Guess, what is the crappy thing in this photo?

If a young man told you passionately that in the future everyone in the world would have such a thing, would you believe it?

What if a little girl came to ask for it? You give me some money, saying that you want to design and decorate this thing more beautifully, and you can sell it all over the world and make a lot of money. Do you dare to spend money?

Hehe, let me tell you, This was the world's first mouse.

It was born in 1963 AD, and its first commercial use was in 1983, during which it took 20 years to wait... Good ideas are actually not valuable, and they will be stolen if you say it. Being copied? How can there be such a good thing in the world! Before Idea became a money-making machine that made millions and millions of dollars a day, it was rare for anyone to think highly of it.

Entrepreneurs hope you can endure loneliness. Innovation is a lonely journey.

Guess again, what is this broken wooden box with a keyboard in the picture above?

If two young men with disheveled clothes come over and announce loudly to you that this is "the first time in the world" and that they are going to change the world... Do you want me to call 110 for you? , or call the building security to kick them out?

Hey, look, you are so proud that you have found the answer. There are several marks "Apple Computer" dug by primitive people with stone tools on top of the broken wooden box... Ah, Apple Computer! ! In fact, you are not a genius at all, and your IQ is at best above average, because you answered too late, because you actually knew the answer a long time ago, because you have lingered in the Apple stores in Sanlitun or Xujiahui again and again, and you know it clearly Chu Chi knows that Apple computers are hot and cool things... If someone had offered this handmade wooden box to you 30 years ago, when personal computers did not exist in the world, you would have been extremely surprised and felt that your dream had come true.

Entrepreneurs must be able to discover the value that others cannot see. When everyone is drunk, I am awake alone. When others are sleeping, I can change the world and change the world.

This picture is...? Haha, you will definitely answer this time: Sony’s Walkman! ! !

Yes, this is the secret recipe and the ultimate treasure of the world's electronics giant SONY.

Akio Morita, the godfather of “Made in Japan”, once told us the classic story of SONY’s entrepreneurship and innovation. He showed how SONY found a way out from the Waterloo War of making rice cookers, and finally built SONY into the world's king of civilian appliances... SONY also had its long wasted years. Akio Morita once personally brought samples like a Wenzhou native. After traveling around the world and knocking on dealers' doors, he first saw a tape recorder that was almost as big as a desktop at the US military base in Japan, so he came up with the idea of ??a "copycat" and started making small tape recorders to overcome the Walkman's mini Technical problems with tapes, how many nights he personally tried applying magnetic powder on plastic tapes with a brush under the oil lamp... SONY is really whimsical. Before it, no one had ever thought that it could be a concert with unprecedented grandeur. Put it in your little pocket, wherever you go and wherever you hear, Walkman is the first time in human history!

SONY has also studied customer needs to the extreme. People are different, so there are cheap Walkmans, expensive Walkmans, simple functions, and complete functions. People are different in red, orange, yellow, green, blue, and purple. The color preferences of Walkman are colorful and various. SONY has made Walkman to the extreme to suit everyone's needs, so it has been sold in every corner of the earth... How many of us have been in the dormitory of college? , falling asleep to the wonderful stereo moonlight music of Walkman every night, how many of us have ever thought that this arrogant and global monopoly Walkman would suddenly become extinct from the earth like a dinosaur

Physical Competition By natural selection, the iPod wiped out the Walkman overnight.

Entrepreneurs must dare to dream and challenge authority.

Any behemoth or any arrogant monopolist will one day lose its luster, be marginalized, be eliminated and extinct, and be driven off the stage of history. The times must develop, and someone must innovate.

Hehe, this innovation, this change of dynasties is really enjoyable and exciting. Come on, come on, let’s start a business, let’s innovate!

Okay, now let me ask you, will you still use iPod to listen to music in 10 years? Will you still need to use a mouse in 10 years? Will Apple computers still be cool in 10 years? Will you still use Google in 10 years (Google didn’t exist much 10 years ago)? Do you still need Baidu, Alibaba, or Kaixin at that time? Could it be that only old men and old ladies are still in charge of those gadgets? Isn’t that cliché? !

The answer is obvious, please take action now and innovate immediately! Innovate mouse killers, iPod killers, Google killers... Who knows what will be after the iPod? What will come after the mouse? What will be after Google

Innovation is easier said than done!

Don’t think that we can look forward, see the future, and see new signs and new trends – that’s just our self-feeling. In fact, we can only look backward. When the mouse is used by people all over the world, After people accepted it, when we replayed the development process of this thing, we suddenly realized, oh, this is called innovation! When we saw the new Coldplay iPod in the store, bought it, poured in thousands of our favorite songs, put on the headphones and listened to it happily, and threw the Walkman into the trash can, then we suddenly realized, oh, it turns out this That’s innovation!

