ONES Feng Bin: From engineer to CTO, accompanied by uncertainty and incomplete information｜ONES Talk

Under the trend of digital transformation, the demand for software R&D management of enterprises increases, and the developer group will contribute more and more value.

As a leader in the domestic R&D management field, ONES has always been committed to empowering the developer community and promoting the continuous development of China's software industry. In May 2022, ONES announced the acquisition of segmentfault, a well-known domestic technology question and answer community, to jointly build a high-quality developer community.

In this issue of "From Zero to One", we connected with ONES CTO Feng Bin, talked about the stories of technical entrepreneurs, and discussed the thinking behind the growth of front-line engineers into technical managers.

• Timeline of this episode-

0:03:55 Is it lonely to be a To B product?
0:08:54 Born in Guangzhou, graduated from university and went to Jinshan for internship
0:16:24 "Noise" - reducing uncertainty in decision making
0:27:50 Internship experience in Jinshan and Netease
0:33:35 Leave Jinshan and join Punctual Technology
0:39:14 The experience of doing management work and changing the work philosophy
0:41:47 The impact of the punctual alarm on yourself
0:43:42 Entrepreneurship ONES - Find the value you can generate for your customers
0:53:34 The top-level design that ONES is doing
0:56:02 Future Product Direction - Collaboration and Documentation for Large Teams
1:02:44 Expansion plans after financing
1:06:35 "Staying and Leaving" - The Experience of Studying at CEIBS
1:13:44 Decision making is always accompanied by risk and uncertainty
1:29:07 Find the inner drive and give some advice to newcomers
1:44:13 ONES Recruitment

• Text finishing-

From zero to one: Sohu.com had an interview with you in 2022. The subtitle of the interview was "Technical people can endure loneliness as ToB". ONES has developed very smoothly in recent years. Do you still feel "lonely"?

Kid: I think being a ToB will be lonely at first. The point of this loneliness is our own concept of making products. Many people will pick up some projects for outsourcing because of the pressure of survival. If this is the case at the beginning, there will be a good income. But we know that this is a manpower business model, and there will definitely be a ceiling.

My partner Ying Qi and I set a goal on the first day, we must not do customization, we must not do outsourcing, we must create a product that is faster and faster, in fact, it is a standard product. For example, if a customer gives us a demand, we will analyze it. If we encounter similar customers, such as customers in the same industry, will they make the same demand under the same scenario? Can the product design plan we developed according to this demand also meet the pain point of our second customer? If it is, we call it a standard function. Of course, we still have many decision-making methods to determine the boundary of the standard product, but in the end we decided to move forward with the practice of this standard product.

To be a standard product and to serve customers well, there are contradictions, especially the number of medium and large customers will be more, and the process will be different from the details of other companies, which requires our product itself, whether it is product design logic or technical design. Logic must be abstract.

For example, the task status of a general task collaboration tool may be fixed, including not started, in progress, and completed. All the states in ONES can be changed, and users can configure it by themselves. For example, I can add an acceptance check, or it has been accepted and online.

Of course, we can not only change the state, but also set: who can change the state, and who can change the state under which conditions are met.

If we do customization, we call it "hardcoded" when we write it. These do not require configuration, all written in code on the line. But in our case, these are all configurable.

A product, it has never become flexible. At the same time, this flexibility must also be able to be implemented. Users really need to be able to use your functions. This process is definitely much longer than starting a "hard-coded function." The first point of loneliness comes from here.

In the early days of 2016 and 2017, we had few customers, basically just seed customers, such as some good friends around us, who had the will to find some tools and knew that we were doing this. For about two years, we didn't really start doing something at scale. But I think this early loneliness is what a lot of people want. We can call it loneliness, or we can call it anxiety. So now it will feel short-term fast, in the long run, it may not be really fast.

Things that seem fast to us in a year are not necessarily faster when you think about it on the scale of ten years. We will think more on the scale of 5 or 10 years. I think we still have to work for many years. It's not just us, can we achieve good performance in the next one or two years? We also want to do our growth, but also have a steady approach. But not to release all the energy at the beginning, this is the most important decision.

