Sing it. CEO Chen: The pain and anxiety of a serial entrepreneur

In the early winter of 2008, Chen, the CEO of Cool News Network, was walking through the newly built Orson Park. Leaves with the wind rustling, after he stepped over, and issued a rustle rustling sound, a cold wind, he wrapped his overcoat, and this winter, seems exceptionally cold and bleak, lotus leaf residue, reed decline. From the summer of the National people immersed in the red carnival, only three months, but think of these but he was more lonely-from the CEO to be the board of directors overhead, as if yesterday. In that piece of dark green yellow and ochre red in the echoes, he and when the partner of Cool network Wu Shichung walked a whole day, care speechless. Successive entrepreneurs like Chen, the first to fail the script, are always playing. More similar is the story-the economic crisis and the capital of winter are often the originator. In the pioneering course of lumpy cloud, the individual is difficult to escape the influence of the environment. The difference is, how to face the failure, back to the peak. Years passed, though the recollection of that time had blurred, but it became a dull ache in his heart. This dull pain, his rational but restrained attitude towards capital, the vigilance of potential rivals, the desire for success is overwhelming, and this has contributed to his anxiety today. Today, as a singing CEO, as a serial entrepreneur, Chen wants to either be the industry first or nothing. As for the answer, he wanted to give it to the singing tomorrow. The old secret of the 2007, Cool News Network aggressively expand, in the poly talent and a large number of channels on the line, embarked on a fast lane. is running forward, but a sound heling, abruptly stopped. Like sitting on a roller coaster, after a year, cool news from the peak fell trough. This is Chen not want to recall the past, each talk about why leave Cool news, he had a few words, repeatedly said and investors idea inconsistent, business don't make money so leave. However, behind this there is also a sad unknown. At the peak, Cool news team A total of 200 members, opened a train ticket, air tickets, hotels, travel guides, vacations, cars, recruitment channels, ambition is to become a comprehensive search site, become the second Baidu. As the 2008 crisis hit, investors suddenly demanded a big layoff of more than 100 people. Shocked, puzzled and frustrated, at that time Chen and partners Wu Shichung lack of experience, equity share is not small, unexpectedly helpless. In some overtime to the night, they dejected into the five crossing a café, constantly chewing the bitter coffee, a word also said not export. Suddenly feel a lot of things out of control. None of what we envision – the goal set in 2007 was to quickly capture the entry of classified information, but 2008 was the opposite. Once we have to wantonly expand, large volume of traffic, but today in order to ensure that the company's cash flow, but the big layoffs. Wu Shichung exclaimed. At that time, investors demanded a sharp reduction from 200 to 70, and most of the staff were the people they had dug up. Carrying NO. 200 employee's rice bowls, Chen made difficult, he chose to evade, not to participate in the board, decided to invest in disposal.And the contradictions between investors, in fact, has already sprouted. 2007, Cool News Fast expansion channel, opened a number of lines of business, to the second half found only the air ticket business brings benefits, other businesses do not make money. So Chen decided to switch from a comprehensive search to a vertical travel search. This has sparked a backlash from investors. Not agreed to do another Baidu? "Investors complained, looking at Cool news only 2 million of the month, and the economic crisis is holding their throats, so do not want to accompany Chen and Wu Shichung play down, the airborne two professional managers, will they really overhead." Investors have already made a deal with foreign companies to sell their companies. In October 2009 after Chen's departure, the world's largest online travel company, Expedia, bought cool news for 12 million dollars through its company, TripAdvisor. The advent of the economic crisis, so that investors nervous tension, rapid action. Seeing only three years of fund LP to see returns, they will be out of the hands of unprofitable projects, the early withdrawal. In Chen's eyes, this is the embodiment of capitalism. And investors on the entrepreneur, can only be icing on the cake, rather than timely. Since then, Chen has understood the importance of making the company an early profit: I will make the machine never short of money and make money earlier. Only companies can generate enough cash flow to challenge and gamble with investors, because I can shoot the table and say I didn't spend your money. "And then investment Cool News VC is a joint venture source, this is Chen and Wu Shichung see the first VC, they spent only a few hours notes under the investment letter of intent." Sequoia Capital of the Zhouqui in some time earlier, has expressed their investment intention, only then he was flying ready to go abroad, this plan to the landing to talk again, finally because of the time lag and missed. But even after a disagreement with investors, Chen did not regret accepting the investment. In fact, at that time they did not have full confidence, after the rejection of a VC is not sure whether to get investment. Later, Chen to the media that the trend of internet investment so many waves, missed may be missed forever. However, the dull pain in the heart, because not reconciled, so one day to roll the head again. Just Chen not to start again immediately, but to explore their own deficiencies, decided to slow down again. Stepping over the broken leaves of Orson, Chen made the decision to join Alibaba. Although Wu Shichung proposed that after a period of time the market warmed up, they will start again. But Chen realized that he lacked the ability to manage the company, including how to manage the investors ' expectations, and decided to go to large companies to study. Those Ali taught me. After Chen submitted his resignation letter to the Cool News board, the headhunter found him. April 2009, Chen joined Ali, as the head of the large search department, engaged in search technology application research, the development of search platform system, including back-end crawl, processing, indexing, etc., at the same time for the full web search. From scratch, Chen set up Aliyun search business and later managed more than 100 people.Team。 