Blue Dots Partners

Lesson 1: Don’t focus, hyper-focus on what matters the most and what moves the cause forward

Steve had this unique ability, which I have never seen in anybody else: he exhibited an intense and obsessive focus. He never gave interviews because in his mind, it would not make the iPhone or any other Apple product better. It would not move the cause of designing and building beautiful, impactful and consequential products that would affect the life of hundreds of millions of people.

The lesson I learned is about saying no to a hundred things to focus only on one or two or three essential things to accomplish. Most startups die because of lack of focus and their inability to say no. In some cases, they refuse to take on the difficult challenge to define who they truly are. They don’t die because they run out of oxygen (read cash), it’s like saying most people die because their heart stopped. They rarely die because they have a bad idea or it’s a bad product. In my experience, most startups die because they try to do too many things and go after too many markets with too many features. Because of that, they do not forge their identity, their “reason d’être”, their existential “why” and they are irrelevant in an ocean of noise.

In some case, they raise way too much capital, which exacerbates the problem. It’s hard to be frugal when you have a lot of money. It is hard to be forceful and make the difficult decision to pick only one thing to do when you have too much capital. Too much money is convenient: you don’t have to make the decision between A, B or C. You can do all of them and even D and E! I have seen investors during board meetings complaining that the CEO is not spending enough. Over oxygenation is like under oxygenation: it leads to the same result: death, even though the physiological phenomenon to get there is quite different.

Lesson 2: The quest for simplicity is really, really, really hard

It takes many iterations to peel something to the core, to its most simple and most elegant form of expression, to its truth. In some case, it is very counter intuitive and it can’t be easily seen and appreciated.

There is a pruning of unused neural connections or synapses of the brain as an adolescent evolves into adulthood. Synapses that are used frequently become stronger, faster and more stable. Only these who matter thrive. Businesses should go through the same process.

Let me give you an example of how hard the path to simplicity can be. When Apple came up with the unibody design of the MacBook Pro in January 2009 it reduced the enclosure of the laptop to one single piece of aluminum instead of several pieces. The challenge came from the manufacturing process and designing the right tooling to mass-manufacture that single piece with an obsessive attention to details. The beauty is as much on the inside as it is on the outside, which only shows a simple, yet elegant product. Reduction to one single piece of enclosure was a tour de force for Apple.

Lesson 3: Working for Steve. I came to the realization that there is only one business on this planet

By business, I mean the exchange of goods and services for money. If you think about it: what is the difference between Caterpillar, Farmers Insurance Group, Ford Motor Company, Krispy Kreme and Pixar Animation Studios? The answer might shock you: at a fundamental level, there is none. All these five companies are in the exact same business with the exact same goal and purpose: to manufacture and deliver delight.

Let me say it again, as this is really important: there is one and only one business on this planet. Any company or enterprise, small or large, anywhere in the world, regardless of what problem it addresses, or its business model, or the types of customers it serves is in the same business: to manufacture and deliver delight.

It’s the alignment between the expected delight and what is delivered to the customer (through six steps: discovery, usage, maintenance, support, upgrade and disposal) that determines the happiness of the customers. There cannot be an impedance mismatch between these two things, otherwise, it impacts growth because customers will share their experience, positive or negative and amplify success or failure. This is the fourth alignment in our A4 Precision Alignment™ methodology.

Here is an example of excellent alignment: Chewy. The company offers an unsurpassed customer experience. They don’t only deliver food and products for our pet friends; they deliver love and excitement and emotional connections. In 2017, Pet Smart bought the company for $3.3B. It was the largest eCommerce acquisition at the time. Revenue last year, in 2018, was $3.5B and today, its market cap is close to $10B.

By contrast, here is an example of a dramatic misalignment: Theranos. The expectation was to get dozens of blood tests, off a single drop of blood. The reality was quite different: tests were inaccurate, the claim was fraudulent. Elizabeth Holmes, its founder and former CEO is awaiting a criminal trial and John Carreyrou wrote a fantastic book!

This alignment between Delight and Offering is one of the four universal alignments that I describe in my upcoming book, Aligning the Dots: The new paradigm to grow any business. It is one of the core principles of what makes companies grow and be successful or become irrelevant and die.

Conclusion

I used these three lessons as an entrepreneur, as an investor, as a board member. I continue to use them every day to help companies grow faster. In fact, they became principles for me.

For example, I stopped asking any entrepreneur or CEO what his or her company does. I got tired of listening to their long monolog as an answer. I now ask: “Can you tell me in one sentence, why I should buy your product?” The answer informs on their focus, the simple description of why their business matters and how much delight they are hoping to deliver.