Delivering Happiness

For review purposes, Asianmommy.com was given a free copy of Delivering Happiness:  A Path to Profits, Passion, and Purpose by Tony Hsieh, the CEO of Zappos.com.  Tony is a Taiwanese American entrepreneur, who co-founded LinkExchange, which was sold to Microsoft in 1998 for $265 million.  Later, he joined Zappos, became the CEO, and facilitated the acquisition of Zappos by Amazon.com for over $1.2 billion in 2009.

The book is written in the first person, giving the reader a personal view of Tony’s life and his ideas for succeeding in business.  I enjoyed reading about Tony’s typical Asian American childhood experience:  the pressure from his parents to do well academically, to become a doctor or a PhD, and to excel at playing a musical instrument (or several in his case!).  But Tony had a different plan for his future.  At the age of 9, Tony developed his first money-making scheme, a plan to grow earthworms and to sell them for a profit.  That plan was a flop, but his later button-making scheme became quite profitable.

After graduating from college, Tony got a job at Oracle, but found it to be unfulfilling and decided to form his own company building websites for other businesses.  That eventually led to building LinkExchange, starting an investment fund called Venture Frogs, and getting involved with Zappos. 

Over time, Tony figured out that great customer service would be what made his company stand out from all of the rest.  Zappos provided free shipping & free returns, free upgrades to overnight shipping, and easy access to customer service representatives, who went above and beyond to WOW their customers.  Later, the focus turned to Zappos’ culture and values, which include delivering WOW, embracing change, building team spirit, as well as being fun, passionate, creative, open-minded, honest, and humble.  Eventually, the vision and purpose of Zappos became to deliver happiness to the world.  This book was written to share Tony’s secret to success:  making your customers happier, making your employees happier, and making yourself happier.

What I liked:  I enjoyed reading Tony’s personal stories about his life, his successes as well as his failures.  I also think his message is spot-on:  how bringing happiness to others can bring happiness to oneself, in business and in life.

What could be improved:  I don’t really have any complaints.