12 business lessons from Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos. Part 2
Transferred to Alconost . Part 1 - habrahabr.ru/company/alconost/blog/170201
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Bezos says: “Usually at a corporate meeting, someone alone comes forward and presents to the general attention ... something like a slide show. From our point of view ... this way you get very little information, instead you get only theses. This makes it easier for the person who makes the presentation, but it complicates understanding for those who listen to it. Therefore, instead of this, at all of our meetings we consider a document prepared in advance — a six-page narrative note. And so, when you have to write out your ideas in the form of complete sentences and full paragraphs, it makes you think clearer and clearer. ”
')
As soon as you start writing, you will notice amazing things happening. Your brain will produce ideas faster than your fingers will be able to type them. You will be at your best. This is a delightful and disturbing experience when you try to write down everything that comes to your mind so that you don’t forget anything.
Creating a slide show does not give such an effect. And even if this effect arose, you would still have to think through only the main theses. While writing a 6-page document makes the author ponder everything, and reading and discussing it allows the audience to go into all the ideas of the author.
"The focus on the consumer makes the company more sustainable."
Jeff bezos
Amazon has a general principle: " Work from the consumer ".
Bezos has repeatedly said that you first need to focus on the needs of the consumer - and work, building on them. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he said: “We do not care about competitors, we are concerned about the needs of consumers. We start with them - and we work on the basis of them. ”
When you act in this way, you start with the consumer, his needs and problems. Usually, companies do exactly the opposite: they come up with ideas, create a product and then watch if consumers like it.
Bezos is firmly convinced that what is best for the consumer turns out to be the best for business. At re: Invent in 2012, he said: “If we can arrange everything so that our interests match the interests of our consumers, then both consumers and Amazon will benefit in the long run.”
Here are some examples of how Amazon works from the consumer, sometimes putting consumer interests above the company's short-term profit.
Amazon noticed that some users accidentally order the same products that they have already purchased. Therefore, it was decided to help them: place the corresponding warning on the pages of those products that the user has already ordered.
Amazon’s calculations showed that it reduced sales, but the company believed that it would increase customer loyalty.
Of course, it is impossible to say whether this will lead to increased loyalty years later. But Bezos says: “You have to rely on your opinion. In such cases, we say: “Let's be easier. We know that consumers will benefit from it - so let's do it. ”
In another classic example of how Amazon puts users' interests above quick profits, Bezos decided to allow competitors to advertise their prices on Amazon.
It seems insane, right? Allow competitors to advertise their prices on your site! Bezos did this because he thought it would be better for consumers. He says: “The decision caused controversy within the company. There were a lot of worries about this. ”
He decided that it was better to give consumers a choice. This principle is still valid on Amazon.
Pay attention to user reviews on product pages. This is another case where we can assume that Amazon would prefer to remove negative reviews about products so that they do not force consumers to abandon their purchases. But Bezos decided that the reviews were useful for consumers: “When we first introduced consumer reviews , this caused a serious rejection. I received letters from publishers who informed me: “You do not understand your business. You make money selling things. Take away these negative consumer reviews. ” We have never launched anything that doesn’t cause controversy at first. But if you want to be first, you need to get used to misunderstanding. ”
Over the years, Amazon has collected so many consumer reviews that it has become a resource where people are looking for detailed and reliable information about products. I myself always go there for product reviews (except for movies and music). The fact that Bezos took the side of consumers benefited his business. The story of how he ignored the publishers (who claimed that he does not know what he is doing) is one of my favorite stories about him. Consumers before publishers - that's her lesson.
Despite the high rate of technological change, Bezos and in them is seeking benefits for consumers.
In an interview with Fast Company in August 2004, Bezos said: “There is an element of fiction in our business. The original components of our business - things like processor power, channel bandwidth, disk space - are getting cheaper twice every 12-18 months. Disk space today is 30 times cheaper than five years ago. Thirty times! So the following questions come to the fore: “What to do with a 30-fold increased disk space, a 20-fold increased computing power and bandwidth of a channel that has become 30 times wider? Okay: how to make consumers like it? "As it turned out, there are no simple answers to these questions."
