 Hello everyone and welcome to this week's Product School webinar. Thanks for joining us today. Just in case you didn't know, Product School teaches product management, coding, data analytics, digital marketing, and blockchain courses online and at our 15 campuses worldwide. On top of that, every week we offer some amazing local product management events and host online webinars, live streams, and ask me anything sessions. Head over to productschool.com after this webinar to shake them up. Hello, I'm Jocelyn Miller and I'm here today to tell you about building Amazon Prime. This was an adventure where I was working at Amazon, so I saw a lot of it firsthand and really Amazon Prime was the last minute great idea that led the company in many ways to hockey stick growth, but most people don't know the story. So today we're going to go through it together and we're going to specifically see, first off, get a glimpse of those earlier days at Amazon because it definitely was very different from the way it is today. We're going to see generally how big bets and defying conventions are part of what takes a new business or a new product to take off, and especially for big companies or established companies, it's really important to be willing to go there, even as an individual for your career, because that's where the interesting things, the big change items happen. And then finally, how to deal with your best ideas, often coming at what feels like the worst time and knowing when you should actually take that bold leap. How do you determine that that bold risk is worthwhile now versus a distraction or not a good idea? So you might be wondering who I am. As I mentioned, I am Jocelyn, and I have over 10 years of experience working at Amazon, Google, and having been director of product management at Dazzle. And now I act as a personal accelerator for individuals and teams. And that means I coach, I train, I help people get to their next levels in business and their careers. And over the years, I've trained and mentored thousands of people. And the way I look at what I do is I study cognitive science and computer science, which I always talk about as people and machines. So all the work that I do is at that intersection of people and machines, and the way that I fundamentally view technology is how to make people's lives better. That's also very similar to a lot of the ways Amazon lets the technology to. So we'll be talking about that throughout our talk today. But to give you that story, let's jump on in. So it all started with an idea. For Amazon Prime, it was actually an individual engineer who had the idea of this subscription-based sort of all-you-can-eat shipping model. He thought that it was really compelling. He actually submitted this idea into the Ideas Tool. And he got some attention from various managers and various individuals within Amazon that helped lead him all the way up to Jeff. So Jeff Bezos, as all of you may know, is really such a huge force at Amazon. He's obviously the founder and still CEO. But he's also very much the driver on many of these things. And when it got to Jeff, that is where this engineer presented the idea. Jeff loved it, and a timeline was born. And why this is really important, you have to understand that this is happening in 2005-ish when we are just about at the holiday season. So Christmas is coming, Hanukkah's coming. All of these holidays are right on our tails. I recall it being around October timeframe when this idea really got steam. And because Jeff was so bought in, because this engineer was so compelling with what he presented, and Jeff was like, my goodness, yes, we need this, not only do we need it. But Jeff was basically saying, look, get it done by holiday. This can be a huge game changer. And so that is what ended up happening here. But for those of you who haven't worked in commerce at all, you may or may not be familiar with the notion of a code freeze. Generally speaking, around the holidays, that's when you want to freeze everything in your code base. Because if anything changes, especially at a place like Amazon, if anything goes wrong in that order pipeline, you are missing at a minimum thousands, but very quickly, into the millions of dollars. If any of the site just stops working. And so that's why during the holidays, you generally freeze everything and you only put out changes that are specifically meant to fix something that's actively wrong. And so in this case, the timeline for Prime was clearly going to go beyond the reasonable code freeze time frame that we would normally mostly maintain at any rate. And in general, we would not launch something this big in this way. So because this is not only going into code freeze time, it's the very sensitive holiday season. It's something that's very exciting for holiday. But if you really think about it, in addition to all of that, Amazon Prime, when you think about, okay, it's all you can eat shipping for this whole set of items that are Amazon owned and operated and fulfilled. If you think about that, then you realize it's gonna hit the order pipeline, it's gonna hit the product detail page. It needs to be able to be purchased and be something that someone can have a membership in. So that flow needs to be created. Perhaps it even needs to get into search as a filter. Ooh, so what that means is that this particular feature, not only is pushing the code freeze timeline, but it's also hitting upon all the different key areas of the website. So it's a little bit, by a little bit, I mean a lot of it, dangerous. But it was so compelling that Jeff really wanted this to happen anyway. So what this led to was a war room to get to launch. What specifically happened was particular people from different parts of the company were earmarked and asked, arguably, voluntold as opposed to volunteered, asked to come in to this team. And now let's be clear, the people who were asked to come into this team, they were top performers from different parts of the company who had expertise in whether it was search, order pipeline, personalization. The front end system that we had, which was kind of like a PHP, but it wasn't PHP because Amazon started before PHP. All of these different components to understand how we were going to pull together all of these different services in time to create this thing for holiday. So literally a whole room of about 20 people or so was dedicated to getting this thing off the ground in time for the holidays. I will tell you, having had friends who were working on this and people who are on this, this can be an effective way to get things done. But it also was very stressful. Holidays are already stressful for everybody, and this was a very high profile project that this group of people, yes, they were hand selected, but it was definitely a pressure cooker to get this done. Now the ultimate impact