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Steve Jobs Built a Different Kind of Company – What Kind Are You Building?

pc vs macApple has been different since its beginnings. Its computers didn’t look like the ones we were familiar with.  Its software was incompatible with the programs we were accustomed to. Its CEO was WAY different than the suit & ties of that time.  Today it’s still different.

Each day I read countless articles by people trying to figure out what kind of company Apple is.  Is it a hardware company like Dell & HP?  Or is it a software company like Microsoft?  Maybe it’s a retailer like JC Penny? I heard a talking head this morning throw out the name Atari.  I believe she wanted to try out a new vocabulary word “rapid obsolescence.” WTF. Most likely in another 30 years people will still be asking the same questions.

Jony Ive was chosen as one of  TIME’s 100 most influential people in the world.  Unless you follow Apple closely you may have never heard of Jony Ive, but he has been driving force behind the look and feel of many of Apple’s products. The following quote is from that article. I have placed emphasis on a line that I can’t get out of my head.

Jony Ive is himself classic Apple. Brushed steel, polished glass hardware, complicated software honed to simplicity. His genius is not just his ability to see what others cannot but also how he applies it. To watch him with his workmates in the holy of holies, Apple’s design lab, or on a night out is to observe a very rare esprit de corps. They love their boss, and he loves them. What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. Jony is Obi-Wan. His team are Jedi whose nobility depends on the pursuit of greatness over profit, believing the latter will always follow the former, stubbornly passing up near-term good opportunities to pursue great ones in the distance. Jony’s values happen to add value — emotional and financial. It takes a unique alchemy of form and function for millions of people to feel so passionately about the robot in their pocket.

Wow! What the competitors don’t seem to understand is you cannot get people this smart to work this hard just for money. 

Wall Street has been in a tizzy, because Samsung is making phones with larger screen sizes and the phones are quite popular.  Since Apple hasn’t released an equivalent device, the Street is convinced that Apple has fallen behind the innovation curve. Tim Cook, CEO, says to create a larger screen phone the company would have to make technolgical tradeoffs that would impact the phone’s overall experience.  The company is not willing to make those compromises.  In other words, he is willing to sacrifice short term profits for a longer term gain.

Obviously it’s easy for Tim Cook or Jony Ive take that position with many millions in the bank.  However, as an aspiring or struggling entrepreneur where do you stand? Are you willing to take a short term hit?  Is it all about the money?  These are questions that we must contemplate as entrepreneurs.

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There is a Bigger Elephant in the Room for Entrepreneurs

I created my first Pinterest board today.  Check it out.  Not really sure what to do with it, but it could become a repository for cool quotes that I come across.  I saw this one, but had to clean it up for my audience.

Excuses

I have written several post recently on fears that American workers have concerning entrepreneurship -  Fear of Going Broke and How Entrepreneurs Overcome Fear. An Edward Jones survey found that:

  • 61% fear losing savings
  • 58% fear lack of support and safety net
  • 50% fear losing healthcare and retirement benefits
  • 49% fear lack of work/life balance
  • 34% fear doing it alone and feeling isolated

Those are all real concerns, but there is an elephant in the room that may be be scarier than all of those. Once again, I will draw on a Steve Jobs story.

Steve Jobs gives employees a little speech when they’re promoted to Vice President at Apple, according to Adam Lashinsky in a new article in Fortune that’s not online yet.  Lashinsky calls it the “Difference Between the Janitor and the Vice President.”

Jobs tells the VP that if the garbage in his office is not being emptied regularly for some reason, he would ask the janitor what the problem is. The janitor could reasonably respond by saying, “Well, the lock on the door was changed, and I couldn’t get a key.”

An irritation for Jobs, for an understandable excuse for why the janitor couldn’t do his job. As a janitor, he’s allowed to have excuses.  ”When you’re the janitor, reasons matter,” Jobs tells newly minted VPs, according to Lashinsky.

“Somewhere between the janitor and the CEO, reasons stop mattering,” says Jobs, adding, that Rubicon is “crossed when you become a VP.”  In other words, you have no excuse for failure. You are now responsible for any mistakes that happen, and it doesn’t matter what you say.  (Business Insider)

I recently took a big hit on one my investments and was sharing this with my Mother.  She said, who can we blame? There was a time when I would have blamed Wall Street, the weather, anyone and everyone except the man in the mirror.  This time I calmly said to my Mother – that CEO needs to be fired! LOL.

Actually, I said there are no fingers to point – this is on me.

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How Entrepreneurs Overcome Fears

I’ve read two surveys recently on concerns American employees have on pursuing entrepreneurship. Both surveys reached similar conclusions. Below is a neat info-graphic that Edward Jones complied titled “Supporting America’s Entrepreneurs.”

