#fairytale# Introduction If you want to succeed in starting a business, the most important thing is to choose an entrepreneurial project that suits you and has certain characteristics. You must also maintain the original passion in starting a business and constantly look for new successes. Opportunity. Below are three stories of successful entrepreneurs compiled and shared by the website. Welcome to read and learn from them.
Article 1
Huang Jianxiang’s entrepreneurial venture received an investment of 9.5 million yuan to promote football training O2O products
While celebrities are keen on investing in Internet startups, football commentator Huang Jianxiang is not Take the road of hard work, join the wave of Internet entrepreneurship, use your own resources to launch the youth football training O2O product "Dongba Football", and obtain angel investment of 9.5 million yuan.
In starting this business, Huang Jianxiang "is not fighting alone." Several of his entrepreneurial partners also love football. One is Mr. Bai Qiang, who has been playing football for more than 30 years since college and won the North American Chinese Football League championship. He is also a 20-year Internet veteran and served as CTO of uniView Technologies Corp and Vice President of iFlytek. The other is star Sneijder, currently No. 10 for the Dutch national team.
Bai Qiang and Huang Jianxiang are the same age. They often communicate about football on WeChat and scold each other about which team is bad. They both like the German team. At the end of last year, Bai Qiang and Huang Jianxiang met in a cafe. Huang Jianxiang said that there are some entrepreneurial opportunities in the sports industry, and he wants to use an O2O method to collect online education resources. For example, if you want to play football, you need to find a team, venue, opponent, and coach. In one sentence, it is the Uber of sports.
Bai Qiang disagreed at first. It was impossible for him to hire a coach after playing football for so many years. On-field opponents and other matters are also handled by the captain. He also believes that taxi matching is simple, just go from point A to point B. Sports are very complicated. Some people do it to make friends, some do it for health, and some do it just for love.
However, Huang Jianxiang convinced him on a macro level. "The sports industry will definitely explode and become a part of life, I admit it. At the same time, in China, mass sports do not have a well-known brand. Does the Chinese Super League count? It does not count." I haven't thought about how to do it specifically. "Tie your shoelaces while running. If iFlytek had to figure out how to use voice, there would be no iFlytek."
So on November 23, 2014, the company was officially established. Name it Dongba Sports. On April 21 this year, their first entrepreneurial project "Dongba Football" was officially launched in Beijing. It is understood that "Dongba Football" has currently received 9.5 million yuan in angel investment.
"Dongba Football" is an application on the WeChat platform. Its main functions are: On the one hand, football enthusiasts who are interested in teaching their children to play football in their spare time can apply on the platform and receive free applications from Dongba. After the professional training provided by Dongba, you can upgrade to Dongba Football Master and teach nearby. On the other hand, parents who are interested in letting their children experience football enlightenment courses can choose weekly football experience courses nearby on the platform. Sign up for a low cost.
In terms of division of labor, Huang Jianxiang is mainly responsible for the development of football resources and brand promotion. Bai Qiang, who serves as CEO, is mainly responsible for product creation and daily operation management. Sneijder is responsible for the introduction of the Cruyff system and Arsenal. Jax clubs are using the Football Enlightenment training method and are seeking cooperation internationally. What they want to do in the future is to become the number one popular sports brand in China and the Uber of sports. Whenever he talks about his ideas, Huang Jianxiang always holds Bai Qiang's hand excitedly: "Old Bai, this thing is better than everything we did in the first half of our lives combined."
Huang Jianxiang said that the project he really wants to do is "Dongba Sports", and "Dongba Football" is just a function of "Dongba Sports". In his opinion, "Dongba Sports" should be a sports social media similar to WeChat and Weibo.
Huang Jianxiang: This actually requires people from all aspects of the sports industry to register before a relatively rich ecosystem can be formed. Now is the early stage, just like when Weibo and WeChat first started. When there are still few species in the ecosystem, you will feel that there is no interaction or social interaction. However, if this process can be accelerated, it will be like an open sports version of WeChat, or Didi Taxi, or other social software, such as Momo.
According to Huang Jianxiang’s plan, “Dongba Football” is only an initial-stage product. In the future, all functions will be integrated into an APP product to provide users with the ability to find venues, opponents, and teammates through mobile Internet+. , find services such as sparring. For Huang Jianxiang, it is the most natural thing to start with football when he wants to do "Mobile Sports".
Huang Jianxiang: Starting from the football project, it is easier for me to do one thing thoroughly and solidly, and to create a successful model or sample.
