The readings discuss the evolution of Zappos (attached).  In your opinion, what are the strengths and weaknesses of the approach used to grow the company? 

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I also need a 1 paragraph (5-6 sentences) response to the following post:

In the opinion of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh, “company growth can be attributed to investing in time, money, and resources in three key areas: customer service, company culture, and employee training and development.” Essentially, Zappos was designed to grow fast and encouraged founders to constantly measure their growth rates. There was a period during which the company needed to find acceptance among consumers, the industry, and the wider general public and increase sales and revenue. Zappos transition to growth began by developing a flat functional structure in which the heads of each function reports to the chief executive officer (CEO) and chief operating officer (COO). It's the kind of management structure where decision-making authority is not being distributed throughout the firm. 

As entrepreneurial leaders launching a new venture, Zappos investors Tony Hsieh and Alfred Lin understood the importance of company growth; however, both were inexperienced in making the transition from a founding team to a more established firm. Hein lies the one weakness of the approach used to grow Zappos. Their inexperience can be considered a weakness because Hsieh and Lin had good business sense, yet lacked certain knowledge at the time. Hsieh and Lin recognized early on that they needed to develop the necessary skills to meet the existing and growing needs of a larger and more complex firm, simultaneously giving employees the time and resources to build the skills they needed for future growth. Zappos greatest strength of the approach used to grow the company was implementing the organizational strategy during the early stages of the startup. 

The Zappos organizational strategy was built on forming the company as a founding team. The founding team consisted of the founder and the investors with complementary skills to the founder. This was the group who built the company. The goal was to take the original idea and search for the most suitable and scalable business model- first by figuring out the product/market fit, then by taking measures to test out all the parts of the business model (pricing, channel, acquisition/activation, partners, costs, etc.). When you work in an industry for a long time, it is easy to accept what has always worked for you all along and rely on what worked in the past to move ahead. 

On the other hand, an inexperienced individual who hasn’t been in the field for very long can more easily come up with fresh ideas that can translate into innovation and better business results. This was a strength of the approach and made Hsieh and Lin more effective in their position. Hsieh and Lin wore many hats to make decisions and perform work that they had not performed in the past.