Heaven does not necessarily reward diligence, and deep thinking is more important than diligence.

20 1 1 in July, Xiaomi received a series investment of USD 4 1 10,000, which was jointly invested by Morningstar Venture Capital, Qi Ming, IDG and the founding team. It was valued at $250 million.

20 14 and 12 in the fifth round of financing, Xiaomi is valued at $46 billion! Now the valuation of Xiaomi should have increased again.

According to preliminary estimates, investors in Series A have earned nearly 200 times and billions of dollars.

The following is the speech of Morningstar Capital Liu Qin:

I want to tell a story. I met Lei Jun in 2003. Before 20 10 invested in Xiaomi, the two of us had about six or seven years of friend experience. I forget what year this story happened, maybe 2007, maybe 2006, maybe 2008.

Once, I forgot what the reason was. Lei Jun called me and said, "I have always felt that your investment has its own uniqueness. Can you tell me how to be a successful investor? " Why can you invest well? "

The answer I gave him at that time was, "I believe I am extremely diligent." I believe that heaven rewards diligence! I believe that if you are diligent, you will be a very good investor. "I thought this answer could be at least partially recognized by Lei Jun, but I didn't expect that he gave me a surprise feedback. The answer is that God does not necessarily reward hard work.

This view gave me great stimulation at that time. I am beginning to understand that diligence may be necessary, but it is not enough.

This realization, maybe I can share another interesting story with you, is a book. This book can be found on Douban, called Alien. In Douban's book review, there is an introduction: in Alien, the writer Gladwell's analysis of those successful people in society shows readers a series of quite unexpected statistical results: most players in the Premier League were born from September to11; Bill Gates and Steve Jobs were both born in1955; The founders of many famous law firms in new york are descendants of Jews, and most of their ancestors lived in the clothing industry in new york.

Why are there these strange statistical results?

I can give you some more examples. Yesterday, I checked a few more online: There are several successful entrepreneurs in the rich list, and I will give you an age report. Robin Li was born in June 1968+0 1, Lei Jun 1969 12, Zhou 1970 10, and Ding Lei197/kloc-0. Slightly different, Ma Yun was born in June of 1964+00.

Let me give you another example. I am a 98-year-old student in Central Europe. The' 98 graduates from Central Europe are very interesting. When I returned to Central Europe, I heard such a joke. Many students and teachers have asked you if the class of 98 graduates have any special genes. You see, there are many venture capitalists in your class, such as Liu Qin, Shi Jianming and Yue Ji from Sequoia Capital, Chen Wenjiang from China and Chen Hang from Cultural Venture Fund. There are also a few who are one level higher than us, 97.

Why are they all Grade 97 or Grade 98? Is there anything special about our genes? What I want to share with you most is that sometimes it is not reliable to rely solely on diligence. Opportunity is very important. But as an entrepreneur, it is difficult to seize the opportunity. It is important that you find this opportunity.

In fact, Jobs and Bill Gates were born in 1955. When they dropped out of college, the PC industry was just beginning. Why 1969, 1970, 197 1 age group have the most PC Internet entrepreneurs? Because they had just been working for two or three years that year. You graduated too early. For example, Lei Jun is a generation of software, and he has been entangled in his Kingsoft. You were born too late, and you are still in college, so you have no chance to think about the opportunity of starting a business.

I graduated from CEIBS 1998, followed by Internet Wave 1999. It's not because I'm smart, it's not because I'm diligent, so opportunities are more important. But opportunity is not luck. Opportunity is your deep thinking about the trend of entrepreneurial environment. Deep thinking is more important than your diligence! It's just that most opportunities are used passively. Only a few entrepreneurs actively judge and seize opportunities. This is another point I share with you: "Heaven does not necessarily reward diligence! Deep thinking is more important than hard work! "

It is difficult to be an early founder of a company. Because it's hard to explain to employees when you face them. The company may only have three months' salary, or even where the salary will come from after three months. I don't know. You can't share this fact with them. You must also tell them that you are doing a very great thing. In fact, you don't even know what to do tomorrow.

Second, you can't share it with your investors. Because not all investors have the courage to hear the truth. You can't stand in the spotlight and share your entrepreneurial story with the media. All you say is your charm, but in fact, your pressure is unbearable.

This kind of loneliness is inherent in an entrepreneur. And the more successful entrepreneurs are, the more lonely they feel at work. Why? If you don't succeed, you may change offices after failure and start a new career two years later. If you succeed, you are tired of success, and you have a halo. Everyone thinks that you should continue to be more successful. This aura makes you feel more lonely.

Therefore, the recognition of investors and letting entrepreneurs put down this so-called burden are essentially what entrepreneurs need most. In fact, it doesn't matter if the investor gives you a file of money. Investing in a file of money is really because it is congenial to you and is your recognition.

It's just that investors give them this recognition with real wages that will be paid in three months. So, look at those really good investors. Deep down, they respect entrepreneurs very much.

