“Delivering Happiness”~ Zappos Philosophy Zappos is an online shoe and apparel shop Currently based in Henderson, Nevada. In July 2009, the company announced it would be acquired by Amazon in an all-stock deal worth about $1.2 billion. Since its founding in 1999, Zappos has grown to be the largest online shoe store… Here are some quotes from Zappos CEO….His Book, “Delivering Happiness”…. “Money alone isn’t enough to bring happiness . . . happiness [is] when you’re actually truly ok with losing everything you have.” ― Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose “Happiness is really just about four things: perceived control, perceived progress, connectedness (number and depth of your relationships), and vision/meaning (being part of something bigger than yourself).” ― Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose “Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins” ― Tony Hsieh, Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose “I made the list of the happiest periods in my life, and i realized that none of them involved money. I realized that building stuff and being creative and inventive made me happy. Connecting with a friend and talking through the entire night until the sun rose made me happy. Trick or treaitng in the middle school with a group of my closest friends made me happy. eating a baked potato after a swim meet made me happy.” Tony Hsieh, Early life and education Both of his parents (Richard and Judy) came from Taiwan. Tony Hsieh was born in Illinois and grew up in the San Francisco Bay area of California.[4] He has two younger brothers, Andy Hsieh and Dave Hsieh. In 1995, he graduated from Harvard University with a degree in computer science.[5] While at Harvard, he managed the Quincy House Grille selling pizza to the students in his dorm; his best customer, Alfred Lin, would later be Zappos’s CFO and COO.[6] After college, Hsieh worked for Oracle Corporation.[7] After five months, Hsieh found himself dissatisfied with the corporate environment and quit to co-found LinkExchange with Sanjay, a college friend and also an ex-Oracle employee. Career LinkExchange In 1996, Hsieh started developing the idea for an advertising network called LinkExchange.[8] Members were allowed to advertise their site over LinkExchanges network by displaying banner ads on their website. They launched in March 1996, with Hsieh as CEO, and found their first 30 clients by direct emailing webmasters.[9] The site grew, and within 90 days LinkExchange had over 20,000 participating web pages and had its banner ads displayed over 10 million times.[10] By 1998, the site had over 400,000 members and 5 million ads rotated daily.[11] In November 1998, LinkExchange sold to Microsoft for $265 million.[12][13] Venture Frogs After LinkExchange sold to Microsoft, Hsieh co-founded Venture Frogs, an incubator and investment firm, with his business partner, Alfred Lin.[14][15] The name originated from a dare. One of Hsieh’s friends said she would invest everything if they chose Venture Frogs as the name, and the pair took her up on the bet (although they have yet to see any money).[16] They invested in a variety of tech and Internet startups, including Ask Jeeves, OpenTable and Zappos.[16] Zappos In 1999, Nick Swinmurn approached Hsieh and Lin with the idea of selling shoes online.[6] Hsieh was initially skeptical and almost deleted Swinmurn’s initial voice mail. After Swinmurn mentioned that footwear in the US is a $40 billion market, and 5% of that was already being sold by paper mail order catalogs, Hsieh and Lin decided to invest through Venture Frogs. Two months later, Hsieh joined Zappos as the CEO, starting with $1.6 million in 2000.[6] By 2009, revenues reached $1 billion.[17][18] On July 22, 2009, Amazon announced the acquisition of Zappos in a deal valued at approximately $1.2 billion.[19] Hsieh is said to have made at least $214 million from the sale, not including money made through his former investment firm Venture Frogs.[20] [21] JetSuite Hsieh joined JetSuites board in 2011. He led a $7 million round of investment in the growing private very light jet concern. The investment allowed JetSuite to add two new Embraer Phenom 100 jets which have two pilots, two engines and safety features equivalent to large commercial passenger jets but weigh less than 10,000 pounds and are consequently highly fuel efficient.[22] Twitter Hsieh has long been an active Twitter user with a substantial following. He has been widely noted as an influential figure in how Twitter can be used among C-level executives to build a connection with customers, partners and employees.[23] Downtown Project - Las Vegas, NV Since 2009, Hsieh, who still runs the Henderson, NV based Zappos business, has been organizing a major re-development and revitalization project for downtown Las Vegas, which has been for the most part left behind compared to the Las Vegas strips zooming growth. Hsieh originally planned the Downtown Project as a place where Zappos employees may live and work, but the project has grown beyond that to a vision where thousands of local tech and other entrepreneurs may live and work.[24][25] Awards Hsieh received the Ernst & Young Entrepreneur Of The Year Award in 2007.[26] 1993 World Champions - ACM International Collegiate Programming Contest [27] Harvard University Team - Tony Hsieh, Derrick Bass, Craig Silverstein Personal life In June 2010, Hsieh released Delivering Happiness, a book about his entrepreneurial endeavors. It was profiled in many world publications, including The Washington Post, CNBC, TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and The Wall Street Journal.[6][28][29][30][31] It debuted at #1 on the New York Times Best Seller List and stayed on the list for 27 consecutive weeks.[32][33] Hsieh lives in Las Vegas, Nevada.
Posted on: Sat, 09 Aug 2014 15:20:59 +0000
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