This week on the podcast, we start 2022 by going back to interviews with a remarkable guest. We have serial entrepreneur, venture capitalist, speaker, and Chief Evangelist for Canva, Guy Kawasaki. He takes time to discuss his views on diversity, picking partnerships, how venture capitalists explain their wins and Guy’s golden touch to choosing what to invest in.
Guy is known for his insights into marketing and product development. He is also the best-selling author who wrote "The Art of the Start: The Time-Tested, Battle-Hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything."
He is known for his work in Silicon Valley. He did two stints at Apple, spent some time with Google after they acquired Motorola, and even made contributions on the board of Wikimedia. Now, as Chief Evangelist at Canva, "he"spreads the good news" about how Canva democratizes design by empowering people to create great graphics without buying or learning high-end applications.``
Currently, Guy is hosting a podcast titled "Guy Kawasaki's Remarkable People," where he interviews some of the most skilled and well-known marketers, entrepreneurs, and more. With guests like Pat Flynn, Seth Godin, Tim Ferris, Angela Duckworth, and other notable names, these conversations genuinely live up to its namesake as remarkable.
For more information https://guykawasaki.com/
Guy Kawasaki Books - https://amzn.to/3JzoCuq
Guy Kawasaki’s Remarkable People Podcast
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Full Transcript
0;00;33;19 - 00;00;53;25
Michelle Ngome
Hey, everyone. Welcome to Marketing for the Culture podcast powered by the African-American Marketing Association. Today we have a special guest. Guy Kawasaki he is the author of Art of the Start, The Time-Tested Battle-hardened Guide for Anyone Starting Anything, Guy.
00;00;53;26 - 00;00;55;19
Michelle Ngome
Welcome to the show. How are you doing today?
00;00;55;19 - 00;00;58;11
Guy Kawasaki
I'm doing good. Thank you. Thank you very much for having me.
00;00;58;11 - 00;01;13;11
Michelle Ngome
Yes. So you have accomplished so much in your life, your career. Can you give us a quick glimpse, a rundown of your track record and your resume?
00;01;14;03 - 00;01;30;04
Guy Kawasaki
I was born in Hawaii. I went to work for Apple and here I am. That's the briefest one. Now I was born and raised in Hawaii came to the Bay Area. Silicon Valley work for Apple, started some software company, started a venture capital firm, became a writer speaker.
00;01;30;19 - 00;01;47;29
Guy Kawasaki
Then I went to work for Canva. To this day, I'm Canva's chief evangelist. It's been about seven years and now I'm a podcaster. My podcast is called Remarkable People, and I am Canva's chief evangelist, make a lot of speeches and I write a few books.
00;01;48;24 - 00;01;59;04
Michelle Ngome
I love it. So let's go back a little bit. What was the transition like going from working with Apple into starting your business?
00;01;59;04 - 00;02;18;06
Guy Kawasaki
That transition was, I have to say, relatively easy. I always, always is a strong word. For a long time, I wanted to start a company, a tech company. I mean, that's what people do in Silicon Valley. And so I left Apple to start a software company, and it was kind of a natural move.
00;02;18;06 - 00;02;39;09
Guy Kawasaki
In Silicon Valley, there's a line of reasoning that if you work for a company for 20, 25 years, people are wondering, Well, what went wrong? Why are you still at the same company for 25 years? Having said that, if I had not left Apple twice or if I had not turned Steve down for a third job, I probably would not
00;02;39;09 - 00;02;51;03
Guy Kawasaki
be on his podcast. I would be someplace else in the world where there's no COVID and no rain and no Republicans
00;02;51;03 - 00;03;02;20
Guy Kawasaki
so called retirement. I guess, you know, so much is magnified and glamorized with social media. But I guess at that time, were you like going somewhere bottom right?
00;03;02;20 - 00;03;07;05
Guy Kawasaki
You know what? I can bet on myself. I can do this. I know what I'm doing.
00;03;07;05 - 00;03;23;13
Guy Kawasaki
Well, I made yes, that it there is a necessary level of self-delusion in order to be an entrepreneur. Seriously. So yeah, you have to be somewhat deluded now.
00;03;23;16 - 00;03;41;22
Guy Kawasaki
I admit some entrepreneurs who have taken that to the extreme extreme being actual criminals. But you do need some delusions of grandeur. Otherwise you would just, you know, work in the back room of a bank for 25 years.
