m. wagner-kulovits

Jony Ive on what Steve Jobs taught him about focus In the clip below, the legendary designer of the iMac, iPod, iPhone, iPad, and MacBook explains that one of the most critical things he learned from Steve Jobs was the importance of focus. “This sounds really simplistic, but it shocks me how few people actually practice this—and it’s a struggle to practice… Steve was the most remarkably focused person I’ve ever met in my life.” As Jony explains, the tricky thing with focus is that it’s a struggle to practice. Every minute you have to ask: “Why are we talking about this?” if it’s not what you’re actually working on. “You can achieve so much if you’re truly focused.” Steve would regularly ask Jony how many things he has said “no” to. As Jony explains: “What focus means is saying ‘no’ to something that you believe with every bone in your body is a phenomenal idea. You wake up thinking about it, but you say ‘no’ to it because you’re focusing on something else.” Source: @VanityFair

I’m increasingly on the lookout for stories of failures, because failure can teach us the most enduring lessons. So when @bobbypinero tweeted about how adding a freemium plan to @heyequals nearly destroyed his business, I asked if he’d go many layers deeper and share his experience more widely. In today's newsletter post, Bobby tells the in-depth story of why his team decided to add freemium, why it didn’t work for their product, and the lessons they learned along the way. Every founder without a freemium plan grapples with the question of whether they should go freemium or not. My hope is that this post makes the decision easier for you. Learn: 1. How your customers can be very wrong. 2. Why “Freemium” and “friction” are tied at the hip. 3. When adding onboarding friction can be good. 4. Why the allure of seeing a new product is the strongest motivator new users have to complete setup. 5. When freemium can work. Don't miss today's 🔥 post 🔗 lennysnewsletter.com/p/lessons-from…