First of all, before I entered the Internet, I had work experience in a large foreign company in a traditional retail company, but after I entered the Internet field, I have not spent time in a large factory. Most entrepreneurial companies have small teams.
After experiencing a few small startups, I have really seen the objective fact that entrepreneurship is a life of nine deaths, and at the same time I have a deep understanding of what conditions are needed for a startup to succeed or to succeed earlier.
For students who are about to enter an entrepreneurial company, I can have some judgment criteria and output them as experience; if you can think about these issues before entering the job, you can learn a lot from this company even if the company cannot survive. .
01 At what stage are you currently and what do you want?
Before entering an entrepreneurial company, I think everyone should have a relatively clear career plan. This career plan may not necessarily tell you what position and industry you want, but at least it needs Can tell oneself what should be needed at each stage.
In the first 1-2 years of entering a certain field, it is the time period to understand the market, explore the industry, and find jobs.
In the next 3-5 years, it will be a stage of going deep into a certain field, a certain industry, and steadily accumulating in a certain position. It is necessary to accumulate peer endorsements, promote industry resources, accumulate successful cases, and precipitate and export methodology.
In the next 5-7 years, it may be necessary to improve the level of cognition according to the planning of each person, and have a deeper level of attainment in both the horizontal and vertical directions.
One thing we need to always recognize is that most people are ordinary people. The time period to know and understand an industry is 1-2 years is the basic time. There are many people with excellent comprehension ability in 3- After learning about the industry within 5 months, I quickly started a business, but this is a minority after all.
At this time, some friends may ask, if I start a business, I don’t need to consider my career, what should I do?
From my personal entrepreneurial experience, if you want to start a business, it’s best to go to a start-up company to learn and observe. Entrepreneurship is not something that can be done with just one idea; whether it is from employment, management, finances and taxes In terms of corporate structure, such as resources, legal affairs, etc., it is still a very serious problem of how to survive. Some entrepreneurs even can’t say what they are doing, what users have solved, or what problems. , Entrepreneurship is very difficult, so most of the start-up companies face the result of dissolution, and success is rare.
So, if you want to start a business, go to a start-up company related to your own entrepreneurial project, and deeply analyze what the company’s product is, who it helps to solve what problems, what are the management methods, financial and taxation, What are the resources and legal issues and how to solve them.
So, if you want to enter a start-up company at this time, first of all, we have to clearly understand which stage of our career is in? Can this company give you what you want at this stage?
Of course, if you have the opportunity to enter a big factory, of course you still have to go to the big factory to experience + endorsement, which will greatly help your career.
02 Who is the highest person in charge that you can directly reach?
Even a start-up company has different positions and responsibilities. Some people are executives, and some are management. Then in the position where you are employed, who is the highest level person in charge you can reach? ?
If you are a product manager, I suggest that you contact at least the boss of the company or the management with direct decision-making power. Only in this way, you will have a greater probability of getting first-hand information, and will have a clearer and more thorough understanding of the company’s direction. , When landing on product planning and function points, the boundary is very clear and the scope is controllable.
The most important thing is that you can maintain the same cognition as those who are at the forefront . This is really fate that can be met but not sought.
Therefore, to judge whether the person in charge you want to contact is worthy of your following, there are several key principles: whether you have decision-making power and how to make decisions (see his thinking logic and ability), whether you understand the industry and users, yes It’s not that he can tell clearly what the product he is making, what problems he solves, how to make money and make money later, whether he knows what the biggest difficulty he is currently encountering is and how to solve it.
These questions don’t necessarily have standard answers, but there must be answers, otherwise if he doesn’t even have an answer, isn’t it just a mess of the same thing?
03 What kind of person is the boss and what is the purpose of starting a business?
People start a business for two purposes, either to make money or to achieve personal value; neither purpose is wrong, but different purposes can reflect the boss’s different original intentions and determine the boss’s decision to treat users and each issue. Tendency; at this time you can evaluate whether you are suitable for such a boss and whether you are in tune with him.
I once interviewed a start-up company. The boss is a toB cashier service for Meiye. After the interview process is passed, the last round of chat with the boss, the boss’s original words are: “Our project team is a freely formed non-fixed form Every project member looks at whether the products made by the product can make money. If you can’t make money, the developers may not be willing to follow you. We start a business to make money. If you don’t make money, we don’t need to talk about user experience.” This Is the boss’s statement wrong? Maybe it was right from his point of view, but I didn’t agree with it. There was a big difference in the judgment standard of what I did. I didn’t join this company later.
The purpose of the current company boss is to achieve self based on solving user problems, so when we make every decision, the first point of consideration is: whether the user experience is good, whether the user’s problem can be solved, the user feels happy or not, Then it is whether we can make money in such a scenario; I personally think that such a decision-making path is smooth.
04 The company is in the development stage. What is the most important project at the moment?
This matter is actually an extension of the second question. Some bosses or top decision makers want everything when they don’t know what they want, and they often send screenshots of various apps to product managers saying: ” This function is very good, when shall we do it”.
Resources are often the biggest difficulty for startups. When a good business plan is implemented into decisions and functions, it can only rely on limited resources to achieve it. How to use every resource on the blade is a test of the boss or senior management. Decisive.
Putting the greatest effort on the most important projects, organizing the corresponding human resources and setting the most reasonable organizational structure to pave the way for the most important projects should be the basic skills that a boss or a decision-making senior should have.
05 Is there a professional in this field for key positions in key projects?
You should have seen many small start-up companies like this. Finance is a relative of the boss, so it only calculates the income and expenses on the books; the operation is the boss’s buddy, who has channel experience, so they can only do channel promotion; the supply chain is The person the boss trusts the most, so it’s a matter of just one sentence to purchase which supplier’s goods are purchased; all these people mix in key projects, making things difficult, lowering efficiency, and worsening standards. The output results are difficult to measure.
Nothing can be done with the power of a single person. The wisdom of many people must be gathered together to become a successful product; this wisdom must be professional wisdom and experience to provide the most important for decision-making. The most objective, most in line with the market and the company’s recommendations.
The most important thing is to work together, not so tired, but also to learn things.
06 Does the company have money and what does it depend on to survive?
This is a very critical and important issue, and any company, big or small, has to face it.
If it is the boss’s own money, then it depends on how many assets the boss may have, how many projects are in use, how long it can be supported, and whether it is willing to raise funds after spending it; if it’s the money from financing, it depends on how many rounds of financing. How much is it; then roughly evaluate where the cost of doing such a project is mainly spent, and also estimate how long the money will last.
If the company can’t survive, this boss, this project, are you willing to follow through through the difficulties?
The most basic of everyone’s work is to live, and whether your life can support you to fight with such a startup company is a question that must be considered.
The above six points can be summed up in three words: people, things, and money-thinking about these three aspects before deciding whether to join a startup company may improve the accuracy of the decision.
Of course, whether your choice is correct or not depends on the purpose of your choice.