Huang Jianxiang: There are many retired players and students who graduated from professional sports colleges. Their current careers may not be related to sports. They have their place, but since they may not work in the education system or sports system, it may be most reasonable to use the Internet to coordinate this kind of private power. Because only the Internet can infinitely choose and realize wireless socialization and contact, and it is impossible for any administrative department to reorganize these people who can teach football who have been scattered outside the education and sports system, because they have already Now you have your own job!
According to Bai Qiang, another founder of Dongba Sports, they introduced the Cruyff system from the Netherlands and the football enlightenment used by the Ajax club. The training method closely fits the characteristics of Chinese children aged 4-12 and has specially created a training plan for Dongba Football. This will become the main content of the pre-job training for Dongba Football experts.
However, in Huang Jianxiang’s view, this kind of offline entity work is not the focus of his future work. He said that unlike many current educational O2O products, Dongba Sports will not do offline work. Step by step work, what he has to do is to build a platform.
Huang Jianxiang: We want to make all offline entities a part of our ecosystem, so that this Internet ecosystem will become more and more complete and rich, and achieve a benign ecological balance. . We don’t want to do the kind of offline step-by-step push. What we think is that all people in the sports industry need an exclusive social platform to make it easy to find each other, but Weibo and WeChat can’t play this role now.
“The O2O model of Dianping only tells me how many Sichuan restaurants are nearby, but it will not let the Sichuan restaurants know how many people nearby like to eat Sichuan food. We will achieve two-way interaction to make the information more equal. ." Huang Jianxiang said. "We hope to build such a platform to connect potential private football resources such as teachers and stadiums with people who want to participate in football. Through low-cost user experience, we can truly mobilize the football resources of the entire Chinese society, and use The network method is the most reasonable in coordinating these resources. ”
Chapter 2
A Shanghai girl born in the 1980s became an APP trader and attracted millions of dollars in venture capital.
She was born in the 1980s and has the experience of being born in the 1970s, but she plays with the two-dimensional expressions of the post-90s generation. Her WeChat signature is "Cute Emoticon Master Mengmengda". She was once a top student, but failed in the college entrance examination, but was lucky enough to work in a Japanese company and become a well-paid person. Her MBA application with "whatmattersyouthemost? (What is most important to you?)" started the "variation" of her career until she started to work hard. Entrepreneurial path. She is the Shanghai girl Ding Yan, the founder of emoji me.
The dream of starting a business
A monthly salary of 30,000 yuan right after graduating from college
Ding Yan, who was born in 1981, went to elementary school at the age of 5. When he was in college, he was considered a middle school student in the same grade. smallest. In the graduation season of 2001, by chance, I came across Japan's Sony Corporation, which was recruiting fresh graduates outside the country for the first time. Sony was at its peak at that time. Ding Yan just handed in his resume and was admitted unexpectedly. That year, Ding Yan was 19 years old and flew to Japan to work at Sony Corporation. "The monthly salary at that time was equivalent to 30,000 yuan."
After working for Sony in Japan for 6 years, Ding Yan came up with the idea of ??going to the United States to study for an MBA. I remember that the Stanford MBA only needed to write an article called "whatmattersyouthemost?" What is most important to you?)" application essay.
At that time, Ding Yan was in a confused period of his career. It took him more than a month to write this English article. "Later, I felt that I wanted to do consulting work after getting an MBA, but looking back, since I was sure that this would be the direction in a few years, why not start now?" Ding Yan gave up studying.
In 2011, Ding Yan came into contact with mobile Internet +. One day, the company established a joint venture and found Ding Yan, hoping that she could serve as the vice president of the joint venture in China. Although the project ultimately failed, Ding Yan's entrepreneurial dream was stimulated.
Resigned to start a business
Former boss became a member of the team
Back in Tokyo, Ding Yan’s boss Xiao Pingxin invited her to dinner, the first words they said when they met I said: "I am here to resign to you." Ding Yan flew back to Beijing the next day, and she and her original team started a business project. An aside: Xiao Pingxin, his boss at that time, also joined Ding Yan’s team last year as the Japanese marketing director. He is one of the company’s four overseas special forces members.
At the end of 2011, more than 20 people followed Ding Yan to work alone. They founded the company "apehills" as a secondary development platform for mobile Internet software. They developed more than 20 apps in one year. Mainly made for the Japanese market, Ding Yan’s English learning app rushed to the top of the Japanese category app rankings as soon as it was launched. That year, an app called "Siyan Hui" was also developed, which mainly brought people who drew on the streets to the Internet. It was considered an early intervention in the O2O field.
