Chen on the three essential factors of entrepreneurial success: adhering to modesty and guarding against failure

DoNews9 month 15th feature, Chen, Chairman and CEO of Thousand Oak Group, was invited by Mr. Tianshonen to give a speech at the annual meeting of the Broadband Fund, the following is a summary of speeches. Internet entrepreneurship in China is a very difficult thing, the industry often has "three mountain" argument. So it is more difficult to start a business in China than the US and other developed countries and developing countries.　　But because of the difficulties, we need to explore how to increase the probability of success in entrepreneurship. My success here is defined as the successful exit of an enterprise, with investors being rewarded at least 3 times times. By this definition, the chances of a startup being successful are slim. How to Succeed?　　I've been thinking about this for the past 8 years, and I'm going to talk about three basic elements of success, and you guys. The first element insists I like to ask our new company A question: how long will it take to be a professional, a sport, a world-class expert and athlete? Some students say 100,000 hours, but this obviously does not conform to normal logic, because if the average cost 3 hours a day, then it will take 100 years.　　The correct answer is 10,000 hours, as mentioned in the best-selling book outliers. Calculated, if it takes 10,000 hours to reach the goal, 3 hours a day, then it will take 8-10 years to reach the world's top level. The second question I like to ask is why it is "10,000 hours" instead of 5,000 or 30,000. The answer is that for ordinary people, 10,000 hours of practice means the limits of human adherence.　　Only when the limit, your competitors will gradually give up, you can stand out. Take the piano as an example, you will find a lot of people with you to learn the piano, play and then give up.　　Few people can really reach 10,000 hours, and if they have enough talent, they may be world-class experts. So I would say that the first condition of success is persistence.　　To succeed, you must leave your competitors behind, and this point sometimes is to rely on time to "consumption", such as others have no patience, perseverance, from the chaos, find other, bigger, more fashionable field to go, then you are likely to stick to the final winner. The second element of modesty is the success of internet companies in China (defined above).　　At present, all of the start-up enterprises to get money, to achieve this goal of not more than 10%. Why say modesty?　　Thousand Oak to now open 8 years, 8 years along the way we also made some achievements, but every time feel very good time, almost immediately unlucky. For example, we started to do wireless value-added services in 2003 years, when the monthly turnover is very high, the highest monthly reach 6 million, for a company with only dozens of people is very large income, we are very excited. However, later we know that, because the whole industry is not solid, after 2006 our own wireless value-added services and the entire SP industry are rapidly declining; 2006 WEB20 when we were a banner, the news that mop was going public was loud.　　But because the expansion is too fast, the foundation is not strong, also put on hold. Several times down my summary is that success is a small probability event, Hard-won.　　To achieve a phased victory, in the market and the company's own ability to judge when the special error, this time, must "clip the tail", do not be complacent, because the victory, failure in the distance waiting for you. The third factor is to guard against failure. I admire a person, Buffett's partner Munger said, "The thing I most want to know is where I will die, and then I will not go to that place," most people laugh at this remark, feel justified, and ask again a few days later, but not quite sure why it is justified. "　　At the beginning I did not fully want to understand this sentence, but I think such a cow people say this must have its reason, constantly think, recently I figured out why. One entrepreneur has two ways to improve the odds of success: one is to do the right things to increase the success rate, the other is to avoid the wrong things to reduce the failure rate.　　Knowing "where we're going to die" and "not going to that place" is to reduce the failure rate. How did most of the companies die? The reason for appearances is mostly because money is spent. But the fact that there is no money is only a symptom, and it is decided by many other more essential reasons.　　Chinese people in the treatment of the time is the "root for the first" logic, the first to consider more essential solutions to the problem. But my idea is that the solution to the essence of the problem is very difficult, as the previous two elements said, success is a small probability of events, such as the cure is not easy. When there is no way to solve the fundamental problem, the first symptom.　　A cold to eat aspirin first, the symptoms of the past, a few days later, the body's natural resistance can basically catch a cold. For example: Ding Lei told me in 2000 that he would not be able to go public if he had been listed a few weeks later. If Ding lei did not succeed in listing at that time, then I say what he does now, certainly still is a cow person, may lose hope to the Internet, just go to hog a pig.　　So netease at that time to cure the standard, with money, more than a few years, the opportunity to seize, the company will be bigger. Since success is difficult, it is sometimes better to reduce the likelihood of failure than to force it to increase the chance of a small probability event.　　Since we know the probability of the Internet business failure is 90%, and only a few ways to lead to failure, if you can find a way to reduce it to 80% or even 70%, it is equivalent to the probability of success increased by 2 to 3 times times! Success is like a baseball player in front of the speed of light flying over the baseball, not easy to play, failure is all the way slowly drifting to the front of the balloon, easy to identify, but also easy to hit.　　If you pay attention to balloons, all the balloons are played out, the rest is baseball, the level is worse, constantly playing, one day a baseball will be you hit. When you spend a lot of time every day figuring out howIn the pursuit of success, set aside 10% of the time to consider how to avoid failure, so your chances of success are several times higher. Finish)