"Look, our company’s too complicated"
These were just about Jobs' first words and his main concern when coming back to Apple (AAPL) after being kicked out. At that time the company had a line of almost a dozen computers, which he felt was much too difficult to work with. He was right.
Unfortunately for Dell Computers (DELL), they didn't see the same thing for their product line, and they learned the hard way that offering too many alternatives made it about impossible to service. That was part of Jobs' concerns for the product line at the company when he returned.
What's important for any business leader is to understand what complicated really represents. It's really more of an ego and pride thing than it is a sound business practice.
I'll give you an example from my own experience. Years ago I used to buy up every new piece of software that had the possibility of helping me with my goals. After a couple of years, I started to realize I was spending so much time learning the software, that it was taking away from what was really important to the business. The result was I dropped buying new software.
Why did I make that decision? Every piece of software tried to be too much, and to learn it I had to go through about a two-inch-thick book or manual to find and learn it. I'm not just talking about finding one little thing here, but if I wanted to learn a number of things the software could do.
Then because I didn't know if I was missing out on something important to the company the software could do, at minimum I had to go through the entire book on a cursory level to at least perform due diligence.
The bottom line is that simple is always better. Trying to be too much and create on a consistent basis only products or services for early adopters can be a terrible strategy. It's a starting place, but as the product becomes more well known, simplicity must be part of the ongoing process of development. Adding too many options can cause a person to give up on its use.
This can relate to not only the number of products, but what is included within a product itself.
It's important to see this side of Jobs because of his positioning himself as a guru has created some of the rabid fan base the company has, but at the same time the reality is he knew to grow the company he had to simplify everything so the regular user wouldn't be overwhelmed.
The results over the years since he returned to Apple confirm that he was right.
Other Steve Jobs Resources:
You've got to find what you love
Steve Jobs, Business Personality
Steve Jobs' Greatest Presentation
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