
How To Succeed Like Apple  - macco
http://jasonlbaptiste.com/startups/how-to-succeed-like-apple/
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tom_ilsinszki
How To Succeed Like [the currently hot company]: Don't copy them.

Google didn't copy Yahoo when they created a new search algorithm and a
minimalistic search page. Apple didn't copy Microsoft when they focused on
design, marketing and on producing most things themselves.

You shouldn't copy others either (only learn from them). Look at, what the big
guys are missing instead.

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ianlevesque
Agreed, but the principles articulated about Apple can be applied to any
field. You may not be able to out-apple Apple in computer hardware, but you
could certainly use that strategy elsewhere.

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faramarz
Those are nice and all, but i'm going with the primary factor being the
_vision_ of Steve Jobs. His character, his etiquette, his leadership, his mind
and soul. The possibilities are endless when someone like him is paired with
investor money and enough decision making power to create things. You will
find a lot of similarities between Jobs and James Dyson.

Both are obsessive, borderline compulsive personalities because they focus on
one thing, and one thing only: building something that exceeds your
expectation.

Everything listed in the article is a by-product of that, not the reason for.

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todayiamme
Mr. Jobs' vision aside the biggest thing that they have going for them is that
_they don't try to succeed like someone else_. Google has unique strengths and
weaknesses inherent to its culture and leadership. Microsoft is exactly the
same. So is any startup. However, for some reason people talk about success in
a prescription sort of way. It is true that common strains will exist between
companies who have achieved some measurable amount of success, but what works
for one of them will not necessarily work for the other.

The interesting thing about Microsoft is that they fail whenever they walk
outside of their strengths. Moreover they loose resources, time and mind share
each time they do something like that. Some may call it a lack of focus, but
they seem to aim at mimicking other people's success, and the saddest bit is
that they aren't alone.

I read about people who want to be Steve Jobs and companies that want to be
like Apple. I wish I could explain to them that you can't do that. You simply
can't. Apple was unique. Steve Jobs is unique and so are you. So, why don't
you focus on what makes you unique?

People fall down more often when they are pretending to be someone else. I
don't know why but in the lure of the siren of success they kill the very bits
of them that ensure their success.

What I am trying to say is that perhaps we spend _too much_ time reading into
other people's success than to see what is in ourselves. Perhaps that just
sets us up for inevitable failure down the road. I can't base my life on the
question; "what would Steve Jobs do?". I can't base a company on that either.

P.S. - Awesome article.

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rbanffy
In order to succeed like Apple you have to fail like Apple. You have to do
your Apple III, your Lisa, your Newton and your Quicktake.

And, sometimes, your NeXT.

When you experiment a lot, when you don't compromise, risks are higher. Expect
some of your ideas to fail. When they fail, learn from them and try again with
a better one, not a toned down, safer one.

Rinse and repeat.

~~~
glhaynes
Best of all is to fail in a non-public way: I can't find the quote right now,
but Jobs has said (roughly) that he's as proud of the things they've developed
and then haven't shipped as the things they have. Presumably some really good
products that just weren't right at the time for Apple to bring to market.

The example that comes to mind for me is Microsoft's recent Kin phones:
because of the sunk-cost fallacy, they apparently felt like they _had_ to
bring _something_ to market, even though everybody apparently knew the product
wasn't good. So they made a few bucks back (not many!) from Kin sales, but got
a _ton_ of harder-to-quantify negative publicity from this very public
failure. If they'd have just killed the project the day before public reveal
and done something internally with the lessons learned, they'd be far better
off.

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rbanffy
What I felt out of the Kin thing is that they knew it would be a spectacular
flop, but nobody had the nerve to write it down and actually say it sucked as
bad as it did.

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jdale27
You are not Apple. Adopting some superficial Apple-like guidelines will not
make you succeed like Apple.

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astrange
Well, consider what would happen if you did the opposite of each one. "Keep
your number of products high" might work in some market, but "have an
inconsistent and unpolished user interface"? I don't see what you'd get out of
that one.

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doron
You get Sony?

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MarkBook
"Have a Clearly Defined Leader: Everyone knows ... Tony Hsieh is the leader of
Zappos"

I'm not sure but I may have heard of Zappos, I don't know what it does and I
certainly never heard of Tony Hsieh.

~~~
api
I think there's a part II to that piece of advice. The full version would be:

Have a clearly defined leader that is not an idiot.

Having a clearly defined leader that is an idiot has the opposite effect. The
order of excellence in companies goes: brilliant leader, well managed group,
idiot-narcissist in charge (in decreasing order of successfulness).

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api
"Don’t Design By Committee: Another interesting tidbit from the most recent D
Conference was Steve Jobs’ comment that Apple was the largest startup on the
planet and that there were no committee. Apple puts the company first and
foremost, not individual people. No one person, even Steve himself, is above
Apple."

This paragraph directly contradicts itself. Committees are what you get from
"no I in team" corporate collectivist ideology.

Apple has I's in its team: Steve Jobs, and I'm sure a number of their best
designers and engineers as well. Apple can make good well-designed un-
cluttermongered products because these people have the ability and the courage
to say "no, bad idea." Great things are usually the product of one integrating
mind. Committees roll balls of junk.

There is no doubt in my mind that when Steve is gone Apple will suck. I'm sure
the investors will put some ivy-league MBA apparatchik in charge, and he'll
form committees and be very proactive at leveraging their core competencies.

~~~
ThomPete
Design by committee means that your design decisions is based on negotiation.

Design is a decisions, decisions that are negotiated are rarely if ever crisp
and consistent but rather a trade-off between different opposing views.

That is the point more than whether there is a team. If the team thinks the
same way, you don't need to do the trade-off.

Nobody ever built a statue of a committee.

~~~
jasonlbaptiste
I wanted to go into how Ideo does design here. It's actually one of the few
case studies that were useful to me in undergrad. It's a selfless organization
where the best ideas win and I feel there has to be some correlation between
ideo + apple doing this and their success in the design world.

~~~
ThomPete
Yeah, although IDEO have moved into a company that do more design research
than product design (they still do a lot but it't not their focus)

But yes the ability to create design discussion around a common goal rather
than peoples opinion is the Holy Grail of successful design.

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dotcoma
great post, even if it goes against what he outlines as Apple's own
guidelines. Too long. The first 5 or 6 point are all he needed to make his
point, imho.

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pramit
This is also useful How To Be Remarkable #76: Learn from Steve Jobs (for
busness savvy) [http://bighow.com/news/how-to-be-remarkable-76-learn-from-
st...](http://bighow.com/news/how-to-be-remarkable-76-learn-from-steve-jobs-
for-busness-savvy)

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emehrkay
'Evolutionary “Porsche like” improvements' is why, in my design-eye, love BMW

*disclaimer, I drive one

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antidaily
That photo of the 911s is impressive. When you compare it to say Corvettes
from 50 years ago, you really get the picture.

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c00p3r
Find and invest in another NeXT?

