Here’s the idea from week 2 of the 200 words project from “The Everything Store” by Brad Stone.
Amazon.com, in an unprecedented move, added a feature in 1995 allowing customers to review books they bought. Until then, books were only reviewed by critics and not by readers. As was expected, some of the early books were trashed by multiple readers. Bezos then got a call from an irate book publishing executive who said Amazon’s job was to sell books and not trash them.
Bezos recalls that he and the team decided then that their job was not to sell things, but to help customers make better purchase decisions. This principle has guided Amazon’s decision making since. A similar big call that Amazon made was to include used books in their book catalogue. Again, this provoked an outcry from authors and customers (and even internal executives) but Bezos was convinced that it helped customers make better decisions.
The learning for me – when you set out on a new project, figure out your most important stakeholder(it could just be yourself), define your guiding principles and focus intensely on it.
“What’s dangerous is not to evolve.” | Jeff Bezos
A Learning a Day 