GR Diary

8 success lessons for entrepreneurs from Jeff Bezos, world’s richest man

Published

6 years ago

August 21, 2018

grassroots

A self-made multibillionaire, Jeff Bezos is the man who launched an online bookstore and turned it into the largest online retailer of all time.

His success story began in 1994, when he launched Amazon.com from his garage, according to this article by the Entrepreneur.

It was the dawn of the digital age, and Bezos was a man with a vision — he knew from the start that his online store would focus on more than just books. He set out to create an online retail empire that sold anything and everything, at a low cost, with products reaching customers within days.

Amazon.com has forever changed the online retail environment and fundamentally changed the way millions of people shop. Along the way, Bezos has become the richest man in the world, worth approximately $108 billion.

So what are the secrets behind Bezos’ wild success?

Here are the 8 most important lessons you can learn about achieving success from the richest person on the planet.

1. Embrace a “Day 1” philosophy.

Bezos came up with the Day 1 concept in the early days of Amazon. The concept means that Amazon will always strive to keep a startup mentality — it will always guard against the contentment that sweeping success can bring. Bezos defines Day 2 as stasis, followed by irrelevance, followed by decline and death, which is why he believes it’s paramount his company always stays in Day 1 mode.

Bezos discussed the Day 1 concept in his 1997 letter to shareholders. He began by listing all the milestones the company had passed that year, such as serving 1.5 million customers (Amazon now serves more than 310 million active customers), yielding a revenue of $147.8 million (it reported a revenue of $178 billion in 2017). He went on to talk about how the company must continue to look for opportunities to evolve in the competitive market.

2. Being customer-centric.

From the very beginning, Bezos has been obsessed with innovating according to customer needs and wants. He believes in focusing on customers, not competitors. Don’t waste time one-upping your rivals; instead, focus on getting ahead of the market. Find ways to make your customers excited and clamor for more.

3. What would your 80-year-old self say?

In the fast-paced, cutthroat world of business, it’s hard to know which opportunities are the right ones and which ones to leave behind. How do you determine which way to go?

This was the situation Bezos faced when he came up with the idea of launching an online retail store. He already had a great job working at a hedge fund, but he saw how fast the internet was growing and knew his idea had real potential. So how did he summon the courage to leave a stable, well-paying job to launch a startup?

4. Build the best team for your business.

The success of your business largely depends on the people you hire to help build it. Bezos takes team building seriously. His philosophy is to focus on bringing the right people on board, and then give them a stake in the success of the company, so they’re motivated to see it succeed.

In his 2017 shareholder letter, Bezos wrote: “We know our success will be largely affected by our ability to attract and retain a motivated employee base, each of whom must think like, and therefore must actually be, an owner.” In keeping with this, Amazon offers compensation heavy in stock options. This increases employee involvement in the company’s overall success.

Amazon has even taken the step of offering to pay employees who don’t want to work there anymore up to $5,000 to quit. This allows the company to weed out the employees who are unengaged or disgruntled, thus saving it more money in the long run. And those employees who stay will be more committed to their jobs.

5. Be bold and innovate where it counts most.

Bezos has said that Amazon’s goal is to be “Earth’s most customer-centric company,” so nearly everything that goes on inside the company is driven with that goal in mind.

Each step of the way in building his online “everything store,” Bezos has added features and functions that were initially considered unwarranted, but were beneficial to the customer. That’s why Amazon is constantly working on optimizing its logistic and delivery systems, to make its services run as smoothly and efficiently as possible. Amazon has poured huge amounts of resources into developing its infrastructure. These investments have paid off, as the company now holds the title of largest online retailer in the world.

6. Be frugal and efficient — put revenue back into your company.

Frugality is one of Amazon’s foundational principles. Being low-cost, efficient and extremely competitive has made Amazon billions. Bezos has a laser focus on keeping productivity high and ensuring thriftiness at all levels — from the leadership on down. The company’s own website lists frugality as a core principle, stating, “Accomplish more with less. Constraints breed resourcefulness, self-sufficiency and invention.”

7. Risk failure for success.

One of the key strategies to Bezos’ success is his approach to failure. Bezos believes in trying out a plethora of ideas, knowing that some projects will flop. He constantly advocates for the need to take calculated risks. Without taking that leap, he believes, you’ll never know what will or won’t work. In fact, accepting the possibility of failure helped give him the courage to launch his business in the first place.

When Bezos launched Amazon, he gave himself a 30 percent chance of success. “That’s actually a very liberating expectation, expecting to fail,” Bezos says in the book One Click: Jeff Bezos and the Rise of Amazon.com. He built his business by embracing risk and accepting that sometimes doing so may mean losing money to learn lessons. Bezos himself jokes about making “billions of dollars of failures.”

