Editor’s note: This article was first published in December 2011, when the iPad 2 was the latest iPad; Guy Kawasaki’s companies, including Garage, Alltop and Truemors, are described as the ventures he was running then.
Guy Kawasaki, a Japanese-American, is one of the few executives who can say they walked away from a company like Apple twice. He used the opportunity to set up his own technology investment firm, Garage, along with several fairly successful websites such as Alltop and Truemors, the latter devoted to verifying or debunking rumours that appear online.
Guy Kawasaki has become a walking entrepreneur’s handbook, especially for anyone hoping to launch a startup, because his advice is very simple and, from what I’ve seen, quite realistic. In his first book, The Art of the Start, Kawasaki said something along the lines of an entrepreneur only needing two things to launch a successful business: a business idea and a garage.
1. The goal of a company shouldn’t be money
Kawasaki maintains that any entrepreneur whose only goal is money is doomed to fail, and he agrees with other great business people who attribute part of their success to passion rather than financial gain. For a product or service to take our company to the top, we need to have a social role in our hands, helping customers meet a need that makes their lives easier. Is the iPad a necessity? Certainly not, but it makes life so entertaining that, for many users, it becomes one.
2. A product doesn’t have to be perfect before you launch it
Kawasaki believes that any entrepreneur who spends too long perfecting a product before launching it is making a serious mistake, because they think they’re bringing out a perfect product when, in reality, everything can be improved. This may be where his clashes with Steve Jobs, a perfectionist, would have started. But we have to give Kawasaki his due: perfectionist as Jobs was, he didn’t make perfect products that couldn’t be improved. After the iPad came the iPad 2, and the same goes for the rest of Apple’s products.
To take an obvious example, there’s a huge gulf between Apple’s first personal computer and today’s computers. An entrepreneur’s success lies in constant innovation, in adapting to the new market and, above all, in continually listening to users.
3. Your current customers come first, not potential ones
If you have customers, you have a treasure. If you have prospects, all you have are possible customers. Focus on listening to your current customers and concentrate on them, because they’re the ones who chose you, strengths and flaws included. There will be time to win new customers and listen to what they want, and that will be much easier once your current customers have no complaints and you’ve solved every single one of their problems.
4. A product must be unique
When Kawasaki talks about a product, he doesn’t mean just the product, but the whole company around it, from manufacturing and customer service all the way to the moment it reaches the customer’s hands. Knock-offs have appeared for every Apple “gadget”, and someone who doesn’t know much about technology might not notice the difference between an Apple product and an imitation. But when you compare everything behind the product (features, finish, simplicity, interface), that’s where Apple would outshine its competitors.
See also: A simple business idea, a quick success and a profitable business: Silly Bandz
5. Don’t be afraid of innovation
Many entrepreneurs are afraid to take a risk on an innovative product, because bringing a revolutionary product to market certainly takes much more work. Kawasaki says that much of the success of Silicon Valley companies comes from launching the product (as long as you believe in it), letting people try it, and then working out what to improve.
Don’t be scared of criticism. Receiving it is a very good sign, because without criticism of your product it would be impossible to improve it. And don’t worry if your product isn’t known yet: Kawasaki subscribes to an old remark by Jobs himself: “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.”
6. Don’t be afraid to fail
This is very common advice from great business people, because failure is part of learning. An entrepreneur shouldn’t fear failure; in fact, they should count on it happening, although a person never fails until they get tired of trying.
7. Be ready for negative comments
When you decide to start a business or launch a new product, it’s only natural that hundreds of friends and relatives will try to talk you out of it and tell you not to take the risk. Kawasaki has perhaps come to terms with this, since nobody gave their blessing to his idea of leaving Apple, just as nobody approved when he started his own company and risked part of his capital. Never let anyone steal your dream simply because they couldn’t find the courage to do what you’re prepared to do.
8. Build your company on solid foundations: the garage
We already covered this in our article “Common mistakes of Spanish entrepreneurs“: in Spain, if there’s no office, there’s no business, and meanwhile we keep the car parked in the garage, when some of the most profitable businesses were born precisely in Silicon Valley garages.
If you have a garage, you already have a business, because it’s an ideal place to start developing your idea. Once your idea has taken shape and money is coming in, think about an office. But renting an office to start a startup is like buying a car and petrol before you have a driving licence.
As the half-joking saying goes (and there’s some truth in it), starting a business is hard in Spain because we don’t know how to make the most of our garages.
Featured image: Dave Sifry, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons.
