4. History
• The dot-com bubble in the early 1990s
saw the rise of the internet and internet
businesses.
• In 1994, Jeff Bezos began amazon.com,
an online book seller, which he hoped
some day would be able to compete
with brick-and-mortar bookstores by
offering more than the conventional
200,000 titles.
5. Jeff Bezos founded Amazon.com in 1994 after
making a cross country drive from New York
to Seattle, writing up the Amazon business
plan on the way and setting up the original
company in his garage.
6. Amazon’s Business Plan
Amazon.com’s business plan was
considered unusual for an internet
company; their philosophy was not to
expect a profit for four or five years.
And, while other internet companies
grew at a rapid speed and crashed after
a few years, because of Amazon’s slow
and steady growth, they were able to
weather the boom-and-bust cycle of
internet businesses.
7. The Growth of Amazon
• After the first four years of making no
money, Amazon.com began to expand.
• They began to sell products other than
books, such as music, electronics and
household goods.
• Amazon also incorporated features that
allowed people to open small stores on
the website, which expanded their
product base exponentially.
8. Amazon.com Today
• Today, Amazon.com continues to
thrive. With the introduction of the
Kindle, Amazon’s profits surged a
shocking 69% in 2009, making it
one of the only companies to
survive the economic crisis (fairly)
unscathed.
