"Many times you just need someone to confirm your gut feeling and give you the confidence to follow it." - this quote from Tony's Acknowledgements chapter summarises my feeling throughout the entire book. When you are starting out your career, there is so much "wisdom/crap" that you need to parse through and figure out whether you believe in or not. It is so refreshing to read such a no-nonsense, detailed description of what matters and what doesn't from someone who has real battle scars and victories.
Starting out my career in Silicon Valley in the late 90s, I was never fortunate enough to meet Tony, and when moving back to Norway I met a start-up world that was 20 years behind Silicon Valley. This was right around the time Tony got the call from Apple to work on the iPod. I would have loved coming along for that ride!
For every single decision you need to make to build a great product, a great company, a great team, you have to also decide who am I? what do I believe in? what kind of values are important to me? what kind of culture is a great product culture that I will thrive in and want to work in? And many, many more hard questions. Tony takes you through his career and points out the learnings that he believes were important, not only to his successes, but also to his failures. Brutally honest and with a personal, and down-to-earth language.
There have been so many points throughout my life where I have felt something should be the right thing to do or believe in, but where I haven't really dared. And where I haven't had enough conviction to push through, ignore nay-sayers, and just do what I believe in. Tony goes through most of these and more, one by one and also explains why it is the right thing to do. And then there are the hard to come by experiences, like how is an effective board supposed to work for a VC-funded, highly innovative product company. Or how important it is to have a mentor who has been there before and what you need a mentor for.
The title says this is an "unorthodox" guide. To me this sounds like title was determined by the publisher's desire to make it a bestseller. Tony is seeing beyond the fuzz and the pretenders and focuses on the deeper fundamentals of human behaviour and the fundamental dynamics between technology, market, individual drive and motivation, and the sometimes harsh realities of starting a new company (or startup within a company). It's nothing unorthodox about what he is writing about. It cuts through the crap and gets you to focus on what is important.
Also, in many of Tony's advice, it is evident that he is spoiled by living in the Bay Area. Examples are: always have a "seed crystal" on your board or you absolutely need to have a great mentor before considering starting a company or you should be relentless in pushing your employees to perfect the experience. The Bay Area has huge competition for talent, but the wider Bay Area also has the population of the entire country of Norway. That means that if you have a name in the Valley, know the other big names, and have built up a network over years, you can tap into a talent pool and a culture that is just there. You mostly need to carefully build this yourself outside the valley. Don't let that discourage you though, what Tony points out is fundamentally human and fundamental to building great product anywhere in the world. Just think carefully about what you might need to build yourself before directly following Tony's advice.
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An Unorthodox Guide to Making Things Worth Making: I’m Not A Builder/Maker And I LOVE This Book
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2022
So - as the title suggests I am neither a builder nor a maker… of electrons or atoms. What I am is a 55 year old self-professed geek who has lived through the technology revolution. I went to a video arcade as a kid. I had a TRS-80, a Kaypro computer, a Channel F gaming console and (of course) every iPod, iPhone, iPad… just keep it coming. I LOVE technology.What fascinated me about this book is that it is not just about creating the next great thing and trying to disrupt the world. It teaches us about things like inspiration and drive and setting goals and thinking clearer…As the aforementioned geek I have to admit that I LOVE knowing the history of some of the most disruptive devices in our near history… I had a Sony Walkman… world changed with the iPod. I had a Motorola Q - which was so killer… then came Apple and Steve Jobs and (of course) Tony Fadell with the iPhone. As an early adopter of course I got one… Life changed.This book is so insightful. It encourages all of us to follow what guides us. Whether it’s an MP3 player or a phone or a thermostat.Fantastic book. Cannot praise it enough.
Reviewed in the United States on July 8, 2022
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Top reviews from other countries
Mark Simpson
Founder, Product Manager, Start-Up Leader, Investor - this is an essential read.
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 8, 2022
Mark Simpson
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 8, 2022
Using Tony’s check list that in order to make a difference companies need to focus on 5 things (abridged):
1. Be humble and flexible, and able to adapt to customer’s needs
2. Deliver something wholly new or deliver in a novel way that competitors can't
3. Solve a real pain point that is relevant to many
4. Execute the vision - in all aspects, not just a product
5. Think about a problem/need in a way customer haven't and makes perfect sense to them when they hear/see/experience it.
Using this approach, here is my assessment of Build:
1. Packed full of humility, reflection, and learning; It is customer, problem and team obsessed. Tony packs in years of advice and hard-earned experience
2. A great combination of stories, practical advice that are wholly engaging and unlock some of the aspects that can enable and inhibit venture and product building. Plus the proceeds from the book will be invested in a climate fund, plus Tony is also committing to a 5x match (up to $25 million) of his personal funds.
3. Entrepreneurship and great product design is hard, really hard – successful practitioners model success, they constant seek to learn – so here’s an opportunity to learn from one of the best
4. The book is great entertainment, great learning – one you won’t want to put down until you finish and will definitely want to return to time and time again. Beyond the content of the book Tony has tried to deliver a fully compostable book – he failed and he’s keen to engage with people that can help him (humility and striving for perfection)
5. The learning is delivered in bite size chunks, nicely delivered in written and pictorial form, lots of links back to relevant sections to glue things together. A book you can read cover to cover, dip in and out of. The learning itself is brilliant, the fact that all proceed from the book are going into the Build Climate Fund to fund climate focused initiatives is fantastic (see https://tonyfadell.com/the-fund/ )
A fantastic opportunity to learn and contribute to a valuable cause.
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@Timothy_Hughes
Are you about to start a start-up or taking your first seed round then read this book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 13, 2022K. Quigley
An excellent guide to the world of building a product and business in any sector
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 16, 2022Deep Bagchee
Great book for any product builder or leader
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 16, 2022
Deep Bagchee
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on August 16, 2022
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U-Vox
Pain killers beat vitamins for user problems
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 7, 2022
U-Vox
Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on June 7, 2022
What a great book to read: full of insight about products, sure, but also career decisions, and life. Entertaining too.
The main takeaway for me is that Tony says design must aim to build a painkiller and not a vitamin for user pain points. In other words, what is the reason for this product or service to existing?
The sales prop for the original iPod release was a "1,000 songs in your pocket". It was a painkiller for users those days who had to drag all those MP3s around on a desktop or laptop in for sure!
Worth reading. Worth building.
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