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As the legendary inventor Thomas Edison famously said, “Genius is 1 percent inspiration, and 99 percent perspiration.”
Art, without distribution and discovery, moves nobody. Did it ever exist? Science, without clear explanation and advocacy, won’t be understood by the masses. Will it make an impact?
That’s why the best businesses aren’t profit-driven or even product-driven; they’re purpose-driven. They strive to solve real problems, meet pressing needs, and change the world in ways big and small. They make a commitment to constantly learning and iterating and evolving to become better at executing their missions. They focus on creating value, and let everything else follow.
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the process typically begins with looking at the intersection of several key truths: What does the world hunger for? What does it desire? What does it need or suffer from a lack of? What are the unique talents of the organization? Who has the company timelessly been? And who must it fearlessly become?
To define your personal purpose, start with these questions: How will the world be better off thanks to you having been on this earth? What are your unique gifts and superpowers? Who have you been when you’ve been at your best? Who must you fearlessly become?
His personal purpose is about helping people live a mindful existence—that is, to bring thoughtfulness and intentionality to their work and play. Meanwhile, Patagonia’s purpose is to “build the best product, cause no unnecessary harm, and use business to inspire and implement solutions to the environmental crisis.”
What does your purpose reveal about what you should stop doing?
What’s different about these companies is that they are lean, mean, learning machines. They have an intense bias to action and a high tolerance for risk, expressed through frequent experimentation and relentless product iteration.
“Uber is a $3.5 billion lesson in building for how the world should work instead of optimizing for how the world does work.”
We have this line at O’Reilly: “Create more value than you capture.”
I was in a brainstorm about the future of the US economy recently, and it was all about the decline of the middle class. It reminded me of so many conversations that I have had with publishers. They ask, “How are we going to preserve our place in the ecosystem?” And I say, “Nobody cares about that. That’s the wrong question.” The right question is, “What does the world need? What do my customers need? What can I do?”
In a perfect world, new ideas would only be generated in response to glaring problems. Yet, as a culture, we’ve become so obsessed with “innovation” that we imbue it with an intrinsic value all its own. We act as if a new idea is good just because it’s new. But what if we were forced to stop and ask ourselves: “Why do we need that?”
That’s why the best entrepreneurs, the most successful ones, are those who saw something that was broken and had no choice but to fix it. They developed their ideas because they saw a problem that desperately needed solving. And that problem wasn’t, “I hate my finance job.”
DON’T JUST INVENT SOMETHING, FIX SOMETHING
Whenever I sit down with a new client, one of the very first questions I ask is what issue they are addressing for their users. This may seem like an easy question, but it’s surprisingly hard to answer. Without fail, each entrepreneur jumps to the benefits of his or her product instead of the needs of their audience. For instance, someone launching a new gym concept might say, “Getting consistent quality training at an affordable price.” Or someone launching a platform for small business owners might respond, “Giving users visibility and ownership of their data.” Notice that these are not
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When I used to work in advertising, we would joke that the “insight” in the creative brief was often something along the lines of, “I wish there were a crunchy cereal with raisins that was healthy and also delicious.” But people do not wish this. They might have a hard time finding a quick breakfast that doesn’t make them feel fat or sluggish. And maybe your crunchy raisin cereal is the perfect response to this issue. But they are not waking up in the morning wishing for raisiny, crunchy goodness.
Everyone knows the famous Henry Ford quote, “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.” People weren’t walking (or riding) around, wishing for a car. But maybe the problem was, “My horse is very slow and he tires easily.” OK, why does that matter? “Well, it takes me too long to get places, and I can’t travel very far.” And why does that matter? “I spend more time getting myself places than enjoying my life and accomplishing things.” And why does that matter? “Because I’m going to die pretty soon and I have so much I need to achieve first. I can’t waste my
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It’s relatively easy to arrive at a one-sentence description of what your product does. But that’s not a brand idea. The best brands, the strongest brands, the ones that everybody loves, stand for a concept that is much greater than the product itself.
To use two well-worn examples, Nike isn’t about sneakers; it’s about performance. Apple isn’t about computers; it’s about creativity. Perhaps the car stands for freedom. But you won’t arrive at that conclusion by starting with your product. You get there by starting with people. What do people need, what do they care about, what are their passions and dreams, their desires and fears? Then, and only then, can you begin to understand how your product fits into the equation.
WHY ARE WE HERE IN THE FIRST PLACE?
IF WE DISAPPEARED, WHO WOULD MISS US? AND WHY?
WHAT BUSINESS ARE WE REALLY IN? This question forces you to explore your deeper relationship with customers—beyond just the obvious product or service you’re offering. Nike started out selling athletic shoes but figured out early on that its real business was addressing active-lifestyle needs of all kinds.
HOW CAN WE BECOME A CAUSE AND NOT JUST A COMPANY?
Ries says you start with the acknowledgment that “we are operating amid uncertainty—and that the purpose of building a product or doing any other activity is to create an experiment to reduce that uncertainty.” This means that instead of asking the question, ‘What will we make?,’ the emphasis should be on ‘What will we learn?’ “And then you work backwards to the simplest possible thing—the minimum viable product—that can get you the learning,” he says.
PURPOSE IS YOUR COMPASS Do the hard work of uncovering your purpose and summarizing it succinctly. It brings into focus the things that matter most, and provides a roadmap for future actions.
LOOK OUTWARD, NOT INWARD Don’t focus on what you need, focus on what the world needs. Follow your enthusiasm, your intuition, and your customers.
BE A GIVER, NOT A TAKER Every time you make a decision, look at how your business can “create more value than it captures,” as they say at O’Reilly Media.