Tech founder | Sun Xuan, founder of Nai Xue Education: 600 days after "Yes, I started a business"

On February 21, 2021, the public account "The Beauty of Architecture" published an article "Yes, I started a business!" "Up to the top of the IT industry, senior architect Sun Xuan wrote in the article: "To make a little contribution to China's IT education and training industry, so that IT education and training can get the dignity it deserves. For me, this kind of life will be more exciting. And eye-catching."
In mid-September 2021, the new online IT vocational education platform Nai Xue Education received another A1 round of financing with an amount of 50 million yuan, and a cumulative financing of 80 million yuan within two months. "Technologists" was fortunate to have the opportunity to go back and forth with Sun Xuan, who is respected as "Sister Xuan" by the IT arena, for the 600-day venture.

Sister Xuan's journey to the sea:
Consultation services for the niche, education for the general public
In the IT industry, when you mention KOLs in the field of architect knowledge sharing, you will inevitably mention two friends from the 58 department: Sun Xuan (public account: the beauty of architecture) and Shen Jian (public account: the architect's road). In 2011, when Shen Jian worked with Sun Xuan for the first time, he felt that he had met the same kind: both of them were patients with "compulsive-compulsive disorder with a refreshing structure". After Sun Xuan decided to start a business, Shen Jian also mentioned in the article "Best Friend Started a Business, I Must Stand for Him", "I don’t want to fix the old business structure for a long time. I always think about new business and design. The new architecture is the paranoia of many architects."

Worthy of being a close relative and friend, this sentence is the most appropriate to describe Sun Xuan. He is not only very concerned about the business innovation within 58 Group, but also pays close attention to the trend changes in the technology field, and constantly thinks about the business innovation related to life. .

In 2014, Sun Xuan was invited by a friend to test the internal training of the company for the first time. For the next five years, Sun Xuan turned into a flying trapeze every weekend. He was used to seeing Beijing late at night and the early morning in a strange city, and was questioned by his friends "Is there a new girlfriend in that city?"... The price is heavy and rewarding. It is also huge. In addition to the economic benefits, the "flying mode" life has helped Sun Xuan broaden the boundaries of the structure, increased the intensity of thinking, formed a large number of high-quality contacts, and also brought the possibility of future careers: "I found that the growth of technical talents exists. Systemic defects. After entering the company, most technical people are busy with specific work and lack effective self-improvement. IT technology has both in-depth and rapid iteration attributes. If you can’t continue to learn, your salary will continue to increase, and your ability will instead The regressive state of divergence is ultimately eliminated due to the low individual ROI. This is the essence of the 35-year-old phenomenon in the IT circle."

After observing this phenomenon, Sun Xuan felt a force deep in his heart gradually awakening. It was not only a motivation to pursue a higher level of life, but also a sense of mission to assume a heavy responsibility. He first cooperated with Kaiba Bar to test the large technical course "Millions of Annual Salary Architects", which stirred up a huge wave in the market. After successfully testing the waters, he decided to start a business and truly devote himself to vocational education.

"Are you crazy? Millions of annual salary, tens of millions of options are no more?" The source of this sentence, there are many versions of rumors: Sun Xuan's family, Sun Xuan's boss, Sun Xuan's colleagues... Sun Xuan smiled The official certification was given: All of the above are correct. "Many people have persuaded me, but for my dreams, for the improvement of China’s IT technology, for the IT education industry to truly gain respect, and to help more technical brothers and sisters have better In life, I must start a business."

In mid-2019, he made a firm statement to his boss, determined to work until the 30th of the New Year, and stand on the last shift.

Wuhan closed the city on January 23, 2020, and Beijing passenger traffic ceased on January 25. On January 30, someone in the residential area of Beijing was diagnosed... An accident was imminent. In the early morning of February 1, Sun Xuan was still suffering from the epidemic. Great uncertainty arrives in Beijing.

On February 2, 2020, there were no flowers, no ceremonies, no decent dinner, or even a group photo. The 6 IT big guys wearing masks and eating instant noodles (purchased from Jingdong) formally ignited Nai Xue Education The first torch was faint and bright.

▲The first group photo taken at the beginning of Naixue Education's establishment. In a retreat in a mountain village until late at night, I saw Ruixue at the door.

At the beginning of the voyage was snatched by investors
The first priority is to establish the special features of Nai Xue
Technologist: In the first month of starting your business, what impressed you the most?

Sun Xuan: There are two things that are very impressive. The first is that on the second day after the publication of my "Yes, I started a business", dozens of venture capitalists came over, from ts (Investment Intent) The payment cycle is very short. Thank you very much for your recognition, which makes me more confident in the future.