It turned out that Amazon Web Services (AWS) became one of the answers to these questions, and this answer turned out to be incredibly successful .
From the speech of Bezos at the re: Invent conference in 2012:
“I am often asked what changes will occur in the next decade. This is a very interesting question, but very ordinary. I almost never get asked what will remain the same in the next 10 years. And I assure you: the second question is actually much more important, since you can only build a business strategy around what is stable over time ... We at retail know that consumers want low prices, and I know that over the next decade there is nothing will not change. Consumers want fast delivery and a wide selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future in which in 10 years the consumer will come and say, “Jeff, I really like Amazon, but I would like prices to be a little higher” or “I love Amazon, but you'd better deliver goods a little slower.” It is impossible to imagine this. So we invest our energy and efforts, knowing that it will continue to benefit our customers in 10 years. When you have something that will work in the long run, you can allow yourself to invest a lot of energy in it.
The awesome ideas for AWS were quite simple. I also can not imagine that someone came up to me in 10 years and said: “I like AWS, just make it a little less reliable,” or “AWS suits me, but still raise prices a little”, or “ I love AWS and would like you to slow down a bit with innovations and API improvements. ” This is impossible to imagine.
So, big business ideas are often very obvious, but it’s very difficult to maintain a constant vision of these ideas. If you succeed and you are able to support the work of this flywheel, invest your energy, as we do with AWS, over time your services will become better for consumers due to what is really important for them.
So what remains so important for your users in 10 years? Listen to Bezos’s advice: work on it daily and it will pay off. Amazon is always working on lowering prices, speeding up delivery (and introducing delivery on the day of the order). And for sure they add new products every day.
Netflix focused on streaming data, because this is the future. Therefore, they are working on improving the reliability of streams, expanding the selection and improving content. They know that all this users want. Google knows that their customers will also want accurate search results and immediate answers. At Verizon Wireless - that users will still need more coverage, high speeds and greater reliability.
No one will tell a Verizon Wireless employee: “I wish my phone couldn’t find a network here,” or “I want to get a slower Internet connection from my smartphone,” or “More problems with your network.” No consumer will say that seriously. So every day Verizon makes an effort to improve its services.
What would your consumers tell you? Where do you invest energy? Are these things that will remain important to users in 10 years? If not, start working on something that will not lose relevance in the coming decade. Then say thanks to Jeff Bezos.
What do you always hear about entrepreneurs? What they love is risk. What he feeds and invigorates them.
According to Bezos, the best entrepreneurs do not like to take risks: they identify and eliminate the risk in the early stages.
He says: “Good entrepreneurs take no risks; they are looking for a way to reduce risk ... Creating your company is a risky business, after which you need to systematically eliminate risk step by step, from the very beginning ... you need to systematically determine risk. When the company grows up and stronger, you can take risks again, but at the initial stage the main question should be: “So, there is a good idea; how to reduce the risk? "
What is the worst thing to live? Regret, guilt, sorrow? When Bezos was thinking about creating an Amazon, he had to decide: to start his own business or keep up the good work on Wall Street. Then he came up with a decision-making system, which he called the System of minimizing regrets. This helped him realize that he did not want to give up the idea of ​​starting a business and regret it later. Fear of regret and became one of the key reasons that prompted him to create Amazon.
Speaking at the re: Invent conference in 2012, Bezos gave some direct advice to all entrepreneurs:
1) “Never follow the fashion ... you need to position yourself and wait for the waves. To do this, refer to what you are not indifferent to. This is the number one advice that I would give to anyone who wants to start a business or launch a new project within a large company. Make sure that it really interests you. Missionaries create better products ... I always prefer a missionary to an ordinary mercenary. The latter want to use the company for enrichment, and the missionaries seek to create an excellent product or service. And, paradoxically, as a result, missionaries still earn money ... So do what your soul is for. ”
2) “Start with the needs of the consumer and build on them. These two things - dedication and customer focus - will ensure you have a long life in business. ”
What I admire most about Jeff is that he is still relatively young (he is 49), so most likely there will be many more lessons from him in the future. What will be his legacy? He himself wants it to be “the oldest man in the world.”
