Who hasn't stumbled on the road to starting a business? Even Ma Yun, Lei Jun, Zhou, Liu ... these Internet giants have also experienced the lessons of blood, but they have not been devastated by a fall, but have learned a lot of entrepreneurial experience and lessons from failure and rallied. The following is the relevant content of ten business owners' failed entrepreneurial experiences that I have compiled. Please refer to.
Lei Jun: The founder of Xiaomi is now valued at $45 billion.
Failure experience
Before he succeeded, he founded tricolor company and went bankrupt because he could not make a profit.
When he was in college, Lei Jun read a book "The Fire of Silicon Valley" about the early entrepreneurial legends of Gates and Jobs, which touched him very much-"I was deeply attracted by the story of Jobs. After working hard in Wuhan Electronic Street for a period of time, I felt good about myself and began to dream: I dream of writing a set of software to run on every computer in the world, and I dream of setting up the best software company in the world. "
So, when he was in senior three, he founded Tricolor Company with three friends. Unfortunately, the company was forced to dissolve after half a year.
feeling of failure
In this regard, Lei Jun has three reflections: First, there must be a clear profit model; Second, we must have a forward-looking market awareness; The third is to have certain team management ability.
Chen Ou: Founder of Jumeiyoupin, with a market value of $2.4 billion.
Failure experience
Establish GG game platform.
When studying at Nanyang Technological University, Chen Ou built an online game platform GG with a computer, and invited two top Warcraft masters, WCG champion and ESWC champion, to compete at the peak. This won him the first batch of users.
However, with the increase of users, Chen Ou, who has no capital reserve, is more and more embarrassed, and the sponsorship he can get is also a drop in the bucket. Investors are dismissive of him, which makes the development of GG difficult.
At this time, Chen Ou was going to Stanford to study for an MBA, so he hired a professional manager to take care of the company and sold some of his shares. Subsequently, professional managers introduced other angel investors. Through the operation, Chen Ou's equity was only over 30%, and he lost control of the company and was finally squeezed out of the company.
In his second venture, Chen Ou imitated the American business model, set up a game company in China, and implanted advertisements in social games. However, due to the huge difference between the domestic market and the United States, the company soon went bankrupt.
feeling of failure
These two failed entrepreneurial experiences have given Chen Ou two gains: first, the company needs to have a healthy equity organization structure; Second, copying foreign models won't work.
Zhen: the founder of worry-free future, with a market value of $2 billion.
Failure experience
Invest in voice mail and magnetic materials.
Zhen was a consultant with an annual salary of one million before starting a business. In the tide of rapid economic development in Chinese mainland, he wanted to be a "billionaire", so he worked part-time as a voice mail delivery system and invested in magnetic materials. But both adventures ended in failure.
feeling of failure
In summing up the experience and lessons, he said: starting a business requires a lot of energy and must be done full-time; Entrepreneurship can't just start with products. Having good products does not mean having customers. Customers need complete services, and entrepreneurship needs to change from product-oriented to customer-oriented.
Wu: CEO of Meitu Company
Failure experience
He founded the 520 social platform and then stopped operating.
1999 I saw a piece of news in Wu, when I was still in high school: a domain name named "business.com" sold for $7.5 million in the United States. So he borrowed 654.38 million yuan from his family and began to invest in domain names. As a result, he made some money and got to know Cai Wensheng, a later company investor.
In 2002, Wu, who dropped out of school at home, found a good domain name:, so he copied Tencent and made money by collecting membership fees. Two years later, "520" has accumulated hundreds of thousands of paying members, but because the products and operations can't keep up, most members only pay for one month and stop renewing their fees. Finally, Wu was forced to close "520" and sell the domain name.
feeling of failure
Looking back on this experience, Wu Shuo has two lessons: first, reverse entrepreneurship is not feasible, and you can't set up a company just because you have a good domain name; More importantly, I am not sociable and don't know the needs of users. How can I make a good dating website?
Wang Xing: Founder of Meituan.com, with a valuation of $7 billion.
Failure experience
He founded the intranet and was forced to sell it.
In the winter of 2003, Wang Xing, a Ph.D. student in the United States, returned to China to start a business. After several failed projects, Wang Xing found that socializing with acquaintances among students was a starting point, so he set out to build a campus network.
At that time, it was very troublesome to go to the railway station in Beijing, so during the winter vacation, Wang Xing launched an activity in Tsinghua, Peking University and the National People's Congress to register the campus network and take the bus to the railway station for free. At the same time and place, 50 people set out. In order to make up the number of students, students pull fellow villagers to register everywhere, which is equivalent to promoting websites. This activity brought 8000 seed users to the campus network. However, due to the lack of a clear profit model, the capital side is not optimistic about this project. Finally, the capital chain broke and the internal team split. Wang Xing was forced to sell it.
feeling of failure
The failure of this project inspired Wang Xing: First, the entrepreneurial team must have a clear division of labor, and the CEO must be liberated from corporate affairs and pay attention to the development trends of the industry, the times and society; Second, contact capital as soon as possible, lower your posture and make compromises; Third, we must start a business with people we trust, so as to maintain unity in the low tide.
