Chen Tao: A programmer's eight-year foreplay

Entrepreneur Magazine/Wang Yuhao

Signature

He was born in a small town, he had because of good fighting inequality nearly was killed in the military dormitory, he is the Enterprise Staff School steamed Bread Master, he is Sequoia Capital Fortune Lucky Entrepreneur, he is 2012 Fortune magazine "China 40 40 years old business Elite" list 40th, He is the CEO of Beijing Saint-Terre Technology Development Co., Ltd. He called his entrepreneurial journey: A programmer's eight-year foreplay. His name is Chen Tao.

A review of Rain Howe

July 5, 1945 the Loess Plateau night, the modern historiography master Fu-fu in Yan ' an cave caves and that year the Peking University Library assistant Mao Zedong Candle implausible, Mao did not forget the Peking University times to his mixed feelings complex: "My own life in peiping is very difficult." I live in a place called Three eyes, and another 7 people to live in a small room, we all crowded on the Kang, not even the place to breathe. I have to warn people in advance when I fart. "When Mao talked about Fuzen in the movement, and for the anti-feudalism and new culture movement to make contributions, Fu Fu cunning and also to the response way:" We are just Chensheng, Wu Guang, you are Xiang Yu, Liu Bang. Fu at that time apparently still did not dare to confirm who is Xiang Yu, who is Liu Bang, the intellectual's tact is revealed. such as the Sinian, is still very confused about the future. In the ensuing history, no one asked: What happened to the seven buddies in the same bed? With the same ideal of the teenager, then the situation is so different. This matter let us meditation: Who in the world is because of ideal and successful? Listen to Chen Tao tell his story, he talked about the "indomitable" entrepreneurial spirit, I saw the "man afraid to go wrong, women afraid to marry wrong Lang" era of the occupation of the strange, it is the electric business era created Chen Tao, or he made himself with tenacity?

Chen Tao's Readme

My hometown in Qufu, Shandong Province, located in a small mountain village-Gyro village. My parents were born in the city, I was a typical small town grew up in the child. Later I attended a military school in Xian, freshman when encountered a vicious event, the cause is that I and a do not like to learn, in the study room noisy students quarrel, young and I learned by the two years of freedom to fight, and the move hand. During the day I won a better, but half night I just fell asleep, the classmate holding a knife, opened the quilt stabbed my chest, the heart part was stabbed, because of the subconscious hand a block, not completely stabbed, cut open a hole. Then he came to the second knife, hit my thigh, causing severe bleeding. The chest and legs bleed straight down. Under the feeling of being nasty, I kicked him open, rushed out of the door and ran, and it felt like I was going to be murdered.

In fact, there is no such thing as a report of similar places in the military academies, and the school has taken a private fight as the basis, let me put the injury to good, then each dozen 50 slabs, this incident has been uncovered. When my father learned of the situation, he came by train (without money by air) overnight and stayed with me. Looking at his child was wronged, he asked me the first sentence is: Do you still go to school? The second sentence is: You will be happy after the blow of this thing? That day I suddenly saw in front of me is a half head of white hair, the old father, before he had a black hair.

After graduating from college, the school assigned me to the local Yanzhou coal industry (state-owned company), according to my request. I worked for two years in the Staff University of the unit. Six months ago, no compilation, can only go to the canteen, three or four o'clock in the morning up, steamed buns, pancakes. For two thousand or three thousand people to do early, afternoon, dinner, stay a day to go back to sleep, cycle. So that half year, I played the role of artificial steamed bread machine. Six months later, I transferred to the audio-visual department engaged in audio-visual work, 1.5 after a friend to find a job, I went straight to a Beijing for the National central Authority to develop software companies. I have always felt that I should be a programmer, I want to make some valuable programs to prove their value. When I first arrived at the company, I was busy almost every day until 11 or 12 o'clock in the evening, only to come out from the company back to the dormitory. The company from the initial few people, developed to the last hundred people of the scale. At that time I repeatedly asked myself: I was in the company in fact have been desperately, entrepreneurship is not so? At the end of 2004, I chose to start a business. In the beginning, I pick up small projects, and no money to recruit, just one person. Get up at 78 o ' clock every morning, work until about three o'clock in the morning, and then sleep until it's dry. After earning a little money, he recruited two children for a handyman.

