Build a Billion-Dollar Business

Reaching $1 billion requires scaling a business effectively. Chasen has kept one step ahead by making sure the right management team is in place every step of the way. He says, "We've continued to hire and expand and improve our management team along the way, always looking not at where the company is today, but where the company is going to be five years from now and making sure we have the right team in place to get us there."

He has also mastered the art of M&A, which has contributed largely to the company's growth. He saved money and time by acquiring businesses or technologies that fit with the company's product offerings. Through acquisitions, Blackboard added Blackboard Transact, a student ID card that doubles as a debit card, as well as Blackboard Connect, an emergency notification and alert system. "With M&A, it's not an either/or vs. organic growth," Chasen says. "It's really something that's additive, and when we reach a certain size, it's often one of the better ways to deploy capital."

Hsieh has been able to stay ahead of the curve by creating an environment where his employees feel empowered to contribute ideas and take charge. He invests time in teaching his employees, knowing it will pay off in the long run. In fact, the company just rolled out management and leadership training classes to equip employees with the know-how to grow within the company.

Hsieh also advocates creating a strong company culture. Ten core values make up the culture at Zappos.com--"Embrace and drive change" and "Create fun and a little weirdness" top the list. Culture is so important that it's integrated into the interview pro-cess: Applicants are asked to rank their weirdness on a scale of one to 10, for example--and qualified people have been rejected because they didn't fit the company culture. Says Hsieh, "The most important thing is that there's a culture you believe in and are willing to hire and fire based upon."

Moving Forward
Today, Zappos.com stocks millions of shoes and more than 1,000 brands, and requires the work of approximately 1,600 employees. Blackboard serves more than 3,000 colleges worldwide and more than 400 K-12 districts. The company went public in 2004 and employs 1,100 people.

These businesses' successes didn't happen overnight, nor are they immune to hard times. At the end of 2008, Blackboard's stock price was down by 30 percent due to the economic downturn. But Hsieh and Chasen aren't anywhere close to slowing down. "Less than 200 schools in China and 30 schools in the Middle East are using Blackboard technology, and there are hundreds of millions of learners in those areas that are not yet using technology in the education process," Chasen says. "In places like those, we are in the very beginning. So if you look at it as a global opportunity, which we do, we still have a very long distance to go."

For Hsieh, selling shoes online was just the launching point. Now he's working toward making people forget that Zappos.com ever sold only shoes by expanding into different product lines. Hsieh has even fielded customer requests to start an airline. He doesn't make any promises, but he considers it a real possibility in the future. Anything is possible. Such is the attitude of a billionaire entrepreneur.

Back to Top Email Printer Friendly View

RATE THIS ARTICLE
Rate it:

Not Yet Rated: