Tony Hsieh, the former chief executive of Zappos.com Inc., helped build the online shoe retailer with an ideal model of customer service, which aimed to build repeat customers and word-of-mouth marketing — i.e. similar to branding. After his death, entrepreneurs, marketers and others said his insights had influenced them to adopt similar practices or change the way they approach customers.
Quote of the Day by Tony Hseih? “Stop chasing the money and start chasing the passion.”
What does Tony Hseih's quote mean? In what would be a very familiar life advice for anyone who has watched Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots, the Taiwan-born late American billionaire's advice closely mirrors Rancho's chief message: “Chase excellence and success will naturally follow”.
However, surrounded by the buzz of Silicon Valley, having sold his online advertising venture LinkExchange to Microsoft and then founding online shoe and clothing platform Zappos, Tony Hsieh's advice seems more tailored to the glitzy fast life of startup central.
The quote is from Hsieh's ‘Delivering Happiness: A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose’ published in 2010. It primarily details his life as an entrepreneur, especially his experiences with LinkExchange and Zappos. Throughout the book, Hseih shares his mantra to developing a successful start-up, creating a happy workplace that also generates sustainable returns, and how to follow your passions to create your own path to success.
Writing in the book, Hsieh noted that he left Microsoft to pursue his passions and called it a “turning point”. His model for Zappos was to make every customer as happy as possible, even at the expense of sales—in the short term.
Who is Tony Hseih? Zappos founder and CEO, the late Tony Hseih was famed for his success with various ventures, including LinkExchange which he sold to Microsoft for $265 million in November 1998, barely two years after it was established.
The advertising company grew from the idea of an advertising network which allowed members to advertise on each other's sites in exchange for placing LinkExchange banner adverts on their own sites. It was founded in March 1996 with 30 clients and grew to over 4,00,000 by 1998. Hsieh personally made $40 million from the sale to Microsoft.
Hsieh then co-founded incubator firm Venture Frogs with Alfred Lin and invested in a number of internet and tech startups such as Ask Jeeves, OpenTable and Zappos.
In 1999, Hsieh and Lin invested in Nick Swinmurn's Zappos (Spanish word for shoes) and joined as CEO two months later. The company was often listed in Fortune among the best companies to work for. It was acquired by Amazon in July 2009 for around $1.2 billion, where Hsieh reported made at least $214 million.
After 21 years, Hsieh retired as the CEO of Zappos on 24 August 2020. He was injured in a house fire in Connecticut in November 2020 and passed away aged 46. His net worth at the time was estimated to be around $850 million, according to Celebritynetworth.com.