Amazon was launched as a start up almost 20 years ago, and has a market capitalization of $132 billion and revenues of $61 billion. The startup was founded on three principles: put the customer first, invent, and be patient.
1. Put the customer first
While other companies strive to do this as well, Amazon puts this in to practice through ideas one click buying and two day shipping. Amazon also only takes a slim margin of their profits, passing on most of the discounts, from buying in bulk, back to the customer.
2. Invent
An example of this is Amazon’s online grocery business, AmazonFresh. Started in 2007 but was made successful through the acquisition of Kiva for $775 million.
Amazons owner said “When I saw Kiva’s product in action several years ago, I was blown away. It consisted of huge Frisbee-shaped robots that could be steered via a grid of floor magnets. The robots picked up the warehouse rack containing the item in the customer order and delivered it to the operator. He picked the item from the rack; scanned its barcode to verify that it was correct; and put the item in a cardboard box with that customer’s shipping label”. Recognizing new ideas and the shifting tides of the market is one of the things that put Amazon where it is today.
3. Be patient
The AmazonFresh story shows that the company is willing to wait it out. It took 5 years for the AmazonFresh technology to come out, but they understood the potential problems of the customer and were willing to delay their success.
BoweryJE22
Vision and optimism is everything in entrepreneurship! Jeff Bezos set out with one idea in mind: to make Amazon the world’s largest book retailer… Look at what happened.