RETHINKDB founder teaches you how to find entrepreneurial ideas

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About the author

My name is Slava Akhmechet, I am one of the founders of RETHINKDB, RETHINKDB is open source. Distributed database. Designed to help developers and operators work with unstructured data while building real-time applications

How to choose a creative

Feb 2015

On the macro level, based on my experience, I think one of the most important things that a start-up company needs to know is that the response of the innovation market is very efficient. Suppose the market environment is appropriate for a start-up business. It is very likely that there are already many similar startups in the market.

And vice versa-assuming that there is no start-up in the market, it is very likely that the market is unfriendly, so startups don't come out.

On this level, startups are like an organic organism. Only if the ecological environment is suitable. There will be life. The difference is only that startups are living in the economic environment rather than the real ecological environment.

This is a great way to influence how you choose your ideas. Because the technology business is often a king defeated the situation, win you will get all. If you lose, you blow them out. So the first company to conquer customer problems accounted for the market share is often more than the other later added up more.

So, let's say that there is a company that is similar to your idea that exists in the market today. Then you are unlikely to be able to replace it.

Traditional wisdom often tells us that startups need to go in the direction of solving the problems people encounter. But let's say that it's a bit too broad to filter out exactly which ideas are right for startups.

The efficiency of market response bodes well for assuming that a problem is really valuable and can be solved, so it is very likely that the problem has been solved. Conversely. Assuming that the problem has not been resolved, it is very likely that the problem is resolved in a structural way that it is impossible to solve it.

For investors, inspiring entrepreneurs to solve different problems is really a winning strategy, because the law of large numbers determines that the winning balance tends to the investor side. Most of the startups that investors invest in are likely to fail. But this does not matter, just want the net that the investor scatter is big enough, invest the enterprise enough, then only then one or two of them succeed it can make a full bowl full of, because as previously said, this is a king defeat of the game, the winner will win the market almost full share.

However, for entrepreneurs. This is a very bad strategy, because the law of large numbers determines that the winning side is not on their side. A single entrepreneur does not have enough money to try to solve a number of different seemingly valuable problems to achieve the desired results. So the entrepreneur needs a horse to become a success. They need to be more rigorous in filtering their ideas to find the ideas that are most likely to succeed.

Suppose you cannot replace a technology company that already exists, and it is very likely that the market environment does not agree with the unresolved issues that exist, then what do you want to do to create a successful startup in the market?

A seemingly absurd solution is that, in the bud of a startup, we are not thinking about finding our entrepreneurial ideas by solving the problems that exist, but rather looking at the changes in the economic environment and the opportunities brought about by such changes to find our entrepreneurial ideas.

Like the ecological environment, the economic environment is also unstable. Society's moral compass often changes.

The political environment will change according to the social morals, and a country will change because it absorbs the free and loose legal provisions. People living in the developing world will slowly become wealthy. When a technology arrives at a critical point, it requires only a few minor improvements, and the technology can lead to a leap from quantitative to qualitative.

Changes in the environment have freed up entrepreneurial opportunities.

And because technology entrepreneurship is a battle of kings and losers, you can assume that you are the first to be aware of market changes and then immediately enter the market and bring a workable solution to the market, which will greatly add to your chances of success in the market for a long time.

So always ask yourself at the beginning of a startup-what's happening in the world today? And what can I do about these changes? Once you have determined that the environment has changed and that the current market entry is not too late. You should be able to find your ideas to start your own business by following the "solve unsolved problems" approach mentioned above.

Pioneer Advantage

It's a good start to incubate and evaluate your own entrepreneurial ideas based on changes in the environment. But that's not enough.

When you find such a change in the entrepreneurial environment. Very many other people will be aware of the same. Example. When a magazine reports a story that is changing in a certain fashion. The magazine's information is often obtained from several companies that are emerging in the market.

If you are the first to push your product into a market, your customers will compare your product to the current trend. You will get a first batch of early adopters-a wave of catching up with the tide. Suppose your product is very good. Some conservative users will be gradually put into your arms and make your camp become more and more powerful.

