The crisis of Silicon Valley entrepreneurship: The narrow thinking closed market

Lead: In recent years, some Silicon Valley start-ups have focused only on local demand in Silicon Valley rather than Silicon Valley markets, the New York Times online edition said today. Closed thinking will affect the development of start-up companies, and entrepreneurs need to have a broader perspective.

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In San Francisco, bad habits can also be a spark of inspiration for startups.

Maik Berches (Mike belshe) and Bill Li Hu (Bill Lee) are often late, texting each other and saying, "I'll be there in 5 minutes!" "So they created the http://www.aliyun.com/zixun/aggregation/17078.html" >twist. This is a start-up company with 10 employees in the harsh area of south, San Francisco. The company's first product was a smartphone app. With this application, users can tell their friends that they will be late and show their location on the map. Investors like the idea. Last year, twist gained 6 million dollars in venture capital.

"We think there are some things that are better than texting," says Bertelli. We try to solve the problem of people dating and make it simpler. ”

So, twist's idea, or is it that Bertelli and Bill Li Hu's entrepreneurial ideas are directed only at their tech circles, not the general public?

Sometimes, Hollywood writers write scripts that have some jokes, but only Hollywood insiders can appreciate such a sense of humour; in some cases, New York media writers write about other media authors, and in some cases, the companies created by technology entrepreneurs in San Francisco and Silicon Valley will only be understood by the tech community.

Twist's target audience is almost no more than the San Francisco Bay Area, and twist is by no means the only company. A company called Blackjet offers a "cheap private jet" solution for people in the region, while another company, Swig, associates users with local wineries to deliver wine home services.

"The most important lesson I've learned is that in Silicon Valley it's wrong for us to design our own products and we're not the target market," said Andy Smith, co-author of the Dragonfly effect, Andy. "Dragonfly Effect" is a book on marketing, Technology and entrepreneurship.

According to Smith, many engineers tend to move to the Gulf of California, where they have the opportunity to contact other engineers and possibly start a business. According to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the California Bay Area has the highest density of technology industry workers in the United States, so bars and restaurants and other places where entrepreneurs haunt the "echo Room", the focus of entrepreneurship is how to solve local problems.

"People's needs may have been met, but there are still startups designed for such needs," Mr Smith said. These ideas may not be bad, but they are not a good idea for more places around the world. ”

"Life in Silicon Valley can be heaven (for the winners), and there are many opportunities and rewards," George Paik George Packer wrote in The New Yorker magazine last week. At the same time, the people outside are getting further and farther away. Parker's criticism sparked a new round of discussion in Silicon Valley about whether the problem was too narrow.

But this is not to say that no one is paying attention to the bigger market. Tesla founder Ellon Mouske (Elon Musk) last week at D:all Thins Digital, said he hopes to launch a 30,000-dollar car in the next 5 years. The current Tesla car price is more than 100,000 dollars. Musk is also busy with SpaceX's work. SpaceX has realized the delivery of goods to the International Space Station, and Musk hopes the company will be able to complete manned spaceflight in the future.

"In many cases, these startups are addressing" some false problems that have not created any value, "said Jason Penting, editor-in-chief and publisher of MIT Technology Review Pontin. For companies that fail to become stars, Penting knows their situation. From 1996 to 2002, he worked as editor of the Science and technology magazine Red Herring. The magazine recorded the emergence and bursting of the ". com" bubble.

But there are still some companies in Silicon Valley that have proved they can adapt to other parts of the world. For example, the car rental service Uber from San Francisco, initially offering only high-end models. In the process of developing to other cities, Uber also began to offer some inexpensive options.

Even the founders of Twist are exploring the company's future. Twist will provide another version of the application that informs the user of "The estimated time of arrival". Facebook has become synonymous with social relations, while Google is synonymous with search. Bertelli says he wants twist to be a service to help users understand the expected arrival time of all sorts of things.

"It doesn't matter if you're still a start-up," he says. This becomes important when you have some greater opportunities. "Bertelli has worked for Google and Microsoft, and Bill Li Hu is a veteran of the tech industry," he said.

Even if twist eventually fails, it doesn't matter, because most startups will end up with this fate.

"The most attractive thing about Silicon Valley is that it is a place where failure is permissible," said Mark Leslie, a retired entrepreneur and lecturer at Stanford Business School, Mark Leslie. If you do, you can raise money and try again. It was a miraculous place, and the streets were filled with gold. "(D-Gold)

(Responsible editor: Lu Guang)