00;03;42;17 - 00;04;04;17
Michelle Ngome
All right. So let's fast forward to Canva. Canva has been a game changer. It has even an even coming out as a game changer seven or eight years ago it's still continue to be progressive and I guess simplifying graphic design for people like me.
00;04;05;17 - 00;04;12;27
Michelle Ngome
Well, what was it about Canva that stood out to you? I was like, You know what? I believe in this company. I want to jump on board.
00;04;12;27 - 00;04;20;16
Guy Kawasaki
So do you want the delusional answer? You want the honest one, if so, which one do you want? first,
00;04;20;16 - 00;04;22;00
Michelle Ngome
the delusion.
00;04;22;00 - 00;04;40;29
Guy Kawasaki
OK, the delusional one is I immediately recognized Canva as a great opportunity that was going to democratize design. Change the world. Yeah, free us in a sense. When I worked for Apple, Macintosh democratized personal computing, and I believe Canva has democratized design.
00;04;41;11 - 00;04;56;12
Guy Kawasaki
So with Macintosh, you were no longer at the whim of an I.T. department, making you use MS DOS. With Canva. You're no longer at the whim of a design department, making you wait or use Photoshop. And so.
00;04;57;16 - 00;05;11;23
Guy Kawasaki
That was kind of, you know, that's the delusional Guy you're so smart. You saw it. You picked it out of the, you know, the hoi polloi, great unwashed masses of companies because you're so friggin smart Guy. Yeah, that's the delusional one.
00;05;12;14 - 00;05;29;22
Guy Kawasaki
Now you want the honest one. The honest one is that I continue to work with a woman named Peg Fitzpatrick, and she does much of my social media posts. And back then, this is seven years ago, we had the theory that every post to Twitter required either video or graphic.
00;05;30;05 - 00;05;49;07
Guy Kawasaki
And so the question is, how do you make graphics? And let's just say that. Back then getting a graphic and sizing it. You know, increasing the contrast and adjusting the color and all that kind of stuff. And it wasn't exactly a one step process.
00;05;49;22 - 00;06;08;20
Guy Kawasaki
So she discovered Canva and started using it to make photos for my tweets, and Canva noticed that I was using Canva, so they reached out to me via a tweet. Miracle upon miracle. Thank you, God. I noticed that tweet, because you are noticing an at mention, is not a trivial task.
00;06;09;02 - 00;06;20;14
Guy Kawasaki
So I happened to notice it. I happened to respond. They happened to respond. And I said to Peg, is Canva what we use to make graphics? And she said, yes. I said, Do you like it? She said, Yes, I do.
00;06;20;14 - 00;06;26;00
Guy Kawasaki
You think I should help them? And she said yes. And that's why I help Canva.
00;06;26;00 - 00;06;37;00
Michelle Ngome
OK. I love you. I was so, so basically, I'm telling you behind every successful man is an amazing and amazing woman. Yeah, I love it.
00;06;37;18 - 00;07;07;06
Michelle Ngome
OK, I love the delusional answer because it shows the theme and trend you have in business, right? And that's about locking in on that unique. I'll just say USP, right? That, unique proposition. And as marketers, we have to learn that we have to know that because now every industry needs marketing, every industry is competitive.
00;07;07;22 - 00;07;19;05
Michelle Ngome
So what's going to set you apart? Right. So how do you I guess, do you think that's an innate skill or this something that can be learned?
00;07;19;05 - 00;07;24;12
Guy Kawasaki
I repeat myself. You want the delusional answer or the honest answer.
00;07;24;12 - 00;07;25;29
Michelle Ngome
Delusional answers first.
00;07;26;21 - 00;07;45;07
Guy Kawasaki
Well, the delusional answer is. Because of my raw intellect and great taste and insight and vision, I can pick out winners. OK? You know, whenever you ask a venture capitalist, Well, why do you invest in Canva? Why do you invest in Apple?
00;07;45;11 - 00;08;01;01
Guy Kawasaki
Why do you invest in Cisco. Why do you invest in Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook or Google? The venture capitalists will say, Well, I recognize a world class opportunity with a world class team with world class business model, with world class technology.
00;08;01;22 - 00;08;16;01
Guy Kawasaki
And if you were to say to that same venture capital as well, why did you invest in the other 19 companies that burned 500 million bucks? The venture capitalists would say I told my dumb ass partners not to do those deals.
00;08;17;18 - 00;08;35;20
Guy Kawasaki
That's how it works, OK? So the delusional answer is it know I can pick winners. The honest answer is it's called Guy's Golden Touch and Guy's Golden Touch is not that whatever I touch turns to gold. Guy's Golden Touch is whatever is gold, I touch.