They understand from the bottom of their hearts that their status is not condescending, they are equal, and even the status of entrepreneurs is higher. Therefore, as an entrepreneur, what you really need is an investor who can identify with you, not a check. I am a nobody, but I love starting a business. I know how to help entrepreneurs in China succeed. This is real wealth. This is the real value of the mainstream society. Therefore, recognition is extremely important. Entrepreneurship needs something of value.

Everyone here may have heard my speeches in other places. I once mentioned that the most important vision of starting a business is to answer three key "empty" questions. "Who am I? Where is the land I come from? Where am I going? "

But I don't think I will talk about other issues today. I want to talk about one thing today. These three questions are actually not empty at all, not empty at all, not big at all. Because our most critical questions are captured from the core details of the clues. So look at the big picture from the small.

Let me share one or two examples with you. In 2007, I decided to invest in UCweb. Many people don't understand why you want to invest in UCweb, a mobile browser. Because it's valuable. It puts a so-called classified navigation directory on the browser, which is called URL navigation.

I can't figure out why Yahoo first appeared in the United States-this is a manual classified navigation list-and then Google appeared, erasing the value of the whole Yahoo. But in China, there was Baidu first, but many years later, a navigation page called hao 123 appeared. Why?

I think this is a very interesting phenomenon. Yahoo, one of the most original artificial classified lists, has greatly promoted the development of the Internet in the United States. It is easy to be replaced by a search engine company like Google. In China, we have always stressed that China has a "late-comer advantage", but after the emergence of Baidu search engine, why is there artificial classification?

There is a very, very interesting core detail. This shows that a large number of netizens in China don't know how to use pinyin, keyboards or even search engines. It is very simple to type a word in Latin letters to search, but it is very difficult for China to write Chinese characters in Pinyin and enter the search box.

This shows that, first, traffic is very core in the Internet; Second, the realization of traffic is not necessarily pure China copying the United States.

In 2007, there was no Android and no iPhone. 2007 is the Saipan era. The characteristic of Saipan is that it is more painful to input Chinese characters with mobile phone keyboard. It's more painful to hold down the search box with the mobile phone keyboard. So we found that our answer is simple. UCweb is the core of traffic aggregation in Saipan wireless Internet era in 2007.

This is the core point of our investment in UCweb in 2007. The core point of this decision comes from our thinking about an unremarkable phenomenon hao 123. So I want to say here that as an entrepreneur, when you plan your entrepreneurial vision, you should not capture some concepts, but understand the core details of your core market. See the big from the small. Many great entrepreneurs are inspired by some details you neglected, and some clues and details hide many useful insights.

Insight is the source of your vision. I have met many excellent entrepreneurs, whether Zhou, Lei Jun or Ma, who are very insightful. These insights are captured from clues that ordinary people ignore.

"In a threesome, there must be a teacher." Actually, I think everyone understands. But in fact, the most important thing in A threesome is: Who are you going with?

Why am I bringing this up? Because in the early days, when we talked about starting a business, we generally said that it depends on your team, your team's execution and the importance of the team.

How to judge a team? Many people are asking me, and I have talked to all my friends. I said, "I'll see what kind of wife you marry and what kind of girlfriend you find." In fact, there is a very important point in this. Who you associate with determines your Excellence.

What kind of person your entrepreneurial partner is determines the quality of your entrepreneurial team. "In a threesome, there must be a teacher." We should learn to learn from the people around us.

In the process of starting my own business, I have learned a lot from the founders who have invested for many years. So today, if I don't think about starting a business, when you form a team, are you willing to form a group of people you can easily convince and admire as your entrepreneurial team, or try to find better people than you to support your entrepreneurship?

In fact, whether an entrepreneur has excellent team skills depends on what kind of people you associate with.

Therefore, a threesome must have a teacher. More importantly, with whom! Lei Jun, the founder of Xiaomi, is famous in the industry. 20 10 when talking to me, he said he wanted to set up a different startup. "I want to diversify my equity, because I need enough and as many outstanding talents as possible. We didn't do anything in the first ten months of Xiaomi, but only did one thing: find someone. "

In fact, many people find it difficult to find someone. In fact, first of all, I want to ask you, do you deeply understand that "a threesome must have my teacher." Who will be your teacher? Everyone is your teacher. Who are you with? So in this matter, first of all, you should try to find the best you can get. The degree of Excellence determines how excellent your team is. It doesn't mean that if you are good enough, you must find someone worse than you. This is a misunderstanding that many entrepreneurs are willing to find some ordinary people who are easily persuaded.

Many people say that I can't handle those excellent people. I agree, it is difficult to deal with excellent people. But this is another sentence I gave you. "Leadership comes from impartial self-knowledge, empty cup mentality and integration of knowledge and practice." In this regard, in fact, many people think that the charm of leadership comes from your achievements and your fame. I don't think so either.

