Guy Kawasaki was fortunate enough to work for Steve Jobs twice in his life. When he tells the story of working for Jobs, he states that Steve Jobs fundamentally changed his life. Guy was booked to give a speech in October of 2011, upon learning of Steve Jobs death he changed his speech at the last minute and decided to discuss 12 lessons that he learned from Steve Jobs that can be applied to entrepreneurs. These are those 12 pivotal lessons.
1. Experts are clueless.
Journalists, analysts and other experts cannot help you. Steve did not listen to experts, they listened to him. People who declare themselves an expert are the worst. Follow the facts, don’t take an experts word for anything.
2. Customers can’t tell you what they need.
You can ask them how to make a revolution better, but you can’t ask them how to create a revolution. If you truly want to be an entrepreneur you can’t listen to customers, you need to provide what the customers need.
3. The biggest challenges beget the best results.
When you strive to achieve great things, not only can you achieve them, you can do better than them. Steve knew that if you gave people big challenges they would succeed. Go big or go home.
4. Design counts.
In this world where everybody cares about price, design really does count. There are people who truly care about design. You should care about the design of your product. Don’t put out crap. You can enchant people with great design. Design can be the entire product. Steve has proven this more than five times.
5. Big graphics, big fonts.
Steve always used big graphics and big fonts. He used 60 point font and would put up one word slides for impact. Many of us still use size 8 font for slides and no one can read them. Be bold, make a statement.
6. Jump curves, not better sameness.
You don’t do things ten times better, you do them 100 times better. If you want to change the world you can’t do it on the curve you’re on, you have to jump the curve into a different lane. In other words, don’t do things better, change the thing you’re doing.
7. “Work” or “doesn’t work” is all that matters.
At one time Steve thought that if the iPhone system was closed it would work better, then later he thought if it was open it would work better. Whether it was open or closed never mattered, what mattered was that it worked.
8. Value is different than price.
There is a class of people who believe that value is more important than price. You want to be valuable and unique. If you’re an engineer you need to create a unique and valuable product, if you are a marketer you need to offer a unique and valuable product or service. If you’re unique and valuable then price won’t matter.
9. “A” players hire “A+” players.
When “A” players hire “B” players then the bozo explosion starts. When you hire people, don’t hire people who aren’t as smart as you. If you do this, when they need to hire people they will hire people that aren’t as smart as they are and it perpetuates itself until you are left working with bozos. Hire people who are smarter than you.
10. Real CEOs can demo.
Real CEOs are people who actually know and use the products that they make. If you really want to be a great CEO you have to demo your own product. No one could do a better demo that Steve Jobs.
11. Real entrepreneurs’ ship.
If you wait until your product is perfect you will never ship. The first laser printer was a piece of crap, but they still sold them and shipped them out. Don’t worry, be crappy.
12. Some things need to be believed to be seen.
You have to believe in your product, you have to ship your products. If you wait for proof that it will be great, it will never happen. You have to believe in some things in order to see them.
While this was only twelve lessons that Guy learned from Steve, there are so many other pearls of wisdom from Steve Jobs that will eventually make themselves out into the world. Take what you can use and leave the rest. Best of luck with your own business.
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