However, Ding Yan said: “The team was very naive at the time, developing a large number of products, hoping to make whichever one became popular, and many apps would be on the list, which was very happy to see. But at that time, we had no idea about the business model and how to do it. I didn’t plan carefully to make money, but now that I think about it, the fact that my app was listed on the online list was just the beginning of my business.”
Moved south to Shanghai
What I liked was the atmosphere in Shanghai
In 2013, two years after starting his own business in Beijing, Ding Yan returned to his hometown of Shanghai. In July 2013, Ding Yan established Shanghai Siyan Painting Company.
Ding Yan said: "Before the establishment of the company, we made a difficult choice between education and painting. Education has a foundation in Japan, and there are more than 1 million app users; and painting is like Yan. Although Hu app has only a few hundred thousand users, its growth curve is very beautiful, and about 3% are paying users. ”
At that time, China’s mobile Internet market was booming. In China in 2013, WeChat. After getting up, Ding Yan was very optimistic about the WeChat expressions and finally decided on the direction of painting.
In October 2013, Ding Yan received millions of dollars in venture capital from Beijing ZhenFund, Tianjin Yingnuo Venture Fund and Shanghai Relay Angel Entrepreneurship, which gave Ding Yan’s company its first success in operation. An angel investment.
Decryption of emoticons
One emoticon sold for 299 yuan
At the end of 2013, Ding Yan’s team launched “Similar Expression Customization” on WeChat. It is an attempt in the Chinese market. It can help Chinese users customize avatars and expressions of joy, anger, sorrow, and joy for a fee of 299 yuan.
"After working for a few months, I have accumulated 2,000 users who are willing to pay, which accounts for 2%." Ding Yan was very happy to see this, and found that after the user determined an avatar, he hoped that You can customize more dynamic expressions, not just joy, anger, sorrow, and joy.
In March 2014, a new feature "My mm Show" was launched on this official account, allowing users to update their dynamic expressions every week. After working for dozens of weeks, Ding Yan found that almost 100% of the 2,000 paying users updated every week. At the same time, he was inspired that paying users are the top of the "pyramid", and some users may be blocked because they are too expensive. The next step is to try to lower the threshold for users to obtain expressions and images.
To make an APP that makes the post-90s generation scream
“Emojis are an urgent need for chatting among the post-90s generation.” Ding Yan said that in June last year, the emoji me app was launched from the Yanhua app It was separated and developed as an independent app, more targeted at the Chinese market. One of the functions of this app allows users to match their facial features and expressions. Ding Yan said that Emoticon me wants to make an app that makes people born in the 90s around them scream.
"The reason why Moman and Mian Meng became popular after a period of time and then lost popularity is because they did not form their own closed loop. If you make a good avatar, there will be no follow-up. In fact, users need to change their avatar frequently and adjust their expressions. The needs are endless.
”
Games also need to have emoticons
In March this year, Emoticon me just launched a new feature, that is, users can get a cute avatar of Emoticon me by taking pictures with their mobile phones. Such a The technology or logic behind the simple functions involves face recognition, feature capture, art generation and emotion change.
In February 2014, Emoticon Me was awarded the contract by Shanghai Puruan Huizhi and Beijing Beiruan. Angels raised millions of dollars in venture capital, which is considered Series A financing. By the end of March 2015, the emoji me app had more than 2 million downloads and more than 1 million users.
Part 3.
In the past few years, the throne of the world's youngest billionaire has been exclusively occupied by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. However, this year, this title changed hands and was owned by Snapchat founder Evan Spie. Geer won it. Snapchat is a mobile messaging software. Its characteristic is that messages will be automatically burned 10 seconds after they are sent, leaving no records. The software can also share messages, photos, and videos. Most of its users are young people from European and American countries.
Reject Zuckerberg and replace his title
Recently, Snapchat received an investment from Yahoo, which values ??the company. The value has increased to US$10 billion. This round of financing has not yet been completed, and Snapchat is still seeking investment from other investors. Previously, Snapchat had held financing negotiations with Alibaba, and this summer it signed a financing agreement with the venture capital firm KPCB. /p>
Its founder Spiegel’s net worth has also reached US$1.5 billion, making him the youngest billionaire in the world at only 24 years old. Similar to Facebook in its early stages, Spiegel founded it. The Snapchat photo sharing application is also free and does not generate revenue, but its revenue generation prospects and potential are enough to attract investment from many investors. As the son of a lawyer couple, Spiegel was born in a powerful family. Now, the 24-year-old is remembered for turning down Mark Zuckerberg. Two years after graduating from Stanford, the Snapchat co-founder is on the rise. At the pinnacle of many people's dreams, the business empire he founded received an acquisition offer worth billions of dollars. It is reported that Facebook used $3 billion in cash to purchase Snapchat, but it was rejected.
