4 ms·
Most of these points strike me as contrary to traditional lean startup advice--e.g. it's ok to expend a huge amount of resources without seeing results for 5-7
by asr 15y ago
Most of these points strike me as contrary to traditional lean startup advice--e.g. it's ok to expend a huge amount of resources without seeing results for 5-7 years, and it's important to be first in a big market.
Obviously, this worked for Amazon, and there are some opportunities you won't be able to take advantage of in any other way, but it's certainly high risk. I mean, Pets.com arguably followed much of this advice.
I suspect what really separates Amazon from the pack is their actual customer experience--but that's only 1 of 6 points here.
- Confusion 15y agoThe problem with these stories is that they assume that correlation is causation: they pick some subset of all the things that influenced Amazon and present them as the decisive influences, without a evidence to support that suggestion. I humbly suggest that many people that share this worldview and attempted to execute based on it have failed. This advice is as worthwhile as 'lean startup advice': there are no guarantees, it depends on many factors and most will fail.
- jpwagner 15y agoSome research companies will build things that are 5 years off from being viable and that approach is generally contrary to "lean startup advice". But Amazon built something that was viable immediately AND fit into a 5-7 year plan.
- smokinn 15y agoAmazon was nowhere near immediately viable. It was founded in 1994. It had its IPO in 1997. It posted its first net profit in 2002. It lost money for 8 years. Hardly "something that was viable immediately". On the other hand it didn't take that much investment before IPO. It was seeded with 300K from Bezos and his family followed by 50K in angel money and finally an 8MM round. http://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-original-investors-in-Amazon-and-how-much-pre-IPO-investment-did-Amazon-receive-in-total http://www.quora.com/Who-were-the-original-investors-in-Amaz... It rode the cheap cash infusion from the dot com bubble for as long as it could until the bubble collapsed. At that point it had cash but was going to run out eventually which is why I imagine they decided then it was time to try and make the company profitable rather than expand through investment.
- jpwagner 15y agoMaybe a better word to make my point would have been "launchable" rather than viable.
- wmougayar 15y agoTrue, but they had an enormous amount of funding early on that allowed them to do that. So the lesson for the lean startup is to know when to get the big investment type of funding that allows you to think big, think long-term and go for the jugular as he said.