Let's say you're the second batch that pushes your product into a market. Your customers will compare your products with those of other companies that enter the market first. In such cases, the difficulty of your (wanting to succeed) will be multiplied by the number of levels. It is far from enough to burn money to catch up with the current state. At this point you will have to find a bright eye and first enter the market of the company's product differences as a strong entry point to compete. And experience tells us that it is much more difficult to do this than an entrepreneur has imagined.

The "Forerunner advantage" in economics becomes more and more intense and obvious in the case that the growth of technology companies requires multiple compounding processes.

Creating an organization takes time, setting up a business, fundraising, recruiting, research and development, and entering the market. Sales channels. Shipping and so on will consume you for at least a few months.

Let's say you're not the first to enter the market, while you're still stumbling over the shipment. Your competitors will most likely already be working on how to occupy many other users.

In the process, they will get a lot of other resources to help them grow at an exponential level before you, but you're stuck with explaining to the user what's so special about the product you're offering. In most cases, this means your company is dead!

Insight into the trend of wind

Therefore, you should allow your product to enter the market without any competitor. Experience, you can't be a yimeimei in the market and want to catch up.

It should not be done even in the rare case where most of the competitors are less competitive, because even if only one competitor is able to enter the market than you, it will greatly reduce your chances of success. You have to find a way to start a business before someone else, and start out with the open door in the market.

There is no formula in the world to predict the change in the direction of the trend, but you can develop your own unique insight to perceive it. Example. You can develop this insight based on your job content or your hobbies. Speech recognition researchers are very likely to be able to gain insight into the technology in the years ahead of me. Because I was in the voice recognition product has started to impact the market when the insight into the existence of the technology.

Sometimes your unique background knowledge will help you to realize the change of wind direction earlier than others. Suppose you see a plausible narrative of why the world is so ignorant of such things, perhaps it will bring you a reasonable opportunity to start a business. You might think, for example, that people living in some countries of the third world are not yet aware of the importance of remittances, and then the third countries have just enough network coverage. Then you may be able to expand your creativity to succeed by starting with e-remittance.

Some of the unique advantages that you have are also likely to put you in a good position to explore the changing direction of your business. In some ways, it is possible for everyone to get in. Some of these changes may require a very deep background in expertise or a huge effort that entrepreneurs are reluctant to devote.

Driverless cars may be a good example here: Everyone is bragging about how they stand at the forefront of driverless car development, but finally Google has the means to integrate the experts they need. Capital and determined to go through the last mile.

There are other ways to get the best of you. Suppose, for example, that you have the resources of a large company in your hands, you may be able to enter the market later than others, but you can still beat your competitors by using huge market budgets or on the basis of the company's existing distribution base.

But such a situation in the real world of VC after all is very few.

Startups tend not to have huge resources to win-their success is often due to their insight into the changes in the trend and the first product to advance the market.

Weave your ideas into a good story

Thinking about the changes taking place in the world your start-up will not only be a big success for your startup, it's a better way to think about technology innovation. In addition, it will bring you a lot of other surprises.

At the start of your startup you have to interact with very many people-potential users, advisors. Investors. Industry experts, early employees. Even reporters.

The first question these people ask you is often, "What do you do for a business?" “。 So how to tell people what you're building is going to be the first strategic question you need to solve.

Let's say you describe a thing in a story-telling way. Humans are often very happy to give feedback. All stories tend to use the same basic framework. Here is a simple framework rule from the famous Pixas animation studio telling us how to say the story:

In the past (). Every day (). One day (). So (). So (). Until the end ().

The first part is the layout. The former world was carried out in a peculiar way. What it means here is to describe to people what it means to people that way. The next part is to describe the changes that are taking place in the world. The narrative in this section may not have a half-dime relationship with your start-up-the objective fact that you are describing the changing circumstances of the narrative and how much does it matter to the audience if you are going to open a company? Remember before we talked about the market reaction is very efficient and agile, right? Even if you do not open a company to create the corresponding products to embrace change. There will be other people to do it. Your goal should be to be the first to bring your viable products to market, which will usually help you to succeed in the market.

Just as you describe the changes that are taking place in the world, you begin to describe your product and your company.

The change of the world is not stopped by your actions. You just need to "happen" to know beforehand that such a change is enough.

