Entrepreneurship, I have also failed essay

As a person born in the 1980s, he said that his success in starting a business was lucky. He had no plan for four years in college, but he founded Walnut Forest. He left the company at the age of 24 to study for graduate school, and dropped out of Tsinghua University at the age of 25. He became the "big brother" of the company, and then resigned sadly, which became the "first failure" in his life... He is Li Shubin, CEO of the well-known shoe shopping website "Haolemai", an 80-year-old with legendary entrepreneurial experience. Post-university person.

The first pot of gold in college

Speaking of Li Shubin, we have to start from 1998, when he went to college. That year, Li Shubin, who lives in Dandong, Liaoning Province, originally applied for Tsinghua University, but because he was just a few points short, he was transferred to the management major of the then Beijing Broadcasting Institute (now Communication University of China).

Like many college students, Li Shubin bought a computer when he arrived at university, but not for studying but for playing games. Unexpectedly, he originally wanted to become a game master, but because of his old computer lag, he was often "abandoned" by his roommates in gaming battles. So, to pass the time, Li Shubin downloaded some software from the Internet to study, and thus learned programming, website making and flash animation production. Later, a friend participated in a web page competition with the animation he produced, and won the first prize and a bonus of 500 yuan. Li Shubin also shared some money. This sweetness gave rise to the idea of ????making money through animation production, so he contacted several design companies and offered to work part-time, which was of course welcomed by the bosses.

Around 2000, it was a period of rapid development of the domestic Internet. China's three major portals, Sohu, Sina, and NetEase, were successfully listed on the NASDAQ in the United States. Two years later, Sohu was the first to announce profits, followed by The design company born at this time is also an industry with a high profit rate. Driven by a high rate of return, Li Shubin spent an afternoon making a thirty-second animation. Unexpectedly, his boss liked it so much that he passed it after one or two attempts. Due to long-term projects outside the school, his income quickly increased from the initial "extra money" of a few thousand yuan to tens of thousands of yuan, and he became the richest boy in the department.

Speaking of this, Li Shubin had a bad smile on his face: "Actually, they didn't let me do it later. They said that my animation had copyright issues everywhere, which led to them all being sued." He admitted frankly that due to the lack of elements, the animation he made was assembled from tens of thousands of well-known foreign materials, so infringement became inevitable. However, he gradually discovered that doing animation was actually very tiring physical work, so he gave up designing. At this time, he had already entered his junior year and made a simple plan for his life: go abroad, take the postgraduate entrance examination, study for a master's degree, study for a doctorate, and finally become a manager in a multinational company. As a result, he began to prepare for going abroad. It was not until the "911 Incident" that shocked the world that his dream of going abroad was shattered and his career plan failed.

The most successful thing about the university

In 1999, online forums entered the Warring States Period. Online forums, large and small, continued to appear, and various classified and refined online communities emerged. Xici Hutong, the community Tianya, and the global Chinese virtual community chinaren also flourished during this period. College students who have the most time and are the quickest to encounter new things have also established their own campus bbs. For example, Tsinghua has Shuimu Tsinghua bbs, and Peking University has Weiming bbs. Although Guangyuan University at that time had a good hardware environment, there was no bbs. , which prompted Li Shubin to start thinking about how to set up his own university's BBS - which he named "Walnut Grove Community". He also thought at the time that there were so many beauties in Guangyuan, and that after the community was built, it could provide a communication platform for more college students and create opportunities for making friends. However, Li Shubin could only do animation but not write programs. What should he do? After many twists and turns, he finally contacted the only science and engineering laboratory in the school. After negotiations, the laboratory finally agreed to help him write programs. Soon, Walnut Grove The community was finally officially established and soon developed into a community with visits ranging from less than 10,000 people per day to 200,000 people per day. Its audience not only covers Guangzhou University, but also students from Tsinghua University, Peking University and even foreign universities. Many people have met, fallen in love and got married because of it. Later, for a while, it became a common thing for Li Shubin to be invited to attend weddings.

Zhou Hongyi, chairman of 360 Company, once said: College students lack two things most, one is time and the other is hormones.

It can be said that Li Shubin made good use of these two things. He used the former to learn flash animation production to earn extra money and earn his first pot of gold. He also used the latter to establish a famous campus BBS community-Walnut Grove, which became a popular place for college students to make friends. land. He himself recalled: "I think the most successful thing in college is doing this thing, and I attend many such weddings every year. Making their money is meaningless, but changing their destiny and giving them happiness is more meaningful." Maybe. This provides business opportunities for dating websites such as "Lily" and "Jiayuan". At a roundtable forum, the host also ridiculed Li Shubin and Lily.com CEO Tian Fanjiang, saying: "Li Shubin seems to be more suitable to be the CEO of Lily.com."