Supporting-Americas-Entrepreneurs

I’m fairly certain that Edward Jones didn’t conduct the survey for the hell of it.  It has the financial resources to act on some of the conclusions and I assume that it has.  The fact that 37% of Americans would feel more confident in starting a business if they had the support of a big company is something that Edward Jones and other large company’s could address.  Also, I can see how Edward Jones could leverage the fact 70% of Americans are seeking more entrepreneurial environments at work. This fits in nicely with their  financial advisor model.

On a broader scale, only 12% would opt to go alone without big brother’s support and only 15% believe that they have what it takes to be an entrepreneur.  That seems about right.  If not on the high side.  Americans’ fears of entrepreneurship were well captured in this survey:

  • 61% fear losing savings
  • 58% fear lack of support and safety net
  • 50% fear losing healthcare and retirement benefits
  • 49% fear lack of work/life balance
  • 34% fear doing it alone and feeling isolated

Desire and fear are two emotions that we must deal with each and every day.  Most times fear trumps desire.  The fact that 70% desire entrepreneurial experiences at work supports that point.  In other words employees want the freedom and autonomy, but will settle for benefits and a predictable paycheck.

The first step towards becoming an entrepreneur is dealing with the fear and desire issue.  IMO, it’s kinda like addressing a personal finance issue.  There are two ways to approach a money problem –  either cut expenses or increase income. Cutting expenses especially after the easy stuff is addressed is no fun.  So, personally I would rather work on income side.  In the case of fear and desire, my preference is to approach it from the desire side.

Now I am making the assumption that becoming an entrepreneur is not a childish wish, but is a fully grown desire.  If that is the case, weird stuff starts to happen.  When you receive a bonus check or a raise – you bank the money instead of spending it.  The reserve fund to address the insecurities  of entrepreneurship becomes a priority.  Excuses disappear as the midnight oil burns.

If you think I’m smoking the good stuff – this is a well documented fact. Napoleon Hill in the classic “Think and Grow Rich” talks about this phenomena.  He calls it a burning desire - an inner drive that is so overwhelming that it will not be denied.  I have written about it many times (Forest Whitaker Reminded Me of a Key to Success – a Burning Desire).

The bottom line is that each of those fears, discussed in the survey, will be front and center in every entrepreneur’s first startup.  It comes with the territory.  It is part of the game.  Maybe after a few successful ventures those fears will be eased, but if someone wants entrepreneurship without risk it ain’t gonna happen!  That’s why you keep hearing people say make your business and your passion one in the same. Desire will overcome fear.

Social Media guru, entrepreneur and author Gary Vaynerchuk nails it in this video.  It’s about 15 minutes long.  I tried to find a shorter one, but this one really drives home my point.  It’s worth watching.

 

 

Let’s discuss. Can desire override fear?

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Steve Jobs – Master the Message

There are many aspiring entrepreneurs that would rather build their widget and let someone else sell it.  I’m sad to report that you may have a problem.  Until you have grown beyond the small business classification – you – the owner, the founder, the chief cook and bottle washer will be your company’s best sales person. No one knows the product and benefits better than you. No one is more passionate about the design, the services, the intricate details than you. I’m not suggesting that you have to become the pushy telemarketer or a sleazy used car sales person, but you do have to master your message and learn to convey it to people.

No one was a better salesperson at Apple than Steve Jobs.  However, if you called him one he would probably rip you to pieces. Over time he made the transition, from the guy who almost threw up from nervousness before his first television appearance

 

to the guy that delivered a sales presentation better than any professional salesperson could have dreamed. IMO, mastering your message is as important as anything else on aspiring entrepreneurs to do list.  You may want to consider joining your local ToastMasters group to kickstart the process.

 

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Fear of Going Broke Keeps Would Be Entrepreneurs Employees

Just finished reading an article that said there would be a lot more entrepreneurs in the world if the fear of going broke wasn’t a potential outcome.  Sign me up for the benefits. Independence.  Freedom to decide when and where to work.  I’ll even take less money, but this going broke thing is a problem.

According to a 2012 survey conducted for the European Commission by TNS Custom Research, 51 percent of Americans would rather be self-employed and 44 percent think it would be possible for them to go into business for themselves within the next five years — a figure that has increased 8 percentage points since 2009. But despite the relatively large number of Americans who want to be in business for themselves and believe it feasible in the near future, relatively few would-be entrepreneurs actually take the initiative.

When asked to identify what would-be entrepreneurs most feared about starting a business, the top responses were a fear of going bankrupt (38 percent) and a fear of irregular income (37 percent), which amount to a significantly larger sum than those who feared personal failure and losing job security.

My question is how do you define a “would be” entrepreneur? If you are not an entrepreneur are you a “would be” entrepreneur? Fear of going broke never crossed my mind when I started my business.

Read Full Article Here.