Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

First, you’re dumbstruck by how great an idea this is. How has nobody thought of this before? Then you start looking into it. And oh, okay—they have thought of it. They tried it and failed. Or maybe you really have stumbled into something nobody has ever done before. And the reason is this insane, impossible obstacle that there’s no way to get around. You begin to understand how hard it would be to do this—there’s so much you don’t know. So you put it aside. But you can’t get it out of your head. So you research it here and there. You start sketching or coding or writing, making little prototypes of what this thing could be. Napkin drawings constantly fall out of your bag. Your notebook is full of feature ideas, sales ideas, marketing ideas, business model ideas. You think that maybe the people who tried this idea before were taking the wrong approach. Or maybe an obstacle that was stopping others can now be solved with a new technology—maybe the moment for this idea has finally come. That’s when it starts to get more real for you. So you decide to commit to really looking into it, to digging deep to make an informed decision. You need to figure out whether you should pursue this idea or not. One day you realize there’s a way around that one impossible obstacle. You’re thrilled! Until you see the next huge roadblock in your way. Crap. It’ll never work. But you keep digging and trying things and getting advice from experts and friends and you realize, actually, maybe there’...