From zero to one: You are from Cantonese, can you briefly talk about your growth experience?

Kid: Guangzhou has a concept of the old four districts, which is the city of Guangzhou twenty or thirty years ago. I was born in Yuexiu District, and I lived and studied in Guangzhou until college. After I got to university, I was first in Zhuhai, and my first job was an internship in Jinshan. I came to Shenzhen when I was working on the ONES project.

Looking back now, I'm still sweating. Before college, I didn't have many goals and I couldn't answer what I wanted to do. Many times, some things we often want to do are not really what we really want to do. In recent years, I suddenly thought of a concept that being addicted to something does not necessarily mean wanting to do it.

We often make fun of instant noodles. Before we eat them, we feel very fragrant, but when we eat them, we think they are ok, but after eating them, you will feel bad. What you really want to do is a very lasting feeling, something deep in your heart, you will feel that even if you have no money, I am willing to take the time to do it, and I will be happy by doing that, it is not a means, It's the purpose, not that it will disappear immediately after you are satisfied, just like eating instant noodles.

Gradually, I will separate the things that make me addicted from the things I want to do, and later I will slowly discover that many of those things that make you addicted are some external stimuli. Intuitive feeling to drive.

We have this feeling when we play games. The so-called whether you are playing the game or the game is hitting you, I think it is the same. Going back to my whole upbringing, I feel like I didn't have any goals until I went to college, if I said that everything I was doing was just "addicted."

Until I was in college, one day I accidentally opened a computer book when I was bored.

From zero to one: There is a sense of picture. I think of a morning when the sun is pouring down, you feel bored, you run to the door, you see a book in the bookstore, and the story of the movie starts from here.

Kid: Yes, when I was in middle school, my grades depended to a large extent on whether I liked this teacher or not. I felt that my inner drive was not enough, or I didn't find a very important goal. Of course, I also think that children are not so easy to find. If I had any abilities at the age of 18, they were all by chance, random things with no path to follow.

Looking back now, that state is quite scary. I now meet some friends around me, who may be 20 or even 30 years old. If they are still in such a state, I think it is very scary, and I can't wait. to persuade him.

From zero to one: until one day you turn to a book.

Kid: It should be a textbook. It is a book that we may learn in CS majors, freshmen and sophomores. I have forgotten which one. I remember that after I opened the book, I suddenly saw that it was solving a problem, and the problem was that I had forgotten everything, but it still gave me a very shocking feeling. Who came up with this idea? So smart! That book suddenly piqued my curiosity.

At that time, I felt that the dormitory was also uncomfortable, so I might as well go to the classroom and read this book. After that day, I stopped playing games in school, but began to care about the most popular books in a certain major. What do I think is the best book? Then I learned some of the most powerful people in the industry from the best books, and gradually began to expand some of my computer skills.

From zero to one: in the early learning process, will there be such a state of regret or anxiety?

Kid: It was there in the early days, but I think it's fine now. It's the same as when we just talked about loneliness. When we think about the scale of things is small or short, we are prone to this anxiety. When we look at the range of, say, 10 years, does it really make a big difference if I touch the book a year earlier or a year later? In fact, the difference is not big. The big difference lies in what I was doing when I didn't touch this book. Am I waiting for this book, or am I touching something else?

I don't think the order is very important. If we are in a stable state, this accident will eventually become a necessity. At first, I also thought that why everyone is reading such a good book, this book has been out for ten years, I just started to read it, but now I will especially look forward to when I can come across a good book Books can make me feel less sleepy all night, and I am more looking forward to having this sense of chance encounter.

The book that impressed me the most recently is "Noise" by Daniel Kahneman, the father of behavioral economics. He had a famous book before, called Thinking Fast and Slow. This book is basically saying that people are not rational people, and we will have many biases when we make many decisions. For example, the first impression we mentioned before, or the overestimation of ourselves, will all be some psychological biases. The book "Noise" is about something about the way people make decisions. I think if I had to recommend a book, and I could only recommend one, it would be this book.

