“The thing about startups is you can make it, and if it's wrong you can remake it, and you can build a team that you want to have, a product that you want to have. You're utterly focused on your users or your customers and their needs, and trying to figure out how to meet those needs.” IfsWantNeedsTryingTeamFiguresProductsCustomersFocusedUsersRemakes Author:John Katzman
“Many of the products which create a modern standard of living are only the physical incorporations of ideas- not only the ideas of an Edison or a Ford but the ideas of innumerable anonymous people who figure out the design of supermarkets, the location of gasoline stations, and the million mundane things on which our material well-being depends. Societies which have more people carrying out physical acts and fewer people supplying ideas do not have higher standards of living. Quite the contrary.” PeopleWellsIdeasMillionsModernFiguresDesignMaterialsProductsDependsHigherStandardsContraryWell BeingStationsFewerLocationMundaneSupermarketsStandards Of LivingGasolineHigher StandardsIncorporation Author:Thomas Sowell
“One can say that the author is an ideological product, since we represent him as the opposite of his historically real function. (When a historically given function is represented in a figure that inverts it, one has an ideological production.) The author is therefore the ideological figure by which one marks the manner in which we fear the proliferation of meaning.” RealGivenFiguresProductsOppositesFunctionMarkProductionsIdeologicalProliferationInvert Author:Michel Foucault
“I admire leaders in science, people who really figure things out like Richard Fineman or people who work on vaccines, tons of people working on [the] HIV vaccine. There's leaders in business, people like Warren Buffett, who've got a certain approach they take that are pretty amazing. There [are] product innovators like Steve Jobs was, where he gets behind a concept and does a fantastic job.” PeopleDoeJobsCertainBehindsLeaderFiguresProductsApproachConceptsAdmireFantasticHivVaccinesInnovatorsBuffettWarren Buffet Author:Bill Gates
“The most famous self-made man in the world today is our own Edison. Talk with Mr. Edison and he will tell you he owes much if not most of his success to omnivorous reading. Forbes is one of his favorite publications. How closely he reads it can be gathered from a letter just received from him in which he asks the editor to forward a long analytical letter to the writer of a series of articles which contained two figures Mr. Edison questions, and he wants to know exactly on what authority or investigation they were based. Both letters were the product of Mr. Edison and were signed by him.” IfsKnowsMenWorldWantLongMadeTwoSelfTodayScienceReadingAsksFiguresProductsAuthorityLettersSeriesEditorsArticlesInvestigationWorld TodayPublicationSelf MadeForbesSelf Made Man Author:B. C. Forbes
“The goal of a startup is to figure out the right thing to build-the thing customers want and will pay for-as quickly as possible. In other words, the Lean Startup is a new way of looking at the development of innovative new products that emphasizes fast iteration and customer insight, a huge vision, and great ambition, all at the same time.” WayWantGoalPayVisionFiguresProductsHugeDevelopmentAmbitionInsightCustomersRight ThingNew WaysInnovativeNew ProductsGreat Ambition Book:The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses Source: The Lean Startup: How Today's Entrepreneurs Use Continuous Innovation to Create Radically Successful Businesses
“I wish I could tell you the recipe for figuring out who the target user is for your product and who your users should be, but... there isn't a recipe. It comes down to think really hard and use your judgement to figure out who you're really building this for.” ThinkingShouldHardUseWishFiguresBuildingProductsJudgementTargetUsersRecipes Author:Emmett Shear
“Artists need support, time and money to develop their ideas, and if people rip stuff off, you don't have to be that brilliant to figure out that you're ultimately going to affect the end product.” PeopleIfsNeedsIdeasEndsArtistStuffSupportFiguresProductsBrilliantRipTime And Money Author:John Polson
“I've always loved the beauty world. Ever since I was a child, I looked at magazines and wore fragrances and tried out samples and sets. I worked at Clinique in the creative department for a summer during high school. And when I graduated from university, I worked at Prescriptives. My uncle [Leonard Lauder, chairman emeritus of the Estée Lauder Companies] smartly had wanted me to go into a small brand - to figure out what part of the company I loved. I discovered I was passionate about the creative process, the product development, creating a concept around a fragrance or lipstick.” WorldChildrenWantedSchoolProcessCompanyCreativeFiguresProductsDevelopmentSummerCreatingHigh SchoolConceptsUniversityPassionateMagazinesBrandsDepartmentCreative ProcessUnclesFragranceChairmanLipstickSampleProduct Development Author:Aerin Lauder
“First figure out your partners, then figure out what ideas to pursue. The most important thing isn't the market you target, the product you develop or the financing, but the founding team.” FirstsImportantIdeasTeamFiguresProductsImportant ThingsPartnersPursueTargetFoundingFinancing Author:James C. Collins
“When I was in N.W.A. and didn't get paid all the money I was owed, that's when the business side of showbiz hit me. I thought, "Half of this is workin'. I'm famous, but now I need to be famous with some money." That got my brain started at trying to figure out the business end. And once I figured out the business side, I next came to understand that success really comes down to the product, not to me, my personality, or what club I'm seen going into or coming out of. None of that matters.” NeedsTryingEndsMatterNextSidesBrainHalfFiguresProductsPersonalityPaidClubsComing OutShowbiz Author:Ice Cube
“I think a much better use of time and resources is to really focus on your existing users or customers and figure out what changes can you make in the Web site, the service, the product, whatever, to get them to come back more often to generate that repeat business and once you kind of figure out that formula, then when you get new customers the whole thing just kind of grows exponentially.” ThinkingKindWholeUseGrowsFocusFiguresProductsResourcesCustomersRepeatsFormulasUsersSiteUse Of Time Author:Tony Hsieh
“If you work on a new product launch, spent time in a new geography, or work to develop a completely new skill, you have no choice but to figure out new ways to solve problems.” IfsWayProblemChoicesFiguresProductsSkillsSolveNew WaysGeographyNew ProductsNew Skills Author:Scott D. Anthony
“There are some pretty obvious ways of benchmarking creativity. One way is to perform what I call a creativity audit, which is to look at your capabilities and look at your performance and examine the percentage of revenue that comes from products that are less than five years old, less than three years old and that are current with the present accounting period. You can then compare those figures to those of your competition along the same axes.” WayYearsLooksThreeCreativityFiveFiguresProductsPeriodsPerformancesCompetitionCurrentsObviousOne WayCompareFive YearsThree YearsCapabilityRevenuePercentagesAccountingFive Year OldsAxesThree Year Olds Author:John Kao
“Many people, including myself, thought of Jobs as an inventor, an Edison-like figure, but he wasn't. I did a documentary on James Brown recently; and, oddly, I found a lot in common between Jobs and Brown. Jobs was also a fantastic performer, put on an extraordinary live show at his product launches, but he could also be ruthless, cruel and totally self-aggrandizing. And just as Brown surrounded himself with the very best musicians, Jobs understood the importance of hiring the absolutely most talented people and knew how crucial they were to the success of what he was trying to do.” PeopleTryingSelfShowsJobsFoundCommonFiguresProductsMusicianUnderstoodImportanceExtraordinaryIncludingFantasticBrownPerformersCrucialDocumentariesInventorRuthlessHiring Author:Alex Gibney