[to] a recovery after a failed startup: How startups has set about, technology, sell products, find financing

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Editor's note: This article is from the public number "surplus capital" (id:incapital2009), 36 Krypton authorized release.

Author |slava Akhmechet

Ying-dynamic Capital Green plant

October 5, 2016, Rethinkdb co-founder Slava Akhmechet on the official website announced the collapse of RETHINKDB company. This open-source distributed database is unsustainable because of the inability to build a sustainable business model. Slava Akhmechet later wrote: "We have done everything we can to make rethinkdb successful, but despite all the efforts we have made, we are ultimately unable to build a sustainable business." In the coming months, I will be writing about lessons learned so that other startups can get inspiration from the mistakes we make. ”

In fact, as early as 2013, the founder of the Rethinkdb after four years of entrepreneurship, has written a summary of his own career since the blood and blood lessons, including personnel, financing, marketing, product, marketing, sales, development, entrepreneurship and mental health and other aspects. Entrepreneurship is something that can be done in the day, the entrepreneur will do is "to listen to the fate of the people."

Any entrepreneurial project has to face a variety of challenges, such as how to recruit, how to do technology, how to sell products, how to find financing, how to update the product iteration, how to deal with the law. These 57 tips from the co-founder of RETHINKDB, the founders of startups, will help you get the most out of this difficult journey.

There have been many gifted and experienced entrepreneurs who have written about the lessons that startups should learn. I have experienced the importance of these lessons in my four years of business life. If you're starting a new company, I hope you'll be a little easier on this difficult road.

Personnel

1, if you lead two to four people team, in six months to a year, you can not achieve "ramen profit", you should be aware that the problem arises. You can choose not to make a profit, but it must be based on your own choices, not the market forces that are not profitable.

Note: Ramen profit (Ramen profitability): a profitable way of starting in the entrepreneurial world in 09, meaning that all the company's revenues only meet the founders ' basic life needs.

2, the founding team to evenly distribute equity.

3. Ensure that the team has a share right plan. Ps: The ownership plan is a vesting schedule set by the company to determine when it is fully "owned" or to obtain full ownership of certain assets (most commonly, retirement funds or stock options).

4, from the first day of the establishment of the company will be determined to make most decisions by consensus, but a CEO's decision must be final.

5, your authority as CEO is earned by strength, you start from a non-zero baseline. If you have success, your authority is enhanced. If you cringe, it will weaken. Don't try to use the authority you didn't earn.

6. Morale is a very real and persistent problem. If you work too long without winning, your investors, employees, family, and yourself will lose confidence. When you get yourself into this position, work becomes like hell.

7, select the initial team to be very careful. Everyone should have a spirit of cooperation, at least one skill that is relevant to the business they are good at, and very productive and pragmatic. Everyone should have a common understanding of the meaning and vision of the product and the company.

8, you set the standard should be you can accept the standard. Select a set of rules that are most important to you and are not negotiable and enforce them.

9, the decisive dismissal of those difficult, low productivity, unreliable, no product concept, non-pragmatic staff.

10, there are some minor friction between the team is healthy, but too much friction is fatal. Expel workers who have caused too much friction. Being too bad at a good job means you're going to be fired.

Financing

11. If you have to sell more than 15% of your company's shares in any fundraising event, your company will not develop healthily. Although this is a condition that can be remedied, it is not an ideal condition.

12. If you have not earned the respect of people now, it is much easier to raise money than to collect a story. If you have to come up with a story, but without a reputation, there will be problems.

13. Consider your fundraising booth as a minimum viable product. Fix it, and then update the iteration after each meeting.

14. The recommendations made by most investors are advantageous for optimizing and expanding the business. Listen carefully to the advice of the investors.

15, however, the advice of most investors can not help you to build a magical product. No one can help you build a magical product-it's your job.

16, do not indulge in the fundraising process. Finish it and move on.

17, the best products are not out of thin air. Those entrepreneurs are successful because they have achieved the top level in one area, and the other competitor's merchandise just fills the rest of the vacancy. Find your field and do the best. If you can't find that field, you should stop and reflect on what went wrong.

18, to solve problems that can find even effective solutions, but they have a huge growth potential. If it does not improve the living conditions of most people in a meaningful way, it is not worth doing. For example, Google has changed the lives of billions of of people by filling in very specific spaces in people's daily lives. It changes the way people behave and makes them feel the direct physical environment around them. Focus on building products of this size.

19. Start with the right and meaningful ideas. Based on experience, you can only tap into a new direction from the results of your product and market interaction, then adjust the organization's strategy and start again. Only if the product is thrown out, you can extract the new way out, new business opportunities.

