创造增量而不是在存量上厮杀

书中提了business需要考虑的七个问题。把里面一些重要观点organize在这七个问题下面。

1. The Engineering Question: Can you create breakthrough technology instead of incremental improvements?
• Computer complementation rather than substitution. Computer-human combined is a better way.

2. The Timing Question: Is now the right time to start your particular business?

3. The Monopoly Question: Are you starting with a big share of a small market?
• Monopoly vs Perfect Competition
• The reason for chasing perfect competition: economic modeling based on early physics; ideology taught at school to excel at competition.
• Monopoly: should combine multiple market segments; Perfect competition: emphasize the intersection.
• Star-ups shouldn't think of thief competitive advantage at a very niche market, that is the intersection of multiple features (e.g., British restaurant at Palo Aldo).
• Create something new rather than compete on an already full market.
• Monopoly->high profit margin->invest in research and other long term projects. When money is everything for a company, it will lose sight.

4. The People Question: Do you have the right team?
• Owners (like founders) vs. Possessors (like professional CEOs): the former cares about growth in the long term, the latter cares about short term return.
• Recruiting should be the company's most important competency.
• Build culture: everybody should be different in the same way.
• Everyone is responsible for only one thing. Conflicts come from coworkers competing for responsibilities.
• Founder's trait: extreme contradictory.

5. The Distribution Question: Do you have a way to not just create but deliver your product?
• Sales matters!
• Sales is as hard as engineering, but usually overlooked by technology genius.
• Sales are actors! Like acting, selling works best when hidden. So people who work on distribution (sales, marketing) all have different names (like AE, IB). Need to hide at any level! Financial institutions rely on Rainmaker. Even academic relies on sales.
• If you have one good distribution channel, your business is good.

6. The Durability Question: Will your market position be defensible 10 and 20 years into “the future”?
• Definitive optimism. Have a definitive practical plan. Don't hope for the miracles to happen. The world is not a big laboratory.
• The Power Law: 80-20, exponential growth. For VC: The value of the best investment outperform the sum of all the other investments.

7. The Secret Question: Have you identified a unique opportunity that others don’t see?
• "What's the truth that few people agree with you?"
• Computer science is based algorithm people write; biology is working on God's design.
• The left over goals (tasks and problems) are either too easy or impossible.
• Find the secret yet left in the world.
• Secret about nature and secret about people.
• See the world as if it were new.