True leadership, first of all, you should lead a team, and you should lead yourself. If you want to be a fair and just leader, you must first be fair and just to yourself. Impartial self-knowledge is an extremely difficult thing.

So until today, I have never considered myself a successful investor. I just want to say that I am an investor who loves investment and entrepreneurship. Good and just self-knowledge, not only see yourself clearly, but also don't think highly of yourself. When you are impartial and honest with yourself, you will find that people around you are gathered around you. Because they realize that you are a trustworthy leader.

Second, the empty cup mentality. For many excellent successful businessmen, entrepreneurs with special ideas don't rely on your loud voice, but learn to let go of the quality and ability of listening. Listening is more important than anything. Learn to be honest and simple. So for some excellent teams, the best management is not to manage! Not managing them is to turn them into self-driven teams, and everyone can manage themselves well. Efficient teams come from self-driving, not KPI indicators.

Third, how to achieve "extraordinary integrity"? Subtraction is the most important quality of a startup. Many times, especially in the Internet industry, the pursuit of the ultimate. Internet is an industry that summarizes everything from point to point. Internet is a place where word of mouth can change the whole industry pattern. It is extremely difficult to put all the resources of the company on the core point. This is my last point.

In fact, the Internet is a place where subversion and innovation take place every day. There are many innovative ideas every day, but I also want to say that now I see that many excellent people in the internet industry can't do great things. The reason is that it is extremely difficult for them to be surprisingly honest because of constant surprises.

It's amazing how to be honest. This is what I observed during my contact with Zhou. Zhou is a controversial person, but his understanding of Internet traffic is extremely profound. He used to be a rogue software. He wondered what he could do to get back to an amazing upright position.

I don't think I will start today. I just want you to think and compare. The week before Qihoo is different from the week after Qihoo. I think what is surprising is a very important factor in the Internet industry.

There are many young entrepreneurs here. You are all very creative, but how can you put creativity in a more eye-catching position?

The first and most important thing is making products, not doing business. Don't just do traffic conversion income, not core user value. A good company can create real long-term value. Many people say that Xiaomi mobile phone is a company that can hype and do marketing. How many people really understand that Xiaomi is such a geek company?

He put all his resources in the market, trying to provide users with the best value, the best cost performance and the best experience. The fans he created are inseparable from his products. Therefore, it is a very important point in the Internet industry.

When we choose investment opportunities, we pay more attention to outstanding entrepreneurs. In addition, we will also consider three key questions: Is this big enough? Did you seize a right opportunity and cut into a trend opportunity? Can this company form a moat effect for a long time?

The first key question is whether this matter is big enough. If you start a business today and choose this direction, you should ask yourself if you have room for development and ambition.

Whether you quit with RMB100000 or USD1000000, it basically takes 6-8 years (basically, it takes 6-8 years for us to invest in an enterprise on average). The founders invested the same amount of time and energy when they started the company, and they also faced the same problems and pains. Since I quit at the same time, why not choose some big enough opportunities?

The second question is, did you seize a right opportunity and cut into a trend opportunity? Timing is more difficult than choosing a direction, so it is important to step on the right point.

It's too early, this market opportunity hasn't arrived yet, and you will find that you are in pain. 90% of failed companies are not the problem of direction and volume, and most of them may be the problem of premature time. Three or five steps ahead of the broader market, and can't persist in the broader market. You can't lead too early, you'd better lead by 0.5 step. Of course, it's too late. If the market is very hot, it usually means the Red Sea, and it is already late.

The last key question is whether it can be sustainable and form a competitive barrier for a long time. A good business model and a good company, time is a friend, which means that with the passage of time, your competition barriers are getting higher and higher, and the moat is getting stronger and stronger. This is sustainable development.

Entrepreneurs should have two core competencies: one is a sharp killer temperament, which is called setting an example; The other is that you have missionary ability and can gather a group of awesome people.

The temperament of a killer. Solving the shortcomings in the company's business development is like fighting a war. If you want to win this mountain, you must have the ability to win the first place among millions of troops. The development of the company is a long board and barrel effect, so the most important ability of entrepreneurs is killer temperament and the ability to make up for shortcomings. You should keep changing, you can do what you lack, you are not necessarily the best, but you should have the ability to solve shortcomings from 0 to 1. Although you are not a professional, you will always be the one who rushed to the front line.

What is a missionary? It is the ability to think deeply, which affects what kind of excellent people are with you. Missionaries must preach when you don't believe me. So what kind of people are gathered around you can basically measure your thoughts. If the people below you are thoughtful people, it must be that your ideas are bigger than theirs. If you can shake them down, you can achieve a very strong success with 1+ 1 greater than 2. Lei Jun is one of the best.

In a word, entrepreneurs should have these two abilities: first, they must set an example at 0 to 1, make up for the shortcomings of the company, and promote business quickly. The second is missionary ability and charm. Your charm comes from your ideas. Both are indispensable, and it is difficult for a lone hero to succeed today.