Let the elephant fly

Standing on the tuyere, pigs can fly. In fact, before things happen, taking off is not that simple, so how can pigs and even elephants on the tuyere take off smoothly? Look at Hoffman's key six steps:

The first step is to find the right direction, find the right wave and start over.

1. In fact, technology is not as important as imagined. Success lies in the innovation of business model and changing the relationship between people, such as Amazon and WeChat.

2. Inventors have created new technologies in history, but rarely achieved commercial success. Tesla invented the generator, but he was poor all his life. The ultimate success is a creative businessman like Edison, who is good at absorbing inventors' inventions and transforming them, making them more suitable for the needs of the market and users and transforming technology into practical products.

Great ideas come from trying to solve the problems around us. Great things start with the little things around you. Discover the tiny creative points around you. For example, Zuckerberg, the founder of facebook, is trying to solve the problem of making friends in reality caused by his introversion.

4. Many products begin with imitation. Starting from imitation, but not limited to imitation, "shine on you is Better than Blue" is innovative in imitation. For example, today's BAT in China started from imitation.

new concept

Timing and doing the right thing at the right time are the most important factors for the success of start-ups.

The diversity and combination of talent culture can stimulate creativity.

Creative businessmen, people who realize the transformation from technology to products, are represented by Edison in history.

Step two, get ready to sail. How to form an entrepreneurial team?

1, the entrepreneurial team must be limited to five people. The bigger the team, the better. Large teams often face the problem of inefficiency. On the contrary, the smaller the team, the fewer the team members, and the better and easier the cooperation and communication in the team will be. The interpersonal relationship between members will be closer. Bezos, the founder of Amazon, once had a famous "two pizza theory". If the entrepreneurial team can't feed two pizzas, then this number is too big.

2, but the number of people does not mean that the less the better. There are four key talents in the team members, namely:

CEO leader, communicator, take overall responsibility;

CTO technical officer, responsible for implementing the technical aspects of the innovation plan;

Designers, optimizing products, planning user experience design;

Experts, scholars or senior members in a certain field with doctoral degrees have their own strengths.

3. Make good use of innovation sprint and deadline. The innovation sprint is represented by the "hackathon", which allows the innovation team to carry out short-term and high-intensity innovation activities, and requires continuous work in a short time, such as 48 hours, to give full play to its potential, explore new ideas and solve new problems. This can often produce miraculous effects and quickly stimulate potential. In addition, human beings are naturally lazy, and everyone has procrastination since deadline. Therefore, there should be a good deadline to increase the pressure on team members.

The more money, the better. Too much money may be poison. When financing, you need to understand that there are five types of capital investment:

Venture capital, with a large amount of investment and high requirements for the scale of start-ups, pursues unicorns and does not make small investments;

Angels and seeds don't need unicorns, so quit early.

Enterprise investment;

Self-realization;

Internal innovation.

5. There are five criteria for identifying opportunities and discovering opportunities in investment, which are the key objectives of investors. There are several dimensions to consider whether an entrepreneurial project can really succeed.

The team needs to be excellent, and the founder is enterprising.

Customers should like this product. It takes a hundred people to scream at the product (real heartfelt love), not a million people. Because of the evaluation, I like it a little, not bad.

There is a secret recipe. Coca-Cola, McDonald's and other products have secret recipes, which are great advantages in the competition. Non-food industry can also have its own secret recipe, which is the unique gene and core advantage of enterprises.

In addition, products can provide excellent customer experience, and the market should focus on the special, but it has the potential to expand. For example, sentimental products, airnb heroism mass production.

Finally, investment can help innovation and entrepreneurship take off, but not the more the better. Small companies can start businesses lean. Trial and error, verify the reflection adjustment. The high-capital team must complete the task step by step according to the established business plan, according to the fixed rhythm and thinking, which will lead to the team losing flexibility and unable to adjust its turn in time.

New concept.

Innovation sprint, short time and high intensity, brainstorming;

Innovate the rest period and organically combine fast and slow thinking;

Mvp, the simplest and most feasible product. Only provide core value, even if it is not perfect, meet with customers as soon as possible, get feedback and start iteration.

The third step is to build products. Love it, but not too much. Break three common business myths. Because it is fundamentally wrong.

1, cost reduction is the key to the success of meager profit business. United Airlines, which is trying to reduce staff costs, is being overtaken by the cheap Southwest Airlines, which has the highest salary expenses.

