Once upon a time there were some innovative farmers that developed a new hybrid crop that could satisfy the hunger of a growing population. This crop grew best in large farms which had to be situated far from where people lived. The food was so tasty and production could scale so quickly that it became necessary and possible to build a novel way to deliver this food to the population. The farmers built their own transportation network, which they called a “railway”.

To be more precise, analysts value the wave of growth of every new product and heavily discount the post-growth phase assuming commoditization. There is no value assigned to Apple for extending market reach to the mass market.

Weeding out people that don’t have the skills you are looking for is easy, but how do you determine if the person is the right culture fit?

Culture fit is a huge issue, and, in some ways, much more important than the skills the person has. You can teach a person to have the skills, but teaching them to be able to fit into your culture does not work

I’ve know lots of people who got into services thinking that they can use the income from clients to bankroll their own product ideas. That is not an impossible scenario — it’s been done before more than a few times, and it’s a beautiful thing when it happens. But it’s very, very difficult to pull off. To do services, you need to wake up in the morning with a different approach to life from the way you wake up in the morning to do products, and only a few people have the skill — and stamina — to juggle both at once.