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.
Like playing a game, you can go through all the levels, get as many points as you can. But the end goal is usually the same – to finish the game. How you get there depends on what you want out of it.
Yu’s advice is for start-ups to be able to separate yourself from your start-up and look it at as a part of playing the game of life. Ask yourself what you really want out of it.
7. Jesper Lodahl – Make what customers need
Jesper is a co-founder of Smartots, an analytics solution for parents who want to monitor their kid’s performance of playing mobile games.
Jesper learnt the hard way about what start-up people call tunnel vision. You think you know what the best product is because you and only your-self believe it. He shared his failed experience with Club Beautiful, a controversial social network for only beautiful people. His conclusion was that he got his hypothesis wrong that Chinese people like Westerners care about good looks, but instead care more about status and money.
Jesperは子供たちのモバイルゲームのプレイをモニターしたいと思う親のための解析ソリューション、Smartotsの共同創立者である。
Jesperは何が人々にスタートアップをトンネルビジョンと呼ばせるかについて厳しい方法で学んだ。あなたは、最良の製品を知っていると思っている。なぜなら、あなたとあなた自身がそれを信じているからである。彼は美しい人のためだけの物議をかもしたソーシャルネットワーク、Club Beautifulでの失敗の経験を披露した。彼の結論は、彼が間違った前提をしていたということである。中国人は、西洋人のように見かけにはこだわるのではなく、ステイタスやお金によりこだわっていた。
He then talked about making what customers need. As a former engineer, Lodahl knows engineers are inclined to build unnecessary features. They just sit in front of a computer and just build without getting out of the building to listen to customers or ask them questions. That is why, he believes the Product Manager is the key person to link technology, marketing and sales people because they really know what the customer needs.
So by firstly understanding his own problems and being his own customer, he realized that parents want to connect and know more about what and how their kids are doing on games, so started Smartots.
まず、彼独自の問題を理解し、彼自身の顧客になる事によって、彼は親達が子供達がどのようにゲームを行っているか知り、繋がりたいと望んでいる事を理解し、Smartotsを始めた。
8. Andy Mok – Hiring the right people
Andy is the founder of Red Pagoda Resources, a head hunting firm to help find talent for venture backed start-ups.
As the saying goes, people are always what make a company or team different. So Mok said the most important business decisions are not ‘what’ decisions but really ‘who’ decisions. He illustrated this point by numerating that a cost of a bad hire could be 15x an employee’s base salary and even tens of millions for a start-up.
To hire correctly you need to factor in the right person for the right job at the right time for the current business problem.
9. Jonathen Palley – Rules of Improv
Jon is a tech geek and the first developer to bring Ruby on Rails to China. He has also recently sold off his company. However John is gaining more fame for his impromptu acting skills among the tech circuit.
Although his talk was all about how to be a great impromptu actor, the lessons and similarities learned for being a great entrepreneur were clear.
When an impromptu actor gets up on stage he or she has nothing to build upon until an idea is generated. Once the initial idea forms, actors use a technique of saying yes and being obvious to connect it to another actor. This helps the act by building momentum; otherwise the acting could stop and become awkward. For start-ups, they also need to work within teams and with customers to start with an idea but build on it by accepting new thoughts and being clear.
The saying goes that the ‘best things happen naturally’. Impromptu actors or comedians on stage try and commit to this by being quick to think, act and change if something isn’t going well. They can get immediate feedback from the audience if they like their joke or acting. Likewise in a start-up it is vital for them to get out there into the market, release a product and listen to the customers for feedback then iterate.
He pointed to the example of Thomas Edison, the inventor of the light bulb who said ‘success is 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration’. Meaning start-ups have to be persistent and keep doing to eventually be successful.
10. David Kay – Entrepreneurs are artists
David is the founder of Yuenfen Flow, the incubator space dedicated to inspiring and helping entrepreneurs succeed.
He believes that entrepreneurs see things that others don’t. An artist doesn’t just see a block of clay, he sees a beautiful human sculpture. Entrepreneurs are inspired by others, by borrowing and building on the brilliance of others, even from other fields. Kay believes that entrepreneurs don’t just see the problem; they see the solution amongst the chaos. That is why Yuanfen Flow aims to create a space that allows them to embrace the chaos and channel the flow into a brilliance business idea that can disrupt how things are
