Tears of my entrepreneurial failure

Li qiufeng's experience:

17173 Senior Community Manager

Editor-in-Chief of Sohu game Channel

General Manager of UUU9.COM

Founder of FengHua game (social game R & D)

(I have worked in operations, marketing, PR, and sales in other companies)

Body:

After three years of hard work since year 09, I still failed to start a business. Failure is not terrible. What is terrible is that you have not learned from failure.

I think the three most important points for entrepreneurship are business models, execution capabilities, and capital in order of weights. Business Model refers to what you are going to do, how many important links the entire business has come up with, and whether these links are in place to make profits. execution can also be understood as a team, can you enable your team to execute your business model well and turn your ideas into reality? In the end, money is not a panacea, but money is never enough, everyone knows.

Step 1: Determine the business model

The biggest problem for many professional managers to start a business is that they do not regard entrepreneurship as a business. The core of the business is the business model. What do you want to produce and how do you promote and sell well? These two problems have produced a lot of problems. For example, how do you produce the high-quality products you want? Does your agent have the ability to do a good job of promotion? How do you establish and maintain the platform relationship? In past work experience, professional managers are used to doing things according to the requirements of their superiors, and do not consider the cost of doing one thing at all, whether the company can afford the cost, if the boss thinks that the cost is too high and the plan is canceled, the professional will also feel that the boss is stingy. In fact, this is a specific manifestation of high insufficiency and lack of experience.

If the CEO has a superficial understanding of the business model, at least this start-up will surely fail. Determine the project direction, determine the team's combat capability, determine the agent capabilities, and determine the platform relationship. a ceo can tell himself well what I should do and what their respective weights are. My personal opinion is that the CEO of a startup team should spend 70% of his time on internal affairs, including team management and product production. 30% of his time is spent on the periphery, for example, peer visits exchange information, platform relationship PR, and capital.At first, I made many mistakes. For a long time, I sat down late at night with my colleagues. The company had no platform relationship. In fact, I was able to go out and communicate with my colleagues. If you break away from the circle, you will lose a lot of information, which can facilitate your decision-making and help you correct the current possible wrong direction.

Step 2: Find a proper partner

Once the business model is determined, the founder should actively find the right partner. The principle is very simple. a ceo will always be tired like a dog in his/her work.

In order to avoid this situation, you need to take a picture, a good planning or producer, which can save you a lot of product strength. a party king who likes to engage in things may also be a business master, if this person runs more than ever, you can also save your effort. If there is a friend with a fine mind, it would be the best to recruit people to manage assets, reliable people are also required to handle trivial matters.

Don't be stingy with shares. partners who are truly able to handle things should give shares generously according to industry rules. As a CEO, you need to rely on your own charm and ability to make the partner not subject to investors, but not to the TEAM's enterprise mini hardcore team.

I am not doing well on this part,My wife and I have been doing this for three years. As a result, I am very tired and the effect is poor. I have seen many entrepreneurs in Wuhan, and this is basically the case. I am really worried about them. If a startup team does not have a group of highly similar partners to form the core layer, it is not far away. It makes no sense for the CEO to take over the shares exclusively.

About execution

In addition, I have more confidence in execution. I have been working in the industry for 10 years and my boss and colleagues have always commented on me as a strong execution force. I think the power of execution must have a top-to-bottom influence. The person in charge of the task must be a meat-eating fish. He must be able to stir up things and be able to really do the right thing at work, people who dare to admit mistakes, take responsibility, face errors that are not harmonious, and dare to criticize or cut down people who make mistakes. He must be a person with strong communication and logic thinking.

In addition, the executors of various functional departments should be well rounded up during recruitment, focusing on professional skills, and driving out the lame AS3 and C ++. One person has poor technical skills, the entire team will be dragged down by him. Second, consider the work attitude and be cautious when selecting young people, because there have been fewer and fewer hard-working people in the past few years, and start-ups are determined not to recruit new people, these people have been forced to be impetuous by the social environment without any worries. One of the 20 people who are able to do things to help the company is rare. Take those who just sneer at overtime during the interview process. When these people enter the team, they must know who they are, and the startup team cannot accept too much of this mentality. Do a good job in interviews and background checks, and use higher salaries to attract truly powerful talents to join the market, so that those who are willing to say goodbye only.

I met a friend and spent more than a year on a card and board project. When I visited his company, I was invited to attend their project meeting, when talking about a very small feature that has been around for two weeks and is not done yet, all the supervisors are leaving their heads blank and there is no way to figure out what the problem is. As a result, my friend not only failed to trace the problem, but comforted everyone and the problem was gone. I think this is not good. People who have problems do not need to take responsibility, but those who have not yet done so will feel aggrieved.

