The five unspoken rules in the entrepreneurial circle. Understand these before starting a business!

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What are unspoken rules? Wu Si said in "Unspoken Rules": "What really controls the behavior of this group is, to a greater extent, a very realistic calculation of interests. The results of this calculation of interests and the choice of seeking benefits and avoiding harm, the repeated appearance and long-term stability of this result and choice, clearly constitute a set of potential rules... Let's call them unspoken rules." In different industries, such unspoken rules exist in a clear or hidden way, and the Internet entrepreneurial circle is no exception:

1. User product data of water injection

Generally, a startup project will develop its own app and then try every possible way to promote it. Let investors see the data and get more money to invest in the next phase of operation. Among various methods, the fastest way to brush data is to brush the rankings. According to the revelation of the brushing company, the update time of the AppStore ranking list is not fixed. It is updated once every hour or two hours, or even not updated all night. However, as long as the timing is grasped, the ranking of the list can be rushed to the front once it is updated. Use improper means to brush the application to the top of the rankings, thereby attracting user attention and obtaining downloads. This method actually existed in early forums a long time ago. For example, "Top the post" and "Good people have a peaceful life" are all brushing rankings full of humanistic feelings. Although APP brushing rankings is not very moral, those who participate in it make money, and after making money, they will use more money to brush the rankings.

The services of the ranking-brushing studio include rushing to the top of the list (which is equivalent to buying hot headlines on Weibo) and maintenance (which is equivalent to buying fans on Weibo). They can add ratings and comments to apps, and even give bad reviews to competitors' apps. According to media reports, ranking-brushing is divided into rushing to the top of the list and maintaining the ranking. In terms of rushing to the top of the AppStore free list, the price is 25,000 yuan, and the cost of maintaining the top 5 for one day is 28,000 yuan. There are many ways to swipe the charts, from using software to simulating manual work in the early days, to now directly using real people to swipe the charts manually. Therefore, some people who specialize in swipe the charts should promote it like this: "The swipe is handed down from generation to generation, purely manual operation, and absolutely does not contain any technological elements. It is safe to swipe and use."

Not only the number of users, but also data such as corporate sales, website visits, and customer conversion rates can all be faked. Plastic surgery in Korea is no different. Our entrepreneurs can fake all the customers of the entire website! Community 001, once regarded as a benchmark enterprise in community O2O, has never stopped the debate over data fraud since its establishment. In October 2014, Xue Manzi, one of its angel investors, announced on Weibo that Community 001 had received $100 million in Series B financing, with a valuation of 2 billion yuan. In this way, it responded to the rumors of fraud in a high-profile manner. But soon in August this year, the media broke the news that many stores of Community 001 had not paid wages for several months. According to media reports, employees said that they embellished the data by repeatedly entering the data of telephone orders into the computer's order database. But they didn't expect that their hard work would not wait for the next round of financing, and the O2O boom had already passed. The bottom card after the ebb tide was seen clearly by people.

2. Exaggerated financing and M&A news

Falsifying the amount of financing has long been an open secret in the industry. Many entrepreneurs generally report the amount of financing three to ten times, report RMB as US dollars, or say the valuation as the amount of financing. Valuation bubbles are common in the O2O market, smart hardware field and Internet finance field. Lamamabang is a very typical case. According to analysis by Tencent Technology, Entrepreneur and other media, Lamamabang, which claimed to have raised US$100 million in round C financing, actually raised about US$30 million. Falsifying financing has backfired and shot itself in the foot. In addition to falsifying the amount of financing, some entrepreneurs use the media to deliberately spread unfounded financing information or M&A information to create momentum. Since this information is internal information of the company, outsiders have no way to verify it.

Everyone is trying to overstate their financing amount, hoping to overwhelm their competitors. Just like when you were a kid, when your parents asked you about your poor test scores, you would say, "I almost got 95 points." In fact, you only got 9.5 points, which is really a little short. But sometimes, if you brag too much, you will suffer. For example, an Internet finance company in Shenzhen just announced its financing in the morning, but before you woke up from your nap, the investors came out and said they didn't invest at all.

3. Various financial frauds

If it is not a listed company, corporate financial fraud is the norm. Of course, listed companies are not necessarily better. After all, if they did not commit fraud, it is hard to say whether they could have been listed in the first place. Financial fraud in seed-stage and growth-stage companies is even more varied, including corporate revenue fraud, transfer of company financing or profits, etc.