00;08;36;24 - 00;08;51;09
Guy Kawasaki
And so marketing one on one lesson for all entrepreneurs is it is much easier to market something great than a piece of shit. So if you have a choice, don't market shit, don't produce shit, don't create shit, don't align yourself with shit.
00;08;51;29 - 00;09;03;18
Guy Kawasaki
Now you might ask, Well, how do you know whether it's great? And a lot of that is luck and hindsight baby. Because it's a fine line sometimes.
00;09;03;18 - 00;09;07;12
Michelle Ngome
Yeah. I mean, I'm in Houston, Texas, and we have waste management.
00;09;07;12 - 00;09;21;11
Michelle Ngome
I mean, that's the thing. Like, we have oil and gas energy manufacturing. Those companies need marketers, and that's not sexy compared to Apple Dropbox, a marketing agency
00;09;21;11 - 00;09;24;11
Guy Kawasaki
Wait you got Enron.
00;09;24;11 - 00;09;28;00
Michelle Ngome
Oh well, yeah, crash and burn
00;09;28;00 - 00;09;50;17
Guy Kawasaki
So seriously Enron, which is the ternus of its day era and Enron, was a smoking hot company. I mean, Tom Peters was all over that company in search of excellence, revolutionizing, democratizing, you know, innovating the energy business. Oops. So I mean, seriously, the way it works is, at least in Silicon Valley, we throw a lot of crap up
00;09;50;18 - 00;10;01;26
Guy Kawasaki
against the wall. Some of it sticks, we go up to the wall, we paint the bullseye around it and then we declare victory. We say we hit the bullseye. Well, you can always at the bullseye if you paint the bull's eye after you see what sticks.
00;10;02;01 - 00;10;15;11
Guy Kawasaki
Trust me, it's a high probability of success if you can change the target after you fire the shot. So life is good and that's that's Silicon Valley in a nutshell, how's that.
00;10;15;11 - 00;10;36;22
Michelle Ngome
Changed the target after the shot. OK, so how can we're going into a new year? 2022 is here, so everyone I want to level up. Yeah, how do we how do we change the target? How do we review our brain? You know, to have the quote,
00;10;36;22 - 00;11;01;06
Michelle Ngome
well, listen, if it were that easy for me to explain. first of all, I wouldn't tell you why. But let's suppose you caught me in a weak moment, I decided to tell you. I don't think it can be done, if any, guru, visionary tells you they can. They're lying, they're pathologically lying.
00;11;01;20 - 00;11;23;01
Guy Kawasaki
So what I would say, it's all about probability, so what is the richest vein and I'm not saying this is a guaranteed vein. I'm saying this is the richest vein. So I think that the richest vein for tech is you create or affiliate or find a company with a product that you love to use.
00;11;24;07 - 00;11;36;27
Guy Kawasaki
So at the extreme. two guys, two girls in a garage. They create a product that they want to use. Steve and Woz create an Apple One, they want to use it. All right, Larry and Sergey create a search engine that they want to use.
00;11;37;14 - 00;11;52;29
Guy Kawasaki
Now, I don't think that in these cases of great tech companies, there was some kind of massive market research that proved the burgeoning market and the potential of this product. I mean, you know, what was the market forecast for personal computers in 1976?
00;11;53;00 - 00;12;09;08
Guy Kawasaki
Oh, maybe zero. So it's not a proven market and and a lot of products create markets that were not there. So you can't forecast a market that isn't there until the product creates it. So I guess I'm coming back to it.
00;12;09;08 - 00;12;18;27
Guy Kawasaki
All of it is just dumb shit luck. Or the flip side of dumb shit luck is you create a product that you want to use and you hope that you're not the only psychopath that wants to use it.
00;12;19;16 - 00;12;25;23
Guy Kawasaki
And I would say that describes Apple that, you know, it wasn't just Woz that wanted to use a computer.
00;12;25;23 - 00;12;40;10
Michelle Ngome
Yeah. And then we soon find that everyone or every household needs a computer, at least one. Yeah, yeah. I think in that process, because you talk about Nietzsche down a lot.
00;12;40;10 - 00;12;54;02
Michelle Ngome
I also think in that process, when you niche down, you have to be really patient to inform the consumer. And I know it's gotten easier because of the internet, but there's still some leeway we have to be patient.
