Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon - Amazon success story
But this was not always the case. Before Amazon became the largest e-commerce company in the world, Bezos was an American teenager who grew up in a middle-income neighborhood in Houston, Texas.
He was raised from a young age with curiosity and a vision for the future. While studying at college, he developed the Dream Institute, a center that encourages creative thinking among students.
He graduated with honors in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Princeton University in 1986, and did some work before joining a New York investment firm DE Shaw & Co.
At that company, Bezos rose quickly and was named senior vice president of the company, becoming the youngest person to hold the position in the company.
Amazon started as a small online bookstore
Understanding the rapid growth of the Internet, which had reached 2,300 percent per year by 1993, Bezos led him to share the idea of selling books online with his boss and colleagues. However, this idea was considered crazy at the time and ignored.
In 1994, Jeff Bezos decided to leave the company and fulfill his dream of "establishing the largest online bookstore in the world". He made the decision and stepped out of his comfort zone and took risks because he had found a need in the market that no one had yet filled.
Bezos moved to Seattle, Washington, to open a virtual library. He worked out of his garage with some assistants and started developing the software for the site. He named his company Amazon, after the famous Amazon River, and sold his first book in July 1995.
Amazon is quickly becoming a leader in e-commerce. The site was open 24 hours a day and was easy to use, encouraging users to write reviews for their books, offering personalized discounts, recommendations, and the ability to search for books.
Adding new products and pioneering services
In June 1998, Amazon began selling CDs as well as other video formats. In 1999, Bezos added auctions to the site and invested in other virtual stores. The success of Amazon has encouraged other retailers, including major book chains, to create online stores.
As the internet business grew, Bezos saw the need for diversification, and by 2005, Amazon introduced a wide range of products, including electronics, clothing, and consumer products. Amazon diversified even further in 2006 with the introduction of Amazon Web Services (AWS), a cloud computing service that has become the world's largest cloud computing service.
In late 2007, the company launched a portable reading device called Kindle, which is a digital book reader with wireless Internet access, which allows customers to purchase, download, read and store a wide range of books.
Amazon announced in 2010 that sales of Kindle books had exceeded sales of books all over the world, and in the same year, Amazon began producing its TV shows and movies through its Amazon Studios division. Amazon's annual net sales rose from $ 510,000 in 1995 to the equivalent of $ 233 billion in 2018.
Amazon Innovation Culture
Amazon's success wasn't limited to being a pioneer in e-commerce, also, Jeff Bezos created a company that broke models.
Amazon changed the publishing industry, created a new format that allows self-publishing for unknown authors, changed ways of reading with the Kindle and e-books, and created streaming, music, and video services.
How did Amazon become the queen of e-commerce?
Jeff Bezos realized that the key to Amazon's success was the expansion of its market. As a result, Jeff Bezos made new changes.
In 2002, what would become a problem for any manager became a new golden opportunity for Bezos. As Amazon was storing large amounts of data and their protections, protecting and securing user information, this led to the company forming Amazon Web Services, which is the largest cloud computing service with revenues of $ 5.49 billion in the first quarter of 2018, and this represents 10 percent Only from Amazon's total earnings.
Bezos was not satisfied with all this success, and focused on the assumption that his company is customer-centric, in 2005 he launched his Amazon Prime subscription program, which ships products purchased from his online store within a short time. 48 hours maximum, all for free. Then Amazon Prime evolved, and it now includes the previous subscription service, in addition to watching TV channels online, and a huge library of exclusive music and movies.
In addition to all of this, Amazon has entered the fashion world to compete with more than 70 brands of clothing for children, babies, men, and women.
Lessons can be learned from Jeff Bezos
Jeff Bezos' story leaves us with a few lessons in entrepreneurship such as:
- Be curious, look around what is happening in society? Find needs or create new needs for potential clients, go further.
- Earn money with what you're passionate about, find what makes you happy, and work hard to achieve it. You're sure to put in a bit more effort if this is what you want.
- Don't be afraid of failure or rejection. Just because no one is interested in your idea doesn't mean it's a bad idea, you just believe in it.
- Innovate and always try to be on top.
- Once you've developed your primary product, diversify. Listen to your customers and the market to learn new needs and meet those needs.
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