Chapter 41 On February 25, the most important thing is to grasp the direction of products and technology in the early stage of entrepreneurship

Companies will face different problems at different stages of growth. In my opinion, the earlier the startup, the more important it is to grasp the direction of products and technologies.I think the most important reason why Baidu has done better in the first 10 years is that we have mastered the correct product and technology direction, and we have identified this path and continued on. In the United States, many venture capitalists start to change CEOs shortly after investing in a company.why?Because many entrepreneurs do well when the company is small, but they can’t do it when the company is large, because this entrepreneur may be particularly interested in a certain technology or sensitive to a certain industry direction. But it will not manage many people. At this time, professional managers are needed to manage the company.

The 10 years of my own growth are also a process of continuous learning and transformation.In the early days, basically all the ideas were mine, then someone else needed to come up with ideas for you, and then figured out how to get different people to work together.Different stages of enterprise development have different requirements for the CEO, and the CEO himself must continue to learn. Of course I don't think I'm the best professional manager.I haven't read an MBA, and I don't think I have deep knowledge in management. I just think that China's Internet is currently undergoing rapid changes, and it is very important to grasp the direction.That's why I'm still a CEO now.You need to learn the corresponding technology in order to ensure the success and rapid development of the company.

Li Yanhong was invited to participate in the Zhongguancun Entrepreneurship Forum held in May 2010 to share Baidu's growing entrepreneurial experience. Before the official speech, the e-tickets open to the public were quickly applied for as soon as they were posted on the Internet. Many netizens even expressed their willingness to pay a high price for them. This was originally a free ticket.Most of the people who came to listen to the speech that day were young people, and many of them were "Hong fans".Faced with these passionate young people, Robin Li is willing to share his entrepreneurial experience with them.

At the meeting, some audience members asked him what start-up companies need to pay attention to.Li Yanhong made the above answer. When Baidu was founded in 2000, few people were optimistic about Chinese search, thinking that not many people used it, and it was an area with no prospects.At this time, search engine companies such as Zhongsou have existed for several years, but there is no major development, and they are struggling to survive.Since you don't make money, it's hard to pay attention to doing Chinese search.From the very first day of his business, Robin Li felt that there was a great demand for Chinese search, and he would definitely achieve success in business. However, there were too few Chinese web pages at that time, and the search engine did not have a good business model, so the profit prospect was uncertain.

Obviously, at this time, the persistence of a strong leader is very important. Baidu's subsequent success is inseparable from Robin Li's persistence. Looking back at Baidu's development history, it can be found that, as the core figure of Baidu, Robin Li's grasp of the technical direction has always affected Baidu's development trajectory. After 2000, many changes have taken place in the Chinese search engine industry, such as communityization, and many innovations have also occurred in search technology.Fortunately, Li Yanhong grasped each change more accurately, saving a lot of wasted resources.It is precisely because Baidu has stepped up every key step that Baidu is today.

Therefore, Robin Li feels that entrepreneurial companies have very limited resources (whether it is human resources, capital or social resources), and if they want to accomplish things with limited resources, the direction is very important.When the company gradually grows, the personal technology of the company leader or the actual ability to do business is less and less important.At this time, the key task of the leader is to let the company have a scientific and reasonable process, so that employees can execute efficiently under the correct organizational structure. In the initial stage of entrepreneurship, the survival and development of the company depended on "wise leadership".