customer-centric

Amazon is one of the ten richest companies in the world, and its founder, Jeff Bezos is one of the five richest people in the world, with a net worth of over $120 billion. Founded in 1994, Amazon was the fastest company in history to reach $100 billion in sales. How did he achieve such massive success in less than 30 years of operation?  Today, we’re getting an inside look at how Jeff Bezos approaches business from Steven Anderson, author of The Bezos Letters. Steven has over 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and he is a trusted authority on risk, technology, and innovation.  In this episode of YAP Classic, Hala and Steven dive into the contents of The Bezos Letters, a collection and analysis of Jeff Bezos’ annual shareholder letters. They discuss some of the key strategies and lessons outlined in The Bezos Letters, like measuring your return on risk, adopting a ‘day one’ mentality, and using free cash flow as a primary metric for measuring your company’s success. They also talk about some of Amazon’s biggest failures and how Amazon encourages its employees to experiment and take risks.  Topics Include:  - Why did Steven write The Bezos Letters?  - Innovation vs. experimentation  - The value of failure  - Amazon’s greatest failures  - Being terrified of your customers  - Strategic risks for growth  - Why Bezos banned PowerPoint at Amazon  - ROR (Return On Risk)  - The risk of not taking risks  - ‘It’s always day one’ - The problem with judging companies by their profitability  - Free cash flow as a primary metric  - Steven’s secret to profiting in life  - And other topics… Steven Anderson is a professional writer, speaker, and futurist. He is the co-founder and CEO of Catalyit, which simplifies technology for insurance agents. Steven’s insurance agency, The Anderson Network, is considered an industry leader in the field of insuring productivity, technology, and profits. He was named one of the original 150 LinkedIn influencers and he is a top 10 Global InsurTech influencer. His book, The Bezos Letters, has been featured on numerous podcasts and was included in Forbes’ list of the ‘Top 20 Books You Need to Read to Crush 2020.’ Resources Mentioned: YAP Episode #75, Grow Your Business Like Amazon: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/young-and-profiting-with-hala-taha/id1368888880?i=1000487032512  The Bezos Letters & its accompanying resources: https://thebezosletters.com/  Steven’s Website: https://steveanderson.com/  Steven’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stevetn/  Steven’s Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/steveanderson/  Steven’s Twitter: https://twitter.com/SteveTN  Steven’s Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/SteveTN  Sponsored By:  ClickUp - Sign up today at ClickUp.com and use code yap to get 15% off Sabio - Visit sabio.la/YAP for a $1,000 scholarship towards the cost of their bootcamp at Sabio! JustWorks - Check out JustWorks' transparent pricing by visiting justworks.com/pricing The Jordan Harbinger Show - Check out jordanharbinger.com/start for some episode recommendations Shopify - Sign up for a free trial at shopify.com/profiting More About Young and Profiting Download Transcripts - youngandprofiting.com   Get Sponsorship Deals - youngandprofiting.com/sponsorships Leave a Review - ratethispodcast.com/yap Watch Videos - youtube.com/c/YoungandProfiting Follow Hala Taha LinkedIn - linkedin.com/in/htaha/ Instagram - instagram.com/yapwithhala/ TikTok - tiktok.com/@yapwithhala Twitter - twitter.com/yapwithhala Learn more about YAP Media Agency Services - yapmedia.io/ Join Hala's LinkedIn Masterclass - yapmedia.io/course

In the late 1990s, Ben Chestnut was a struggling young designer interning at an appliance company, when somebody suggested that he try designing for the internet instead. A few years later, Ben and two co-founders launched a web design agency, only to discover that the service they'd included almost as an afterthought—email marketing—was taking off among their small-business clients. The founders named that service Mailchimp and pivoted to it full-time in 2007, choosing a winking monkey as their mascot, and stumbling onto the Freemium model before it became mainstream. But their most impeccable timing came in 2014, when they decided to sponsor a new podcast called Serial, a move that catapulted the winking monkey into popular culture. Over the years, despite management jitters and a public reckoning over office culture, Mailchimp has remained profitable and self-funded, with revenue of $800 million in 2020.

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He's not on a mission to make money, quite the opposite. Xavier Helgesen is a mission driven founder, who uses money to do more good in the world. His first company, Better World Books sells 10 million used books a year that's collected by leftover books at libraries - in and shares revenues with literacy partners (Over $25M given to non-profits). This business lead him to Africa, where he noticed 20,000 people in a village had no electricity - so he decided to change that. He created Zola Electric, the largest solar power company in Africa, providing 1 million people with electricity per day. He talks to us about how he turned his college side hustle into a $70M biz, moving next to his customers in Tanzania, selling electricity to people who never used electricity and how ‘Mutual Improvement Societies’ could help you 10x your life.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jack Smith (@_jacksmith) is the most clever entrepreneur I know. He’s cofounded multiple startups: Vungle, Coin, Shyp. With Vungle recently selling for $750M. We talk about his early businesses as a kid, selling prank itching powder on the playground - all the way to his infamous “LinkedIn Hack” that got him his first $120k investment check. Got feedback or questions? Email me at Puri.shaan@gmail.com  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When Jon Stein realized he couldn't stand the sight of blood, he gave up the idea of becoming a doctor. Instead, he went into finance, but soon grew restless with "helping banks make more money." So he decided to build a business where he could help everyday investors make more money: an online service that would use a combination of algorithms and human advisers. Jon launched Betterment at a precarious time — shortly after the financial crash of 2008. But today, the company has roughly 13 billion dollars under management. PLUS in our postscript "How You Built That," how Gerry Stellenberg combined his knack for technology and his love for pinball to create the P3: a pinball machine that allows a real-life ball to interact with virtual objects. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.