Business Coaching

Steve Jobs created the iPod, an mp3 player that was easy to use, and therefore, people actually wanted to use.

How did something as simple as the iPod dominate the market?

Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple and creator of the iPod, really got back to basics, thinking about what people wanted and what there was a need for – and not overthinking it.

At the time, mp3 players were complicated to use and couldn’t hold too many songs. So Jobs decided to make one with lots of space and that was easy to use – by plugging it into the program iTunes on a computer, downloaded music syncs automatically with the iPod. In addition, the interface was easy to use and understand (anyone could pick it up and figure out how to use it), it looked really cool and had a cool name.

Why didn’t competitors do what Jobs did? All he did was think about what people wanted…and gave it to them. And even though the iPod was at a higher price point than competitors’ mp3 players, because it offered more of what they wanted, it was easier for them to part with their money.

The lesson learned here is get back to basics and figure out what people really want. By doing that, you might think of some really great ideas, whether they’re for products for your business, marketing your business or leveraging your business another way.

When you ask children what they want to be when they grow up, they don’t measure feasibility of that goal. They just tell you what they’d most like to do. Firefighter, veterinarian, police officer, the President…

But whatever their answer, they answer without a second thought. They don’t think about limitations or any plausible reason as to why they can’t do it.

That’s the difference between children and adults – adults tend to think through the consequences, pros and cons.

Not that that’s a bad thing – in fact, it’s a very good thing – but children don’t consider any options. No limitations, no second thoughts, they just tell you anything, like what they want to be when they grow up.

Sometimes too much knowledge can be restricting. Without thinking about something too much…why not just do it?

If we approached business strategies like that, most of them would be simple, but they’d probably be brilliant. As we blogged about before, Steve Jobs took a simple demand and created a product as the answer: the iPod. It was that simple.

Sometimes you don’t need to think about absolutely everything to come up with a great idea and implement it.