Required courses for founders: finding people, finding money, and finding direction

■ Text/Li Hao? Founding Partner of Zhongke Chuangxing

1. The ability to recognize and employ people

Lei Jun said: CEOs spend 80% of their time When looking for someone, it is not enough to visit the thatched cottage three times. You must visit the thatched cottage thirty times.

Lei Jun said this, there are two possible reasons: the first is that Lei Jun no longer needs to find money when he started his business, so he spent 80% of his time looking for people; the second is that Lei Jun is interested in people The requirements are higher. Ordinary entrepreneurs may be looking for people with a score of less than 70, while Lei Jun is looking for people with a score of 90. Such people are scarce and require more time.

However, we all have a common understanding: business is a competition. For the development of an enterprise, the quantity and quality of talents determine your position in the competition.

Especially in the early days, a thousand gold can be exchanged for a general. Of course, start-ups may encounter another problem: without money, no one will work with you.

So, whether it’s looking for people or money, why do you think you can do it?

I think you need to rely on your own in-depth thinking about the business, and rely on yourself to understand the underlying logic of business and industry better than investors and people who are better than you.

If you are having trouble finding people, you should ask yourself three questions:

Is the business thinking done well enough to impress investors and talented people? Make them trust you?

What are you paying for, and are you really taking risks?

Are your layout and strategic vision big enough?

1. How to choose partners?

① Entrepreneurial mentality and entrepreneurial spirit

In most cases, when looking for better people to join in the early stages of starting a business, you often have no money, and it depends more on you Your personal charm and influence make people feel that there is a future in following you.

Taking it to the next level is that you can convince these people with your explanation of the company's beautiful vision. This is not called brainwashing, it’s called upgrading your partner’s brain operating system.

However, no matter what, partners must have an entrepreneurial mentality and entrepreneurial spirit.

Issues involving talents are mainly “selection, training, employment and retention”. Most companies often make the wrong choice at the beginning because they select partners based on a short-term mentality. What is a short-term mentality?

If you are short of a market partner, you should quickly find one with market experience. Whether this person has an entrepreneurial mentality and whether his values ??are consistent may be secondary.

Editor's note: There are two main criteria for examining whether a potential partner is suitable: the first is mutual trust, and the second is whether they have the same values ??and vision, and whether they are sensible enough when facing difficulties and challenges. Make the right decision. The depth and breadth of the relationship between partners is very important. It does not necessarily require the deepest friendship, but it does require mutual trust, belief and support for each other's decisions.

Therefore, the first thing to look for when looking for someone is whether he has an "entrepreneurial mentality." There are three main manifestations of the entrepreneurial mentality:

The first point is the owner's mentality.

At any time, always take yourself and the company seriously, and connect the company's development with your own development. If you don’t have a master mentality, no matter how much equity you give him, he will not be a partner, he will just be a worker with equity.

Even if you give him 20 or 30% of the equity, when thinking about the problem, he only thinks about "what should the company give me". He never regards himself as part of the company. When it comes to profits, he is a partner; when it comes to responsibilities, he is an ordinary employee. In addition, it is often necessary to have an entrepreneurial mentality before you should have equity.

The second point is result-oriented.

Everything must be done to achieve results, regardless of external conditions, changes, or objective difficulties. The mentality of partners must be like this.

Those who are good at finding reasons are professional managers and employees. The mentality of partners is how to get things done, and they only talk about methods and results.

In other words, whether a person has an entrepreneurial mentality should be judged from the aspect of motivation. In other words, when you are nice to someone or do something, is your motive to contribute or to take?

The third point is ultimate thinking.

Partners do things for the long-term stability and sustainable development of the company, not for short-term profits.

However, some employees or professional managers do things just to complete the KPI for the year and to obtain high bonuses, without considering whether the company will ultimately benefit from this.

Only those with the above three characteristics can be regarded as partners with an entrepreneurial mentality.

