Guykawasaki: 10 Common mistakes of entrepreneurs

Guy Kawasaki is one of the founders and investors active in Silicon Valley. The most famous experience was Apple's technical evangelist from 1983 to 1987, returning to Apple as a researcher (Apple fellow) in 1995 and setting up garage Marvell venture to become an investor; Become a consultant to Motorola; Now he is the technical preacher of graphic design tool Canva. Recently Guy Kawasaki a speech about the 10 most common mistakes that entrepreneurs have made in Silicon Valley's entrepreneurial activity. He summed up his common mistakes as entrepreneurs and investors, and proposed solutions to these mistakes. Error number one: Your proposal lists a bunch of big numbers, but they're nothing. Each entrepreneur will put forward ambitious goals and write them into their own plans for the media and investors. ' Investors want to see practical, workable numbers, ' says Guy Kawasaki. If you want to say that your product will eventually become a platform to attract millions of users, "guy Kawasaki his solution is, as a practical point, first give the basic numbers, such as how many people can you get to your site now?" "Error two: Expansion too fast, out of control" sometimes a feature in the product will help the entrepreneur attract a lot of users, and the realization of these functions requires the start-up company to hire some talented engineers or designers. You want to be a genius engineer, he told you to make the new product/function in three months, and then you'll make a plan for the next expansion ... "Guy Kawasaki said, in fact, not only to start a business, people's life should be more practical", expansion is like eating, You have to use the material on your hands to eat, do not think that they can eat more, worry how to do long, how to wash the dishes. "Error Three: Relying too much on partner sales performance is the backbone of a company's growth." Guy Kawasaki is not too polite to say that companies that rely too much on partners are afraid of their sales performance and growth figures. One of the goals you want to achieve for an entrepreneur is to get investors to stop telling you what to do and to achieve it is simple-take a look at sales. "His words are similar to those of the Silicon Valley big and small demo day, where entrepreneurs emphasize growth data, and sales performance and growth data can solve all problems." "Error four: Wasting too much time attracting investors and media investment and media exposure are important ways to drive a company to grow and sell, but it's not the only one." In an ideal world, you don't have to take the time to convince investors and the media that if your product is good, they will come for you. "said Guy Kawasaki. Most people will argue that we are not living in the ideal world, the key to the ideal world is the product, toLess is the product model. This is something entrepreneurs should spend their time thinking about. "Error five: A content too much PPT as an investor, Guy Kawasaki suggested that the entrepreneur follow the 10-20-30" principle--ppt within 10 pages to introduce the product in PPT, make sure you can finish it in 20 minutes, and explain exactly what you are doing with the first 30 seconds of the introduction. " The start-up team presents a real problem and their solution to investors to vote for the team, so it's important to tell investors who you are and what you do in the first 30 seconds. "Error Six: When this thing is done, then do the next one you often hear people say, I want to finance first, then build a team, and so the team to do products, and other users more than a certain number to consider making money. Guy Kawasaki says he thinks entrepreneurs should learn to start at the same time, and put it in a parallel position. He even put the idea to the attitude of life, that in daily life, efficient people are always dealing with a number of issues at the same time, because there is no chance to wait until the matter is done and then do the next one. Error Seven: Control all this error "is in the past when the matter finished and then to do the next one" extended out, some similar theory of management. Guy Kawasaki thinks that one of the ways that founders do multiple things at the same time is to choose the people they trust and not try to control everything. Error Eight: A patent is a potent weapon against a competitor. Whether in the country, or in Silicon Valley, any start-up company will have a problem, if the big companies to do an identical product, what do you do? "It would be a good defensive weapon if a start-up company applied for a patent in advance." ' I'm not saying the patent is not going to work, ' said Guy Kawasaki. If you do a product, Microsoft does one. You're glad you got a patent for the technology and then you take it to court to defend this powerful competitor. The peer mentions you and says, ' Oh, this is the company that sued Microsoft. ' I want to emphasize that I am not saying that patents are useless, but if you rely too much on them, it may not be a good thing to be labeled. "When it comes to what is the best defensive weapon, Guy Kawasaki seems to agree that offense is the best defense" logic, your product, your performance, is a defensive weapon. "Error Nine: Recruiting me in my social Atlas I've heard the founders talk about recruiting on many occasions. For this guy Kawasaki advises startups to be more diverse in recruiting, "You can't recruit in your social profiles because most of them are like you." If you want to make this team energetic, make everyone different, and ideally complement each other. A joke, if you are young, then you have to look for a slightly older, experienced person. Regardless of the size of the company, you should try to keep different people around you as much as possible. "Mistake Ten: Treat the investor with the attitude of the friend many investors will say that hecan provide more help to entrepreneurs. The bottom line is that investors are business relationships with you, Guy Kawasaki. To be realistic, your value to investors is how to help them turn 1 dollars into 10 dollars. So don't judge your relationship by your friends ' standards. You want them not to dictate your life, the only thing you have to do is to meet and exceed their expectations. This, as mentioned earlier, depends on sales and growth data. "The explanation is that guy Kawasaki just based on his own experience," he said. There are often no standard answers to complex problems in entrepreneurial processes. For the entrepreneur, the investor's proposed solution, the entrepreneur may take the reference.