The archive · Work & Ways of Doing · Operational decision · 2004–2021
Amazon's PR/FAQ: write the press release before building the product
Since 2004 Amazon vets product ideas by writing a mock press release and FAQ before writing code — the process kills bad ideas on paper.
Amazon.com
What it had to solve
In the early 2000s Amazon's new digital media and web services teams found that SWOT analysis, market-size research and pro forma P&Ls never forced anyone to think hard about the customer experience. Through trial and error, and Jeff Bezos's insight, they landed on writing a press release and FAQ for the product before the product existed.
How it works
Working Backwards is the process Amazon says created most of its major products and initiatives since 2004. Its principal tool is the PR/FAQ: before a team writes a line of code, it writes the press release that would announce the finished product, plus a FAQ covering what customers would ask and what the company would need to build it.
The process was invented through failure. Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, former Amazon executives, describe trying SWOT analysis, market-size research and pro forma P&Ls for new digital media and web services — and realizing none of them forced anyone to think deeply about the customer. Writing a press release worked because a press release is a forcing function: if a product can't be described as meaningfully better, faster, easier or cheaper than what exists, it isn't worth building.
The format is brutally tight — a press release of less than one page and a FAQ of five pages or less — and the review ritual matters as much as the document. Teams circulate the draft, read it silently for 15-20 minutes, then debate line by line, with the most senior people speaking last. Amazon teams commonly write ten or more drafts and hold five or more review meetings with leadership before an idea gets a green light.
Why it lands
- A customer-facing press release exposes vague thinking that internal specs, budgets and roadmaps hide.
- Length limits act as a forcing function: boiling an idea down forces hard choices about what matters.
- Most PR/FAQs never launch — rejecting ideas on paper preserves engineering resources for the best ones.
- The silent-read, senior-last meeting structure keeps rank from drowning out the analysis.
What it did
Most of Amazon's major products and initiatives since 2004 were created through Working Backwards, and most PR/FAQs are rejected before engineering resources are committed — treated as a feature: ideas die on paper instead of in production, and the survivors are sharper for the debate.
What you can take
Force every pitch to be a product someone would actually buy before a team gets to build it — a written, customer-facing story exposes vague thinking far earlier than budgets or roadmaps.
Since then
The process stayed internal for years until Colin Bryar and Bill Carr published WORKING BACKWARDS (February 2021), which Amazon's own newsroom excerpted. Since then the PR/FAQ has spread well beyond Amazon as the standard example of 'start from the customer and work backwards,' used by other companies to vet everything from new features to compensation policies. Amazon continues to use it, alongside its six-page narrative memos, as a core decision-making mechanism.
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