Vision Matters

Back in 2014, I was interested in developing a voice product for finding lost items. I had this idea of asking Siri, “Where are my keys?” I proceeded to talk to all the voice providers about this idea and found each one had a different view on the world.

Apple Pitch

I discussed the idea with Apple and I asked them what was their vision for Voice. I was guided that voice is a personal assistant for scheduling specific tasks. Looking at Siri, it was closed off from developers and the team was against opening up the API for custom tasks.

Google Pitch

I discussed the concept with Google and I asked them what was their vision for Voice. They responded that voice will be a personal assistant for doing anything. Google had a beta program for developers to create open tasks that you had to be invited to participate in.

Amazon Pitch

Amazon was the smallest voice player at the time with a niche speaker called Alexa. This was my 3rd choice as a partner. I discussed the concept and asked what their vision was for voice. They responded, “Ubiquitous Computing.” The computing age began with us having to travel to a server to interact with a computer. Then personal computing brought computers into our home. Then mobile computing allowed computers to travel with us. The next age of computing is where computers are seamlessly integrated into our daily lives and computation power is available to all of us at all times.

They had a full SDK that was completely customizable for developers, a hardware sdk and open source designs for companies to create their own Alexa devices, a venture fund dedicated to Alexa companies, and a full store with marketing resources for developers.

Back in 2014, it was very clear that Siri was the #1 player and Google shrotly behind at #2. I thought Alexa was a far behind player. Then I heard the vision and saw how this grand vision inspired a completely different method of executing. Attending CES this week, I saw big google billboards but the floor was covered by Alexa & Apple wasn’t mentioned once in any of my discussions.

For myself as an entrepreneur, I remember this lesson as the power of a well defined Vision for the future dramatically changes the execution for today. It may be easy to shrug off the idea of a 10 year roadmap but having one helps create a story that inspires team members, investors, customers, and an entire market to change the world.