It’s easy to lose touch with customers and start focusing on the wrong things when scaling your business. Here are three lessons from Apple that can help remind you of what’s important.
“There’s this thing in technology, almost a disease, where the definition of success is making the most. How many clicks did you get, how many active users do you have, how many units did you sell? Everybody in technology seems to want big numbers. Steve never got carried away with that. He focused on making the best.”
— Tim Cook, Apple CEO
Don’t lose focus of what’s important when growing your business. Ignore irrelevant data. Just keep doing what you’ve always been doing — concentrate on being the best.
“Get closer to your customers than ever. So close that you tell them what they need well before they realise it themselves.”
— Steve Jobs, Apple Founder
Growth requires a careful balance. You need to really listen to your customers and understand them (just as you did when you were a young company), but you also can’t be too reactive. No one knew they wanted an iPod until Apple told them — they just wanted a better discman.
“It’s very easy to be different but very difficult to be better.”
— Jonathan Ive, Chief Design Officer, Apple
Being disruptive and innovative is important, of course, but disruption should be a means to an end, and not an end in itself.
The focus should always be on being better — not only better than the competition, but better than you yourself were yesterday.