Editor's note: Entrepreneurship is a long-term and continuous process. Choosing a partner should not only look at his current value, but also requires a sense of crisis to judge a person's future value. Personal learning ability is the core indicator for judging future value. The entrepreneurial process is also a continuous learning ability, including management ability, operational ability, sales ability, coordination ability, goal planning ability, etc. Partners need to be able to continue to work together with the development of the company. Growing up, excellent learning ability is extremely important.

The same goes for Fang Shengtao's classification of senior executives into real executives and fake executives. A pseudo-executive is a senior executive in terms of his position, but he has not fulfilled his duties in terms of mentality and exercise of responsibilities, rights and interests. Executives have the same responsibilities as partners.

I really can’t explain entrepreneurship clearly. I recommend everyone to read Cao Dewang’s interview.

② Continuous learning

In addition to characteristics, partners must be able to continuously improve the cognitive structure and leadership of core team members through continuous learning.

I think as entrepreneurial partners, sometimes we are the same as husband and wife. The common reason why some people go from marriage to divorce is because the two people have different growth paths and have different views on life, work, values, and children's education. These cannot be reconciled, and then they separate.

The team members of a company are similar. In the early stage, everyone has the same understanding, pursuit, and vision. But after 5-10 years, everyone may have more ideas and part ways. This is very difficult. It's normal, so you need to sign the agreement in advance.

The members of the core team are open: First, they have an open mind and can understand the changes in their own requirements as a result of the company's development. Second, the circle is open, and outstanding people from outside can come in at any time. Break the ceiling and let everyone see the progress of the work.

Sometimes, don’t take entrepreneurship too seriously. It is just a game of “winning”. Just play this game seriously and well. The purpose of finding a partner is to win. If you can find more excellent people to share the interests, you will essentially increase the probability of winning.

③ One heart, two things, and three complement each other

There is a formula for choosing a partner: one heart, two things, three things complement each other - "One heart" means having the same original intention, and "two things the same" means having the same values ??and The long-term goals are the same, and the "three complements" are the complementarity of personality, ability and resources.

In the early days of the Anti-Japanese War, the party members came together for the mission and honor of the party. After five counter-encirclement and suppression campaigns, the Red Army went through the Long March to Yan'an, with only 5,000 people left. Later, it relied on these 5,000 people to attract 200,000 progressive young people rushed to Yan'an.

Why do these people still run to Yan'an when they can't eat or drink well, and they risk being decapitated? That is, the sense of mission that remains true to the original intention, has no other interests, and is unswervingly loyal to the party.

We say that values ??are not what we say, but what we do.

As an entrepreneur, you also need to understand what your partners’ values ??are like.

Is he a long-termist or a short-term speculator? This is very important. If the values ??are not correct, there will be no long-term cooperation.

Entrepreneurs can basically think of complementary capabilities and resources, mainly about personality.

In other words, you must choose an adult partner. Adults can communicate more rationally, while minors are too self-centered and prone to being emotional.

There is also faith. You have to ask whether you and your partner trust each other. Because I found that many No. 1s will ruthlessly harm the people around them without being harmed themselves. They are commonly known as "masked killers".

The next step is to align the rights and responsibilities of the partners. Sometimes this is not possible.

④ Create an environment

In addition to selecting the right partners, it is also important to establish a good environment for partners to display their value and integrate into the organization. If the number one position does not have such abilities, The "good guys" are forced to become bad guys when they come, because they can only survive if their bottom line is low enough.

I have seen two co-founders of a company who are very strong. The company is developing very well, with a valuation of several billions. The major shareholder serves as the chairman, and the second shareholder serves as the general manager and legal person. The two of them The shares were quite different, but the two made the company's environment extremely bad and formed two factions.

Newcomers can only make a living if they join one faction. The first thing they ask when they come to the company is "Are you a heaven faction or a local faction?" This is also true for senior executives hired with high salaries.

You said "I am neither a local nor a local", and you "killed" (fired) you on the spot, and you still spent shareholders' money to do these things.

The industry is very good now, so the development speed of this company is greater than the speed of internal consumption. It is hard to say in the future.

Therefore, back to the key point, the No. 1 position must handle complex relationships, be responsible for the field, build a true executive team, and maintain mission, vision and values. Even if it is internal competition, it is for the sake of success. Win the external battle.

