Li Xueling, CEO and founder of Reunion Times Inc. Photo: Chuangye Bang
On December 1, 2012, the two-day annual meeting of cyzone.cn was held in Beijing Millennium Hotel. Xueling Li, CEO and founder of Time Inc, attended the conference and delivered a keynote speech. During the talk, he told attendees the story of YY's Nasdaq listing and pointed out that entrepreneurs should take a five-year view of their companies. At the same time, he shared with the attendees his experience of starting a business for 7 years. He said that starting a business is a long process, and the entrepreneur himself needs to be a captain who can Hold the whole team. Entrepreneurship should start from the hard demand and focus on the real needs of users. Entrepreneurs can not go against the trend, to choose to match their ability to start a business in the field. Finally, he warned entrepreneurs to keep a low profile when facing big Internet companies.
Ipo Questions: Why Go to the US?
Li Xueling led YY to go public on Nasdaq, which became the hottest topic recently. In the speech, he also talked about his own process of going public, and said that one question he is often asked about going public is: Why go when the U.S. stock market is so bad?
Mr. Li says his usual rhetorical question is: When will the U.S. stock market get better?
He pointed out that entrepreneurs and capitalists are different. After all, entrepreneurs are not professionals in the capital market. So people who do business should look at their company with a five-year development perspective to think about whether their decisions are right or wrong. And the capital people, with the longest view of only one year to look at the market, thinking about the problem is mainly this year's market investment and returns in the end is what kind of state. They see things from completely different angles.
7 years of entrepreneurial experience to share
In the speech, Li Xueling and the majority of entrepreneurs shared their seven years of business experience.
First, starting a business is a very long process, entrepreneurs should be able to Hold the captain of the team.
Li Xueling pointed out that entrepreneurs must be psychologically prepared to embark on the road of entrepreneurship. He says the biggest problem with startups is whether your team wants to be with you for 10 years. Once you start a business, the ten-year countdown has already begun. When you start a business for three years, there will be a group of colleagues in the initial venture team who will certainly not be able to carry it. The following is the threshold of five years and seven years, and each threshold is very difficult for entrepreneurs.
Li Xueling said with emotion, the entrepreneur himself, is never able to leave the boat, but other brothers are different, pat buttock said I don't want the stock, it is easy to leave the company. Therefore, before starting a business, we must mobilize our partners and see if we can work together for seven years. In case of failure to make money, in case of difficulties, they can carry on together. Only with such a team, a company can really overcome a lot of difficulties in entrepreneurship. After all, only a handful of startups survive, and failure is the norm.
Second, entrepreneurship should start from the hard demand, to do the user in need of help.
What is hard demand? In this regard, Li Xueling explained that the hard demand is what the user is in need of help, all the icing on the cake has nothing to do with the start-up company, those are the patents of large companies, start-ups can only do the things in need of help. Users have been suffering for some problems for many years, and no one has ever helped him solve them. Even if this batch of users is a very small group of people, as long as they hear that there is a product like yours, they will desperately run to use it, so that entrepreneurs have a chance. So entrepreneurship must grasp the user's hard demand, hard demand is our small business opportunity.
Third, entrepreneurship must choose the field matching with their own ability, not against the trend.
Li Xueling believes that many entrepreneurial fields need founders with unique qualities and resources to do. For example, in the field of video, the most important quality of a startup team is capital ability. If you can't raise money, you should quit early and don't waste time. If entrepreneurs want to make mobile phones, they must have market ability, supply chain management ability and financing ability. If they do not have these three abilities, there is basically no hope of success. If you want to do group buying, the requirements for founders are whether they have the ability to drive traffic and whether the entrepreneur has the experience and ability to manage branch offices in 30 places.
He pointed out that entrepreneurs must consider their ability to do with the direction of the ability to match, match is relatively easy, if you have to go against the trend, it is a very painful thing.
Fourthly, when doing business in China, we should keep a low profile when facing big companies.
He pointed out that entrepreneurs in the early days of the company must be low-key, less publicity. First of all, big companies don't necessarily notice your field. Second, entrepreneurs can find out which users are losing through operation, can track why they are losing, and still have enough time to transform them. When the company grows to a certain size, the big companies will target you, the bigger the risk, the bigger your chance, the bigger the company targeting you, it also proves that you are facing a really good chance, because they are voting with their feet that your chance is very good.
In the end, Li Xueling concluded that competition on the Internet is different from fighting a war with an army. Competition on the Internet is just like cutting wheat. You cut yours and I cut mine.