The last part shows how your company will change people's lives. When your company is thriving enough to have a large portion of its market share, you will be able to be the driving force behind the next change in the environment.

In this way your startup will end up with a cycle of technological innovation.

Here's a sample of how a first-class company should describe their story in accordance with the above template: In the past, people bought cars that were driven by internal combustion engines. But one day, with battery technology has become more and more inexpensive.

Therefore, we can consider using batteries to build an electric vehicle. But perhaps this time is relatively expensive, then we can first out luxury luxury version to occupy the high-end market. As battery technology becomes cheap enough, we start thinking about breaking into the low-end market. Until the end, we can subvert the entire auto industry so that every car in the world is electric.

This way of describing your ideas in a story-telling way can be very effective in moving your startups forward. Early adopters, employees, and consultants will be more likely to be attracted, as you are inviting them to embark on a journey to achieve that idea together. And investors will be more easy to throw olive branches. Because this is in line with their way of behaving. When it comes to reporters, they have no reason not to report to help you do the promotion, because you have to write a story to help them through the way they have to finish their work.

A good story can give you a great narrative power to express to different backgrounds and groups exactly what you're doing. Besides. In fact, a good story has another, more important advantage. That is: creative normalization-a good story will tell you if your decision is correct and force you to make some principled choices.

Let's say you're going to make a decision about the wind and the horses that you're going to tell. You need to be very clear to choose whether to evaluate the decision again or to adjust the story you want to tell again. Early-stage startups tend to be involved in countless swirls of choices that need to be made in different directions, and these companies assume that a lot of the failures are often due to the tradeoffs they make to these decisions rather than because they choose a wrong path. A good story will make you confess to yourself and to all people, to stop you from being a nice fellow and to ruin your ideas. Allows you to keep a clear mind moving forward in a clearly detailed direction.

Exception-there is no absolute

The two viewpoints that the first market-entry company could not be shaken by the innovative market's high-efficiency feedback and starters ' advantages have been controversial. Because we are very easy to find the reality exists and does not fully conform to the two rules of the counter-examples come out.

For example, the Beats headset, which Apple bought for $3 billion over the past year, has in fact broken all the rules of the narrative described in this article and then succeeded because the trend-giving industry, such as pop music, was inherently fickle and fraught with instability.

Looking at Microsoft's Surface tablet, though, Microsoft's later offer of surface tablets is not much different from what the market already has, but it can still achieve a certain degree of success in this already very mature market because Microsoft has enough market budget money.

In fact, a market tends to lurk for many years without the opportunity to be discovered, with a lot of deep technical problems until someone suddenly resolves them one day. The problem may have been there for decades.

Even seemingly unstoppable, fast-growing companies sometimes commit such deadly errors as not finding potential opportunities in time. And finally put himself on the no return.

In the entrepreneurial world. These examples can in fact be classified as an exception. Rather than a normal follow-up to the entrepreneurial rules of the situation. Most founders are not in fact able to help themselves by working with a hip-hop singer like Beats. Nor can they be very effective at minimizing the cost of effective execution in a 1 billion-dollar market competition (but unfortunately they tend to think they can). Entrepreneurs often think of themselves as an exception to the success they see when they walk pifo the usual way. In fact, in the entrepreneurial world this is not as special as you think.

Let's say you're sure you've found such an exception. Then you have to be careful. A lot of startups start out with a way to find a shortcut, and then it takes years to find the wrong one. This is because the founders did not understand the market's efficient response and the first-person advantage of the two rules is the right path.

So. Please think carefully about these rules. And then get a good understanding of them. Exceptions do exist, but make sure you really know what you are doing. You need to learn the Orthodox rules first and then create your own rules.

Self-deception – don't weave creative stories into fiction

One of the cautionary side effects of finding startups ' ideas in a way that brings opportunities to environmental change is that it's so effective that you're so easy to be blinded by your early, effortless success. Smart and determined entrepreneurs can find evidence for nearly all entrepreneurial ideas to support the fact that the environment has changed. If you're sure you're going to be involved in creating a food delivery service, you can usually invent a hypothesis and surround that hypothesis to weave a story about your product. Then add some credible data to support your assumptions and gradually sharpen your story high enough so that a large number of users start believing it. Unfortunately, it is. You will be creating a fantastic fiction.