Since then the team was merged into a Amoy and UC, today's God horse search is also born from this. And his company now sing it also has a lot of people at that time Ali search, and he started a business. In Chen's view, Aliyun search is a difficult product. At that time, Ali hair layout search business is due to the needs of cloud computing, so the search to make a huge amount of data extraction. Because he has a large volume, a wide range of business, Taobao and a Amoy search need to use the Aliyun search engine, so for the latter brings an additional burden. But with technical talent and the search experience accumulated in cool news, Chen still did the cloud search, but Ali did not promote the business. Ali added the aura of a big company to Chen, taught him the skills to manage the team, and he learned some entrepreneurial philosophies. Ali has the concept of the management of the western and western, but also has a near-fanatical religious culture. Ali's achievements today have an inseparable relationship with Ali culture. In Chen's view, Ali employees for what can not do anything, has a clear bottom line, no one to overcome. Ali is an ideal company, a corporate culture and executive power are very good. Each employee is very clear about the concept of responsibility, will not speak against the company's values of things, we are easy to communicate, efficiency is very high. Chen said. However, he also pointed out that because the company is too big, often more than 10 lines of business parallel, many businesses may die, but the industry can remember the success of things, in fact, behind a complex trial and error process. Ali's six-Pulse sword "--customer first, teamwork, embrace change, integrity, passion and dedication, for later Chen management start-up companies have a lot of inspiration." His deepest experience is teamwork and embracing change, which sounds simple and official, but is the irrefutable truth of business. In terms of teamwork, Chen that startups cannot expand rapidly, that they must control the size of their teams, and that employees must together and motivate their work through a variety of systems and activities. Earlier, Chen with the team to the Jiuzhaigou group to build, and recently he decided to be responsible for this year to sing version update and KTV system research and development of the core staff sent abroad to play. In embracing change, Ali has been laying out the new bureau. The old business is dead, as long as there are new business, such as business-to-business business is not to Taobao up, Taobao no longer have the day cat, cat and logistics outside. So the company's vitality can continue to continue, "Chen said. In 2003, Mr. Ma summoned some employees to start a secret program, taking a step outside of business-to-business business, and developed Consumer-to-consumer Taobao. Today, the business of Business-to-business retreat, if there is no Taobao, cat, logistics and Ali external expansion Cloth Bureau, there will be no Ali today. But in Chen's view, Ali has missed some opportunities. 2010 years or so, Ali has watched the development of mobile Internet, there was an excellent opportunity to buy 91 wireless, but eventually missed. At that time, we have a competitive team in the past, came back to say that the company is very good, but actually the price of tens of millions of dollars, so itGave up. Looking back today, the price is too cheap. "Chen said. In 2011, many media outlets have published that the mobile Internet will become a branch of the Internet in the future. Chen was surprised to see that the boundaries of mobile Internet were wider than the Internet. At that time, people's understanding of the mobile Internet has not reached the stage of life necessities, and look at today, the Times have changed. "Living in Anxiety in February 2011, Chen wrote in Weibo:" Just finished leaving formalities, officially left Alibaba, began my second pioneering journey. " "In Ali's ears, he chose to devote himself again to the passion of entrepreneurship, based on the judgment of the mobile internet and the electric business." After more than 10 months of product exploration period, he will be initially designated as mobile group purchase, that is, the electric Business Shopping guide and promotional platform most Amoy nets. This product allows users to see the purchase information anytime, at the same time, based on lbs to recommend to users near the project, at the same time, according to the Address Book and Third-party application account, to understand what the friend purchased products, and then follow the order. But he gradually found that the user growth too slow, but had to choose to give up. He later judged that mobile payment technology was immature, and that the market for mobile electricity had not yet been nurtured. Today, however, the growth potential of the mobile power market has exceeded investors ' expectations. He began to rethink whether it was too early to do the mobile end, so it launched a PC-side coupon business, but the growth was still slow, the few dollars that had been saved by the coupon were not enough to attract potential users, and the user retention rate was low. These two business trial wrong not smooth, make Chen but into anxiety. At the end of 2011, Chen was almost overwhelmed and had difficulty sleeping all night. At that time from the departure of Ali, he took away a lot of brothers, and from Cool news came out to follow his people, including himself also dug up a lot of internet talent, he felt very guilty, if again entrepreneurial failure, then no Yan see Jiangdong elders. Since the first venture, he has more understanding of VC-investors are expected to return, the company is good when the attitude of investors will also be good, when the entrepreneurial environment and product development is poor, it is necessary to see whether investors are patiently waiting and running-in. This time, Chen more cautious choice of VC, accepted the recommendation of a friend