I’ve had two tabs open all morning because I know they deserve to be written about, but I can’t figure out what I want to say. So here goes.
Matt at 37 signals cherry picks some great tips from a more comprehensive list of Amazon.com’s strategies for scaling and managing a web business. I’ll distill it even more into a few of my very favorites:
Work from the customer backward. Focus on value you want to deliver for the customer.
Force developers to focus on value delivered to the customer instead of building technology first and then figuring how to use it.
Use measurement and objective debate to separate the good from the bad. I’ve been to several presentations by ex-Amazoners and this is the aspect of Amazon that strikes me as uniquely different and interesting from other companies. Their deep seated ethic is to expose real customers to a choice and see which one works best and to make decisions based on those tests. (favorite!!)
In any case, check out Matt’s favorites and the original list itself, which contains more details about Amazon’s specific architecture and implementation.
Greg Palmer 