Free · Three pages · Fifteen minutes and a pen

The Product
Review

Four questions Steve Jobs' SVP asks about any product.

Jay Elliot built the Macintosh alongside Steve Jobs — five to fifteen hours a day, nearly every day, for six years. And long after he left Apple, Steve kept calling him back for a read on things. These are the questions he actually asks when he looks at a product and decides whether it's any good. They have never been written down in one place until now.

What's inside

Four questions. Ruled lines under every one.

It isn't an article about product thinking. It's a worksheet you fill in with a pen, and you'll know more about your own product at the end of it than you did at the start.

1. 01

   See It

   What are you creating, and who is your user — not your customer. Most founders stall on question three.

2. 02

   The Packaging Test

   Markkula's rule at Apple was impute. Find the place where your presentation contradicts your promise.

3. 03

   Ten, Then Three

   Steve asked for ten things, then crossed out seven. Ten ruled lines to do it yourself.

4. 04

   The Sentence

   "1,000 songs in your pocket" came after the iPod. Write yours last — here's the template.

Works the same on software, a service, a physical product, or a YouTube channel. The questions don't change.

Who is asking

Not a biographer. The other half of the room.

• The title undersells it. His book is called Leading Apple With Steve Jobs — with. Not under, not for. Steve drove the vision, the obsession with simplicity, the “make it smaller.” Jay was the one who made it possible — when the engineers said a thing couldn’t be done, he was the one who sat with them until it could. They unblocked each other. That partnership is what got the Macintosh out the door.
• Senior Vice President of Apple Computer, responsible for all corporate operations. During his tenure, Apple’s sales grew from $150 million to more than $3 billion.
• It didn’t end when he left. Through the Pixar years and after Steve returned to Apple in 1997, Steve kept bringing him back for his read on products — and paid him for it.
• Before Apple: IBM, then Intel — director of California operations, reporting to Andy Grove and Gordon Moore.
• Still building. Mid-build on a new product right now. Not a museum piece.