words and pictures by Brian Solis

Every month, Dave McClure organizes Startup2Startup, one of the most helpful and valuable events designed to help startups excel through connections, advice, insight, and experience.

This month, S2S featured none other than Tony Hsieh, CEO of Zappos. Hsieh, as you may or may not know, transformed a meager startup into a $1 billion brand phenomenon.

Tony is a gifted individual. He has the ability to captivate and engage people through heartfelt, peer-to-peer interaction. His simple message of spreading happiness and memorable customer service is powerful as it resonates throughout the business sector. His vision of a people-focused, service enterprise will transcend the company from an online shoe wholesaler to a global brand that may one day rival Virgin – a company that serves as inspiration for Tony.

I recently had the opportunity to work with Tony and the Zappos team, along with Stephanie Agresta (my partner in The TechSet) and Steve Rosenbaum of Magnify.net. Our mission was to showcase ecstatic customers who capture and share the happiness that Tony Hsieh and the Zappos team have worked so hard to package in every box. The result, Zappos BoxBreaks, which debuted at SXSW.

I’ll let the pictures tell the rest of the story…

Dave McClure

Tony Hsieh shares his company culture

Mazy Kazerooni, uStream

Beth Kanter

Daniel Brusilovsky, TeensInTech

Loic Le Meur of Seesmic

Larry Chiang

Cyan Banister of Zivity shows us her new ring

Christine Lu and Dave McClure go barefoot for SamaritansFeet.com and the Charity SMACKDOWN

Mark Schulze of Quantcast

Frank Gruber

Pascale Diaine

Tony Hsieh and Brian Solis

For more pictures from Startup2Starup, please visit my album on Flickr.

Also, please read Mark Hendrickson’s post on Tony Hsieh’s presentation on “Delivering Happiness.”

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