Godfather of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship: entrepreneurs should go out and "grounding gas"

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Founder of the Silicon Valley venture godfather, incubator Y Combinator Paul Greheum

Lead: Silicon Valley watcher founder Tom Folemski (Tom Foremski), the US science and technology blogger, wrote today that Silicon Valley start-ups are pervaded by isolationism, a well-known investor in the "Godfather of Silicon Valley business" Paul Greheum Paul Graham. Suggested that entrepreneurs should boldly go out, more "grounding gas", otherwise they will be disconnected from the market, and ultimately unable to gain the favor of users and investors.

The following is an overview of the article:

Avoid ignorantly

Business Incubator Y Combinator founder Paul Greheum Paul Graham is a Holy Spirit in the Silicon Valley business circle, and whenever he updates his blog, whatever the update is, it will be closely watched.

His latest blog post is: "Do something that is not relevant to the code" (Do things, Don t Scale). Here, "Scale" means software automation code.

Graham talked about the limitations of some startups in post. These companies believe that their first priority is to launch a network service that attracts enough attention, and only by doing so can they attract a large number of users and grow their business.

But Graham points out that startups such as Stripe are successful because they are not ignorantly, but are aggressively "recruiting". In the Geek Engineer community, "Sales" was considered a vulgar word, and in view of that, Graham did not use the word directly in post, but he still conveyed this information.

"In the beginning, the most common thing that entrepreneurs do not have to do with code is to actively recruit users," Graham wrote. Almost all startups have to. Startups can't wait for them to come to the door, but they have to go out and get users. ”

Limited life Experience

However, entrepreneurs prefer to stay at home and write code rather than go out and talk to strangers, and are likely to be shut out by most people. A major hurdle for startups in their path to success is that engineers are not good at selling-only "code words". But if they are good at it, they may not be on the path of engineers. In view of this, it is not a good idea to invest in startups created by engineers.

Graham also cautioned that startups should focus on solving their familiar problems, which applies to all entrepreneurs: "If you create something that only solves your problems, then the product will only attract peer attention, and the idea is too simplistic." ”

In addition, engineer entrepreneurs face another problem. In addition to their circle, engineers are not good at dealing with others. They will not participate in the activities of the surrounding communities. Their daily experience is limited, and the range of problems that they can solve is quite limited.

But in the process of entrepreneurship, entrepreneurs need to address the myriad problems involved in every area, whether it is a few cities around Silicon Valley, public schools, or local communities. The heart of Silicon Valley, for example, has a city that is plagued by violence and poverty-Dompallo Alto (East Palo Alto). There have been 8 shootings recently, and there are a lot of problems to be solved.

Isolationism culture

What do young engineers do to solve these problems if they are in dormitories and do not often interact with people? At a well-known technology company, the shuttle bus will go to work in the morning and send them home at night.

Not being involved in solving real-world problems ultimately leads to a lack of creativity. If the engineer does not understand this society, how to solve the problem?

Every business is a cultural product, they need to know what is happening in the real world, need to integrate into the real life, otherwise, their entrepreneurial path will not be long.

Solving practical problems

The future of innovative applications will depend on densely populated urban areas, where young software engineers are fully aware of the real problem.

Silicon Valley's isolated "echo chambers" may even isolate technicians from their local communities. This is no template for startups to succeed, an isolated culture that will be the biggest threat to Silicon Valley in the future.

Graham should warn the young and passionate engineers he worships, "walk out of the house, integrate into the community, find real problems and solve them." ”

The reason is that if they can succeed in the cities around Silicon Valley, their startups could be successful in other communities, in other public schools and in other cities-where they face the same problems. In any corner of the world, people are confronted with common problems. (Qing Chen)