starts to share this topic, let me talk about a case: a startup company spent nearly 15 million yuan in 4 years. Funds were basically used for personnel costs, site costs, and office equipment costs. Funds spent on project promotion were basically No, I did 3 or 4 projects (apps) as a whole, but there was basically no income, that is, I basically never received money from customers.
After seeing the explanation of this case, the first reaction must be that such an extreme phenomenon is impossible, so does this situation really exist in reality? If it really exists, how many such companies would it be unbelievable? How did this happen?
Entrepreneurship is the probability of a lifetime of nine deaths. Entrepreneurship is a journey full of unknowns, frustrations, and hardships, with pits everywhere and failure at any time. Some people may fail and can still get up to perform miracles, but most of them have become "legends" that no one knows.
So, what pits do you need to skip to avoid becoming a "legend"?
This article is a bit long, please read it patiently, entrepreneurs or friends who plan to start a business, this is a lesson of blood and tears that you can't buy with money.
1. The founders have more ideas.
Many founders have already put multiple product projects in their minds before preparing to start their own businesses. They are very confident and confident that the project is definitely not available on the market. After the project, go on to do the second, then the third, the fourth, and then form an ecological matrix, and then. . .
However, the real situation may be like this: when a company starts to do A project, it panics when encountering a small setback, and then overturns it every time it encounters a setback. For example, it overthrows and reconstructs A project every three months. After several refactorings, Project A was abandoned. Project A took one and a half years before and after. It's okay, isn't there an idea for a second project? Yes, I stopped the A project, started to work on the B project, and worked on it, and found that the B project could not run, and was not reconciled to the failure of the A project, and then the B project had the shadow of the A project. Okay, in the end, Project B really didn't work, the market didn't recognize it, and it stopped. No, is there any third project idea? Try again, and then the C project came again, and after a while, the C project was rejected by the market again. Finally, think about it, A project is better, then come back to A project.
Everyone is a little confused, but in fact, to summarize, it is: ABCA, three projects take turns to "take the dealer", and then each project (for example, A project performs A1, A2, A3, A4, ... N times) many times The overthrow and redo. As a result, a few years have passed without any development projects left.
So, what is the pit of the first big pit? There are too many ideas, multiple projects take turns, and each project is overturned repeatedly. In fact, there was no in-depth analysis of the project at the beginning. What you need to do is count one step at a time. Whenever you encounter troubles, you should adjust the direction instead of how to patch. Ideals are beautiful and reality is cruel. At this time, no matter whether it is a technician or a product person, it becomes a man of the pot.
2. Trust is a double-edged sword
Trust is to believe that the other party is honest, trustworthy and upright. A business is equivalent to a small family. If trust is gone, the family will collapse. But with too much trust, the family will also collapse. Therefore, on the issue of trusting employees, the founder of the company needs to have the ability to judge. If there is an extreme judgment, then a big problem will arise.
believes that every employee will do their best to give, because only when the company is good, the employees can be good, I think no employee wants to change jobs every day, and they want to be stable, but because of founder or project problems, the company’s operation is affected. This affects the work and thoughts of employees, and will definitely affect employees' families. Then, if the employee's family is affected, the employee will affect the work. One digression, one foreshadowing, we return to the topic.
No doubt about employing people, not using suspects, and distrusting the ability and loyalty of employees will cause problems. As the founder of a company, you must stay awake at all times, especially in the difficult period of the company not to be 100% distrustful and "hate" to someone.
Take a case: an employee has been engaged in the Internet for 8 years. Although he is not a successful person in the Internet industry, he is at least an Internet veteran who has a deep understanding of the Internet industry. When I came to the new company, I also got the approval of the founder of the company through my performance. But when the company has a problem, the company wants to find a new person to solve it, and a new person will trust 100%. As a resultThere were N new recruits, all with "problems", they went to the hospital in a hurry, and the project got worse. Z1z
It is actually not very difficult to identify a person's good or bad, but some company founders or team leaders make some inexplicable mistakes, which is incredible. When encountering difficulties or setbacks, they panic and lose the ability to recognize people. You have 100% trust in every newcomer, and the other party's past depends entirely on the newcomer's self-report, so you dare to entrust the important task, and then the original schedule is very tight, and the result is stagnant. As long as two such newcomers come to an enterprise, the destructiveness can be imagined. Z1z
3. Working behind closed doors The
project failed. One of the biggest factors is that it does not meet the needs of the audience. The reason for the non-compliance is "working behind closed doors." Many founders are "I think" or "I believe." But this is what you think, not what the user thinks. In fact, most founders will "I think" or "I believe". This is a problem of overconfidence, but most founders are in a state of overconfidence. The founders of
only created “pseudo-needs” based on their own feelings before setting up the project, skipping market research, category analysis, etc. (though even if the preliminary market research is conducted, many founders are only for reference, what they want to do How to do it, the founder has already “arranged” and ignored the reference value of market research), because the founder thinks that there is no need for research, I am innovating, and research is useless. I am setting a new benchmark and users only need Just follow my rules.
Speaking of innovation, to put it bluntly, I want to change the world, but the probability of changing the world is basically zero. It is reliable to do something that can help users improve efficiency or improve problem solving.
