Start-up companies must learn how to meet the discipline?

Paul Graham has summed up the lessons that startups have to learn based on the experience of Y Combinator in incubating startups for years. The success of successful startups, to a large extent, is that they quickly learn these skills.

1. Publish the new version as soon as possible (release Early)

This is one of the many times we've emphasized entrepreneurship: release the V1 version as soon as possible, and then iterate over it quickly and iteratively. Of course, the early release of a new version, not to let you release a bug-filled product, but should include the product core features, can bring value to the user products. Whether or not the start-up phase, the development of software need to release a version as soon as possible, only then you can get the fastest user feedback, improve the product. Reddit and Wufoo's success is due to this pattern. Do not speculate on the needs of users, with your continuous iteration of the release of products to grasp the needs of users.

In addition to mastering the needs of users, the rapid release of a new version of a major advantage is to quickly find out that the entrepreneurial team may be hidden problems, such as creative ideas are not valuable, entrepreneurial partners are not harmonious and so on, will soon be exposed with the release of the product.

A quick release of the new version will also give you a sense of urgency to respond quickly to the problems you find. If you do not publish, you may be stuck in the problem, and once released, the urgency of the problem will kick your butt every day go forward.

2, burst new function (Keep pumping out Features)

This is the guarantee of releasing the new version as soon as possible, only the products that are constantly bursting with new features are suitable to be released as soon as possible. We advocate the release of new features by iteration, which does not mean that the more complex the product, but each additional new features to be able to meet the needs of users, to surprise users. Entrepreneurial team around the product innovative new features, but also to inspire morale, a little progress every day. Once you give up the upgrade update, those exposed issues are gradually being used by default and will miss the opportunity. Users often see new changes in the product, will be more delighted. If a website is not changed for hundreds of years, who will often patronize it?

Don't think your product is perfect, when you have this illusion there are usually two reasons: 1 he is really perfect; 2 you lack creative imagination. Practice proved much for the latter in the mischief.

3, let the user happy (make users Happy)

The user determines your success or failure. They can send you straight, and they can scrape you into the gutter. In the process of entrepreneurship, you and your company's products like a piece of debris, with the wind untidy, and master wind and wind is the user. The only thing you can do is to adapt to the user and let your shape curl to the winds.

Those who inadvertently to your site, to do everything possible to retain him, let him become your customers. The secret to doing this is to clearly explain what your site is about and what you can do for your users. Imagine the following bad description: "Enterprise Content management solutions enhance your business and organizational efficiencies, reduce business risk, accelerate value implementation, and reduce operational costs". Perhaps a well-known company likes to use this ambiguous narrative, but it is absolutely fatal to startups. You need one or two words to describe the functional core value of your product. If the things you do cannot be expressed in one or two words, then you have to wonder if it is worth doing. Put your best stuff on the home page and don't let the user find it. Do not use a large text description, with intuitive way, such as pictures and other images expressed.

4, worry should worry (fear the right things)

Some entrepreneurs are always blind to worry, like what if Google makes a similar product? What if Tencent makes a similar product? These are all blind concerns. The real concern is the unseen opponents who, like you, are waiting to move, as hard as you do.

In fact, competitors are not the most lethal, many startups fail because of their own reasons: infighting, laziness, ignoring the needs of users. Ignoring user demand is no doubt the most lethal. Do not cling to the original idea of the idea, but according to the user needs according to the market response flexibility adjustment. Without taking into account the real needs of users, Microsoft may still be selling programming language tools, and Apple is still selling circuit boards. In fact, users tell the founders what they want, and the successful founders listen.

Physicist Richard Feynman has a saying: Nature's imagination is infinitely more than human beings. Instead of taking your head off the idea of starting a business, look at the world and see what people around you need.

5. Determination is the prophecy of self-realization (commitment is a self-fulfilling prophecy)

After years of collision with founders and investors, we find that the key to determining the success of a person's business lies not in intelligence, but in the executive power of decisions. Your determination often determines whether you are successful or not.

Indecisive people are often not favored by investors, and those who perform poorly can hardly succeed. In the field of biomedicine, people invest in experts and professors who only need to have IQ and knowledge. In the Internet technology, the founders are inexperienced young people, they do not have much expertise, and even the university has not graduated, Google, Facebook and other founders of the success of the founder's decision-making and executive power.

Once you've left a good impression of willpower and executive power, your hopes for success will be much increased. Investors will trust you because you are not amateurs. To be determined is not to be stubborn. You need to have the determination, the ability to make decisions, and the flexibility you need to be flexible, like the running fronts on a football field, where they appear in any danger, and they never stagnate.

6, there is no limit to the entrepreneurial space (There is synch reactiveness)

Often hear people complain, entrepreneurial space is already very small. Did they not think that Facebook, Flickr, which was just a few years old, would survive for hundreds of years? The reason why we cannot see the opportunity is because of our adaptability to the present situation, we think that this world should be like this, the lack of the ability to imagine what will be in the future.

We think it's crazy to create a search engine that's stronger than Google, but even Google can't guarantee what the search engine will look like in decades. Start-up companies exist to create value quickly, users need, market needs, people need, so there is no ceiling. How big your mind is, how big your entrepreneurial space is.

7, do not expect too high (don ' t get Your hopes up)

Entrepreneurs are a group of optimistic people, when someone is willing to invest in your products, willing to buy your company, do not be complacent, do not uppity. Once you show a desperate desire for money in someone else's pocket, that is the moment when your weakness is about to be revealed. What investors and acquirers are best at is discovering your weaknesses and exploiting them to ravage you at the negotiating table.

No matter when, do not be blinded by the interests of the eyes, always keep the start-up company's progress and customer satisfaction. Don't let the new investment and acquisitions affect the company's progress, and don't stagnate because of it.

When someone wants to invest in you, to buy your company, keep calm and move on and prepare for the failure of the deal. If successful, it is a kind of surprise, if failed, also did not delay anything.

The best way to start a business is to lead your company forward, increase the number of users, and move fast toward your goal, while those investors are trotting around you, waving money in front of you and begging you to accept it.

7. Speed rather than money (Speed)

There is no doubt that starting a business is hard work. So why do we have to start a business? Would it be worthwhile to do a great, heroic career if you suffered so much pain, just to make money?

No, entrepreneurship is not simply making money. From an economic standpoint, entrepreneurship is a process of efficient and rapid work, not just getting rich. Efficient and fast work keeps you from the shackles of life.

Life is awe-inspiring, he is short. Everyone got the precious thing of life, and then "poof" he slipped away. In this short life you have to cherish every minute of each day. Franklin said: "If you cherish life, do not waste time, because time constitutes life." So entrepreneurship is actually to the trivial and must do the work of compressed to a very short time to complete, do not waste the life of the process, which is the highest respect for life. That's the key to choosing your business.