00;12;54;03 - 00;12;58;24
Michelle Ngome
And I don't think most people are because of the internet, a.k.a. social.
00;12;58;24 - 00;13;07;17
Guy Kawasaki
Well I think that, statistically, people quit or pivot or change too fast.
00;13;07;17 - 00;13;10;06
Michelle Ngome
Guilty. Yeah.
00;13;10;06 - 00;13;31;09
Guy Kawasaki
Now look at me, I quit Apple twice. You know, the first time I quit Apple. Do you think I had any idea that Apple could be 1,000,000,000,000 dollar company? Because obviously, if I did, I would really be a dumb ass to quit. Right. So obviously I didn't, because I'm not a dumb ass. So not not at that level, anyway.
00;13;31;14 - 00;13;48;27
Guy Kawasaki
So. So, you know, a lot of it is being in the right place at the right time. A lot of it is, you know, you hit the lottery being born in Silicon Valley, being born to parents who afford it, an education who emphasized education.
00;13;48;27 - 00;14;03;18
Guy Kawasaki
You know, a lot of it's nothing to do with my grit and my perseverance. I don't mean to say that, you know, luck is a strategy. Or, you know, I mean, I'm not saying you should be lazy and fat and dumb and, you know, all that kind of stuff.
00;14;03;19 - 00;14;17;20
Guy Kawasaki
But I am saying that a lot of our success is just pure luck, and we should never underestimate the role of luck. Now, having said that, if luck bestows upon you an opportunity, then it's your problem to take advantage of it.
00;14;18;10 - 00;14;26;15
Guy Kawasaki
So, you know, it's not purely luck, but luck. Luck is the start. Yeah.
00;14;26;15 - 00;14;40;05
Michelle Ngome
How important is networking? No COVID or no COVID? What are some ways to leverage networking? Because I think people want to get in those rooms so they can strike, you know, lucky when the time comes.
00;14;40;20 - 00;15;00;15
Guy Kawasaki
Well, I have mixed emotions about this. So, you know, if you're talking about Jerry Maguire, Shuck and Jive, show me the money networking. I think that's bullshit. You know, if it's going to cocktail parties which are cornflower blue shirt driving your BMW and you know, that's it, then you're using all the buzzwords.
00;15;01;07 - 00;15;21;17
Guy Kawasaki
That ain't me. I mean, I never go to another party again. I'd be happy. So, but networking, I think, is making sort of sincere, valuable, important, mutually beneficial connections. Which is different than shucking and jiving and passing your business card and being Jerry Maguire.
00;15;22;07 - 00;15;37;28
Guy Kawasaki
And so, you know, why do people network effectively? Well, at one very basic level, it's not how good a conversationalist you are is how good a listener you are. In other words, shut up and listen. That would make you a better networker right there.
00;15;39;05 - 00;15;59;04
Guy Kawasaki
So that's at a very tactical level. But I think the at a higher level, the most important aspect of networking is. How do you help the other person? So you want to be a good networker, figure out how knowing you is beneficial for the other person, not for you.
00;15;59;23 - 00;16;12;22
Guy Kawasaki
You just have to trust that if you're a good networker and you know a lot of people, it will at some point benefit you. But the way that you get people to know you, is because it's useful to know you.
00;16;13;27 - 00;16;32;02
Guy Kawasaki
I would also make the case, it's not who you know, it's who knows of you. Which is a very big difference. So in that case in point, so my podcast, my podcast is about 110 episodes right now.
00;16;33;12 - 00;16;45;11
Guy Kawasaki
Let's just put it mildly, I did not know all 110 people. It's not like I could just email or call up any of these and call up Jane. Say Jane, what you're doing next to 10:00 because I want to interview you.
00;16;45;21 - 00;17;07;28
Guy Kawasaki
That's not how it works. So the way it works is, I didn't know Jane. I didn't know Margaret Atwood. I didn't know. Scott Galloway, I didn't know, you know, most of these people, but because of prior work and its decades of prior work, they knew of me, which is different.
00;17;09;10 - 00;17;22;24
Guy Kawasaki
So I think that, yeah, that should be the goal that people know of, you know? The question becomes, how do people know of you? Well, guess what it ain't because you're Jerry Maguire it's because you've actually done something, duh.
