[Must-Read for Internet People] After a few years in the industry, where should your future be?

Anyone who has been in this industry for three to five years knows that the Internet is a fast-growing and fast-changing industry. Being in this industry always makes people feel both excited and uneasy.

The exciting thing is that you can always see countless new things and even participate in a change personally; but the uneasy thing is that no matter how awesome you are, you cannot guarantee that one day you will be ruthlessly left behind by the times and become the one who is replaced or the victim of a new change.

I once told a story. I know a hardware engineer named L who has been working on mobile phone chip-level solutions for more than ten years. He has worked for Sony Ericsson, Nokia and BlackBerry and is considered an expert in R&D. But now, he is unemployed and in extreme anxiety.

The reason why L lost his job is frustrating - in the mobile phone industry, each mobile phone brand had to design and solve its own chip solutions, so talents like L were crucial. But times have changed. Today, the underlying hardware solutions for mobile phones no longer need to be the focus of brand manufacturers. Instead, a few giant chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm, Intel, etc. will design several sets of universal solutions based on demand and provide them to brand manufacturers. Brand manufacturers only need to focus on the design of appearance, interface, etc.

This means that chip-level hardware engineers like L can only look for jobs at chip manufacturers such as Qualcomm and Intel, as brand manufacturers no longer need them. The relevant employees of Qualcomm and Intel are basically in the United States.

L once told me that he felt like he was abandoned by this era.

In a sense, L's experience is just a microcosm of this industry and this era. There are many stories like this in the entire Internet circle. For example, how many people today can still remember names like Wang Zhidong and Fang Xingdong, who were once well-known names in the Internet circle? How many people today still remember Kaixin.com, Jiepang and the group buying websites during the Hundred Regiments Campaign? Not to mention, nowadays the entire Internet is almost dominated by young people. In the entire industry, can you count how many practitioners over 40 years old are still busy on the front line?

When you are already in the situation, with the current situation and facts ruthlessly placed before you, you will inevitably think about what you should do next. Especially if you have been working for at least three to five years and are at a stage where you are either making any progress or falling behind, you will be more sensitive and anxious about this issue.

Regarding this kind of anxiety, I would like to talk about some suggestions that are generally practical and have reference value. I would like to talk about this in three parts - about how to give yourself more opportunities and choices, about how to continuously achieve personal improvement and advancement, and how to think when faced with various different choices.

Let’s talk about them one by one.

Suggestion 1: How to give yourself more opportunities and choices

As a famous entrepreneur + investor, Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn and Paypal, has an ABZ theory that impressed me. He believes that you need to have three plans in your hands at any time: Plan A, Plan B and Plan Z.

Plan A is a plan that you feel is worth your continued investment and will yield some output and a sense of security. It is like a job that you are currently engaged in and are relatively satisfied with.

Plan B is an opportunity you give yourself to develop in addition to Plan A. Simply put, because of the ubiquitous changes, even if you have Plan A, you cannot be satisfied with it and only consider Plan A, otherwise it is very likely that one day you will be replaced by other people or machines. Therefore, in addition to Plan A, you also need to develop some Plan B for yourself. Plan B is something that may not seem like it could become your career right now, but you are interested in it or optimistic about it in the long run, and it is worth your long-term investment and attention. After a long period of sedimentation and accumulation, it is very likely that one day you will be able to make a living from them.

There are many ways to cultivate Plan B, such as using your spare time to do things you like and are interested in, learning and trying to practice some skills you are interested in, or even actively participating in some friends' entrepreneurial projects and volunteering for them for free.

Take me as an example. My current full-time career is Zhou Botong Recruitment, but I am still using my spare time to work with a few friends on a public welfare product manager + product operation staff learning community called Sanjieke. Sanjieke does not bring me any material benefits at the moment, it is just a hobby, but who knows if one day in the future it will become a career worthy of my full-time commitment?

If one day your B opportunity is cultivated and mature, and even surpasses A, you can convert your B into A at any time, and then cultivate new B opportunities.

Finally, there is Plan Z. Plan Z is a backup plan for the worst-case scenario, i.e. if one day you are extremely unlucky and both your Plan A and Plan B fail or become ineffective, you should have a plan that can ensure your survival. The purpose of Plan Z is to deal with various uncertainties and risks in your career. For example, for me, if my current plan A and plan B fail and I lose my job, then my plan Z is to rely on the small amount of savings I have previously accumulated in my bank account to stay at home for the first six months or eight months.

In your career, you also need to constantly reserve and consolidate your Plan Z. In times of crisis, it can help you restart smoothly and get back on track.