Just a few months ago, the ephemeral photo and video sharing app was valued at less than $800 million. The service sent 400 million messages a day and was popular among teenagers. The exact number of users is still secretive, but in any case, sober venture capital investors have paid great attention to the company and given it huge financial support, eager to cultivate the next Facebook. So, Spiegel. There is no need to worry about the future development of the company in the short term.
No matter what else he did, the 24-year-old will always be remembered for turning down Zuckerberg. Regardless of the original intention, for a young man, this indeed shows great confidence. But if you're surprised, it just means you don't know Spiegel. "He is very confident in his creativity, even a little stubborn." Leo Luo Fei, who was a classmate of Spiegel at Crossroads Liberal Arts School in Santa Monica, California, said. When he grew up, Spiegel also did not waver in this belief, and he even did not hesitate to commit suicide boldly.
He had a privileged childhood and later became rebellious and loved luxury cars.
Spiegel was born on June 4, 1990. His parents are both lawyers. He grew up in a powerful family. His mother, Melissa, was the youngest female graduate of Harvard Law School. However, when Spiegel was born, she resolutely resigned from her position as a partner in her law firm. , focused on being a stay-at-home mother. Spiegel's father, John, is also a partner in a well-known law firm, so his income is enough to support the entire family in living a comfortable life. Their family lives in an affluent area in west Los Angeles, and their house is worth $4.6 million.
Due to their well-off family, Spiegel and his two sisters, Lauren and Caroline, not only had enough food and clothing, but also traveled to many places since childhood. However, they are not playboys, but often engage in a lot of voluntary work.
Overall, Spiegel has grown into an adaptable, ambitious and affable young man.
But no one is perfect. When he grew up, Spiegel was rebellious and often spendthrift. He often had quarrels with his father because of this.
"You may be disgusted with my love for certain things, such as cars. But don't forget how much you love Bose headphones." Spiegel on February 12, 2008 So said the letter to his father. That year, he was 17 years old.
At that time, Spiegel wanted his family to buy him a BMW 535i, but his family happened to be in turmoil at the time: his parents ended their marriage of nearly 20 years. Spiegel initially chose to live with his father, and they bought a $4.25 million house near his mother's old home. The elder Spiegel completely handed over the decoration of the new home to his son, but he also appointed the professional GregGrande decoration company and arranged for his friends to serve as designers.
Spiegel bought a large white leather double bed for his room, decorated it with Venetian-style wallpaper, installed a lot of bookshelves, and equipped it with a top-notch computer, two designs elegant chairs, and a set of custom cabinets. He also designed a home* in his basement with a giant 8-foot screen that can be controlled remotely from his bedroom.
Like many young people, Evan Spiegel is also obsessed with luxury cars. But unlike many young people, he can also afford a luxury car.
But when the 17-year-old Spiegel repeatedly overdrawn his credit card and even wanted to buy a $75,000 BMW 535i, his always generous father couldn't bear it. His father had previously bought him a new 2006 Cadillac Escalade for $56,000. But Spiegel wanted a smaller car because he "drove a lot in the city." These contents can be found in the divorce documents of Spiegel's parents.
At that time, the elder Spiegel gave the younger Spiegel an allowance of US$250 per week. In addition to the new car, little Spiegel also strongly requested that his father give him US$1,992 per month to maintain the car, eat, entertain and buy clothes. He also wants an "emergency fund" of $2,000 because "life is full of unpredictable expenses."
As a result, Spiegel failed to do so, and a fierce quarrel broke out with his father. In the end, he chose to move back in with his mother. A few days later, his mother rented him the BMW he had dreamed of.
But Spiegel's studies were not affected at all - even though he received a speeding ticket as soon as he drove the BMW. His 10th-grade English teacher recalled that Spiegel was top-notch academically and even wrote an article on the novel teaching methods of Danjun Junction School, for which he won the teacher's praise.
His hard work paid off: he was eventually admitted to Stanford University. Spiegel was on vacation in Prague when he learned of his admission.
How Snapchat was born
“Stanford’s history has been deeply marked by entrepreneurship. We’ve all heard the stories—young white men dropping out to pursue His desire for dreams has led him through the ups and downs of life. This romantic business fairy tale permeates the entire Stanford culture. The words came from Spiegel, who told the audience at a Stanford Women in Business conference on April 7, 2013: "This allows me to re-appreciate the charm of entrepreneurship. It allows me to combine life and work. . My dream is far greater than accumulating wealth, and it must be realized by integrating into the consumer society and starting a business.”
