Jobs' rise presents lessons, warnings for Xiaomi

Chinese start-up Xiaomi, which has soared to fame on the back of its popular low-cost, high-performance smartphones, has titillated Chinese consumers once again with rumors that it is testing a new Internet TV product. The company owes its success as much to its savvy marketing campaigns as to its actual products, and clearly this latest gossip is part of a buzz-making apparatus that has quickly become the specialty of its co-founder Lei Jun.

Many believe that Lei wants to build his company into a Chinese version of global tech powerhouse Apple. But Jobs' meteoric rise was anything but smooth, and Lei himself will need to move carefully with this latest initiative to avoid repeating some of Apple's early mistakes.

Chinese headlines were buzzing last week with word that Xiaomi was entering Internet TV with the development of a set-top box. The product would allow users to watch Internet-based movies, TV shows and other video on their TVs rather than at their computers, and would draw on content from China's huge array of video streaming sites like Youku Tudou and Xunlei. In keeping with Xiaomi's strategy of developing high-performance products that sell for mid-range prices, the boxes would reportedly sell for a modest 300 yuan ($47.96) each.

The reports on Xiaomi's latest plans cited anonymous sources, copying a similar tactic from Apple's playbook to generate buzz ahead of upcoming product launches. Apple keeps its new product plans veiled in strict secrecy until just before their release, and uses a system of strategic leaks to generate excitement for those products beforehand.

Xiaomi has also used a similar product development strategy to Apple's for its smartphones, which have been the company's core product since its founding in 2010. Rather than develop a large number of models to target different users, Xiaomi develops only a single smartphone at a time. That looks very similar to Apple's strategy of developing a single iPhone for each of its new generation of smartphones, including its recent iPhone 5.

Lei's penchant for marketing and product development seem like an attempt to mimic Apple's huge success that has made the company the world's most valuable tech company.

But Lei should also look at Apple's longer history, which included a prolonged period of stagnation after early missteps by Jobs that led to his eviction from the company in 1985 before his later return in 1997. Lei's early success in smartphones was due in part to the fact that much of the technology he used was quite mature and thus already in the market.

But with Internet TV he will face a much bigger challenge of developing a product where no companies have succeeded before in attracting a mass market. Xiaomi could still succeed in this area if it can make a well-designed, user-friendly product. But Lei's hubris could also be his biggest liability, perhaps leading the company down a road to stagnation like the one followed by Jobs in Apple's difficult years.