If today you ask start-up entrepreneurs who they look up to, you will hear such names as: Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, some will also remember Bill Gates. But, unfortunately, few will name Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos.
This brilliant analytical, systemic, and giggly entrepreneurial mind has clearly been overlooked by the attention it deserves. Jeff Bezos doesn’t have the charisma of Steve Jobs, an innovative car brand like Tesla, the fame of Zuckerberg. But he deserves the first place in our heart the same as he ranks first in Forbes ranking.
This person doesn’t just run a retail store, he does a lot more. Bezos is involved in many other ventures, including the private space project Blue Origin (the company is developing technologies that make space travel cheaper to make private space travel available).
We can learn a lot from this Princeton graduate with honors. And now let’s talk about some of the theses of his online business philosophy.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ 5 business lessons
1. Be persistent and flexible
- Bezos believes that good entrepreneurs must be tough and flexible at the same time.
- Being stubborn and flexible at the same time is a challenge. Bezos warns that in order to invent, you have to be assertive and flexible more or less at the same time.
- The most difficult thing in this is to understand when to be what you should be.
But it seems that because of this they are limited in tactics and vision. Being a natural leader is beneficial, but flexibility remains one of the inherent traits of a good entrepreneur. Ask the guy who raised the company from 0 to 69,000 employees. Perhaps he knows a thing or two about leadership.
2. Follow the “two-pizza rule”
- Bezos believes in the effectiveness of small, autonomous groups.
- He is an advocate of the “two-pizza rule,” which states that a group must be small enough to be fed with just two pizzas. Usually this is a team of 5-7 people.
- With the increase in teams, there is a tendency for their effectiveness to decrease.
Inefficiency reduces the effectiveness of the team and leads to losses. So keep the teams small and see for yourself how it works.
3. Never stop experimenting
“If you double the number of experiments you do per year you’re going to double your inventiveness.” – Bezos
- Ask most executives and they will tell you that experimentation is essential for their business. This is how innovation comes about and their business remains competitive in the marketplace.
Car companies have concept cars; the food industry is experimenting with new foods and flavors; retailers are experimenting with product placement and store atmosphere; the business of drug manufacturers is based on experiments; tech companies have labs like Google Labs; and many high-performing companies like Google allow their employees to experiment. Even sports teams are experimenting with new playing techniques and / or players. Experiments are happening everywhere and always.
At Amazon, the willingness to experiment and invent has always been part of the culture. This is not a secondary circumstance or something like you have to do this, because everyone does it.
4. Get ready to invent
- We have told the culture of invention at Amazon many times, but there is one important point that we want to highlight.
Have you ever noticed how many products and services Amazon offers? All of this is a consequence of Bezos’s philosophy of rapid experimentation and inventions. In this sense, Bezos is the anti-Steve Jobs. Apple only offers a handful of products, while Amazon offers dozens. A complete listing can be seen at the bottom of the Amazon home page.
The inventions are really very important to Bezos and his team at Amazon. He is looking for people who love to invent and are always looking for ways to improve products.
Bezos is an inventor himself. Whether it’s a 10,000-year-old watch (an engineering challenge), aerospace company Blue Origin, a patented airbag for phones, a solar oven built as a kid, or his efforts at Amazon – Bezos loves to invent. He appreciates and encourages this (along with resourcefulness) in his employees. He once said that one of his favorite activities is teamwork and brainstorming. Obviously, he has a passion for inventions.
To be an entrepreneur, you have to love to invent and create. Bezos, his team at Amazon, and entrepreneurs around the world are eternal curious explorers.
5. Think long term
- If you could only know one thing about Bezos, here it is: he always thinks long term.
Amazon has been in retail business since 1994. Remember those computers and the dawn of the internet? Bezos knew back then that people would shop online. He recalls those days as the most difficult period. He tried to raise $ 1 million to launch Amazon, but it was extremely difficult. He said that he negotiated with 60 people, and 22 people gave him $ 50,000.
Why was it so difficult? People didn’t know what the Internet was. According to Bezos, the first thing most investors asked about was the Internet. Think about it: most people didn’t know what the Internet was. Bezos knew, as he knew that people would buy goods online. Here it is – his vision and long-term thinking – in action.
Obviously, thinking long term takes incredible patience. Especially if you are a director who also needs to focus on day-to-day activities. And, if you want to create something new, you will have to remain misunderstood for a long time.
Bezos says that the success of companies doing things that were invented before them diminishes over time. That is, you need to invent and be prepared for the fact that you will not be understood. Because all the underminers are inventors.
However, he often admits that Amazon was also trying to repeat the success of others: the A9 was inheritance from Google, auctions were inherited from eBay, etc. He also says that long-term thinking and experimentation should be fundamental to a company.
Good for shoppers, as the Amazon example showed with free shipping for items starting at $ 25. It doesn’t make sense to focus only on quick profits if you plan to stay in the market for a long time.
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