00;17;23;08 - 00;17;46;06
Guy Kawasaki
So I guess the bottom line is. Do something great and people will know of you and life gets better. But, you know, just because you're going to the cocktail party in your BMW with your cornflower blue shirt, with your pierced ear, that doesn't mean pierced nose or pierced anything that doesn't mean you're a good networker, so networker
00;17;46;06 - 00;17;49;09
Guy Kawasaki
brings value to the other person.
00;17;49;09 - 00;18;01;19
Michelle Ngome
That's where I think it kind of gets I'm thinking about the high value, how you make this thing. But I think we are in this state of instant gratification kind we of forget, right?
00;18;01;28 - 00;18;21;26
Michelle Ngome
or we want to be attached to someone's name. And we somehow. Well, I just want to be attached to Guy. And I forget all about the skill sets resource and how I could help you. And I do see that a lot with social media because, you know, with association, people are like, Well, I want to help you and I'm like, Okay
00;18;21;26 - 00;18;29;14
Michelle Ngome
, great. You know, I need help, but my hope is based off of what you can offer. You know, bring to the table.
00;18;29;14 - 00;18;42;09
Guy Kawasaki
Yeah. I think that I must admit in a rare moment of true transparency, I kind of have a default to yes, attitude.
00;18;42;18 - 00;18;55;27
Guy Kawasaki
Right. So now you asked me out of the blue to come on your podcast and I defaulted to yes, right? I said yes. I didn't ask you for your demographics. I didn't ask you to prove. I didn't ask you to application, fill an application.
00;18;56;18 - 00;19;13;03
Guy Kawasaki
I didn't ask you for it. I said, OK, let's do it. So that's a default, yes, attitude. And that's because I believe that I defaulting to yes, many more opportunities come to you. So you know, you can go through life in one of two ways you can say, I am never going to be taken advantage of.
00;19;13;08 - 00;19;25;11
Guy Kawasaki
So I can say no to everything. All right, at the end of your life. Nobody used you. Or you can say yes to everything and you get used along the way, but you'll also make some amazing connections along the way.
00;19;25;19 - 00;19;44;23
Guy Kawasaki
Now let's just be transparent, because just in case who's listening to this, you know, on a daily basis, I probably get ten or 15 pitches. We look at my business plan where you come on my podcast and I interview you for my PhD dissertation, my high school teacher assigned, you know, we have to talk to an entrepreneur.
00;19;44;23 - 00;19;59;28
Guy Kawasaki
So I picked you out because what I you know and I can't tell you that I say yes to all of those, because if I say yes to all of those, I literally will not have a life. So now you might be wondering you might want to take this out, but edit this much.
00;20;00;04 - 00;20;13;16
Guy Kawasaki
So you might be wondering like, OK, Guy so why did you say yes? I was one of 15 that day, and you know why? It's because you represent black entrepreneurs, and I believe that I have a moral obligation to help people.
00;20;14;01 - 00;20;29;20
Guy Kawasaki
And if there's any group of people I would love to help its minority entrepreneurs. So, you know, if you were, let me just say, if you were contacting me from the Yale Entrepreneurs Group, I might not be on this call, right?
00;20;29;21 - 00;20;38;14
Guy Kawasaki
Like, you know, I want to help the next Cavanaugh get his entrepreneurial chops from Yale. I don't think so. Not high on my list.
00;20;38;14 - 00;20;48;10
Michelle Ngome
So what do you think about diversity in marketing? You know, right now there's so much emphasis, I say inclusive marketing, multicultural marketing.
00;20;49;07 - 00;21;10;22
Guy Kawasaki
So it seems to me that at a very basic level, you got to be really stupid, to not want diversity and multicultural marketing or people, right? Because. This is what I don't understand about the Republican Party, but maybe we should not go there, but you know, I'm 67 years old.
00;21;10;23 - 00;21;23;10
Guy Kawasaki
I could give a shit. All right. So like it seems to me that you got wake up and smell the roses. You got to stay all right. So America is getting less and less pure white, more and more brown, black and yellow.
00;21;23;27 - 00;21;35;21
Guy Kawasaki
All right. So and that trend ain't going to end. That trend ain't going to reverse itself. I don't care how many flags you burn. I don't know how many times you attack the Capitol. I don't care about it.
00;21;36;07 - 00;21;48;22
Guy Kawasaki
It ain't going to reverse. So the trend ain't your friend is this the train ain't your friend? Maybe you should adjust to it, OK? Not be known as the racist party. Oh, that might help you in the future. Duh.
00;21;49;09 - 00;22;10;02
Guy Kawasaki
So, you know, it's that kind of thing. So now that we're talking politics here, but in business, the trend is not for decision makers to be white male old people. So, maybe you should adjust your marketing to take advantage of these trends.
