Be true to yourself. If you follow that principle, a lot of decisions are actually pretty easy.

If you're focused on the friendship as its own reward, serendipitous stuff just happens. I know that sounds weird, but I can tell you for our 12 years of existence, it's actually how a lot of stuff happens.

Our customers call and e-mail us to say that's how it feels when a Zappos box arrives. And that's how we view this company.

A bigger business is like a cruise ship: There are lots of amenities and you can go a lot further, but it's harder to turn quickly.

Zappos uses call center technology to track average call time per agent. But the goal isn't to reduce this average - it's more important that we make an emotional connection with the customer, rather than just quickly getting them off the phone.

Without conscious and deliberate effort, inertia always wins

We asked ourselves what we wanted this company to stand for. We didn't want to just sell shoes. I wasn't even into shoes - but I was passionate about customer service.