Perhaps his legacy will be Amazon, but there are plenty of other probabilities. Affordable and safe space travel with Blue Origin? Will people in 2080 thank Bezos for the opportunity to travel to space?
10,000 year old hours? In 5000, people will look at them (the clock will be located inside the mountain in Texas) and know that Jeff Bezos has helped build it. Along with Amazon, space travel and numerous entrepreneurs who have been able to create their dream products thanks to Bezos and the availability of AWS.
Or maybe it will be something even more ambitious, as yet no one knows (remember that he thinks for many years to come and is very secretive).
Whatever people end up remembering about Bezos, today there are a lot of things that you can learn from him.
About the translator
The article is translated in Alconost.
Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.
We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.
Read more: https://alconost.com
7. Present and discuss documents, not slideshows.
In an interview with Charlie Rose, Bezos says: “Usually at a corporate meeting, someone alone comes forward and presents to the general attention ... something like a slide show. From our point of view ... this way you get very little information, instead you get only theses. This makes it easier for the person who makes the presentation, but it complicates understanding for those who listen to it. Therefore, instead of this, at all of our meetings we consider a document prepared in advance — a six-page narrative note. And so, when you have to write out your ideas in the form of complete sentences and full paragraphs, it makes you think clearer and clearer. ”
')
As soon as you start writing, you will notice amazing things happening. Your brain will produce ideas faster than your fingers will be able to type them. You will be at your best. This is a delightful and disturbing experience when you try to write down everything that comes to your mind so that you don’t forget anything.
Creating a slide show does not give such an effect. And even if this effect arose, you would still have to think through only the main theses. While writing a 6-page document makes the author ponder everything, and reading and discussing it allows the audience to go into all the ideas of the author.
8. Take care of consumers.
"The focus on the consumer makes the company more sustainable."
Jeff bezos
Amazon has a general principle: " Work from the consumer ".
Bezos has repeatedly said that you first need to focus on the needs of the consumer - and work, building on them. In an interview with Charlie Rose, he said: “We do not care about competitors, we are concerned about the needs of consumers. We start with them - and we work on the basis of them. ”
When you act in this way, you start with the consumer, his needs and problems. Usually, companies do exactly the opposite: they come up with ideas, create a product and then watch if consumers like it.
Bezos is firmly convinced that what is best for the consumer turns out to be the best for business. At re: Invent in 2012, he said: “If we can arrange everything so that our interests match the interests of our consumers, then both consumers and Amazon will benefit in the long run.”
Here are some examples of how Amazon works from the consumer, sometimes putting consumer interests above the company's short-term profit.
Help customers avoid accidental duplication of orders
Amazon noticed that some users accidentally order the same products that they have already purchased. Therefore, it was decided to help them: place the corresponding warning on the pages of those products that the user has already ordered.
Amazon’s calculations showed that it reduced sales, but the company believed that it would increase customer loyalty.
Of course, it is impossible to say whether this will lead to increased loyalty years later. But Bezos says: “You have to rely on your opinion. In such cases, we say: “Let's be easier. We know that consumers will benefit from it - so let's do it. ”
Allow competitors to advertise on your site.
In another classic example of how Amazon puts users' interests above quick profits, Bezos decided to allow competitors to advertise their prices on Amazon.
It seems insane, right? Allow competitors to advertise their prices on your site! Bezos did this because he thought it would be better for consumers. He says: “The decision caused controversy within the company. There were a lot of worries about this. ”
He decided that it was better to give consumers a choice. This principle is still valid on Amazon.
Ask consumers to leave feedback
Pay attention to user reviews on product pages. This is another case where we can assume that Amazon would prefer to remove negative reviews about products so that they do not force consumers to abandon their purchases. But Bezos decided that the reviews were useful for consumers: “When we first introduced consumer reviews , this caused a serious rejection. I received letters from publishers who informed me: “You do not understand your business. You make money selling things. Take away these negative consumer reviews. ” We have never launched anything that doesn’t cause controversy at first. But if you want to be first, you need to get used to misunderstanding. ”
Over the years, Amazon has collected so many consumer reviews that it has become a resource where people are looking for detailed and reliable information about products. I myself always go there for product reviews (except for movies and music). The fact that Bezos took the side of consumers benefited his business. The story of how he ignored the publishers (who claimed that he does not know what he is doing) is one of my favorite stories about him. Consumers before publishers - that's her lesson.
