500 Days of entrepreneurship: The Vortex of death

This article comes from medium, author Jerome Ng. My venture has gone 500 days, and this journey is really unbelievable. I've never had this experience before, and I never thought I'd experience that much before I started. Here are some of my experiences: Dream two years ago, I walked out of the campus. At that time I watched Jobs ' speech at Stanford University. He offers a very simple advice to all aspiring students: love what you do, keep seeking, never stop. I jotted down the short words and realized that I was very fortunate. After graduation, I want to prove my value, I want to do what I want to do. I decided to give up the idea of finding a job in the financial industry and I got on a flight to dream. I spent a week in Silicon Valley, and that was the short week that made me fall in love. The people here are open-minded, ambitious, and they dare to pursue their dreams. I realized I wanted to start a business and I wanted to set up a company. Although I knew nothing about entrepreneurship, I was thirsty and foolish. Do you know how to set up an enterprise by kicking off obstacles? Don't know how to develop Web pages? Then use WordPress. Don't know how to design? Photoshop is not much more difficult than paint. No money? No clients? Door to door and sell to them. No CTO? Participate in institutional science and technology gatherings and hacker marathons, and know more about the developers. Afraid of rejection? Force yourself to greet strangers. No contacts, no connections. Can't afford a ticket to a science and technology conference? Leng Chuang, as long as not to be the security to blow out you succeed. Want to meet Mark Zuckerberg and Marissa Mayer? Find the way to the backstage. Want to build a team? Sell your vision to people, Gao. Need financing? Want to succeed? Entrepreneurship has taught me how to kick the obstacles in front of me. Uncertainty entered the cockpit of the airplane and took off. Learn how to fly a plane before it crashes-this is entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is like a roller coaster, there is always a rise and fall. One second you're over the world, and the next you're shot down. Once a friend asked me: "Why don't You fall in love?" My answer is: My life is crazy, I do not know where the next week, how to fall in love? Coincidentally, after saying this, I immediately received an email, which I had to pack immediately, and fly to another city the next day. That month, I traveled to cities like Seattle, Montreal, Toronto, Waterloo, Las Vegas and Whistler. Personal life goes bankrupt my personal financial situation is very bad. I don't even check my bank account, and there's no money in it anyway. Looking at bank accounts for me is like a masochistic behavior, see a bad once, too masochistic. During Christmas 2013, I didn't even have the money to buy gifts for my family, and eventually I bought some greeting cards instead. I went to a 1-dollar store and bought 4 Christmas cards. Was walkingAt the checkout, I wasn't even sure I had 4 dollars to buy the cards, so I started getting nervous. I brushed my first credit card and the card was rejected. I changed another credit card and was rejected. The third one was rejected. All my credit cards were turned down because I maxed out all the cards. The sale of the car has been spent, I have been destitute. It was embarrassing, my credit card was rejected, and it was in the 1 dollar store! To become #500Strong2013年11月, my business seems to be in the vortex of death, almost, I will close down. When my CTO suggested that we should join an entrepreneurial accelerator, my job was to find an accelerator and then try to join. and legendary Wayne Gretzky once said: "If you don't try to shoot, you're 100% more likely to miss a goal." If you do not act, you are doomed to failure. Go to hell, I'm not destined to fail ", I want to start to try to shoot." I've traveled all over the country, reaching out to all the entrepreneurial acceleration plans I've been willing to talk to. 4 months ago, someone emailed me about startups's founder, Dave McClure, but I didn't have a first-time response. 4 months later, this thing was gone, but I finally decided to take a chance: I'm sorry it took so long to reply-we've been working on the company's construction. In addition we have just received an invitation from another business acceleration program and would like to know if you are still interested in us. "We had a 15-minute interview with Startups's partners through Skype, and eventually we were able to join the startups. We are fortunate to know that fewer than 2% startups can successfully join the startups, and that chatting with Skype can add up to a few. In the end, we rejected the other 3 start-up accelerator programs and chose startups. In the next few months, we live in the spotlight. Together with 28 other start-ups, we have joined one of the world's best start-up accelerators. We and 28 other companies stand out from 1300 start-ups. Funds, 200 mentors, 700 partner companies, a fireside dialogue with top VC and founder Partners, and a large number of start-up founders, were startups. I have entered a good and surprising entrepreneurial environment, the rest of it depends on myself. Of all the companies that joined the startups, 25% won more than 1 million dollars in seed financing, 25% of the companies went bust, or the co-founders left. The media did not expect that the company I built appeared on many well-known media, such as TechCrunch, the Next Web, VentureBeat, Betakit, vancitY Buzz, Techvibers, Global, CBC, CTV, The Globe and Mail. I was flattered. I find that if you are doing interesting work, people will pay attention to you and talk about