Monday, October 10, 2011

The ten commandments for entrepreneurs by Steve Jobs

1 .- Do what we love
Life is short, that we hear and repeat it constantly, but there is little we actually apply it ... How many times we have felt "trapped" in jobs that do not give us anything more than a paycheck (sometimes not even give to live)? If you have to fight with yourself every morning to get out of bed and go to the office, you may have a problem, not just laziness.
"The only way to do a job is to love what you do. If you have not found yet, keep looking. Do not despair. As in love, you know when you've found, "Jobs said in a speech at Stanford.
So if you find yourself several times a day watching the clock and counting the hours to leave the office ... you're in trouble also. When things motivate us when we are passionate about something, time flies by, and work gives such great pleasure and satisfaction that are as fuel energy that renews us hour after hour, day after day.
So if life is so short as we know it, are you going to waste it working on something that fills you? We all have to eat and pay the place where we live, but while you have to work in something that fills you up, do not stop dreaming about what you really want to do and when you know, when you clear your idea, leave everything and dedicate yourself to it: Steve Jobs dropped out of college and devoted himself to what he wanted. Mark Zuckerberg did the same and so a lot of cases.
Note: This is not to let readers Fayerwayer studies, is studying or working in what they are really passionate about. When you are clear, put all your energy into achieving it: The worst that can happen is you fail and have to find another job to pay the bills underpaid and debts while still dreaming and try again. The key: Do not lose hope.
2 .- Follow your intuition
In the speech he gave Steve Jobs at Stanford University in June 2005, recalled that leaving the race, no longer had to attend the required classes, he decided to take a course in calligraphy at Reed College, which according then offered said "the best calligraphy instruction in the country." Although he had no practical use at the moment, it was not useful for making money was something he was passionate about ... I did and enjoyed it.
Ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, Jobs said "everything made sense" to him: "Everything we design on the Mac was the first computer with beautiful typography." Follow your instincts gave him a knowledge then applied and became one of the differential values.
A key plus for entrepreneurs: Do things that you like, but for now do not know why you attract. You do not know if some cooking classes that you see today as a hobby, in a few years will give you the key to your enterprise. Also, in my particular way of looking at the artistic cutting activities that stimulate creativity should always be welcome, but yours is throwing codes PSART life. Do not cut the wings: Follow your intuition.
3 .- To investigate, monitor, investigate ...
Research is essential to undertake: You must learn from the sector in which you want to move, detect and study the competition, understand the market to go to him best. If you have an entrepreneurial idea in mind is essential to encounter the competition, who investigate, you see things as he does, what is right and what is wrong.
They say that when designing the brochures of Apple, Jobs studied in detail the use made of the Sony fonts, layout and paper with a certain weight. Also, when it came time to design the cardboard box for the first Mac, was walking across the parking lot fixed with Apple's attention on the bodies of German and Italian cars.
"You can ask the customers what they want and then try to pass it.For when you have built, they will want something new, "said Jobs.
Observation is critical for entrepreneurs: It gives you a privileged view of the environment that allows you to identify market needs that are dormant, that people do not even know they have ... That's one of the teachings of Jobs: How many needed iPad? Now the tablets are part of our technological equipment.
4 .- Profiling the best
An important issue for entrepreneurs: The selection of your team.Jobs are always concerned about recruiting the best: He hired the architect IM Pei to design the NeXT logo and recruited Mickey Drexler, Gap, to serve on the board of directors of Apple with a view to launching chain company stores.
This advice is necessarily useful when we begin a venture, and I say this from experience: An entrepreneur can not (or have reason) to know everything. While it is necessary to know the world in which we're going to get, be it technological, restoration, or transport, it is virtually impossible to master all areas.
That is the importance of strategic partnerships, where if your forte is technology, find someone who knows marketing and sales, and help you position your product or "fishing" for clients, for example.
5.-Maintaining a small staff
On one occasion in which he spoke of the early Macintosh, Jobs said that the payroll was a hundred people: If required to hire a worker, before saying goodbye to another. The reason? He said he could only remember a hundred names, so I ran the template that number to have a better relationship with each of the workers we have.
Obviously when the company took off, the number of workers grew, but while it is a good idea to maintain a limited staff: It certainly gives the employer the chance to have a closer relationship with its employees, and thus make them feel part the project, seduce them with the idea that drives the business, engage with the results.
For entrepreneurs this is a common mistake: I have known cases of those who go into debt to hire staff and create a template from scratch (and a paycheck to pay) without even walk the project and provide profit to pay those costs ...
In other cases, not having the budget to hire, then we can think of the "bright idea" of going through life by recruiting friends and relatives who feel they know more than us in certain activities, we told the idea, excited, lovers and rode the boat. Beware! You have to know who to rely on more than we know, but in perspective: These associations may end up with friends and families to fight.
