This Week in Startups #45 with Tony Hsieh

Jason’s guest this week was Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos and author of the soon to be released book Deliverying Happiness (June 7, 2010). Highlights of the show included 2 points of advice from Tony to entrepreneurs, a bunch of giveaways and multiple mini-guest segments.

00:03 Surprise guests include:
Brian Alvey
Don Dodge
Matt Coffin
Shel Israel

00:13 Tony Hsieh interview

* Book discussion (why, what’s in the book)
* Delivering Happiness Bus
* How to motivate employees



Ask Jason
00:19 Rob May, CEO of Backupify asks, How much focus should I place on competitors?
00:23 Don Dodge, Developer Advocate at Google asks, If you took Tony out of Zappos would Zappos be successful and follows up could Tony turn around an old company like General Motors? This is one of the things I love about Don Dodge, he’s not afraid to ask questions. This is the second time he has asked a question on the show, last question was on TWiST #10

Jason’s Shark Tank - Contest
00:27 Scripped, eBay for scripted content, helps producers find content
00:31 Youphonics, a tool to let musicians jam online together
00:34 Throwboy Pillows, custom pillows (winner)

The winner receives:

* One year of VPS service from PowerVPS
* One year of Email service from DNAmail (up to 10 mailboxes)
* One year of High Speed Internet from DSL Extreme
* One hour of business strategy consulting from IKANO team
o The IKANO team will provide up to one hour of strategy consulting to Startup via conference call. Jason or anyone from Mahalo/TWIST team can join if they would like. The startup can ask IKANO team for advise on any business related questions including social media, marketing, technology or general business questions and the IKANO team will provide insight and feedback. IKANO services and interacts with tens of thousands of business and can provide guidance based on our experience.
o Team
+ Doug Pollei (@dougpollei)
+ George Mitsopoulos (@gmitsopoulos)
+ Tom Kiblin (@tomatvirtacore)
+ George Naspo (@georgenaspo)

00:41 Tony Hsieh interview continued

* When Tony joined Zappos
* Zappos culture and it’s development
* Paying employees to quit
* Zappos sale to Amazon and how things have changed
* Tony’s advice to entrepreneurs
* What Tony reads

00:56 News with Lon Harris

* SXSW Blowback
* Sonos Receives Funding
* Stickybits
* Chatroulette Creator

Special thanks to our title sponsors this week: Bing and Sonos

Additional sponsors this week include: Loopt, Redpoint Ventures and Youphonics

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Comments

[Bill Boulware]

Audio version of TWiST isn't working only episode listed is #37 from 1/23/10