Reid Hoffman: Ten rules for starting a business

The founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, Reid Hoffman, made a keynote speech on "How entrepreneurs Create the future" in the South-Southwest interactive Discussion (SxSW), explaining his views on Internet industry start-ups and WEB 3.0 products, and 10 rules he believes entrepreneurs should follow.

Reid Hoffman, who started his career in Apple and Fujitsu's product management, then served as executive vice president at PayPal and co-founded the linkedin-business networking site in 2003. In addition to the rich industry experience, he himself is one of Silicon Valley's most successful super angel investors, has participated in or promoted the investment includes Facebook,zynga,flickr,digg, Last.fm and so on more than 80. His views not only explain the current opportunities in Silicon Valley, but also reflect investors ' preferences.

1. Try "radical change"

"This product must be something that can change the industry. "How can you tell if your ideas are sufficiently transformative?" Hoffman said the product should be worth 10 dollars, but only 1 dollars. VoIP, for example, replaces the already expensive long-distance call service. There are enough transformative products to have the opportunity to create new ecosystems.

2. Target Broad

In the spirit of the first rule, Hoffman that it is impossible to change the industry without a grand vision. His other proposition is that it takes a lot of effort to run a small company and a big one, rather than creating a small, unstable company, trying to create a big company to change the industry.

3. Create a network

Hoffman says it's not about combining your company with social networking, but building a network around you. Everyone around you is likely to make us, from investors, board members to your start-up staff, mentors, everybody is important. Creating such a network of people to recognize your value brings many opportunities and expands the size of your company.

4. Prepare for opportunities and setbacks

It is important that entrepreneurs often encounter opportunities to seize opportunities and adjust their plans in a timely manner. Sometimes an unexpected surprise can make a company rise. For example, PayPal initially focused solely on mobile platforms, and one day the founders found that a large number of users were from EBay. At first the team found it very strange, "why are these EBay users coming to use our products?" It's too bad. "Later they realised that they were aware of the opportunities that PayPal faced-becoming the payment tool for online commerce.

5. Be flexible and stick to self

Entrepreneurs often experience this dilemma: on the one hand, they are told to stick to their ideas and visions, throw blame and criticism aside, and use the company's development to refute these criticisms. On the other hand, they have been cautioned to adapt their plans according to data and customer needs. Hoffman points out, "The Art of entrepreneurship is to know when to insist, when to adapt, the combination of both." ”

6. The sooner the product is released, the better

"You'll be ashamed of the mistakes you made in version 1.0," he said. "Unless you're Steve Jobs, your product is definitely not perfect in some way," Hoffman said. It is often difficult for entrepreneurs to discover these errors before the product is released and users are actually using it. Only after the product is released can you hear people's comments and know what changes need to be made. For example, he didn't wait eight years ago when his partner wanted to wait until the Web site was added to the "Contact Finder" feature. It turned out that the feature was not necessary, and that eight years later, LinkedIn still had no "contact Finder".

7. Keep your ambitions and goals high enough, but don't fall too badly

Looking back at a few previous experiences, Hoffman that sometimes entrepreneurs need to be wary of unrealistic fantasies. (Translator Note: Since swallow the bitter bitterness translation from drink you own Kool Aid,hoffman used a 90 's popular joke, the Kool Aid this Fruity Beverage granule in that year political competition represents the huge defeat. ）

8. Product creativity is very important, but product sales is the top priority

If the product can not be promoted to millions or more users, it is insignificant. Hoffman also jokes about startups, who claim that "they'll join the social function later" and miss out on the opportunities that social functions could have.

9. Corporate culture and employees are critical from the start

It is important to choose your partner, investor, and mentor carefully, and the initial hiring staff has a profound impact on the company. Don't forget, the person who hires the next group of employees is your current employee.

10. These entrepreneurial rules are not natural laws, you can break them

The wonderful thing about entrepreneurship lies in the process of "creation" from scratch. If someone jokes you break the rut and embark on a previous failure, it doesn't matter, maybe you succeeded this time?

Hoffman's speech, in addition to his entrepreneurial experience, illustrates his view of the Web 3.0. He thinks the mobile platform is certainly the trend of Web 3.0, but the data is the key to the next round of Internet industry opportunities. Specifically, he thinks that Web 1.0 is "Search, find information," and Web 2.0 is "Real user identity" and "real social relationship," while Web 3.0 is "a huge amount of data generated by the user's true identity and relationships."

There are a number of companies doing data processing, such as LinkedIn, which enables users to find reemployment positions with specific skills, companies, or jobs that require specific skills; Mobile applications Waze to determine the current conditions by analyzing your location and speed, giving advice on traffic conditions, and redfin, The online real Estate trading website provides buyers with more information about the local property market and the houses they fancy.

Of course, it's important to have privacy protection related to information sharing. 4chan founder Christopher Poole and online star Felicia Day all SxSW on the advantages of anonymity in their ideas. Hoffman that startups need to follow only two principles:

never "ambush" the user. Do not collect or analyze data without their knowledge. The equality of the data is different. Users don't care about all the information they share, but more important information such as passwords and credit card numbers is the key to attention.

Hoffman also launched an interesting "ego-related" campaign, which he hopes to collect on the idea of "interesting applications that social networking data can generate" through social networking sites. If you are interested, you can post your ideas on Twitter and tag #web3, and Hoffman's team will then make an information map to show them.

Source: http://www.ifanr.com/36441