Of course, it would be particularly shameful to have a harmonious leadership team if the war cannot be won. Entrepreneurship is a game of winning. Everyone plays the game and wins in the end.

Editor's note: When you select the right person, things will go smoothly and the running-in time will be shortened. In the process of every company going through the waves, the experience of "the last one is king" will be verified, and those who can stay until the end are always particularly remarkable.

2. How to choose a general?

A general is someone who gives a new piece of business to him, and you can just ask him for time and results.

A general has several soft qualities:

First, he is highly self-driven;

Second, he has strong logic and execution ability;

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Third, be responsible for things;

Fourth, have a strong heart and body that can be repaired at any time.

Generals are particularly important. If the company's back strength is not strong or a business cannot grow, then the generals are not good enough. If people use it right, everything will go right; if people use it wrong, everything will go wrong.

For example, Yu Chengdong is Ren Zhengfei’s general. Without Yu Chengdong, Ren Zhengfei’s halo may disappear. According to people inside Huawei, Lei Jun has already come out to build cars. If Yu Chengdong can resign from Huawei and build cars independently, he will definitely be able to find more than 50 billion. Many people are willing to invest. This is the view of Huawei people.

Of course, some people say that many people at Huawei have failed to start their own businesses because the platform is so powerful that they have endless money and resources to spend.

Who is suitable to be the leader of a business sector or region?

People with high stability, including emotional and behavioral performance. Many people's inner pursuits and outer behaviors are always inconsistent or unstable. This type of people are often particularly prone to complaining or having negative energy, and may even feel very tired, making it difficult for them to achieve great things.

Some people start a business and seize the opportunity. The business is big and good, but they feel in their hearts that these are not what they want, which is very painful.

Therefore, it is also very important to understand what you want in your heart and then do it.

Editor's note: Finding people is the source of almost everything. The process of finding someone is hard, but the cost of finding the wrong person can be painful. Jobs said, I used to think one great person was worth two mediocre employees, and now I think it’s worth 50. I spend about 1/4 of my time recruiting talent. It's worth the extra time. Moreover, most first-rate talents will find first-rate talents, but second-rate talents will find third-rate and fourth-rate talents. I hope you can find someone suitable and reliable. Being able to work with people like that.

3. How to find the top ten employees?

In the early days of starting a business, the first ten employees are particularly important. These people are your team members.

I have a suggestion for everyone. Team members must have "high standards and not make do".

Because the company was small and not well-known at the beginning, and no one knew how many months the company would last, "good" people were reluctant to come.

The salary you may give is not high, and good people are not willing to come, and noble people are not willing to come. But if the standard of recruiting people is lowered at the beginning, it will bring you huge troubles to the company and later problems.

Especially for the top ten employees, it is important not to lower the recruitment standards. Many people say that I recruit them first and then replace them when better people come in one or two years. I change them frequently. In fact, This proves that this is unreliable.

The criterion for the top ten employees is whether they have a strong willingness to learn, ability and potential. Especially if your business is very new and there are no competitors in the market, you should pay more attention to the learning ability, willingness and potential of your employees. On the contrary, experience is not very important.

4. Use people to do things, or use people to do things?

Employing people to do things can be understood as: I trust you, just do it; employing people to do things means: I want to do one thing, and you help me complete it.

If the No. 1 position has a clear idea of ??what to do, like Lei Jun, just use people to do things. There is no need to discuss strategy anymore. Just find people who agree with you to join and let's do it together.

However, many entrepreneurs have not thought clearly. When they see different investors, they tell different stories. Even when they meet someone who knows better than themselves, they just follow others. This becomes a problem. To do things.

I encourage position 1 to have one-on-one conversations and communication with senior management members. Senior managers should also communicate with middle managers, and middle managers should also communicate with team members.

Everyone must be clear about their own goals and capabilities, and at the same time understand what their superiors and subordinates value and expect of each other. This is a particularly good way to test leadership.

