“Jump into the middle of things, get your hands dirty, fall flat on your face, and then reach for the stars.”
- Ben Stein
Recently, many good friends have come to Singapore. Last night, I treated Boss SU, who is Cong's favorite, to a drink. Boss SU's business is doing exceptionally well. His company was founded around the same time as ours, but its development has far surpassed ours. Every time Cong has dinner with SU, he keeps talking about it for a long time afterward, saying that Boss SU's thinking is profound and very down-to-earth. Most importantly, he doesn't look down on our small company and always gives advice without hesitation.
Yesterday, we discussed the issue of business breakthroughs, and Boss SU mentioned a viewpoint that coincided with what I had been discussing with Cong earlier. When a company starts expanding into new business lines or making business breakthroughs, a common phenomenon occurs: the boss points out a direction, the BU managers express strong agreement, and begin to proceed step by step, but the results are often unsatisfactory, leading to doubts about the direction. However, after some time, it may be discovered that products in this direction have emerged from other companies, and their revenue, profit, and valuation are indeed as expected by the boss. At this point, the boss will blame the executives, saying that there was nothing wrong with his direction, so why couldn't they make it happen?
Our small company finds it difficult to empower team members like large companies do, nor do we have a powerful mid-platform capability to truly support the expansion of new businesses. Basically, every new business breakthrough is a hunting process, and the skills required for hunting and farming are different. Executives who are capable and responsible may help with farming, scaling, and 1-n work; however, if you rely on executives for exploration and breakthroughs from 0-1, then it really depends on luck. But the success of entrepreneurship can't depend on luck, right?
True business breakthroughs still require the company leader to not only figure out the direction but also consider the path, look at the details, and find problems.