Guy Kawasaki
A large social-media presence is important because it's one of the last ways to conduct cost-effective marketing. Everything else involves buying eyeballs and ears. Social media enables a small business to earn eyeballs and ears.Collection: Business
Patience is the art of concealing your impatience.Collection: Patience
A good idea is about ten percent and implementation and hard work, and luck is 90 percent.Collection: Work
A simple summary of my life is that my parents worked very hard so that I could have a great education, and I took that education and worked very hard to get where I am. I would like my kids' lives to be exactly the same.Collection: Education
Ambitious failure, magnificent failure, is a very good thing.Collection: Failure
I travel all the time.Collection: Travel
If you have to put someone on a pedestal, put teachers. They are society's heroes.Collection: Society
What I learned from my kids is that the greatest joy in life is not from material trappings, power, or visibility. The greatest joy comes from your kids. Nothing is even close to my kids in terms of bringing me joy.
I think a lot of the logic of Google+ is much better in terms of notification of messages to you, in terms of how you post. One very obvious feature is that with Google+, after you post something, you can edit it forever. That is true of both posts and comments. I edit almost every post I make and almost every comment I make.
There are two ways to approach the application process: trying to hit a home run by getting an immediate 'Yes, here's an offer' or trying not to be eliminated. I recommend the second approach.
The most powerful way to convince the interviewer that you can do the job is to show how much you already know about the industry, the company, and the products/services of the company. In other words, enchant the interviewer with how much you already know.
I've been all over the world meeting with companies and startups and entrepreneurs. And I tell you, they are more similar than different.
Different parts of the world have different attitudes to failure. Arguably, it may take more courage to be an entrepreneur in Sydney, or Paris, or London, or Japan, or Singapore... but an entrepreneur sees the world for what it could be, not what it is.
You really can't spend money on social media unless you really try. Social media is really more about effort than expense.
I don't think Steve Jobs nauseated people when talking about how great Apple stuff was. The reason why he didn't nauseate people is because it was true. The start of all great marketing is to have a great product.
I love the notification system on Google+. If someone mentions you, you get notified via Gmail. That's very useful for someone like me.
My recommendation for SEO is very simple. It's Write Good Stuff. In my mind, Google is in the business of finding good stuff. It has thousands of the smartest people in the world, spending billions of dollars to find the good stuff. All you have to do is write the good stuff; you don't need to trick it.
Every social media post should have a beautiful graphic. If there are two identical stories, the one with the beautiful graphic will always win.
As communicators and marketers, people are so accustomed to thinking from the 'top down.' Finding the great analyst or the famous journalist who will endorse what you do and tell the rest of the world to go and buy your product.
What I lack in talent, I compensate with my willingness to grind it out. That's the secret of my life.
Good people hire people better than themselves. So A players hire A+ players. But others hire below their skills to make themselves look good. So B players hire C players. C players hire D players, etc.
The good news about entrepreneurship is that your fate is in your hands. The bad news is that your fate is in your hands!
Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck. Call me a romantic, but I think entrepreneurs should try to change the world. This comes from working at Apple... old habits die hard.
Simple and to the point is always the best way to get your point across.
Don't worry, be crappy. Revolutionary means you ship and then test... Lots of things made the first Mac in 1984 a piece of crap - but it was a revolutionary piece of crap.
Smart, well-meaning people get it wrong when they start believing that the world owes them something and that the rules are different for them.
I started my career counting diamonds and schlepping gold jewelry around the world. The jewelry business is a very, very tough business - tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.
When you enchant people, your goal is not to make money from them or to get them to do what you want, but to fill them with great delight.
I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn. The key is the 10/20/30 rule: 10 slides given in 20 minutes using no font smaller than 30 points. If people just adhered to this rule, they would double or triple the quality of their presentations.
Leverage your brand. You shouldn't let two guys in a garage eat your shorts.
The right algorithm is to put off seeking funds for as long as physically possible. And in an ideal world, a startup would never have to seek funds at all.
Most people who graduate from college think they have to make a perfect choice. Is it Goldman Sachs? Is it Google? Is it Apple? They think that their first job is going to determine their career, if not their life.
Great companies start because the founders want to change the world... not make a fast buck.
If you make money, you might not make meaning.
The A-listers and the A+ listers, are reporting the news, they're not making it.
Entitlement is the opposite of enchantment.
It doesn't matter whether the Dow is 5000 or 50,000. If you're an entrepreneur, there is no bad time to start a company.
Entrepreneurship is not for everyone.
It's easy to say that entrepreneurs will create jobs and big companies will create unemployment, but this is simplistic. The real question is who will innovate.
A crash is when your competitor's program dies. When your program dies, it is an 'idiosyncrasy'.
Evangelism is selling a dream.
At the end of my life, is it better to say that I empowered people to make great stuff, or that I died with a net worth of $10 billion? Obviously I'm picking the former, although I would not mind both.
The jewelry business is a very, very tough business - tougher than the computer business. You truly have to understand how to take care of your customers.
When I finally got a management position, I found out how hard it is to lead and manage people.
What you learn in school is the opposite of what happens in the real world. In school, you're always worried about minimums. You have to reach 20 pages or you have to have so many slides or whatever. Then you get out in the real world and you think, 'I have to have a minimum of 20 pages and 50 slides.'
Coming from the U.S., you tend to look at one homogeneous market with 350 million people. But in Europe, every country has its own customs and laws.
Most venture capitalists won't read a business plan unless the entrepreneur is introduced to them by a contact.
Companies in Europe should stop trying to do the U.S. version of a European idea.
If you're an entrepreneur and you think that the president makes a difference to your business, you should stay at your current job.
I think that no one, or very few, are born as good presenters. It's a skill that you learn.