Lei Jun Shares Advice for Startups and Entrepreneurs

Xiaomi’s Lei Jun is always interesting. Recently, he gave a lengthy interview to Huashang Wang in which he talks about entrepreneurship, investing, and startups. The whole thing is worth a read if your Chinese is up for it, but if not, I thought a couple answers of his were particularly interesting (especially if you, like many of our readers, are an entrepreneur).

First, Lei was asked what being an entrepreneur means to him. He responded:

Being an entrepreneur means doing what others haven’t done, or doing what others haven’t done successfully. The very successful entrepreneurs are often iconoclasts, the larger-than-life sort. If he [the entrepreneur] has the courage to challenge everything, I think that’s a quality worth encouraging. Experience is the sum of things that have come before, [but] before Facebook, who knew that Facebook could be created? So I encourage entrepreneurs to challenge authority, to topple the existing rules; that is what successful experience is.

Later in the interview, Lei was asked more directly to offer some advice to budding startups and entrepreneurs on how to find investment. This is what he said:

Dont’ burn incense, it’s useless [i.e., don’t just pray for a lucky break]. No investor’s money comes easily, because our money was earned with blood and sweat, too. Lots of people ask me: why don’t you invest in me? Because it’s my money, I can invest it in him or I can invest it in you. So, why should I definitely invest it in you?

If I’m following Lei correctly here, he’s saying entrepreneurs need to remember that no one invests in ‘good enough,’ and that you’re going to have to compete for every penny. If you go in with a why-wouldn’t-they-invest attitude, you’re probably going to fail.

[Huashang Wang via Sina Tech]