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Guy Kawasaki

Guy Kawasaki Quotes

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Guy Kawasaki is a renowned author, entrepreneur, and venture capitalist. He is best known for his tenure at Apple, where he served as the vice president of marketing. Kawasaki's writings cover topics such as innovation, entrepreneurship, and marketing, and have been widely appreciated by readers.

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All People Ifs Company Entrepreneur Thinking Products Want World Writing Needs Should Business Book Knows Persons Way Customers Enchantment Bigs Hard

Famous Guy Kawasaki Quotes

“Customers can tell you how to evolve a product, but they can't show you how to make a leap.”

Shows Products Customers Evolve Leap

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“"Patents make our product defensible." The optimal number of times to use the P word in a presentation is one. Just once, say, "We have filed patents for what we are doing." Done. The second time you say it, venture capitalists begin to suspect that you are depending too much on patents for defensibility. The third time you say it, you are holding a sign above your head that says, "I am clueless."”

Done Use Numbers Business Too Much Products Thirds Suspects Capitalist Venture Presentation Patents Clueless Optimal Third Time Venture Capitalists

Book:Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

Source: Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

“Companies can add value and simultaneously promote themselves if their product or service truly improves the lives of their customers. I mean really improve lives, not wishful thinking, rationalization. That's the acid test.”

Ifs Thinking Mean Values Company Products Tests Add Customers Acid Wishful Thinking

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“You need to save some mental, physical, and emotional resources for enhancing your product after you ship. A revolution is a triathlon, not a hundred-yard dash-it requires long distance stamina and multiple skills such as creating, churning, and evangelizing.”

Needs Long Emotional Products Revolution Skills Creating Hundred Resources Distance Ships Multiple Yards Long Distance Stamina Churning Triathlon

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“The first 90 percent of a revolution is creating the product or service; the second 90 percent is evangelizing it. At the beginning of a revolution, you need evangelists, not sales, because leverage spreads news.”

Needs Firsts Products Revolution Creating News Percent Spread Evangelists

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“Frequently, crashes are followed with a message like 'ID 02'. 'ID' is an abbreviation for idiosyncrasy and the number that follows indicates how many more months of testing the product should have had.”

Should Numbers Products Months Messages Should Have Crash Testing Idiosyncrasies Abbreviations

Book:The Macintosh Way

Source: The Macintosh Way

“Best way to succeed is to do things for the customer, not to the competition. Very few people buy a product in order to help you hurt the competition. To think otherwise is lunacy.”

People Thinking Way Helping Order Hurt Products Succeed Competition Customers Best Way Lunacy

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“The best reason to start an organization is to make meaning; to create a product or service to make the world a better place.”

World Inspirational Reason Success Inspiring Business Successful Inspirational Life Products Organization Encouragement Entrepreneur Successful People Better Place Entrepreneurial Drive And Success

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“The angels started singing, the clouds parted, it was a religious experience. I've never had the same reaction to a product, not in 25 years.”

Years Religious Products Singing Angel Clouds Reactions Religious Experience

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“Great teams are usually small-under fifty in total head count. (There are few examples of a team made up of hundreds of people who created anything revolutionary.) Big teams aren't conducive to revolutionary products because such products require a high degree of single-mindedness, unity, and unreasonable passion.”

People Made Bigs Passion Team Example Products Degrees Unity Revolutionary Fifty Unreasonable Great Team Single Mindedness

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“Here's what you should say [to an investor]: 'this is what my company does' It's that simple. What you're trying to do is get potential investors to fantasize about how your product or service will make a boatload of money. They can't fantasize if they don't know what you do.”

Ifs Knows Should Trying Doe Simple Company Products Investors

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“"(Big name research firm) says our market will be $50 billion in 2010." Every entrepreneur has a few slides about how the market potential for his segment is tens of billions. It doesn't matter if the product is bar mitzah planning software or 802.11 chip sets. Venture capitalists don't believe this type of forecast because it's the fifth one of this magnitude that they've heard that day. Entrepreneurs would do themselves a favor by simply removing any reference to market size estimates from consulting firms.”

“Revolutionary products don't fail because they are shipped too early. They fail because they aren't revised fast enough.”

Enough Business Failing Products Revolutionary

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“The key to evangelism is a great product. It is easy, almost unavoidable, to catalyze evangelism for a great product. It is hard, almost impossible, to catalyze evangelism for crap.”

Hard Easy Business Impossible Products Keys Crap Evangelism

Book:Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

Source: Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

“Provide good content and you’ll earn the right to promote your product.”

Author:Guy Kawasaki

“My theory is that when you're young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world.”

World Should Young Hours Work Week Products Theory Changing The World Eighty

Book:Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

Source: Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition

About the Author

Born: August 30, 1954
Known for: Author
Quotes: 207

Related Topics

People Ifs Company Entrepreneur Thinking Products Want World Writing Needs Should Business Book Knows Persons Way Customers Enchantment Bigs Hard

Popular Topics

People Ifs Thinking Knows Men World Way Want Love Life Inspirational Needs Giving Feels Should Writing Trying Years Mind Firsts

Books & Sources

Enchantment: The Art of Changing Hearts, Minds, and ActionsRelated source material

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your CompetitionRelated source material

The Macintosh WayRelated source material

The Art of the Start 2.0: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting AnythingRelated source material

How to Drive Your Competition Crazy: Creating Disruption for Fun and ProfitRelated source material

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