The original text was published in: Occupation 2012 Issue 19 Author: Wen Jia

Entrepreneurship: Brothers and Sisters "Four People"

At the end of 2009, Li Liguo, who had just worked at the headquarters of Changan Automobile Group for nine months, made a bold decision. He wanted to resign from this high-paying, stable, and enviable job in a state-owned enterprise, and work with his classmates Hua Jianfeng and Tian Shuo from Tsinghua University. Start a business together.

Maybe it was the adventurous spirit in nature, or maybe it was related to the experience of participating in various technology competitions in college. When deciding to start a business, Li Liguo said with a smile that it took him only a week to convince himself and his family.

"Because my country's traditional fuel vehicle technology started late, there is a big gap between the level of other countries. In the field of new energy vehicles, we 'started' with foreign counterparts at almost the same time, and the prospects are good. If it goes well, it should develop very well. This is An entrepreneurial project that can be gambled." Li Liguo said.

In March of the following year, three young men from Tsinghua University took the 100,000 yuan (300,000 yuan in total) that they had collected to register a technology company called "Keyi Power" and started their first step on the road of entrepreneurship. .

Half a year later, at the call of three senior brothers, Meng Qingran, who had been working in a micro electric vehicle startup company in Changzhou for two years, also resolutely returned to Beijing and joined the team. So far, the four core members of the team have all arrived.

Although the company is small, the four people specialize in the industry, complement each other, and have a clear division of labor. Tian Shuo did the marketing, the second senior brother Hua Jianfeng did the electronic control, Li Liguo did the machinery, and Meng Qingran, who joined last, did the technical supplement.

After unifying the entrepreneurial goals, it is necessary to consider the specific entrepreneurial content. The coverage of new energy vehicles is so wide, how to find a suitable living space for oneself and get a share in the automobile market?

All four of them studied in the automotive department, and they all have a relatively deep understanding of automobiles. Because the motor, electronic control, and battery are the three core technologies of pure electric vehicles, the battery is a creative technology and is not suitable for entrepreneurial teams. The current technology of the motor is relatively mature, and the motor also has a corresponding industrial foundation in other industries of the industry. Not very suitable. The only thing left is electronic control. "We are studying the major of electronic control. Taking this as the starting point, we will develop and promote the battery management system for electric vehicles (hereinafter referred to as BMS). This is the core work of our business. It is quite appropriate to support the development of our company. And this technology is not mature in China at present, including the strength of OEMs is not too far behind us, so there is room for us to survive.”

"Charging" to "changing electricity": Reversing the direction of development at a critical moment

But after meeting the first major customer, and also after coming into contact with the new concept of "electricity swap", several portraits were connected to the second vein of Ren and Du, and they were keenly aware that the "electrical swapping" technology must be a new energy vehicle. The development trend has important practical significance and strong feasibility, and can make up for some of the technical shortcomings inherent in electric vehicles. This is the company's better development direction. The so-called "replacement" is relative to the "charging" of the battery of an electric vehicle. It takes a few hours to charge. What if the car runs out of electricity on the way? This is the reason why electric vehicles have not been accepted by the public. The battery replacement time is very short, replace a fully charged battery, the car can run immediately.

To their surprise, no company in China is currently developing a battery swap system for electric vehicles, which means that if they develop it, it will be the first one, and it is likely to win a good start.

But what is worrying is that because there is no precedent, they have become crab eaters and have no experience to learn from, so they can only explore on their own. At the same time, the client only gave them six months. The team Nakata Shuo was mainly in charge of the market. Meng Qingran had not joined at the time. Only Li Liguo and Hua Jianfeng took three junior students from Tsinghua University to work on this project together. Biting the bullet, gritted their teeth, day and night, a few people devoted themselves to research and development. With their strong professional knowledge and accurate judgment, after many adjustments and demonstrations, they succeeded in just one time, as scheduled. Delivered the first automatic battery replacement system.

This research and development has successfully realized the rapid, efficient and convenient replacement of electric vehicle batteries, and solved the problem of rapid energy supply for electric vehicles. The entire battery replacement process takes only 3 minutes, and in the design, the entire battery replacement process is automatically completed, and the final settlement is automatic without manual assistance. The system has been well received by customers and electric vehicle companies. It is reported that the central enterprise immediately ordered 4 sets of equipment. In less than a year, "Keyi Power" has become a well-known R&D enterprise in the electric vehicle industry. They also dug the first pot of gold in their lives. "Currently, our system is in the stage of demonstration operation. The customer has invested in local power exchange stations, each station has about four or five vehicles, the largest station has nearly ten vehicles, and the largest station has two sets of equipment. We have now started to make the second-generation system, and this time we are considering making it more practical." Meng Qingran introduced.

The enviable premise: do something yourself first!

After the second year of business, the small team of four people has grown into a company with more than 40 employees. Compared with the pure technical men who were young at the time, the four main creators were much more mature, and they began to think about issues other than technology.

