Starting a business is hard, and many of the stories continue after a full resumption of work in 2022.
Author | Amelie
Edit | Juni
"In the more than 8 years as CEO, I only had 3 days to be good, and the remaining 8 years were almost all difficult."
It is no one else who says this, it is Ben Horowitz, a well-known silicon valley entrepreneur and author of the book "Entrepreneurship Is Difficult". Starting a business is hard, and many of the stories continue after a full resumption of work in 2022. This road is full of difficulties and obstacles, everyone will face the darkest moments in life, even those who are lucky and strong in entrepreneurship, can be fortunate to reach the top of the pyramid, the process is not smooth.
Why is entrepreneurship so appealing?
Could it be because it is the most intuitive path from scratch, abandoning the old and starting from the new? Those who embark on this road like to take risks, refuse to be stable, nine to five, and participate in this adventurer's game. These entrepreneurs have one thing in common – they all have a heartfelt love for something. At first, it may be just a spark of interest accidentally, but after Mars stirs up the inner ignition, even if the road ahead is full of thorns and difficulties, entrepreneurs will still bravely move forward. Even after reaching their predetermined goals and achieving worldly success, because of love, they choose to continue to move forward and climb to another peak of self-achievement.
Recently, HP has once again joined hands with the original team of Randian to bring a new season of the documentary "Randian Entrepreneurship Does Not Stop", which records the persistence and love from the hearts of entrepreneurs.
01
Insist on doing things, start a business non-stop
Based on the materials of real entrepreneurship, the documentary "Randian" invited several entrepreneurs and their teams, such as founder Luo Zhenyu, Naixue's tea founder Peng Xin, Baima Mountain Coffee Estate manager Dong Laicheng, bosie founder Liu Guangyao and their teams, to focus on the growth of entrepreneurial teams with the closest to the true, natural and original perspective, reflecting the current situation of contemporary entrepreneurs, restoring the tension, confusion, uneasiness and firmness on the road of entrepreneurship, and witnessing with the audience the various difficulties and joys on their entrepreneurial road.
Entrepreneurship is like a lasting marathon
The 7th year, this is the 7th year that Luo Zhenyu gave a New Year's Eve speech. Luo Zhenyu used Shakespeare's golden sentence "Calm and self-assured, meet with the narrow road of his own times" to make the theme of the speech, but he may not have thought that the preparatory work of this speech really made "himself meet with the narrow road of the times", can he "calm down"? Turning the clock back to a month's countdown to the New Year's Eve speech, we see that even as the leader in the first generation of knowledge sharing, entrepreneur Luo Zhenyu is still facing a lot of pressure.
Source: The "Ran Dian" documentary
"I had nightmares at night, and I dreamed that many people couldn't buy tickets and couldn't come in," Luo Zhenyu said in an interview.
In the context of the "post-epidemic era", whether a large-scale landing event can land safely has become the sword of Damocles hanging high above the head, and no one can predict when it will fall. If, just if, the audience can't get in, how will the audience take care of the aftermath? How can the content be modified? And what kind of explanation should be given to the brand? What kind of preparation does the team need to do? The pressure hit like a tidal wave, making Luo Zhenyu unable to sleep at night.
The time was hurriedly skipped in the glue, only 70 hours before the official start of the speech, and the team finally made the decision to hold the empty venue, even if the deafening applause and applause of the scene could not be heard, but in order to reach the burning point of the good content in his heart, Luo Zhenyu had the confidence to make this speech of "meeting the narrow road of the times" a spark.
The plan prepared for the uncertain situation came in handy, which was Luo Zhenyu's "calm" confidence. First of all, the emergency refund procedure was quickly started, all the tickets were refunded in full, and the prepared on-site gifts were delivered to each ticket buyer by courier, leaving a souvenir for this gathering; the huge venue was empty, but it also became an excellent place for dialogue.
First, the oral expression and camera performance of the empty speech need to be rehearsed, and then the music director will represent the audience and face to face with him, form a field of one-on-one communication, make an emotional response through the musical melody, create a confidant dialogue in the Boya period, and eliminate the sense of distance brought by the network live broadcast; immediately get in touch with the sponsor, inform the force majeure of the scene situation and the adjustment and change of the content, obtain the understanding and support of partners, and jointly create better content; the content also needs to be deliberated and carefully considered , repeating the process of denial, pushing down, writing, proofreading, and practicing until the last moment.
