Coming back from Silicon Valley -- you only live once

Since being preangel, I have spent one or two times a year in the United States, mainly to meet local friends in Silicon Valley (Bay Area, they mainly include VC, entrepreneurs, heads of student entrepreneurship organizations at Stanford and Berkeley, and heads of various organizations in the wireless technology field, I have been trying to gradually understand the most intensive areas of high-tech listed companies in the world. What are the special characteristics and what can we learn from, returning to the "country" can also be quite different. At the same time, we also want to know whether we have the opportunity to be in the smartest and crowded area in the world, find your foothold and invest in great companies like Google and Facebook in the future?

The more you come, the deeper your feelings will be. Although it is still just a fur, the feelings that Silicon Valley has brought me are already very deep. I would like to share with you:

1) You only live once-you only live once

My preangel Venture partner is Boyd, a native of San Francisco. He speaks fluent Chinese. He told me that YOLO is popular in the bay area recently, token is you only live once. The literal meaning is very simple and can be profound. If we pay enough attention to this phrase from the day when we have the ability to think independently, maybe each of us will have a different today. Today, most of China's economic pillars, somehow, are living for others, for parents, for children, and for friends. Sometimes, it seems that you have chosen your own life. Otherwise, if you live in the image created by others, if you are not satisfied with your life status today, you are not living for yourself! Actually, live yourself is the greatest contribution to society, because everyone is unique and has different abilities and preferences, we will do the same job and do better!

Although this sentence has become popular recently, It is a summary of a common ideology in the bay area. That is to say, many American famous school children have already done so, at least the children in China are aware of the truth of "living for ourselves" earlier. The whole society also provides support for this ideology, such as dropping out of school and entrepreneurship that cannot be understood by parents in China, such as giving up a high-paying backpack and poor travel, for example, if you are married to a person who is completely "out-of-the-box", for example, I am working as an artist in a broken apartment, and so many girls choose to be single mothers... When a person chooses to live for himself, TA often has a more persistent perseverance, or the so-called "persistence" that entrepreneurs need most ".

Yolo explains why there are the world's highest-density outstanding entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley from a perspective.

2) Rules & disruptive-rules and damages

People driving cars in the United States know that everyone is talking about rules on the road and driving efficiency is very high! For example, Li Jun, a famous Chinese angel investor in Silicon Valley (partner of quickstart), said that once again he was driving a business trip to the Bay Area in China. He found that at every intersection, even if it was a green light, the brother would have a brakes. Then he asked curiously why? The buddy replied, "I am worried that there will be a cold car on both sides !"

People who have never been to the United States may be curious. It's normal. What's strange. But when you drive a car in the United States, you will know that when you go straight, if there is no stop sign or red light, you can just drive it, and there will be no car worn out on both sides; because the lanes on both sides of the intersection either have a red light or a stop sign, while the Americans must stop the stop sign when they are driving, even if there is no stop sign, the turn of the car must also make the car go straight, so it will drive slowly left and right. In this way, you can drive a car directly!

You see, a good rule design improves everyone's driving efficiency. As long as everyone complies with it, everyone will make a profit! In the field of entrepreneurship, you can understand that, under a good rule framework, innovation will make you more efficient, and you don't have to worry about "calculation ".

This is the destructive innovation of health: under the framework of a basic rule that everyone can abide, through innovation in technology, design, operation, or business model, the process of revolutionizing an unthinking Old Industry (enterprise. Disruptive innovation destroys outdated systems and enterprising enterprises. It belongs to the survival of the fittest and is a benign metabolism!

We have seen too many "unhealthy" business cases in China. These cases can be understood as "Undermining regular Entrepreneurship" to some extent ", the destruction of rules means that the development of the company has affected the health of the entire industry, and even damaged the interests of most consumers. the entrepreneurs who do not comply with the rules are the drivers who are directly drawn from the roads on both sides ", on the one hand, they are likely to be hit by direct vehicles, both losses; on the other hand, they appear in a wide range, leading to direct drivers crossing the road with a brake, the overall traffic efficiency is affected.

This is another difference between the two sides. The root cause may be that the goal of entrepreneurship is different. One side is to "make money" and "speculate", so we ignore the environment and industry, the "destruction" of consumers and society is more about entrepreneurship for the "ideal. It can be said that the growth and living environment of entrepreneurs in the Bay Area have formed a habit of thinking and won't easily "undermine the rules that everyone complies ", the "destruction of Rules" here is costly.

