FAB CEO Entrepreneurship Experience tell us 90 things to notice

The person who wrote this article was CEO Jason of Fab, the creative flash-purchase site, published on its personal blog betashop. In this article he talked about some of the things that were learned in the process of starting 4 companies, in particular the experience that Fab learned from the transition from a gay web site to a creative flash-shop. These experiences are of great reference value to entrepreneurs, investors and industry practitioners.

In fact, the article was a few years ago I wrote an article, was a great response. Recently, when I attended a meeting of a potential partner in Fab in Tokyo, Japan, I was asked to do a discussion on entrepreneurship. The discussion quickly shifted to my previous article, which made me very surprised, because two years later today, even in Japan, thousands of miles away, there are people talking about

As this issue has been raised, I have also realized that the list, which was listed in 2010, although I have learned in the past 2 years, is in urgent need of updating what has been learned in recent times, especially in 2011, Transforming a gay social networking site into a fabulis, now a design-led flash-purchase site Fab. In the 15 months after the transition, FAB registered users reached 7.5 million, 7,500 supplier partners, 600 employees, operating on a scale of more than 150 million U.S. dollars.

Here's my update on "57 Things": 90 things I've learned from the experience of creating 4 companies

Find the "thing" that belongs to your company.

It needs to meet the following 3 conditions at the same time: 1 You and your team are most passionate about that, and 2 you and your team are clearly aware that you are most sure of the matter; 3 This is a huge market opportunity.

If you do not meet the above 3 conditions, then what you are doing is wrong

Focus on your "that thing."

Everything else will distract you from doing other projects and not attending unnecessary meetings. Anything that distracts you from the execution of your present moment is a distraction and dares to say no to what you are not doing right now.

Everything is in the product

That's the way it was before. The most important thing is how your product is, and all the others are murmurs. In Fab, our virtual products are our websites and apps, our physical products are the things we sell, and our experience products are our operations and services. The perfection of these 3 products is our everything.

The only criterion for the quality of your product is how many users are using it and how much value it can bring to the user.

In the early days, attraction is a key decision factor for your future success.

Spend most of your time on how to make your product more attractive to the early adopters, and keep optimizing around that key point. If you are on the right track, attractive products will become more attractive.

If you can't make an attractive product in 1 years, then the transition

I firmly believe that a year is enough for you to figure out whether you are doing something worthwhile in a time when the product lifecycle is so short and user feedback is so fast. Of course, you can't find the right direction from the start, and in fact no one can do it. You can iterate over the functionality and features of the product, but it is clear that the business model is not iterative. I've seen a lot of failed cases, with the aim of pursuing new features and features, and hoping that this will help them to attract. Please don't do this, there are a lot of interesting questions waiting for us to solve.

You won't be able to come up with measurable, truly attractive products in a year, so go ahead and solve the next problem. I bet you, if you've been in a startup for a year and haven't made an attractive product, then if you and your team ask yourself the three questions I mentioned before: 1 is this a problem that we're passionate about? 2 Do we really realize that this is the most confident thing we can do? 3) Is it a huge market opportunity? You will find that you are on the wrong track. So you have to transition to the "that thing" that satisfies the above three conditions.

Before Fab, we did the social networking site Fabulis, which targeted the gay community. We've done a lot of cool stuff and we've been iterating, but we're never going to catch our "that thing," and instead, we're just

Hope to be related to "that thing". So 1 years later, we sat down to sit down and think, discuss, and finally realize that our most passionate, most confident, with a huge market is: design. Therefore, we will transform Fabulis to Fab.

Once you've transformed, focus on this and don't look back.

As we transition from fabulis to fab, from a gay social networking site to design, we make a decision within 10 days, focusing only on this one, and setting a rule that no one on the team can do anything before. We need to focus all our resources and energy on this new direction, we shut down the previous sites and apps. The entire company within 10 days of a comprehensive transformation, will look to the future, never looking back.

Self-Knowledge

Know the "That thing" that belongs to you, the thing that you are really good at. Also, you need to know other things you're not good at.

Key one: Team

To build a successful company, the key is not yourself, but the ability of your team members to display their talents. As we transition from fabulis to fab, our transformation has always revolved around one of our founders Bradford Shellhammer's unique talent in the fashion field. The birth of fab comes from my own perceptions, and I think we can brighten the lives of other people by Bradford's unique perception of color and humour and his passion for products. It takes a lot of courage and self-awareness to build a whole business on someone's talent.

