The Jobs story is epic. From gaining, losing, gaining, and winning far past one’s imagination. Steve Jobs should be the poster boy for creating a successful startup company. There are two concepts that Jobs did that every entrepreneur should do when it comes to their startup.
1. Build capabilities that let you win again and again
The first concept is to build a stable of mutually reinforcing capabilities that allow your startup to take market share from rivals in big markets
- Design excellence. Jobs was obsessive about turning Apple’s handheld devices into fine jewelry. He also made sure that the different products could work together easily. The mass craftsmanship and attention to detail contributed to consumers’ willingness to pay a price premium.
- Marketing mojo. Apple had memorable advertisements, Steve Jobs was a great presenter of new products, and Apple’s retail stores make consumers happy and offer great service.
- Ecosystem building. Whether it was developing iTunes, building an App store, or forming partnerships with wireless carriers, Jobs excelled at building content and services that made consumers want to buy its hardware.
- Supply chain efficiency. Thanks to the skills of Tim Cook, Apple was able to build a supply chain–doing much of its manufacturing at Foxconn near Hong Kong–that drove down its unit costs and enabled it earn gross profit margins as high as 70%–with both low costs and a 44% price premium over the competition.
- 2.Keep pedaling the Value Cycle
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This brings to mind the second concept that Steve Jobs mastered – the Value Cycle – the idea that in order to sustain superior performance, a company must keep turning the strategy wheel through three distinct processes:
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- Value creation is the design and marketing of a product that users are eager to employ because it meets their most important needs better than do competing products.
- Value capture is setting price high enough above cost to generate sufficient profit to create a return for shareholders, pay employees and suppliers, and reinvent the business.
- Value renewal is filtering–from changing customer needs, upstart competitors, and changing technology–the market signals to which a company must respond and adapting to stay ahead of competitors
via: INC