Liu: Founder of JD.COM, with a market value of $40.3 billion.
Failure experience
He once opened a restaurant in Zhongguancun, but was cheated to close it.
After graduating from college, Liu opened a restaurant near Zhongguancun. Before, the clerk had a low salary, lived in the basement and usually only ate leftovers. The boss personally controls the funds; After Liu took over, he raised employees' salaries, improved the accommodation environment and gave employees the right to purchase and register. Due to loose management, employees changed their ways to embezzle the money in the store. In less than a year, the original profitable hotel was wiped out.
feeling of failure
The lesson Liu learned from this is that we must trust employees, but trust does not mean that there is no management.
Chen Yizhou: Founder of Thousand Oaks Interactive, later renamed Renren.com, with a market value of 1 1 billion USD.
Failure experience
Created ChinaRen community.
According to the characteristics of several popular community websites in the United States at that time, Chen Yizhou and others, who were still studying at Stanford at that time, designed a group named ChinaRen. However, no one in Silicon Valley wanted to invest in their project. Finally, they raised $200,000 from Stanford students.
1March 1999, they returned to China to register their company. After obtaining the investment from Goldman Sachs, they quickly launched the ChinaRen community and obtained tens of millions of dollars in new financing. After that, ChinaRen began to burn money and smash advertisements crazily.
At first, Chen Yizhou and others were scared, but investors said it didn't matter. If you burn it, you will have investment. If you don't burn it, you won't be able to go public. But soon, in 2000, the American stock market crashed and capital entered the cold winter. As a result, investors who originally supported burning money changed their attitudes, and told Chen Yizhou clearly that there would be no new investment and they should sell the company as soon as possible. Chen Yizhou had to sell ChinaRen community to Sohu.
feeling of failure
This case is actually similar to the campus network: entrepreneurship needs to make rational use of existing capital, and it is best to have its own hematopoietic capacity, so as to survive the crisis in the cold winter of capital.
Zhou: Founder of 360, with a market value of $6.4 billion.
Failure experience
Once built 372 1, one of the earliest search engines in China.
Before doing 360, Zhou once worked as a search engine called 372 1, and Baidu also launched a similar service. The competition between the two sides is fierce. Zhou added a module to the client of 372 1 to delete Baidu's client, but the module itself cannot be deleted. This made Zhou wear the hat of "the father of rogue software".
Later, Zhou felt that Baidu's search model was better than his own. At that time, the Internet industry was in a downturn, and he sold 372 1 to Yahoo in the case of his dominant market share, resulting in the search market of 1 100 million dollars being finally occupied by Baidu.
feeling of failure
For these past experiences, Zhou said: "Don't just stare at your opponent, you must stare at the needs of users, you must persist and don't give up easily."
Zhang Xiaolong: Father of WeChat, Vice President of Tencent.
Failure experience
Foxmail was created by.
Foxmail, developed by Zhang Xiaolong, once had 2 million users, and it is the most user-friendly software in China. Zhou said that Foxmail didn't have a business model in those days, so he often refuted Zhang Xiaolong, saying that he wanted to increase advertising and make profits. But Zhang Xiaolong said, why does it have to be like this? As long as there are users and feelings.
Later, Foxmail became a big burden for Zhang Xiaolong. Every day, countless people urge him to run forward, but his popularity and users have not brought him benefits.
A year later, Zhang Xiaolong sold Foxmail to an unknown Internet company.
feeling of failure
Now many founders of Internet companies say: We don't need to think about money now. After we have users, we will naturally find a profit point. But Zhang Xiaolong's experience tells us that a clear profit model is extremely important before starting a business.
Ma Yun: Chairman of the Board of Directors of Alibaba Group, with a market value of $6,543.8+082.5 billion.
Failure experience
Ma Yun experienced three ventures until Ali went public in the United States.
From 65438 to 0994, Ma Yun founded the first organization: Haibo translation agency. The first month's income was in 700 yuan, and the rent was 2000 yuan. Ma Yun went to Yiwu with sacks on his back to support translation agency.
From 65438 to 0995, Ma Yun accidentally came into contact with the Internet in Seattle, and he decided that the Internet was the future direction. After returning home, Ma Yun and his wife and friends raised 20,000 RMB to set up Haibo.com and started the China Yellow Pages project. However, after the cooperation with Hangzhou Telecom, the two sides had differences, which made Ma Yun decide to give up the website.