20. Assuming that the market is running efficiently, valuable ideas will be discovered by several teams at once.

21, choose new ideas, because other social or technological changes have made them possible. Start early, but make sure the technology can make the product good enough.

22. If there is an old idea that has not worked before, and social and technological changes are not enough to make it work now, you can reasonably assume that it will fail in the future. (The premise is that an effective market hypothesis is established, and if an idea can be achieved, it will already be achieved.) It is worthwhile to try again only if the economic society changes. ）

23, the effort to educate a do not need your product market is a must defeat the battle. Stick to your ideals and visions, but be more respectful of trends.

Products

24, Product concept is everything. Do your best to learn fast. Being good at engineering doesn't mean you are good at product management.

25. Don't try to build something that already exists. Users will not buy, the end result is the product hit in your own hands.

26. Make sure you know why users have to choose to switch to your product, and why they can't switch back to the product they used originally. Don't trust your intuition--test your assumptions as much as you can.

27, each product function before the launch should ask themselves two questions-people will because of this function and buy it? Will people give up buying because of the lack of this feature? No amount of the latter can compensate for the lack of the former. If the answer to two questions is "no", do not launch this feature.

28, to build a product people want to buy, although the product's framework may be rough.

29. Learn to draw inspiration from chicken and egg products. So make sure your product delivers instant utility.

30. Understand the difference between users who may be buying your product and those who just post comments. Seize the former and ignore the latter.

Promote

31, the product is heavier than all. If people like your product, the smallest announcements will be paid attention to. If people do not love your product, then a lot of marketing efforts will not help.

32. Try to build the marketing into the product. If possible, try to promote on YouTube and Facebook. On YouTube, your users can frequently send the interesting things on your platform to others with a link to the situation. On Facebook, if your users are using this product, their friends will also need to use your product.

33, refer to the operation of Japanese sushi, and then use this marketing to promote your products. Choose a clear and unambiguous point, keep doing them, and try to be better every day.

34, the validity of periodic re-evaluation. Cut out those ineffective efforts and put double effort into effective activities.

35, do not guess, to measure.

36. Promote to potential users. Getting people who won't buy your product is destined to be a waste of time and money.

37, do not speak, if your competitors can not say the opposite of your words. For example, if your competitor can't say that their product is slow, then your product will soon not be a good marketing. On the other hand, your competitors say that their software is designed for Python programmers, so that your target audience is a ruby programmer is good marketing. Apple can avoid breaking this rule, you can't.

38, do not use exaggerated intonation to the user or competitor. It will not help sell the product, it will ruin the goodwill.

39, do not belittle criticism. Instead, use it to improve your product. If you take their criticisms seriously, your most loyal critics will often be your strongest fans.

Sales

40, sales can repair all other problems. You can mess up everything else, but you can still get through high sales.

41, the product position is heavier than all. Selling the products everyone wants is easy and rewarding. Selling a product that no one wants is an unpleasant number game.

42, when the product in two extreme, to increase sales of digital game unremitting efforts. Even if you don't sell anything, you'll learn a very valuable lesson.

43. It is not possible to spend time on a user who does not have the purchase behavior, which is equivalent to not doing any work.

44. It is easier to get into the station than out of the station. If possible, make sure that the consumer is able to contact you and ask for payment when building the product.

Development

45, product update iteration speed determines the success or failure.

46. Reduce complexity to a minimum. The simpler the product, the more likely it is to crawl the user, the more likely it is to solve the problem quickly.

47, 20% of the work to provide 80% of the benefits.

48. Use ready-made components whenever possible.

49. Use development sprints to ensure your sprint is no more than one or two weeks.

50. Beware of projects with too long periods.

51, beware of the product structure too much adjustment.

52, if you have to do something unsuitable for adjustment, as much as possible to refer to the views of peers.

53, handling the wrong thing one months is equivalent to one months without work.

Corporate Administration

54, do not waste time to select office buildings, accountants, bookkeeping, front desk, furniture, managed tools, payroll companies. Make sure it's good enough to move fast.

55, take the time to find a good, cheap lawyer. This will be of great help in the later stages.

Health

56. Do everything possible to connect your self-esteem and sense of accomplishment with your start-up (you may fail, but try anyway.) Try to do your best every day, and then take a step back. Working in this way, when the dust settles, you can be proud of the choices you make, no matter what the outcome.

57, every once in a while, get rid of work to go out. Go hiking, visit a family in another city, go dancing, play chess, have a game of tennis, and try anything. It will make you more efficient and make the people around you happier.

[to] a recovery after a failed startup: How startups has set about, technology, sell products, find financing