In fact, many middle- and senior-level managers manage based on instinct rather than common sense and rationality, which will cause big problems.

5. How to communicate and motivate well?

① Team communication

Where are your current capabilities and bottlenecks? What things are you capable of accomplishing, and what things may be beyond your current capabilities? (Clear the scope of your current capabilities)

Do you have clear work goals or expectations for the next period of time? (Clear goals)

Regarding the expectations you hope to achieve (for example, becoming a person who can independently lead an operations team within 2 years), what core capabilities do you currently lack? (Clearly identify the shortcomings that need to be addressed)

How can I help you accumulate and acquire these core capabilities? (Clear ways to make up for weaknesses, such as personnel training)

A good management tool is performance interviews. Performance interviews should be conducted with the people in charge of you.

How to do it in the next stage, why do it, what do you think about the company-wide goals, what is the relationship with the company-wide goals, what are the expectations of the superiors, what are the requirements, what are the time points, and what are the time points? Any difficulties encountered and those that require help must be resolved through discussion between superiors and subordinates.

Editor’s note: People’s minds determine behavioral choices and determine people’s habits of logical judgment before making decisions. Different minds directly lead to different behavioral results. Therefore, for core talents, mental stimulation is needed is a required selection. In the current fierce competitive environment, mental stimulation is even more important. People themselves feel the pressure and psychological impact in the competition. Coupled with the cruelty of resources and environment, it will lead to people eager for quick success and even unscrupulous means. If efforts are not made to motivate people mentally, it is possible that people with professional abilities will not be able to obtain the support of the team, or even be isolated.

Performance interviews are first of all equal, one-to-one, and a deep-seated working relationship;

Performance interviews are hierarchical. For example, if you have a performance interview with the head of the department, the department The person in charge is responsible for conducting performance interviews with everyone in their department, which is a very important thing;

Performance interviews are a process in which top and bottom leaders achieve mutual understanding and communicate with each other. I think the management foundation of a company comes from interviews. After performance interviews, feedback from top to bottom is formed;

② Team motivation

First, the higher the team motivation, the better. , it’s not that the harder the better, it must be the most appropriate;

Second, motivation is not the final point, the direction is the end point. Incentive is the accelerator and direction is the steering wheel. Only when you are on the right road can you give too much gas. If you give too much gas on the wrong road, something will happen;

Third, don’t make team motivation omnipotent. , Incentives cannot solve all problems, but can only solve part of the problems they can solve.

In addition, salary is always a very important prerequisite. The salary level represents the level at which you can obtain talents.

A competitive salary system is the prerequisite and guarantee for incentives. The wages are extremely low, and equity incentives are still being designed. Your assumption is that the company has a partner mentality, but in fact this is unrealistic. .

I think equity incentives are defensive measures and can only solve the problem of long-term interest alignment. Other companies have certain difficulties in poaching people. Equity incentives are sometimes not as effective as salary increases, but There must be some.

Managers should not use equity incentives to cover up the lack of leadership, low management level and low organizational capabilities.

Why are Huawei employees so motivated?

One of the very important reasons is that he believes that his work, struggle and sacrifice are meaningful. I think everyone should work more on this matter and give meaning to employees' lives and work. If you don't do this well and only use money and equity incentives, it means that your level is not enough.

6. The general principle of recognizing and employing people

Use interests to solve the driving force, use pressure to solve the action force, use leadership to drive execution, and use system processes to solve the destructive force;

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Unite people with cultural mission, unite people with harmony of interests, and control people with systems and procedures; reward active and advanced elements, win over unstable elements in the middle, and eliminate backward and sabotaging elements.

Use ability to determine the position, use results to exchange votes, and use pattern to determine the overall situation.

2. The ability to think systematically about the company's business

1. Business selection

Simply put, the ability to define a company is the ability to think about the company's business system .

There are three very important points about company business selection.

① Direction

Is it a road? Is it a good prospect? What is its relationship with the current social theme?

If you choose the wrong direction, the further you run on the wrong road, the greater the loss will be, so the direction issue must be clarified.

