We are going to create a todo list now" and it was pretty much set.

criddell · on Jan 9, 2017

By really nailing step 1.