For such rapid personnel expansion, the creators have some concerns, and they even began to deliberately HOLD. "From the point of view of being a company, we don't want to keep doing this one project after another. The profit margin of the project is relatively high, but the absolute value is small. It is not a good state for raising the company or expanding the company. There are many needs of customers, and some customers' needs are not scientific. For example, a project actually takes half a year or even a year to do, but the customer gives you three months, so you need to recruit a lot of people. After the project is completed, many people will be idle. Now, the current market environment is not stable, and customers’ decisions depend on the market, so the company is very passive. We still hope to have batches of products and stable cash flow, which is a reliable development model for a company. ." Meng Qingran's rational analysis.

When it comes to the difficulties encountered in entrepreneurship, the young men are very optimistic. They feel that those difficulties cannot be called difficulties. Now they are most confused and eager to improve their management level. How to judge the value of members in the team, how to mobilize the enthusiasm of employees, how to set the salary system, how to lead the team to work more efficiently, and how to deal with customers, these are all they are learning. "Our ability to identify talents is very limited. Some people with great work experience come over, and they may say it very well. After all, they are also from the bank, but in actual work, the difference is very far. In comparison, I prefer to find Some students in the school come to work part-time, and the students' thinking is more active. They can learn things here, and they can also try and reflect their own value. He will do it very easily."

Regarding the company's next development, Meng Qingran believes that the company must first survive and explore opportunities in the market. Sometimes opportunities are given by customers, and sometimes opportunities are created by themselves. In addition, if the internal management and organizational structure are not done well, it will also affect the development of the company. When the company has grown to the current scale, the creators must learn how to be leaders, improve the company's various systems, and mobilize the enthusiasm of employees. This is the process of cultivating internal skills.

From the initial recognition of BMS to the diversification of business and customers, the young people of "Keyi Power" have adjusted their mentality again and again to lead the company to develop in a healthy direction. FAW, Dongfeng Yuedaqi and other large companies have cooperation.

"The diversification of business and customers does not mean how much more money we make, or the direction in which we make money has expanded, which means that our ability to make money has increased. A business that lives by chance will definitely not last long. In the process of growth, It is clear that we are not suitable for venture capital, we need strategic investors, he is optimistic about our business, this is our new understanding of making money in entrepreneurship, we must first do things well, and then wait for 'being adoption'."

Follow-up: The senior wants to say to the juniors who are taking postgraduate entrance exams and starting businesses...

As graduate students of the Department of Automotive, Li Liguo and the others mastered the core technologies related to electric vehicles during their studies. With the support of their tutors, they have teamed up to participate in many scientific and technological activities, such as Challenge Cup, Smart Car Competition, Electronic Design Competition, Mechanical Engineering Design competition... It is through this kind of continuous accumulation and continuous exercise that they can walk the road of entrepreneurship very steadily. "Entrepreneurship is very similar to competitions. Winning prizes is not the most important thing. Experience is very important. Trying the whole process and how to overcome difficulties and achieve goals are all valuable experiences. The gains beyond material things are very valuable."

For students who want to start a business in the field of new energy vehicles, Meng Qingran also gave a very pertinent opinion. The threshold for new energy vehicles to start a business is very high. . Other entrepreneurial projects may be half completed with a good blueprint, while new energy vehicle entrepreneurship requires certain channels to find customers and strong R&D capabilities. "Take our company as an example, many of our customers are OEMs, they all have their own R&D teams, some of which are also very strong, so we must be better than them in order to win their favor. The entrepreneurship of new energy vehicles is not like making mobile phones. Seeing that the market for Iphone is very good, You can hire a technician to come over, disassemble the machine, copy the technology, make the product and sell it, and then make money. The entrepreneurship of new energy vehicles does not mean that you can make cars and change batteries, but This market itself is immature. Everyone is cultivating and operating the market. Various models may come out. Manufacturers, operators, enterprises, and governments all play a very important role. The spirit of collaboration. The boss of the entrepreneurial team must know how to combine the market and technology to find a breakthrough. This is very difficult, and we have been working hard to find it.”

In addition, in entrepreneurship, resisting temptation is also very important. The research and development costs of new energy vehicles are very high, and the creators once thought about financing for the company's development, and they had already raised 20 million in assets at that time. After thinking about it, for the long-term development of the company, several people agreed unexpectedly and chose to give up. "It now seems that we made the right decision to refuse, because we couldn't meet their requirements. If we cooperated at that time, it would mean that we lost control of the company. We are betting on the long-term future, not the existing market. At present, the market has not yet formed, and the risks are very high. In addition, when external capital enters, their purpose is to make profits. If we cannot make profits, it will cut us off. From an operational point of view, they want to make money. We What we think about is development, our two interests are not consistent, and cooperation with different interests is very harmful to us." Li Liguo said.