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Apple's original business plan
- mkaroumi 12y agoOmg, THANKS for sharing this!
- visakanv 12y agoI appreciate your enthusiasm! Sorry you're getting downvoted, Hacker News is a pretty tough community to crack. The secret is to always add value to any conversation by introducing some relevant perspective or piece of information.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- ezl 12y agoI wouldn't invest. That growth curve doesn't seem reasonable. VC's: I don't really see there being an interest in this. What's the viral coefficient?
- paul 12y agoIt has been years since I heard anyone ask about viral coefficients.
- aragot 12y agoAnd yet the graph seems exact: According to the Telegraph, Apple's sales in 1982 were indeed $1b. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8810045/Steve-Jobs-timeline.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/steve-jobs/8810045/Ste...
- TrainedMonkey 12y agoThey did note that home computer market had been growing by 250% per year, that is mostly what that exponential curve is based on.
- kw71 12y agoI happened to be reading a transcript of a Bill Gates interview last night. [1] Interesting that he predicted the exponential growth and realized it at Microsoft too. [1] http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm#tc8 http://americanhistory.si.edu/comphist/gates.htm#tc8
- sliverstorm 12y agoIn fact that means they underestimated. Read more closely, the graph is their estimate of PC Market Total Revenue and they predict only 35% market share of that pie. So they projected a 350M slice of a 1B market, and got a 1B slice of a... ??? market
- porter 12y agoHas there even been a market as big and as fast growing as PCs since then?
- ianmcgowan 12y agoCompletely off-the-cuff, but mobile?
- mikeyouse 12y agoMobile is a much larger market and a much faster growing one.. I can't find the chart I'm looking for, but on any reasonable time scale that includes PC saturation vs. mobile saturation vs. smartphone saturation, the 'Smartphone' line is damn near vertical. Here's a decent look: http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/1/11/home-and-the-mobile-supply-chain http://ben-evans.com/benedictevans/2015/1/11/home-and-the-mo... Even more impressive that Apple took a big piece of both.
- fjarlq 12y agoYou reminded me of these charts by Horace Dediu: http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/17/the-rise-and-fall-of-personal-computing/ http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/17/the-rise-and-fall-of-person... Unfortunately the images on that webpage seem to be broken. Here's a backup: http://web.archive.org/web/20141113180306/http://www.asymco.com/2012/01/17/the-rise-and-fall-of-personal-computing/ http://web.archive.org/web/20141113180306/http://www.asymco....
- AndrewKemendo 12y ago"Smart" device adoption
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- coreyh14444 12y agoModern conventional wisdom would tell them to "focus".
- visakanv 12y agoI don't know the details very much, but maybe things were different back in their time when the market wasn't yet saturated? (My tech business history is pretty sketchy, so I'd welcome any clarification!)
- api 12y agoThere were many hobbyist computers on the market when the Apple II launched.
- phkahler 12y agoVisicalc played a large roll. The father of a friend of mine bought an Apple II in large part to do spreadsheets. While we're at it, I remember reading the inventor of the spreadsheet went to the computer clubs as showed his work. They all said "well yeah it can do that, so what" and he showed it to accountants and they all ran out to get Apple computers to run it. I think a lot of hackers focus on neat hacks that interest themselves, but overlook relatively easy solutions that could be a big deal to others.
- joezydeco 12y agoI owned an Apple ][ before VisiCalc was released. The transition was amazing. The home PCs were really just a curiosity before that. Look at Apple's early magazine ads. A mom filing recipes. A dad balancing his checkbook. Looked amazing in photos, but when you sat back and realized they wanted $1,200 for a tabletop calculator it really deflated the motivation to buy one. VisiCalc showed people that these machines were programmable in a way they could understand. That was a major breakthrough.
- solve 12y agoHow is that buzzword so huge now? Does no one using it realize that the word "focus" by itself... conveys nothing! At least 20 different ways that I could see "focus" being interpreted, most of those conflicting with each other. I suppose that the advice giver is allowed to retroactively choose which definition of "focus" that they actually meant at the time they gave that advice.
- swamp40 12y agoI wonder why "Apple" is whited out? The "Staff" page pretty much gives it away.
- chrispeel 12y agoFrom a couple of sources it looks like their revenue forecasts for the PC market were too low: http://www.etforecasts.com/products/ES_pcww1203.htm http://www.etforecasts.com/products/ES_pcww1203.htm I'm curious who the target of this was; was this aimed at the banks who they got the $250k loan from that Markkula signed for?
- eddywebs 12y agoThe source of this document is computer history muesem website. linky >> http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/102712693.05.01acc.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/10271...
- alain94040 12y agoPlans for the Apple III were a little bit optimistic: "Voice and character recognition are both being considered as built in features. Possibility of UHF very short range transmitter for wireless display capability depending on FCC approval."