May 2005, I suddenly got hyperthyroidism, the body continuously wasting weight from 140 kg thin to 105 kg, at that time I did not even have the power of a cup of water. Because there is no money to go to the Union hospital recommended by the doctor (the best hospital in Beijing), can only run home at the door of a second hospital received Western medicine treatment, one months later, no improvement in the condition, I collapsed. Helpless to call home, for the first time to the family for help. My father came to Beijing to take me to seek medical treatment, the money quickly spent, but the disease is not good. Finally found an old Chinese medicine, two months of medicine to cure, survived.

Then I went back into the fight, started the project, signed a hundreds of thousands of list and made a few bucks. That same year, I began to do e store treasure software. At first the target was not very clear, and a lot of software was done, including medical software. E store treasure just inadvertently inserted willow, is only to help friends do a network of electronic business software, but I hold it down. I've fed more than 10 people throughout the 2006, bringing the company back on track. 2007 began with the Ali software co-operation, which became its independent RSV. My head two years to make all the money into, ready to go all out to the E store treasure this software products, into the vigorous development of E-commerce software. But a year later Ali software closed, all the business stopped, the software is the customer's own maintenance. The moment we these people became no Niang child, many people then left, the company faces closure. I can only bite the bullet and insist that 2008 years of spending a year to recuperate, is quite over. Days do not save people save themselves, we have become a completely independent third party RSV software company. Then in a year's time, we have 30 golden Crown sellers of 27 to become customers, the same year, to get the first round of investment in huaxing capital. The reason for this investment, I think is huaxing fancy I was in adversity to survive the ability. A year later, we took the second round of Sequoia Capital investment. These two rounds of investment negotiations are very fast, huaxing is i and Chen Ke Yi had a meal; Sequoia is me and Zhouqui eat a meal, with the meter more talk about two times, and so on.

Get the second round of investment that year end, my whole person again exhausted, hyperthyroidism recurrence, oncoming ferocious, the condition is very bad. I was determined to find the best doctor when the company came up with the results. I chose the China-Japan Friendship Hospital to give me radiation therapy, take iodine 131 for treatment, this kind of radioactive element not only harmful to the human body, after receiving treatment my body also has radioactivity, 15 days can not see people, I can only shut myself in the office, 10 days after the body healed, this is my second escape.

E-commerce is actually the use of software means to carry out business activities, so long as e-commerce development, industry practitioners need us to help them. Under the electric Business Line ERP competition is intense, opposite online ERP has the very big space and the opportunity. This market needs the third party independent software company, provides the software service for all platform, in order to promote the overall development of the electronic commerce, this is also e store Treasure's mission. At present, E store registered members reached 50,000 households, paying more than 5000 members, we plan to double the scale in the next year.

A review of Rain Howe

In the interview, I finally asked Chen Tao a particularly silly question: "Do you think this entrepreneurial journey is now in the climax stage or still in the foreplay stage?" His answer was also expected: "I think it should be foreplay, in fact, China's E-commerce is also part of the initial stage, the future everyone may face shuffle, there will be more difficulties and setbacks, E store treasure is not a mature enterprise, we also need to do things more pragmatic, more proactive to face the problem, And keep rashness, do things in the spirit. ”

The reason to ask this question is because of the entrepreneurial success of the path to explore, if the problem unfolds, it is the case: successful path can be easily replicated? How important is the preparation period (so-called foreplay) in the process of a business entering a successful phase? If the development direction of the enterprise is wrong, is not in line with the economic development trend, Is it hard to make a mistake and just keep trying?

In the story of e-store treasure, we see that Sequoia investors made a quick decision not to dwell on the previous life and persistence of entrepreneurs, I believe, they just made a simple judgment, that is, this matter is not in line with their expectations of future trends in product development and the layout of industrial investment. This is like, as far as 8 years ago, this young man from Shandong, in a wasteland built a gas station, a variety of hardships, life and death Shou, and finally a few years later, the highway extended here, so the lad complacent, gets going. At this moment, entrepreneurs see the strength of perseverance, I saw the magic of choice.