#34 Colin Bryar – Creating Scalable Processes, Customer Centric Focus & Working Backwards

Colin Bryar joined Amazon in 1998, four years after its founding and spent the next 12 years as part of Amazon"s senior leadership team as Amazon grew from a domestic seller of books to a global, multi-dimensional powerhouse and innovator. Colin served as Vice President at Amazon, and for two years was Chief of Staff to Jeff Bezos working directly with him advising on technical and business areas. After Amazon, Colin relocated to Singapore where he served as Chief Operating Officer of the e-commerce company RedMart, which was subsequently sold to Alibaba. Colin is now co-founder of Working Backwards LLC where he coaches executives at both large and early-stage companies on how to implement the management practices developed at Amazon. Check out Colin’s new book, Working Backwards which is an insider"s break down of Amazon"s approach to culture, leadership, and best practices: https://amzn.to/3t9wFWb Our conversation discusses the principles applied by Amazon to achieve rapid growth from the early stages. We discuss the factors which make a company truly successful from scalability and operationalisation to the product development lifecycle and customer obsession. Lastly, Colin offers his advice for young professionals navigating their career at the moment. Timestamps: (00:00) Introduction (03:52) Colin Bryar"s background & Working Backwards (07:15) Amazon & Jeff Bezos/scalability/long term strategy (10:22) Customer centric focus/competitive edge/leadership principles (13:11) How to scale successfully/creating & inventing (17:22) Single threaded leader & Fulfilment by Amazon (FBA) (21:33) Taking risks/failure/product development lifecycle (26:56) Defining metrics & success criteria (29:48) Core principles & repeatable processes (32:37) Competition/capital/finding a niche (35:51) COVID-19 shift towards e-commerce/Brexit/regulation (40:57) Careers advice/building on your interests/passions (47:30) When to change company & find new challenges Follow Kickoff Sessions on Spotify to keep updated with new sessions! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider sharing the session on Instagram or leaving a short review on Apple Podcasts. Tell everyone I"m a semi-decent guy and it really helps to grow the show! For show notes and more episodes, visit Kickoff Sessions website. Sign up to the Kickoff Sessions email list for regular updates and content. Follow me on LinkedIn Follow Kickoff Sessions on LinkedIn Support the growth of Kickoff Sessions Support the music artist Farsi Thank you internet people! Support the Show.