Jeff Bezo's Amazon Run:
- 27 years
- $1.68 Trillion company
- 800k people employed

Crazy run.

And 6 funny stories about the early days of Amazon
#1 - The original name wasn't Amazon. Jeff wanted to name it "Cadabra" (as in, abra cadabra, like magic)

His lawyer said the name sounded too much like Cadaver (aka a corpse) for ppl to share.

His 2nd pick was Relentless (relentless.com still re-directs to Amazon)
#2 - The company almost died because of inventory.

The whole point of an internet book store was to carry WAY more books than you can find in a book store.

But the book distributors minimum order was 10 books.

They couldn't afford to buy 10 of every book..
But they were 'relentless' and found a loophole. The distributor required you to ORDER 10 books. Not GET 10 books.

So they would order 1 of the book they wanted...and 9 copies of an obscure out-of-stock book about Lichens that they'd never get charged for.
#3 - The company started in his garage, and they used to pack every order on their knees on the floor. One day Jeff turned to his coworker and said "we should get knee pads!" ... and his coworker said: "or packing tables". They bought tables and productivity tripled.
^that reminds me of a story I heard about @moizali when he was starting Native Deodorant.

Friend: "Moiz do you even know anything about deodorant?"

Moiz: "no, I don't. But I'm going to start this company, and in 12 months I'll know everything there is to know about deodorant"
#4 - Amazon wanted to compete with Google, so they launched A9.com. They wanted real pics with search results. On a $100k budget, they flew photographers to 20 cities, rented cars, and took pics. A9 died, but google eventually built Street View off that idea.
#5 - Some ideas just work, right away. First book sold is "Fluid Concepts & Creative Analogies" to a friend.

* 2 months later - $20k/week sales
* 6 mo - $511k revenue, 2k daily visitors
* 2 years - $15M revenue, IPO

$10k invested in the IPO is worth $12M+ today
#6 - This is what the homepage looked like back in 1995. "if you're not embarrassed by v1 of your product, you launched too late"

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More from @ShaanVP

3 Feb
Here's a lesson on how to do cold outreach right.

Don't ask someone for "coffee" or a "quick 20 min call"

(or worst of all - "to pick their brain". You brain pickers stay away)

Here's an example of how my cousin hustled & got connected with @chamath
On the all-in podcast, @friedberg joked that @chamath wants to run for governor.

my cousin @RohunJauhar hears that and tweets this out
One guy reaches out saying "i'll do it in a few weeks for $2k". Another says "I'll do it for free, tonight."

Rohun sketches out what he wants. Super simple:
Read 7 tweets
2 Feb
If you're a college student who wants to pay off all your loans... here's an idea for you:

It takes ~$5k to start and will make ~$30k a year of profit

It won't get you rich, it'll pay for college.

(..and will teach them more about business than they’ll learn in school)
The idea isn’t sexy. But it works:

**Plastic Moving Bin Rentals**

Everyone knows moving sucks. The worst part is being stuck with 400 cardboard boxes at the end of your move.

Instead - @benmlevy told me about Gorilla Bins. They dropoff plastic moving bins, & pickem up later.
Let’s break it down. Our goal is to pay for college (~$30k profit per year).

To do that, I think we’ll need $50k in revenue.

The avg move (a 2 bedroom apartment) is $180

To hit our goal, we need do ~5.5 moves per week
Read 16 tweets
1 Feb
Elon Clubhouse summary for those who are locked out:
Q: When are we going to get to Mars?

@elonmusk (says some smart space stuff)... I figure... idk.. ~5.5 years.
Q: What will it take to go to Mars?

@elonmusk You need a fully & rapidly re-usable rocket. Rapid is imp.. can't take months between flights. Needs to be like airplanes where the biggest cost is fuel.

And be able to send 2nd rocket to re-fuel

And be able to make fuel on mars
Read 59 tweets
31 Jan
The ancient struggle was not having enough.

The modern struggle is having too much.

Too much news, too much sugar, too much of everything at your fingertips..There's only 1 way out.
Let's lay it out:

On one side, you have "Team Dopamine":
* 24/7 news cycle, full of clickbait headlines
* Social Media, friend's pics that disappear in 24 hours
* Endless varieties of sugar & porn

going up against your tiny, 3 pound brain running 20,000 yr old software
Even if you are a smart person who tries their best to stay healthy & happy... you are going up against Fox News, TikTok, PornHub, Robinhood, Instagram

These are weapons of mental destruction.
Read 13 tweets
26 Jan
If you're out of the loop - this is the (hilarious) story of a subreddit (wall street bets) taking down a multi-billion dollar hedge fund... get your popcorn ready 🍿
the hero of our story: a user named DeepFuckingValue bought $50k of call options in Gamestop ($GME) that has turned into a $13M+ win in ~3 months.

he's a part of the subreddit r/WallStreetBets, a group of degenerate gamblers that I love. Image
So here's the situation.

Gamestop (GME) = a dying biz. circling the drain. Who goes to a store to buy games? It's basically a pokemon card dealership at this point. Plus with covid, malls are dead.

So some Hedge Funds are shorting the stock, betting it would go down.
Read 13 tweets
14 Jan
10 years ago, Netflix spent $0 on original content.

This year:

Netflix: $11B
Apple: $6B
Disney: $1B
+ amazon, hulu HBO etc.
=
$20B+

Here's a crazy startup idea to take a swing at this $20B+ content piñata. 👇 Here's a quick business plan 🤔
The idea ---> @ycombinator for Content

Let's give it a made up name : Zeta Studios

It is a new accelerator model for getting shows & movies made.
@ycombinator = give engineer duos money ($120k), coaching, & give them 3 months to get ready for a Demo Day in front of a room of investors.

Zeta = give storytelling duos money ($120k), coaching, & 3 mo to get a sizzle reel ready for Demo Day w/ buyers from netflix, amazon etc.
Read 10 tweets

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