The Original Macintosh Had Bad Sales:

During the planning for the release of Macintosh, the marketing costs needed to be factored into the price according to then CEO John Scully. Scully said $1,999 price was too low because the marketing budget required to spend more in order to sell Apple to the masses. As a result, they set the price to $2,499 for the Macintosh. Steve Jobs argues that this price was the reason that the Macintosh did not sell well in 1984. After the 2^nd quarter of 1984, Macintosh started to slump in sales. It was slow, dazzling but not powerful enough. In addition, Macintosh had only 2 applications so there was a major software development gap. It was beautiful but Macintosh used a lot of memory. Lisa functioned on 1000K of Ram. Macintosh had 128K of Ram. There was lack of an internal hard-disk drive.

Jobs wanted to have a floppy disk drive. Macintosh did not have a fan so it over heated easily. When people became aware of flaws, reality hit. By the end of 1984, Jobs made a strange decision, he took unsold Lisa’s grafted on a Macintosh emulation program, and sold them as a new product. Jobs was producing something that wasn’t real, it sold well, and then it had to be discontinued within the company once the extra LISA’s were sold.

The distribution system did not respond to demand effectively, and there was an inventory backlog which was unintended by Apple Inc. Macintosh very simply did not sell well enough for the production level of building a copy of the computer every 23 seconds. This would later help Jobs realise that a Just-In-Time inventory strategy would be better suited. This was Dell computer’s competitive advantage.

On balance, Jobs’ marketing from 77 to 85 was brilliant but there were some patchy points. Not everything that Apple did on a marketing level had been genius under Jobs’ influence in the 1977-1985 era. We always talk about the 1984 commercial but check out the worst Apple ad ever from 1985 which reads: “you corporate hacks are buying IBM computers without really thinking.”

This is an analysis based on Steve Jobs by Walter Isaacson and other sources of research. Enjoy.

More from Steve Job’s Life	by Walter Isaacson
Location Really Does Matter for Entrepeurship	Childhood Shapes Your Thinking
Go Get What You Want, If You Have the Courage	Education Is For Conformists
Assume That You Will Die Young	Go To India
Pranking People Requires Creative Thinking	Starting A Company Is Very Difficult
Meet a Brilliant & Nobel Engineer	Meetups Bring Insanely Great Ideas Together
Knowing What You Wanted to Do	Exclude Relevant Information Where Necessary
Have Discipline Over Body and Mind	Picking A Name is as Simple As Picking Apples
Crime Does Pay!!??	Sharing Ideas Is Fine Up To A Point
Most Good Ideas Have to Be Force Down Peoples Throats	Xerox Parc
Run Your Company Our Of Your Parents House	Mike Markkula’s Marketing Theory Is Built Around Three Areas
MacKenna’s Advertising Style Worked	Don’t Worry About A Business Plan Until You Need Investment in a Serious Venture
Create A Simple Product For Households	Your Product Needs to be a Full Simple Package
Jobs’ Management Style Was “Shit” from ’77 to ’85	A Startup Will Become Impersonal With Success
Apple III was a bastard child	Being Abandoned = Ignoring Reality
Good Artists Borrow, Great Artists Steal	Surround Yourself With “A Players”
Reality Distortion Field	Be At The Nexus of Humanities and Technology
Believe In A Closed System & Product Control	Market Research Is For Idiots
Motivate With The Big Picture	Unhealthy Competition Within A Company Can be Corrosive
The Best & Most Innovative Products Don’t Always Win	Eras Are Defined by Partnerships & Rivalry – Gates Versus Jobs Round 1
Genius Versus Shit-Head	The Boardroom Showdown & Emotionality
Advertising Does Matter	A Messy Company Can Still Work
A Clean Factory Is Insanely Great But The Product Has To Sell	Being Right Isn’t As Important As Winning
Imperfection Is A Moral Wrong	Bringing In An Outside Expert Can Be Costly
The Original Macintosh Had Bad Sales	Fall From Grace Through Management Incompetence
Finding Similarities Between Yourself & Your Business Partner May Not Be Good	Eras Are Defined By Partnerships & Rivalry – Gates Versus Jobs Round 2
Force An Ultimatum To Get Control of a Company	Never Tell The Allies of Your Opposition That You’re Planning a Coup
Brilliant Failures Help You Grow	Design Should Not Trump Processing
Do Not Disrespect Your Potential Business Partners	Get Real On Your Lean Startup
Get A VC Who Missed Out On A Previous Winning Opportunity	Avoid The Problem of Focusing on the Small
Gain Financial Control Against Your Business Partners	Rivalry of the Ants & Breaking With Disney
Build A Board That Cannot Operate Independently of the CEO	Do Not Chase Profits, Chase Value
Do Not Force Other Businesses Into Your Closed System	How To Save A Dying Tech Company – Fire the Board Or Resign
Merge Your Venture With A Giant That You Can Take Over	Targeting the Education Market Is Not Lucrative
How to Save Dying Tech Company – Return To Your Successful Roots	How to Save a Dying Tech Company – Make Products Not Profit, Fundamentally
Skate Where the Puck’s Going, Not Where It’s Been	The Loser Now Will Be Soon To Win
The Internet Is Made For Music	Brand Yourself Differently
Don’t Be Afraid to Cannibalize	Create Complimentary Product Offerings Without a Lead Loss Generator
Focus On What People Really Want…1,000 Songs	Google’s “Don’t Be Evil Mantra” is Bullshit
Get Yourself Into the Cloud & A Castle	Don’t Fear Change In Industry, Anticipate It
Create An Inventory Management System & Build a Store That Works	Converge Old Devices Into 1 New Device
Do Not Ignore Medical Diagnoses	Make Peace With Your Old Enemies