for Amazon, and I think many of us who are there for those of us, I will admit I did this as well, who didn't keep as much of our stock as we think we should have. I will say prime and some other key factors really had a very hockey stick growth outcome for Amazon. When you really think about it, the amount of retention you get from something like prime, and because Jeff takes a consistently customer first approach, and not just Jeff, but the whole company, he really promotes that customer first approach, now as many of you might be aware, prime has so much more in it now, like music, videos, all these different things. But at this point, even just the all you can eat shipping aspect of it, it really got people coming back so much more frequently and ordering and the fact that it was that two day shipping by default with prime. It was just so compelling, and it really increased the average number of orders people were putting in, and even order sizes in certain cases. But frankly, even if it was still smaller order sizes, but higher volume, that even that alone had a huge impact, a positive impact for the company. So this was really a pivotal moment in Amazon's history and its profitability, all in its overall growth trajectory, which is already high, but this really boosted it further. So with all of that story, with all of these different components that we get from the starting and creation of Amazon Prime, how do we use these learnings in your career or on your team, with your business, with your product? We really want to understand how to take these things away, what to take away from it so that you can apply these things for yourself. Because great stories are great, like hearing these case studies are great, but we really want you to take it home. So first off, thinking big. One of the biggest things, and it's funny, I work with people on the career coaching side as well as I work with teams to help get them to that next level in career, whether it's starting their own business, getting promoted, getting into a different type of job. And with teams, really figuring out how to be super high functioning, high performing teams, taking full advantage of creating the best products out there, differentiating themselves and their company. All of these things are the ways that I work with them. And the first thing that I always do with these groups is look at, how do we think big about where you want to go? Instead of starting off saying, well, how do I scale it back? How do I make it reasonable or realistic? Let's go big. What if your next career goal was the best ever, the best thing that you could imagine? Or what if your business grew almost beyond what you believe is possible right now, but in a way that if you were to wake up and see that your company was at this level or that your customers were this happy, then you would be so incredibly proud and honored to have made that a reality. That's where you want to start, because when you think big, you can always downscope. But I will tell you as human beings, we rarely upscope. If you start cutting at the very beginning, you're just going to keep cutting it further. So we often say 80% of the extraordinary is way better than 100% of the mundane, of the simple, of the typical. So again, think big. Whatever you're going to do, figure out what is that huge thing that you could do? What does that look like? And then from there, be bold with your ideas. So again, if it's in a company like with this engineer, he was not a super high level SPP. He was someone who was an individual contributor at that point. And he talked to the different managers around him. He went up the chain. He got a meeting with Jeff. He presented his ideas. He didn't say, oh gosh, I've only been in industry. How many years? What do I really know? Is this idea that good? He stepped up. He said, hey, I had this Eureka moment. I think this is really good. Let me put it out there and let's see where we're going to go with that. So be bold with your ideas. And again, whether you're an individual in a team, whether it's a team of you, perhaps, who want to escalate and elevate what you're doing, you've got to put your great thinking, big ideas out there so that you can make that a reality. And it's better in a way to speak up and even if it gets shot down, speak up, see where it goes, as opposed to just sitting there being like, oh, I don't really think what we're doing is good. And I see this other way bigger opportunity, but let me not say anything. I mean, to connect it a little bit back with Amazon as well, even when Jeff saw the opportunity with books, he was working at DEE Shaw. He was doing an analysis for David Shaw. And he saw this opportunity with the internet growing the way it was. And he was looking at books and looking at the opportunities there. And amongst other things, he said, look, this is a really hot opportunity. David Shaw didn't want to follow it himself with his company. And so that's where Jeff said boldly, I'm going to drive Seattle. I'm going to create my own company. I'm going to try this out. So again, it doesn't mean every idea is going to always be successful. But if you don't approach it from a bold thinking big perspective, then nobody knows. You're not connecting with anyone. So be bold. Be bold with your ideas. And then take a customer first approach. You want to make sure that whatever you're building, now that customer, it could be a business. If you're a B2B product, it could be a consumer if you're B2C. But either way, you want to make sure that the person that you're building this thing for, this product, this service, this business, you want to make sure that they're getting real value. And if they're not getting real value, then you won't ultimately in that long term have a viable business. So again, really understand what is that value? How are you providing it to them? And how do you make that sustainable? So thinking about Amazon Prime, that value of knowing that you can go to the website and order toothpaste and it's going to be there in two days, whatever you're out of, it's going to show up. And in this case now, nowadays, maybe I pay a few extra dollars and I get it within an hour or within a day. That is taking that customer first approach. What are those real problems people have? And let me make sure that I'm providing real solutions. And then finally, do your homework. So I can't emphasize enough. I know sometimes people get so into the exciting idea that it's interesting, that it's bold, that it's cool. Yes, it should have all of those elements, the bold, the big, all of this, beautiful, all of that. But you also have to do your homework. So I want to emphasize to you that if someone is bringing a proposal to Jeff or that S team, that senior team that's at that C level, SVP level, et cetera, there not only are they going to have all