What should we do when entrepreneurial blind spots appear frequently?

Four dead corners of entrepreneurship

On the evening of October 5, Zhang Rui, CEO of Chunyu Doctor, an Internet medical platform, died of a sudden myocardial infarction at the age of 44. It is said that before his death, Zhang Rui was overwhelmed by financing and his temples were gray. The death of the entrepreneur is one of the dead corners of entrepreneurship;

On October 8, Beijing, Shanghai, Shenzhen and other first-tier cities announced the draft of the online car-hailing service management method for soliciting opinions. As previously reported in the market, the details can be said to be quite strict. The most representative of these is that online car-hailing is linked to household registration, that is, to operate an online car-hailing in Shanghai, you need to be a Shanghai resident, and in Beijing, you need to be a Beijing resident. In addition to local license plates, there are also requirements such as wheelbase and emission standards. The Beijing regulations even require vehicle owners to agree to register the nature of vehicle use as "pre-booked taxi passenger transport" and the driver's license must be obtained in Beijing. As soon as the details came out, public opinion was boiling. The qualifications of sharers in the sharing economy have been greatly reduced, which is the second blind spot phenomenon for entrepreneurship;

In addition, the decline in user activity is a problem that almost all apps have to face. Weibo activity once dropped by 40%; the opening rate of WeChat public accounts dropped from 8% to 5%; even the popular game, Pokémon Go, was recently reported to have lost popularity. According to data from Apptopia, Pokémon Go has shown a rapid downward trend in terms of the number of app downloads, activity, and the amount of time players spend on the game. There have been many structural changes in the app download rankings on the Apple and Android markets. The continued decline in user activity seems to be a problem that has to be faced in this "Internet +" era. This is the third dead end phenomenon in entrepreneurship;

High housing prices and commercial real estate rents have forced most of the business formats in department stores to retreat in about five years. Most of the traffic is only for restaurants and children's playgrounds. Now even the restaurant industry can't hold on, and there was a wave of bankruptcies in 2016. On September 21, Huang Taiji founder He Chang confirmed that half of the large factory stores were closed, with an average of more than 500 square meters each. Both new and old business formats cannot escape the pressure of rent. In fact, there is no need to discuss whether young people should buy a house or start a business, because no matter which one, they have to work for a house. This is the fourth dead end phenomenon of entrepreneurship.

Natural disasters and man-made disasters in entrepreneurship are inevitable. It is a pity. Marxist philosophy says that new things advance in twists and turns. This sentence now seems more like a comforting word for the times.

Asking others is better than asking yourself

Today, when the sharing economy is widely accepted by society, it is hard to understand why the local government has issued such strict rules. Xinhua News Agency commented that the rules for online ride-hailing should leave a "window" for modification, and this "window" should allow all stakeholders of online ride-hailing to feel the breeze. Obviously, this version of the rules, at least passengers, drivers and platforms did not feel the breeze. The sharing economy is here, and it is a journey to the West to obtain the scriptures, and it takes 81 trials and tribulations.

Didi is the star of the Internet industry this year. First, it received strategic investment from Chinese and foreign giants such as Apple, and then acquired Uber China, becoming the absolute ruler of China's online car-hailing market with a share of more than 90%. It was in the limelight for a while. However, judging from the book income, Didi's glory is superficial. Although some cities have begun to make profits, Didi is still in the stage of burning money as a whole. The real beneficiaries are the drivers and passengers who use the platform. The number of Didi drivers is huge, which is why Didi spoke out at the first time regarding the new policies for online car-hailing in various places, saying bluntly that "there are a few opinions that I would like to discuss with relevant departments, and I also hope to discuss with all sectors of society", because the release of the details "will also greatly affect hundreds of millions of online car-hailing users and tens of millions of online car-hailing drivers". For those full-time online car-hailing drivers, with the help of Didi's platform, they are also starting a business. The details of online car-hailing will undoubtedly make it more difficult for them to realize their dreams.

The restrictions on online ride-hailing services will first affect drivers and passengers. Regarding the requirement for local license plates for online ride-hailing services, Didi mentioned in its response that the number of online ride-hailing drivers will be greatly reduced. For example, among the more than 410,000 drivers activated in Shanghai, only less than 10,000 drivers have Shanghai local household registration. In other words, if this detailed rule is really introduced in the future, the result can only be that the sharing opportunities and entrepreneurial opportunities of 400,000 Didi drivers will be directly extinguished, or they will go underground and become illegal taxi drivers, and live a life of fear again.

After the draft of Beijing's detailed rules was released, the literary and historical writer Ten Years of Cutting Wood immediately told his child's mother: Wife, we don't have to worry about losing our jobs. If we lose our jobs, we can become Didi drivers. Now about 70% of Didi and Uber drivers in Beijing are leaving Beijing. He lamented that a non-Beijing person can buy a luxury house in Beijing, become the CEO of a Beijing listed company, be the editor-in-chief of a media or an expert professor at a university in Beijing, but you are not qualified to be a Didi driver.

Compared with the previous large-scale boycott of Didi and other online ride-hailing companies by taxis, this is just a small episode in the development of the sharing economy. Moreover, for such a draft for comments, the probability of subsequent improvements is still very high, but I wonder how powerful the household registration is, after attaching reasonable and unreasonable interests such as employment, housing, education, social security, and medical care, it can actually decide that you are not qualified to be a Didi driver.

During the Anti-Japanese War, the Nationalist government was in financial difficulties, prices were high, and civil servants lived in poverty and were depressed. Yan Jiagan was the director of the Fujian Provincial Construction Department at the time. Once he went to a friend's house and saw a strange photo in the living room: a person was sitting on a chair, and another person was kneeling in front of him. A closer look revealed that the person kneeling and the person sitting were the same person, his friend. Yan was puzzled and asked his friend. His friend replied that it was called "it is better to rely on oneself than to rely on others." Entrepreneurship is essentially such a process. Survive or perish? It is better to rely on oneself than to rely on others. This is a tortuous road, and everyone must stick to themselves and make appropriate adjustments.

First, take good care of your body. Among all the entrepreneurial experiences and suggestions, the only correct one is: keep your body healthy.

Second, the sharing economy has developed to this year and has gone through the most difficult period of entrepreneurship. There are Didi, Uber, Mobike, etc. for travel; Xiaozhu and Airbnb for short-term rental; "Ele.me" and "Go Home for Dinner" for meals, but in terms of acceptance, there is still a split from the temple to the underworld. If this split is not bridged, it will lead to a larger-scale conflict of ideas. Entrepreneurs must have superb wisdom to influence the policy agenda, not a network of relationships, not a magic weapon for getting along with the government and business, but ideological influence, international influence, and other things that are lacking in this generally mediocre era.

Third, although everyone understands that grasping user pain points and serving users is the iron rule for development and growth, users are the most fickle group, and what entrepreneurs and innovators need to do is to become faster and more than users. This means that entrepreneurship is not only a marathon, but also an accelerated marathon. The pressure and motivation can be imagined. It must be a difficult expedition that tests one's ability at all times.

Fourth, for rent, there will never be spring and flowers blooming, which is also the new normal. Innovating high value-added business formats is the main task of the next generation of entrepreneurs.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.