When we first showed the Karma in January 2008, we had barely started the company.
Product 1' was really my introduction into the game.
A new book is just like any new product, like a detergent. You have to acquaint people with it. They have to know it's there. You only get to be number one when the public knows about you.
I'm looking for best practices constantly. Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.
I didn't have a lot of skin care products when I was a kid - my parents were very au naturale - and I think I was about 9 years old when my girlfriend told me she used Biore. I was like, 'Hmm, never heard of it.' So my mom took me to the store, and I picked out five different things and have been literally using it ever since.
When color TV arrived, it just sat there and you saw color. I've been to retail stores where there were no 3-D glasses at all and the 3-D images were all blurred. People were coming in and saying, 'I don't want to buy that.' There's a lot of marketing connected to introducing technologies and especially introducing new experiences.
The notion that you would initiate a new product without preparing the way by persuasion and advertising and salesmanship is fantastic. It's an integral part of the system.
Apple has beautiful design, beautiful product, incredibly functional. But mostly, it's about picking product, getting behind it, marketing it, and introducing it to a customer. What they've done just inspires me.
From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August.
Boeing does a great job in introducing product that kind of changes the game.
When someone comes in with a product they want in Bed Bath & Beyond, that's way out of my comfort zone.
I don't believe in asking people to spend $15 on something they've never heard before. That's just unreasonable.
