#Darkest hour crash on startup professional

Incredibly, 65% of the customers who replied agreed to the price bump. So I wrote them a personal note asking permission, and promised to keep anybody who disagreed at their current price point. But I was determined not to do it without our customersвЂ™ blessing. Consider proactively refunding themВ if you know you dropped the ball, i.e., refund them before they even ask for it.Д®xample: We decided it was time to increase our prices by 50%. Like literally actually be willing to take a loss if it means giving your customer a win, even if it means violating your own terms of use or policies. Simply put,В the customer is alwaysВ first. So without further ado, letвЂ™s dive in: IвЂ™m going to walk you through each of AmazonвЂ™s 14 LPs, complete with personalВ examples from my previous two startups, and hope that youвЂ™ll walk away not just with 14 new things in your head, but the ability to concretely, quantitatively analyze your past behaviors, and most importantly, to apply these LPs to your startup going forward.Д«y the time youвЂ™re done with this, you should be able to recite all fourteen of these principles verbatim, and truly understand and internalize them, just as I can. It surrounds us and penetrates us it binds the galaxy together.вЂќ Quoting Jedi Master Obi-Wan, вЂњItвЂ™s an energy field created by all living things. It turns out that these principles are basically like the Force.

#Darkest hour crash on startup professional

I basically went from вЂњwow this is awesomeвЂќ to вЂњthis is ridiculousвЂќ to вЂњok, this actually makes a lot of sense and I need to apply this to every part of my professional life now.вЂќ

Thing is though, the more I read these LPs, the more I started to understand them, and subsequently to accept them, in a sort of GartnerвЂ™s Hype Cycle-type process: When I first stumbled across these вЂњLPs,вЂќ as theyвЂ™re known at Amazon, I went through the following various thoughts: holy crap thatвЂ™s a lot of principles some of these sound ridiculous (вЂњdive deepвЂќ) some are linguistically painful (вЂњare right, a lotвЂќ - what does that even mean?!) some of these overlap you gotta be freaking kidding me etc. Not just by way of friends, family, and trusted advisors, but by adherence to values or principles to which your team is anchored, and from which, you derive stability, focus, and accountability.ДЄs I think back over the last (nearly) eight years of running two startups, itвЂ™s clear to me now that I should have established, from the beginning, our own explicitly enumerated principles.Д«etter yet, I wish I had discovered AmazonвЂ™s (apparently now famous) 14 Leadership Principles: theyвЂ™ve already done all the hard work for us. Thing is though, what happens once you get started? How do you ensure that you continuously push forward, accelerating at a faster and faster rate, but that you continue to do so correctly, and for the right reasons, and that you ultimately succeed in your venture? You can no more consciously choose to be an entrepreneur than you can choose whether to be hungry: you either are, or you arenвЂ™t.Д«eing an entrepreneur - committing to building and running a startup - is an all-encompassing lifestyle itвЂ™s something you do not because you wantВ to do it, but because youвЂ™re compelledВ to do it. That I fell backwards, arms flailing, would be more precise.ДЄs IвЂ™ve said time and again, choosing to be an entrepreneur is not some sort of conscious, willful decision: вЂњHm, yes, I think IвЂ™d like a filet mignon, or a chocolate sundae yes, I think IвЂ™d like to become an entrepreneur today.вЂќ To say that I dove headfirst into life as an entrepreneur back in October 2010 would be inaccurate.