Startup lessons from Elvis and transistors

Market timing. Product market fit. The King of Rock and Roll. 

Today I’m bringing it all together for one newsletter.

This month notched a birthday of the King. Elvis Presley was born on Jan. 8, 1935. He became one of the biggest names in the world.

However, without a single technology innovation, Elvis could have been a victim to right sound, wrong time.

Without any exaggeration, the invention of the transistor made Elvis possible.

Let’s look at the incredible story behind Elvis’ impeccable timing, and then we’ll apply it to startups and how you can look for your transistor radio. 

How the transistor scaled Elvis

Elvis had talent, but his career may not have scaled to the global success it was without the help of the transistor, invented in 1947.

Actually, rock music may have never happened without the transistor. 

A transistor is a semiconductor that basically acts as a switch and an amplifier. It was a pivotal tech invention and the inventors won the Nobel Prize in 1956.

The transistor was a big deal because it could be small. It replaced bulky and unreliable vacuum tubes. This was the first step to making computers that needed less power and space to do the same functions.

The transistor also opened up potential for another category: Radios.

In May 1954, Texas Instruments pitched big name radio companies on using their transistors to build a portable radio.

RCA, Philco & Emerson all declined.

A man named Ed Tudor with a company called I.D.E.A. accepted, seeing the huge potential for small, portable radios. The group conceived the Regency TR-1 from Texas Instruments' drawings—and built it at lightning speed. The deal was struck in summer and the product launched in November.

By reducing the parts, I.D.E.A. got the price down to $49.95 ($576 today). They sold 100K units in year one.

What no one predicted was WHO would be the customer for these radios.

With fun colors, clever marketing targeted towards young people, celebrity endorsement and the possibility of listening to music without parental oversight, the Regency TR-1 was a huge hit with young people.

Teenagers could now listen to music out of earshot of their parents.

No more using the family radio—you could listen in solitude. Edgy music got traction.

In 1954, Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle & Roll" and "Rock Around the Clock" hit the charts, along with Elvis' first record.

It's forgotten now, but was recognized then that transistors made it happen. Walter Brattain, transistor co-inventor, said his only regret for inventing the transistor was that it "stimulated rock and roll."

No one benefited more from direct access to youthful ears than Elvis.

Elvis Presley did for radios what Jimmy Buffett did for margaritas—neither were the same after they made their mark.

After moving 100K units in 1955, the transistor radio industry sold 5M units by the close of 1958. 

By then, Elvis was reinventing music.

Elvis opened it up rock and roll for everyone.

Little Richard, Big Joe Turner, Wynonie Harris, Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison have one thing in common: They all rode Elvis' wake.

John Lennon said "Before Elvis, there was nothing."

Oh, so you’re still not convinced the transistor made it happen for rock n roll?

Rock and Roll Hall of Famer Roger McGuinn of The Byrds said he got a Regency TR-1 when he was 13. It changed his life:

"I had the radio for a short time before I heard Elvis,” McGuinn said. “It was a game changer for me". 

On his birthday he got a guitar. 

"It's hard to say whether or not I would have done what I do now if it hadn't been for transistor radios."

What he did was inspire the next generation of rock. The Byrds were an inspiration for many legendary rock bands of the 1970s, including Led Zeppelin. 

Rock and roll may have missed its window to be commercially viable had transistor radios not hit at just the right moment. 

If you want to learn more about the impact of transistors, the book “The Innovators” by Walter Isaacson is great—it's a thorough look at how computers (and the internet) came to be. 

For a brief history on the transistor's impact on music, check out this site (it’s ugly but has good info).

Startups always have these moments

You always hear that timing is everything for startups. It’s true. 

Nearly all startups face some element of this. There’s a saying that pioneers get slaughtered and settlers flourish. Friendster was a social networking platform launched in 2002. The founders saw the same opening Mark Zuckerberg saw with Facebook.

Friendster even had a real social graph that would update in near real time. Ultimately, this was part of what caused the platform to bog down. The entire saga is documented very well on the podcast Startup. Facebook launched in 2004 and ultimately won out.

Gas was an app that let you send compliments to friends through polls. The app wasn’t cheap at $28/month, but it tapped into teenagers' vanity. Honestly, I find a lot of how this app functioned and scaled to be fairly gross, but there is no doubt the founder, Nikita Bier read the market well. 

Nikita saw how teens were using Instagram, and created a content strategy that leaned into teens’ natural desire for belonging (or as my dad says, “teenagers just want to be different like everyone else”). Nikita tested and executed through school after school, and made $1M in just 90 days.

While I don’t admire exploiting teenagers’ adolescent awkward desire to feel liked, you can think through his strategy and likely apply elements ot what you’re doing today. 

Again, it was market timing—without Instagram, Gas app doesn’t scale. 

Find your transistor

As you’re scaling your startup, there is a small wedge that exist, ready to pry your startup into a massive market. Nikita broke it down once in an epic Twitter thread with his playbook. Ultimately, his key advice comes down to this:

Focus on reproducible testing processes

“A reproducible testing process is more valuable than any one idea. Innovate here first. All things equal, a team with more shots at bat will win against a team with an audacious vision.”

Niches are good

“If you need to launch nationwide to test your product, it's not a good test. You will prematurely exhaust your audience's attention and limit future shots.”

“If your product works in one community (like a high school), it should work in all of them. If your product fails in three communities, it should fail in all of them.”

Solve a problem

“People download apps to solve core human needs (1) finding love, (2) making or saving money, and (3) play. People rarely take time out of their day for anything else.”

Find inflection points

“Great products take off by targeting a specific life inflection point, when the urgency to solve a problem is most acute. 

Facebook ➝ Starting at a school

Linkedin ➝ Getting your 1st job

Slack ➝ Starting a company”

Read the rest of his advice here. I’ll stress again I don’t really care for the product he built, but he did a great job at understanding his transistor, and using it to scale his app to become the King (even if it was the King of teenage vanity).

If you’re not looking for inflection points that can help scale your product, you are missing the biggest opportunity for scale.

Who I’m listening to: The King

What I’m reading: “Hunting Che: How a U.S. Special Forces Team Helped Capture the World's Most Famous Revolutionary”

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