Secondly, the development is relatively fast. After all, I have accumulated some accumulation in the previous cooperation with the opening bar. The time period for making the product is relatively short. It will be sold online in March, and the monthly income will be several hundred thousand yuan. On February 2nd, someone joked, "Are the six of us renting a lot of seats?" As a result, the space soon ran out and it had to be expanded.

Technologist: In addition to the brand advantages, product advantages, and network resources you have accumulated before, at the beginning of the establishment of Naixue Education, how do you think about Naixue’s mid- and long-term strategic positioning and differentiated advantages?

Sun Xuan: I think traditional vocational and technical training is mostly about cutting leeks: First of all, most people use the same product to harvest different people. The fuel to support this model is traffic. They are constantly looking for leeks and cutting leeks, but this is not the case. It can’t solve the fundamental problem of IT people’s growth. What they really need is continuous learning and life-long growth under a scientific and reasonable training system. Secondly, under the traditional education method, the absorption rate of educated people is not high. We can only make a rough judgment. 30-50%. The biggest problem is that IT technology is a kind of practical technology. It only teaches basic knowledge and principles away from the scene. It is difficult to be absorbed by students who lack foundation and experience. "The strange circle.

Corresponding to these two market pain points, Nai Xue has determined its own education model. It is not a course, but a complete set of technical talent growth plans. According to the technical ability stage of the students, they choose targeted training methods. At the next level, there are courses and training methods to help students further improve. This model can truly solve the objective dilemma of discontinuous growth of technical personnel from the perspective of value. From the perspective of business model, Nai Xue has to go with the students for a long time. Only by pursuing good results together can repurchase be produced. Such a training model can be regarded as a friend of time.

Second, during the teaching process, we have built a large number of real-world combat content platforms, allowing students to feel the changes, cruelty and pressure on the battlefield before going to the battlefield, and apply their knowledge to solve the problems they will encounter in the work. Challenges and problems.

Technologist: Is the customer group served by the Nai Xue Education Program subdivided into a certain part, or is it all IT practitioners?

Sun Xuan: At the initial stage, we must serve professional groups related to the content of the course, such as the initial Java and big data subjects, and we will continue to improve the course system in the future. Speaking of goals, there are 30 million IT practitioners in China. I think Nai Xue must first serve these people well—not the upper limit goal, but the goal of the first stage.

Unfocused lesson: Three courses return to two courses
Adhere to the breadth of strategy: Nai Xue Education to Nai Xue Group

Technologist: How should we understand this matter: As an educational institution, covering all practitioners is only the lower limit, which is the beginning?

Sun Xuan: The underlying value of Nai Xue education is that the model of education + technology empowers China's technological innovation. Of course, the main body of innovation includes our 30 million IT practitioners, but also those entrepreneurial companies that continue to make various new attempts. Therefore, there is a possibility for Nai Xue in the future. In addition to indirectly empowering enterprises through education and training, we also need to open up a direct channel to directly provide services to enterprises in the form of technical training and technical products.

The recent financing plan includes the To B service. In the future, Nai Xue Education will be upgraded to Nai Xue Group, which will empower enterprises in a variety of ways and improve China's overall technological level.

Technologist: After making such a grand plan in less than two years, will anyone worry that Nai Xue has not been deeply involved in the education field and divided the troops too early?

Sun Xuan: This is a big topic that needs to be discussed in different dimensions:

At the tactical level, premature division of troops and blind expansion will indeed cause problems, and Nai Xue has suffered from insufficient focus. In August last year, we encountered a difficulty, but unlike ordinary startups, which cannot develop, the problem with Nai Xue is that it develops too fast.

In August 2020, after the success of the Java and big data courses, we quickly launched the third course, which was slightly less polished, and launched a big offensive on the marketing side. As a result, not only did the third course not quickly occupy the market and the refund rate was high, but it also affected the previous two major courses that had a very good reputation and good sales growth. 1 million marketing expenses went out, and 800,000 sales came back, not counting. Other costs have already lost money. The morale of the team went wrong during that period. After a serious review, we determined that we should not expand blindly. Nai Xue needs exquisite, in-depth, and absolutely superior course products instead of blindly speeding up sales for the sake of pursuing sales. The interesting thing is that the shrinking of the product line has brought about a rapid increase in sales. In July 2021, our sales have exceeded 10 million yuan, and the main contributions are still from Java and big data disciplines.

But at the strategic level, I think that you need to be forward-looking. No one can predict the future perfectly, but as long as you consider clearly what the underlying value provided by Nai Xue is, there will not be much deviation in action. As mentioned earlier, whether it is personal education and training, or enterprise technical training, or directly providing technical solutions or even providing products, they are all built around the underlying value of Nai Xue.

Of course, we will be very cautious about our actions in this regard. At present, we are launching pilot projects with some high-intention cooperative enterprises in the form of a relatively standard project system, and continue to explore the low-cost and large-scale replication route of the B-side business. For a long time, Nai Xue's core business will still be education and training.