But in the long run, all that experimentation has paid off. In the end, a few big successes will outweigh dozens of defeats.

8. Always look toward tomorrow and beyond.

Bezos has always been focused on long-term thinking and strategizing when it comes to Amazon. But he is also hoping to inspire others to think beyond the here and now. This is reflected in many of the other projects he takes on.

In 2000, Bezos founded Blue Origin, an aerospace manufacturer and spaceflight company, which is developing technologies to make affordable space flight for the average human. It’s part of his long-term dream to find a way for humans to live in space permanently.

He is also working with the Long Now Foundation on constructing a clock that will keep time for 10,000 years. It’s designed to be an icon for long-term thinking. As Bezos wrote on the clock website: “As I see it, humans are now technologically advanced enough that we can create not only extraordinary wonders but also civilization-scale problems. We’re likely to need more long-term thinking.”

Copyright: This article was first published by the Entrepreneur.

Events

Stakeholders Head to Enugu for first Southeast Educators Conference

Published

1 month ago

March 29, 2024

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Stakeholders in the education circle are warming up for the maiden edition of Southeast Educators’ Conference 2024(SEEC’24).

The two-day SEEC’24 scheduled to hold 18th & 19th, April 2024 at Nike Lake Resort, Enugu under theme: Future-‘Focused Learning – Igniting the Competitive Edge’ promises to host key players in the education sector with a potential attendance of over 500 delegates.

The conference will feature a diverse lineup of speakers, covering topics ranging from holistic learning approaches to cutting-edge technology integration.

Speaking ahead of the conference, Mrs Doris Chinedu-Okoro, CEO, Evergreen Group, said SEEC’24 is the first of its kind in the Southeast region, presenting a historic opportunity for stakeholders to pioneer positive change in the local education sector.

“It brings together diverse perspectives and innovative ideas,fostering collaboration and networking among educators and stakeholders.

Hundreds of delegates will be in attendance.

“SEEC’24 is dedicated to exploring transformative practices, emphasising holistic learning, technology integration, global citizenship, life-long learning, and community engagement”, she said.

Mr. Osita Chidioka, the former Nigeria’s Minister of Aviation, who recently launched an online mentorship and leadership programme for Nigerian youths named Mekaria Mentorship Programme (MMP) Foundation Course, will deliver the keynote at SEEC’24.

Prof. Pieter Verdegem; Dr. Joy Isa, Mrs. Bukola Adewuiyi, Lady Uju Dike, Fr. John Njorteah, Alex Onyia, Rotimi Eyitayo, Rhoda Odigboh, Elfrida Diete-Spiff Omole, Dr. ChibuezeLawrence Ofobuike, Ify Obidi-Essien, Dr. Abimbola Ogundere, Angelina Ikeako, Odetola Ebenezer Israel and OgochukwuOnyia, are some of the speakers lined up for the event.

The Evergreen Group CEO added that the conference thrives on a vision to create a dynamic platform that equips educators with the tools and knowledge needed to make a lasting impact on the educational landscape of South-Eastern Nigeria.

SEEC’24 is open to School Owners, Heads of Schools (Public and Private), Educational Stakeholders, Counselors, Teachers, Parents, Investors, Startups, and others in the education ecosystem.

“Participants will have the opportunity to engage in two full days of conference sessions, diving deep into the future of Education.

“There will be ample networking opportunities with school leaders from across the geopolitical zone and beyond.

“The evening Gala Night promises a delightful atmosphere for dancing, dining, wining, and fostering deeper connections in a relaxed setting”, she further explained.

Registration is N100,000 via: https://bit.ly/3uTcv9e

GR Diary

PAFON: Digital Encode, Cybervergent, Payble Sign Up for Payments Forum Nigeria 1.0

Published

2 months ago

March 12, 2024

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· Experts to Discuss Trust, Security and Privacy in AI Era

Payments Forum Nigeria (PAFON), the cross-industry platform focused on addressing issues that require broad cooperation and coordination across many constituents in the payments industry, has attracted sponsorships from Digital Encode Limited, Cybervergent and Payble.

Financial industry experts are warming up for the first edition of PAFON, scheduled to take place at Oriental Hotel, Lekki Road, Lagos on Thursday March 21, 2024, by 9am.

The Forum aims at providing an inside-look at the industry, offering perspectives from key stakeholders, including payment networks, technology innovators, leading merchants, issuers, acquirers and payment processors.

Throughout the years, the finance world has shifted into something much more than just banking and big corporations.

Speaking ahead of the star-studded PAFON 1.0, with the theme: “Payments: Trust, Security and Privacy in AI Era”, Dr. Adewale Peter Obadare, the Chief Visionary Officer [CVO], Digital Encode Limited, said that customers want to be assured that their sensitive information, such as credit card numbers and personal details, is treated with utmost care hence security has become paramount in the payments industry.

