Tony Hsieh &amp; Justin Weniger

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

thanks everyone!

Jess Iandiorio

@jessiandiorio · VP, Marketing at Drift

Hi Tony! I feel like Zappos made NPS famous. Is it as important of a metric today as it was a few years ago? Why/Why not?

7 share tweet・a year ago

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@jessiandiorio i think nps can be a useful tool if the scores are low (it's on a scale of -100 to 100) and an important part of nps (net promoter score) is not just the number (on a scale of 0-10 how likely are you to recommend xyz to a friend or colleague) but the follow up question (why or why not?)... for low scores then teams can work on improving but once it gets high (in the 85-95 range for us at zappos) then it probably is more of a vanity metric than something helpful to manage the company by..

10 share tweet・a year ago

Kingsong Chen

@kingsongchen · Founder at Lace, Marketplace for GovTech

Hi Tony and Justin! What advice on building company culture do you have for founders who are trying to bring technology to older industries (i.e. government)?

5 share tweet・a year ago

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@kingsongchen this is general advice for any startup -- if you're just starting out as a new company, then the easiest thing i would suggest is to figure out your own personal values (which is harder than it sounds) and then just make the company's values the same as your personal values, and make sure you hire people whose values match the company's values (and you fire people for values violations)...

12 share tweet・a year ago

Nik Sharma

@mrsharma · Stealth Ad Agency CEO

Hi Tony, thanks for doing a PH LIVE! My question is: What made you want to create that kind of culture at Zappos? Was there something specific you saw before or as you were starting Zappos that made you want to embody that culture? Thanks!

4 share tweet・a year ago

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@mrsharma at my previous startup (linkexchange 1996-1998) we didn't know any better to pay attention to company culture and the culture went completely downhill by the time we sold to microsoft in 1998. i wanted to make sure we didn't make that same mistake again at zappos so culture has always been important from the beginning. in 2003 i emailed all of our employees and just asked them what our core values should be, and we went back and forth for a year and then rolled out our 10 core values in 2004 that serve as a formalized definition of our culture - 1) Deliver WOW Through Service 2) Embrace and Drive Change 3) Create Fun and A Little Weirdness 4) Be Adventurous, Creative, and Open-Minded 5) Pursue Growth and Learning 6) Build Open and Honest Relationships With Communication 7) Build a Positive Team and Family Spirit 8) Do More With Less 9) Be Passionate and Determined 10) Be Humble

11 share tweet・a year ago

Kazuya Nakamura

@kzynakamura · CEO, qeuep

Hi Tony! I am really curious how holacracy is changing the way people work at Zappos. Also When do you think is the best timing for startups to embrace holacracy?

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

Holacracy just happens to be the technology that we are using today, but our ultimate goal is that we want to structure Zappos more like a city and less like a top-down bureaucratic command and control organization. Our march towards self-organization and self-management isn’t an experiment. It’s the future of work and it’s the only structure that has stood the test of time. It’s the only structure that can become more innovative as it gets bigger (vs. typical corporate structures that become less innovative as they get bigger). Self-organization and self-management isn’t a theory. It exists in nature, and it exists in human-created cities.

8 share tweet・a year ago

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@kzynakamura i don't think there's ever a good time to adopt holacracy... it's a completely different mindset and way of thinking that will take time to learn... but i would say if you're going to do it, you should do it as early as possible as the transition later will only be harder the more employees you have. if i could do it all over again i would have made the switch to holacracy sooner.

Kazuya Nakamura

@kzynakamura · CEO, qeuep

@tonyhsieh Thank you so much! I have been studying holacracy for the day to come. I had worked for big company and managed big team before. I felt so unnatural. Your answer helped me realize "unnatural" is the perfect word to describe my uncomfortable feeling toward traditional model!

1 share tweet・a year ago

DRFarrell

@d_r_farrell

Hey Justin and Tony! Zappos has a fantastic story... what a great example of starting from qualifying a minimum viable product and scaling upwards from there. Two questions: what advice do you have for aspiring entrepreneurs in college, and are there any examples of startups you could launch today with a similar strategy to Zappos' with the consideration of differences in technology from now vs. back in 1999?

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@d_r_farrell i think it's actually much easier and cheaper to launch a startup today because of things such as AWS, etc... i think there are very very few companies that are really focused on customer service/customer experience today (i don't think it was that different in 1999 either) so plenty of opportunity for any startup to take on a similar strategy today

Corley

@corleyh · COO @ Product Hunt

Hi there. Thanks for joining us today, @justinweniger & @tonyhsieh. One of my favorite thing about Zappos (circa 2008) was the parade you took guests on and the conference rooms that the teams decorated. It was such an amazing demonstration of culture. Do those things still exist today? And if so, how have the evolved? And for those that may be reading my statement and thinking, "what is she talking about...", can you share a little bit about how those things came to be.