So, the question is, why should users follow your rules? Most companies want to spend a small amount of money to do big things, especially in promotion, they all hope that they do not need to operate the team, and do not need to spend money, and rely on the project to fission and run out of traffic. Fission ran out of traffic, which is based on the fact that it meets the needs of the market or users and hits the pain point. In fact, most of the "pain points" that most founders want to solve are basically "self-heeling". Many logics that need fission in
are based on the participation of users in co-construction and co-creation, everyone for me, I am for everyone, etc. The founder thinks that I am out of the platform, you come to participate, and everyone works together. Don't forget, this is in the great motherland. Do you understand human nature? This routine will not work. So, if you want to empty the glove white wolf and let users create and build together with you, hurry up and think about other ways. Z1z
can make correct judgments by constantly supplementing the knowledge, expanding the network, and obtaining the real market status.
4. After the development of the pseudo-resource
project, it must be promoted without considering the completeness of the project development. So, whether we spend money on promotion or rely on the resources around us to integrate or use the project to start zero. It is definitely not a good way to spend money, because most of the projects stop after the money is spent.
Therefore, project startup resources are very important, which determines whether the project can take the first step. Some founders say that this resource is okay every day, this resource is my iron buddy, this resource is my classmate, this resource is..., once it is used, it will be misfired. The so-called resources are the founder's belief: My project is good, he must cooperate with me, and it is proper. As everyone knows, they need to ask others to cooperate, and even ask for resources that are useless at critical moments. For example,
, for example, the project is about to be promoted, and the founders are starting to fiddle with their so-called resources, but as time goes by, there are no partners (agents). Of course, users (such as merchants) are also No more. It might as well be used by employees introducing their relatives. . .
Of course, there will be a situation where resources are not used for cooperation but for borrowing. What does that mean? It is the resource party who originally wanted to see if there is a cooperation opportunity, because of the trust in the founder, it gave a loan. I won’t elaborate on this, anyway, it’s undesirable, it will be out of control, you know. Z1z
Therefore, the cooperation resources of the project are very important, and more accumulation and maintenance are necessary. When it comes to resource maintenance, founders must "go out and invite in." Have you ever seen a founder who stays in the company for N hours a day, 365 days a year? I have never seen going out to expand business, nor have I seen inviting partners to visit, can such a company succeed?
own resources from the fieldTo start, I must get twice the result with half the effort, and always understand where my resources are and which resources should be used once my project is started.
5. Small but beautiful, more "healthy"
is it going to be a whole industry or a vertical industry? Isn't this nonsense? Do you want to fly if you don't know how to walk? So is it necessary to develop the project to version 8.0 and then promote it or to quickly let the market test it after 1.0 is released? This is nonsense again. Do you want to quickly make adjustments after the market is tested, or do you want to spend more than half a year on a project that no one uses? But the simple truth is, why often company founders can’t understand it? Many founders of
will think that if I do vertical, if there is no one to use, I will be completely in vain; if I am big and complete, at least I will not lose a lot of money, but if I am big and complete, I cannot concentrate on breaking through. If you don’t understand what you are going to do, you will also appear unprofessional and focused.
At the same time, if it is large and complete, the construction period cannot be estimated, and the so-called big but all is to piece together 3 or 4 individual vertical projects. The consequences can be imagined. The construction period cannot be guaranteed, and the quality cannot be guaranteed. It doesn't meet the founder's ideal online standard, and keeps revising it. Waiting for you to go online in a hurry, the result is completely daunting. .
starts from "small", which means that entrepreneurs start from the field they are good at, explore the way first to see if they can really solve the problem, and first solve the needs of a small number of people.
6. Founder dictatorship
Should the founder be dictatorship? In fact, it is not a question of whether it should or not, it should be whether the founder can convince the crowd and whether he has the ability to lead everyone out of the siege. In fact, in the early stages of entrepreneurship, proper dictatorship is not a must, but it is only suitable for capable founders. There are also people who support the view that "when starting a business, the founders need "dictatorship" most, and the voices of customers can be ignored." Most of the founders of
believe that I set up the company, I pay the salary, and the enterprise risk is ultimately borne by me. Therefore, "what I say counts", for fear that everyone will not go according to my plan.
A hero has three gangs, and a fence has three piles. Three heads beat Zhuge Liang. The founders need to listen to the voice of the team, but most founders have fallen into their own thinking, basically can't listen to the suggestions of others, and lose the ability to judge. It is not a complete denial that founder dictatorship will not work, but absolute dictatorship will bring companies into the abyss, which is the common denominator of most failed companies.
Why does a company need CEO, COO, CTO, etc., because a healthy company needs to have a reliable leader, but also a second, third, fourth..., but many founders follow the lone ranger theory, Believe in yourself only. The importance of the team does not need to be elaborated too much. No matter how good the project is, without a good team, the business will be very difficult to operate or short-lived.
It is inevitable to encounter setbacks in starting a business, and failures are inevitable. Then the founder must firmly believe that your team will always be the most reliable in a difficult period.
In fact, after reading the introduction of the six big pits, you should find that these pits are related, not exist independently, they jointly determine the success or failure of the enterprise.
Finally, I will tell you some digressions that are not digressions
1. As long as you understand human nature, there is nothing impossible to do. The same is true for entrepreneurship. Only by understanding human nature can we survive. Human nature, the deep-rooted thinking in people's hearts, is often unable to change, and you just want to challenge, basically without success.
2. If you understand the direction of your duty to break through, don’t change it arbitrarily, that is, do the duty work that needs to solve the problem. You should understand the painful lessons brought by half-heartedness. You should have heard the fables of cat fishing.
