10×10 Lessons Learnt From Entrepreneurs
On Saturday the Geeks on a Train crew from Chinaccelerator had their first stop in Beijing. The 10×10 event was held at the most artistic incubation space in China, Yuanfen Flow at 798 Art District. Surrounded by modern art installations, start-ups can draw creative inspiration to apply to their business – something that needs to happen a lot more in China.
10 speakers had 10 minutes each to impart their wisdom, experience and advice about being an entrepreneur. I thoroughly enjoyed listening to the inspiring mentors who touched on a range of important and insightful topics.
土曜日に、チャイナアクセラレータから列車の乗務員のギークスは、北京での彼らの最初の休憩をとった。
10×10イベントは、798のアート地区のユアンフェンフロウで中国で最も芸術的なインキュベーション・スペースで開催された。
現代芸術施設に囲まれて、スタートアップは、彼らの仕事にあてはまるため、中国でよりもっとたくさん起こるべき何かを創造的なインスピレーションで描くことができる。
10人の話者は、10分ごとに企業家であることについて彼らの知恵、経験とアドバイスを話した。
私は、重要で洞察の深い話題に触れ、感動的な企業家の話を聞いてとことん楽しんだ。
1. Richard Robinson – Speed is key
Robinson China is currently working on Youlu, a mobile application to convert your mobile phone address book into a social network.
He illustrated the point by showing a snippet from the movie Troy, where Brad Pitt who plays Troy uses pure speed and agility to defeat his much larger and rather beastly opponent. The metaphor shows that start-ups who are lean and quick can overcome much bigger incumbent competitors that take a long time to move and change.
He also noted that speed helps improve morale with momentum, raises awareness and drives adoption, maximizes valuations and attracts investment. As famous serial entrepreneur, Mike Cassidy says to “set tone from day one”.
ロビンソン : あなたの携帯電話のアドレス帳をソーシャルネットワークに変換するための"Youlu"、モバイルアプリケーションに、中国は、現在取り組んでいる。
トロイと対戦するブラッド・ピットは非常により大きくてかなりいやな敵を倒すために純粋な速度と機敏さを使う、そこで、彼はポイントを映画トロイから断片を示すことで例示した。
スリムで迅速な"スタートアップ"が動いて、意思決定に長い時間がかかる非常に大きな現業の競合他社に打ち勝つことができることを、映画トロイの例え話は示す。
そのスピードが勢いで士気を改善するのを助け、認識と推進力の採用をを起こして、評価を最大にして、投資を引きつける点に、彼も気が付いた。
有名な起業家として、マイク・キャシディーは、「初日にトーンを設定する」と言う。
This includes making offers quickly, making on-boarding of new employees smooth and fast as well as getting people who don’t fit in the organization off the bus quickly to maintain efficiency
2. Quentin Zhang – 5 tips for start-ups
Quentin is the CTO and co-founder of Ushi.cn, a Linkedin like platform in China.
His 5-tips were:
Find needs and solve them – assess the market and get feedback
Learn and innovate – listen to customers and be agile, don’t fall in love with your design
Care about cultural differences – think locally to understand nuances
Believe and persist – Fail fast and learn from it, then move one
Network – use your network to make things happen and get a mentor
2.Quentin Zhang-スタートアップのための５つの助言
Quentinは、中国においてLinkedinのようなプラットフォームのUshi.cnのCTOであり、共同創設者である。
彼の５つの助言とは：
ニーズを見つけ、解決する-市場を査定し、フィードバックを得る
学び、革新する-消費者に耳を傾け、機敏であり、あなたのデザインに固執しない
文化の違いを考慮する-ニュアンスを理解する為に地方的な考えをする
信じ、やり通す-最初に失敗して、それから学び、それから一歩前進する
ネットワーク-事が運ぶように、良い助言者を得るように、あなたのネットワークを駆使する
3. Glenn Alexander – Mastering resistance
Glenn is a lecturer at Tsinghua, consultant as well as a hypnotist.
