How Did Alfred Lin Outsmart Tony Hsieh of Zappos

Tony needed to kickstart his pizza business, so in order to secure cash upfront, he was able to give Alfred a discount, in exchange for an annual commitment.

In tern, Alfred realized that he could arbitrage his margins by simply selling this pizza to lazy roommates who were not interested in making a trip to the grill downstairs.

As as result, Alfred ended up making easy money in short amount of time, while Tony had to do all the restaurant work and then some.

This is when Alfred realized that even if you have a boring commodity business, you can make it interesting and worthwhile.