I've read all of Jeff Bezos's 23 years of Amazon shareholder letters twice now.
It's an MBA of its own.
Here's what I learned about startups, entrepreneurship, investing and more:
We set ourselves the incredibly audacious goal of improving upon the physical book.
So don't be afraid to set big goals.
And remember that if you don't execute well, it will be done by someone else.
So then, when you fix it, you’re not just fixing it for one customer. You’re fixing it for every customer.
Success often comes through iteration: invent, launch, reinvent, relaunch, start over, rinse, repeat, again and again.
Remember that failure is part invention.
So better to fail early and iterate until you get it right.
Outsized returns come from betting against conventional wisdom.
Given a ten percent chance of a one hundred times payoff, you should take that bet every time.
But you're still going to be wrong nine times out of ten.
1/2
Let's talk about baseball.
If you swing for the fences, you're going to strike out a lot, but you're also going to hit some home runs. It's as true for business as it is for baseball.
However, there's just one difference.
Baseball has a truncated outcome
distribution: No matter how well you connect, the most you can get is 4.
In business, every once in a while, when you step up to the plate, you can score one thousand runs.
This long-tailed distribution of returns is why you should be bold.
1/2
If you had asked a customer "Would you like a black, always-on cylinder in your kitchen about the size of a Pringles-can that you can talk to and ask questions, that also turns on your lights and plays music?"
They would've said no.
No customer was asking for Echo. This was definitely Amazon wandering.
Wandering is an essential counterbalance to efficiency.
You need to employ both.
The outsized discoveries require wandering.
Many investors are short-term tenants, they turn their portfolios so quickly that they are really just renting the stocks they temporarily "own."
Owners aren't so short-sighted.
Long-term thinking is both a requirement and an outcome of true ownership.
— Benjamin Graham
You aren't 10% smarter with a 10% increase in stock price and conversely aren't 10% dumber when it goes down.
Always want to be weighed.
3 questions to consider before hiring:
1. Will you admire this person?
2. Will they raise the average level of effectiveness of the group?
3. Along what dimension might this person be a superstar?
Once a year, Amazon offers to pay its employees to quit.
While the headline says "Please Don't Take This Offer." The goal is to make them rethink their priorities.
An employee staying somewhere they don't want to be isn't healthy for the employee or the company.
(Amazon leadership principles)
1/2
First, you have to be able to recognize what good looks like in that domain.
Second, you must have realistic expectations for how hard it should be to achieve that result — the scope.
Just one example / perfect headstands
Most people think that if they work hard, they can master a handstand in about two weeks.
In reality, it takes about six months of daily practice.
If you think you can do it in two weeks, you're just going to end up quitting.
Wait for 90, and you're being slow.
Plus, if you're good at course correcting, which you should be, then being wrong will be less costly than being slow.
If you have conviction without consensus, it's helpful to say,
"Look, I know we disagree on this, but will you gamble with me on it?"
No one can know the answer for sure, and you'll probably get a quick yes.
Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death.
And that is why it is always Day 1.
At 15 mins, it's slightly bigger — enough to share the ideas more freely. It's $9, so, maybe, show your support!
Regardless, retweet, and follow me @sumitgrrg for more of these.
Thanks!
https://t.co/pa3MwgLWCj
More from Sumit Grrg
More from Startup
>> How To Start a Lead Gen Agency <<
This step-by-step process will help you sign $5K - $20K clients in NO TIME.
Learn how to:
✅ Find Leads
✅ Book Meetings
✅ Sign Clients
✅ Scale Processes
// 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 //
1/ Make sure you understand the lead gen process.
You NEED to know your shit before you pitch ANYTHING.
A few services you can offer to generate leads:
> Cold email
> LinkedIn outreach
> Facebook ads
> SEO
The list goes on.
Just perfect one of them & you’re SOLID.
2/ Find a niche to pitch your services to.
NICHE DOWN.
Use this doc to find an “untapped” niche:
https://t.co/aYptSNsZw6
I’d suggest choosing 1-3 to start with.
