7 Business Lessons I Learned From Google

When I say Google, what is the first thing that pops into your mind? The best search engine? Or Fortune Magazine’s #1 Best Place to Work? Maybe both?

Here’s a story about a small research project started by two PhD students at Stanford University in California. What they did and how they did it changed the Internet forever. Read 7 business lessons I learned from Google and how you can learn, too.

I bet this sounds like a cliche, but if you spend your day doing something you don’t like (or even worse, hate), then you will most probably never succeed. It might be hard to find the job that interests you, and that you’re good at. But this will be worth your time. Some people think that the best way to do this is to go to school and educate yourself, no matter how long it takes. Some people think that college is a waste of time.

Education is important, but not as important as your passion, willingness to learn and eagerness to grow. Find something that you love, that brings you a lot of joy. Spend every day learning more, improving yourself and your skills. In order to do that, you have to find something you love, something you’re passionate about.

These days, it’s not enough to do something. You have to do something that will change people’s lives, make it easier, solve a problem.

Don’t do something because the money is good – success, along with financial stability, will come along once you create and develop the best product and/or service.

A good service and/or a product has to be unique, remarkable, it has to be like Google.

Google is simple to use, fast and gives the most accurate results. It doesn’t tolerate spam and their users appreciate that.

Sergey and Larry figured out the best way to serve the most accurate and relevant results – a site with most backlinks from reputable site has to be the most important one. It was important to create a search engine that was smart, and not easily manipulated.

They did it. It was and still is remarkable.

In the late 1990′s, there were a lot of dot-com companies. The investors were crazy about them, the market was growing. Many of these companies only had an idea, never a good business model. Even though most of them raised a substantial amount of money, they never made it for two reasons:

- All that money and success got into people’s heads and they went crazy with it. Instead of investing in more capital so the

company grows, many dot-com owners spent insane amounts of money on things they never needed. Irresponsible spending

brought many companies down to their knees and they never stood up. Investors wanted to see something for their money,

but the lack of good business plan destroyed any chance these companies ever had.

- Two words: Dot.com crash.

Google was spending money on building the most powerful machine capacity to serve its expanding search engine. They invested in their knowledge, their skills. Even though there was no profit, Brinn and Page never gave up. They were smart with their money and didn’t get discouraged by a fast grow other companies experienced.

You have to have a great business model. Idea is not enough anymore. What business model would be best for your company?

For Google, business was not first thought on their mind. They wanted to improve search results and user experience.

Page and Brinn, very young yet very wise, knew that success and money was going to follow if they managed to solve this problem. They were right.

Think about your company. Think about a business model that would best suit your needs. But don’t let the money be your ultimate guide.

It’s important to do good things with your company. Don’t build your success on other people’s misery. If you sell snake oil, don’t

forget that your rise will be short lived.

Help people, help your community. Help your customers. It will come back to you.

Do you treat your customers with respect? Do you value their business?

Google’s first job is to satisfy the user. When someone types in a query in Google’s searchbox, in a split of a second they will be

presented with hundreds, thousands and millions of results relevant to their query.

Google’s goal is always improving their search experience, bettering their results and serving only relevant content. If this goal was

replaced with another one, their market share would decrease.