Because you are so superstitious about the assumptions you have given, that you unwittingly begin to turn a blind eye to unfavorable factors and evidence, the process is tantamount to undermining the correct scientific approach with the scientific "certainty of sexual prejudice". "Certainty of sexual prejudice" is deadly in the scientific community, the same. It is also deadly in the business community.

In a fictional way, your company can be very easy to attract a staggering amount of money, a large number of elites will be involved, the media will be very interested in your company, and these things in this case will put your company on the edge of the cliff. I've seen people throw people in. Tens of thousands of dollars of money burned out, and the process was spent hundreds of people--years on the project, because they unwittingly weave a very fascinating fiction, and then was the initial success of some of the successes to be dazzled by their own to the unreal fiction.

So your creative story needs to be more than just fascinating. What is more important is that the story needs to be a correct story, not an unreal novel.

How to assess the correctness of a creative story is an exceptionally challenging art, and making this assessment involves a number of different sciences-economics, science fiction, history, anthropology. and sociology. You need to have a deep understanding of the world and devote many years of effort to creating your own sensitive intuition about the future.

Even so. You can only guarantee that the inferences you make in a part of the time are correct. But that's just a lot better than the random choices you've had before.

Intuitive sensitivity

Here are some of the things I've seen that help me to think and grasp future changes.

I use them to learn how to weave my creative stories and sharpen my intuition of whether or not to infer these creative stories correctly.

• Read for months The Economist's article is a very good way to keep pace with traditional wisdom. The authors on the Economist site are very good at thinking about the future (but remember that these authors are not pressured to make sure that their point of view is correct).
• Peter Thiel's "from scratch" is a great book.

  In comparison, some other business books are very rubbish. But the book is truly outstanding.

• The rationality of Harry Potter and the method is very enlightening. What Harry described in the first 11 chapters of the book is exactly what you need to learn. "The rules are very different and there is magic in this world. So how do we do it now? Can I get rich from the gold galleons/Sidel of the wizarding bank?
• Same. I also go to the TV tropes Wiki from time to time to prevent me from weaving a fictional creative novel.
• William Gibson's essays don't believe that the so-called signature flavors help me to think deeply about technological innovation in the real world.
• In a similar way. The five things we need to know about technology trends change written by Neil Postman are unique to technology considerations. He is not really optimistic about technological innovation, but still, he holds a unique and practical way to think about how technology is doing its work.

Once you have finished reading the above-mentioned Link's class capacity, please continue digging deeper.

Learn as much as you can about micro-economics to get a better understanding of how the world works. Do not just learn the basic supply and demand, but also to learn more advanced such as supplies, substitutes. Elastic. Marginal effects and so on.

To learn history. But do not just remember that time lives these things, but need to ask advanced questions. Why did the Ottoman Empire never set up a feudal system, although it had similar economic and technological development levels to other European nations? Why did the inventor of the steam engine not derive the greatest return from their inventions? Why did Chinese civilization not conquer Europe at its heyday? At that time, China was far more developed than Europe.

Have a major understanding of anthropology and ethnology.

To understand the theme-Class theory to evaluate the cultural habits of humanity. and try to learn to make inferences about the changes in the cultural habits of humanity.

Lay the groundwork and then create your own point of view.

If you observe carefully, you will find that there are things that can be learned everywhere. Once you have a deeper understanding of the world, you should immediately take action.

The best way to get a hypothesis that makes good inferences is to make a real decision. Let's look at the results later. So don't let yourself be stuck in the analysis of numbness, be good at and dare to analyze. Start your own company and start learning and growing in your mistakes.

Finally, thank Michael Lucy for his help with this review and the contribution made.

——— finished ———-

Quoted English original: http://www.defmacro.org/2015/02/25/startup-ideas.html
Make/Translator: Slava akhmechet/Heaven Zhuhai Branch Rudder
Knowledge sharing public Number:Techgogogo
Csdn:http://blog.csdn.net/zhubaitian

RETHINKDB founder teaches you how to find entrepreneurial ideas