David's Macro Blog

To learn what makes Amazon.com such a great company, listen to CEO Jeff Bezos talk about its recent acquisition of Zappos, innovation, and customer obsession.

Everything Jeff knows seems to be a very short list.

#1 – Obsess Over Customers

Put customers first because ultimately they’ll make or break your business.

Jeff doesn’t clearly state this, but it seems that the main reason for Amazon’s acquisition of Zappos is the fact that both companies (and CEOs Bezos and Tony Hsieh) share similar values, starting with customer obsession.

#2 – Invent

“Don’t accept either/or thinking”, instead invent your way out of any problem. 

Invent solutions on your customer’s behalf. You can invent your way out of any box if you think you can.

#3 – Think Long Term

For any company to be innovative or focused on customers needs, it needs to think long term. Some ventures will take 5 to 7 years to pay dividends. New inventions take time to be understood.

Applying the principle to think long term might pay dividends for customers BEFORE benefiting shareholders.

Note: Jeff candidly admits that Amazon has made a lot of mistakes along the way, with the result being Amazon has learned something.  You don’t get to know much without trying lots of things and making a lot of mistakes.

“Failure is only the opportunity to more intelligently begin again.”

“If you want to succeed, double your failure rate.” 

It’s important to note that innovation isn’t the result of focusing on next quarter’s earnings and short term gains.

In summary, if you want to innovate in your business, you need to obsess over your customers and invent new solutions for them, knowing that you’ll make a lot of mistakes along the way.

For more reading on Amazon’s innovation, visit:
Amazon.com Whiz Jeff Bezos Keeps Kindling Hot Concepts

Please comment below – I’d love to know what you think.

Biz Kids is a public TV series where kids teach kids about money and business by experimenting and solving real world business problems.

http://www.bizkids.com/show.aspx

ht – AS

Our current school system is woefully inadequate at teaching kids about the basics of money, business, entrepreneurship, and how the real economy works (hint: it isn’t an equation with greek symbols).

One thing I noticed was that most of the kids involved had these 2 characteristics:

1. They didn’t give up when one method didn’t work.  Being kids, they just tried something else without getting stuck in failure.
2. They learned to plan, budget, and value the money they earned and spent.

Now that we are in the Great Recession caused by excessive debt and poor financial planning, wouldn’t those skills have been good to learn?

“I like running my own business because it helps me learn what business is really like.” – Zoe Stewart (age ~8)

Now this is a class I would have loved to take in school!  In fact, I’d like to see entrepreneurship taught at all grade levels in our schools.  Why do our schools need to end at 2:15pm everyday when we are competing in a real-time global economy where a good or (virtual service) can be produced in any country?

A few of my favorite episodes below.  All of these are a MUST watch, so enjoy!

• 103 – How Do I Get Money – Kelsey Angel Chocolates & Young Americans’ Bank
• 105 – Money Moves – Kitsap Credit Union (buying a piglet, raising it, and selling for 4x!)
• 106 – Bea’s Beauty Bars (hand made soap; she uses QuickBooks to track her business!!! Sounds like the next Burt’s Bees)
• 122 – Sell, Sell, Sell – Alex sells over 1000 Girl Scout Cookies per year
• 201 – Have a Plan, Stan! - Zephry Productions
• 207- The World is a Risky Place – Serve it Up (tennis lesson profits)
• 210 – Secrets to Success – Circestreem (performing pays for college!)
• 211 – Marketing Mix – Stocked Skateboards ($250,000/year selling skateboards online!)

Do you think kids would learn supply and demand better from a textbook or their own business?

Comment below and let me know what you think about this show and any of these episodes.

Short video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Nw5j6aI8sg

Pretty good summary of innovation: ideas -> prototype -> polish up -> user feedback -> repeat loop early and often (she calls it the “bird-walk”)