There is a story like this: There are three people in an elevator, one is doing push-ups, one is hitting his head against the wall, and the other is squatting. When they reached the 24th floor, someone asked them how they got up there. Some people say they came up by hitting their heads against the wall, and some people say they came up by doing push-ups. In fact, they all came up by taking the elevator.

Some people always attribute their success to their own efforts, but they never thought that their success should be attributed to the historical process. Everyone is following the general trend, and the "elevator" is the general trend and the direction. .

② Timing

When doing something, timing is very important. You must explain clearly why it is now, or you can prove that you are not doing it too early. It's not too late. Because if it’s too early, you’ll die on the beach; if it’s too late, you won’t be able to catch up.

Editor's note: Let me be clear first, there is a methodology for starting a business, but before you find the direction of starting a business, your project may die. Methodology does not mean success, nor does it mean finding the right direction, because the right direction is found through trial and error. Not everyone has the courage and capital to try and make mistakes.

③ Entry point

For example, in the industry, there are those who make terminal equipment, some who make integration, some who make parts, and some who make materials. Which link do you choose to do? Why this link? Is this link a critical link? Have you thought this through? Why are you doing this? What resources do you have to do it better than others?

The above are all matters at the business level. Looking further down, we need to answer three questions:

Who am I?

Why should I start a business?

Why am I the successful person?

Why should you answer these three questions?

Because professional investment institutions only look at these things. If you cannot explain these things clearly, you will definitely not be able to raise their money. They are institutions with procedures and due diligence. And those people are looking at projects every day, hundreds of projects a year, which is too much.

2. The realization of the corporate blueprint stems from the four cornerstones - mission, vision, pattern, and passion. In the early stages of entrepreneurship, the mission, vision, pattern, and passion must be clearly thought out.

① Mission

A sense of mission is the cornerstone of an enterprise.

What kind of people come together for what purpose? This is the ultimate goal of an enterprise's existence.

If a truly good company wants to recruit real talents and make a career, it needs to create a sense of self-fulfillment for each employee, which is a great pursuit that goes beyond the ego.

A truly good company must have pursuits beyond money, because money is too homogeneous. Without differentiation, there is no way to attract better talents.

Editor's note: There is no mystery about entrepreneurship. Entrepreneurship is just like work. It is nothing more than the difference between doing well and doing poorly. Starting a business requires methodology, but starting a business requires your own thinking. All the answers here are methodologies and experiences, but they belong to others, not yours. What you can do is match the corresponding products, services or business models according to your own characteristics, environment and resources.

② Foresight

Foresight is to solve the problem of what to do. It is the forward-looking ability and the differentiated deployment based on the forward-looking results.

Foresight means standing high and seeing far. The source lies in your unique judgment about the future.

If you can see the possible future status earlier, faster and more clearly than others, you can make arrangements in advance and let the right people do the right things in the right way. Naturally, it is better than others. Others go better.

③ Pattern

This refers to the pattern of life, which is the space of life, that is, a person’s degree of awareness of the location (time and space) of things and future changes—— The inner layout of a person's vision, mind, courage and other psychological factors is the capacity to accommodate people and things.

④ Passion

Passion refers to the enthusiasm for doing things and starting a business.

Passion for work and career is a valuable work state and quality, and it is also the courage and confidence to cope with risks and keep moving forward.

3. Everyone must have the ability to ask themselves questions

For example, Kazuo Inamori said that when he started a business, he would ask himself: Am I doing this for income? ? Is it to please others and prove yourself?

In the end, he thought it was none of them. He just wanted to contribute, and he just wanted to make more people's lives better. This is his hard work and dedication.

If you believe it wholeheartedly, you will have power when you practice it. This is "will power". It can change the results of many things, influence the minds of many people, and increase followers. ?

When you start a business, others can help you do BP and improve it, but the soul and thoughts are determined by you.

3. The ability to find money

1. Understand the financing process

Is it possible to run a business without financing?

From the current point of view, it is impossible not to raise funds. The current competitive environment is different from that of 30 years ago. If you don’t raise funds, others will raise funds, taking away better people, better technology, and markets. .

