"Build in Public" in Chinese means to publicly share the process of building a product.
The benefits of publicly building a product are:
- Gaining community attention from the beginning and gradually accumulating interest
- Community members providing early feedback and demands
- Helping to recruit like-minded partners
I plan to practice this working method.
Today's topic is the importance of teams and potential problems that may arise in the entrepreneurial process.
You may often hear the word "entrepreneurship" but may not be clear about what it specifically represents. I believe it is also a "Hamlet" with different interpretations by different people.
I believe that entrepreneurial teams can take on the following forms:
- Independent developers, small shop owners
- Couples, small teams of a few people, small businesses
- Teams of several tens or even hundreds of people
- If the team size is larger, dividing into smaller teams and increasing team interaction efficiency becomes more crucial, serving other teams with a product-building mindset.
Why is the team important in the entrepreneurial process?
A successful product that serves users will encounter various challenges from idea to implementation, such as:
- Assessing whether the product has a market at the current or future expected time
- Whether the product design aligns with user habits
- Whether the product can be delivered within the expected time frame
- Whether there is sufficient funding to support product delivery
- Dealing with unknown risks such as policies and markets
More challenges and unknowns will gradually emerge, and handling them can only rely on the wisdom and strength of team members.
The abilities and sense of responsibility of founders are paramount; they are the "engine" of the team. Responsibilities include:
- Describing the team's vision
- Initial market assessment of the product
- Important product and technology decisions
- Recruiting excellent and suitable members and partners
- Introducing appropriate and sufficient external funding to support product development
- Sufficient communication and interaction within and outside the team
- Overcoming difficulties and challenges, etc.
If founders fail to fulfill their responsibilities, the following problems may arise:
- Insufficient funding leading to product "abortion" or loss of core members
- Misalignment of vision among co-founders and core members, resulting in changes to the product that deviate from market demands
- Poor communication within the team, resulting in reduced efficiency in product delivery, usability, and stability
- Excessive planning of product features in the early stages, unreasonable market assessments, leading to delayed product delivery and market feedback, etc.
Co-founders and core members compensate for the team's shortcomings and repair the "shortcomings of the barrel." Their responsibilities include:
- Supervising founders' inaction and providing timely feedback
- Leveraging their own strengths to compensate for the founders' shortcomings within and outside the team
- Taking responsibility for the main functions and core technologies of the product, delivering key components within the expected timeframe
- Designing and implementing team culture, structure, and growth, etc.
The lack of abilities in core members may lead to the following problems:
- Inability to deliver critical product features, failing to fulfill market promises
- When founders lack abilities, the team falls into crisis, resulting in product "abortion"
- Unstable team structure and significant member attrition
Other non-core members bring new blood and genes to the team, bringing future possibilities. Their responsibilities include:
- Providing ideas outside the team's genes, forming new random opportunities through collisions with the team
- Developing the abilities to become core members through learning and practice
- Paying attention to product and team details, integrating shortcomings, etc.
The absence of non-core members may lead to the following problems:
- Inability to capture future opportunities
- Inability to meet the team's updates and iterations
- Inadequate user experience of the product, team disharmony
In summary, the process of building a product and a team presents countless challenges. While exploring the unknown with excitement, it is also important to constantly pay attention to others.
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