“Secure payment processing ensures that data breaches are minimized, instilling confidence in customers to keep coming back. Nigerian financial institutions reported ₦159 billion ($201.5 million) lost to fraud cases since 2020, according to the Financial Institutions Training Centre (FITC). This is what the experts must tackle and customer awareness is key too”, he said.

Based on a report by Gartner, by 2024, 40% of privacy compliance technology will rely on AI, up from 5% in 2019, and by 2025, 60% of large organizations will use at least one privacy-enhancing computation technique in analytics, business intelligence, or cloud computing, and financial services industry is no exempted.

On the other hand, Roosevelt Elias, the co-founder of Payble, described PAFON as a ‘must-attend’ Forum due to the ‘issues listed to be discussed are germane and require critical attention. For instance, building financial inclusive products requires a mix of technology and illiteracy. The industry can’t achieve this by working in silos; we just have to unite to achieve the set target on financial inclusion, particularly for the rural dwellers.

Digital Encode (a leading consulting and integration that specializes in the design, management, and security of business-critical architecture); Cybervergent (a company dedicated to helping protect business sensitive data from cyber-attacks, including customer information, financial records and intellectual property); Payble (a fintech startup that modernises local government payments such as creating citizen-centric payment experiences, delivering flexible billing and simplified rate collection, will be joined at PAFON 1.0 by Inlaks, an IT company that offers core banking, fraud management, cybersecurity, cloud, data center, enterprise risk management, amongst other industry players.

“Our goal is to enable information exchange and knowledge sharing on key industry insights issues amongst key stakeholders, with the objective of ensuring a collaborative and proactive approach to push for policies that enable growth, tackling/mitigating fraud and limiting occurrences and losses”, said Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi, the co-founder of TechCastle Foundation, organisers of Payment Forum Nigeria (PAFON).

He said that the Forum is driven by the reasons to; “educate and inform financial service players and other stakeholders on various issues and trends (both locally and globally); proactively share data/information amongst banks, Fintechs and other service providers, to enable prompt responses to prevent and/or limit (customer-related) losses; and discuss key Payments security trends”.

“Speakers will be drawn among industry players such as banks, Fintechs, mobile money operators, blockchain experts, Cybersecurity, etc., as we expect attendees from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN); e-Banking Heads; Chief Compliance Officers of banks in Nigeria; Chief Internal Auditors of banks in Nigeria; Office of The National Security Adviser; Switching companies; the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission; Licensed Mobile Payment Operators; Electronic Payments Providers; Information Security Experts; Consumer Protection; Financial Policy and Regulation; Information Technology; Legal Services; Banking Supervision; Corporate Communication; Shared Services Office; Blockchain Security Experts, etc”, he added.

Participation:

Participation is free; however, you are required to pre-register using the link here: https://bit.ly/4c4N19H

For sponsorship, please contact: Mr. Chike Onwuegbuchi via: 08123355522 or Peter Oluka: 08184346261 or email: [email protected].

GR Diary

Digital Landscape Harmonization: Anambra’s ISPs, HEIs Invited to AFRINIC One-Day Training

By; SANDRA ANI

Published

5 months ago

December 1, 2023

grassroots

The Anambra State ICT Agency, in a strategic collaboration with the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN), recently, successfully organized a one-day interactive session that brought together Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Higher Educational Institutions (HEIs), to discuss the imperativeness for interconnectivity and to lay the foundation for establishing an Internet Exchange Point in the State.

The collaborative session saw vibrant discussions and resolutions aimed at creating a more livable state and a robust economy through increased internet access and connectivity.

In furtherance of the milestone recorded with the interactive session, and in recognition of the pivotal role of ISPs and HEIs in expediting actions towards this interconnectivity, a one-day AFRINIC virtual training program has been scheduled to take place on Tuesday, 5th December by 12.00pm.

The follow-up virtual training will not only provide participants with invaluable insights, technical expertise, and practical knowledge to optimize their network infrastructures but will further yield answers to key questions posed by ISPs and HEIs.

AFRINIC, the Regional Internet Registry for Africa, is renowned for its commitment to advancing internet development across the continent. The AFRINIC virtual training therefore represents a significant stride towards realizing the goals outlined during the interactive session.

This initiative aligns perfectly with the vision of Governor Charles Chukwuma Soludo, CFR, of building a technologically advanced state, while the collaborative efforts of the Anambra State ICT Agency and the Internet Exchange Point of Nigeria (IXPN) underscores practical commitment to positioning Anambra as a digital hub, driving innovation, economic growth, and improved quality of life for its residents.

Participants can expect an interactive and immersive learning experience, equipping them with the skills necessary to navigate the dynamic landscape of internet services in the State.