Whether you are working or starting a business, Hoffman's ABZ will be extremely valuable to you. I think it is something worthy of reference and deep thought for all Internet people. If you can really practice it for a long time, your career will definitely be more smooth, at least you will not lack opportunities and choices.

Following the topic opened by ABZ, I can say a few more words - if you have become a player of medium or above level, please try your best to make yourself a value transmitter or contributor in the circle, rather than a mere spectator or value consumer. For example, you should share your thoughts with more people, create more valuable connections for the friends you know, and produce more external outputs, such as writing more articles, sharing publicly more often when time and energy permit, and so on.

Please believe me, delivering or contributing more value will definitely bring you more potential opportunities and resources. For example, my acquaintance with Chen Xiangdong, the former CEO of New Oriental and the founder of “Geshuixue” which was extremely popular in the online education circle some time ago, originated from my initiative to share with him some of my views on education O2O platforms. My acquaintance and friendship with Shen Yin, the former co-founder of Luoji Siwei and current founder of "Weird", originated from my initiative to visit him and discuss with him some problems that the Weird Project might encounter based on some of the things I had done in the past. The acquaintance between me and my current business partner, Feng Tao, the founder of Zhou Botong Recruitment, was due to an article I wrote being read by him. From that, we later had the fate of joining Zhou Botong to work together.

Suggestion 2: How to improve and advance your personal abilities

I believe that Internet people have two ability curves that need to be improved. The first curve is outward and can be called the industry skill curve. Whenever a newcomer enters the industry, he or she always needs to make continuous improvements on the first curve. For example, if you are making products, you need to be familiar with various product forms, various common interaction methods, various product architectures and underlying logic; if you are doing operations, you need to be familiar with various common promotion methods, channels and user maintenance methods, and you need to be familiar with various operation modules such as content, users, activities, and so on.

The common and effective way to continuously improve on the first curve is to continue practicing + summarizing + seeking advice and communication from others, continuously seeking feedback from practice, and extracting the core problems and doubts encountered, seeking advice from experienced people, and then continuing to optimize and improve in new practices. What you need to do around this is to keep looking for things that are slightly challenging for you in terms of professional skills, and find a few industry experts who you can ask for help or discuss when you encounter problems.

In the words of the Internet, this is also a kind of iterative thinking.

However, there is a limit to the improvement of industry skills, and the first curve will always come to an end. When the first curve approaches the end, it is often the beginning of the second curve. The second curve is inward and can be called the thinking/cognitive pattern curve.

There seems to be a saying in the industry that goes like this: Before the age of 30, a person often competes with others in ability, but after the age of 30, he should compete with others in thinking. If industry skills are the head-on individual combat effectiveness, then the "thinking" here should be more of a tactical or even strategic aspect.

On the first curve, your individual improvement is only a "point" or "line" improvement, but when you enter the area of ​​the second curve, your improvement must be transformed into a "surface" improvement. When you enter the improvement zone of the second curve, the first requirement for you is to jump out of your past specific functions and try to focus on issues based on the entire business process. To put it in more popular terms, at this point, what you need to improve is your overall perspective.

An Internet person with a big picture perspective will often consider issues in a more global way. For example, some operations people will only consider the core indicators of operations when executing and making plans, such as traffic, number of users, etc., but an operation person with a big picture perspective will fully consider the true value and significance of the plan to the product and even the overall business after it is implemented, and will even consider how to promote more benign operation of the product and the overall business process by doing something on the operations side.

An Internet person who has a sense of the overall situation and strong industry skills is extremely valuable in the entire industry, whether it is product, operation or R&D. It is no exaggeration to say that this type of person is the legendary "one who can replace 10 ordinary employees." For example, the reason why Baidu's technical R&D talents are so well-known and popular in the entire Internet industry is, to a large extent, because many of Baidu's R&D brothers can indeed discuss many business-level issues with you based on a technical standpoint, and even what role technology can play in the entire business process, instead of just focusing on the code like most technologies, and only caring about whether the technology is good enough and whether I can implement it.

When the second curve reaches a certain level, it will encounter another key node: understanding of business and industry. In a sense, whether you can break through this cognitive barrier will directly determine where the ceiling of an Internet person is. If you can't pass this level, you can at most reach a position like department director in a company. Once you can break through this level, your possibilities will be more open, whether it is becoming a core executive of a company, starting your own business, or switching to venture capital, it will become a reachable possibility for you.

