Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos delivered a message for budding entrepreneurs at Amazon’s re:Mars conference on June 6th in Las Vegas. The message? Be ready to take big risks and fail.
“Take risks. You have to be willing to take risks. If you have a business idea with no risk, it’s probably already being done,” he said, according to an Amazon transcript. “You’ve got to have something that might not work. It will be, in many ways, an experiment.” He clarifies that many of those experiments will fail, but big failures are a necessary part of the journey towards success.
He stated, “We need big failures in order to move the needle. If we don’t, we’re not swinging enough. You really should be swinging hard, and you will fail, but that’s okay.” In addition to this, he capitalizes the fact the entrepreneurs must also be passionate, as they will be competing against those who are passionate.
But most importantly, according to Bezos, entrepreneurs should be customer-obsessed. “Don’t satisfy them, absolutely delight them.” he said.