This book is very inspiring to me, it can take away a lot of uncertainty in my day-to-day decision-making. Maybe, for example, after I make a decision, if I come back to do it after a while, even if all the information and all the scenarios remain the same, my thoughts may be different. All the information has not changed, but the ideas are different. What does that prove? Prove that there may be some randomness in our decision-making. Something is changing, but the most important thing has not changed. It is something insignificant that affects us.

To give an example in the book, the weather is good or bad, will make the staff of college admissions examine the things of the candidates differently. If one day I go to apply for Stanford and fail, it may be because it rains on the day of reviewing the materials, and he feels that he is not in a particularly good mood, so he has not applied. Those details that shouldn't have influenced our decisions influenced our decisions.

I myself enjoy logical decision-making. If the decision-making is slightly biased in the company, it will bring a lot of costs to many colleagues. This book made me realize again whether there is a more scientific method for our decision-making, which can strengthen some of our previous guesses in many ways, whether we should admit a certain person or not, and how to judge him.

The so-called noise, just like the signal, should be constant, but when it reaches a certain node, a signal level suddenly appears. We call it noise, which affects our original signal and distorts it.

From zero to one: Has the whole interest been put on computer learning since then?

Kid: I share a more inspired formula: B=MAP, which means that a human behavior consists of several parts. The first is M-motivation, you have to be motivated yourself. I opened the book and saw the action of such an exquisite solution. I was curious in itself. This has actually completed the first step. A is about ability, you must at least understand it before you can continue to do it later.

It made me feel sweaty at first because at that point in time, whether I had the ability to understand was actually a random event. I didn't do the training deliberately, I deliberately arrived at those few scenes. When we have motivation and ability, P is a trigger point, an action that fires.

In fact, I just felt bored playing the game, and the book just happened to be on my desk. I didn't know why, so I opened it, and I just saw that paragraph. To tell the truth, if that state is maintained, there will be the next book, not this book, or other things. When all three factors are combined, it becomes a behavior.

This act is what I actually do, start looking at computer-related stuff. At that time, my goal was not clear. We talked about addiction just now. I only started to think clearly in the past five years. At that time, I was very likely to be in an addictive state, because the three conditions I just mentioned were met. , gave me a behavior, and the behavior gave me feedback.

Continue to go on, in fact, it may not be a computer, maybe other things can trigger me. Until the next milestone, when I started getting exposed to open source, I started getting exposed to Linux, when I was about to graduate from my junior and senior years.

I remember learning Linux at that time, and the network card driver may not be able to access the Internet after a long time of tossing. For us, the previous information was very scarce, and the lack of access to the Internet meant that the information could not be found, and it was difficult to solve the following problems.

From zero to one: At that time, I only had the way to Xinhua Bookstore.

Kid: Yes, it used to be only books. I actually started getting into Linux when I was a freshman, but when I was going to make my only computer into Linux, I couldn't get online. In the past, not everyone in the dormitory had a computer, and other people were still playing games, so they wouldn’t let you check things. The mobile phone could only send text messages back then.

Until I use Ubuntu 7.04, the system can be directly connected to the Internet and dial-up after the system is installed. At that time, I started to get through a lot of ideas, including the concept of pipelines. I think this design is really good, and it allows us to combine many different usages. Including many programming ideas in Unix, there is a book dedicated to this.

In the entire open source cultural community, everyone will put as much information as possible on the Internet to communicate, and there are very good learning opportunities. I have been exposed to so many industries, but there is no industry that can openly communicate the core capabilities and ideas of the industry as we do software.

I remember that it seemed like January 2008, which should be two or three weeks before the Chinese New Year, and I started going to Jinshan for an internship. At that time, I did not enter the company according to the normal school recruitment rhythm. I was a drug tyrant at that time, and now I am called a cheetah.

