Do More Faster India, 2nd Edition

Chapter 7Usage Is Like Oxygen for Ideas

Matt Mullenweg

Matt is a cofounder of WordPress and the founder of Automattic, the company behind WordPress.com and Jetpack. He also founded an investment and research company, Audrey Capital.

I like Apple because they are not afraid of getting a basic 1.0 out into the world and iterating on it. A case in point:

“No wireless. Less space than a nomad. Lame.”

—cmdrtaco, Slashdot.org, 2001, when reviewing the first iPod

I remember my first iPhone. I stood in line for hours to buy it, but the wait made the first time I swiped to unlock the phone that much sweeter. I felt like I was on Star Trek and this was my magical tricorder—a tricorder that constantly dropped calls on AT&T’s network, had a headphone adapter that didn’t fit any of the hundreds of dollars’ worth of headphones I owned, ran no applications, had no copy and paste, and was slow as molasses. It had multiple shortcomings—just like the iPod when it first came out.

Now the crazy thing is when the original iPhone went public, flaws and all, you know that in a secret room somewhere on Apple’s campus they had a working prototype of the 3GS with a faster processor, better battery life, and a normal headphone jack—basically everything perfect. Steve Jobs was probably already carrying around one in his pocket. How painful it must have been to have everyone criticizing them for all the flaws they had already fixed but couldn’t release yet because they were waiting for component prices ...