00;22;10;04 - 00;22;15;11
Guy Kawasaki
Duh. So this is what I don't understand about many people's marketing.
00;22;15;11 - 00;22;34;04
Michelle Ngome
So I have my presentation called, "Knowing how diversity drives revenue", and I end up saying, if you don't have an inclusive marketing strategy, you don't have a growth marketing strategy. And to me, that's just the simplest way to put it the way America's demographics are changing.
00;22;34;24 - 00;22;42;21
Guy Kawasaki
Well, only, you know, only a few people are lusting after buying an Oldsmobile. I hate to tell you, you know what I'm saying?
00;22;45;26 - 00;22;56;23
Michelle Ngome
So I want to touch on one or two more things real quick. I guess we'll keep a general. What tips can you provide when it comes to hiring and building a team?
00;22;56;23 - 00;23;00;13
Guy Kawasaki
Well, I think the most important tip, well, there's two.
00;23;00;15 - 00;23;15;21
Guy Kawasaki
one is diversity. Duh. Because if you all have your entire team is Ivy League educated male white. Guess what? You don't exactly represent the real world. You have no idea what the world wants, et cetera, et cetera.
00;23;15;21 - 00;23;33;20
Guy Kawasaki
So you you just like totally blind from several. That's number one. Number two is it should be a source of pride that you always hire people who are better than you at this job. What a concept, right? So if you're the CEO and you hire a CFO that is not as good as you in finance and you
00;23;33;20 - 00;23;45;07
Guy Kawasaki
hire a CTO who's not as good as you in tech and you hire a CMO who's not as good as you in marketing. So basically, you know you're you're the king or the queen and everybody else you is below you.
00;23;46;11 - 00;23;58;25
Guy Kawasaki
You're pathetic, you are friggin loser. I mean, it should be a source of pride that I can look over a room and say every one of these people can do their job better than I can. Yeah, that is a beautiful, beautiful statement.
00;23;59;10 - 00;24;02;02
Guy Kawasaki
So that's my second piece of advice.
00;24;02;02 - 00;24;11;19
Michelle Ngome
And a similar question what should we look for when it comes to partner, partnerships or just a general collaboration or a major acquisition
00;24;11;19 - 00;24;16;18
Guy Kawasaki
partners, as in people, you're hiring, or partners, as in partnerships.
00;24;16;21 - 00;24;27;00
Michelle Ngome
Yeah, we'll just say 50/50, whether it's audience or investing. Putting two businesses together, anything of that nature.
00;24;27;00 - 00;24;36;13
Guy Kawasaki
Well, I mean, you just described all the business. We'll all go down the checklist a little bit. So in terms of money.
00;24;37;20 - 00;24;52;14
Guy Kawasaki
You know, I understand the concept of you want to find someone that you like that, do you know you share the same vision and the same passion that you, you know, you personally complete each other's sentences, kumbaya, you know, like the Coke commercial.
00;24;54;01 - 00;25;11;20
Guy Kawasaki
I think that's the honeymoon and dating period, like I can't tell you how many venture cap. Excuse me. I can't tell you how many entrepreneurs that I've dealt with that right after they get funding. Yeah. You know, we just closed around and these venture capitalists, they really like us and they share our vision and we agree on
00;25;11;20 - 00;25;22;14
Guy Kawasaki
everything and we like each other. We're going play golf with each other, you know, blah blah blah, blah blah. And then, of course, the product is a year late, and revenue is about one 20th of what they forecast.
00;25;22;25 - 00;25;36;11
Guy Kawasaki
And all of a sudden they get thrown out of their company. Well, guess what? Venture capitalist is an entrepreneur as a means to an end. That's it. Just you think you're friends with them? OK, you're friends as long as you're making your milestones.
00;25;36;14 - 00;25;54;23
Guy Kawasaki
But if you're not, you are just a means to an end and it would be better for you. Sort of depressingly negative. And, you know, sort of pessimistically, as I described it, it would be better for you to have a mindset that a venture capitalist is a means to an end.
00;25;55;12 - 00;26;13;25
Guy Kawasaki
And I am a means to an end for the venture capitalist. That's a much more realistic and healthy attitude because push comes to shove as long as you're making your numbers, everything is good. And if you're not making your numbers, I don't care if you both love to play golf and you both drive a Mercedes and you
00;26;13;25 - 00;26;33;19
Guy Kawasaki
both went to the same school and you both were in the same frat. Nobody gives a shit. You are making your numbers or not. So that's the the funding partnership. As far as corporate partnerships, I think corporate partnerships are vastly overrated and overstated.