There are a lot of random things here, and I don't know why I opened the official website of Jinshan one day. Then I saw that it was recruiting people, and JD said that he knew Java. I happen to know Java too, because I turned to a computer network book that I like very much. The examples in it are written in Java, and there are many coincidences. I put in a resume for an interview, and after the interview, I started working there.

Kid: It's mainly about operation and maintenance and data. Now it's called big data. Before, we only called it statistics. Our quality inspection statistics, all colleagues around the system related to making data are very strong. I think Kingsoft had a large percentage of the best C++ programmers in China at the time. Jinshan's WPS at that time was basically written in C++, and the requirements were very high. Even now, the requirements for various programming skills of office software are relatively high.

Although I was in Duba at the time, many of my colleagues were from WPS text, and they were all people who were very experienced in using C++. There are a lot of programming concepts that will teach me, both then and now, which are very good gains. After graduating, I went to NetEase for a short period of time, in NetEase mailbox. In September and October, I went back to Jinshan again and retryed the same job as the previous internship, mainly doing data processing, and then some automation-related things.

Until Android 1.5 came out, I met Ying Qi inside Jinshan. We hope to do some innovative projects on mobile phones, and we want to do something related to mobile phone security. I signed up first and wanted to give it a try, because the technology stack was actually the same at the time. I didn't think too much about it. I thought that mobile phones are the future, and the mobile Internet is the future.

At that time, I thought that a new field had just emerged, and I could actually search Gmail on my mobile phone. I thought it was amazing. I must take a look at this platform, and it is technically possible. At some point in 2009, I switched to Android as a software engineer.

The earliest I remember it seemed to be called Jinshan Mobile Security Guard. The earliest Android version was mainly written by me, and I also started to enter the mobile Internet. Until I left Jinshan, I mainly worked on it.

From zero to one: What are the details of choosing to be Kingsoft Mobile Guard?

Kid: I think it's because the product itself is what attracts me, which is the smartphone. It showed a lot more than what the Nokia S40 phone I was using at the time showed me, it gave me a kind of ability to network. I used to think that the phone was not connected to the Internet, it was only used to make calls. Until the beginning I saw a mobile phone, the system is Android1.5. It can send and receive emails, and can read Twitter messages on it, so it is actually attracted to this platform.

In addition, I feel that I have always been a person who loves tossing and has a certain curiosity. I especially want to try it, and I have this environment and opportunity. In fact, we are now talking about how fast a company grows. For individuals, I think it affects more. When you are curious, there is also such an opportunity outside for you to try it. Because Android has just been released, it is impossible to find someone with experience and a better foundation. Everyone is willing to let you try it. Also based on this opportunity, I started to take charge of this project.

In fact, looking back at that time, Android was still not the mainstream. Symbian s60 was the mainstream. The system of the last few years of Symbian also has networking capabilities and can write many apps.

From zero to one: You were basically in Zhuhai before 2015, and you decided to join Punctual Technology in the following year. Was the decision to leave Kingsoft a natural process?

Kid: It was quite natural. At that time, the person in charge of my group was Ying Qi. He wanted to go out and start a business and asked me if he wanted to join us. I think it's pretty good, and I want to continue doing what I'm doing now. At that time, as an engineer for more than two years, I think that I see more people saying that I think this group is good or not, and I think this leader is good or not. So when the leader asked me to start a business, he didn't want to say, I'm going to get married and buy a house. Young people can do whatever they like.

After Ying Qi finished speaking, I thought it was ok to make an alarm clock and a reminder. We had a product called Punctual Alarm Clock. I was a member of the founding team, but I was not the founder. At that time, I only had three years of work experience, and I did not have enough qualifications to start a company. At that time, I thought it was still a product manager's thinking. I thought this product was very good, useful, usable, and some users liked to use it, and I was willing to do it, so we did it. That was the idea at the time.

From Zero to One: Has the rhythm of life changed a lot after entering Punctual Technology? How is your time allocated?

