Taking user as the basis, interpreting the biggest taboo of starting a business

There was a question on the Quora, "if is starting a business one thing should be avoided, what would it be?" The voice of doubt just fell, someone had to answer the question, ranked first answers from a two-degree entrepreneur, before the project reached 500 million U.S. dollar valuation, currently he is in the field of artificial intelligence Suren Samarchyan , Here's what he answers

You develop products, do not know what kind of customer service, then do not develop. To solve the non-existent demand is the most common mistake of the start-up company, not one. Founding founder of--paulgraham,y-combinator

Graham talked about his entrepreneurial experience in 1995 when he decided to build an online art gallery that everyone thought was a good idea. In fact, there is not much demand for online art galleries, and these "creative good" feedback is misleading. "It wasn't until I tried to charge that I realized there was a problem with the idea, and then I was paranoid about being successful, and I thought it was useful, and I spent a lot of time on it, how could they not?"

He also said another example

... Pet owners of the social platform, this venture seems to be no problem, good millions of people keep pets. In fact, when you recommend the concept of a pet's social platform to a pet friend, they answer, "I'm not going to use it, oh, maybe I'll try." "Even if the platform is done, most people will still be skeptical, they will not try, but wait for a friend to recommend it." Almost everyone thinks so and you end up with a user.

The first thing entrepreneurs pay attention to, must be the user needs, rather than their own creative how wonderful. To see what you need, see what other people need. "Successful entrepreneurs, ideas are derived from the constant stimulation of external events, Drewhouston is one time forgot to bring u disk, suddenly feel ' my important documents into online access ', only to create Dropbox. "Many of the ideas come from life's discoveries, and entrepreneurs create products, solve demand, and succeed."

It's hard to describe what you need in the abstract, but it's simple to describe the problems in your life, so pay attention to what people are complaining about. As Professor Theodorelevitt said, "People don't buy a 2-foot drill to make a hole, but they hire someone to play it right." ”

Other candidate answers to this question-

1. Herd

The 2x2 matrix image from Andyrachleff explains the impact of "herd": The interesting thing is that if you're right and follow the mainstream, you don't get the most money, and the real big bucks, as the jockey referee chooses, are the ones who are right and don't agree with the mainstream.

What are some examples of Michaelwolfe's crazy entrepreneurial ideas at the end of their success?

· Facebook: A few years after MySpace and Friendster's enthusiasm faded, Facebook emerged, with only thousands of hard-working and anti-social Ivy League student users at the start, and then everyone came in, because Harvard students were cool.

· Dropbox: In the cloud synchronization market already has a large number of not many people to use products (such as Microsoft's skydrive,2006 year in the market there are hundreds of cloud storage companies), Dropbox resolutely March and succeed, because it is really "synchronized."

· Amazon: Amazon opens the online bookstore when users are also worried about credit card payments online, when the express fee is greater than the discount. The user chooses Amazon because it is convenient, and the waiting time of the courier does not cause any inconvenience.

· Virgin Airlines, founded in virginatlantic:1984, is now Britain's second-largest airline, and in its most difficult years, Virgin Group even had to sell its subsidiary Virgin Records.

· Mint: Give me your bank card, credit card, brokerage company information, and I'll tell you how to manage your money.

· Palantir: An intelligence analyst with many fresh graduates (many of whom are immigrants), without a sales team, has reached a partnership agreement with Washington's defense think-tank.

· Craigslist: Ugly, ugly, but this classified information site Alexa ranked the world's top 100, the top 10 in the United States.

iOS: The new system, without the Software Foundation, is incompatible with any Windows, OS X, Linux software, and does not even have the ability to cut copy and paste at first.

· Google: There were 19 search engines in front of Google, most of which were discarded because of the commercialization of the search results, so Google removed navigation and billing to upgrade search results, offering a free search service.

· Github: Engineers who develop freeware software pay for an Open-source hosting platform.

· PayPal: The security of the lack of AOL and Yahoo Mail login paypal, and on the platform to pay real money. The company was founded by a group of 20-Year-old boys, with no bank backing.

· Paperlesspost: Send an invitation online, just like the Evite website, it's only a charge. Friends will say: "Cheap not to touch the King eight eggs ah." ”

· Instagram: We have filters, we have filters!

· LinkedIn: Focus on a 30 or 40-year-old professional social network that they log in 5 years and find jobs when they change jobs.

· Tesla: We don't sell batteries, we sell electric cars in the recession after the financial crisis.

· Spacex:nasa can do, we do.

· Firefox: We're going to be the best browsers in the world, and most of the development work is done by one member of the team.

2. The establishment of a traditional and sustainable business plan has been maintained.

Traditional business plans lack stress and are not desirable in markets that are fraught with surprises. Successful startups are good at changing business models until they find the right model. Unlike big companies, companies do not have to worry about program execution in the early days, because startups have a "tendency to change" attribute, and it's easier to shift the focus of business practice.

Instead, startups should create the most streamlined and implemented products (Minimum viable product).

3. Premature consideration of expansion

"Don't think too much about expansion, don't try to be a big company, do your own thing first." It's a waste of time to spend, slowly expand, write rules, company missions, whatever. Now the company is small, high flexibility, have to do things: do products, sell out. There will be an HR department sooner or later. "I want to be an entrepreneur, where should I start?"--oliveremberton.

Premature expansion: Spend unnecessary money on expansion before the product market is positioned clearly, such as hiring a sales team, doing expensive marketing work, overly perfecting part of the product, renting high-end atmospheric office, etc.

According to Startupgenome's study of 3,200 start-ups, 70% of companies that failed to start their businesses were due to premature expansion.

4. "Out of Office"

This is similar to the top mentioned, but more extreme. Sometimes entrepreneurs get into a dead point and develop in their own world, ignoring customers.

As Steveblank said, "There is no truth in the office, you must go out." ”

5. Can't hold the chance

"Ideas are overrated, and the timing has never been much appreciated." Google has chosen the right time to build a search engine, and Bing ... Good luck to him. "--oliveremberton

According to the analysis of Googleventures partner Billmaris, the accurate timing is six times times higher than other factors for the impact of entrepreneurial success rate.

6. Neglected Unit economic benefits

Most of the time, the cost of getting users is higher than expected, so startups can't make a profit.