Timing is key...
Lessons from General Magic- "the most important dead company in Silicon Valley".
Happy New Week Everyone!
This week I want to talk about the importance of timing. I watched a documentary about General Magic, the people who made the first smartphone before Apple. There are a few things we can learn from General Magic, Forbes described them as “the most important dead company in Silicon Valley.”
General magic was a company birthed from Apple, led by Marc Porat who had a vision of what the future smartphone would look like, alongside Andy Hertzfiled and Bill Atkinson, the company was destined for great things but fell short of the mark.
Porat had the idea in 1989 to create a handheld device with messaging, note taking, games and emojis, which was way ahead of its time. The internet was just at its infancy. The market wasn’t ready, they didn’t make near enough sales, the company went into bankruptcy and the founders all went their separate ways.
The first lesson to learn is one about being” too early to the market”. Porat had a great vision of what the future will look like and what products will be needed. However, he never took into account the current context, how people felt towards change, how prepared people were for a product like this, did people really understand that there was a need for a smartphone. Like Steve Jobs said, “you can only connect the dots looking back”.
It's important to accept reality. Don't let your ego cause you to fail. Ask yourself when you envision the success of your idea, is that based on the way things ought to be or on the way things really are. The most important person to consider throughout the creation process is the end user. Who will buy the product? Who will use it? How much will they be willing to pay for it?
Another example is Sperry-Rands computer, the Univac, which failed miserably due to being an idea ahead of its time. Instead of rushing to be the first in the market, Thomas J Watson, founder of IBM, continued to prosper until the time for computers arrived. Learning from Sperry-Rands mistakes, they quickly established themselves as the most powerful computer in the world.
Being early to market gives people the opportunity to learn from someone else’s mistake. Stand on the shoulders of giants, learn from those before you. Learn from the mistakes, learn from their success, it will guide you down the right path.
The world is full of ideas. There’s no such thing as an original idea, all ideas are added onto. It’s been influenced by something else. The blueprint is out there, you just have to be willing to find it.
There is also a lesson to be learned about being too late to the market. If you’re too late to a market, you end up missing an important window and building a product that looks similar to everything else in the market. You need to have urgency because the faster you ship to the market, the quicker you’ll be able to get feedback to refine your offering.
Another key lesson is about your team and environment. From General Magic, we had CTOs of Google, Adobe, the founder of eBay, Android, Dreamweaver, Apple watch. Great ideas that now dominate the tech industry are all birthed from General Magic. It is so key to be where the magic happens (pun intended). In the right environment, one can learn, thrive and achieve their full potential. You want to be in an environment where you’re constantly being challenged to think bigger, to dig deeper, and look closer.
Lastly, a huge lesson to learn from General Magic is that failure isn’t the end, it is actually the beginning. Don’t be afraid to try, don’t be afraid to fail, through failure you have a second chance to try again with more experience. Failure is able to show you what you actually are capable of but also what you’re not.