There are also many CEOs who understand cost control as cheap recruitment. If a high salary is required, the boss will immediately feel impetuous and unreliable about it. In fact, what is wrong with this mentality? The important question is not price, but whether the talent can be competent for the corresponding job. On this premise, as long as his requirements are not sufficient, without deviating from industry standards. If you are willing to work hard in your small company with a hard-earned salary, you can either be a fool or Lei Feng. If the interview feels good, you should provide a satisfactory salary for the talent and let him enter the team for a few months to observe. the talented person must have enough expectations for his own income, when the boss needs to correctly understand this demand, the so-called cost control does not mean to trick the staff into wages, but to use money reasonably to allow the team to produce the optimal production capacity.

As operators know, staff salaries are not the biggest expense. The funds are insufficient and the responsibility lies in the operator. You need to have the minimum capital operation capability. After all, employees are highly different from you, they are indeed not obligated to take responsibility for this part. Daniel must have a large production capacity, a good job, and high efficiency. Although the cost of cheap people is low, it is slow to live. After the functions are completed, there will be more bugs and repeated adjustments will waste more costs, in addition, communication cost management costs multiply.

In the execution process, one tool and two methods are used to control execution.

A tool is a document that records the project progress. I often use EXCEL to meet the requirements. Here, we record what needs to be done by each of the four departments in the recent period. How long does the project take, the phase version will be completed at what time, and we are also allowed to add new jobs of sudden nature as appropriate during each meeting. If it is too outrageous, it will also serve as a basis for evaluating the capabilities of relevant colleagues. Every time we hold a progress meeting, we will review the progress of this week, take a look at the advances and latencies, and look forward to the work to be done in the next week.

If there are no other two methods, the tool documentation is actually just a piece of paper. I often use employees to view the survival and honor to ensure execution. The first approach is the honor pressure. Everyone has more or less their own sense of honor and team honor. When there is a lag, ask the relevant personnel to explain the team at the meeting, the client needs to bear a lot of pressure. This solution is a tough option to deal with gentlemen. Delayed personnel will consciously work overtime and catch up in the next week. The second approach is to imply the survival of employees, to put it simply, as a manager, you need to make the team members subconsciously understand that if my job is not done well, it is possible to be de-listed. If the salary is satisfactory, anyone cares about this. If there is no sense of honor at work, and you think that the capabilities are infinite, you can save the entire team and don't care about the pressure of survival. Managers should give up in a timely and decisive manner. enterprises are not a place to be personal.

I think in the process of starting a business, CEOs often tend to confuse their goals and mentality. For example, if we feed our team first, this is actually a mentality, not a goal.We need to earnestly ensure our implementation, so that we can achieve real goals, such as product launch, DAU10 million, and monthly revenue of 1 million, one by one. In the process of moving forward towards these goals, we should not slack at all, but it cannot give blind optimism room to survive. This is the value of the mentality of first supporting the team. If the CEO proposed at the team meeting that our goal would be to survive, this would be a very empty sentence. It would bring fear, relaxation, and confusion to the team. Similarly, R & D is a very serious matter if you practice your hands first. determine the objectives of the project and recruit talented people, whether or not these talents have worked together before, they should strictly follow the requirements of producers to advance towards specific targets. In order to resist the lofty slogans such as listing a company after half a year, we should have a self-cooling mentality like practicing hands first, but taking this mentality as a goal and a team, the effect is really awkward.

In my opinion, the executive power comes from a fair and equitable team system, and the management rules for improving employees. The principle of working in the company is very similar. We play a simulated playing game. In the game, the happiness of players comes from the improvement of the level and the enhancement of equipment. The happiness of employees comes from the continuous improvement of numbers, these figures include capabilities and income. Only when employees feel that they can achieve digital improvement through their own efforts can they have the motivation to work and have the ability to execute.

About funds

Finally, let's talk about funding. Many people who have no entrepreneurial experience think much about money. To tell the truth, I thought this too three years ago. Once I had a tea with a startup man who had been working for many years, I spoke about this problem, he didn't think that capital was the most important issue. At that time, I thought that he was too good at installation, but now I think it is indeed his entrepreneurial experience.

In fact, the only function that capital can play is to increase the renewal rate. Note that no one thinks that money is not important, but that the importance of money needs to be placed after the execution and business model, money can only give you a second chance to start a business after one failure. From the moment the company opened, the fate of the team began to enter the countdown state, the timer is the money in our account, the need to make the company have the ability to make revenue before consumption.

The CEO does not need to think about money too hard or too mysterious, but focuses on the first two factors. What are you going to do? How much do you need to make this mess? Can you convince investors that you really need so much money? We often see an e-commerce company that has accumulated hundreds of millions of dollars. I immediately said, wow, this person is really awesome. He has a channel relationship and can be fooled, but I don't think so, I think the core issue of investment lies in trust and ability. Although there will be a dark screen in the investment, it is not a mainstream phenomenon after all, and it will not last long if you leave it alone.

As a founder, investors should feel your sincerity, and the other party should feel that the money will not go wrong. Second, investors need to believe that what you are going to do actually requires several hundred million yuan of funds, and you have no idea about the non-points in it, as long as investors really understand how big your mess is, he will follow up, and there is no relationship with the amount of money. Even if he has insufficient personal ability or concerns, as long as he is still interested, he will also seek a friend to follow up.