There is a scene that touched me the most: Before the speech, Luo Zhenyu was talking to the child on the phone on the bus back to the hotel: "Dad has been fighting a big battle these two days, let the mother explain what is a hard battle?" "Who wins?" "That must be Daddy winning!" In the scene of laughter in the camera, his eyes are full of determination and tension. He has to be responsible for the audience that has been looking forward to it for a year, and he doesn't want to live up to the dozens of days and nights of the whole team. The superficial "calmness" comes from the never-ending efforts of entrepreneurs.
Without a smooth career, projects that look successful are bound to be the result of hundreds of times the effort.
At any time, it is necessary to make adequate plans to deal with the uncertainty that comes with it at any time.
It turns out that even if there is no live audience, the New Year's Eve speech can be done in full swing. According to statistics, in the four hours of live broadcasting, Douyin received a total of 60.03 million views in the live broadcast room, and the "Friends of Time" WeChat index soared to 88.16 million during the New Year.
Although the audience's admission tickets were originally reflected in the financial accounts, the empty field undoubtedly lost tens of millions of book income, Luo Zhenyu said in the film: "Although making money is glorious, creating value is more glorious, and the way a company realizes value is to create value for customers." "Reaching the burning point in the heart can warm the heart of the entrepreneur the most."
The value of the New Year's Eve speech for getting itself is also as they say, training troops in internal wars and serving users externally.
Starting in 2015, when the curtain comes down 20 years later, Luo Zhenyu will be 61 years old. Believing in what they say is the premise for them to gain more trust, and they have a long way to go for the promise of "doing it for 20 years". Don't stop on the road of being a time friend, in order to accumulate greater energy with the power of 20 years. From the film, you can also find the importance of the team supporting each other.
Get Luo Zhenyu and Debuhua in the team, communicate effectively at the first time when encountering major decision-making changes, quickly adjust the direction of activities, fully trust each other under the same values and entrepreneurial vision, and complete each other. From making money first to creating value first, the team continues to get more on the way to growth.
Entrepreneurship is like rock climbing, is the end of entrepreneurship outside the mountain IPO? Of course not, an IPO is just one of those milestones. As the "first share" of new tea drinking, what founder Peng Xin can do in the difficult time of entrepreneurship is to be more involved and work harder. In the predicament, he actively accepted the changes and followed the trend, and worked harder to push the tea culture to the world; Liu Guangyao, a young entrepreneur after the 90s, overcame the torment of supply chain construction and financing in the new consumption era under the epidemic and finally had a breakthrough of more than 1 billion yuan in sales; Dong Laicheng, a Yunnan coffee farmer who was still walking on the road of entrepreneurship in the ancient years, wanted more people to know that Yunnan produced good beans and was still exploring to make specialty coffee beans.
Looking at them, do you feel very similar to the entrepreneurs and friends around us? They are not arrogant in good times or bad times, explore the unknown, turn the oncoming challenges into motivation, and add fuel to the burning points in their hearts.
Some people say that we have caught up with a good era of entrepreneurship. The idols, heroes, and most beautiful people of this era are all entrepreneurs. At present, the domestic entrepreneurial atmosphere is strong, and there is no morning or evening in entrepreneurship, nor is it age or gender. From the experience of these entrepreneurs, we can see the importance of persistence, only by creating tangible value for customers and society, can we go a long way.
In terms of entrepreneurial innovation, although different cultural differences around the world have created a completely different entrepreneurial ecology, the genes of entrepreneurs who are hard-working and hard-working are the same, and they never stop for the love in their hearts. Regardless of success or failure, welcome to come back today, the entrepreneurial atmosphere in Beijing, Shanghai and Guangzhou is like Silicon Valley. In the high-rise buildings of science parks or shared offices in the CBD, even if it is midnight, the lights are still bright.
