Starting up in hard times
Few American companies bring to mind innovation more quickly than Apple, the inventor and purveyor of iPads, iPhones, and other devices we never knew we needed until, suddenly, we did. But it took a down market to take the company from its humble origins in desktops and laptops to its current heights in making and marketing imaginative products. When the dot-com bubble burst a decade ago, Apple lost a third of its revenue virtually overnight. Founder Steve Jobs’ recovery plan was highly risky: Rather than sticking to what it did best, the company should venture into new markets. “Their decision was that they would innovate their way through hard economic times, with the fundamental conviction that there would be a market on the other side of it for the products they would develop,” said Baba Shetty, chief strategy officer and chief media officer at the advertising firm Hill Holliday. The bet paid...