Reading Note-Zero to One

'Zero to one' is the second English book I have read, and it has been famous also in China as seen a guidance for start-ups. I bought it in a bookshop in Hong Kong airport, occasionally, without thinking it before. However, it indeed brings me some good hints.

Some lessons learnt from dot-com crash.

1. Make incremental advances, instead of changing the world in one step

2. Stay lean and flexible. Planning is arrogant and inflexible; treat entrepreneurship as agnostic experimentation.

3. Improve on the competition. Build your company by improving on recognized products already offered by successful competitors.

4. Focus on products, not sales.

Start a business in a small market with monopoly, not to start a business in a huge market but already with huge competition. Imagine the aviation business is really a huge market, but all airlines companies ear very few money, even lots of them are losing. Facebook or google, indeed is working on a rather much smaller market, but the result is totally different. Again, the restaurant is indeed a huge market, you may think you are very special if you start a Italian restaurant in Shenzhen. It would be true unless all or at least most people in Shenzhen like Italian food, and start to dislike Hunan and Sichuan food at all.

Some characters of monopoly.

1. Proprietary technology

2. Network effect

3. Economies of scale

4. branding

Four types of view to the future.

1. Indefinite pessimistic

2. Definite pessimistic

3. Indefinite optimistic

4. Definite optimistic