Many founders love to exaggerate the issue of capital. The reason why they think they cannot do anything is that they have no money. In fact, this is not the case. For Internet products, you can use thousands or tens of thousands to create a simple DEMO. Even if there are still no investors to follow up at this time, as an entrepreneur, we should also be aware of selling houses, selling cars, and forming a small team to complete a more complete version. Only when you are completely mad at yourself will investors go crazy with you.Now it's no longer an age for business plans to get everything done. It's not important to have a mouth and an idea. What matters is:

1: trust Foundation (whether you and investors have a direct or indirect trust Foundation, people will worry about your character problems, and you will also worry about your poor performance)

2: Business Model (whether what you want to do is a profitable business, and whether your business model can justify itself)

3: Execution (Can you do well)

After these three points are completed, you must be patient and wait for a few months to prepare. Investors also need to see your determination and your current ability to withstand pressure, generally, no one will make a hasty decision just after several meetings, but if you have already started, investors will be much more interested in follow-up.

After talking about this, we are basically talking about internal factors. After all, the internal reasons are the main reasons for a poor job. I also want to talk about external factors, that is, the entrepreneurial environment.

Nowadays, many people who have achieved success in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen all like to return to their hometown. It is usually a second-tier city to start a business. I think this is a mistake. At first, many people did this on the grounds that the second-tier cities are my hometown, and the second-tier cities have low labor costs. I think it is very wrong.

First, whether you stay in your hometown can only be considered for your life. It has nothing to do with entrepreneurship. If you want to create a career, you should not consider your hometown as a factor, because my hometown does not bring your own entrepreneurial advantages, it only adds color to your life.

The second is the personnel cost. It is not enough for a professional manager to simply regard the personnel cost as the wage cost. There should also be personnel management costs and training costs. To shape an industry in a city, you must have a talent ecosystem. Many enterprises are training new people and the old people are walking around. The second-tier cities are very weak in the ecosystem. For inland cities like Wuhan and Xi'an, this is even worse. Without excellent companies to clean up talents, the ecosystem is very sluggish. Therefore, when we start a business in the second-tier cities, the environment will not be able to keep up with the big cities. The talents here have no profound industry experience and have no understanding of team collaboration. As the return CEO, we have to manage them carefully, teach teams how to collaborate in production. Talents in big cities do not have this problem. In many cases, they are too lazy to do it, but few do not. The capital environment here does not understand games either, basically, it is difficult to find local investors and find the relationship similar to the coal boss's real estate boss. Most of them are eager for immediate success and close profits, and the pressure cannot be shared with entrepreneurs.

So even if you start a business in a second-tier city, you have to look for Investment Relationships in other provinces.

Finally, it was a professional problem. I have recruited back-end programmers with a monthly salary of 3000 and AS3 programmers with a monthly salary of 3000. You may think this is a tough task, but I did, the result is naturally a pitfall, half of which is due to my incorrect consideration of saving money, and half of which is due to the failure to recruit talented people.After opening the company for more than a year, the team recruited appropriate frontend and backend personnel. In big cities, this is basically not a problem, where more users only need to consider the cost-effectiveness of talents.

After I closed my company, I apologized to my colleagues and helped my colleagues in need find a new job in Wuhan, avoid fluctuations in revenue due to changes in the company. I also chose to relax for a long time. I went to Xiamen with my wife for a round trip while the National Day was not arriving. In the past three years, I have really exhausted myself.

I went back to Wuhan to communicate with some friends. When talking about my business being closed, he was surprised and then showed a sigh of relief. In fact, I personally did not have this kind of emotion, in my opinion, entrepreneurship is a process of learning knowledge. Success is only a result of this process, and failure is the same. The focus is on learning rather than success, I think this mentality is correct.

Many people regard entrepreneurship as a high-end business, and even take the huge gains of wealth as their entrepreneurial goals. This is definitely not conducive to your in-depth business, and it is easy to be complacent and self-occupied after a small blow, it is easy to feel a strong setback at a low point. Working as a boss is just a new kind of work attitude. You can learn new knowledge in one way. from another perspective, you can look at a company's development process to experience the hardships and complexities that govern the whole world, you cannot regard being a boss as a capital that is conscious and superior to others.

The failure of this business has led me to see a lot of things and have a new understanding of my work. I think I will not be confused when I welcome my next job, it can also process multi-level relationships more accurately.Many people support entrepreneurship, and many people think it is wrong to encourage a professional to start a business. I think everything has a premise and cannot be done in a one-size-fits-all manner.Entrepreneurship belongs to adventurous people and is a way of developing beyond their own genes. If a person dares to constantly challenge bigger and more complex jobs, entrepreneurship must be a knot that he cannot erase, we should encourage and affirm such people. I think it is very dangerous to step into the entrepreneurial army with an unreliable mentality, such as making a lot of money.

Finally, I cheered on the young man and shared with them.