Working Backwards: Insights, Stories, and Secrets from Inside Amazon

True Customer Obsession There are many ways to center a business. You can be competitor focused, you can be product focused, you can be technology focused, you can be business model focused, and there are more. But in my view, obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality. Why? There are many advantages to a customer-cent

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Any project at Amazon is designed via a “working backwards” process. That is, the company, famous for its focus on the customer, starts with a press release that describes what the finished product does and why. (If it’s an internal-only service or product, the “customer” might be another internal team.) Then they write a “Frequently Asked Question

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You’ll notice a pattern of trial and error with metrics in the points above, and this is an essential part of the process. The key is to persistently test and debate as you go. For example, Jeff was concerned that the Fast Track In Stock metric was too narrow. Jeff Wilke argued that the metric would yield broad systematic improvements across the re

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