The first failure in life

As he was about to graduate, Li Shubin ushered in an important turning point in his life: in the second semester of his senior year, by chance, Li Shubin successfully applied for an e-commerce company and became an e-commerce company. He was the programmer of "Souyide" later. Not long after, Li Shubin, who had just graduated from the renamed Communication University of China, served as CTO and participated in the establishment of the company that had been renamed "Souyide". In the same year, Patriot acquired Souyide. While working, Li Shubin was admitted to Tsinghua University as a graduate student majoring in computer science, but he still chose to participate in company affairs while attending school. But what I didn't expect was that two years later, "Souyide" was faced with the embarrassing situation that franchisees no longer paid to renew their contracts and the management team resigned on a large scale.

In this way, Li Shubin, who was a graduate student in computer science at Tsinghua University, fell into confusion again. Moreover, the purely theoretical courses for graduate students were completely contrary to his own direction of being good at applying knowledge. At this time, Feng Jun, the founder of Patriot, found Li Shubin. Li Shubin was only 25 years old at the time and was about to become the "leading brother" of Soyide. After Feng Jun's all-night conversation, the final agreement was reached: Li Shubin would pay for 5% of the company's shares and "manage" SouyiDe himself. In 2006, Li Shubin dropped out of Tsinghua University to become the president of Soyide. At this time, "Souyide" was facing difficulties such as tight funds, high personnel costs, and the mall model had reached a dead end. In order to turn things around, Li Shubin successively took measures such as "layoffs, closing branches, and adjusting the business model" to make the original The company with more than 120 employees laid off more than 40 people and closed all branches. After eight months of suffering, Li Shubin was exhausted mentally and physically, and Sou Yi De failed to come back to life in the end.

In 2005, the effectiveness of the four major portal malls continued to decline, but the buyout fees continued to rise. A few franchisees provided substandard products that damaged the reputation of "Souyide". Gome, large and medium-sized enterprises Crazy price wars have caused fatal wounds to Souyidu. In 2006, Li Shubin's team failed to win the bidding in the portal mall, and the franchisees dispersed in droves. From then on, "Souyide" failed to recover and the trend was over. In early August of the same year, Li Shubin officially completed the resignation procedures and resigned sadly.

"To be honest, they (Feng Jun and others) are quite calm. They also see that I am not capable of doing a good job in 'Souyide'. Maybe they are just waiting for me, or they have not found the right person." That’s all. Before that, I thought I was very capable, but in the end I felt that I was actually only good at doing things related to products. For a 25-year-old young man, I am not bad at all in terms of company management. I don’t have enough experience, but what I gained is that I have a deeper understanding of why the company failed. The boss can’t do everything in the company just by saying a few words, and it doesn’t mean that the boss can do it well just because he wants to work hard. , there are too many things that need to be coordinated.”

On September 17, 2010, Li Shubin, who has become the CEO of "HaoleBuy", calmly recalled the various experiences of 6 years ago and said, "This is the first failure in his life."

Conversation with Li Shubin

Reporter: Why did you drop out of school to become the CEO of Souyi De as a graduate student who finally got admitted to Tsinghua University? What did you think about it at the time?

Li Shubin: I don’t think the two are comparable. After finishing graduate school, you have to find a job, but if you don’t go to graduate school and become a boss directly, you may not have such an opportunity after completing graduate school. The opportunity is very short-lived. The situation at that time was that the boss of Soyide left and had such an opportunity. If there was a new boss, I would not have such an opportunity. Secondly, a company that was not familiar with me would not ask me to be the CEO. In this company, I would stay After three years of graduate school, if I was just a fresh graduate, I would not have had such an opportunity.

I thought that after taking over as CEO, the company would move from a sluggish state to a very good state. In fact, it would be impossible to get out of the predicament. I was 25 years old at the time, and it was difficult to do well as a CEO of a company at this age.

Reporter: Seeing that your college life was in an unplanned state, with no clear career plan but your entrepreneurship ultimately achieved great success, do you think you are lucky?

< p> Li Shubin: There must be some luck, 30% to 70%. Luck accounts for at least 30% to 40%, maybe xx, or even higher. But it also requires personal ability to support me. If I didn’t know how to program when I was in school, Soyide wouldn’t have approached me. Programming and writing programs laid a certain foundation for me to start a business. If you want to start an Internet company, if you can’t write programs or design, and you only have tens of thousands of dollars, you can’t afford to hire a programmer. Starting a business How can we succeed? There is definitely a cost of trial and error in starting a business. If you don’t even have the cost of 50,000 yuan to make a trial and error, on the other hand, if you know some programming and design, the cost of trial and error is zero, which is the lowest cost. Therefore, one of the most basic abilities of an entrepreneur is: you can do it without hiring anyone.