Kid: I don't think it's changed much from Jinshan. The big changes started when I started to manage. Before that, whether it was in Jinshan or on punctuality, I would go to my workstation to start writing code after getting up in the morning. I would write until I don’t know what time it was at night, and then I stopped to find that I was hungry and tired, so I went back to sleep. Time is often forgotten. Once the management is done, the entire work, the way of thinking will change.
At that time, I started to feel that there was not enough time. About 12 or 13 years ago, I started to bring one or two people. I felt that I had to hold meetings so often and explain a lot of things to others, and I didn’t have time to sit down and think about things myself. Sometimes I forget some of the things people find me. Our work starts to advance in multiple lines at the same time, and it is very fragmented and large. At this time, the concept of time management will appear.

It was only then that I discovered that Google Calendar was used in this way, and I discovered why people use electronic calendars. It was also from that time that I started to manage my schedule, and the habit has remained until now.

At that time, Android was still in an early stage, and there were not many apps in its system and various aspects. As long as a useful product can be made, many users will be willing to install it. I remember that in the later period, the total installation was close to 100 million. It should have been pretty good at the time.

At that time, I thought it was quite smooth. At that time, I felt that our entire team did not have too many problems in making products, and continued the entire work style of our previous work as mobile phone guards in Kingsoft.

From zero to one: What challenges have you faced in the transition from development to management?

Kid: When I first started management, everyone would have some doubts, as if I didn't do anything all day. Because we used to rely on our own hands, for example, our projects generated value by writing code by ourselves. Now, as a manager, we need to generate value through the team.

It was unclear at first. As a manager, I still feel that I just teach him to do some things, and I still have to produce or write code, but there is definitely not enough time. Looking back now, in fact, the essence of management work has changed, but the whole thinking and work philosophy have not changed, which will cause the previous troubles. Including saying that I felt like I didn’t do anything all day, I just held meetings with others and didn’t write code. What if I think others are better than me? Can't control him anymore? Then again, it may be that I don't understand how to say it, as if I myself can do it faster. I think these are all because the management concept is immature and has not been transformed.

I didn't think at the time that I needed to get things done through others. I still want to go back to the way I used to be, as an engineer, write code like this every day, and get everyone's approval. Now as a manager, I should do the same, and people will continue to recognize me, which is a very typical idea. Now I will tell everyone who has just become a manager that we must first change the management and work philosophy, and what is management in the end.

I started to think step by step from some accidents at work. I feel that I have been busy all day, and I still wrote some code, but it seems that the output of the whole team is not very good, or it has not completed some of the tasks that a team should complete. Target. At this time, I will start to think about whether there is another way, why there is a problem now, and gradually I will feel that the idea was not so mature at that time, I just think that I can't write code, but I must make sure that others can write code well.

Starting from these practices slowly and exploring, and finally found that some paths have worked out, I began to truly become a manager.

From zero to one: What was the opportunity to create ONES?

Kid: At that time, Ying Qi said that we should do a new project. When we first explored this goal, we were not so clear. If we summarize the key points, we continued the working method of Jinshan as an innovation group. But in fact, there was a problem when we were doing it. We felt that there were many such entrepreneurial projects at that time, the business model was uncertain, how to receive money from users? We especially want to find a direction where customers are willing to pay as long as we generate value for them.

From zero to one: Do you still have a lot of feelings when you do To C at the right time?

Kid: There are some, but I think thinking about this feeling is not systematic enough. When we were working on ONES, we started to think about many aspects. The first aspect, as just mentioned, can it create value for customers and make customers willing to pay for such a model? Then we will also think about what we are good at?

Because in 2014 and 2015, there were already live broadcasts and smart hardware, and it was fun. We felt that there were also products we liked there. Are we going to do it? In the end we found out that we shouldn't go, because this is not what we are best at, what we are best at is software.

From zero to one: When faced with these choices of entrepreneurship, how do you think specifically?

Kid: Actually, I think the choice of starting a business several times is rational and emotional, I have chosen to cooperate with Ying Qi. In the end, I still think he is a reliable person. He is insightful in business and products. We have been working together for many years, and I can trust him very much.

