Gaurav Gupta's Blog

The market is flooded with hundreds of laptops and mobile phones, each one claiming to be the latest, the fastest and the most feature rich. Choosing the right one is a difficult thing. Some people would rather prefer to stay out of the chaos and be happy to pay a premium to help them decide what is the best for them.

Apple targets exactly this segment of customers, which by the above description, fall under the “exclusive” category.

Here is Apple’s simple mantra:

1. Make your users feel they have a great product. Obsess over aesthetics or whatever that works.

2. Don’t confuse your customers by giving them too many choices. If you have to give a choice, keep the options easily distinguishable through features like screen size, storage capacity etc.

3. Don’t obsess about hardware specifications. Most users don’t really care how much CPU and RAM they have if their computer is fast enough for their work.

4. Don’t introduce products too quickly. Give your users enough time to boast about their new toy. Nothing works like word of mouth. Let the novelty fade away before you hype up and introduce the “next big thing”. Keep this cycle predictable.

5. Don’t leave any opportunity to bash your opponents. TV ads or whatever that works. People love to hate.

No wonder we call it the decade of Steve Jobs.