Lao Tzu's "Tao Te Ching": Tao gives birth to one, life to two, two to three, and three to all things.
All great, successful startups start from 0 to 1, starting small: small market, small pilot, small team!
First, to do a small market.
Only by doing a small market can there be an opportunity to bury one's head in growth, the possibility of low-key development, and the probability of a successful counterattack! Didi started from Cheng Wei couldn't get a taxi, ofo started from the public rental bicycle on the campus of Peking University, Hungry started from delivering food to Shanghai Jiao Tong students, and Facebook was originally inspired by American students who wanted to communicate with each other**and***
When we were doing software entrepreneurship, we had a big dream and a very small landing, staring at a very small, very unnoticeable marginal area to focus, and then constantly upgrading, strengthening, and persevering, and when the industry giants found that the market was relatively large and they wanted to intervene, we had occupied the commanding heights in this segment. Because the program architecture, development language and database of our software are just staggered with the industry giants, the industry giants cannot give up the products, technologies, channels, markets, and customers accumulated for decades, and can only use traditional technology to ram us, but our general trend has been formed, and continue to seize the market share of traditional software.
Second, do small pilots.
Do small pilots. The model of a start-up company is very uncertain, and it can only be verified and adjusted through practice. The capital and manpower of the start-up company itself are very insufficient, which forces us to continue to do all kinds of small pilots, small-scale pilots, and small-cost pilots. Rapid pilot, once the pilot does not work, immediately stop, review and summarize, and then find a new pilot program, and then continue to repeat, practice, test, and cycle down. Until the small pilot is successful, then immediately carry out a larger degree of pilot, and then continue to verify the success of various pilots, gradually replicate and expand the strength and scope of the pilot, until finally form a unique set of business models and marketing models for start-ups, which will remain unchanged for 3-5 years or even decades. Eventually become a great startup!
In every company, whether it is a start-up or a mature company, I especially like to go to the front line and see more pilots. In my last start-up company, I have piloted various activity models more than 400 times in more than 3 years, all of which are various small pilots, low-cost, small-scale, and logically quick to replicate pilots, just to find a set of effective business models that are more in line with our company! Fortunately, we did find a good model in the end, although we experienced a lot of pain and the attention, suspicion, and denial of many people inside and outside the company!
3. Be a small team.
Be a small team. This is what every startup should do and can do! Because it is a start-up company, the profit model and industry focus in the early stage are uncertain; Moreover, if you really recruit a big team to come in, you don't know what to do, you spend your salary in vain every day, you only see the investment but you don't see the income, and everyone is staring at each other, then it is really a "rich bag, a fool"!
Being a small team is especially suitable for startups. There are few people, strong cohesion, strong execution, all kinds of small pilots are going all out, a small pilot fails, you can review and summarize immediately, and then do the next small pilot, busy and happy every day, and the growth is fast! Small teams are flat and one-minded, without the rules and factions of large enterprises.
In start-up companies, we often say a sentence: "The old handsome will be the new recruit", and the old handsome is the founder and partner, and he personally goes into battle; Once the start-up company develops, these strong generals will have a very high reputation inside and outside the industry, similar to Ali Tiejun, once they become famous, everyone is a leader in the industry; "Recruits" are called newcomers, and even recruit a large number of college interns and current students, mainly because the start-up company has no money, so they want to save money, and they need to find more young people with potential and motivation.
We never recruit high-paid employees, even if we have financing and more development in the later stage, we are also a moderate base salary + performance option reward. Reducing fixed labor costs can give more equity option incentives, but this future expected income needs everyone to fight and gamble in order to have future unexpected returns!