About the book

Working Backwards is an insider's breakdown of Amazon's approach to culture, leadership, and best practices from two long-time Amazon executives―with lessons and techniques you can apply to your own company, and career, right now.

In Working Backwards, two long-serving Amazon executives reveal the principles and practices that have driven the success of one of the most extraordinary companies the world has ever known.

Working Backwards is the systematic way that Amazon builds new products.

Its key tenet is to start by defining the customer experience...” Once the desired experience is defined, Amazon works backwards from there to figure out how to realize said experience.

Amazon relies far more on the written word to develop and communicate ideas than most companies, and this difference makes for a huge competitive advantage.

The reason writing a good 4 page memo is harder than writing a 20 page PowerPoint is because the narrative structure of a good memo forces better thought and better understanding of what’s more important than what, and how things are related.

PowerPoint-style presentations somehow give permission to gloss over ideas, flatten out any sense of relative importance, and ignore the interconnectedness of ideas. - Jeff Bezos, Entrepreneur

The PR/FAQ (press release/frequently asked questions) is a narrative document that assists with the process of working backwards.

PR/FAQ is a document that imagines a product release has occurred. The employee writes a press release that details the product, its features, pricing. rationale, and more. 

The FAQ portion answers questions that both customers and outside observers will have as well as questions that internal peers and managers might have.

Benefits of the PR/FAQ

• Forces a customer-centric approach to product development.
• If the product isn’t faster, easier, cheaper (or better) than what’s already available, the product isn’t worth building.
• Process is iterative. Can be used to develop programs, systems, and policies, in addition to products and services.

PR/FAQ Format

Basic format (follows the 6-page rule for 1-hour meetings):

• 1 page press release.
• 5 pages or fewer for frequently asked questions.

Detailed press release format

• Heading (one sentence): Blue Corp. announces the launch of Melinda, the smart mailbox.
• Subheading (on sentence) describing the benefits
• Summary paragraph
  Give a more detailed summary of the product and benefit.
• Problem paragraph
  Describe the problem the service solves from the point of view of the customer.
• Solution paragraph
  Describe how the product solves the customer problem.
• Quotes and getting started paragraph
  Describe how a customer can obtain the product and how much it will cost. Include one quote from a company spokesperson and one quote from a hypothetical customer.

Detailed FAQ format

Unlike the PR, the FAQ section has a more free-form feel to it—there are no mandatory FAQs. 

The PR section does not typically include visuals, but it is more than appropriate to include tables, graphs, and charts in the FAQ. You must include things like your pro forma P&L for a new business or product.

Amazon often divides the FAQ portion into an external section (customer focused) and internal section.

The external FAQs are those that customers and/or the press will ask you about the product. For internal FAQs, there is a more standardized list of topics you will need to cover.

Most PR/FAQs never make it past the exploration stage.

What this means is that a product manager will put in a lot of time exploring product ideas that never get to market. This may be because of the intense competition for resources and capital among the hundreds of PR/FAQs that are authored and presented each year within the company. 

Only the very best will rise to the top of the stack and get prioritised and resourced, whether the pool of capital comes from within a large company like Amazon or from a startup investor.

The fact that most PR/FAQs don’t get approved is a feature, not a bug. 

Rejecting projects via the PR/FAQ process is far less expensive than actually developing failed products.

Metrics: Manage Your Inputs, Not Your Outputs

“Focus on the controllable input metrics, the activities you directly control, which ultimately affect output metrics such as share price.”

Most companies focus on the wrong signals (the outputs). Input metrics drive desirable outputs.