iPod之父法德爾親口講述Nest誕生記

Tony Fadell, a former Apple AAPL -1.03% executive who went on to co-found Nest (which recently sold to Google GOOG 0.26% for $3.2 billion), has been likened to Steve Jobs and Larry Page for his innovative thinking and disruptive technology.

託尼·法德爾曾經是蘋果公司（Apple）高管，離職後與人共同創建了Nest【這家公司最近被谷歌（Google）斥資32億美元收購】。他因爲創造性的思維和顛覆性的技術被人們比作史蒂夫o喬布斯以及拉里·佩奇。

Following our recent feature story about him in the June 30, 2014 issue of Fortune magazine—as wellhis recent appearance at the Fortune Brainstorm Green conference in Laguna Nigel, Calif.—here are some of his thoughts that didn’t make the magazine story.

2014年6月30日出版的《財富》雜誌將刊登一篇關於法德爾的特寫。此外，他最近還出席了在加州拉古納尼古爾召開的《財富》綠色頭腦風暴大會（Brainstorm Green Conference）。下面是雜誌當期報道中未能收錄的一些法德爾的想法。

Fortune: Tell me your ‘Aha! moment’ in starting Nest, with its first product being a thermostat.

《財富》：你創建了Nest，開發了公司的第一款產品——恆溫器。說說你當時靈光一現的頓悟時刻吧。

Fadell: Well, first, I asked, was there a good product idea? And I thought, “Yeah, there’s a good product idea. Okay, there’s none out there. I can research everything on the web. There’s just nothing there.” So then I said, “Okay. Is it a good business? I know I can make this thing. Is it a good business?” And then I asked, “How many are being sold a year? What’s the total available market?”

法德爾：首先，我問自己，這個產品構思好不好？我的回答是：“這個產品構思很好，市場上還沒有類似產品。我在網上什麼都能查。但市場上就是沒有類似產品。然後我問：“那這項業務是否具備商業價值？我知道我能開發出產品，但這是樁好生意嗎？我接着問：“這款產品每年的銷量有多大？整個市場有多大？”

And when I started doing the research, I was like, “Wait a second. There’s a quarter of a million thermostats in the U.S. alone? Well, if there’s that, what’s the replacement rate?” And I looked and it was over 10 million a year for just residential and light commercial thermostats. I was like, “Wait a second. 10 million? That’s more than game machines! That’s more than washers, dryers, stoves, and ovens. That’s a big market.” We’re dying to find big markets, right? So what else is out there? Bicycles are about the same. Now, people might not perceive it as such. It was just like when we were doing the iPod, people were like, “There’s no money in CD players. It’s commoditized. There’s nothing there. Move on!” The number of units is stagnant, and the price drops every year. That’s the kind of market that’s usually ripe for innovation.

我研究發現，“哇，光美國就有25萬個恆溫器？那它的更新率如何？”我發現，光住宅和輕型商用恆溫器每年就要更換1000多萬隻。我當時想道：“天吶，1000萬個？這比遊戲機要多！比洗衣機、乾衣機、爐竈和烤箱都要多。這是個大市場。”我們渴望找到大市場，對吧？那麼還有哪些是大市場？自行車市場的規模與之相當。只不過人們可能不覺得這是個大市場。就好比我們當年做iPod時，很多人都說：“CD播放器市場沒錢賺。已經實現商品化了。沒戲了。去幹別的吧！”產品銷量停滯，產品價格連年下降。這種市場往往到了該創新的時候。

So you had an idea you liked. Then what?

於是你有了一個自己喜歡的想法。然後呢？

Then I looked at the competition, and I said, “Let’s look who can do what it takes to make this next-generation thermostat.” I went down all the current incumbents, and tried to look for startups that were doing it. And every time I looked, I was like, “Wait a second. If there was true innovation here, I would be seeing it.” It didn’t seem like there was any activity. And then I looked further and I learned that about 70% of thermostats were sold through wholesale. So they weren’t being designed for people to use. They were being designed for installers to install and sell as many as they possibly could. It had nothing to do about the consumer. And then I said, “Wait a second. There’s a market with an old way of thinking in terms of how the consumer learns about the product. The competition is old and hasn’t moved. And third, there’s no innovation whatsoever.”

然後我調查了一下競爭對手，我說：“我們來看看誰有實力開發出下一代恆溫器。”我研究了所有主要的恆溫器廠商，嘗試尋找正在開發新型恆溫器的初創企業。我想：“假如這個領域真的有創新，我肯定能看到。”但似乎沒有任何動靜。經過更深入的研究，我發現，大約70％的恆溫器都是通過批發銷售。因此，它們並不是在面向使用者進行設計。過去恆溫器的設計只是爲了幫助安裝者安裝和銷售儘可能多的產品。換言之，這一切跟消費者完全沒關係。於是我告訴自己：“這個市場思維僵化，消費者難以真正瞭解產品。競爭對手固步自封，不求進取。而且，這個領域沒有任何創新。”

It reminded me of when we were looking at the smartphone business. Sure, there was lots of competition, but they were being designed for the carriers to sell to the users, not what the users wanted. Then on top of that I said, “Is there a services business here?” So first, is the thermostat a good business? Then, can you supply services to the thermostat? And that’s when we get into the energy services. And I was like, “Okay. This totally reminds me of the MP3 player revolution and the smartphone revolution, where it first started with revolutionary hardware and software on the device. Then it quickly branched out to services and applications.”

這使我想起了我們當時考察智能手機業務時的情形。手機市場當時確實有很多競爭產品，但它們的設計宗旨都是幫助運營商向用戶銷售手機，而沒有考慮到用戶想要什麼。另外，我對自己說：“有沒有推出服務業務的潛力？”首先，恆溫器是否是一項好業務？其次，你能否爲恆溫器提供服務？我們就這樣進入了能源服務領域。我當時想：“這讓我想起了MP3播放器革命和智能手機革命，兩者最初都是始於設備上革命性的硬件和軟件。隨後迅速擴展到服務和應用程序。”

At Apple, you weren’t responsible for marketing, but as CEO of Nest you knew that needed to be in your toolkit, right?

你在蘋果的時候並不負責市場推廣，但作爲Nest公司的首席執行官，你知道自己必須具備市場推廣的能力，對吧？

Let’s be clear. There’s product marketing, and then there’s marketing and communications. Product marketing, yeah, I was involved in all of that. Marketing and communications is a different thing, which is taking these clear tenets and the differentiation and all these other pieces and then turning them into marketing and messaging and pushing them out through the various print, digital outlets.

我想明確一點。產品營銷同市場營銷與溝通是兩碼事。產品營銷我全部參與了。但市場營銷與溝通則不同，它在於將明確的原則、差異等等轉化成營銷和消息，同時將它們通過衆多紙媒和數字媒體發佈出去。

I would work very closely with product marketing, but again, product marketing didn’t know what could be created. So what I would try to do is be the linchpin between what the consumer wanted and what engineering could build, and always trying to stitch that together, trying to understand what the marketing differentiation would be, understanding what the ease-of-use would be or the consumer delight would be, as well as what could actually get done and done at a certain price point. Typically product marketing specs something and throws it over the wall to engineering. Engineering says, “I can’t.” And they redact it or take things out of it, put it back to product marketing, and product marketing says, “That’s all we could get.” I tried to take the fine line between the two to push marketing, saying, “No, we can do a little bit more here on the marketing side. Let’s get bold.” And to engineering, I’d say, “Let’s get bold. But let’s not get too bold that we’ve added so much risk to the project that it may never ship.”

我會同產品營銷部門密切合作，但產品營銷並不知道能開發出什麼。因此，我嘗試當消費者想要的產品和工程師能夠開發的產品這兩者之間的橋樑，一直在嘗試把這兩者結合起來，嘗試瞭解在市場營銷過程中把什麼差異作爲賣點，瞭解怎樣的產品會讓消費者覺得簡單易用，或者說能給他們帶來愉悅體的驗，以及在一定的價位上，能大規模生產出什麼樣的產品。通常，產品營銷部門提出方案，然後就扔給工程設計人員。工程設計人員說：“這不現實。”於是對方案進行修改或刪減，然後返給產品營銷部門。產品營銷部門只好說：“我們只能做出這個來。”我試圖在兩者之間找到中間路線。我想讓營銷部門說：“不，我們營銷這邊可以多做一點。我們膽子可以再大一點。”而對工程設計人員，我想說：“我們膽子還可以放大一點。但別太過火，別給項目增加太多風險，結果根本搞不成。”