The so-called understanding of business and industry basically requires you to be able to thoroughly understand the following questions: What are the typical types of roles in this industry? What is the relationship between them? Where are the core interests and contradictions of the entire industry? Where does your business fit in the industry? Which players in the industry are related to you? Who else is doing business similar to yours? What is the current market segmentation and business value chain of the entire industry? What feedback has the entire industry received from the capital market? What trends do you predict for the development of the entire industry? etc.

Only when you have reached this step on the second curve, and have a clear understanding of both your own business processes and logic and the situation of the entire industry, will you be able to unravel the entire situation and find a point of force that is most conducive to your performance and make you bigger and stronger. This is true whether for the overall strategy or a local battle.

As for how the improvement of the second curve can be smoother, I think there are two key points.

On the one hand, you should create opportunities for yourself to hang out with industry experts as much as possible, whether they are industry giants, entrepreneurs or investors. As long as their level is high enough and you spend enough time with them, you will naturally improve through their influence. Moreover, many times, you will find that the accumulation of your industry connections, resources, etc. and the improvement of your second curve are complementary to each other.

On the other hand, it is about finding the right things and environment to pull you forward. Please allow me to talk about this in detail in the third part.

Suggestion 3: How to choose when faced with various different options?

Generally speaking, the choices that easily make Internet users feel difficult and entangled are the following.

1. Should I choose a small company or a large company?

As mentioned above, I have always believed that a person's progress and improvement are often driven by the environment. If you are placed in a suitable environment or event at the right time, you will naturally gain tremendous improvement and promotion.

For example, I think the two years in which I made the fastest progress and improvement were basically the two years when I first started my business. At that time, I was almost stuck at the end of the first curve and had not yet been able to really enter the second curve. I hoped that there would be an opportunity that could help me break through some of the bottlenecks I encountered. During those two years, I was completely driven forward by one thing. In that kind of environment, your improvement is inevitable.

And a person needs to be placed in the right environment at the right time. So, the choice between a small company or a large company actually depends on the stage you are in. If you are still in the early to middle stages of the first curve, your best options may be two: go to a large company with relatively sound systems and processes and patiently be polished, or find a reliable boss who is willing to lead you in a small company with a relatively clear direction.

And if you are approaching the end of the first curve and still want to advance and improve, you must find ways to find yourself the opportunity to independently take charge of a business module or a product line, whether in a large company or a small company. Relatively speaking, there may be advantages and disadvantages here. For example, if you are independently responsible for a business, you will get greater practical training value in a small company. Products produced within large companies are relatively stress-free and often do not go through the truly difficult step from 0 to 1. Some do not even have to go from 0 to 100, but start directly from 100 and upwards. But large companies will give you an opportunity to examine, strive for and allocate various resources in a larger scenario and environment, allowing you to gain a better macro perspective.

It would be ideal if you have experienced both of the above situations.

2. Should we pay more attention to current benefits or the future?

If you are currently stuck somewhere on the first curve, or do not have the opportunity to enter the improvement trajectory of the second curve, and you are eager to make greater breakthroughs in your career, then an opportunity that gives you space to try and struggle is more important. I think it's totally worth paying the price for some immediate benefits.

On the contrary, if you do not expect to make greater breakthroughs in your personal career development, or if you believe that your ability advancement has relatively entered an individual mature stage and no longer needs to continue to climb, then you should seriously evaluate and consider the actual benefits you may get.

As for things like stock options for entrepreneurial teams, it depends on personal opinion. In many cases, this thing exists if you believe it, and doesn't exist if you don't believe it. It all depends on your own judgment of people and things.

3. Do you want to start your own business?

As the entrepreneurial wave becomes increasingly hot today, it is no exaggeration to say that the entire Internet industry is filled with the spirit of entrepreneurship. It’s just like the joke goes, now in the Internet circle, if you are not a founder or CEO or someone with entrepreneurial dreams, you would be embarrassed to raise your head and say hello to others.

As an Internet person, if you have completed or are close to completing the first curve and are currently in the second curve, and the senior management positions within large companies are still far away from you, you will inevitably face the question of this issue, whether you are instigated by others or you have some thoughts in your mind. I would like to answer this question as follows.

First of all, if you are one of the following types of people, I would strongly recommend that you consider starting your own business:

1. Have great ambition and perseverance to achieve entrepreneurial success;
2. Entrepreneurship is all about seeking new experiences, seeing it as another path to growth, and being able to accept failure calmly (especially for those in their twenties and twenties);
3. Having a strong belief and persistence in something, feeling that you must do it, even if you have to sacrifice everything for it;