10 secrets of Web entrepreneurship

Link: http://blog.donews.com/keso/archive/2005/11/28/641152.aspx

Evan Williams is the founder of blogger and the founder and CEO of the podcast Service website Odeo. Based on his own experience, he listed 10 rules that should be followed by web startups (Ten Rules for web startups). The excerpts and comments are as follows:

2. Shrink:Focus on a problem as small as possible, and you can solve it. Don't think about how to do everything. If you are greedy and chewy, you will become a counterfeiter. Small ones can increase, small ships can turn their heads, small ones can bring you many advantages, and the gap market can become a large market. Don't try to treat 0.1 billion of users on the Internet as your users. It's useless. It's enough for you to really solve some of your needs.

4. Differences:Remember that many people are doing the same thing as you, and one of them is Google. In this market, specialists are more useful than general talents. It's not always a leader, but you can do things differently from others, such as Google. Do not use common words like blog, Chinese Blog, Asian blog, and world blog.
6. Casual:Casual networks are larger than deliberate networks because people need to live. Create a service that adapts to and helps people's daily lives, rather than demanding too many promises or changing their identities. Ease of use. In many cases, occasional demands make your services more valuable, just like occasional conversations on Skype. Since life is random and accidental, do not always try to restrict users.
8. Picky:This applies to the features of services, employees, investors, partners, and reporters. If you feel something is not very good, just put it. One of Google's most powerful powers is its willingness to say no to opportunities, fast money, potential employees, and transactions. But many people are too eager to miss this store in this village, so they will regret it if they don't refuse.
10. User-centric:User Experience is everything. Your entire company must be built on this. If you don't know what a user-centric design is, learn quickly and hire people you understand. The correct features are far more than one hundred features added. Ajax is used to make websites more interactive, not because it is very sexy. APIs are used to make it easier for developers to add value to users, rather than to please geek.
12. Self-orientation:Great products have always come from one's own desires. Create the product you need, become the user of your own product, employ the user of your product, and improve it as you wish. On the other hand, avoid making transactions with large companies in terms of costs, users, or products that may impede your improvement. It's hard to say no because you are too big.
14. Hunger and thirst:There are choices that will always be better than no choice. The best way is to have income. You need to design a billing model for your product and start to make improvements within six months, so that you will have market fees. In addition, if you have an income, you will be in a more favorable position in financing or acquisition negotiation. However, it may not be that simple in China, and service deformation is always happening to make money.
16. SLIM:Maintaining a low cost is a kind of Web entrepreneurial wisdom. If you can use existing services on the Internet, do not spend money on them. If you want to be acquired by a large company, you cannot make yourself appear complex and small companies are more likely to be acquired. Tim o'reilly said that if you see a company spending a lot of money on marketing activities, you certainly know that this is not a Web 2.0 company. Making full use of existing Internet resources is also a capability.
18. Flexibility:Learn to change the plan. Pyra initially wanted to manage a project.ProgramInstead of blogger. The first thing that Flickr was going to do was a game. Ebay initially wanted to sell the auction software. The original idea was almost always wrong. At the beginning, I thought I was right and probably hit the south wall. We need to turn the entrepreneurial process into a beta process, continuously debug, constantly adjust, and continuously improve.
20. Balance:What are startup companies? Gaze, sleep insufficiency, junk food hunger, coffee refreshing ...... What else? You know, naturally, you need a healthy balance. When the balance becomes part of your company, you have a secret weapon. You also need to play. A dynamic and balanced team also gives more trust and expectation.
22. Exercise caution (this is an extra reward ):Do not use the above rules as the golden rule. There are always exceptions in everything.

Please note that the above is not a translation of the original text, and there may soon be a Chinese translation of others.