& focus ONLY on these.
3/ Find leads for outreach:
Sign up for a free @IcyLeads account at https://t.co/mz2kYnEko1 to find key decision-maker contact emails for outreach.
You can find emails from the list of niches provided above & filter out job titles such as:
> CEO
> Founder
> Marketing
Etc.
4/ Once you have a list of leads to pitch your services to:
It’s time to write your cold email outreach sequences.
Your cold emails should speak DIRECTLY to the prospect you’re reaching out to.
You can find some winning cold email templates
This step-by-step process will help you sign $5K - $20K clients in NO TIME.
Learn how to:
✅ Find Leads
✅ Book Meetings
✅ Sign Clients
✅ Scale Processes
// 𝐓𝐇𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐃 //
1/ Make sure you understand the lead gen process.
You NEED to know your shit before you pitch ANYTHING.
A few services you can offer to generate leads:
> Cold email
> LinkedIn outreach
> Facebook ads
> SEO
The list goes on.
Just perfect one of them & you’re SOLID.
2/ Find a niche to pitch your services to.
NICHE DOWN.
Use this doc to find an “untapped” niche:
https://t.co/aYptSNsZw6
I’d suggest choosing 1-3 to start with.
& focus ONLY on these.
3/ Find leads for outreach:
Sign up for a free @IcyLeads account at https://t.co/mz2kYnEko1 to find key decision-maker contact emails for outreach.
You can find emails from the list of niches provided above & filter out job titles such as:
> CEO
> Founder
> Marketing
Etc.
4/ Once you have a list of leads to pitch your services to:
It’s time to write your cold email outreach sequences.
Your cold emails should speak DIRECTLY to the prospect you’re reaching out to.
You can find some winning cold email templates
You May Also Like
Funny, before the election I recall lefties muttering the caravan must have been a Trump setup because it made the open borders crowd look so bad. Why would the pro-migrant crowd engineer a crisis that played into Trump's hands? THIS is why. THESE are the "optics" they wanted.
This media manipulation effort was inspired by the success of the "kids in cages" freakout, a 100% Stalinist propaganda drive that required people to forget about Obama putting migrant children in cells. It worked, so now they want pics of Trump "gassing children on the border."
There's a heavy air of Pallywood around the whole thing as well. If the Palestinians can stage huge theatrical performances of victimhood with the willing cooperation of Western media, why shouldn't the migrant caravan organizers expect the same?
It's business as usual for Anarchy, Inc. - the worldwide shredding of national sovereignty to increase the power of transnational organizations and left-wing ideology. Many in the media are true believers. Others just cannot resist the narrative of "change" and "social justice."
The product sold by Anarchy, Inc. is victimhood. It always boils down to the same formula: once the existing order can be painted as oppressors and children as their victims, chaos wins and order loses. Look at the lefties shrieking in unison about "Trump gassing children" today.
Funny there are those who think these migrant caravans were a FANTASTIC idea that's going to take the immigration issue away from you.
— Brian Cates (@drawandstrike) November 26, 2018
Like several weeks watching a rampaging horde storm the fences & throw rocks at our border patrol agents & getting gassed = great optics!
This media manipulation effort was inspired by the success of the "kids in cages" freakout, a 100% Stalinist propaganda drive that required people to forget about Obama putting migrant children in cells. It worked, so now they want pics of Trump "gassing children on the border."
There's a heavy air of Pallywood around the whole thing as well. If the Palestinians can stage huge theatrical performances of victimhood with the willing cooperation of Western media, why shouldn't the migrant caravan organizers expect the same?
It's business as usual for Anarchy, Inc. - the worldwide shredding of national sovereignty to increase the power of transnational organizations and left-wing ideology. Many in the media are true believers. Others just cannot resist the narrative of "change" and "social justice."
The product sold by Anarchy, Inc. is victimhood. It always boils down to the same formula: once the existing order can be painted as oppressors and children as their victims, chaos wins and order loses. Look at the lefties shrieking in unison about "Trump gassing children" today.