Reporter: What do you think is the unique feature of your entrepreneurial success? Or what are your unique qualities?

Li Shubin: I don’t like to ask for help. I try my best to do what I can do by myself. Because I don’t want to deal with others, if I ask someone for help and can’t achieve the effect I want, I feel embarrassed to say that the effect will not be good if I just make do with it. It’s better to do what I think is best. Entrepreneurship is actually not a very advanced thing. Don’t think about defeating Baidu. It is still possible to do something practical and practical. For example, making a website is very simple. There are only two or three people in the early stage of the company. Entrepreneurship is required to have the skills. The most basic level of ability to get things done, but when the company you start a business grows to hundreds of people, it will definitely not work if you are still doing the most basic things.

Reporter: Internet entrepreneurs all have one characteristic: either they have a technical background or a management background? In the Internet industry, the threshold for college students to start a business is relatively low?

Li Shubin : Yes, compared with traditional industries, the Internet has a relatively low threshold for college students. Anyone can do it. Many projects are done by one or two people. I am more inclined to technical performance. Like Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Lei, Robin Li, Ma Huateng, and Zhou Hongyi are all programmers. It is easier for people with a technical background to start a business, but Jack Ma is an exception. He comes from a management background, but Jack Ma has a group of people who will follow him to death. The Eighteen Arhats. If you are a grassroots entrepreneur with a management background, you may encounter the embarrassment of reality, and it will take a long time to establish a management foundation. As a young man, how can you have such a great personality and charm, and let one or two people who are engaged in technology and products follow you? And you can't give people so much money? If your management background reaches a very advanced level, and you start a business, it will be easy for a group of technical talents to follow you, or you can successfully get venture capital. If it is a technical entrepreneurship, you will have the innate advantage of technology, and you can do a large part of the work yourself. For example, in technical entrepreneurship, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs and their partners are all engineers, so the cost of starting a business is very low.

Reporter: Nowadays, more and more college students are starting their own businesses, but few are successful. What conditions do you think college students need to start their own businesses?

Li Shubin: First of all, the economic conditions must be good. If you have no income and no place to live, how can you start a business? Therefore, if you want to start a business, the family conditions are relatively loose, because people tend to do some drastic actions when they are too poor. At least for a period of time, they will not worry about food and clothing. , and concentrate on starting a business, and do not agree with the so-called sleeping on the streets, eating without finishing a meal, and starting a business. Although that kind of spirit is worth promoting, if it is constrained by these factors, you will not have the experience to start a business at all. Starting a business requires dedicated study without being disturbed by unnecessary external factors. Secondly, a certain amount of start-up capital is required. Even if this part of the capital is very small, as long as you can do a lot of things, even a small amount of capital will play a big role. Even if you actually know nothing, you only have one idea. , everything needs to be hired, and the cost is very high. In order to save costs, college students should start their own business as much as possible, so that they can test whether others are doing well or not.

Reporter: According to media reports, the average entrepreneurial success rate of Chinese college students is 3%, while the success rate in the United States is as high as 20%. Why do you think there is such a big gap?

Li Shubin : First, the benefits for college students in the United States are very good. You can receive some assistance in the early stage of starting a business and have many choices. However, it is different in China. There are no benefits. They will not prepare an apartment for you just because you start a business and live on the street. For example, churches in Europe and the United States say that they give a full meal to charity, so Chinese college students start businesses for the sake of starting a business, and they start a business for money. This is different from the United States. American college students can go to Africa to observe gorillas for their ideals, but China cannot do that. When I arrived, I didn’t even have money to go to Africa. Second, the United States is relatively open and can participate in many cooperation projects. For example, you can find a partner to give him 50% of the shares, or find someone with complementary abilities. However, the Chinese would rather invest money in starting a business than If you are unwilling to share with others and think you are completely in control, your success rate will definitely be zero. If you cooperate with others to make something bigger and stronger, let alone 50%, 5% is a very big share. Therefore, in terms of purpose, Chinese college students start a business for the sake of starting a business. They should do it even if they don't like it. It feels like they start a business when they find a business point that can make money. In fact, they don't understand at all, and failure is inevitable. Most college students in the United States start their own businesses out of interest. They are more likely to succeed if they have the necessary welfare guarantees. In addition, it is easier to succeed when working with open-minded people on a project. However, in China, college students are in a state of separation and are unwilling to cooperate and share with others. There will be people who will support or even discourage you. It will be difficult to find a partner, which will lead to the failure of your business.