13 SECRETS FOR THEIR SUCCESS
Posted by: Brian Webb | Thursday, October 4th, 2007 | 10:28 PM
HighScalability.com offers some secrets to Amazon’s amazing success based on interviews and writings of early employees. You might not be running an online ecommerce business, but many of these principles apply to virtually any business. Listed below are just 13 of their responses. I hope you find this post interesting and beneficial to your business.
1. Teams are small. They are assigned authority and empowered to solve a problem as a service in anyway they see fit.
2. They work from the customer backward. Focus on value you want to deliver to the customer.
3. Force developers to focus on value delivered to the customer instead of building technology first… and then figuring how to use it.
4. Start with a press release of what features the user will see and work backwards to check that you are building something valuable.
5. There’s bound to be problems with anything that produces hype before real implementation.
6. Getting rid of the influence of the HiPPO’s, the “Highest Paid People in the Office.” This is done with techniques like A/B testing and Web Analytics. If you have a question about what you should do… code it up, let people use it, and see which alternative gives you the results you want.
7. Create a frugal culture. Amazon used doors for desks.
8. People’s side projects, the one’s they follow because they are interested, are often ones where you get the most value and innovation. Never underestimate the power of wandering where you are most interested.
9. Have a way to rollback if an update doesn’t work. Write the tools if necessary.
10. Look for three things in interviews: enthusiasm, creativity, competence. The single biggest predictor of success at Amazon.com was enthusiasm.
11. Innovation can only come from the bottom. Those closest to the problem are in the best position to solve it. any organization that depends on innovation must embrace chaos. Loyalty and obedience are not your tools.
12. Everyone must be able to experiment, learn, and iterate. Position, obedience, and tradition should hold no power. For innovation to flourish, measurement must rule.
13. Embrace innovation. In front of the whole company, Jeff Bezos would give an old Nike shoe as a “Just do it” award to those who innovated.
Please feel free to share your comments. I’m always thrilled to know if I’ve helped you, your business or organization in any way. - Brian