Therefore, it is very important to select people at the beginning. We will see a lot of entrepreneurial projects, which may be because of the direction or because of the team's problems. This in itself was my luck, when I met Ying Qi in Jinshan. The more choices in the back are because I think there is no problem with cooperation, and we can do a bigger thing.

Before doing ONES, before deciding on this direction, it was more about choosing a team. Many of our early angel investors, such as Chen Rui, President Rui, such as He Xiaopeng, and President Peng, all had the same idea. When we were still brewing ideas, they already started saying that you have to do one thing, or I will vote for it.

So I think the earlier the startup is, the earlier a project is launched, the more people should think about people first, and the team is still very important.

From scratch: How do you define ONES? Can I understand ONES = JIRA + Calendly + DevOps/CICD?

Kid: In terms of function, I think it can be said that way. But in fact, these things are quite scattered. If we string them together, we will use different tools in many scenarios in the whole process of the research and development process. For example, the use of Trello was just mentioned. A Kanban board, no matter how large the team is, is divided into small units for functional iteration. At this time, Kanban is more useful for them. We are more in the whole process to enrich the tools that we think can help customers improve efficiency. This is the most important point. Now we can guide out, and we need Kanban, a calendar we don't directly support right now.

From scratch: What are the similarities and differences between ONES and JIRA?

Kid: After so many years of accumulation, we have basically covered some of the core capabilities and scenarios of JIRA. We have done more top-level design on this basis, not only to solve how a team works, but also to solve the problem of managers.

Especially a manager of a team of 100 or even 500 people, he can't see the work site of every engineer, but needs to report, aggregate, and use many management methods and grasps to understand the situation of the entire project product. We will do more from this management perspective.

JIRA accomplishes this through some plug-ins, which are third-party. It is conceivable that it does not have much guarantees in terms of product design and performance. We are equivalent to JIRA plus the plug-in function in the header of its marketplace, which is probably the case.

From scratch: In terms of project management, we have turned a lot of ideas into reality. What kind of imagination do you have for ONES? Can you do better?

Kid: I don't think it's a detail function, it's more of a big team collaboration issue. For example, when ten of us are writing a software, we have enough tools. But if my team size is multiplied by 10, what they do is not completely independent, they have to cooperate with each other, depend on each other, and even have resource conflicts. How can I see your overall efficiency at this time?

The challenges faced by large teams and small teams are different. The things to be done have become more complicated and the levels have increased, so that our top-level decision makers cannot directly see a specific scene. In this case, some of our management There are still many scenarios that need to be enriched. In terms of specific functions, for example, many of our statistics and report-related functions have been supported by ONES. But there are many scenarios that need to be improved, and JIRA supports less in this area.

The second is some capabilities in terms of documentation. Over the years, the document has undergone some changes in our "how to use" work concept and product concept, and we will pay more attention to its synergy ability, which is why we recently have such an acquisition cooperation with the known team. We found that whether it is in project management or software team, work and document-related use are inseparable, but a general document is not enough, and an online word is not enough, it can't connect with many of my projects in the project. information.

As a simple example, we often use a demand communication method. We call it a page of PRD. On one page, I want to write clearly the why and what of the iteration, or the what of a user story. When you write this stuff, it breaks down a bit. For example, when I decompose a few small tasks from a user story, it is OK to write it in the document, but when everyone wants to execute it eventually, you have to move it back to your project management tool, and it needs to be updated. After updating the status, this document may have to be taken out and re-read. At this time, it is found that the content in it has not been updated, because it is just some words, which is the so-called no connection.

When ONES handles this function, it supports inserting a task list directly here, and all data is linked to your project management. This connected relationship can do more in the vertical project management team collaboration scenario. Of course JIRA also has Confluence, but it's not deep enough to solve too many problems. In this regard, we will continue to move forward.

Or in fact, we are talking about a broader topic. If we talk about data, or when we often talk about digitization, what kind of data is valid?