(This time, at the invitation of Ding Ruoyu, I shared some of my colleagues at Stanford Business School. I know that they have heard too many speeches and I don't know what to share, so I gave them my latest 5-Point Extraction of my belief in entrepreneurs. Boyd said the 5 points I shared showed that "I should belong to Silicon Valley ". As follows :)

3) believe the power of belief-believe in the power of belief"

This is related to the purpose of starting a business. If you live for yourself and start a business for your own purposes, you will "firmly believe" your career and the future you will see, this kind of "strong belief" itself is very powerful, very powerful, this force can help you set up a team, prepare funds, create products, marketing brands, sales services... Although the road to your business is a treasure, you will continue to make great strides.

Many entrepreneurs have not noticed that "self-belief in ideals" is the source of power, you think that the pie you painted attracts the team, you think that your future listing plan attracts investors, you think that your clever tongue attracts customers, and you think it is your smooth sailing attraction media reports... You are wrong. If it is not the power of faith, your pie, your vision, and your tongue will disappear into the market storm again and again.

In the course of a life-long start-up, the only thing that can give you an inexhaustible amount of energy is your "faith" and no one else! Therefore, you cannot give up your faith if you give up anything! If you do not believe what you do, why do you trust others? Looking back, the root cause of many failed companies is that the founder gave up his original belief and everything around him went away with the wind!

4) You were chosen-you are "selected"

I believe in aliens and more intelligent creatures, even though I am an antitheistic, but it is not what we understand as the Jade Emperor, Allah, Jesus, or other religious figures.

Each of us is born differently, so as I mentioned in the first article you only live once, tell us, be yourself! The reason why everyone looks like this is "selected". Our life is a process of countless choices. Every day we seem to make different choices. In fact, we are "selected to make this choice ", no matter what we choose, it is your mission ". So, why don't we do what we like from the heart and what we are good? Why are you good at music, why are you good at social networking, and why are you good at management?

If this is all arranged, it is the most important to obey your mind. Only by doing what you like best and best at can you be the happiest. At the same time, the operation of the world will be more efficient, as long as you select the one that best suits you, it also means it is doomed to be like this. Do not blame the so-called "God" in your heart for being unfair. You are your own "God", because your will is the will of your "God.

So again, you only live once, so be yourself, be your own God!

5) valuation vs price-value and price

If you tell you in your heart, you like to open a small bar by the sea and live without worry every day. OK, no problem!

If you tell you in your heart, you want to make the world better. OK, that is your mission. Next you will do your best to fulfill your mission. You will succeed!

Here, we can raise questions about value and price. If you want to accomplish a great mission, it can be said that it is priceless (priceless). If you want to accomplish this mission and you need to seek funding from investors, how should you set a price for yourself?

If you think that you are priceless, then you will not be able to finance with a daily valuation. I think your priceless value is embodied only after the project is actually implemented. No one can guarantee your success. Therefore, the initial valuation should not be too concerned with the "price ", instead, they want to get smart money. The so-called smart money can be understood as an investor who shares vision with you and can provide valuable resources other than money to help. Entrepreneurs and investors who care too much about the "price" may not be on the road. If we disagree a lot at the beginning on the valuation issue, we suggest both sides do not tangle and pass each other directly.

The valuation of startup enterprises in Silicon Valley at the angel financing stage is cheaper than that in Beijing, but in round a, the valuation will soar with products and data, in many cases, investors in Beijing cannot understand it. When the value is highlighted, the valuation is not a problem, so you can refer to the entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley, do not care about the valuation in the early days, and take the smart money of angels to develop the ideal product, then, the market will give you a reasonable "valuation ".

6) Enough is not enough-"enough" is far from enough

This is the spirit of geeks that I admire. The so-called geeks, in my opinion, are people pursuing extreme to abnormal levels in a subdivision field. geeks are not limited to technical fields.

Because American culture and Bay culture are a "culture of encouragement", children will be praised by "amazing" and other parties for their achievements, therefore, there will be many geeks in the field of technology, art, product, and marketing. Especially in the Internet and mobile Internet entrepreneurial fields we mentioned, these geeks have made countless innovative products that are very popular all over the world!