Use new technology to satisfy consumers.
Despite the high rate of technological change, Bezos and in them is seeking benefits for consumers.
In an interview with Fast Company in August 2004, Bezos said: “There is an element of fiction in our business. The original components of our business - things like processor power, channel bandwidth, disk space - are getting cheaper twice every 12-18 months. Disk space today is 30 times cheaper than five years ago. Thirty times! So the following questions come to the fore: “What to do with a 30-fold increased disk space, a 20-fold increased computing power and bandwidth of a channel that has become 30 times wider? Okay: how to make consumers like it? "As it turned out, there are no simple answers to these questions."
It turned out that Amazon Web Services (AWS) became one of the answers to these questions, and this answer turned out to be incredibly successful .
9. Build a strategy on what is not subject to change.
From the speech of Bezos at the re: Invent conference in 2012:
“I am often asked what changes will occur in the next decade. This is a very interesting question, but very ordinary. I almost never get asked what will remain the same in the next 10 years. And I assure you: the second question is actually much more important, since you can only build a business strategy around what is stable over time ... We at retail know that consumers want low prices, and I know that over the next decade there is nothing will not change. Consumers want fast delivery and a wide selection. It’s impossible to imagine a future in which in 10 years the consumer will come and say, “Jeff, I really like Amazon, but I would like prices to be a little higher” or “I love Amazon, but you'd better deliver goods a little slower.” It is impossible to imagine this. So we invest our energy and efforts, knowing that it will continue to benefit our customers in 10 years. When you have something that will work in the long run, you can allow yourself to invest a lot of energy in it.
The awesome ideas for AWS were quite simple. I also can not imagine that someone came up to me in 10 years and said: “I like AWS, just make it a little less reliable,” or “AWS suits me, but still raise prices a little”, or “ I love AWS and would like you to slow down a bit with innovations and API improvements. ” This is impossible to imagine.
So, big business ideas are often very obvious, but it’s very difficult to maintain a constant vision of these ideas. If you succeed and you are able to support the work of this flywheel, invest your energy, as we do with AWS, over time your services will become better for consumers due to what is really important for them.
So what remains so important for your users in 10 years? Listen to Bezos’s advice: work on it daily and it will pay off. Amazon is always working on lowering prices, speeding up delivery (and introducing delivery on the day of the order). And for sure they add new products every day.
Netflix focused on streaming data, because this is the future. Therefore, they are working on improving the reliability of streams, expanding the selection and improving content. They know that all this users want. Google knows that their customers will also want accurate search results and immediate answers. At Verizon Wireless - that users will still need more coverage, high speeds and greater reliability.
No one will tell a Verizon Wireless employee: “I wish my phone couldn’t find a network here,” or “I want to get a slower Internet connection from my smartphone,” or “More problems with your network.” No consumer will say that seriously. So every day Verizon makes an effort to improve its services.
What would your consumers tell you? Where do you invest energy? Are these things that will remain important to users in 10 years? If not, start working on something that will not lose relevance in the coming decade. Then say thanks to Jeff Bezos.
10. Identify and eliminate risk.
What do you always hear about entrepreneurs? What they love is risk. What he feeds and invigorates them.
According to Bezos, the best entrepreneurs do not like to take risks: they identify and eliminate the risk in the early stages.