selected blue Chi venture. At that time, the investment of the most Amoy Blue Venture investment investor Zhu Tianyu said: Chen then pressure is very big, can't sleep. He is also a famous figure. After all, from Alibaba out of business, the most Amoy Web signs also played out. He felt that if they did not bring their employees to a higher position, what would happen if they failed to start a business again? "Chen to himself has been very high expectations, hope to make the user over billion products, I hope the company can become the first." This strong desire for success drives him forward, and he must find a way to go even if he keeps worrying. Today's headline CEO Zhang Yixi, who was also the first search engineer for cool news, had a deep impression that he was a man of extreme pursuit. I was the first engineer to take over the server, and I saw him as the firstThe server account is Himalayas (Himalayas), the password is No.1intheworld (world first) plus some variants. Later, the most Amoy network business is basically stagnant, do not update nor revision. But a regular meeting of the Board will put all the ideas of the mobile Internet products that you want to do on the blackboard, including second-hand trading platform, application recommendations, and then SWOT analysis to consider whether the user needs, whether there are competitors, how to fit the team advantages. The blackboard is constantly written, constantly erased, through the continuous comparison and screening, do entertainment applications to sing "The idea has not been denied, no competitors, the market is also in the blue ocean." The final team identified this direction. Today, sing it is already a user of hundreds of billions of singing social applications, in the forefront of vertical social. But he was still anxious, always with his brows locked, his complexion slightly dim, his mouth closed and his eyes all singing the status quo and the next step. I am thinking, how to let the user to double again, or to consider mergers and acquisitions, the new product line how to layout, the company how to do more, the company wants to go public how to do, want to make more money how to do ... Every problem is difficult to solve, but the company needs to keep moving forward, or it will stagnate. He made a quick list of his worries and thoughts of his day and night. Is your current state a positive drive, or is it a difficult anxiety to get rid of? Anxiety, that must be anxiety. Chen said without hesitation, I knew that the problem existed, but it still couldn't be solved. "In the future, play it." Each entrepreneur sets the business growth target and then thinks about how to achieve it. And Chen different is, each year plans to expand a new line of business for the future layout, in order to give the industry an accident. Pleasantly surprised or surprised, what he wants is to keep trying and challenging, so that the company has a lasting vitality. Last year, to participate in the program, the expansion of the two or three-line city, users soared, at the end of the year reached 100 million. And this year, singing and announced the March line, to do the traditional KTV, to get through the singing IT system. And everyone in the beginning can not understand how an internet company to deal with real estate, shop management, such as a series of heavy offline layout. A good girl why do so heavy things. I am sure to find a light approach, to do it bigger, to make the first place in the country or not to do. Then I found out that it wasn't that easy. But you have to spell it. Chen said. Now, sing it. is full research and development of connected line under the IT system, offline KTV is also in the scale of the experiment, the end will be user-oriented. Chen said, a lot of time confidence is their own, in order to do the best, lack of what to make up for deficiencies. As for why he is persistent to do first, Wu Shichung said: As an entrepreneur, must have become the boss mentality. The second will live very hard, old is not the same as never existed. Accept the position of the second, people will have no ambition. "Today, the Giants are scrambling to lay out ecosystems, and most entrepreneurs are harder to escape than the Giants ' resources and financial strength.", the outcome of the acquisition. Chen was anxious about it. As far as he knows, Tencent has two teams working on similar products, using QQ space and music for promotion. This is the place that I want to be nervous, already appeared the opponent that lifts a gun, other people's some product is better than you, the resource is more than you. "Chen said. In his opinion, singing now seems to be very comfortable, but it does not mean that the best, including product needs to upgrade, brand image to improve, the UI needs to do more good-looking. Our own lives, or competitors will lose your life. "Recently, he began to sleep all night." The quality of life of entrepreneurs is actually very poor, insomnia is our normal. "he said. Now do KTV many people feel incredible, but he thought must do, try it might succeed. Chen, who has a strong desire for success and constant anxiety, does not seem to be a man of great ambition, and he often talks about products and technologies naturally, but rarely talks about his own state of life, nor does he care about appearances. More than 1.7-meter tall, with plates headrest, coffee-coloured skin, dressed in prim and orthodox, smiling eyes bent into crescent shape, looks like a standard tech man. In fact, he has always been an introverted and pragmatic technical otaku. In the eyes of many friends, Chen is a low-key, pragmatic, technology and products have a profound understanding. In his career, he is a person who pursues success and hopes to be lonely and defeated. But in life, he is a fear of stimulation, even the amusement park is afraid to go to the people, has been in the pursuit of stability, to seek security. High places are too cold. Even today he is still a continuous entrepreneur, but he is still anxious every day, the pain is hidden in the heart is not easy to reveal. Today, I stand in the CEO that position is very uncomfortable, but also very lonely. Although I do not know how to get rid of anxiety, but I want to drag it first, time will give me the answer. He smiled shyly, and said.