An Unorthodox Guide To Making Things
If you’d like to learn from an inventor and designer of three of the most iconic consumer products in history, I recommend this book.
“Don’t worry about what you’re going to lose – think about what you’re going to become.” - Tony Fadell
If you’d like to learn from an inventor and designer of three of the most iconic consumer products in history, I recommend reading Build, by Tony Fadell. I loved reading it because it combines firsthand accounts of what it took to build the iPod, iPhone, and Nest Thermostat, with insights and advice for builders. This book is a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and USAToday Bestseller.
Tony Fadell has been called the “father of the iPod”. As SVP of Apple’s iPod Division, he led the team that created the first eighteen generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Tony then founded and became CEO of Nest, the company that created the Nest Learning Thermostat (now part of Google). He has authored more than 300 patents.
Build combines a memoir of Tony’s career with a handbook of career advice and recommendations for bringing groundbreaking consumer products to market. You may not agree with all his advice, but it’s helpful to know how he thinks through the process.
I enjoyed the riveting behind-the-scenes stories of Apple’s development and iteration of the iPod and iPhone, and learning how Tony reimagined the “boring” home thermostat industry to create the groundbreaking Nest Learning Thermostat.
Here are some insightful quotes from the book that resonated with me:
On career:
The things you make, the ideas you chase, and the ideas that chase you, will ultimately define your career. And the people you chase them with may define your life.
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.
On Tony’s passion for personal electronics (which led to roles at General Magic, Philips Mobile Computing, Apple, and Nest): “Once you’re committed to a mission or an idea – that’s the thing you should stick to. The company is secondary. If you find something that inspires you, then follow the best opportunities to pursue it.”
On product management:
Your product isn’t only your product. It’s the whole user experience—a chain that begins when someone learns about your brand for the first time and ends when your product disappears from their life – returned or thrown away, sold to a friend or deleted in a burst of electrons. You can’t just make an advertisement and think you’re done. The entire journey has to be designed together: The ads, website, store, product box, guide, and welcome email.
Every product should have a story, a narrative that explains why it needs to exist and how it will solve your customer’s problems. The “why” of your product has to be crisp and easy to articulate. Hold onto the “why” even as your build the “what”. Why does this thing need to exist? Why does it matter? Why will people need it? Why will they love it?
The best ideas are painkillers, not vitamins. Painkillers eliminate something that’s constantly bothering you. You can skip your vitamins and never notice the difference.
On capturing imagination:
On Steve Jobs’ 2007 speech introducing the iPhone: After the setup, he reminded the audience of the problem Apple was solving for. [Steve Jobs said, “The most advanced phones are called smartphones, so they say. And the problem is that they’re not so smart and they’re not so easy to use.”] He used a technique I later came to call the virus of doubt. It’s a way to get into people’s heads, remind them about a daily frustration, get them annoyed about it all over again. If you can infect them with the virus of doubt—“Maybe my experience isn’t as good as I thought, maybe it could be better”—then you prime them for your solution. You get them angry about how it works now so they can get excited about a new way of doing things.”
Before [Steve Jobs] told you what a product did, he always took the time to explain why you need it. Steve told a version of the story for months before [the product launch] to employees, friends, and family. He was constantly working on it, refining it.
You should always be striving to tell a story so good that it stops being yours - so your customer learns it, loves it, internalizes it, owns it. And tells it to everyone they know. Stories should be easy to remember and easy to repeat.
