Today’s business book review will deliver you some happiness…
It’s a story I’ve always wanted to understand & the book was given to me by customer service guru Anne Williamson.
Look. Anne’s even signed it for me!
‘Delivering happiness’ was written by Tony Hsieh & is not just about Zappos. It’s about Tony’s life, his philosophy & his belief structure.
Tony talks about his childhood, his entrepreneurial college days and how they built & sold LinkExchange to Microsoft for $265 million. Continuously learning as they went along.
But the main bulk of the book shares how he got involved with Zappos, the challenges they faced with funding, the creation of a unique culture & their ever-evolving business model.
Tony Hsieh & Zappos has always been 1 in the same for me & I never knew Zappos was created by Nick Swinmurn. Tony provided the initial seed funding through his company Venture Frogs.
But when no other venture capital companies were willing to take a risk on Zappos Tony went all in. Becoming CEO & selling everything he owned to keep Zappos afloat.
Tony & his team had a vision to create a unique & fantastic customer WOW experience.
But to do this they had to build a unique organisational culture, where their team loved coming to work, because they were valued & felt part of something special.
Zappos went from $0 to $1 billion in sales in 10 years. Yes, it’s fast. But it wasn’t a walk in the park. Zappos nearly closed (due to cash flow issues) on several occasions.
It wasn’t until Wells Fargo agreed to a $6 million credit line in 2003 could they really super-charge the business. As they grew other investors then came on board too.
I’ll not ruin it all for you & let you read about Jeff Bezos & Amazon’s involvement in the latter years.
It’s a great book. Although it confirms every-thing I’ve thought about growing a great business.
To grow quickly you need a willing investment partner. Failing this, its about hard work & perseverance, growing slowly with consistency over a long period of time. 30, 40 or even 50 years.
‘Delivering Happiness’ gets a 👍 & ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐.
If you’ve got any questions about the book, connect & message me on LinkedIn or drop me an email to darren@mytotalofficesolutions.com
Watch all our business book reviews at mytotalofficesolutions.co.uk/business-book-reviews
Thank you for watching & see you next week.
