Under Tony’s leadership, Zappos has grew gross merchandise sales from $1.6M in 2000 to over $1 billion in 2008 by focusing relentlessly on customer service.
I never got to meet Tony Hsieh but from what I could tell watching his interviews and reading his books, and listening to people speak about him – you can be nice and successful, and that “delivering happiness can make us happy.” Go read that about the pizza story!
I love his book Delivering Happiness: The Path to Passion, Profits and Purpose. A book I higly recommend to all founders building their startup.
With that said, here are some of my favorite quotes by Tony:
Culture
“What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.”
“Your personal core values define who you are, and a company's core values ultimately define the company's character and brand. For individuals, character is destiny. For organizations, culture is destiny.”
“We must never lose our sense of urgency in making improvements. We must never settle for ‘good enough’, because good is the enemy of great.”
“Envision, create, and believe in your own universe, and the universe will form around you.”
Customer Service
“Make customer service a priority for the whole company, not just a department. A customer service attitude needs to come from the top.”
“The number one driver of our growth at Zappos has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Our philosophy has been to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and invest it into customer service and experience instead, letting our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.”
Money
“I had decided to stop chasing the money, and start chasing the problem.”
“Money alone isn't enough to bring happiness . . . happiness is when you're actually truly ok with losing everything you have.”
“I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.”
People and Self
“Stop trying to "network" in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward.
“Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins.”
“Never outsource your core competencies.”
“Act weak when strong, act strong when weak. Know when to bluff.