Key two: Customer

In addition to the team, the key to building a successful company is the 2nd customer. From the first day of building fab, we are committed to customer satisfaction. At first we decided that we couldn't just build the product function based on revenue, but that we had to focus on customer satisfaction, only in order to achieve long-term growth, and following this philosophy was one of the key factors in fab success.

Find the best business partners with complementary strengths

In the process of building fab, I was fortunate to have found such excellent partners as Nishith Shah and Sunil Khedar, who had had extraordinary experiences before. And when I was 2009 years looking for a graphic designer, I found Veerle peiters, and of course, Bradford. Fab starts with a big set of abilities and passions for all of us and is still continuing.

Working with the people you love

Work with people who often bring you excitement and trust them. Every day you can say to them: there is no better person in the world for this job, and no other better person than they are willing to fight alongside me. I am a very emotional person, love is crucial to success.

Place your position in the perspective of the founders who are able to look at each other

If you can't enjoy every day with them, then you're working with the wrong people.

Don't work with people you don't love.

Bradford and I have a rule: as long as we're still running fab, we'll only work with the people we love. If we can't enjoy our jobs with other people (for example, employees, partners, and others), we're not going to do it. No short-term gains are worth working with people you don't like.

The founders need to control some of the more important things.

As a founder, only leadership is not enough, you have to do something important to the company's business and brand, and you have to really control it. I personally believe that, because everything must eventually be put into concrete products, so the best entrepreneur is the product manager. Bradford and I are responsible for the related products, I mainly in the website, app and our physical products, and he is mainly responsible for the products we sell. Up to now, no pixel on the Web site or app has been entered or approved by me. This is so important, just as the website does not have a sale of products that are not approved by Bradford. At the same time, I also believe that our staff can help us to do things better, but as founders we must be good for the final product, I can not imagine some other ways.

As CEO, you have to do what other people can't do.

These things generally include doing promotions, selecting investors, managing the board, coaching managers, helping the team understand the general direction and making the team work hard for all of them. But the most important thing is to tell us what the focus is. Only the CEO can do it, you can't outsource it.

Working with people who argue with you and say no to you.

The key to the incorporation of corporate culture in hiring managers

You need to be able to work with people like you, and they can enjoy and appreciate the way you work and the rhythm. It is not very important whether you are smart or experienced or not, and if they cannot fit in with your way, then they will not work. You should enjoy working with them, too.

When you work, you can argue, but when you get home, you still love each other.

As CEO, only you can figure out the direction of the company, how to achieve it, and how to configure resources.

Of course, you need to have a lot of input before you make a specific plan, but only you can clearly understand the direction of the company and mobilize the company's resources in order to achieve this direction. A company's biggest strategy is how to configure its resources.

Make a deliberate decision

Startups don't have much free time, and the goal is to go all the way once it's found. It is better to learn from the experience of failure than to take a decision by taking the brain for granted. Leaders need leadership.

Motivate the team

Entrepreneurship is a chore that often puts us out of steam, so we need to motivate your team and push them forward, making it impossible and persevering.

Pushing you around like you put in

As CEO, you need to be responsible for every recruit

Before FAB staff reached 150 people, Bradford and I would interview every new employee the company recruited. Now we have 600 employees, but I still interview every manager and approve some important appointments. If we hire the wrong person (and we often make such a mistake), I will take responsibility instead of looking for someone else.

Hire people who are passionate about the problems you're trying to solve.

It's not enough to create a company, it's about having a passion for customers and solving problems for customers.

As CEO, you have to set the tone, pick the style, decide the tempo and the expectations to be achieved.

I set the tone to be both confident and humble and challenging, and my favorite style is that when we meet challenges and focus on management and success, I cheer for this victory. At the same time I am very direct and open transparent. No one needs to figure out what I'm thinking, and I'll have no reservations (to tell me what I think), as well as my blog. I like the faster pace, I want to pursue perfection, and understand that we will make a lot of mistakes in this process. What I want to say is that in fab, we celebrate the challenges we face and focus on where we fail, not where we succeed. We will challenge each other at the meeting so that we can get a satisfactory result. There is no such thing as a free lunch, and it takes a certain amount of effort to work in Fab, and I like that way.

Be strong.

