The Everything Store - Brad Stone

When you buy something at Amazon, do you wonder how the store was created? Many know that the e-commerce giant started in the United States, but can you imagine how fast and chaotic the store's path was until it became what it is today? Brad Stone tells more about Jeff Bezos' story in the book "The Everything Store".

If we tell you that the company has long been unprofitable and still survived, would you believe it? That is exactly how it happened! Find out how the company came about and became what it is today.

Stay with us in this summary and learn some valuable insights from it!

About the book "The Everything Store"

"The Everything Store" has 420 pages and was released by Little, Brown and Company happened in 2013. One of the book's differentials is that it has several images of Jeff Bezos, the creator of Amazon, that has never been released before.

About the author Brad Stone

Brad Stone is an American writer and journalist living in San Francisco, California. He has worked for several renowned American newspapers such as Newsweek, New York Times, and Bloomberg Businessweek.

Stone has spent more than 15 years covering Silicon Valley tech stories and also wrote the book "The Upstarts".

To whom is this book indicated?

If you want to start a business or turn your existing business into a success, this book is for you!

As you follow Jeff Bezos's life and Amazon's rise and growth, you will learn many tips on how to build a successful business and take it to the top, even against several issues that may come your way.

Main ideas of the book "The Everything Store"

• Believe in your idea and never doubt it.
• Always remind everyone involved in the company what is the main focus;
• Don't let outside voices negatively influence your business;
• Learn from all your past experiences;
• Always knowing who to ask for help is critical for your business to reach its full potential. No one specializes in everything, so count on others;
• To always keep growing and innovating is very important to don't let the company stagnant, it must always have a new growth objective;

In this summary, we will go over the 3 parts in which the book is divided by the author: Faith, Literary Influences, and Missionary or Mercenary.

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Overview: Faith - Never Stop Believing in Your Vision

The author begins the book by telling a little about the childhood of Amazon's creator Jeff Bezos, his career on Wall Street, and how the idea of having a store that sells everything came up.

Although Bezos knew all the difficulties he would face, he didn't give up at any time. Instead, he found a way to start it. And the way he found was to focus on a specific segment: books.

If you believe in your vision and go for it, always keeping in mind what you want to achieve, you can start with just part of your business and start gaining more space and moving towards your real purpose.

Don't let stakeholders lose focus

Throughout the book, Brad Stone tells of several occasions when Jeff Bezos was forced to remind his employees, colleagues, and even potential investors and partner companies about Amazon's main focus, the customer.

Don't give too much importance to negative outside voices

For a long time in Amazon's history, there were outsiders criticizing the company, predicting its failure and betting against it. The author tells about a particular bond analyst named Ravi Suria, who made several predictions and analyses, which was widely published and discussed in the media, saying that Amazon was doomed to failure and would never work out.

Bezos's response to this was to call the report "pure and complete rubbish" and put a complete skeleton of an Ice Age cave bear with a sign on the side that saying: "please don't feed the bears" in a reference to the pessimists like Ravi who predicted the downfall of the company.

If you believe in your vision, keep your entire team always engaged by focusing on your goal and make the business work without listening to the outside and pessimistic voices.

The only way for a company to truly grow and become successful is if it innovates and always delivers the best it can.

Overview: Literary Influences - Learn from Everyone Who Came Before You

No one was born knowing everything, but since you were born you are surrounded by many people, experiences, and situations that can help you identify problems and learn from them.

In addition, many successful companies are always having their stories told, so you can learn more about what decisions to make and how to avoid predictable mistakes.

In his narrative of Amazon's story, Brad Stone shows how Jeff Bezos went beyond belying the predictions of analysts like Ravi and led the company to make profits and keep growing.

The author shows how many people just can't explain the behavior of Amazon's founder without resorting to stories from his past. This is because the entrepreneur has had many influences in his life that taught and helped him come up with ideas that could be applied to a successful business.

No one can do everything alone

It is physically impossible for a person to be everywhere and make all decisions on their own. If you want your business to grow, then you must know how to choose the people around you and how to leverage them within your organization.

Throughout "The Everything Store", the author repeatedly reports how important some people were helping Jeff Bezos make Amazon what it is today. The entrepreneur was always determined to have the best and smartest employees in the company.

This includes the right people in the right places who are committed to the business vision and really strive to help the business grow.

Knowing how to identify in which area each person is able to work best is one of the most important skills for a good leader. A person in the wrong position can compromise the entire business.

Overview: Missionary or Mercenary - Never Stop Growing

No matter how big the company is, there is always space to grow more with the initial goal being the main focus, but once it's achieved, it can be overcome.

When your business seems stagnant, create new ways of doing things, products, and new services. A company is like a living being and must always be on the move, expanding and growing.

When telling about Amazon, Stone points out that even amid the chaos of rapid growth, the company was always finding new ways to grow and increase its services even more.

Even today that it's become a giant company, the store that sells everything, Jeff Bezos is not satisfied, a proof of it is that he is already investing in space technology.

What do other authors say about it?

You may have heard that market research is the most important part of preparation before starting a business. From it, you can identify your consumer audience and build your product according to your niche market.

However, Simon Sinek in the book "Start with Why" doesn't agree with that. He believes that the most important part is discovering and understanding "why." This is a process of discovery, not an invention that occurs overnight.

The book "The Blue Ocean Strategy" brings a new concept in strategy for gaining prominence in the market. This innovation is based on exploiting market opportunities in which there are no competitors, called by the author "blue oceans". Thus, there is a distance from opponents and a differentiated form of growth.

Finally, In the book "Zero to One", Peter Thiel and Blake Masters give the following hint: when there is competition, companies have no power over the market. As a result, they must sell their products at a market-regulated price or they will be massacred by competition. But when the monopoly is over, you are the one who dictates the rules.

Okay, but how can I apply this to my life?

There is no company like another, but you can learn from the mistakes and successes of others that have gone through the process of creating and growing a business.

• Start small but think big.
• Always stay focused and work hard to get there.
• Search for the right people to help you.
• Make the most of the experience of others, learn from mistakes and successes from those who have already succeeded.
• Also, learn from your experience that everything you have ever lived has shaped the person you are today and this can be applied to your business.
• Always keep growing, movement is life, don't let your business die because you have settled down.

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