Zhou: What can you learn from Silicon Valley entrepreneurs?

I go to the United States on business trips, most of them are Silicon Valley, and New York is very few. To Silicon Valley is usually to contact two people: one is VC, one is the entrepreneur. Take part in those high-end atmosphere of the occasion, such as charity party, financial annual meeting What, I will feel a little nervous, cramped, because I do not know what to say, but to go abroad when see VC, see Entrepreneurs, feel better. Foreign VC people talk to me, because I am also an entrepreneur, speak directly, do not mealy, except the language is not as fluent as returnees, they feel that I am more like the Silicon Valley, from the thinking mode is so.

A few months ago, I came to the United States to contact some Silicon Valley start-ups and chat with young entrepreneurs, and I have three strong feelings: first, the spirit of being different. These people will have all kinds of "strange" ideas, even very bizarre. You'll find that they're very focused on being different. This, I think, is an important feature of innovation; second, the spirit of product manager. The founders I met were talking to you about his new product, everyone focused on the product and everyone was the product manager. Third, the spirit of subversion. A young man, 99 years old, who felt he could change the world, would be able to drop a big company today.

This is different from the Internet entrepreneur in our country. To be honest, I also attended a lot of entrepreneurs, and quite a few entrepreneurs like to talk to you about concepts, O2O, wearable equipment or whatever. Talking about concepts, I think is the most boring, because the concept is the right nonsense. The concept is correct, does not mean that the consumer must use your product. The spirit of the product manager in Silicon Valley, you might say he's too down-to-earth, too pragmatic, no strategy, but any great company starts with a product.

Basically, the cultural tradition of Silicon Valley is product driven, which is consistent with the product philosophy I have always dominated. In Silicon Valley, people generally don't talk about concepts. Because I have been an entrepreneur before-of course, now entrepreneurs, have also been investors, and later found that talking about the concept of entertainment, in addition to the industry to mix some reputation, in fact, does not affect the user. Users use your products, they only care about what you do, can solve my problems, do not listen to the idea behind you. The founders of Silicon Valley will give you a description of what the product is, and the Israelis have the same characteristics-to solve the problem, not to talk about the idea.

Chinese Internet is not the same, entrepreneurs lack a kind of courage, lack of a challenge of boldness. Everyone talks about how to spend money behind a big company's butt, or how to take a detour. In addition, I think the Chinese Internet entrepreneurs, I summarize, one is not enough innovation. The thoughts in the mind, the things that do come out, do not have that kind of unusual feeling, the homogeneity is serious; We work here, involuntarily to the breadth of thinking, as if everything can be capable. But for so many entrepreneurs, you have to be able to stand out from the crowd, with two ideas: either entering a very new field, generating a new idea, or being in a field that everyone knows, you can think more deeply than others and think differently than others.

Sometimes I deliberately ask American entrepreneurs if they want to extend their business to China. They don't talk to you about this grand vision, they tell you something deep, and it's worth digging deeper into the field. Listen to his description, you know he is in this matter is a deep thinking, do a very focused. Chinese Internet startups often make the mistake of a bear to break corn, I can do this, that I can do, everyone to you describe a particularly ambitious vision. Therefore, most of China's Internet investment projects, I used a word to describe the words, sound is reasonable, very reasonable, normal, there is no stunning place, will not let you exclaim: "Gee, how could he think so?"

I have a circle down there, I feel particularly inspired, even if I am such a long time in the industry, I feel that I have heard a lot of new ideas. You can disagree with this thought, and I sometimes argue with them and disagree with some of their ideas, but the collision of these ideas is very important. Someone said, if you have an orange, I have an apple, we exchanged, the result is that you have an apple, I have an orange. But the idea is different, we have two ideas, after the collision, each of us may have two ideas, but also may collide with a third thought, which is very valuable.

American entrepreneurs give me the feeling that they do a lot of things that I find inconceivable, is completely unexpected. Of course, these incredible things are not necessarily successful, because the difference is certainly a high rate of failure, but this shows that they are not afraid of failure. Chinese Internet entrepreneurs are too afraid to fail, so they like to follow the crowd to find security. For example, some entrepreneurs say, "Look, what I'm doing is what big companies are doing." Come on, if a big company is doing what you're doing, it's not that you're right, it's a danger. Big companies are more afraid of failure, they are to see how others go before they follow. Other people come out of the way of glasses and glasses, other people come out of the TV and TV, even 360 portable WiFi so simple things it must follow.

Big companies have the resources and the strategy to follow is understandable. Ridiculous is the market's second old, but also to follow the strategy. 360 What to do, thousand years to follow what to do, have a kind of learning. In this way, it strengthens the market position of the thousand years.

China's Internet entrepreneurial environment compared to Silicon Valley, from the investment environment, now there is no shortage of VC, there is no shortage of angels, the entrepreneur itself I feel in the courage to challenge, subversion, different innovation, and Silicon Valley indeed there is a big gap.