He says: “Good entrepreneurs take no risks; they are looking for a way to reduce risk ... Creating your company is a risky business, after which you need to systematically eliminate risk step by step, from the very beginning ... you need to systematically determine risk. When the company grows up and stronger, you can take risks again, but at the initial stage the main question should be: “So, there is a good idea; how to reduce the risk? "
11. Start now, not to regret later.
What is the worst thing to live? Regret, guilt, sorrow? When Bezos was thinking about creating an Amazon, he had to decide: to start his own business or keep up the good work on Wall Street. Then he came up with a decision-making system, which he called the System of minimizing regrets. This helped him realize that he did not want to give up the idea of ​​starting a business and regret it later. Fear of regret and became one of the key reasons that prompted him to create Amazon.
12. Tips Bezos entrepreneurs
Speaking at the re: Invent conference in 2012, Bezos gave some direct advice to all entrepreneurs:
1) “Never follow the fashion ... you need to position yourself and wait for the waves. To do this, refer to what you are not indifferent to. This is the number one advice that I would give to anyone who wants to start a business or launch a new project within a large company. Make sure that it really interests you. Missionaries create better products ... I always prefer a missionary to an ordinary mercenary. The latter want to use the company for enrichment, and the missionaries seek to create an excellent product or service. And, paradoxically, as a result, missionaries still earn money ... So do what your soul is for. ”
2) “Start with the needs of the consumer and build on them. These two things - dedication and customer focus - will ensure you have a long life in business. ”
Other helpful tips from Jeff Bezos
- In difficult periods, communicate more with employees .
- To think over the long term, you must have your own vision. If you are always limited to a short-term perspective, you will get bogged down in a routine. This is similar to the system of minimizing regrets.
- Failures are part of entrepreneurial work. Do not exaggerate their meaning.
- Fast Company has a very good quote from Bezos: “For every leader in the company, not only for me, there are decisions that can be made on the basis of analytics. And this is the best kind of solutions! They are based on facts. The best thing about them is that they ignore the hierarchy. The youngest employee of the company can win the dispute of the eldest with a decision based on facts. Unfortunately, there are many other solutions that cannot be reduced to mathematical problems. ” In the matter of solving such problems, Bezos relies on the most experienced managers, whom he regularly hires from more companies.
- Bezos calls himself "interdependent" and always adapts to changing reality.
- Want to know what a meeting with Jeff Bezos looks like? Read this post by Steve Yegge. If you do not want to read the post, just remember: he is very smart and knows more than you. Spend weeks preparing a presentation for him - and he will still catch you up on what you missed. My favorite quote from this post is: “He will replay you. Knowing everything about the presentation is only the first line of your defense. It's like the armor that he punches in the first couple of minutes. Right during the meeting, he will understand something so important in your subject that makes you look like an absolute clown. Believe me guys: I've watched it happen for years. Jeff Bezos has all of these exceptionally intelligent, experienced experts in various fields who surround him in huge meetings, and every day he thinks about things that they never thought of. And this is a guaranteed facepalm test. ”
- Think easier when it comes to your customers.
- Bezos is also a big fan of science fiction. He says that this passion goes hand in hand with thinking over the long term. Perhaps this same passion lies at the heart of Blue Origin.
What I admire most about Jeff is that he is still relatively young (he is 49), so most likely there will be many more lessons from him in the future. What will be his legacy? He himself wants it to be “the oldest man in the world.”
Perhaps his legacy will be Amazon, but there are plenty of other probabilities. Affordable and safe space travel with Blue Origin? Will people in 2080 thank Bezos for the opportunity to travel to space?
10,000 year old hours? In 5000, people will look at them (the clock will be located inside the mountain in Texas) and know that Jeff Bezos has helped build it. Along with Amazon, space travel and numerous entrepreneurs who have been able to create their dream products thanks to Bezos and the availability of AWS.
Or maybe it will be something even more ambitious, as yet no one knows (remember that he thinks for many years to come and is very secretive).
Whatever people end up remembering about Bezos, today there are a lot of things that you can learn from him.
About the translator
The article is translated in Alconost.
Alconost is engaged in the localization of applications, games and websites in 60 languages. Language translators, linguistic testing, cloud platform with API, continuous localization, 24/7 project managers, any formats of string resources.
We also make advertising and training videos - for websites selling, image, advertising, training, teasers, expliners, trailers for Google Play and the App Store.
Read more: https://alconost.com
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/170727/
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