Phillips courtot gives entrepreneurs eight best entrepreneurial tips

Editor's note: the eight tips in this article are all from the founder and CEO of qualys, American cloud computing security company, Philip courtot. Qualys is the world's top-level cloud security service provider. It first proposed the SAAs model (software as a service ). Founder Philip courtot has made small and innovative enterprises the industry's leader for many times. This person has an influence that cannot be ignored in the cloud computing field. Therefore, this article takes cloud computing startups as an example, but it also has some reference significance for other entrepreneurs.

1. "Don't get into VC too early ." Courtot said.

"You don't have to put all your company's hopes on VC. This does not mean that VC is useless-they are useful. But VC is not the key to success, but the team is ."

Talent in courtot's eyes refers to those who can help you design the cloud service architecture or write code. The most important thing is that those geniuses need to be "commercial sensitive" and be able to get along well with customers.

1. The team does not need to start a business too early, and you do not need to hire people you may need in the future.

Courtot said: "It is not necessary to recruit 100 people as soon as you get up. It is enough for your team to complete your first step ."

1. There must be a global thinking. "The Times of gathering everyone in an office to start a company are gone forever, especially in a cloud computing environment. This is especially true for cloud computing companies ." Courtot said.

"When you create a team for an idea, no one cares whether the team is in France or Russia ." Courtot said, "If they have brains, they will be talented and passionate-this is the most important thing ."

1. Find a "Mouse". The next step is to find a customer that can become your partner. They can help you constantly improve your problems.

"From a customer, this customer will encounter many problems, and these are exactly what you need to improve. They are partners that let you discover and improve problems ." He said, "But don't do anything for them, because it won't let you get financing ."

"Even if you have good ideas and technologies, you need a customer to discover problems for you ." Courtot said.

1. The real "Mouse" is willing to try your product. If your entrepreneurial idea really solves a business demand, you will not encounter too many difficulties when looking for partners who "discover problems.

If your thoughts are raised, they will have the desire to try, which means you are looking for the right direction. After all, they may encounter problems that harm their interests, but are still willing to try your new product.

Courtot explained: "This is very simple. If Customers encounter problems, they will soon be able to know what is going on. If not, then he is not really a 'White mouse ', even if he will pay you. The customer you really need is that when you explain your ideas to him, he is very interested and eager to try it out ."

1. Building a verifiable idea and actively obtaining funding goes through the previous steps and now you need to prove that your idea is feasible. Remember, this is just a rough draft. It requires you to do the most important thing, but it does not mean you need to complete all the details ." Courtot said.

"If all of the above are done, we will go to see investors. Remember, money is everywhere. You don't have to be impatient ."

1. Do not change your business model easily. "There may be some VC or customers who will persuade you to give up cloud computing services and sell software directly. Remember, you must think twice about this kind of suggestion ."

"Selling commercial software will make a lot of money at the beginning, but the subsequent sustained revenue is only about 20% ." Courtot warned, "The only way to grow is to continuously launch new software and sell it at a higher price. This is obviously not feasible ."

"If it is a cloud computing service, the customer will continue to pay for it. You can increase the revenue of each customer by providing more services. The more services they use, the more dependent they will be on you ." Courtot said that the average contract time of qualys customers is about six years.

1. Ready to reconstruct the entire service system and provide cloud computing services in a single direction. If you want to continue expanding your business, you need to be ready to reconstruct your service architecture.

Qualys was initially a cloud computing service built in PHP. Several years later, courtot knew that the company had to rewrite everything in Java. Because Java can provide more and faster services. This rebuilding process lasted for several years because everything had to be rewritten while the original service was running normally. At that time, the company had engineers who knew PHP and did not have a Java engineer.

"But if you don't do the reconstruction, you will gradually decline ." Courtot said, "A better cloud service design architecture has gradually declined ."