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@corleyh @justinweniger yes we still have parades but there isn't a parade committee or anything... they are usually just spontaneously done by a team and usually the new hire class as well when they are getting close to graduating from new hire training (5 week program)... our conference rooms are all decorated with different themes as well

Jeanne Markel

@jeanne_markel · Technical Advisor, Zappos.com

@corleyh @justinweniger @tonyhsieh Hi Corley! I am a Zappos employee and I can answer your question from my perspective? Glad you got the chance to take our tour of our Henderson office, we relocated to our current downtown campus in Fall of 2013 (come visit us for an updated tour next time you are in Vegas!) I agree - the parades, decorated conference rooms, whacky employee events on campus, etc are all a representation of our culture and they definitely still exist. Parades are a little less frequent since we are now in a high-rise, but the layout of our new campus/building in an urban environment actually has a much better layout for us to host events in center plaza area multiple days of the week - benefit is they are typically open to not only employees but to the community as well. We've got jungle themed conference rooms with giant stuff animals, one is a "ballroom" with colored plastic balls all over the floor, etc. These ways of showing our creativity and types of events started in early days of Zappos very organically - one of our Core Values is "Being Fun and Weird"; what's really great about it is that we encourage our employees to bring their whole self to work - so not a "work" persona and a different "weekend/home" persona, people can be comfortable being themselves no matter who they are. Come on by for a visit!

Thomas Stöcklein

@tomstocklein · FoundersFundersFuture.com

Zappos is famous for amazing customer service. What are the three most common shortcomings of other (tech) companies in regards to customer service?

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@tomstocklein in general, i'd say it's just about whether you view customer service as an expense to try to minimize or a branding-building/relationship-building investment that you try to leverage and figure out how to invest even more into. i think most people underestimate the power of a personal emotional connection that can happen over the telephone, and most tech companies probably try to avoid telephone contact.

⭐️

Ben Tossell

@bentossell · Community Lead, Product Hunt

What advice would you give your 20 year old self?

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@bentossell be unapologetically true to yourself (both in business and in life), and if you are constantly broadcasting who you are (the real you, the inner you) to the world, over time your people will find you.

Tejaswi R

@tejazz89 · Manager, Demand Generation at VWO

I personally followed your vision of making Las Vegas a startup mecca. It's rare to see successful founders go the extra mile to think of the larger community and contribute in a personal capacity - selflessly. After around 2 years, how far has your vision come? Do you believe Las Vegas could be a place leaving a mark in history as a cradle of innovation and entrepreneurship as much as dining, gambling, night life and parties?

Justin Weniger

@justin_weniger · CEO, Life is Beautiful Festival

@tejazz89 I can chime in on this one as someone that was inspired by Tony & Co's vision and decided to move my company to Downtown Las Vegas (To be clear I do not work for Zappos, my company works with Zappos and Tony in the Downtown area to produce a 3 day music and arts festival called Life is Beautiful). In so many ways what we are doing down here is unique - of course Las Vegas in itself is a very unique market - but we also have a unique set of circumstances with a group of visionaries that believe that what we are doing will very much change the way cities operate and people organize. It's truly an amazing thing to be a part of.

Tejaswi R

@tejazz89 · Manager, Demand Generation at VWO

@justin_weniger thanks for the answer from your unique standpoint. I believe the place where a startup is born and grown is as influential in the long term. Hope to see Las Vegas set an example. Any specific place online where one can keep tab on the progress you guys make?

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@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

@tejazz89 part of our goal at downtown project was to help make downtown vegas a place of inspiration, creativity, entrepreneurial energy, innovation, upward mobility, and discovery... it's pretty exciting to walk through downtown container park (which has had nearly 3 million visitors) and see all the kids and families there, whereas 3 years ago i would have felt unsafe standing outside what is now the entrance by myself at night... the area of downtown vegas we're focusing on is almost the complete opposite of what people usually associate las vegas with. the Life Is Beautiful festival (last weekend of september this year) is a big part of our strategy to help transform downtown (analogous to what sxsw did for austin)... we've actually been at it for 4 years now (not 2) and i'm pretty happy with how things have evolved over time. the one thing i would do differently if i could do it all over again would be maybe start building more residential a year or two earlier... we have a lot of people that want to live downtown but there aren't enough housing options yet, but we're working on getting that fixed (just broke ground on a new 4-story apartment complex this month).

@tejazz89 @justin_weniger http://www.downtownproject.com/ http://lifeisbeautiful.com/ http://dtlv.com/

@tonyhsieh · CEO - Zappos.com

1 share tweet・a year ago

Justin Weniger

@justin_weniger · CEO, Life is Beautiful Festival

I would follow DTLV.com for a pretty unique blend of happenings in the Downtown Las Vegas area, Tech.co is primarily based out of this area so they have some great content as well. Keep LifeIsBeautiful.com on your radar as we will be adding a lot of content and have some big announcements coming up in the next 60 days as well.

foods finest

@foodsfinest

@tonyhsieh congratulations on breaking ground on a new 4-story apartment complex. I've been looking into housing options in downtown Vegas, but not sure of the options. it sure has a different vibe and feel from other neighborhoods.