Service Over the years, the number one driver of our growth at Zappos has been repeat customers and word of mouth. Our philosophy has been to take most of the money we would have spent on paid advertising and invest it into customer service and the customer experience instead, letting our customers do the marketing for us through word of mouth.

Sorry, investing was pretty boring and I really missed being part of building something. I felt like I was always standing on the sidelines, so Zappos... really liked the people there and got involved full-time and I've been full-time ever since.

My advice is to stop trying to "network" in the traditional business sense, and instead just try to build up the number and depth of your friendships, where the friendship itself is its own reward. The more diverse your set of friendships are, the more likely you'll derive both personal and business benefits from your friendship later down the road. You won't know exactly what those benefits will be, but if your friendships are genuine, those benefits will magically appear 2-3 years later down the road.

I thought about how easily we are all brainwashed by our society and culture to stop thinking and just assume by default that more money equals more success and more happiness, when ultimately happiness is really just about enjoying life.

What’s the best way to build a brand for the long term? In a word: culture.

Ask yourself: would you be comfortable printing everything your employees, customers & partners have to say about your culture?

Don't be cocky. Don't be flashy. There's always someone better than you.