In fact, long before I met Reggie Brown and Bobby Murphy, Even before enrolling at Stanford, Spiegel’s entrepreneurial dream had begun.
At least going back to his teenage years. In the summer of 2005, at the age of 15, Spiegel took two continuing education courses at the Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles. One of the graphic design classes made a lasting impression on him.
“Her design class uses a practical approach to teach design thinking, which is revolutionary for a student like me.
" Spiegel later recommended Professor Mirka Blokshim, who was teaching him at the time, on LinkedIn and said, "I will never forget the printing experiments we conducted in his class and the time spent in the printing laboratory. time. "
When working for the school newspaper of Crossroads Liberal School, Spiegel also went to the surrounding communities to sell advertisements to companies. The tutor at the time said that although this was part of the homework for journalism students, , but Spiegel’s actual sales far exceeded his goals, and he even taught other children how to ask adults for money.
When he was a senior in high school, Spiegel decided to work for Red Bull. . “I was so in love with the brand and their lifestyle and I was so obsessed with the drink that I had to be a part of it. "So I approached a friend who knew someone who worked at Red Bull and asked him to help me find a job," he said in a speech in April 2013. I begged him repeatedly that we would do anything for Red Bull. "
Spiegel's mother said that the unpaid internship experience allowed Spiegel to learn marketing, and he also participated in many computer and graphic design projects. Spiegel's own statement Very childish: “I learned how to party and I had a lot of fun. "
The summer before going to college, he also took classes at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. But after entering Stanford, Spiegel encountered a conflict of interests. He went to a biomedical company He worked as a paid intern in the company. Later, he wanted to be a teacher, so he went to Cape Town, South Africa to teach students how to find jobs.
Spiegel became interested in entrepreneurship and technology for the first time. All thanks to a meeting with Intuit founder Scott Cook. He attended a class at Stanford Business School on the recommendation of a family friend. It is said that Spiegel begged Cook to give him a job. The other party agreed. So, he, Cook and an engineer *** launched a project called TxtWeb, which can obtain information through the Internet and then send it to Indians who do not have access to broadband networks.
Since then, Spiegel and Murphy, of the KappaSigma fraternity, have founded FutureFreshman to teach students, parents and counselors how to apply to college. But Spiegel said that in addition to their own parents. , no one else was using the service.
By the spring of 2011, Spiegel had a phone call that changed his life. Spiegel discussed it with Murphy. FutureFreshman transformed into a "burn after reading" photo sharing service
Thus, Snapchat was born
Life is not fair and the entrepreneurial partner was kicked out
The creative process was actually more complicated, and Brown was involved. This member of the KappaSigma fraternity came up with the idea of ??"burning after reading".
Brown told Spiegel, Spiegel approached Murphy to write code together, and the three worked together to create Snapchat, originally called Picaboo, in July 2011. He didn't know how to program, so he could only do marketing work and apply for a patent. According to Brown, he was kicked out after a month. Now, he is suing Spiegel, Murphy and Snapchat. investors, hoping to get a stake in the company. Brown said that he designed the Snapchat logo.
But as Spiegel said, life is not fair.
Just two years after the app launched, Spiegel and Murphy moved the 28-employee company to Venice, California, and it became one of Silicon Valley's most talked about companies, with a valuation of billions of dollars. The company did not disclose specific data, but Pew Research Center estimates indicate that approximately 9% of adult mobile phone users in the United States use this service. This is indeed a remarkable achievement for a product that has only been launched for two years. What’s more, it doesn’t include the teenage users who are the most popular users of Snapchat.
Spiegel's tense relationship with his father has eased, and he apparently no longer has to bear the stress of his extravagant spending. He has moved back to the same apartment where he had a falling out with his father six years ago over a need to increase his pocket money. Residential. Although he lives with his father, Spiegel is still the most envied object by people around him, not only because of his billions of net worth, but also because American country singer Taylor Swift was revealed to be dating Spiegel.
Snapchat’s good fortune may ultimately be as fleeting as the services it provides, but judging from Spiegel’s 24 years of life experience, this star CEO who comes from a wealthy family is indeed very lucky. .
Even if he doesn’t have this kind of luck, I believe he will still have a good life. "I'm a young white man with a good education. I'm very, very lucky," he said in April. "But life is not fair. Since life is unfair, the key is not to work hard, but to learn to manipulate the system. ”
In the view of the ambitious Spiegel, Facebook and Google are both old, and the most valuable thing about Snapchat is that its ability to disappear after reading can attract people born in the 1990s and 2000s. Finding a platform to release himself, to put it bluntly, the young and rebellious attributes give him and his company endless possibilities for the future.