Contract Signed with Success - CCTV "Win in China" Top 100 Entrepreneurial Questions

Author: CCTV Win in China Project Team
Publisher:
Publishing Date: Not Available
Features: The dreams of entrepreneurship and success are hidden in everyone's heart, but it requires wisdom and courage. At the same time, not everyone can become an entrepreneurial hero. What kind of person is suitable for entrepreneurship? How to find money, people, and markets during the entrepreneurial process? As a large-scale interactive economic program produced by CCTV, "Win in China" has specially created the "100 Questions on Entrepreneurship" series of dialogues. It has invited renowned domestic entrepreneurs such as Yang Jiehe, Chairman of Pacific Construction Group Co., Ltd., Huang Guangyu, Chairman of Gome, Jiang Nanchun, Chairman of Focus Media, Niu Gensheng, Chairman of Mengniu Dairy (Group) Co., Ltd., and Guo Guangchang, Chairman of Shanghai Fosun High-Tech Group Co., Ltd., as well as famous venture capitalists such as Xu Xin, President of Today Capital Group, Xiong Xiaoguo, Vice Chairman of IDG Technology Entrepreneurship Investment Fund, and Yan Yan, President of Beijing SoftBank SF Investment Consulting Co., Ltd. They share their experiences and provide guidance from both theoretical and practical perspectives with contestants from "Win in China" who are at different stages of their careers.
Qian Jiang: I am Qian Jiang from the Lianhe. The name is easy to remember—money flows in like a river. Our website gathers both domestic and international psychology and relationship experts, who have designed a love psychology assessment system. Through this system, we help our users find soulmates. This is our main business. However, during our entrepreneurial journey, we encountered a major challenge. We want to ask the experts here, as well as our fellow entrepreneurs, when you face difficulties in your entrepreneurial endeavors, do you choose to stick to your original path and continue, or do you switch to a new direction that you believe is better? For example, when we first started, we were doing what was called a social network—a website system similar to a community. But after surveying our users, we found that 80% of them came to our site to find partners. Then we looked around and realized that finding partners is a significant social need that is not being met. I used to work at McKinsey & Company, and there was a joke in our company: if you joined without being married, you had two options—either find a partner within the company or with clients, because otherwise, you basically wouldn’t meet anyone else. Since the people who are looking for partners are often young professionals just starting out in their careers, they don’t have time for dating. Once, I went to Zhongshan Park with my mother and encountered three or four hundred middle-aged and elderly women there, wearing tags with their children’s names, photos, and workplaces. I asked them, and they said they were helping their children find partners without their consent, because these children were too busy and didn’t want their parents to get involved. I also have a friend who is quite amusing. He often drives a jeep to universities with many female students, trying to find a girlfriend. We always tease him, but later he sent us a message that I still remember vividly. He said, “Am I easy?” Many users have similar sentiments. Based on this survey, we believed the market was large, but when we discussed it internally, there were strong opinions on both sides. One side argued that since we had already built a social network system, we should stick with it. They said that all successful companies go through many low points and overcome numerous difficulties before succeeding. If you switch directions at the first sign of trouble, you won’t succeed. I’m sure many of the entrepreneurs here have faced similar situations.
Host: Thank you. Tian Yuan, how about you? Do you think his website should stick with its current direction or make a change?
Tian Yuan: I think the need is very simple. With over a billion people in China, the demand will only grow over generations. However, whether your website succeeds is another matter. I started my company in 1992, when China was developing in every industry and actively adopting foreign models. I used to work in government agencies, and I did quite well—by the age of 30, I was already a bureau chief. But I later felt too many restrictions, so I kept wanting to start a business. I went abroad for two years to study in the U.S. I learned at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange, which is the world’s largest futures exchange, with thousands of people there every day, it was very lively. Many people were doing well and making a lot of money. So, I decided to start a company like that when I returned to China. It’s been 14 years now, and we are now the largest in the market, holding a 12% share. I believe the internet offers many opportunities and great imagination. It truly is an opportunity. For many of you here, I think no matter which industry you choose, don’t aim for big money at the start. If you do, you’re doomed. You need to find a way to make your business profitable in a relatively short time—that is, to sustain yourself and your team. Then you’ll have the chance to adjust to the market. Ultimately, you must always follow the market. To survive, make money to support yourself, and then you’ll have the opportunity to adjust and persist—you will surely succeed. So, the goal is to when you identify a good business, invest a bit of money, find a few people to work with, and first make enough to sustain yourself. Then you can gradually expand. I think setting a low initial goal is the most realistic. As for achieving something like what Focus Media or Mr. Huang has done—that’s something that comes once in tens of thousands or even hundreds of thousands. I suggest that entrepreneurs shouldn’t think about this at the beginning. That’s my view.
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