Why your business should always be a day-one business

In his 2016 annual letter to shareholders, Jeff Bezos explains why at Amazon, its day one for the past few decades. 
​He says “Day 2 is stasis. Followed by irrelevance. Followed by excruciating, painful decline. Followed by death. And that is why it is always Day 1."

Here’s a summary

• Customer obsession: there are many ways to center a business: competitor focused, product focused, technology focused, business model focused, and there are more. But obsessive customer focus is by far the most protective of Day 1 vitality
• Resisting proxies: As companies get larger and more complex, there’s a tendency to manage to proxies. This comes in many shapes and sizes, and it’s dangerous, subtle, and very Day 2. A common example is process as proxy. Good process serves a business so it can serve customers. But if not watchful, the process can become the thing. This can happen very easily in large organizations. The process becomes the proxy for the result wanted. Businesses stop looking at outcomes and just make sure  they’re doing the process right. Gulp.
• Embracing external trends: The outside world can push companies into Day 2 if they won’t or can’t embrace powerful trends quickly. If you fight them, you’re probably fighting the future. Embrace them and you have a tailwind.
• High velocity decision making: Day 2 companies make high-quality decisions, but they make high-quality decisions slowly. To keep the energy and dynamism of Day 1, you have to somehow make high-quality, high-velocity decisions. Easy for start-ups and very challenging for large organizations

Here's the shareholder letter >>>

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​My name's phil mora and I blog about the things I love: fitness, hacking work, tech and anything holistic. 

​Head of Product and VP Engineering at Sikka Software.
thinker, doer, designer, coder, leader.