IT practitioners currently have a scale of 30 million. If Naixue can further grow and empower the entire digital industry, this part will be 200 to 300 million employees in the future, and it will be able to cover this part of the population, and Naixue will be able to grow. A great enterprise with a market value of hundreds of billions.

Management experience: manage according to your aptitude
Technologist: The leader of an entrepreneurial enterprise is not only the helm of strategy, but also the makers of management culture. What do you have in terms of management experience comparing before and after starting a business?

Sun Xuan: Before starting a business, he managed a team of more than 300 people. Nai Xue also has more than 300 people, but the 300-person R&D team is geared to the same type of work, but after starting a business, various functional departments and business departments need to establish management methods. To build a good relationship with investors.

Different management styles should be adopted for different teams. For example, sales must have strict targets and timely rewards. Our sales must have written military orders, with the color of militarized management, but as long as they are completed, their income must be higher than the industry average. 20-30%; For the production and research team, the management method should be gentle, and communicate with everyone on a rational level.

Technologist: Ask a specific question about the scenario: entrepreneurs who come from the business side often have friction with the marketing team in the early stages of entrepreneurship. Has Nai Xue also experienced such a stage?

Sun Xuan: Friction is inevitable, but Nai Xue has paid great attention to identifying the values of partners from the beginning. As long as the underlying value perception is relatively consistent, the friction at the specific method level is easy for everyone to understand. And I advocate goal-driven, full authorization, and after setting a consensus goal, I will only be responsible for providing resources without interfering in too much specific work. If one month does not work for two months, if two months does not work, some people may be eliminated.

▲In Sun Xuan's office, military orders issued by various sales heroes.

Common pitfalls in entrepreneurship: how to keep input?
Technologists: More and more investors and entrepreneurs regard "business" as a derogatory term. They don't want what they do to become a state of "making some money but no growth". How can Nai Xue avoid becoming A business?

Sun Xuan: There are roughly two types of entrepreneurs I know. One is how many resources do they do, and the other is to clarify the goal to save resources that can achieve the goal. I belong to the latter and I never consider what I have. Only consider what you need.

The smooth start of Nai Xue also gave me greater confidence, allowing me to dare to contact the best experts, the best teachers, and the best marketing team to achieve a great goal together.

Technologist: Many entrepreneurial projects derived from "work results" are difficult to break out of the vicious circle: the value and ability accumulated and imported in actual combat scenarios gradually become "old knowledge" under the constant output and consumption of entrepreneurial scenarios. Lagging behind and being eliminated, as an educational organization, how can Nai Xue maintain the continuous growth of its own ability after being separated from the actual combat scene?

Sun Xuan: Nai Xue Education has a complete iterative innovation process. Screening-project approval-polishing-production. On the one hand, technology updates are fast and strong, but technological innovations with long-term value do not account for a large proportion. Observe and It is confirmed that education itself is not a new industry, it is suitable for systematic precipitation after patient observation. Once it is determined that a new technology is worthy of a course, as mentioned earlier, we will find the top experts and best practitioners in the industry, invite them to the big stage of Nai Xue education, and copy their knowledge to More skilled people create greater value.

Sun Xuan in 2021
Sun Xuan and Nai Xue in 2040

Technologist: Compared with Sun Xuan before 2020, which part of Sun Xuan's ability will be improved the most in 2021?

Sun Xuan: First of all, it is the overall improvement of career level capabilities. Before I started my business, I was also the core management of the company. I would also have some ideas, but most of those ideas are still confined to the product and technical team, and they are still a "participant". Role, it is difficult to write your own true thoughts into the DNA of the company.

But after starting a business, you have to consider the overall situation. Entrepreneurship itself is a process of mapping the founder's abilities to the entire team. All aspects of Nai Xue are affected by me, and the responsibilities on my shoulders are much heavier. Fortunately, my transfer ability and learning ability are good, and I am quite ruthless to myself. I can actively break the comfort zone. The high-level and grass-roots level of Nai Xue basically repeats every day and iterates every day, with "high intensity, high income, high growth" "Team culture.

Technologist: What kind of person do you hope Sun Xuan will be 20 years from now?

Sun Xuan: I hope that in 20 years, Sun Xuan will be able to lead Naixue to become an enterprise that has truly succeeded through courses and products like Huawei. I hope Naixue has become a company with a market value of 100 billion yuan.

When it comes to the market value of 100 billion, it is not talking about more money than less money. When I was talking about financing two days ago, an investor asked me if you would be satisfied if you were to be an education company with a market value of RMB 10 billion. I said that if my goal is just that, maybe I don’t need to start a business. . There is something deep in my heart that I want to do. It is difficult, but it will be very valuable if it is done. As long as it is done, it will naturally reach the scale of hundreds of billions of market value. Can you say that I haven't done it yet.