The cicada travels Guo Ziwei: The entrepreneur who almost gives up

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In the surging tide of the internet, Guo Ziwei is a common but one. If you happen to know him, maybe it's because he's been keeping up with the newer personal blogs for years. A product manager with good literary and artistic writing, sensitive and paranoid, who knows his friends.

Guo Ziwei's high-yielding blog was during his five years at the inauguration of NetEase, where he often published industry and product observation articles and had some loyal readers. "In fact, these articles now look back to see that most of them are of no value," Guo Ziwei recalls.

Like freedom and travel he finally left the NetEase, the second half of last year embarked on the road to start a business trip to locate the travel guide of the cicada travels. "A lot of people from NetEase went out to start a business, and I didn't get along well with them," he said. "In the Shanghai Pudong Science and Technology Museum in the subway of a Starbucks, Guo Ziwei smiled indifferently said."

Do your favorite travel guide

Since the beginning of the first stage of his life in Fuzhou in 1995, Guo Ziwei has witnessed the rise of the internet and mobile Internet, but he has not seen any special opportunities.

"Some people are good at looking for opportunities from an external perspective, and I tend to look at my own perspective to find opportunities." I like to travel, and the travel market has not been a good guide to travel, so I decided to do a cicada travels. ”

Cicada travels, perhaps you happen to download this app, slide the same interface, loaded with each user to take the different perspectives of the world, looking at these photos, will involuntarily want to stop busy footsteps, quietly in a daze. But the person who does this product, cannot stop.

Guo Ziwei decided to start a business, how to find the right team members is the first problem.

"We're a small company that can't make the same salary as a big company, and the future is uncertain, so I think the most important thing to build a team is how to prove to others that I am a reliable person and that my project is a good project." Guo Ziwei said that when he started his second wave of recruitment this year, he wrote a 3,000-word recruitment letter on his blog, and finally received more than 200 resumes, and then took a PowerPoint presentation to the investor and talked to the candidate.

The two young members of the Cicada travel team are travel enthusiasts who have laid down their jobs and spent two years running around the world. This lets over the years only chooses the work outside the Guo Ziwei to travel the envy unceasingly.

At least in 2013, Guo Ziwei needs to devote his energy to the development and operation of the Cicada's travels. He rarely even attends social events or even the salon-sharing meeting of the Entrepreneurial Circle, "the method of making a product is different and there is nothing to share." You may feel justified when you listen, but it's no help to go back, Guo Ziwei that the decisive factor in making a product is the sense of logic, taste and direction.

Really let Guo Ziwei feel a headache, not product development, but the beginning of the start-up rush to the new product to accept a small scale of financing, the results of the cicada travels at least one times less download.

"People ask why we only do the iOS version and not the Android version, because it's very simple, without money, so many engineers," he said. If the promotion costs more, we will get a higher market share, there are more conditions to talk about a round of financing. "For Guo Ziwei, the real world is always more brutal than the scenery, but he can only bite the bullet and accept it."

Failure is the norm of 2013 entrepreneurs

The lack of financial support let Cicada travels stumbling, for entrepreneurial difficult Guo Ziwei already have heart preparation, in the industry to fight so many years, he has already seen too many failure cases.

"The entrepreneurial environment is getting worse, and the odds of starting a business two years from now will be below 10%." Guo Ziwei said, "China's entrepreneurial community is very large, I have access to the all over the country are entrepreneurs." Large and small products, constantly produced, and then continue to die. "His eyes are deep but talk, do not see more than 10 years of hard to spell what the years left him traces."

Why is entrepreneurship increasingly difficult to succeed? Guo Ziwei that Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent and other large companies squeezed the small company's living space, but the industry channel costs are too high, all products have been unable to quickly obtain traffic, how to push all difficult.

Still, there are people who choose or choose to start their own business again. "When you start a business, you tell yourself that you can accept all the results, that you feel like you have no problems, that people die, not me." You do not think that tomorrow in the battlefield was killed that is me, maybe this class is dead, I will be the only surviving-you so comfort yourself. ”

The first few months that entrepreneurs create a new product are the happiest of times, but often the first time after the product launch to accept the market test when the mood began to get worse, most of the products will encounter obvious problems, and then find ways to constantly solve the new problems, slowly become depressed--most startups are like this, Die in the process.

"I used to think that if the company had no investors, I would dissolve the team and start a trip that was entirely my own," he said. But Guo Ziwei's wish was finally dashed. In October this year, in the most difficult period of funding, is to improve the layout of the mobile tourism industry to him to throw an olive branch.

"For the whole team, I can only choose and cicada travels to continue to go on." However, I really do not know what kind of outcome I expect in my heart. "For Guo Ziwei, let go of all the worries to travel around the world's dream, I am afraid this life is difficult to achieve."