Looking forward, we are all blind. It is our nature to only look backward.

Don’t think that everyone admires innovation. In fact, we humans have a natural “anti-innovation” instinct. Most innovative ideas are strangled to death by ourselves. Don't believe it? Okay, let’s take a look:

When you happily tell your close friends, colleagues, parents, bosses, bosses, VCs... about a wonderful idea that suddenly came to your mind, believe it or not. From you, most of the answers you can get are nothing more than the following:

"You are crazy, you are so whimsical!"

"What's so surprising about this, I'm so old I just thought about it."

"Some people have done it before, but they didn't succeed."

"Where's the money? This thing costs a lot of money, you have that. Money?"

"God knows if there will be a market for this thing you come up with?"

"In any case, we don't have the budget at the moment."

"Forget it, don't do useless work. You won't be able to pass it when you get to the top, and the leaders won't approve it."

"How do you make money with this thing?"

"Yeah ... We are not sure yet, we can’t invest in you right away. Let’s look at it later.”

“It may work in theory, but it will definitely not work in reality.”

“You are a fool. Are you going to die if you do this?"

"Impossible, absolutely impossible!"

...

It is no coincidence that the picture above is The mouse, Apple computer, and iPod were actually made by the same person - Steve Jobs. Apple computers and iPods naturally need no explanation. The mouse was originally developed by Douglas from Stanford Research Institute? Invented by Douglas Englebart and patented in 1963. 1983 Apple Computer used the mouse for the first time in business. Xiao Qiao obviously has the secret to continuous and lasting innovation, so millions of fans around the world flock to learn from it, but Xiao Qiao confesses: "There is no way to innovate."

Innovation needs to be polished. If an innovative idea wants to be successful in the end, it needs to go through at least eight hell gates:

The first level: the life cycle of an innovative idea

Ideas are created all the time, in meditation, daydreaming, and in life. Trouble, problems at work, inspiration in the dead of night, endless chatter among friends in coffee shops and bars... are all sources of innovative ideas. Most ideas are short-lived. By the next morning, their intensity, stimulating, and exciting factors have been greatly reduced or even disappeared.

If an Idea is still so hot that it makes you uncomfortable after a week or two, or a month or two, and still maintains the original hot temperature, hey, this Idea may have some signs of success.

Level 2: The Idea must have an implementation plan

An Idea may make you excited for a long time. If you talk about your Idea to everyone, what will happen? Ideas can be discussed after dinner for a lifetime. They only make you feel good about yourself and increase your self-satisfaction...To realize an Idea, you need a thorough solution, including the elements and means required to fully demonstrate and analyze the Idea. , people/time/capital/resources/management requirements... In short, a business plan is required.

The third level: support, support, funds

Suppose you invented the broken mouse shown above, can you let your colleagues, parents, boss, VC Become your fan immediately, spend money to let you start a business and make a fortune... Or in the end, no one understands and knows the goods, and you can only live in loneliness, waiting silently, with a gray head, and empty sorrow?

The fourth level: large-scale products

Maybe you found a close friend, tricked a VC and spent a lot of money, and finally turned your idea into a sample, but it Is it possible to scale? Is it possible that its final pricing will be generally accepted by consumers?

Level 5: Not at the right time

With innovative products, has the market been formed and mature? Who can guarantee that your products will be sold out and not turn off customers? The "Newton", the predecessor of the iPhone, is an example. It was both produced by Apple. No one cared about the "Newton", while the iPhone was snapped up by the world.

Level 6: The first customer

Success or failure depends on the hero. No matter how brilliant your idea is, no matter how clever and exquisite your product design is, someone must pay for it. The last word is that you have to see real money. Your first paying user proves that you’ve reached your first real innovation milestone.

Level 7: Copycat

Copycat is competition. When your idea becomes a cash cow, and money pours into your pocket day and night, hey, then people suddenly realize, oh, so this is innovation! You finally turned around, everyone looked at you with admiration, your old wooden mouse was invited to the museum, and the media rushed to praise you as an innovative hero and entrepreneurial star... Hehe, don't be too arrogant at this time. When you fall asleep and have sweet dreams, copycats are springing up like mushrooms after a rain. It depends on whether you can be the mainstay and stand firm in the fierce competition.

Level 8: Timeless

Innovation is never-ending. If you stop innovating, you will be eliminated... What will your next innovation be?

......

Use the probability method to calculate the success rate of innovative ideas. Among the above eight levels, it is assumed that the success rate of each level is 50/50, which is generous enough. Already? hehe. So: