In 2016, I had just started my entrepreneurial journey. In the few years around that time, the slogan of "mass innovation and entrepreneurship for all" inspired a wave of people to join the startup tide. Compared to now, back then many venture capital (VC) firms were newly established or easily completed fundraising, making it relatively easier to secure financing. During those years, more people were willing to take a chance by joining startups, so recruitment was also easier for these companies. Overall, founders at that time were more blindly confident, or in other words, more likely to get carried away, including myself.
In the early stages of my startup, I sought advice on entrepreneurship from someone with a few years of entrepreneurial experience. He said that founders must be confident, and even if they are wrong, they should not admit it but instead establish absolute authority. Another CEO also mentioned that startups need a legalist mindset, and the founder must be autocratic. At that time, as a relatively inexperienced CEO, I didn't know how to discern the quality of others' advice or extract valuable information applicable to me from their suggestions. I mistakenly thought that I needed to make more independent judgments and decisions within the company.
Moreover, since we were focused on consumer products, we relied more on product development and research, and did not require much business development (BD). Therefore, for a long time, I was the only person in the company responsible for external financing and business relations, receiving a lot of outside information. Sometimes when I asked others a question, even if they were not proficient in that area, they would still give an answer. Whether this response was well-thought-out or within their true expertise was uncertain. After all, giving advice doesn't cost anything, so generally, everyone could offer a few opinions. However, at that time, I lacked the ability to distinguish between noise and signals.
The combination of these two issues led to a high error rate in my judgment and decision-making during the early stages of my entrepreneurship. My stubbornness caused the company to fall into several major pitfalls. After much reflection and self-examination, I gradually understood the importance of maintaining an open-minded attitude as the leader of the company.
Thinking, I am still learning and improving. I currently try my best to achieve the following points:
Discuss the right issues with the right people. It's easy to go to extremes when thinking alone, having blind spots and biases; at this time, you need to find the most suitable person for the issue. This person should be relevant in interests, experienced in related fields, logical, and wise. Before discussing issues with others, I ask myself if this is the most suitable person. Conversely, before making judgments, I constantly remind myself whether I have consulted the opinions of the members of my virtual board of directors.
Don't rush to make judgments or decisions. My previous advantage was strong execution ability, but as the company continues to grow, I realize that it is far from enough for me to just have high personal execution ability. I need to unify ideas internally, coordinate resources, assign tasks, formulate plans, implement them, and review and optimize. Moreover, one move can affect the whole situation. Now, I prefer not to act until I fully understand.
Do not make decisions when emotional. As the saying goes, "In great joy, do not promise anything to anyone; in great anger, do not reply to any letter." My emotions are usually quite calm, but occasionally fluctuate in a few directions: joy, anger, fear, and fatigue.
Never make promises when you're happy, because it's easy to regret them. The *Book of Rites* says: "To promise but not deliver causes more resentment than refusing to do so in the first place.";
When angry, try to breathe for 10 seconds first, allowing your brain to calm down before thinking about the issue; it might not be as serious or extreme as it seems.
As long as Ready can truly seize 1-2 big opportunities, that's enough.
Besides, don't make decisions easily when you're not in good physical condition. Anyway, there's nothing that must be done today, so take a rest, sleep on it and see.
Pay attention to your defense mechanisms. During a previous discussion with Brother Cong, once he raised differing opinions, I would unconsciously become defensive. Now I silently remind myself that this is my defense mechanism kicking in; everyone likes to be recognized and dislikes being rejected. What we need to do is stay rational and fight against our egos. Now I think about the starting point of the opinions he gives, the logic behind his thinking, and what I haven't considered. If there are differing opinions, can we discuss them further? Instead of proving "I am right," I want to know more about "what is right."
Make judgments based on the simplest common sense. Don't let some low-probability events affect your decisions. Don't mistakenly think you can do something just because of 1-2 successful cases due to survivorship bias. The development of things follows its own rules, and we need to respect these rules and common sense, doing things with a high probability of success and within our capabilities; but keep iterating continuously and quickly.
The principles mentioned above are not profound truths, they are all quite simple and easy to understand. But knowing is easier than doing. It's hard to change someone, and it's also hard to change oneself. I still don't adhere well to the principles mentioned above, and sometimes I act according to my habits. Therefore, I need to remind myself more often, maintain an open mindset and open thinking, only then can I truly progress rapidly.
This is the best time to be alive, and almost everything you think you know is wrong.
-- Tom Stoppard, "Arcadia"