How to Fix Business Challenges | Mindset Lessons from Steve Wozniak

Hi, I'm Evan Carmichael, and welcome to another edition of Modeling the Masters. I believe that the fastest and most effective way to grow a business is to model the strategies of people who've already done what you're trying to do. Today's post is brought to you by American Express Canada and their Facebook page. They have a new contest that you can now vote on the results for called Take Off with American Express. If you check out their page, you can vote on which business owner should win the contest. Now, today I want to talk about a young entrepreneur whose father didn't believe he'd ever realize his goals. He set out to prove his father wrong, followed his passions for computers, and went on to build one of the largest companies in the world. This is a story of Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak and the top 3 lessons that you can learn from his success.

Steve Wozniak is a Polish-American computer engineer and programmer who co-founded Apple. While in school, Wozniak tapped into his intense passion for computers and started designing computers on paper based on the theories that he knew. He told his father that he would one day own his own computer. When his father said, "Well, Steve, they cost as much as a house," Wozniak replied, "Well, I'll live in an apartment." Wozniak didn't have friends growing up. He spent his time between his schoolwork and his experiments. Things changed, however, when he met Steve Jobs. With Jobs' ability to convince people to give them parts, Wozniak went to work on building the Apple I. In 1976, Wozniak and Jobs started Apple together with the goal of making computers a tool everyone could use, not just for big corporations. Today, Apple has over $100 billion in revenues and is one of the largest 50 companies in the world. In 2000, Wozniak was inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame and has received honorary degrees from multiple universities. His plan was never to start a company, but rather to design computers. Luckily for the world, he decided to do both.

By staying committed to his dreams, even when his father doubted him, Steve Wozniak was able to build one of the largest companies in the world. To help you scale up your company, here are 3 action items that you can learn from Steve Wozniak.

Action item number 1: Don't think about the money you don't have. I can't tell you how many times I hear from entrepreneurs that they're not successful because they don't have enough resources to start. If you look at the stories of most famous entrepreneurs, they didn't have rich investors giving them a huge cash injection to launch their businesses. It's not about how much resources you have, it's about how resourceful you are that will determine your success as an entrepreneur. Wozniak felt that his best work came from not having a lot of money to get started. It forced him to be creative, make things simpler, and challenge conventional thinking. Being short on funds forced Wozniak to create over 50 designs for a minicomputer before he hit on the right one that would work. He saw it as a personal challenge to create a computer that could be sold to everyone like radios and televisions were, and he wasn't about to let a lack of money hold him back. According to Wozniak, when you're a startup or an individual on your own, You don't have very much money, so the fewer parts you have to buy, the better. When you design with very few parts, everything is so clean and orderly you can understand it more deeply in your head, and that causes you to have fewer bugs. You live and sleep with every little detail of the product. Steve Jobs and I started with literally no money, no cars. The parts we used to create the Apple I were purchased on 30 days credit. Don't think about the money you don't have. Rather, what can you do with what you do have? Action Item #2: Focus. Being an entrepreneur requires a lot of dedication and hard work. You have a goal for what you want your business to look like, and you need to focus your energies and not get distracted until you get there. Don't let the naysayers convince you that you won't succeed, and don't give up too early before you've given your business enough of a chance to let momentum work in your favor. Wozniak needed the focus to be productive at Apple. He was stubborn with his ideas, confident that his designs would work, and forced himself to keep going until he solved the problem. It cost him his personal life in those early years, but he was a man on a mission and knew exactly what he wanted, so he went after it with all the energy he could muster. According to Wozniak, "The way I work requires so much concentration, getting to know the problem well enough by thinking, thinking, thinking, thinking, and And then you try every day to make it a little better. Go through it again and again, cutting something off here or there. When I was doing this work well, I didn't have a wife or girlfriend. I couldn't do anything else. Action Item #3: Partner up. You can't do it alone. You either need a really good team around you, or you have to partner up with someone else who complements your weaknesses. This seems especially true in technology companies, where it's rarely one person who's the founder of the business. Partnering up isn't easy. It's like getting married. You have to really know the person and make sure you're picking someone you wanna be with for the long haul. Wozniak knew he had a unique set of skills that could revolutionize the way people ran their lives. He realized, though, that he didn't have the complete package that would be needed to launch the revolution. He needed someone who wasn't as inward and quiet as he was. He needed to partner with someone who liked to sell and promote and allow him to focus on the engineering side of the business. Partnering up with Steve Jobs proved to be a perfect match for both of them. Neither of the two could have accomplished the same level of success without each other. According to Wozniak, I was shy, he was outward. I created, he sold. I had the incredible technology, which was important when you're starting up and have very few employees. Steve had this big drive to have a company, and he had foresight.

So remember, don't think about the money you don't have. Focus and partner up. To finish up this video, I wanted to share one of my favorite true stories about Steve Wozniak and some of his best quotes.

Wozniak sold his HP calculator and Steve Jobs sold his Volkswagen van, raising $1,300 to fund the launch of Apple. Jobs told Wozniak that even if they were not successful, they could at least tell their grandkids that they had their own company.

Thank you for joining me for another edition of Modern Masters. If you liked the video and want to see more, please give it a thumbs up below. I'd also love to hear your thoughts and feedback if you want to leave a comment under the video. Stay tuned for the next episode and make sure you go check out the American Express Canada Take Off with American Express contest and cast your vote today.