Mortimer Zuckerman Quotes

There are two kinds of people... There are the dreamers who go and buy, and there are the doers who go and make. And I've always recognized that. So the dreamers are what support our company because they will buy the product that they could make if they wanted to, had time to, or were so inclined to.

There are two ways to extend a business. Take inventory of what you're good at and extend out from your skills. Or determine what your customers need and work backward, even if it requires learning new skills. Kindle is an example of working backward.

People don’t know what they want until they see it.

Products are sold because they solve a problem or fill a need. Understanding problems and needs involves understanding customers and what makes them tick.

It is impossible to know what people will like. No market research, formulas will help, it's best to stop guessing.

To create something you want to sell, you first study and research the market, then you develop the product to the best of your ability.

It turns out that is exactly what product strategy is all about—figuring out the right product is the innovator’s job, not the customer’s job.

Research is an organized method of trying to find out what you are going to do after you cannot do what you are doing now. It may also be said to be the method of keeping a customer reasonably dissatisfied with what he has. That means constant improvement and change so that the customer will be stimulated to desire the new product enough to buy it to replace the one he has.

It had always made sense to me to build a business based on what people really wanted, rather than guess what we thought they might want.

Why should a manufacturer bet his money, perhaps the future of his company, on your instinct?

It isn't the consumers' job to know what they want.

Marketing is the obverse of programming.

There had to be a market in order for you to be successful in a business. The market had to need your business, or the product of it.

If you're doing business, not that simple to only buy. You have to create something. You have to create something that never exist for the future.

I have this passion for building things, so I always wanted to build a startup. I always wanted to start my own company.

Too many bar owners built a bar for themselves... when they should have built what their market and demographic demands!

Capital never builds great products.

Some of the most successful products are born from a personal need to solve a problem rather than a desire to turn a profit.

Being right is important. Too many great teams march off saying, 'If we build it, they will come,' and then never are able to change the idea towards something that people really want.

If I had done 'Go, New York, Go' for the Spurs, it might not have worked. It really taught me a lot about demographics and tastes and styles. I never went to business school, so that whole experience was my crash course in marketing, contracts, negotiations, and product launches.

When I did inventions, I always thought only of the invention itself, but the kids would ask for marketing materials.

I've always been obsessed with marketing and media. I always wanted to be a business brand owner. I wanted to create things.

'Bazillion Dollar Club' follows six struggling startups trying to get their products together.

Marketing is everything.

In general, it's best if you're building something that you yourself need.