What Would Steve Jobs Do? (WWSJD)
When you think of Apple Computer and Steven Jobs, you naturally think of a successful company run by a very innovative entrepreneur. What people seem to forget is that Apple peaked in the 1990s. It was losing revenue and market share and it was a shrinking island in a sea of Microsoft PCs. Steven Jobs had left his own company rather than being fired and without Jobs, Apple began inventing more products.
In the absence of Jobs, Apple wasn’t designing cool computers, they were pumping out disk drives, laser printers and a slow PDA called the Newton. They’re only memorable products were those egg-shaped iMacs with the funky colors. All of this product innovation only confused and frustrated devoted Apple fans and the company continued to flounder.
How Steve Jobs Turned Apple Around
When Steven Jobs eventually returned to his own company (after launching Pixar in his free time!) he realized what a mess the business was in. What would he do to turn the company around? The simple answer: he simplified everything.
What Jobs knew, and what made Apple great in the first place, is that it’s all about the user experience. If you offer too many products, consumers won’t know what to buy. You actually create the Osborne Effect where anticipation of new products slows down sales of your existing products. He slashed nearly everything and brought a narrow focus back to the Apple team.
They went back to enhancing the user experience by rebuilding the operating system, which is what consumers had fallen in love with years prior. All of this prevented Apple from imploding but it wasn’t until Jobs launched the iPod and iTunes that company became the Juggernaut it is today.
Why Buy Music When You Can Get It for Free?
What Steve Jobs learned during his hiatus from Apple is that licensing (a concept perfected by Disney films) has more lifetime value than product sales. And Jobs wanted to develop a product that would license music. At the time, Napster made music file sharing free and the Apple team questioned Jobs’ sanity. Why would people buy an MP3 player and songs when they can get them free on their computers from their friends?
The answer was simple: Jobs said Apple would create a better user experience for music lovers. And they certainly did… and the rest is history that you can read about in a new book titled, “Inside Steve’s Brain.”