Sometimes you have to be a bad guy, not often, but that's the case. If every day is a happy day, then also relaxed. I don't mean to be annoying for no reason, I mean we have to push people over their comfort zone, and that's the only way to achieve success. Promotion, especially management, must understand and practise this. If starting a business is a very simple thing, it's easy for everyone to do it. Sometimes it's very difficult because we're creating something special. When you do 98% of the work, I will ask you the remaining 2%.

Show Truth and transparency

Say the same to yourself, to the company's management team, to the average employee, to the visiting journalist, to the outside observer, and to your investors.

If you are disappointed with someone, the other members of your team will soon know

Give him a day when you decide to fire a bad employee.

Training coaching staff vs. replace them

When I started my first company, it was very easy to lose patience with management, often complaining about blaming them and then taking on a heavy load. A coach or mentor can make a very big difference to a good seed that has been inactive for a few months. This problem may be on you, not them. There is a difference between the two types of employees who cannot cope with their work or are unable to integrate into the company and have the ability to integrate into the corporate culture but cannot achieve your expected level.

Be kind to them, whether they're new employees or employees who leave.

In Fab, we have also let some employees leave, most of which is not their ability or lack of effort, but because they do not adapt to our culture. But for everyone who's left, I'm going to let the team give more help to the departing staff. I believe that every employee who has worked for Fab can bring fab at least 100 people, as long as they want to be fab customers. I want our former employees to always respect and appreciate our company and our brand.

Provide feedback

Even if Fab is a completely new company, we have designed a complete set of feedback processes. Every year we conduct two reviews of all Fab staff and, if done well, they become routine, and the assessment is an official form of similar feedback.

Even executives need to assess

We generally have the following evaluations of senior executives:

1) culture. Does the executive embody our corporate culture, nurture our corporate culture, and help build our corporate culture?

2 Passion. Is the executive passionate about our specific tasks, or is it in any company? Is fab their life? Are they forced to work in Fab?

3 Communication and management with superior. How did the executive report to me? Do you want my advice at the right time? Not when you don't need it?

4 and peer communication Management. How is the collaboration between the executive and peer colleagues handled? Are they fighting for each other or are they working together? Are they asking me for a solution or are they offering me different options? By the way, this is the most vexing problem for most start-up executives.

5 Communication management with subordinates. How did the executive manage his team? Did they provide a way forward? Are they sure that all of their team members are clear about what they should be responsible for? Will they train the team?

6 incentive. How does the executive motivate people around him? Do they set an example and motivate all team members to move towards the goal?

7 The spirit of ownership. is the executive responsible for the results, good or bad, fair or not? Did they provoke the company to a successful conclusion?

8 the overall situation. Does the executive know the company's long-term goals and how to achieve that goal?

9 attention to detail. Does the executive have a careful follow-up to each task?

10) Stand by. When I left the company for 1 months, could the executive support the company's operations? Can they easily invest in another country or region of work? Can they present the full fab to investors and journalists?

You're never as right as you think you are.

This is not just for yourself, but for your company as well.

Think 5 steps ahead.

It's very difficult, but that's the difference between a great company and a good one. Think about how things are going to evolve, and think about what impact today's decisions will have on tomorrow. What does the correlation surface of an event cause? These are really difficult, but very important.

Build Your own technology

This is necessary if you want to maintain a long-term competitive advantage. If you want to put the mission of setting up a great company on someone else, you must be kidding yourself. (I don't mean to say that you don't need to outsource your code without open source or existing platform technology.)

Integrate social elements into your company's DNA from the start

This has proven to be a core advantage in Fab. We started thinking about socialization, and we defined what it would be like to invent the future of social commerce. It is very difficult to make social success, you can make all kinds of mistakes. Keep it up, 1 billion people are using Facebook, and your clients are growing in social media.

It's 6 months ago to start thinking about whether it's a priority or a page.

In Fab, the mobile end has accounted for 33% of our traffic and sales, and we built a mobile app a year ago. Soon, most of the fab traffic will come from the mobile end (cell phones and tablets).

Run and exercise at least 4 times a week

If you want to keep your mind clear, then you must maintain a healthy body. Many people have mistaken knowledge of this, but it is really important. I do extremes, I run every morning, and I do at least 4 weights a week. It's not just that I'm a fitness freak, but that it keeps my body and mind very fresh to confront your physical and emotional challenges.

You'd better not drink on the plane unless you have to stay there for 8 hours.

