Author：Tai / Xing Mo
“Entrepreneurs have to be bad guys.”
This is what seniors always tell newcomers.
Today, we’re going to tell you a story about entrepreneurs and villains.
In the eyes of old friends, entrepreneurs turn on their faces faster than they turn on their books
Entrepreneurs don’t have many old friends.
Because everyone’s background is so similar, and the path of starting a business is so different, just as the saying goes, “peers are enemies.” Do you still dare to make friends with your peers?
On the other hand, according to Luogic Show’s co-founder, most entrepreneurs are too busy starting their own businesses to socialize and make friends, and relationships with old friends tend to fade.
Typically, for entrepreneurs，time is measured in seconds and hours, and they’re much more productive than the average person, so they’re not working at the same pace.
In China, in particular, the fight between start-up companies is fierce. In the past, Internet companies mostly focused on business model innovation. This means that the bar is low. As long as there is a viable business model, hundreds of similar startup projects will emerge, and the homogenization competition will be severe, such as various taxi apps before, as well as the community O2O. In this case, the key to winning is operating and quickly taking over the market. The competition between entrepreneurs is getting more and more intense. With the help of capital, the time for winning or losing has been shortened to one year or even half a year. In both the size of the financing and the subsidy markets, a bit of levity would mean a defeat for the sector.
As one investor quipped, Chinese entrepreneurs have the greatest execution, and companies that can survive in a homogenized competitive environment in China can survive well in any foreign market because they have fought tough battles.
The warrior is destined to be lonely because he dares not have any leisure.
Unless one day he takes a break, such as the founder’s unexpected death, there will always be a war.
In front of employees: the CEO is always the one playing the bad guy
The much-discussed article, ” the workplace doesn’t believe in tears, and if you want to cry, just go home” shows that the topic of the workplace is always a hot topic.
In the workplace, result orientation always come first.
No one can see how bitter, how tired, how hard you are, but only to see if your results are perfect.
In this context, from the starting point to the final result orientation, as a team, it is inevitable that the leader’s serious face and severity will be indispensable, otherwise there will be no result. Just like the principle of “sticks and bread”, under the lure of bread, sticks are needed to manage the system.
Of course, such a way is far more effective than human interest to make enterprises go far. After all, a company can only talk about its future and dreams if it survives or develops. No bread, no ideal.
This has been proved in the start-up world.
Among entrepreneurs, there are a lot of people that are remarked as “good guys”, such as Nian Chan, Chaoyang Zhang, Zhang Huang, Yonghao Luo, who have strong fan bases, and most of the time they were evaluated for the market of the few people with feelings——Zhang Huang’s Geek Fan ‘s pursuit of products is not denied; Every reflection of Nian Chen is moved to tears. Chaoyang Zhang’s tolerance is so impressive that he still has a high rating among former employees. Yonghao Luo ‘s indignant temperament is not to mention. But why did the companies led by these “good guys” end up with problems?
Of course, there are many problems, such as strategy, that we cannot generalize. But one important reason we can’t ignore is that they lack Wolf traits.
Just like the old saying goes ”business is business.”
In a previous interview with reporters, Gongquan Wang said he was especially moved after watching Chen’s autobiography, while the next seconds he decided not to invest in Chen again.
Feelings do not equal business. Just as in TV drama “Silicon Valley”, the founder quit his good friend, big head, who had been supporting him but didn’t have any work achievements, when the company prepared to get financing. Although it was painful, it was a business.
The founder always has to play the role of such a bad guy in the company.
Either he dies or I die.
Good people with feelings need to be supported by sticks.
In front of investors: dancing with wolves
Although angel investment is known as angel, remember, capital is not angel, and investment is expected to return.
Although in many cases, the investor claims to be the entrepreneur’s good friend, the prerequisite is that you help him make money.
One investor once said openly that if an entrepreneur can help me make money and his company has great growth potential in the future, then I can be very good friends with you. However, if your project fails to attract me, then I’m sorry that I have limited time.
That’s the investment logic.
This is because the money of investment institutions is raised rather than own it. If they can’t make money for the LP, the first to die are the investment institutions.
Therefore, for the founder, how to dance with wolves in the process of entrepreneurship is a knowledge.
It’s not good to go too close and better keeping a certain distance; But if you’re too far away and people aren’t familiar with you, they’re afraid to invest in you.
As a result, the relationship between a startup and an investment institution is subtle and, of course, realistic and brutal — it’s hard to prove yourself if you don’t have a strong background in BAT or foreign unicorns, especially before your business model has been tested by other markets.
XiaoHu Zhu from GSR Ventures have repeatedly mentioned that he is not the first investor met Wei Cheng. At that time, Didi’s model was not understood by many investors. When Zhu invested in Didi, there was no competition at all, so he became Didi’s round A investor. Later, with the development of Didi, it emerged that famous investors grabbed shares in round F. In the process, Wei Cheng, who was not understood before, has led Didi to become a super unicorn.
Similarly with DJI-innovations, now in the ascendant, that has faced questions from investors as it started raising capital.
The goal of entrepreneurs and investors is to get what they need from each other.
As a result, investors are unlikely to stay with entrepreneurs all the way. Luogic Show, which previously promoted and planned the first we-media Show for Papi, chose to get off in less than nine months after investment. Although it is said that they will focus on “getting” new media, on the other hand, it can be seen that withdrawing from Papi at this time is also a business choice for investors after the amount of broadcasting on the whole network started to fall below the average and the number of reward dropped.
Investors will usually be the icing on the cake, rather than provide timely help. Entrepreneurs should know early on that they can only rely on themselves and their team, and that no one else is reliable.