The purpose of fraud, in addition to obtaining financing, may also be to deceive partners or transfer the company's assets to oneself, etc. For example, there is an entrepreneur named Zhang San, who took 50 million yuan in investment and used 20 million yuan for marketing and promotion. He found an advertising company called Li Si and asked this advertising company to subcontract to another designated company, Wang Wu Advertising. Wang Wu Advertising is actually Zhang San's own affiliated company, so he can smoothly transfer the money out. Even if the business fails, at least he still makes money.

4. Malicious attacks on opponents without any bottom line

Today, entrepreneurs try to improve their own data and make their brands famous, but on the other hand, they spend more effort and use various means to attack competitors, such as hiring ghostwriters to write negative articles, malicious complaints, false reviews, etc. to interfere with the normal operation of the other party or directly throw dirty water on them.

Just last week, the domestic audio market was in turmoil. Several articles such as "Himalaya FM's bragging and being on the blacklist: "High-level" panic?" spread across the Internet. Himalaya FM released a "Statement on Himalaya FM's malicious defamation" on its official Weibo, responding positively to the false rumors mentioned in the series of reports, such as "involving the blacklist of the General Administration", "falsification of C-round BP financing materials", and "owing 200 million yuan in debt". It also pointed out that the relevant offensive articles were written and published by "gunmen" instructed by a friendly business organization, and red envelopes were sent to forward in the circle of friends. According to the screenshots, Himalaya's CEO once said that the "friendly business" was the one called Insect, which should be Qingting FM. Interestingly, in these articles, the audio ranking data released by Analysys International in July this year was cited, and Himalaya ranked first, accounting for 25.8%. Qingting FM ranked second, accounting for 21%. However, in the screenshots of the materials that were previously exposed on the Internet, Himalaya claimed that it occupied 60% of the market share. The data of the two are far apart. There is also a third-party mobile data platform TalkingData released the "2015 Mobile Music Application Industry Report", which stated that Ximalaya FM ranked first among similar applications with a coverage of 45%. The third-party data also differed by several times. In the industry, the fairness of paid reports has also been questioned.

As early as April 17 this year, two apps, Lizhi FM and Duoting FM, were removed from the Apple Appstore. Lizhi FM stated that it was removed from the Apple App Store due to malicious complaints from its peers. Then, Duoting FM stated that in addition to malicious complaints that led to the removal of the app, competitors also interfered with or even discredited their normal operations and brands through malicious keyword registration, malicious ranking, and forged reviews. The malicious complaints mentioned by the two companies directly pointed to Himalaya FM. But soon, on June 30, Himalaya FM posted a Weibo saying that the software was maliciously attacked and was removed from the app store.

5. Entrepreneurs and investors love and hate each other

In the eyes of many people, obtaining financing from investors is something to be celebrated, but you have to know that investment is actually a business, and investors will always invest in pursuit of their own maximum interests. In this process, investors will try every possible means to expand their rights and interests, especially big brand foundations are more powerful, they will use various means to lower prices, and the most terrible thing is that after tormenting entrepreneurs for a long time, they will finally turn around and leave, saying that it is not suitable for investment now. Such projects are generally difficult to get money from other investors because there is a strong psychological suggestion. In addition, some investors pretend to invest in order to obtain project information, and after repeated interrogation, they turn around and invest in competitors. Entrepreneurs are defenseless.

Last year, the founder of Pocket Shopping and Sequoia Capital publicly broke up, which was the most typical case. According to an article in Huxiu at the time: After Pocket Shopping received $350 million in Series C financing from Wang Ke, he recalled the dispute with Sequoia in an interview with the media. "Later, Sequoia became the main investor, but they dragged it on for more than ten months and there was no news. They were basically stood up." Because of being dragged by Sequoia, there was no capital injection, and they could not turn to other investors. "Sequoia has dragged many projects to death in the past, such as ispeak... Sequoia dragged it for 7 months, and finally said that I didn't think it through and didn't invest. Other companies that were originally going to invest thought that since Sequoia didn't think it through, there must be a problem, so they didn't invest later."

Wherever there are people, there are rivers and lakes, and the Internet is no exception. The rivers and lakes are dangerous, so please cherish your time!