their ducks in the row, in Amazon's case as an example, they demand a six pager written up, thinking through everything. So in their case, they make everybody write up six pages worth showing mockups, UIs, a profit and loss prediction, a press release approach. So if you want to hear about any of that stuff, I'll post elsewhere about that. But they want to have all of those things aligned. And in fact, they make you write it out in full sentences and six pages because one, they want to make sure that you've fully thought through all of the components, versus if you're even for this, like I couldn't show these kinds of slide. I would need to get way in more depth. Understand this is the amount of customers I think this will impact. This is the amount I think they'll be willing to pay, it's based on this data, really breaking it all down in very specific depth because any question, first off, someone like Jeff, I will tell you, he will come up with every and any question that you could ever imagine coming up with. He will find any holes or any openings that haven't been filled. But beyond that, you want to solidly have understood what you're going to embark upon. And if you can do that, if you really have a compelling idea and a compelling plan, like the other component is how are you going to implement it? How many people do you need? How long do you need? What kind of technology? You need all of that thought through in any kind of proposal that you really want to have be successful because that shows you've done your homework, you mean business, this is serious, you're not just trying to pump somebody up like a cheerleader, it's that plus. It's that plus the analytical, plus the data-driven, plus the metrics-driven, plus the eyes dotted and T's crossed. So I really want to emphasize when you're working on your own ideas, whether it's for your career, like if you want to get into a new position, you want to have done your homework, know what are the words people are using, what are the concepts, what are the things that's really hot in that space? If you're on a team and you're proposing an idea, know what the bottom line impact is, know how you're going to implement it. So do your homework. Having great ideas and being charismatic is no substitute for doing your homework. And so again, today I promised that you would get insights about some of the methods behind Amazon's success, in particular, covering that story about Amazon Prime and that you would understand where and when to take a risk. So again, think about when you've got a big, bold idea, when you've done that homework and you see that this can have a material impact, that's the time when you want to step out on that ledge, you want to take that risk, you want to put yourself out there. And then we also said that you would gain tools to create your own successful outcomes. So again, that press release process, putting the customer first, really understanding the predictions of how much you're going to make, all of these are tools that you can use to get your own successful outcome, even just thinking big, making sure that you're not filtering it too early in the process. So again, what are you going to need? Think big. As we said, start really big. If it's not compelling yet, make it bigger until it's compelling. Be bold with your ideas. Be bold with your bosses, your teams, but also I really want to emphasize, be bold with yourself. Be willing to push yourself beyond your own boundaries that you're self-imposing. Take a customer first approach. If the customer is not benefiting, then there's nothing really to talk about, there's nothing really to explore. Take that customer first approach. And then finally, do your homework. Even a great idea, you think if you boldly put it out there, you know that you're oriented toward the customer, you want to do your homework. How big is that customer base? How much will they pay? How much value does this thing hold for them? How hard is it to build it? All of these things need to be thought through. And if you take these steps, you will end up creating more high impact and high growth products. So I really recommend taking these, both as an inspiration from Amazon, but also as something that could substantially help you in your career, in your teams, in your businesses. Now, if you'd like, I can also help you. You can continue on whatever path you're on and figure it out on your own, or if you would like a free breakthrough strategy session, I'm happy to personally work with you to unlock whatever is holding you back from that massive growth, from taking that leap into that thing that you feel so driven about, but you haven't quite let yourself fully jump this chasm, as you can see here, so that you can get to that other exciting side. And again, that's free if you'd like to take me up on that offer. Now, you might wonder, why am I doing this? I absolutely love helping people get to their next level. So I've worked in these corporate environments and when I was there, I realized the thing that was most satisfying to me was helping people, like learning enough myself to help train others, so that they could showcase their own skills, their own gifts that they had internally, their own awesome differentiation, because everybody has something to offer. Everybody has their own purpose. Everybody has the thing that drives them, the thing they're awesome at. And so personally, I love seeing others make those discoveries, make those innovations, helping breakthroughs in the world, because that's what keeps the world moving forward. And I also know that you might need my help. And if that's the case, and you will be helped along your journey and you will be accelerated even faster to your end outcome, then that's awesome, awesome. And I'm happy to help you in that. And if not, that's fine too. But if you are itching to take that leap, if you know that you're meant for more, or you know that you can have a bigger impact on your team or on your product or on your business, please feel free to reach out. And so you can sign up for one of these free breakthrough strategy sessions at growth.jocelynmariemiller.com. As you can see, space limited. But with all of that, I really wish you all the best on your growth journeys. Take all of these insights from Amazon and everywhere else that you get them and really apply them to yourself. Because the best thing in life is that you are here to make something great. You have some purpose inside of you that the world wants to see. The world is going to benefit from the gift that you have inside. So I really wanna emphasize that take these learnings and if you would like to accelerate even faster, you can go to growth.jocelynmariemiller.com, sign up for a session and we can talk through and figure out how to get you there even faster. Thank you so much and we will talk again soon.