I believe this must be a minimum of equipment able to deliver the project, and as you see how it works, you incorporate the "professionals of your dreams." Neither Google nor Facebook, or Twitter born perfect: His designs, for example, left much to be desired, but on the fly, once took off, have made the adjustments that have as we know them today. I think it's a matter of patience and perseverance. Do not you think?
6 .- Seduce your employees and partners
By following teams talking about this part I found very important: The difference between "seduce" and "threatening" to your co-venture, to be your partners or your employees, is that the latter, although they pay for their work If you fail to fall in love with your project does not get 100% capacity.
They say that Jobs had a personal charisma that kept employees motivated: His infectious enthusiasm was the reason why the staff designed the first Mac spent three years in a row working 90 hours a week. When an employee is given to a project, the best incentive is to see it completed with the highest quality because they feel part of the company and thus its success.
Actually I have no employees of its own, but when I held command positions in other companies, I experienced firsthand what it is best to use "the carrot than the stick" is better motivate always oblige. I do not understand why the bosses so difficult to understand this ... I hope that when I have my own employees remember it clearly. I think the key is, like life itself, always take someone else's shoes.It's easier to get a perspective on the things that are asked and how they ask.
7.-The quality as a religion
They say that on the eve of launching the first iPod, staff employees spent the night replacing the headphone jack because Jobs did not felt that "click" of the precise and desirable. Maintaining a quality criterion is critical to entrepreneurs: Let us not be so easy, so practical, or "what sells".
"Have a quality criterion. Some people do not use it to create the atmosphere of excellence that is expected, "said Jobs.
Commit to doing quality work is critical to the development of an idea: You can not leave things half, settling for "what is". It aspires to more, but without stopping. It is not that you have to get a perfect product the first, the question is that everything can be improved.Achieving this is a very important point of difference.
"Quality is more important than quantity. A home run is much better than two doubles. "
Suppose you move, and I in the world of marketing and communication: While we often see that what sells is the "sensationalist" and "sensationalist" can not be satisfied with giving people more of the same. You have to evolve to the messages and quality content, even if it takes more time and effort, because those that people also interested. Quality beyond the amount and immediacy ... Having time to stop and think is fundamental to doing things of quality.
8.-Learning from failure
The enterprises are complicated and risky: Nobody knows for sure what will happen, and that uncertainty is often scary. At some even paralyzed. The possibility of failure is just around the corner and no doubt is a high probability of occurrence, the secret is in how you accept it: A defeat or a lesson.
"I'm the only person who can lose a quarter of a million dollars a year. It is very constructive, "said Jobs.
In the speech at Stanford, Jobs recalled when he was fired from Apple, the company he founded. Although told as an anecdote, noting that "sometimes life hits you with a brick in the head", remember that he was fired because he could connect with their most creative again and then with the experience accumulated in his career:
"The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the light of being a beginner again. It freed me and I entered one of the most creative periods of my life. Over the next five years, I founded a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who became my wife. "
Jobs did not sit in a corner complaining that he had been fired. Not content to collect unemployment assistance (if it exists in the U.S.) or resumes throwing was stunned to see if anyone called him to offer him a position that would earn a living wage and little else. He tried again. Search again connect with what he was passionate about and dared to take it again ... For some say that this undertaking is addictive.
"Sometimes when you innovate, make mistakes. It is best to admit them quickly, and continue betting your other innovations, "said Jobs.
Bottom line: Learning from mistakes and understand once and for all, that failure is a major source of learning.
9 .- Risking the idea
When we are undertaking, and we tell our friends or relatives the idea we have in mind, one of the things that is often asked what is the business model? or what is the same: Where will get the money. Jobs, although successful in their projects, reflected:
"Being the richest man in the cemetery do not care ... Go to bed at night saying we've done something wonderful ... that's what matters to me."
There are businesses that are born without knowing how it will be profitable, such as Twitter. And that does not mean it is not a successful venture. While the idea from a business model that lets the proceeds to cover expenses and make a profit, I am convinced that if you do what you really like, find the way to monetize your efforts and live doing what you love is a gain in itself, is not it?
10.-The time is now
"Never put off tomorrow what you can do today," says a popular proverb, very wise indeed. And is that while we say that life is short, what do we expect? Jobs said:
"You want to lose the rest of your life selling flavored water or want an opportunity to change the world?"
It is important to understand that the conditions for undertaking never be 100% good: The perfect moment is now. Have to take risks and try. After all, the worst that can happen is that you should try again ... what are you waiting to take?

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