- Osmium 12y agoIt's interesting to consider how different technologies alter the evolution of each other: e.g., if hypothetically display technology had stalled and we were limited to 512x342 black and white pixel screens, I can easily imagine that wireless displays would be the norm. So it sounds crazy reading that now, because we have these huge colourful displays, but back then maybe it was reasonable. It's just that history turned out differently and display technologies progressed far faster than wireless transmission standards (and the processors necessary to drive them).
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- spiritplumber 12y agoAt least in Europe, the Amiga had this... the RF output was strong enough that you could use it as an antenna and get it from the other side of the room, complete with snow effects :)
- maxsavin 12y agoInteresting - Jobs went to Stanford? Also, surprising he let him self be #3 on the list after apparently picking a fight with Woz about who would be employee #1
- NhanH 12y agoThe plan itself looks reasonable to me. It's fairly buzzword-free (comparing to the plans nowadays), but maybe the buzzword back then just became common vocabulary to us. The most interesting thing on the plan to me is the staff page: specifically how non-impressive the credentials of everyone on the team is. It's fun to think that Jobs might have embellish a little there (attended Stanford part) just to look better. Even the one with most credentials (Markkula, I believe) just read like a normal upper-middle management bio nowadays. And Woz & Jobs ... well, I don't think any company nowadays would be able to raise fund if the founder s' bios look like that. Am I wrong?
- defen 12y agoWozniak's is only not impressive because they left off "invented the personal computer."
- NhanH 12y ago"Invented the personal computer" might be a bit of a stretch to me. Apple I was one of the first (popular?), but iirc it wasn't the very first one of its kind, nor the only one at the time. But even if it was the first and only of its kind. At the time, "invented the personal computer" still wouldn't be anything would be counted as "credentials", let alone "impressive credentials". Someone who has been around the block might correct me if I'm wrong, but personal computer was nowhere near influential, or well known back then as it is now.
- vlunkr 12y agoIt was the apple 2, also designed by Wozniak that really made them famous, not the first one. It was the first personal computer to hit the market that you could purchase and use without some serious technical knowledge, both is software and hardware. So he may not have technically invented the personal computer, but he built one that was actually marketable. And Apple was worth billions within the first years of their existence, so I would say it was pretty influential. Some people may not like Apple, but it's impossible to deny the massive role they played in the early days. And it really wouldn't have happened without Wozniak, he was the technical genius of the group.
- nsxwolf 12y agoWhatever that reader app they are using is... Wow does it suck on iOS Safari. I can't figure out what the heck is going on.
- caublestone 12y agoI don't think this is Apple. On page 5 it specifically calls out Apple as being part of the Hobbyist market. That right there makes this even more interesting as this thorough business plan was beat out by a company recognized as Hobbyist instead of a pc manufacturer. So who is this?
- RadioactiveMan 12y agoSlide 6 lists staff, including S Jobs and S Wozniak. That leads me to believe it is Apple, though I have no idea if they were involved in other companies.
- caublestone 12y agoI see the confusion. That is listing the staff of Apple as discussed in the Hobby Manufacturers as competitor analysis. As in, this is who our competitor is.
- sparky_z 12y agoNo, "Staff" is a top-level heading, just like "Competition". I think that mention of Apple was simply missed by whoever redacting the document. They're saying "Manufacturers like us have already started to offer assembled computers, disrupting the dominant marketshare of unassmbled kits."
- asveikau 12y agoThat's hilarious. I don't know why this is redacted but whoever did it did a terrible job, and left "Apple" in a bunch of places, such as: "Apple will provide..." or "... used to assist dealers in selling Apple products." It also has references to googleable phrases of the late 70s/early 80s such as "Apple Software Bank": http://google.com/search?q="apple+software+bank" http://google.com/search?q="apple+software+bank" (Shown as "[Redacted] Software Bank" - wonder what that blank could be?) But I admire your quest to find who the real company is.
- Retra 12y agoWhat other word do you know that starts with an up-left slanted character, has two descenders immediately following, is less than 6 mono-spaced characters long? Is it Aqqle?
- kgc 12y agoDirect download link: http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/102712693.05.01acc.pdf http://archive.computerhistory.org/resources/text/2009/10271...
- staunch 12y ago> Because of the applications development ability of the software oriented hobbyist, Apple will continue to service his needs. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers. Developers.
- mraison 12y agoInteresting to see that the "growth curve" was already a thing back then.
- zachrose 12y agoAnd that it's convex (like an ant hill) rather than concave (like a hockey stick).
- wanderingstan 12y agoNote that it has a logarithmic scale. On a linear scale it would be close to a hockey stick.
- fit2rule 12y agoIs it usable as a template for a business plan today?