Six "Dare"! How startups deal with Giants (Ⅲ)

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

The author for UC excellent as the founder, product President He Xiaopeng, authorized Tiger Sniff Network published, reproduced by the author agreed

At the end of the last article, I said I wanted to talk about the courage and confidence in entrepreneurship. Products do not big time, no money no talent no resources no one is optimistic, to adhere to do not have the courage to do not, and so easy to have a bit of fame, it is necessary to face competition from all sides, especially the menacing giants, and only brave people can win.

Our business has been more than eight years, back to summarize the experience of entrepreneurship since the lesson, deeply: to be bigger, but also in the long-term with the Giants to win, nothing more than six "dare" word-dare to think, dare to give up, dare to spend, dare to fight, dare to change.

Dare to think: think ahead of the height and breadth you may reach

Dare to include two levels, one is the future of their products can do have enough imagination space, do not think too much to do, because the ignorant fearless, you do one step further consider the next step will often have a vista feeling, the other is their own products and ability to grow at what speed. The former helps you choose the company's product direction, the company's strategic layout, the latter determines the pace of product development, product team deployment. Once you think about it, try to carry it out.

Ask: If you don't know what you want to do, go to someone who can help you.

Maybe someone looked at the previous two will say that this is nonsense, in addition to the previous successful pioneering star executives to start a business, which entrepreneur can have such a strategic vision in the beginning? At the beginning of the establishment of UC, we naturally did not have such a height and breadth, fortunately, the people with enough experience to give us the right advice.

UC early has two entrepreneurial direction of choice, one is for enterprise-class customers, providing information systems services, a project on the value of tens of millions, the second is for ordinary users, to provide UC browser this application, do not earn money, also do not know when to earn money. When Lei invested us, it was strongly recommended that we cut down the enterprise-level projects and focus on the mobile browser. It was a tough decision at the time, but looking back today proved his strategic vision and saw the value of mobile browsers and the future of mobile internet in advance.

After that we also find in different stages of thunder, NetEase, Tencent ... To understand that these companies in the size of UC at that time, their management, strategy, operations and other issues encountered in the problems and suggestions, to find our point of reference. Pay attention to the exchange of the object must have experienced that period of staff or founder, then joined the manager does not have much meaning. For example, from Shenglong there, we learned how to reasonably estimate the speed of our product users, set a feasible user development goals, and from our later competitor Tencent, we have learned how to adhere to the product of rapid iteration and focus on the value of the user experience. To the predecessors and peers to learn, according to their actual combination of learning and groping is very important.

Dare to give up: small things willing to achieve great things

Willing to divide the two sides, one is willing to money, the second is willing to power.

We have seen many peers, in order to finance a small clause, spend half a year of time, or so did not timely get the development needs of money and missed the development opportunity. Mobile Internet industry development cycle is several times faster than the Internet, in the start-up period of the most important thing is clock, in order to quickly finance, to some of the benefits should be willing to. It should be thought that entrepreneurial success, even if the entrepreneur only 1% of the stock, but also very valuable, if the venture is not successful, even if the entrepreneur has 100% of the stock, but also waste paper.

Most of the founders of the enterprise will only find their own vice president, and not like UC to find themselves a Chairman or CEO. However, the speed of a company's development depends on how fast and how far the number of points in the company is running. Chinese entrepreneurs in the majority of the Turtles, I was one of them, but with faith, interest and some expertise to come out to start a small business is possible, but want to have a greater chance of success is not. The founders would not be the ceiling for the company's development until they were able to work with people who were better than themselves, rather than having subordinates who were inferior to them.

Dare to spend: the money on the blade, must dare to spend

In the early days of the start-up, even though the company was still small, although several of our founders did not get paid or even had a fixed office, we were never soft on the point where the efficiency of the company was improved and money could be exchanged for time.

For example, some companies like the card staff's office equipment, can configure how low configuration, but we think, to the staff better equipment, even if the staff computer switching machine time reduced by 10 seconds, office efficiency increased by 5%, each month we can make this equipment money back. Again for example, the programs on the server need to optimize performance, and if the performance optimization is more difficult and time-consuming, we will consider delaying this performance optimization by adding more memory, replacing SSD drives, or adding better servers, exchanging money for time and doing more things that need to be done.

Dares to fight: chooses the opponent actively, hits competitively health

In the previous article has written, do products must not be afraid of war, but to consciously choose the opponent to fight. This industry follows the law of the jungle, from the bandits began to fight all the way, and then dozen small warlords, big warlords, army, and finally defeated the field armies, you will be invincible.

One of our investors once gave us a metaphor. If you think you are very cattle, I do not know, I do not dare to confirm. I only know that if you are a veteran and growing, then I believe you cow. Win, go back to drink, then look for the next opponent, lose, go back to lick their wounds, and then play tomorrow, such a team is the team of cattle B.

Dare to change: Embrace changes, change quickly

In UC, we often say that change starts with a move, sometimes because of the rapid expansion of the staff size to change the office location, sometimes because of the changes in the business, the team to adjust the position. So everyone in the company has to adapt to the speed of change, as a manager to actively initiate changes, embrace change.

Fast-growing start-ups are a year old, only 50, 100 this year, and maybe 300 next year. With the rapid changes in the size of the company, organizational structure, business, personnel will also quickly change, so the management of methods, processes should also be the corresponding rapid changes. At the same time, the direction of the industry is also changing rapidly, in the past few years Symbian has also been in the ascendant, the last two years is the world of Android. Entrepreneurs are different from giants, have enough money and people to buy time for themselves, so flexible change, embrace change to remain competitive.

It may be hard to understand how Chinese entrepreneurs, especially Internet entrepreneurs, need to be courageous in their entrepreneurial process. The courage of the entrepreneur is not only reflected in the enemy came to the battlefield to carry guns, also reflected in the night before know oneself three months account have no money to send food and the company does not know where to pay the case, the next day in front of the team can also optimistic persistence; more manifested in the overnight become a large flow of traffic, Friends or data tell you that you can start a business B, and you can be specific, focused and not blindly expanding. So every one of China's internet industry entrepreneurs, in my opinion, whether the final can be, are warriors.

Finally, each of the Giants grew up from startups, expecting more brothers to break the monopoly and become the next big round.

How to deal with the Giants (i)--utilizing judo strategy

How startups deal with Giants: Beware of seven of weapons