Now is an era of extremely developed business and extremely fierce market competition. Most of the needs of people have been met, new entrepreneurs are either looking for opportunities to use powerful core technologies to subvert the old industry, or looking for new demands from new products in emerging markets (such as peripheral accessory demands from the iPhone ). However, no matter what we do, we need a geek leader to take charge of the product to achieve a great enterprise, just as Steve Jobs pursues perfection to metamorphosis.

Geeks are always more visible than ordinary people. After all, TA has experienced and tried many products than ordinary people. Otherwise, it cannot be called geeks. Secondly, geeks have 10 times higher requirements for their own products than those on the market, so they generally do not release products easily, but each release will bring users a "stunning" or "shocked" feeling, the target user loyalty must be enhanced to the maximum extent. Finally, the products brought by geeks are usually reported by various media to the greatest extent. Therefore, the marketing cost is reduced, so that the wine is not afraid of going deep in the alley!

In Silicon Valley, even companies like Evernote and Tesla have almost died, and their most demanding philosophy has led the company to go bankrupt for a few times, it was also because of their powerful belief that they helped them overcome the difficulties at the most critical moment and finally made outstanding companies around the world!

If a company's leader is a geek in a certain field, I will be very happy to invest in him. I will do my best to help him solve what he is not good at and let him focus on launching a product that will surprise the world; if the leader of a company always thinks that "it's almost enough", it's better than the market by 50%, then he may be a good businessman, it may create a profitable company, but it won't create the next Facebook, the next Tesla, And the next Google...

7) imagination & execution-imagination and execution

Since the release of "Avatar" in China, IMAX or IMAX + 3D movies have become a must-have for everyone. Recently, atango's "mission 4", "Land of war", and "Star Trek 2", "Iron Man 3" and so on bring us an immersive movie watching experience. From the cinema, we all lament the great changes that technology has brought to our lives, and the imagination and execution of Hollywood.

At the same time, we can't help asking ourselves why these blockbusters are from Hollywood and why are there none in China? Is it determined by education? Because we always think that Chinese people are the smartest, but Chinese movies are inferior to old ones. Is it determined by the environment? Because Hollywood has been ahead of the film industry for at least 50 years, it has been precipitated. Is it determined by funds? Because Hollywood's movie production costs may easily exceed billion dollars!

In fact, in the Internet entrepreneurship field, we often lament that many companies in Silicon Valley are more imaginative than us, such as my favorite ifttt, Airbnb, Zipcar, Twitter, Pinterest, google Glass, Siri...

This time I chatted with a group of students, such as Stanford, ucia, and Berkeley, who came out to start a business in Silicon Valley. They had an interesting point. They believe that there are so many outstanding companies in Silicon Valley, first of all, because there are a large number of entrepreneurial companies in Silicon Valley, and a huge base will naturally come up with a few excellent Companies. Relatively speaking, there are actually many dead small companies, we just don't know. The entrepreneurial environment in Silicon Valley has stimulated more and more people to join the entrepreneurial wave. In their words, they are called "mixed fish" and "varied "; indeed, I also talked to a startup team who has been in Silicon Valley for three months from Italy. This is a gold rush destination for Internet geeks.

However, this also inspires us that the bay area has the best entrepreneurial environment in the world, so it also attracts the most entrepreneurs in a highly competitive market environment, those who can stand out have become the focus of the world's attention, and the valuation is booming!

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Finally, let's share a small story in Silicon Valley that has not been reported in the media:

A local Chinese VC told me that she soon met a very smart young entrepreneur through her friends in Silicon Valley. She was very skilled and made things cool. Unfortunately, it was still in the early stage, she planned to follow up in the next round. Later, when she returned home for two months and returned to Silicon Valley again, she heard people say Facebook had bought the company for $0.1 billion! After her implementation with her founder, she felt that Silicon Valley was an incredible place. If you have two brushes, there are really big Giants who offer a "winning" price for their strategic purposes!

P.s. this article was written on the ua857 flight from San Francisco to Shanghai. It was sent through WiFi in the UA engine room and the satellite communication network of the plane. For this reason, I only paid $22 for "Sky netbooks ", shuang :-)