Psychology is a very big part of being an entrepreneur. Your mind is constantly swirling with thoughts. Sometimes you want to resist action and Alexander pointed out some of the roots of resistance:
people don’t like change if it means others will think less of them
people fear the possibility of failure or thinking they could be wrong
not asking questions for fear of being called stupid
not listening to your instinct or inner voice
being visually impaired and not believing in yourself
To overcome these roots of resistance, Alexander gave the formula D xV x FS >R.
GlennはTsinghuaの講演者であり、コンサルタントであり、催眠術師である。
心理学は、企業家であるための、とても大きな部分である。あなたの心は常に思いが巡っている。ときどき、あなたは反抗したいと思う。そして、Alexanderは反抗感の根源のいくつかを指摘した。
人々は、他人が自分を彼らより低く思うかもしれないなら、変化を好まない。
人々は、失敗する可能性や彼らが間違っているのではないかと考える事を恐れている。
バカ者呼ばわりされるのが怖くて、質問ができない。
あなたの直感もしくは心の声に耳を傾けない
外見的な欠陥があり、自分自身を信じることができない
これらの反抗感の根源に打ち勝つために、Alexanderha はD xV x FS >R方式を提供している。
Where D is for dissatisfaction that compels you to take action, V is for vision that allows you to see different solutions; FS is for first steps where you realize the first things you need to do to stir yourself into action.
4. Stephen Wang – The circle of start-ups
Wang is a serial entrepreneur who most famously co-founded Rotten Tomatoes. His latest venture is Alive.cn, an online marketplace for celebrity endorsements in social media.
Now up to his fifth start-up since college, Wang has collected a lot of experience points from doing start-ups. He talked about each start-up saying there are always high points and low points, whether it is co-founders leaving or uncontrollable market factors like September 11 or the financial crisis since 2008. But he argues if you work incredibly passionately and quickly, you can drive yourself out from the low points to the next high point. He has taken advice from a former client and famous martial arts movie star and devout Buddhist, Jet Li who said “Life is a circle of ups and downs. From your lowest point the only way is up.”
Some of the key lessons that he learnt along the way were:
Stay young and learn fast – start early, fail, learn and move on
Don’t think small – a good idea in a small market can’t be big
Build on your strengths
Don’t do too much – be focused
He said as a start-up you need to focus on the things you can control, like your budget and your time. Wang believes doing a start-up early is way more valuable than working in a big cooperation where it will take many more years to learn skills that start-ups accrue a lot quicker. He also profoundly said being an entrepreneur is a way of life; it’s about the journey not the destination.
5. Casper Johansen – Having a balanced lifestyle as an entrepreneur
Johansen is former investment banker turned entrepreneur. His current venture is Seravia, an online data analysis business.Start-ups are widely known to be workaholics and often feel the need to out-run the competition and stay ahead of the market. However, Johansen who is married with a young kid knows the importance of having a balanced lifestyle as much as possible, otherwise you will regret it.
The key is to acknowledge how you work and communicate it to your friends, family and team. Since ‘face time’ is a cultural norm in Asia, he gave the example where originally his employees would feel the need to stay in the office as long as he did, to prove they were ‘hard’ workers.
But Johansen strongly follows a results driven culture where if you finish your work you can leave. The key is to talk about these expectations upfront to avoid any confusion. Even with friends Johansen says that you should make them aware that you might not be able to spend as much time with them or could be delayed in responding to messages and it’s not because you are avoiding them. Especially for yourself, you need to make sure you stay grounded and do the important things like going to church, exercising and relaxing. For entrepreneurs who feel themselves burning out, this is great advice.
6. Frank Yu – Doing start-ups is also like playing a game
Yu is a well known figure in the start-up scene in China. His start-up Kwestr, a socially achievements game is also one of the start-ups at Chinaccelerator.
Yu believes that even if you don’t play or like games, doing start-ups is like playing a big game. From his time and Chinaaccelerator one of the key things he learned was the really question why he was doing a start-up. For some, it is to have a big exit and cash out, for others it is to create and build a legacy company and for others it is for fun.