The never-ending entrepreneurial spirit has taken root and borne fruit in China. No wonder there are returnees who say that in the next decade, Beijing will become silicon valley's only power contender.
As more and more Silicon Valley technical talents return to China to start a business, the Silicon Valley culture of "entrepreneurship without stopping" will be better integrated into the soil of eastern entrepreneurship. The entrepreneurial incubation base in Beijing, headed by Zhongguancun, is gradually spreading out of the city's entrepreneurial alliance, and the domestic population is large, and the speed of consumer acceptance of new services, entrepreneurial spirit and entrepreneurial scale determine the formation of entrepreneurial centers. In Shenzhen, innovation is accelerating. Shenzhen's DJI is currently the global consumer drone market leader with a market share of 70%; component suppliers can ship in less than 1 day... Although most of the domestic entrepreneurs are very pure and pragmatic, there are also shortcomings, such as how to go overseas to expand the global market. But adhering to the original intention of "entrepreneurship does not stop", Chinese entrepreneurs are setting sail to a broader sea of stars.
Silicon Valley, as the "habitat" of startups, not only has the brilliance of the world's first-class technology companies, but also the inheritance of the fighting spirit of ordinary entrepreneurs.
It's OK to fail ("It's okay to fail"), a phrase widely circulated in Silicon Valley, explains the spirit that entrepreneurs need most - not afraid of failure, meet challenges, as long as the business does not stop, the dawn of success will always come.
Whether it's our north, Shanghai, or Silicon Valley on the other side of the ocean, we evaluate the value of an entrepreneurial team: always based on whether it has a real entrepreneurial passion, whether it has always been full of entrepreneurial driving force, and focus on products and companies. Starting a business anywhere and in any field is not an easy task, the new and old projects, the size of the team, and the spirit of entrepreneurship are very important. Want to have a better market, the premise is that they have a good sense of innovation, maintain continuous motivation for project development, and fully accumulate all the resources to achieve the idea of entrepreneurship, on the road of entrepreneurship, never stop is the best way not to be left behind by the times. Even if you don't make a project, it's not a big deal, you fail to start over, it's important to have the courage to start over, the original intention of never stopping, is the biggest capital on the road to entrepreneurship.
02
Do not forget the original intention, there is a beginning and an end
82 years ago, Hewlett-Packard was born in a small garage in Silicon Valley. Since then, the never-ending spark of entrepreneurship has been passed on to many entrepreneurs through HP products, and the torch has been passed on endlessly. In recent years, HP has continued to explore more innovative forms, deeply cultivate content related to entrepreneurs, and create more opportunities for dialogue and exchange with entrepreneurs. HP and the Randian documentary team have tried twice to make survival records that challenge the unknown and break the entrepreneurial dilemma under the epidemic;
Good entrepreneurs not only need good team partners, perseverance and courage, but also have hardware equipment that can respond at any time and efficiently support their fast-paced work. The "War" series is a product tailored by HP based on the needs of entrepreneurs, as the entrepreneurs' demand for mobile office, video conferencing, etc. continues to expand, the War series is also constantly iteratively upgrading, growing with entrepreneurs and matching their more work needs. On February 17 this year, HP Battle 66 5th Generation Ryzen Edition new products were launched, it is equipped with a new generation of AMD Ryzen™ 7 5825U / Ryzen 5 5625U processors, in the battery life fully upgraded at the same time, business performance has also been more improved, smooth mobile office experience supports entrepreneurs anytime, anywhere inspiration bursts.
Image source: HP
From the "Ran Dian" documentary, it can be seen that on the road of entrepreneurship, there are thorns, and you can only kill a road if you keep moving forward.
Success or failure is a life experience. Whichever path you choose to start your business deserves to be respected. This path is not for everyone, and there is no good time to start a business at any time. But it is precisely because of these ordinary entrepreneurs, against pressure and anxiety to create value and valuable spiritual wealth for this era, that we have more possibilities.
I only hope that the entrepreneurs on this road will not forget their original intentions when they achieve results, and continue to move forward; they will not stop when they encounter difficulties, and they will also regroup and start again after falling, for the ideals and persistence in their hearts. Never stop on the road to entrepreneurship, is the courage is commendable.