Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

So when you’re looking at the array of potential careers before you, the correct place to start is this: “What do I want to learn?”

And after you move out of your parents’ house, there’s a window—a brief, shining, incredible window—where your decisions are yours alone. You’re not beholden to anyone—not a spouse, not kids, not parents. You’re free. Free to choose whatever you’d like.

Your decisions can no longer be entirely your own. That’s okay, too—great even—but it’s different. The people who depend on you will shape and influence your choices. Even if you don’t have a family to support, you’ll still accumulate just a little more each year—friends, assets, social standing—that you won’t want to risk.

Too many people see work as a means to an end, as a way to make enough money to stop working. But getting a job is your opportunity to make a dent in the world. To put your focus and energy and your precious, precious time toward something meaningful.

The key is persistence and being helpful. Not just asking for something, but offering something. You always have something to offer if you’re curious and engaged. You can always trade and barter good ideas; you can always be kind and find a way to help.

Harry Stebbings.

there is nothing in the world that feels better than helping your hero in a meaningful way and earning their trust—watching them realize you know what you’re talking about, that you can be relied on, that you’re someone to remember. And then seeing how that respect evolves as you move on to the next job, and the next.

Don’t (Only) Look Down

if an IC is constantly looking down, their eyes exclusively on their own tight deadlines and the minutiae of their job, they may walk directly into a brick wall.

The CEO and executive team are mostly staring way out on the horizon—50 percent of their time is spent planning for a fuzzy, distant future months or years away, 25 percent is focused on upcoming milestones in the next month or two, and the last 25 percent is spent putting out fires happening right now at their feet. They also look at all the parallel lines to make sure everyone is keeping up and going in the same direction.

Managers usually keep their eyes focused 2–6 weeks out. Those projects are pretty fleshed out and detailed, though they still have some fuzzy bits around the edges. Managers’ heads should be on a swivel—they often look down, sometimes look further out, and spend a fair amount of time looking side to side, checking in on other teams, making sure everything’s coming together for the next milestone.

New perspectives are everywhere. You don’t have to drag a bunch of people off the street to stare at your product and tell you what they think. Start with your internal customers.

I constantly have to remind people: If you’re doing what you loved in your old job, then you’re probably doing the wrong thing.

If you’re a manager—congratulations, you’re now a parent. Not because you should treat your employees like children, but because it’s now your responsibility to help them work through failure and find success. And to be thrilled when they do.

trusting your gut is incredibly scary. Many people don’t have either a good gut instinct to follow or the faith in themselves to follow it.

Because if you follow your gut and your gut is wrong, then there’s nowhere else to cast blame.

Storytelling is how you get people to take a leap of faith to do something new.

Most decisions we make are data-informed, but they’re not data-made.

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“It’s not data or intuition; it’s data a...

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Our product was good, but ultimately it was the whole journey that defined our brand.

And keep in mind that customers aren’t the only ones who will hear this story. Telling the story is how you attract people to your team or investors to your company.

Steve was a master of this. Before he told you what a product did, he always took the time to explain why you needed it. And he made it all look so natural, so easy.

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If your company is disruptive, you have to be prepared for strong reactions and stronger emotions.

You cannot be afraid to disrupt the thing that made you successful in the first place. Even if it made you hugely successful.

If you’re experiencing your biggest market share ever, that means you’re on the brink of becoming calcified and stagnant. It’s time to dig deep and kick your own ass.

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This was an opinion-driven decision and Steve’s opinion was the one that counted most. “So either get on board right now or you’re off the team,” Steve said. That settled it for marketing.

It was time to put the vision third.

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In the very beginning, before there are customers, vision is more important than pretty much anything else.

That means they can never communicate with their customers in a cohesive way about their entire organization.

There was no way to create a steady heartbeat for Mac customers or a reasonable rhythm for the Apple team if they relied on Intel processors.

Crossing the Chasm

Early adopters know nobody gets everything right with V1. Nobody even gets everything they were originally planning for V1 into V1.

Nobody can tackle them all at once. Not at a startup, not at a big company.

we had a slew of new partnerships,

Long before you figure out what a product will do, you need to understand why people will want it. The “why” drives the “what.”

The best ideas are painkillers, not vitamins.

As in marriage, you can’t just throw yourself at anyone who shows a little interest. You have to take time to find someone you’re compatible with—who doesn’t play games or pressure you too much—and make sure it’s the right moment for you to settle down.

Now Apple has separate teams to handle all of their B2B business, but the products are never defined to appease B2B customers. By keeping itself pure as a B2C company, Apple was able to tack on B2B without significantly altering its priorities or its marketing, or knocking its core business out of whack.

That’s the thing to remember about B2B2C—it doesn’t matter how many businesses are involved: ultimately it’s the end consumer who carries the business model on their back. But companies forget. It happens most often when a company evolves from B2C into B2B2C. They usually start off with no business model, no way to make money, just a lot of customers using their product for free. But free is never really free. Eventually many of these companies realize their most lucrative option is to sell users’ data to big business. That means bolting on B2B sales so they can resell customer data hundreds or even thousands of times. That’s the story of Facebook and Twitter and Google and Instagram and many, many others. But that story can end badly.

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You will encounter a crisis eventually. Everyone does. If you don’t, you’re not doing anything important or pushing any boundaries.