1At the end of 1997, Ma Yun was invited as the general manager of China Electronic Commerce Center of the Ministry of Foreign Trade and Economic Cooperation of China, and began to contact foreign trade. Ma Yun's idea of doing B2B websites began to mature. 1999, 35-year-old Ma Yun decided to start a business in Hangzhou and set up another startup company of his own-Alibaba.
feeling of failure
In Ma Yun's view, the successful experiences of enterprises are different, but the lessons of failure are similar. "My biggest experience is to think about how others fail and what mistakes people will make." Ma Yun said that it is not easy to be a business. "95% of enterprises have fallen", avoiding the mistakes made by fallen people, and "turning mistakes into nutrition" can become the surviving 5%.
Expansion: the personal experience of a failed entrepreneur
Soon, my team got an opportunity to sit with a well-known investor to discuss the possibility of financing. Even if our business has not started to make money, none of us has ever held the position of CEO. We are all confident. After all, we have predicted that the gross profit of the company will reach 200 million after financing. How can investors refuse our request?
We are sure to make a fortune. We just need to raise a small sum of money-150,000.
I keep thinking, "How hard will it be?" At that time, we were too naive, too stupid and too whimsical.
There is a slight problem with our plan. We all don't know how to cater to investors. So I did what any entrepreneur without a clue would do: search online for "how to cater to investors".
I didn't see any helpful information on the internet. Just before we stepped into the conference room, we soon found that our speech was going to fail. In fact, when we started writing the business plan, we failed.
At the beginning of my memory, one of the investors asked me to give him a page about the plan. We didn't prepare a brief introduction at that time, so I gave him the first page 1 1 on the surface of the 95-page plan.
A blow.
Before I put the 32-page slide on page 4, the second investor interrupted me and asked, "Okay, stop. I see. You don't need this150,000. "
I defended the financing plan with overconfidence; "This profit can't be achieved without this money."
"Really? Unable to achieve? " He answered with a laugh like a mocker.
The second strike.
Then two investors asked many questions at the same time:
"How much did you invest in this company? Almost150,000? "
"Why do you want to pay 20 people, why do you want to pay 65,438+10,000 high salaries to executives without records?"
"How much money has your company made so far?"
"Why didn't your company earn 150,000, so I gave you15 million?"
"How can you prove that you can have a gross profit of 200 million in the third year?"
"If an enterprise can already produce 10 and 1 2 products, why should it produce and sell 10 products at the same time?"
One question after another. None of the questions are in favor.
3 Strikes
As you may have guessed, we didn't get15 million dollars from that meeting. Nevertheless, I later learned that one of the reasons was caused by my relatively young career. In this 30-minute meeting, I learned more practical financing knowledge than many entrepreneurs have learned in their lifetime. To commemorate this day, whenever I cater to investors to solve financing problems, I will always clearly remember the following six valuable lessons:
First, the less the better.
Clarity and directness are very important. Trivial speeches and lengthy explanations will not impress investors, but will probably scare them away. Show your business plan in a short, touching and precise way. Investors need to believe that your company will attract and retain customers. If investors can't understand your business philosophy for a short time, they may assume that customers won't understand it either.
Second, put an end to speculation. Execute, execute, execute.
Use facts instead of guesses to inspire your confidence. Most investors are looking for low-risk enterprises, and they prefer pragmatic managers who can promise them as much as possible. A company with cash flow, business record and real experience is often easier to get funds than those companies that predict huge returns to investors in their plans. Find a way to test whether your company can survive with little or no capital, and then turn this idea into a functional business plan before you look for capital.
Third, avoid big talk.
Make investors excited about the blueprint you described, but it should be reasonable and feasible. Avoid big talk and empty talk. If you describe a meaningless budget and preach that your company's profit can increase from 654.38+ million to 50 million in three years, then respected investors will not take your project seriously. Show investors three budget schemes that you have constructed according to reality: the best scheme, the general scheme and the worst scheme. According to the facts, past and present data, the industry and competitors have put forward good countermeasures and defense assumptions.
Fourth, learn to fall in love with discount stores.
Cheap things are fashionable. At an age when you can't control your expenses, you need to prove that you are a rational financial experience, and you know how to make good use of every penny to make the best use of it. Leave some leeway in your operation and market budget, but avoid being too conservative. Never ask for a high salary or high subsidy. Investors want you to be in a position where everything in the company has started to work.
Rome was not built in a day. Neither will your company.
Investors are very cautious about radical entrepreneurs, who are always "big eyes and small belly". Before investing 1 million yuan to 50 departments and 100 products, you have to prove that you can create and manage a single commodity to satisfy consumers. Show that your company has developed to the next stage before making a statement. Improve your marketing strategy, sales strategy and operation process. Investors like your company to have sustainable step-by-step repetition, which can make the company grow exponentially. Remember, even Google's success is based on a single product.
6. Which one is not the cleverest?
Know what you already know, know what you don't know, and find people you don't know but they know. Build a team of trusted experts. The smartest leaders in the world are those who are surrounded by wise men. Investors spend as much money on management teams as they spend on business opportunities.
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