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Founders · 4 min · Oct 12, 2025
Dell turned its direct catalog into an early online storefront
Michael Dell
When the web arrived, Michael Dell saw a website as an always-accessible version of its catalog.
In this episode
Full episode- 1:01:54A five-day supply chain created a cash and cost advantagePro pick 4 min
- 29:52Companies must remake their processes for AIPro pick 3 min
- 24:54Keep mistakes small and fix them quickly4 min
- 5:48Dell found IBM's markup by pricing every component3 min
- 57:51Dell used receivables to finance growth before it had capital4 min
- 42:26Dell's support tool turns customer data into agent guidance4 min
- 1:19:23Dell turned its direct catalog into an early online storefront4 min
- 33:40Technology waves now reach scale faster than the internet did5 min
“you mean we can create a website and people can go on there and like the catalog is there and they can like press a button to order the thing?”
Michael Dellat 1:19:59 · Founders
Takeaways
- Dell's direct orders first came by phone, fax and catalog.
- The web made the catalog available online.
- Customers bought high-value servers on the site.
About this segment
When the web arrived, Michael Dell saw a website as an always-accessible version of its catalog. The company built an early storefront and sold even a $50,000 server online.
Michael Dell is founder, chairman, and CEO of Dell Technologies.
Founded Dell Technologies and committed $6.25 billion to investment accounts for 25 million American children.
David Senra, Host · Host, Founders
Has read an entrepreneur's biography every week for Founders since 2016.
From “Michael Dell, Dell Technologies | David Senra”, Oct 12, 2025. Watch the full episode
Thanks. We'll look at and fix what's off.
Transcript
Transcribed by machine (Whisper) from the episode’s audio, so a word may be off here and there.
- 1:19:28
When you were talking about how important it is to, like, not squash ideas and that, you know, ideas can come from anywhere and they can, like, you know, they seem small, but they can have a huge impact. I think Dell was, like, one of the first companies to sell on the internet, right? Yeah, well, so we were selling direct, right? You know, like people would call us on the phone, and we used to have these rooms with like a gazillion fax machines, and they would send us the orders on faxes.
- 1:19:56
It was crazy. And we had catalogs. And so then, you know, the World Wide Web comes along and you have websites, you know, like, oh, you mean we can create a website and people can go on there and like the catalog is there and they can like press a button to order the thing? That's the coolest thing ever. We got to do that, right? And so in my first book, you notice on every page at the bottom, it said www.dell.com.
- 1:20:23
I read that book too. Like, obsessed with getting people to the website because it just became, like, the easy way to interact with people. And that book came out in 97, right? 99? I think 98. 98, yeah. So, yeah, you were. But, yeah, we started, you know, with one of the first websites. I mean, there weren't many websites. I remember when there— It was a small number. I remember when you could, like, go to all the websites, like, in the whole world.
- 1:20:58
Yeah, I'm done for the day. Like, there's no more websites. It's like, kind of, it sounds crazy now, but there used to be not that many websites. And you could, like, go to them and, like, okay, I'm done. There's nothing else to see. That obviously changed quickly. So how the hell do you even build a store? Like, you were collecting, do they have to, like, call a number in? Because I remember, like, taking credit cards online.
- 1:21:21
Well, maybe not 90. If you were doing, do you remember what year you launched the site? 97, probably? 96? I think it was probably 96. You had to build all this out. 95, 96. You had to build all the stuff custom. We had to build the whole thing. Okay. Yeah. Yeah, and it's funny. I forgot about the fact that Dell.com is on the bottom of every page. But what's fascinating is if you read Bezos' shareholder letters, he never refers to it as Amazon.
- 1:21:44
Every single shareholder letter up until, you know, you don't have to do it anymore. And then every single interview, it's Amazon.com. Amazon.com, Amazon.com. Then it turns into Amazon. It's just like, we've got to push you guys to this new thing called the internet where you can buy things. It's such a fascinating, like, thought, like how novel it was. But you kind of saw, like, right away, like, let's just, we should just do this because it's cool.
- 1:22:07
We'd experimented with how do you create an electronic version of the catalog? Even like, we're going to send you a floppy disk or a CD-ROM, and you put it in your computer, and you load it up, and the catalog is there. Yeah. Right? Those are some of the ridiculous things that happened before the internet, before the World Wide Web, I should say. Did you ship that? Yeah. Yeah, we did. So, you just kind of like what – remember AOL?
- 1:22:29
They just like essentially carpet bombed the entire country with their CDs? Yeah, we didn't do it like that. Okay. But ours was more targeted. But, you know, you wanted to make it easy for the customer to understand your offerings. And then the World Wide Web just made that, you know, kind of infinitely accessible to anyone. The idea of just mailing out a floppy or a disk of a catalog is just like a hilarious idea.
- 1:22:59
But then people were surprised when people started ordering computers online. And I remember, you know, we sold like a server for $50,000 online. People were like, no way. You know, it's like it didn't happen as fast as some of the things are happening now. But obviously, for a business that was selling directly to businesses and, you know, individuals, you know, all over the world, it was just total rocket fuel.