Interview with a Mac: Kevin Cullis
Author: How to Start a Business: Mac Version
Website: MacGetit.com
by Lena Ludwig Lapper at ION FreshStart
I recently had a conversation with Kevin Cullis, author of ‘How to Start a Business: Mac Version.’ Although the call was initiated at 6:15 am Mountain Time, you would have never known. He was quite alert and enthusiastic about discussing Apple products and Entrepreneurs, and I have a feeling that even at 2:30 am, the discussion would have had the same energy and focus.
‘How to Start a Business: Mac Version’ is for anyone wanting to start a business using a Mac. The book never under-estimates nor over-estimates the reader’s level and has instructions for advanced, intermediate and beginning entrepreneurs. Not only is this a book that covers literally everything, but it refreshingly allows you to befriend the author, as he dispenses knowledge from his own personal experience. To get to know Kevin a little better, read on.
ION FreshStart: Tell us about your business.
Kevin Cullis: While my book started before I worked at Apple, my business “started” during my employment at Apple, as a Business Partner, selling Macs to businesses. Previously I had worked selling both PCs and Mac to businesses and came up with my idea for my book. I have taken my experience and applied it to a target market that I was seeing that was being underserved. I researched my target market while I was working at a computer reseller and Apple, asking them questions about their needs and then took the plunge in 2008.
ION: When did you decide to start a business and why?
KC: Around 2007-2008 I saw that businesses using Macs were not getting their needs met. I had started writing my book in 2004 covering Windows, Mac, and Linux for startup businesses, but when I went to work for Apple and my original idea was still good, I changed and narrowed down my book’s content to focus on just Mac content. Then in 2008 during some research about businesses I felt that I needed to expand my reach of my book. Enter in college and high school students and my wife, who is a realtor. Currently Macs are taking a bigger slice of the computer pie in education and I thought, just maybe, these kids might like to take their energy and work for themselves instead of “the man.” So I cut my 130,000 word book down to 77,000 and rewrote it to fit my new found audience. The third time is a charm. I also added the “wife test” to my book equation. Would my wife read 130,000 words about a Mac? No, neither would students. So cutting the number of words made me be more concise for startups and people considering a startup. In 2008 I parted company with Apple and I have not looked back nor regretted anything since. I’m following my talent and the market needs.
ION: In your opinion, how does a Mac support your business in ways a PC cannot?
KC: As much as I could say that a PC cannot support my business, a more appropriate focus is that a PC can do most anything a Mac can, but a Mac just does things better. As an old manager told me once, “Never tell me something CAN’T be done, just tell me how much time and money it will take.” But here is your answer: A Mac is cheaper in the long run and more enjoyable to work with for nearly all startups compared with Windows. This support is crucial in cost factors in a business. The biggest business negative cost factor is downtime between a PC and a Mac. There are too many issues to cover, but here’s an article written by a business owner who gets it:
http://opensurge.blogspot.com/2010/08/in-mac-vs-pc-cost-comparison-downtime.html
And any downtime or slow time is a cost to a business and is a poor ROI for a business. Only in very narrow business niches, maybe something like anthropology or some other industry, where Microsoft technologies are so well engrained that a Mac might have difficulty fitting into a business. Since startups begin with a clean slate there is no better time to start using a Mac in business when you’re starting a new company. With all of the iLife apps that come free with each Mac and the purchase of iWork, it is a no brainer to helping a startup being productive out the of the startup gate. Time is money, and saving time over a Windows user means you make more money and can compete better in the market place against a Windows competitor. I was able to write and produce my book in iWork Pages ($79) versus Adobe InDesign ($700). That savings in both time in learning and using the complex InDesign and the cost of the software are both costs I did not need as a startup, nor did my customers care if I used InDesign. If a cheaper product can produce what the customer wants, I make more money. It’s a business decision between me and my customers, we were BOTH happy about my book’s outcome.
ION: In my consulting business, I have clients that use PCs and want everything in Word or Excel. Fortunately, a Mac accommodates that. But I feel that using Word, instead of Pages, is a huge compromise. What are your thoughts?
KC: The difference is whether one is collaborating or sharing information with others using their Mac. Collaboration using Word or Excel in the sense of handing a Word document to someone who’ll edit it and send it back and collaborating on how the final document looks is important, the emphasis here is the collaboration, not the final output. If you’re only sharing this information, i.e. they just want to see it and make comments, then sending a PDF is the best way. The tipping point between using iWork or MS Office is how much and how critical it is for you to collaborate seamlessly with others? At Apple I had a CEO of a company continue to use the Windows version of Office (using VMWare’s Fusion) until he was satisfied that the Mac version of Office worked. After 6 months he finally ditched Windows and used the Mac version of Office. I use iWork exclusively, it just is so much easier to work with than using MS Office. But as a business owner, the job determines the tool. You wouldn’t use a shovel when a backhoe is needed, would you? As my grandfather always told me, “Pay enough to get the job done.”
