Ten rules entrepreneurs need to know

Reid Hoffman, founder and executive chairman of LinkedIn, gave a lecture on "How Entrepreneurs Can Create the Future," at the SXSW, where he described his thoughts on Internet industry startups and Web 3.0 Product point of view, and also cited ten he believes that entrepreneurs should follow the rules.

Reid Hoffman, whose career started as a product manager for Apple and Fujitsu, later became an executive vice president at PayPal and co-founded LinkedIn in 2003 - arguably the vanguard of business social networking sites. In addition to his rich industry experience, he is one of the most successful super-angel investors in Silicon Valley and has participated in or contributed to more than 80 other cases including Facebook, Flickr, Zynga, Digg, Last.fm and so on. I think his point of view not only can well explain the current situation in Silicon Valley, but also from the side reflect the preferences of investors.

Try the "breakthrough change"

"The product must be something that can change the industry." How can you tell if your ideas are transformative? Hoffman says the product should cost $ 10 and charge only $ 1. VoIP such as Skype replaces the costly long-distance calling service. Only transformative products have the opportunity to create new ecosystems.

2. ambitious goals

In keeping with the spirit of the first rule, Hoffman does not think it is impossible to change the industry without a grand vision. His other assertion is that the usual effort to run a small company and a large company is the same, rather than trying to create a big, shaky company that tries to create a big company to change the industry.

3. Create a relationship network

Hoffman said this does not mean combining your company with social networking sites, but rather building a network of relationships around you. Everyone around us can accomplish us, from investor to board member to your start-up staff, mentor, and everyone. Creating such a network, recognizing your value, offers many opportunities to expand your company.

4. Prepare for opportunities and setbacks

Entrepreneurs often encounter various opportunities, seize the opportunity and timely adjustment of the ability of the plan is very important. Sometimes an unexpected surprise will allow the company to move in unison. For example, PayPal originally focused solely on the mobile platform. One day the founding fathers found a large number of users coming from eBay. At first, the team found it strange that "why these eBay users come to use our products?" Too bad. "Then they realized they were aware of the opportunities PayPal was facing - becoming a payment tool for online commerce.

Adapt yourself to yourself

Entrepreneurs often experience such a dilemma: on the one hand, they are warned to stick to their ideas and visions, throw blame and criticism aside, and use the post-company development to counter these criticisms. On the other hand, they are also warned that they need to be flexible and adapt their plans to the data and customer needs. Hoffman pointed out that "the art of entrepreneurship is to know when to persist and when to work together.

6. The sooner the better product distribution

"It's ashamed of the mistakes you made in Version 1.0 as early as the release," said Hoffman, "unless you're Steve Jobs," your product is certainly not perfect in some ways. Often entrepreneurs find it hard to spot these errors until the product is released and the user actually uses it. Only after the product has been released can you hear people's comments and know what changes need to be made. He gave an example. His partner eight years ago wanted to wait until the "Contact Finder" function was added before he went online. As it turns out, this feature is not required, and LinkedIn still has no Contact Finder after eight years.

7. Maintain a high enough ambition and goal, but do not fall too badly

Back in the past few lessons, Hoffman felt that sometimes entrepreneurs also need to be vigilant about unrealistic dreams. With a popular joke of the 1990s, Kool Aid, a fruity drink powder, represents a huge defeat in the political arena of the year.

8. Product ideas are important, but product sales are the top priority

If the product can not be promoted to millions or even more users, it is insignificant. Hoffman is also joking about startups who claim they "will later add social features" and miss out on the opportunities that social networking can bring.

9. Corporate culture and staff are crucial from the beginning

Careful selection of your partners, investors, mentors is very important, the initial employment of employees is far-reaching impact on the company. Do not forget, the person hiring the next batch of employees is your current employee.

10. These entrepreneurial rules are not laws of nature and you can break them

The wonderful thing about entrepreneurship lies in the process of creating from scratch. If you are joked you break the routine, the path of failure to embark on predecessors, it does not matter, maybe you are successful this time?

In addition to his entrepreneurial experience, Hoffman's speech also expounded his views on Web 3.0. He believes that although the mobile platform is the trend of Web 3.0 development, but the data is the key to the next round of Internet industry opportunities. Specifically, he thinks Web 1.0 is "searching, finding information data", Web 2.0 is "real user identity" and "real social relationships," and Web 3.0 is "the result of real user identities and relationships Huge amount of data ".

There are many companies currently working on data information such as LinkedIn, which allows users to find users, companies or jobs with specific skills. Mobile app Waze determines the current traffic situation by analyzing your location and travel speed, gives Traffic advice and Redfin, an online real estate trading website that gives homebuyers more information about the local real estate market and the homes they fancy.

Of course, the privacy protection associated with information sharing is of the essence. Christopher Poole, creator of 4chan and online star Felicia Day, both described the advantages of anonymity in their philosophy on SxSW. Hoffman argues that startups need only follow two principles:

- Never ambush the user. Do not collect or analyze the data without their knowledge.

- The data is not equal. Users do not care about all the information they share, but the more important information, such as passwords and credit card numbers, is the key to note.

Hoffman has also launched a fun "self-referencing" campaign, hoping to gather ideas from social networking sites about "interesting applications that social web data can generate." If you are interested, post your ideas on Twitter and tag it with # web3, and Hoffman's team will later create a post-it presentation of these ideas.