Win! Delivering Happiness Book by Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh

Delivering Happiness is one of those business books you just can’t put down.

Since hearing about the rise and rise of Zappos (the online shoe and clothing retailer) that was sold to Amazon last year for $1.2 billion in Amazon shares, I’ve been very interested in hearing about what they do.

I expected this to be another business book by an over-achieving, cocky CEO with an over-sized ego to match.

After all, how many 23 year olds do you know that have sold the company they have built to Microsoft for $265 million?

But Tony Hsieh is different. Way different.

He spent his time at Harvard choosing courses that had the least work and effort so he could sleep and party (sounds a lot like the group of uni pals I hung out with back in the day, except it took us a long time to get our careers happening).

After graduating and getting a highly paid job at Oracle doing very little, he and his friend left to start a web design company. Except they realised that it didn’t excite them. They then started LinkExchange which grew and grew into a large company within only 18 months. When it was no longer fun, they sold it to Microsoft.

With lots of time on their hands, they invested into 27 companies including one called Zappos. When they couldn’t get further venture capitalist funding, Tony Hsieh stepped in as the CEO and also poured in his remaining money from the LinkExchange sale.

What’s fascinating about this book is how long it took for Zapppos to become profitable and how it very nearly didn’t even look like it would survive. Through trial and error it finally made money.

Zappos is known for its amazing customer service. Tony goes through how this evolved (my favourite part of the book is that rave culture actually influenced the core values) inlcuding how it was the pursuit of happiness that has set the corporate culture. He goes into a lot of detail about the core values and how they ensure staff are matched to their values.

For those involved with motivating, training and retaining key staff this is the book for you. It is very insightful and a great read. For any budding entrepreneur or general manager of a large organisation, this book will help your realise the importance of company culture and how to nurture it.

You can find out more about the book at:
http://www.deliveringhappinessbook.com

http://www.amazon.com/deliveringhappiness

For those of you interested in getting a free copy, I have one available. Email me at mc@digicast.com.au