Gong summed up the entrepreneurial lesson: for the growth of people to be ruthless

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Early start to find people can not be the most suitable for the development of the company, some people if not grow up, in order to the interests of the company at the helm need ruthless.

A year ago lunar month 28, from New Oriental founder Wang Qiang's phone call let gong into deep anxiety. At that time, resigned the century Jia Edge CEO job She just joined the online education founded 91 Foreign Teaching network soon, has won the angel investor Xiaoping and Wang Qiang joint investment of the oral commitment, but just as the lawyer has begun to walk the process, Wang Qiang but called the decision to give up investment.

Wang Qiang gave the reason is that 91 foreign teachers major in the oral English market is very small, there is no big development space. This has a great impact on the gong, on the one hand, in the Spring festival during the emergency meeting NetEase Capital and other VC to raise funds, and more importantly, Wang Qiang is the new Oriental to fight for many years of spoken English experts, his exit also to gong two of the mode of entrepreneurship to torture.

Gong in summing up the first pioneering experience and lessons of the list of six points, including control costs, grasp the initiative, the choice of outside the Internet areas such as entrepreneurship, one of which is to find the wrong direction to adjust as soon as possible.

As the knowledge of online education continues to deepen, gong is increasingly aware of the need to adjust direction. She found that in the new Oriental all products, oral demand accounted for only 2% of the total demand, primary and secondary school education income growth quickly; and 91 foreign teachers do not take the test English as the original intention of the teaching concept can not cut into the student market, the target users are basically dispersed white-collar groups, marketing costs too high

The reason for this situation is that the original intention of the first two gong is to solve the "own pain point" starting, such as marriage problems and poor oral English, in the process of reflection, gong gradually changed to investigate "other people's needs" to find new entrepreneurial projects.

Through exchanges with the industry and adequate market research, Gong finally decided to enter the K12 (basic education stage) market, and last November the official online ladder network, its positioning is to build a primary and secondary school quality education resources sharing platform, improve the teachers and students work learning efficiency, committed to solving students, teachers, The pain point of the parents.

Online education business is a gamble

As we all know, online education in the field of entrepreneurship is very difficult, Gong has also seen a lot of unforgettable lessons. She summed up two particularly tragic patterns of death, one of the traditional teaching and auxiliary publishing institutions to make the Internet, the model is relatively simple, is to record video lessons, invested a lot of human and material resources, the results of the course quality is difficult to grasp, there is a lack of good sales channels; the second is to do the question bank, in which the death of the Are generally invested in huge, but things have not been made to the company has broken the capital chain.

Online education market competition is fierce, local interests are intertwined, how can ladder nets to break the siege?

"Now I will not be bothered by all kinds of difficulties and obstacles. When others tell me that it is impossible, I will not easily be persuaded by others. Gong said, "I am the kind of desperate person, because I personally feel that many miracles happened to me." I used to be in the Zhuhai assembly line of a migrant sister, to later on Peking University, to do an internet company to the United States Nasdaq listing, which in other people's view is a miracle, but for me is a possibility. ”

In Gong's view, her successful experience has also benefited her two times. The first is to get more trust from investors and get high financing. Gong said that for a large number of grassroots entrepreneurs, the ladder network model is unbearable, the first three or four years at least 500 million or 600 million into, this is a gamble, but also involves a large number of offline industry extension, the chain is longer than the electricity quotient, even for the internet giant is also difficult to develop.

Second, gong that ladder nets can not have any key to the lack of a link, otherwise, the start-up companies may be fatal. For example, 91 foreign teaching sales are short board, in China's market posture too "tall", a bit ungrounded. These all provide a warning for the entrepreneurial ladder network.

Ten years of entrepreneurial experience, so that gong in intuition, experience and other aspects are also more sensitive. "The first venture to do a public company is also very accidental, at the outset did not determine where the company will go." But now I have a firm goal, a faster response, more sensitive to the market, not the best direction, we adjust very quickly; The whole company is also the choice of the most powerful people, the pace of people will be eliminated. ”

At present, 91 foreign teachers and ladder nets are all recruits to the staff, there is no one she had in the century Jia edge with the old men. Ten years of entrepreneurial experience, but also let gong feel very clear about what kind of talent the company needs.

"Early start to find people can not be the most suitable for the development of the company, some people if not grow up, for the company's interests at the helm need ruthless." "Gong told Tencent Science and technology," I may have a human touch, some people I think although lack of ability, but conscientious, character or good, so has been retained in the company-but now I think, any one, must make achievements, to contribute value to the company. ”

Gong in an interview with Tencent Technology, admits that ladder nets will be the last time in life, all the energy has been invested in it, and expect to harvest success in five years.

"I am a born optimist, influenced by my father's optimistic genes, I tend to think better about anything, not worse." Gong smiled and said, some people do things from the thought of ten, and then feel very difficult, afraid to go out the first step, I was thinking of a have rushed out, ran to two feel that there is something wrong with the kind of people, encountered difficulties, I believe there is always a way to solve. There is a desperate situation, you can also turn direction. ”