This not only kills but also wastes time.

After one night's flight to another country, the first thing I did was exercise.

I don't care if it will delay my first meeting, and the fitness after the flight can counteract the body reaction of jet lag and prepare me to face the challenge.

Follow your instincts, but you need data to support it.

In Fab, we like to say that we start with our feelings, but we use the data to support our intuition to discern whether it is correct. The undeniable point is that intuition comes first, and I believe it should be.

User sample is more important than most people think

The best user experience is to throw the user experience aside and focus on helping people solve problems

Less is more, if you have to explain it, then you have failed.

Understand technology and how technology was created

Not all leaders are going to write code, but you really should understand how it is built, its workflow, and how it works.

It's easy to outsource to a business you don't like, but you can't make it a blind spot.

As far as I am concerned, even though I choose to hire people who are smarter than me to be responsible for fab operations, I still have to delve into the details and make operations a competitive advantage. Pick out the least part of your business that you know, focus on its importance, and put pressure on yourself to escape from your inner comfort zone.

Priority should be attached to the functional features of the product

Any calls to scarce resources need to be prioritized, and no two products can be treated equally. You can't do all the things at the same time, you need priority.

Product launch

You never know how good your product is until your product arrives at people's hands and generates feedback. If you've been fighting a product for 4 weeks without a user to test it, your code may be a bit much. Break it down into smaller modules to get faster feedback.

Fast launch, regular delivery

Don't worry about adding additional functionality, putting the simplest core features on the market, collecting user feedback, and repeating the process, releasing the next version as quickly as possible. If you spend 3 months building consumer-facing products, it's really a long time. If you can't update it several times a week, roll out some minor updates each week, or a big update every three weeks.

If 50% of your initial plans are implemented, then you've done a very good job of contacting your users as much as possible.

Don't rely on your target group to tell you how to build a product

The target group can tell you what to fix, or it can help you pinpoint where the product is potentially appealing. But you still have to figure out how to synthesize their opinions and what to offer to users.

Most people usually use only 5-7 of all services

If you want to build an important product and make it to a big company, you need to figure out how you can get your products to have these 5-7 services, which means capturing the hearts of users and winning their trust. If you want to allow users to put your product on their time consuming list, you need to give the user a reason to really choose you. It's just like when you sell something, you need to give the user a reason to buy it, it's not that easy.

As CEO, you need to balance business needs with the interests of investors

If the two are inconsistent, then you are in trouble.

Work with investors who have a long-term vision

Always remind your investors to tell them about your long-term vision and plans. If your investors are focused on 2 years of investment and you're building a 10-or 20-year strategy, then the problem comes and you can solve it.

Always choose investors who are willing to work with you, willing to be friends with you, and willing to advise you.

Never choose a valuation based investor

In the long run, dilution may not have a significant impact, but working with the right people is important. Business goals and personal relationships are much more important than mere valuations.

In the beginning, the financing should be as little as possible

They are careful with each and every expense, as if they were spending their last dollar.

Once you get the attention, raise your finances as much as you need, but not so much that you don't know what to do with them.

This is a tricky issue, but don't muddle through on financing for fear of dilution.

Spend every dollar like you spend your last dollar, but don't be afraid to spend

Know what kind of company you're building

After all, Google and Facebook are a handful of companies, and your business can get a good profit of 10 million dollars, or 20 million dollars, or a billion, or a penny. Plan your company as soon as possible and don't target the moon unless you find yourself sitting in a spaceship. From the point of view of the return on investment of money and time, it is better to get 20 million dollars in 20% for two years than five years for a 100 million dollar company worth 3% dollars.

Figure out if your business is VC-type business

A VC-type business will give investors 10 times times the return. That is to say, if the valuation after the financing is 5 million dollars, VCs will quit if you want to create at least 50 million dollars. Similarly, an exit target of 10 million will require 100 million, and a 500 million valuation will require 5 billion. This is not to say that you cannot sell a company at a lower price than that, and everyone associated with it will be happy about it, but this is certainly not why you signed an agreement to take VC money under this valuation. Be aware of what it means to take VC money, and be aware of how much you expect.

Ensure that your business objectives are aligned with the objectives of the investor

Your business will succeed only if you are motivated. Investors cannot force the company to succeed, nor can they force the CEO to care about something.

If you're on a rocket ship, fasten your seatbelt and go to another planet.