you. 3000 dollar apartment in other cities, if you are willing to spend 3000 dollars for rent, you will certainly be able to find a deluxe suite with water features. But in San Francisco, you can only share an apartment with your co-founder, his wife and his two dogs, and sleep on the floor of the living room. If you think such a house is too expensive, you'll have to move to what we call remarkable. You can't imagine living in a room where more than one person sleeps. There are 6 single beds, 3 air cushion beds, and a sofa-yes, this is the living environment in which 10 adult men fall asleep. What is Somasoma? Imagine an entrepreneurial environment in which you surround yourself with a number of other tech start-ups, such as Airbnb, Uber, Dropbox, Yelp, Pinterest, Zynga, Moscone Center, and so on. This is Soma, the paradise of technology entrepreneurs. Around you are the smartest and most ambitious people in the world. If you want to get in touch with people, they're within a few blocks. Whether it's the founder of a newly established company, the founder of a firm that has successfully received large sums of money, the founder of a newly acquired enterprise, or the founder of a recent scandal, you can find them here and sometimes meet them at a café. Sandhill Avenue Sandhill is home to one of the world's best venture capital institutions, which provide billions of dollars for tech start-ups. There are countless young entrepreneurs on the street, trying to attract VCs, complete the ideals they want to change the world, and try to be the next Apple and Facebook. One day, after a long day of meeting, a friend and I drove back to San Francisco to pick up the founder of another startups member company. Let's talk about my car: engine flameout, brake disc serious wear, flat tires. This is a typical start-up poor kid's car. I stopped in front of a VC's office, and the founder got in the car and said, "They just gave me 600,000 dollars." "In the rest of the world, can you imagine a young man of 20 years old saying that?" in Sandhill Street, these young people are chasing their dreams. Financing, financing, financing I remember how nervous I was when I first tried to touch a VC. When I spoke, I was flushed and I stuttered nervously. At the end of the conversation, I didn't even understand what I was talking about. On the demo day of startups, we have access to 400 investment from Silicon ValleyPeople。 Most of us are young people who are 20 years old, and our business valuations are low. However, we believe that if there is financing, we can develop as fast as rockets. Our idea is simple: if you can invest millions of dollars for me, you will get a return. My experience is to put all your passion on the VCs and give them a very convincing story-don't forget to prepare a growth chart. A lot of times you feel like you're screwed, and a lot of times you break up and burst into tears. You think everything is going in the wrong direction, you are alone and the world has collapsed. You'll suddenly think of all the risks you've taken before and everything you've sacrificed to start a business. Ben Horowitz once described the struggle: the moment of struggle is when you start to wonder why you started this business. The time to struggle is when someone asks you why you don't choose to quit and you can't figure out how to answer it. The time to struggle is when your employees feel that you are lying and you think they have a point. The time to struggle is when your favorite food is suddenly tasteless. ...... Struggle itself is not a failure, but it can lead to failure. Especially if you are a fragile person, vulnerable people are always prone to failure. Most people are not strong enough. From Steve Jobs to mark Zuckerberg, every great entrepreneur has been through a struggle, and you're not alone. But that doesn't mean that having a struggle means you'll be successful. Greatness comes from the moment of struggle. Everything gets worse, no one cares, deep breaths, ready to fight. I'm lucky that after a few months of starting a business trip, I met a friend named Ali, we have many similarities: we are of the same age, work in the same office, have their own companies, like adventure, are willing to sacrifice, do not give up, are pursuing their dreams. It seems that we are very similar at every point, but I am more fortunate. Ali had no money when I had no money. Ali also lost their co-founder when I lost the co-founder. In order to start a business, I sold my car. Ali was also selling cars, but unfortunately his car was hit. Ali was homeless and had to spend the night at the office at the end of the day when we went home by the last bus. I do not know why, although we are similar, but he is always worse than my bad. Yes, I have experienced many problems, but these problems are at least developed countries ' problems. Ali is like living in a third world country. I gradually realized how lucky I was and no longer complaining. At least I wake up every day to chase my dreams and do what I love. And a lot of people in this world don't even have the right and chance to pursue their dreams. Road ahead in the next 500 days, I want to build a team, complete product development, finance, provide services to consumers, disrupt my industry, and build a good company.Of course I could disappoint people by designing a product that already exists on the market, being rejected by investors, letting consumers feel angry, the market suddenly changing, and then struggling again. The future of the road, may be the best result, but also may be a nightmare. I haven't finished my 1% yet, but I'm full of anticipation for the future. Looking forward to the next 500-day business anniversary. (via medium/fast carp)