Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making

by Tony Fadell

Far too many people expect profitability, for the product and the business, right out of the gate. When I was at Philips I watched most new product categories and businesses on their slate get cancelled—even for products that were almost ready to ship. Built. Tested. Done. They would die on the vine because the top brass were protecting themselves. Any execs joining the team always wanted a near guarantee that new products would make money. [See also: Chapter 2.2: Data Versus Opinion: Most people don’t even want to acknowledge that there are opinion-driven decisions.] They demanded to be shown ahead of time that the unit and business economics of the product were sound. But that was impossible. They were asking us to predict the future with near 100 percent confidence. They were asking for proof that a baby could run a marathon before it had even learned to walk.