2. Giving bonuses can make employees work better. Although bonus can promote the short-term improvement of production efficiency, it is followed by the overall decline of production efficiency. Because bonuses make employees pay more attention to external financial returns, rather than the work value itself.

3. Investigating the responsibility of staff can reduce human error. Once accountability becomes possible, employees will cover up their mistakes and lead to greater losses. A better way is to encourage everyone to openly discuss the mistakes they made and make overall improvements to reduce the possibility of mistakes happening again.

Design innovation to solve practical problems for customers. Good design should produce painkillers for customers, not vitamins, to meet their most urgent needs, not icing on the cake or gilding the lily. Good products can directly solve customers' real problems.

Keep a clear head on products to prevent "taking care of one thing and losing another". If you love your products too much, you can't see the defects and you can only stand still. In order to solve this problem, you should push the product to the market in time and get the feedback from users in time so as to adjust and correct it. In fact, the product is still very simple and immature. You should also show customers its core content, let customers pay a reward and adjust in time when they hear their voices.

New concept:

Manufacturer's trap: manufacturers will have feelings for products, and they can't objectively evaluate them, so they can only get deeper and deeper.

IKEA Effect: I like my product, even if it is obviously not professional enough.

The fourth step is to lock in the market and get to know customers deeply.

1. User suggestions are the source of inspiration for innovation. What kind of results should customers want to ask the right questions correctly? What kind of more comfortable product experience do you get?

2. Find more collaborators and use data to reflect creativity. Using good data, useful data can verify business ideas. There are many ways to search data, such as Google keyword tools, Google trends, friends and family, customer interviews, blogs and social networks, analyzing competitors, logging in to web pages, AB testing, advertising, crowdfunding, pre-purchasing pages, explaining videos, directional prototypes, virtual MVPs, managed MVPs and so on.

3. Pay attention to the real value obtained by customers, rather than superstitious "net recommended value". (The high net recommended value may be industries that burn more money, such as * * * enjoying bicycles. )

New concept: net recommended value, high-value users.

The fifth step is the secret of continuous innovation and lasting success.

The development of enterprises is dynamic and cannot be achieved overnight. We must constantly innovate and rely on internal innovation to obtain a steady stream of development momentum. Therefore, we should use employees' unique ideas to establish an innovative corporate culture.

1. Celebrate new innovations and innovative behaviors.

2. Encourage employees to report beyond their own level, which is the characteristic behavior of creative elites.

3. * * * Enjoy leadership responsibility and let employees think and work like leaders.

4. Actively motivate employees and encourage them to participate in the company's innovation process.

The sixth step is to run at a high speed and lead the market.

1, speed means everything, only fast and unbreakable. You have to restart again and again and iterate quickly. For example, facebook has efficient internal operations and fast product iteration. Every iteration is an opportunity to learn to act quickly, fail quickly and iterate quickly.

2, but also to maintain the diversity of the team, while allowing team members to break through the boundaries. All members have different visions, ideas and backgrounds, and all members should be 100% involved.

3. Seven magic weapons to be a winner. Seven unfair competitive advantages are also seven magic weapons for the success of start-ups, namely:

The products you expect are good and provide more value to customers, so as to seize and maintain customers. Case: The emergence of iPhone is more than ten times higher than that of traditional mobile phones.

(2) Develop brand-new markets and define brand-new product classifications for new products. For example, * * * enjoys cycling, delivers meals online, and has a flower e-commerce, all of which have opened up a brand-new market.

The first person to subvert the market and become the first person to subvert the market with new technologies and new models. Wechat subverts short messages.

④ Make good use of the field network effect. The more users there are on the Internet, the faster the business value grows. For example, an app, with users taking users, quickly opened the customer base.

⑤ Obtain exclusive distribution rights and establish exclusive rights through various ways and relationships. For example, PetroChina and Sinopec have monopoly positions in the oil market.

6. Lock in long-term customers. The longer customers use it, the harder it is to leave your product. People will not easily change their mobile phone numbers, because the numbers carry their own personal resources.

⑦ Establish a brand, enter the market before others, establish a brand and meet the demand. For example, LV, Nike, Coca-Cola, Apple and other world-famous brands have become unshakable unique advantages, and the brands themselves are priceless.

New concept: diversification.

In a word, throughout the book, this is only the author's experience, and can't be generalized. The specific situation depends on the actual situation. But here are six very instructive entrepreneurial secrets:

First, find the right direction. Second, build a team. Third, polish the product. Fourth, lock in the market. Fifth, continuous innovation. Sixth, high-speed operation.