Key Lessons from Tony Fadell, the Visionary Behind iPod and Nest Thermostats, as Explored in His Revealing Book “Build”
Tony Fadell is an American entrepreneur, inventor, and investor who is best known for his role in the development of the iPod and the co-founding of Nest Labs. He is widely regarded as a pioneer in the consumer electronics industry, having played a key role in the development of products that have had a significant impact on how people interact with technology in their daily lives.
I recently read his book called Build: An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making. Fadell is sharing his knowledge and experience about how to build a product, how to take market advantage, when to quit a job, what is leadership, how to run a start-up, how to manage and grow teams. In addition, he gives important lessons for how to manage relationship with corporate lawyers, how to choose right employee, how to grow your team, how to communicate with venture capital firms. Furthermore, he shares memories with Steve Jobs while he was building iPod.
As you might imagine, this book includes priceless information and I would like to share key highlights from the book. I always admire companies who create a product that is easy to use with good design and care the customer while their product solves complex user problems. Note to mention that; it is not only product serves for customer but the whole company does. As he mentioned in the book:
“That’s what made Nest special. It’s what makes Apple special. It’s what allows businesses to reach beyond their product and create a connection — not with users and consumers, but with human beings. It’s how you create something that people will love.”
“Your customer doesn’t differentiate between your advertising and your app and your customer support agents — all of it is your company. Your brand. All of it is one thing.”
Tony Fadell thinks about building Nest Thermostats when he realizes bad experience with those devices. He visits his cabin in Lake Tahoe on Fridays after work and make complaints about how cold the cabin is. He is not able to remotely control thermostat inside the cabin before he arrives because there was not a compatible product with the technology at the time. The house took all night to heat up. Then he decides to build a smart thermostats that saves energy. He summarizes when to start building a product with these sentences:
“Until you realize that no matter what you do, you can’t stop thinking about that one idea. That’s when you stop running from it and start chipping away at the risks, one by one, until you’re confident enough that they’re worth taking. If that does not happen, then it’s not a great idea. It’s a distraction. Keep going until you find an idea that won’t let you go.”
The journey afterwards is summarized as below:
“You make the product. You fix the product. You build the business.”
Most of the successful startups follow the same pattern:
“They created a V1 product, scaled it for V2, then optimized the business in V3.”
They focused on customer experience and the journey. Configuring a thermostat was not easy and requires external help however; Nest created an easy product that could be self-installed quickly. However; company realized they missed something. When customers unbox the Nest thermostat, they were looking a screwdriver around the house to start the installation. The company decided that this is a bad experience. As a consequence of this bad experience; Nest created its own handy screwdriver and sold alongside with thermostats. Isn’t it cool?
Importance of Storytelling
Crafting a remarkable product is undoubtedly crucial, but its success relies on effective storytelling through marketing. A compelling narrative not only communicates the features and benefits but also forges an emotional connection with the audience. It transforms a mere commodity into a relatable experience.
“Every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer’s problems.”
According to the book; good product story has three elements:
1. It appeals to people’s rational and emotional sides.
2. It takes complicated concepts and makes them simple.
3. It reminds people of the problem that’s being solved — it focuses on the “why.”
“There’s a competition for market share and a competition for mind share. If your competitors are telling better stories than you, if they’re playing the game and you’re not, then it doesn’t matter if their product is worse. They will get the attention. To any customers, investors, partners, or talent doing a cursory search, they will appear to be the leaders in the category. The more people talk about them, the greater their mind share, and the more people will talk about them.”
Tony Fadell mentions that Steve Jobs was master of storytelling.
“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.”
“All the music they loved all together in one place, easy to find, easy to hold — and gave them a way to tell their friends and family why this new iPod thing was so cool.”
“That’s why ‘1,000 songs in your pocket’ was so powerful. Everyone had CDs and tapes in bulky players that only let you listen to 10–15 songs, one album at a time. So ‘1,000 songs in your pocket’ was an incredible.”
Decision-Making
The book has whole chapter about data vs opinion driven decision making. It matters because there is a point in time where data is not enough for us to give a strategic decision finally; we need to follow our gut and vision derived from past experiences. From my point of view; effective decision making is based on finding the right balance between them.
“Data-driven: You can acquire, study, and debate facts and numbers that will allow you to be fairly confident in your choice. These decisions are relatively easy to make and defend and most people on the team can agree on the answer.”
“Opinion-driven: You have to follow your gut and your vision for what you want to do, without the benefit of sufficient data to guide you or back you up. These decisions are always hard and always questioned — after all, everyone has an opinion.”
“But data can’t solve an opinion-based problem.”
“If you don’t have enough data to make a decision, you’ll need insights to inform your opinion.”“In those moments it’s your responsibility as a manager or a leader to explain that this isn’t a democracy, that this is an opinion-driven decision and you’re not going to reach the right choice by consensus. But this also isn’t a dictatorship. You can’t give orders without explaining yourself.”
Final quotes about management:
“One of the hardest parts of management is letting go. Not doing the work yourself. You have to temper your fear that becoming more hands-off will cause the product to suffer or the project to fail. You have to trust your team — give them breathing room to be creative and opportunities to shine.”
“Becoming a manager is a discipline. Management is a learned skill, not a talent. You’re not born with it. You’ll need to learn a whole slew of new communication skills and educate yourself with websites, podcasts, books, classes, or help from mentors and other experienced managers.”
