Tony Fadell: Product Marketing Lessons I Learned from Steve Jobs | 20VC #884
26Tony Fadell, often referred to as “the father of the iPod,” is currently Principal @ Future Shape, a global investment and advisory firm coaching engineers and scientists working on foundational deep technology. Prior to Future Shape, Tony was the Founder & CEO @ Nest Labs, the company was ultimately acquired by Google for a reported $3.2Bn. Before Nest, Tony spent an incredible 9 years at Apple Inc, where, as SVP of Apple’s iPod division, he led the team that created the first 18 generations of the iPod and the first three generations of the iPhone. Fun facts, Tony has filed more than 300 patents for his work and is also a prolific angel investor having invested in the likes of mmhmm and Nothing to name a few.
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Timestamps:
00:00 Intro
00:24 How did you get into startups?
02:38 Is product science or art?
04:12 Does gut instinct increase over time?
05:51 Data vs opinion - when did you get it wrong?
07:50 Did you use data from customer insights?
09:43 When did your intuition fail you?
12:14 Tradeoff between customer satisfaction and business?
15:30 What makes a great first mile experience?
18:15 Why is the devil in the default?
19:53 How do you think about product reviews?
22:26 How do retain the micro and macro perspective?
24:04 What makes the best product marketing?
26:23 Is the devil in the neutral?
29:21 What makes a great product marketer?
32:06 What interview questions do you ask?
33:54 Messaging vs branding - what’s the difference?
35:20 What do you do when your marketing failed?
38:34 Tell me about a business flop you had.
40:54 Tell me about a product flop you had.
42:53 What lessons do you have from an overshoot?
44:24 How do you enforce urgency on product teams?
45:42 How do product leaders lead through success and failure?
47:40 Should competition drive product strategy?
49:46 What makes a good post-mortem?
51:31 Do you do pre-mortems?
53:33 Quick fire round
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Tony Fadell "The Father of The iPod" on Mentors, Self-Doubt, Vulnerability, His Relationship To Money, Why Entrepreneurs Need to Be Coachable, Why VCs Need To Be More Direct & Why The First Trillionaire Will Innovate Around Climate Change
In Today's Episode with Tony Fadell:
1.) Everything Great Starts Small:
How did Tony make his way into the world of product in the early days?
What were his biggest takeaways from the massive flop of General Magic?
How did Tony come to Apple and what were the early creation days of iPod and iPhone?
2.) Data and Brand:
Does Tony believe great product building is art or science? When should teams listen to their gut vs the data?
When was a time that Tony listened to his gut? When was a time Tony listened to the data? How did each situation evolve and turn out?
How does Tony think about creating a truly special first mile experience? Where do so many companies go wrong in the first mile today?
How does Tony balance between business decisions (COGs etc) and product decisions that will delight customers?
3.) Lessons from Steve Jobs on Product Marketing:
How does Tony define great product management? Why do so many people get it wrong?
What are Tony's biggest lessons from working with Steve Jobs on what makes great product marketing?
Where does Tony see so many companies make the biggest mistakes when it comes to messaging?
What is the difference between messaging, marketing and communications?
4.) Hiring Product Teams:
What are the clearest signals of the best product talent when interviewing them?
What questions does Tony always ask product people to determine quality?
How do great product teams remain upbeat when launches fail and remain modest when they are wildly successful?
5.) Apple Watch, iPod and Apple HiFi:
Why was the product messaging for the Apple Watch wrong in the early days? How did it change?
Why was the iPod a bad business until the 3rd Generation? What changed?
Why did the Apple HiFi fail? How did that impact Tony's mindset?
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