00;26;34;05 - 00;26;53;15
Guy Kawasaki
And I would make the case that most corporate partnerships are mentioned because you cannot talk about revenue. So if you had booming revenue, if your revenue was booming. You would not be blowing smoke about, oh, we have a partnership is very strategic with X Y Z.
00;26;53;18 - 00;27;07;16
Guy Kawasaki
You know, we have this other partnership is because you cannot talk about revenue because in a perfect world you would be saying, all right. So our month over month revenue increases 20% and our sign ups are increasing day over day, 50%.
00;27;07;17 - 00;27;19;09
Guy Kawasaki
That's what you want to talk about. But since you can't do that because your product is crap, you have to say, Oh, we have this strategic partnership with Walmart and, you know, whatever, and there soon will be in the end caps.
00;27;19;09 - 00;27;36;20
Guy Kawasaki
Oh, we just have to do is sign the the memo of understanding. Well, there's a long way between a memo of understanding. And revenue. So I think partnership is a word that you use when you cannot use the R word, which is revenue.
00;27;37;05 - 00;27;59;07
Guy Kawasaki
So a piece of wisdom that if you remember nothing else from this podcast. Remember this? Sales fixes everything. That's it, that's all you've got to know. Sales fixes, everything.
00;28;00;13 - 00;28;18;24
Guy Kawasaki
If you just remember that you'll be OK So the last one is partnership in the sense of, you know, a co-partner, somebody else you're hiring, et cetera, et cetera. I think for that, you look for someone who has the same sort of perspective on the business.
00;28;19;00 - 00;28;29;26
Guy Kawasaki
Is that a short term flip? Is it a lifestyle business or you dedicating your life to this? Are you trying to dent the universe and change the world because all of those are, you know, reasonable ways to do things?
00;28;30;04 - 00;28;41;23
Guy Kawasaki
You just have to be on the same page. So that's number one and number two, I would say you should always compliment each other. That is not that compliment, not in the sense of, oh, you're like, really good looking and funny.
00;28;42;04 - 00;28;58;12
Guy Kawasaki
Compliment, meaning if you're the engineer, I'm the salesperson. We complement each other. You do something I cannot do and I do something you cannot do if everybody in the company were engineers who would sell it? And if everybody in the company were salesmen, who would build it?
00;28;58;23 - 00;29;02;01
Guy Kawasaki
So you need people who complement each other skills.
00;29;02;01 - 00;29;06;20
Michelle Ngome
What are you looking forward to in 2022?
00;29;06;20 - 00;29;30;10
Michelle Ngome
Well, I, you know, knock on wood. What am I looking forward to that that is a good question. I like to surf, so spring surfing is a very good time.
00;29;33;02 - 00;29;51;16
Guy Kawasaki
I just, you know, I I just love podcasting, so I just love to continue the podcast journey. It would be nice if, I mean, if a miracle occurred and people finally figured out that you should get vaccinated and mask up, you know that wouldn't be bad.
00;29;54;06 - 00;30;15;10
Guy Kawasaki
I don't know if I'm optimistic or pessimistic, but. You know, if two years ago. Seriously, if you had said to me two years ago. 800,000 Americans are going to die because of something I would have said no way, there's like it's not possible that is, you know, that's 30 times the people who die from gunshots.
00;30;15;10 - 00;30;32;04
Guy Kawasaki
It's about 15 times the people who die from flu. It's it's ah, I'm making some of these numbers up, but I think it's about. 15 times the number of people who died in the Vietnam War is more people than died in World War Two
00;30;32;08 - 00;30;47;16
Guy Kawasaki
I mean, there's some of these parallels, right? I would've said there's no way, but we you know what kind of what kind of Ridley Scott movie did you just watch? That is not going to happen. 800,000 people die.
00;30;49;00 - 00;31;06;19
Guy Kawasaki
How is that possible for the richest, highly educated, wealthy etc etc company in the country? Country in the world? How is that possible? So it was sure be nice if we wake up now. It may be that, you know.
00;31;07;25 - 00;31;24;14
Guy Kawasaki
I don't know a lot of these people were older they were compromised, they were nursing homes and all that, so. OK. You know, a life is a life. Well, maybe when it starts affecting children, people will say, Ha, you know now.
