5 Lessons on Startup Mentality for Corporates –from Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
(This article was originally published on venturism.stubstack.com.)
Jeff Bezos built a TRILLION dollar company — twelve zeroes — and runs it like a startup.
Like all the best best companies, Amazon knows how to combine startup ingenuity with corporate impact.
In this post we will explore how Amazon does it, by examining Bezos’ own words.
1. Making Amazon the most Customer Centric company in the world.
Actual Quote:
“I founded Amazon 26 years ago with the long-term mission of making it Earth’s most customer-centric company.” - Jeff Bezos
If you are in design or innovation, the term ‘customer centric’ probably has you rolling your eyes so hard you can see the inside of your skull.
If companies invested a penny in a corporate startup for each time claimed customer centricity, I would be out of business.
There is a lot of talk, and not a whole lot of walk.
At Amazon though, the mission of customer centricity oozes from its eCommercial pores.
Everything from product discovery, to check-out, to delivery, was designed to make the experience as smooth as possible.
Confession: The one-click-checkout button is responsible for 90% of books in my Kindle library — most of them still unread.
The takeaway is this: Customer centricity is not a four-hour-brainstorm. It is not a bumper sticker you can slap onto any given product.
It works — really works, when it is at the heart of all your design and business choices.
2. Making Amazon the best place in the world to FAIL.
Actual Quote:
“Amazon has made billions of dollars of failures. Failure inevitably comes along with invention and risk-taking, which is why we try to make Amazon the best place in the world to fail” - Jeff Bezos
Bezos’ guns the nail into the wood with this one (because who still uses hammers anyways?). He touches on three key points, that I’d wish all innovation labs would understand.
First, Bezos explains Amazon has invested billions of dollars into projects that became failures.
Research, validation and venture builders can minimise risk, but in the end innovation is a numbers game. Companies must to put multiple eggs into multiple baskets.
Secondly Bezos, a purebred entrepreneur, recognises the risk — reward dynamic of innovation.
He frames failure as a side-effect of invention. Most eggs will break.
The key is to take educated risks as much as possbile.
Risks get educated in two ways:
- Validation (at the problem, product and market level)
- Post-Mortems (on what broke the eggs)
Lastly, by normalising failure, Amazon creates a culture of experimentation, entrepreneurship, and bottom-up initiative.
Which feeds right into my next point.
3. Adopting and upholding a Day One mentality.
Actual Quote:
“I have always believed that if we commit ourselves to maintaining a Day One mentality as a critical part of our DNA, we can have both the scope and capabilities of a large company and the spirit and heart of a small one.” - Jeff Bezos
In Bezos’ own words, a Day One mentality means “approaching everything we do with the energy and entrepreneurial spirit of Day One”.
Anybody who has ever trained in any kind of martial art, knows the importance of having a ‘white belt mentality’.
Meaning: you always train with the humility and curiosity of a first-timer.
This approach to progress, based on curiosity and entrepreneurial drive, is often lost in companies above a certain size.
Companies that can leverage both the assets of a BigCo. and the mindset and hustle of a small one, are at an extreme advantage.
4. Anticipating customers’ needs before customers themselves become aware of them.
Actual Quote:
“Even when they don’t yet know it, customers want something better, and a constant desire to delight customers drives us to constantly invent on their behalf.” - Jeff Bezos
The top innovative companies in the world do not rely on customers to tell them what they want. They predict and stay ahead of the curve.
Unfortunately most companies still choose to respond to the market, rather than anticipating or even shaping it.
COVID-19 has put the fear of God in many CEO’s and innovation managers, whilst others acted quickly and watched their sales explode.
The second group understood:
Pro-active innovation is the best Future Proofing strategy there is.
As Bezos points out:
“No customer ever asked Amazon to create the Prime membership program, but it sure turns out they wanted it” (112M memberships and counting)
5. Pro-actively inviting feedback & scrutiny
In wrapping up his essay, Bezos concludes:
“(…) I believe Amazon should be scrutinized. We should scrutinize all large institutions, whether they’re companies, government agencies, or non-profits. Our responsibility is to make sure we pass such scrutiny with flying colors.” - Jeff Bezos
Bezos recognises what might be the best kept growth secret, hidden in plain sight:
Feedback is fuel for progress.
The companies that are the most open to market feedback, and know how to read the metrics, are the fastest to grow their share in that market.
You can either pro-actively invite market feedback in, in small amounts, and continuously improve your position…
…OR play defense. In which case the market will give you its feedback all at once. Unpredictably. For instance during a pandemic.
6. Bonus: Steal with Pride.
Part of the reason Amazon (and Apple, Facebook and Google) had to appear before Congress at all, was an antitrust hearing.
The details are beyond the scope of this post, but a part of the hearing covered the following:
Amazon has (allegedly) copied successful 3rd party products sold on its platform, and launched them under their own brand.
Now, I don’t advocate literal stealing, and outright copy and pasting what competitors are doing.
But: there is absolutely no shame in learning from what other companies do well, and adapting the learnings to your own situation.
Great artists are great thieves.
The difference between a counterfeit and an inspired piece of work, is the extent to which you rework the source material.