When we built fab Four months and the number of users reached 1 million and 50% of them came from social networks, we knew we were moving to a bigger market. So we started thinking about our business in a different way, and we began to think: how far can it grow? January 2012 when we looked back at our first 6 months of data, we found that 2/3 of our daily sales were from repeat customers, and 50% of our members were still from social networks, and find out how much our customers have feelings for Fab, at this point we realize that we have a great opportunity to build our brand in the next time, so we start to think more about long-term goals, such as what Fab will be like 5, 10, 20 years from now, rather than taking short-term benefits. And that's when we started to really build our business in this direction: How to create the next global influence brand becomes the focus of our day-to-day work, not some short-term business data.

Find yourself a "sherpa".

Such people have done these things before: financing, trading, working with startups. Give such a person 1% to 2% or even 5% of the company in exchange for his time, they can open the door to future investors for you. They should be used in matters related to the development of the company, not in the form of a committee, and the Advisory Committee will never be enough to find someone who makes him your "Sherpa" and relies on them. I've learned a variety of ups and downs from Allen Morgan's experience in 4 companies over the past 8 years, and he has given us irreplaceable help on all aspects of corporate governance, such as acquisitions, sales, and investor choice. Find your Allen Morgan, and if you find it, you'll get a huge payoff.

If you want to build a long-term business, don't let the short-term pressure yield

Once you decide to take the rocket ship, play a long game, not a short one. Most startups play short game, and only big winners play the long haul.

Protect and nurture your brand

Many companies have problems here and your brand is bigger than your business. As opposed to business, branding is the emotional response of your customers, partners, and employees. The brand is very fragile, and it is built through repetitive trust and continuous interaction.

Service is more important than sales, sales will appear up and down, but the service is really forever wealth

As the company continues to grow, the hardest to manage is culture

We've been trying to get fab to operate anywhere in the last few months. Fundamentally, the culture is embodied in who you hire, who manages the company, and how they do it. The unity and balance of the above three is the key to culture, not only to the mouth of the culture, but by hiring smart people and smarter way to manage to shape the corporate culture.

Don't let your team diversify your strategic focus

Effective execution is the only way to achieve success. When we started our first company, we often talked about strategic execution, brainstorming about the company's next move. This allows the team to distract from the execution of the plan. And now, I will collect opinions and discuss it with Bradford at dinner or on the plane, and call the management team together two times a year to evaluate the plan, except for the two meetings, the rest of the meeting is about executive power.

Adhere to perfectionism

Never compromise, if you start compromising here and compromise a little, then soon you will find and ask yourself "How did we get to where we are now?"

But allowed to make mistakes

Adherence to perfectionism does not mean that your team members should live in fear of making mistakes, encourage them to try new things and innovate, and make mistakes as learning opportunities.

You can't blow things up.

There is a difference between learning from mistakes and screwing up stupid things, although there is no obvious dividing line, but there is a huge difference.

Celebrate the challenge

We have a corporate plenary meeting every week, 30% of which is about what we do well, and the other 70% about the challenges ahead. If you want to grow fast and do something different, that's the chance. Our management meetings are more exaggerated, with only 10% of each meeting to discuss success and the remaining 90% to focus on improvements.

The meeting was basically a waste of time.

I know a lot of people don't agree with that, but that's really what I think. Meeting with the team, solving problems, interacting with clients and partners, and even hanging out at a trade fair can help me learn a lot. My rule is to avoid attending seminars as far as possible, except for purely PR purposes or sales tasks.

Wearing funny socks and colored shoes

I wear funny socks and red shoes to remind myself not to be easy to meet, but to keep innovating. At the same time, for others, you can also show me the interesting side.

Do something that doesn't make you look like a robot.

Don't hide your problems.

Be willing to laugh at yourself and allow others to do the same

When I screwed up on something, I had no qualms about confessing and joking to my team members, after all, we were people.

Tell a good story

People are easily inspired by stories, not plans, tactics, and results.

Don't lie.

Find inspiration for people around you, listen to their advice, learn from them, and help them to better

Be happy every day, if you do something unhappy, stop what you are doing and no one will force you

For sales, your last sales performance determines your value

Home。 It's really cool to start a successful company, but going home is a cooler thing.

Be mature, not always grow

Be humble.

But to change the world. Do something meaningful and do something different

Smile

If you read this, thank you. I write this to help other entrepreneurs, and of course I benefit from it.