What does it take to build the world’s largest e-commerce store and amass more than $83 billion in personal wealth?
Ask Jeff Bezos. He is the founder and CEO of Amazon.com. But he almost wasn’t. Let’s revisit Bezos’ story together and try to learn life’s lessons from it.
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To act
It is only through deliberate action that we can bend the universe as we wish.
But there is also a common misconception about action: knowing what the right action is before doing anything. This way of thinking leads to “analysis paralysis” and therefore to passivity.
Bezos is not going to fall into this trap. Although he is well aware that taking the wrong measure will lead to negative consequences, he does not mind:
“If you decide to do what you know is going to work, you’re going to leave a lot of opportunities on the table.” ,
In 1994, Jeff Bezos was faced with the most important decision of his life: whether he should quit his job as a well-paid hedge fund manager or stay warm to start an online bookstore in New York City. ? He decides to drive across the country and buy an Amazon.com domain name.
As Amazon has grown, Bezos has encouraged his employees to pledge to action. Sometimes this results in a stroke of genius (development of one-click purchases). The second time around it ended in disappointing failure (an evolution of Amazon Auctions, which could not compete with eBay).
Bezos doesn’t care and cites “action bias” as one of Amazon’s six core values.
minimize regrets
When Bezos wondered whether he should quit his job and start Amazon.com, he realized he lacked an analytical framework for making big life decisions. So he invented one:
“The framework I found that made the decision incredibly easy was what I called the ‘regret-reducing framework.’ So I wanted to project myself around age 80 and say, “Okay, Now I am looking at my life. I want to have as few regrets as possible. ,
He won’t regret losing his job at the age of 80 (surely he would have found another one), but he will still regret not trying to cash in on the online gold rush. (at that time the internet was growing at the rate of 2300% per year).
“I knew I wouldn’t regret it if I failed, but I knew the only thing I could regret was not trying.”
Try Bezos’s “Regret Minimization Framework”. You might be surprised how much this motivates you to take action.
move slowly
How long does it take for a startup to become profitable? six months? one year?
For Jeff Bezos and Amazon.com, it took more than six years. Even so, the company made a profit of only $5 million with revenues in excess of $1 billion.
That might sound like a long time (with very thin margins), but it all went according to Bezos’ unusually slow plan. He was in no hurry to make a profit as he wanted to keep the prices low while reinvesting as much of the proceeds into his business.
This strategy disappointed short-term investors, but it paid off when Amazon.com survived the bursting of the bubble and began posting higher profits quarter over quarter.
encourage word of mouth
When Bezos started Amazon, he didn’t have a marketing budget. The only way for his business to succeed was to be good enough to spread through word of mouth.
“If you create a great experience, customers talk to each other about it. Word of mouth is very powerful.”
There is no better way to start a business than with positive word of mouth. The only way to do this is to offer a product or service that is worth talking about. This also means that you have to provide excellent customer service…
Customer, customer, customer.
Everyone knows that the customer is always right. But Bezos and Amazon have taken the customer-first philosophy to the extreme. For him, customer satisfaction is not “one” priority, it is the only one. Foundations of its business model:
“The most important thing is to focus only on the customer. Our goal is to be the most customer focused company in the world. ,
Customer experience has never been more important than online. Word of mouth spreads fast on social media and your competition is always a click away. If you want your brand to flourish online, focus on customer satisfaction.
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work backwards
How to develop a product while being sure of its success?
All you have to do is find out what your customers really want and need. Offer it to them and you’ll have no trouble selling.
It’s a strategy that Amazon has implemented many times, especially with the Kindle. Bezos explains:
“There are two ways to grow a business. Take stock of what you can do and develop your skills. Or find out what your customers need and work backwards, even if it requires learning new skills.” Ho. “.
In 2006, Amazon was an online retailer, not a manufacturer of electronics. But Bezos understood that Amazon needed a way for consumers to read the e-books they bought on his site. So they worked backwards to meet this need.
When Amazon released the first generation Kindle in November 2007, it sold out in six hours (and was out of stock for five months). To date, the Kindle remains the leader in the e-reader category.
Here are some simple tips to implement, may they lead you to the same success they’ve been given to us!
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