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Lesson #2: “Don’t think about the money you don’t have”

Article Overview: When Wozniak first started designing computers, he did not have much to go on. He knew he could put sketches down on paper, and they seemed plausible enough, but he did not know how to get from point A to point B, building a real computer.

Lesson #2: “Don’t think about the money you don’t have”

When Wozniak first started designing computers, he did not have much to go on. He knew he could put sketches down on paper, and they seemed plausible enough, but he did not know how to get from point A to point B, building a real computer. But Wozniak realized something early on - he did not necessarily need a lot to go on. Why couldn't his skills just be enough? And that is when Wozniak discovered another skill of his, one that would get him farther than perhaps any other in his life - the ability to make a lot from a little.

"My skill was that, if I know what I want for the end result - in those days it was a computer, in later days it might be a certain floppy disk that had to read and write some data - but if I knew what my end goal was, I know how to combine chips together very efficiently to get that goal done," says Wozniak. "Even if I've never designed anything before.

"My skills weren't that I knew how to design a floppy disk, I knew how to design a printer interface, I knew how to design a modem interface; it was that, when the time came and I had to get one done, I would design my own, fresh, without knowing how other people do it."

According to Wozniak, all of the best things that he did during his time at Apple came from (a) not having money, and (b) not having done it before, ever.

"Every single thing that we came out with that was really great, I'd never once done that thing in my life," he says. And that gave him the confidence to go forward with launching his own company, even when he had no desire or inclination to be a businessman.

"When you are 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," he says. "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 thirty days credit."

So, his advice for budding entrepreneurs worried about where they will find their capital? "Don't think about the money you don't have. Rather, what can you do with what you do have?"

That advice, however, comes with a caveat. "You'd better have the technology knowledge to do it," he says. "I really urge you not to think you can start a whole company and business with just ideas on paper, because you'll end up owning so few of those ideas. You have to create a working model, something that you can show people and demonstrate that it works, and then you can start building a future for it."

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Article Tags: apple, br, bugs, businessman, chips, confidence, designing computers, desire, end result, floppy disk, inclination, later days, modem interface, much money, printer interface, real computer, single thing, sketches, sleep, wozniak



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