Financing can turn unreliability into reliability, and it can also turn reliability into unreliability. I think financing is also a battle. The more prepared you are, the greater your chance of victory.

Editor’s note: Today we see that many founding teams have very good management team capabilities when they get 5 million, but it is difficult for them to grow when they get 50 million half a year later. To that ability. We have seen that the vast majority of entrepreneurial companies do not starve to death, but are starved to death. They are starved to death by too much money. Because the founders and team do not yet have the ability to spend so much money.

Everyone needs to think clearly about the following questions:

Do you understand the complete financing process, such as the internal decision-making process of VC, what financing materials need to be prepared, and the list of questions investors like most is: What, what are the coping strategies?

How to completely sort out your business from the perspective of a VC and extract project highlights so that the capital market can understand and be interested?

What is the underlying logic behind why investors invest in you?

Telling your business story requires a complete logic. What is your logic? What are some scenarios for telling stories to VCs? What are the specific strategies to deal with these scenarios? How do you combine stories with hot topics or trends?

What is your valuation and funding amount? How is it calculated?

How many channels are there to connect with VC? How to efficiently connect more capital?

How to negotiate a TS (term letter)?

Preparing all the above things is to effectively reduce the difficulty of customers' decision-making, and at the same time establish effective communication and trust with customers, and then get twice the result with half the effort.

In fact, at least half of the people are not well prepared when doing this, and what they are most afraid of is that financing will enter a protracted battle.

Editor's note: The biggest feature of venture capital is that funds must be withdrawn. Exit methods include mergers, acquisitions and share transfers.

This determines that the market size of the invested company must be large enough, otherwise no matter how long it develops, it will be difficult to develop into a large enough enterprise to do an IPO; or it must be able to develop into an important enough company to be merged by other companies. If the project is not big enough but very profitable, it is not necessary to find venture capital. They are not suitable financing targets for entrepreneurs, especially venture capital with particularly orthodox planning.

2. 7 experiences about financing

① The essence of financing is the entrepreneur’s in-depth thinking about the business and the coverage of the knowledge of investment institutions.

Whether the investor asks you one question or a hundred questions, they are all within your range, and you have prepared the answers for him "in advance".

② Financing is a process of settling accounts and is an important factor in starting a business, even a decisive factor.

③ Build trust with investors.

Don’t expect investors to raise money just by meeting you two or three times. Building trust is very time-consuming.

④ Be clear about the business ceiling and probability of success.

⑤ Get the right money.

As a startup company, if you take money from different people, your fate may be different.

If you just want to do a business, or you don’t care much about this matter, it doesn’t matter whose money you take, everyone’s money is money.

But let me tell you one thing, capital has attributes. If you take money from a bank, it has a debt attribute, which means it must meet the bank's requirements in terms of liquidity and security; if you take money from a risk institution, it must meet the requirements of an investment institution in terms of return; To gain public money, you have to disclose the attributes of all information.

When you go to the capital market, you must be "harmony" - take money from people who have the same ideas and values ??as you.

Of course, if you don’t have the right to choose investors, that’s a different story. However, don’t touch P2P.

⑥ The further you go in financing, the more you need to find an intermediary agency.

The further you go in financing, the more you need to find an intermediary to help you: first, the transaction situation becomes more complex and the granularity becomes finer and finer; second, the further you go in financing, the more credibility is involved. of ingredients, FA is a transmission and endorsement of credibility; third, the required materials are becoming more and more professional.

⑦ Don’t blindly pursue high valuations.

Many people often cannot resist the temptation of valuation, thinking that the valuation must be higher.

But we must first understand, what does valuation represent? The essence of valuation represents the high expectations and expectations of your new round of investors for you. After you get this valuation, it means that you must reach the milestones and meet the investment requirements before the next round of financing. The higher the valuation, the more stringent the terms of the agreement may be.

One more tip: once the conditions are negotiated, even if the valuation is reduced, do not sign a bet. A bet above 90% is not good for entrepreneurs. Mamp; D

Included in the December 2021 issue of "Management and Decision-Making"