00;31;27;18 - 00;31;37;20
Guy Kawasaki
I don't understand that at all. Yeah. But I want to give you one more piece of wisdom about marketing.
00;31;37;20 - 00;31;40;04
Michelle Ngome
Yes, please. That was my next question.
00;31;40;04 - 00;31;45;09
Guy Kawasaki
OK. So I'm going to boil down all of marketing into the next couple of minutes.
00;31;45;14 - 00;32;02;29
Guy Kawasaki
OK. OK. So you have to make a graph. And on this graph, the vertical axis measures your degree of differentiation or difference. The horizontal axis measures the degree of value. So if you're at the bottom left, you have little differentiation and little value.
00;32;03;06 - 00;32;19;00
Guy Kawasaki
That's like the 00 point right. If you're far out on the right, you have a lot of value, but you're not differentiated There you have to compete on price because people can get the same useful thing from other companies. In the upper left hand corner,
00;32;19;16 - 00;32;33;27
Guy Kawasaki
that's where you something is very different, but of no value in that corner, you own a market that doesn't exist and you're just plain stupid. The bottom left corner is where you have something is not valuable, and there's a lot of other companies creating the same stupid thing.
00;32;34;04 - 00;32;47;18
Guy Kawasaki
That's the worst corner of all the corner you want to be in marketing is the upper right hand corner. This is where you have something that's valuable and unique. iPod when it first came out valuable and unique user interface that a mortal could operate.
00;32;47;24 - 00;33;08;25
Guy Kawasaki
Wide selection of music legal easy to install cheap $0.99 a song. There was nothing else like the iPod. And those features were valuable. So from a marketing perspective, that's your goal. You want to create or affiliate or position a product that is useful and unique.
00;33;08;26 - 00;33;22;05
Guy Kawasaki
That's where the action is. Now I would also say that this applies to people. So if you're a unique and valuable person, guess what? Guess what? You get a lot of options. They take care of you. They let you work from home, you know, blah blah blah.
00;33;22;15 - 00;33;32;09
Guy Kawasaki
If you're a spouse, that's unique and valuable. Same thing. So I think that all of life boils down to a very simple thing be unique and valuable.
00;33;32;09 - 00;33;33;12
Michelle Ngome
That's good.
00;33;33;12 - 00;33;35;19
Guy Kawasaki
That's all you need to know.
00;33;35;19 - 00;33;44;25
Michelle Ngome
Yeah, I came across it, but that that was a good personal and professional break down, and I'll try to create that graph and put it in the show notes.
00;33;44;25 - 00;34;00;02
Guy Kawasaki
And even more important than that, put in a show notes that they have to listen to Remarkable People because I have a unique and valuable podcast. I mean, for a marketing line up.
00;34;00;11 - 00;34;13;22
Guy Kawasaki
Let's just stick with that. You know that segment right now. If I were a marketer, why would I listen to Guy's podcasts? Well, because there's Bob Cialdini on it, the father of influence. There's David Walker, the father of Brandy.
00;34;14;07 - 00;34;40;10
Guy Kawasaki
There is Angela Duckworth's the mother of Grit. There is Katy Milkman, the next Bob Deanie. There is Gary Vaynerchuk, influencer. I just. There is Tim Ferriss. Can I keep going, I mean, so from just from just a marketing perspective, there's a lot of episodes to listen to now from an entrepreneur's perspective.
00;34;40;22 - 00;34;58;15
Guy Kawasaki
I have Martha Stewart, Arianna Huffington. I have the woman who started Poop-pourri Suzy Batiz. I have a woman named Susan Fry, who sells more pumpkins than anybody in the United States. So I have a I have the person who started Madison Reed, the hair dye company.
00;34;59;02 - 00;35;18;21
Guy Kawasaki
I have the woman who started Hint the water company flavored water company. Steve Wozniak. You may have heard of him. He started Apple Small Fruit Company in Cupertino. So I'm telling you. I have a great podcast for people who are interested in entrepreneurship and marketing.
00;35;19;03 - 00;35;30;19
Michelle Ngome
I love it. Well, we'll definitely promote that the link as well as the graphics in our show notes and social media. I am grateful.
00;35;30;19 - 00;35;37;07
Guy Kawasaki
I am grateful. So we're mutually grateful.
00;35;37;07 - 00;35;42;25
Michelle Ngome
All right, everyone. Thank you for listening to Marketing for the Culture podcast. Remember, I believe you.