ION: How do you really feel about running Windows on a Mac? 
KC: Ugh, mostly. But as a business owner my business comes first and there are times, rarely though, that the business case of using Windows is imperative and I’d use Windows for that need, but with lots of grumbling, for sure. Most writers use MS Word to write and edit their work, I wanted to see if iWork Pages could do the job of creating my book, so while I was writing my book I carefully examined its capability to be able to produce my final output. Once I found out that Pages could do leading (line spacing in font points) I did not look back in using Pages to write my book. Understand, it was not critical that I use Pages to produce my book, but testing whether the final output was good enough to pass most book professional’s scrutiny, please my customers with the information it contained, and to still be the trail blazer that I am was high on my list of accomplishments. When a professional editor was shocked that I produced my book on a $79 iWork office suite she was flabbergasted. I was pleased as punch.
ION: You and I met on Twitter. Social media is obviously helping everyone to connect, but do you think it is helping the Mac user in particular?
KC: Social media is not going away, the question still remains though: How much will it become important to businesses? Only time will tell as businesses figure out how to use it in their business. Just as I mentioned above, there needs to be the ROI of social media, how much will I make money with the time I invest in this new way of doing business.
ION: In your book ‘How To Start A Business: Mac Version’ you explain the steps in starting a business using a Mac (plus so much more). You mention that you can save money using a Mac, which I firmly believe is the case too. Most PC users that I meet think that Macs are too expensive. Can you elaborate on how a Mac can save your business money?
KC: There are four aspects of owning a computer, whether a PC or Mac: hardware, software, installation and configuration, and the three years of using it. That’s called the Total Cost of Ownership. Most PC users, including most business owners, only see the initial cost of purchasing the hardware. So, from buying hardware, PCs are less expensive than Macs. But add in the three other areas and the PC cost EXCEEDS the cost of the Mac. Just take an informal survey of PC users that have switched to Mac and the adage stays true, “Once you go Mac you’ll never go back.” Their “happy moment” is the absence or significant reduction in computer frustrations and being more productive. Well, I take that back, I know of six, yes only six, PC users that have gone from PC to Mac and back to a PC. But 98% are forever Mac users and never look back. My wife was a PC user until I showed her how a Mac could help her with her real estate business. After getting her her first Mac after a few months I said, “Honey, I’ll take that Mac off of your hands and get you that PC that you were looking at for your business.” At the time I had been married for 18 years and I had never heard the word D-I-V-O-R-C-E before that time.
ION: You and I are lucky, we know our target market: “Entrepreneurial Mac Users.” How important is defining a target market?
KC: It’s vitally important, but in any startup you need to keep your eyes and ears open to potential customers that you may not have aware of in your past discussions, just like me seeing the potential of the education market of Mac customers. But even with the “Entrepreneurial Mac user” does not encompass the PC entrepreneur switcher, so you need to ensure that your defined market does not close off potential customers needlessly. The key point here: It’s about you serving your customers, not about you.
ION: There are so many things to consider when starting a new business, and your book does an excellent job in breaking it all down and making it clear. What are your top 5 most important things to consider before starting a business?
KC: 1. You have to know your WHY you want to do this? If you’re doing this to “get rich” you’re doing it for the wrong reasons, and there can be both positive and negative reasons for getting into business. Just ensure that they’re the right reasons. Once you know the WHY, that overarching purpose, your internal drive and passion, everything else can fall into place.
2. What is your WHAT? What are you trying to solve or provide with your business?
3. There are two things about your business: The craft of your business (your idea) AND the business of your craft (of making more than a living at your craft). I just sold a book to a lawyer. A lawyer learned about law, but not how to run a law office. Same with doctors learning medicine and not how to run a doctor’s office. Same goes for graphic artists, authors, programmers, and just about everyone else. Nearly all educational institutions miss out on the second part of this equation, the business of your craft.
4. Focus mostly on your customers, but keep your competition in your periphery. If you focus only on your competitors and not your customers you’re customers will watch your competition, too, and you’ll lose.
5. NEVER consider anything you’re doing a failure! Consider it testing until you find success, that includes both your personal and business part of your lives. They go hand in hand. This also means to have a life that is beyond your business. You can lose a business, but you’ll still be around and can begin again. Lose your life, and both stop there. Thomas Edison was asked years after inventing the light bulb what would he be doing if he had not invented it? He said, “I’d be in my laboratory right now figuring it out!” Notice that he had over 10,000 individual experiments to invent a light bulb, not doing one experiment and doing it 10,000 times.
ION: For business owners using a Mac, what is the most exciting prospect for the future?
KC: Apple will never stop innovating. But as Benjamin Franklin, a very rich business person, once said, “If passion drives you, let reason hold the reins.” More and more businesses are using Macs to start businesses, especially startups. And since business users are using Macs, developers will follow suit and design more solutions. So we can only see a bright future for business owners using Macs.
For more about Kevin Cullis, his book and his business, visit www.MacGetIt.com
Thanks Kevin!
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