When our team gets bigger and things get bigger, we need to sort out their connections and relationships. So it is very important whether there is a tool that can carry these associations. How does the data work? One is that it has to be able to connect. Simply put, what is the R&D task corresponding to a piece of code I submit? Being able to correspond is a kind of connection, and my R&D task corresponds to a user requirement, which is a kind of connection.

Which voice of the customer corresponds to this demand? We should be divided into different types to manage, but they must be connected. When they are not connected, the R&D personnel have no idea which customer mentioned it. What is the scene like? Is the current design correct? None of this is known, so connection is very important.

From zero to one: What is the current team size of ONES? You raised $100 million last year. Do you have any expansion plans in terms of personnel?

Kid: There will definitely be an expansion plan. It is most important to convert more resources into the company's core capabilities, product capabilities and service capabilities. There is definitely a need for more people from various functions to join in this process, and we are indeed hiring this year.

There is also an advertisement here. In terms of product development, ONES is recruiting from product managers to design to our front-end engineers. Our front-end engineers are mainly based on the React technology stack. Of course, students from other technology stacks are also welcome to come to ONES to use React stack works.

We also welcome back-end friends. We mainly use Go language and Java, including many open source projects related to cloud native, such as K8S. Our marketing, operations, including sales, service, pre-sales and after-sales colleagues are now recruiting in large numbers.

Each function has a recruitment plan. Interested students can search for ONES. Our official website is ones.ai.

From zero to one: During the seven years of doing ONES, what things made you feel particularly frustrated or even distressed?

Kid: Each environment and stage has different requirements for people's abilities. The requirements of a 10-person company to one person are different from the requirements of a 100-person company to an individual. Throughout this process, I will continue to experience the confusion of changing from an engineer to a technical manager.

I already know and summarize many principles. For example, every time I change some job responsibilities, I have to think about whether my work method and work philosophy need to be changed. I have now figured out the underlying things.

Of course, there will be other difficulties. Now I may be more concerned about the strategy of the entire company, the strategy of our entire product, including some changes in the market and the decisions we are going to make in all aspects of the company. to explore. There are not many companies that really do standard products in China and do business service ToB. So we have to do a lot of exploration here.

I think I encounter some new problems every day. In order to find a solution to the problem, I may have to change the angle completely, which may be different from the whole work habits before. Simply put, it is about growing and learning continuously.

ONES gives me more exposure to business decisions, such as how many resources does the company have? Where should I vote? How to choose priority. This is a very typical point we have to consider in business. This year, I also started to study EMBA at CEIBS, and I also had such a consideration, it has to do a lot of business decisions. Two things have changed me quite a bit, and it is also such a process of breaking the circle.

I think I'm actually an introvert, although many colleagues don't think so, this introvert is manifested in that once I have my own time, I tend to think about some problems by myself, or feel some things around me. In many cases, some habits at work will make you adjust your personality, or adjust some of our habits of doing things.

These work habits are related to our character until they are carved and deliberately changed. Going back to the beginning, for example, when we want to make a decision, should we make a decision quickly and settle the matter, or should I discuss it with you? How to strike a good balance, I think people with different personalities and knowledge backgrounds will have their own preferences.

From zero to one: How did you come up with the idea of going to China Europe International Business School? Can you share some lessons from the class?

Kid: I have always advocated a learning method called Guarding, Breaking, and Leaving, which is a learning method in Japan. When you don't understand anything at the beginning, you should look for the existing mature system to learn, and first get it thoroughly, this is "guarding".

When you are very familiar with a system, because a certain system is definitely not the most suitable for you, the situation will be different, you can make some innovations on it, and it will start to become a little different. This is the "broken" stage.

I have done a lot of innovation on it, and I have a very clear understanding of some of the underlying principles of innovation. If necessary, I can even turn it into a system. Or I can not stick to many of the previous forms, and make specific adjustments according to the specific situation. This is actually the state of "leaving". I think "keeping, breaking, and leaving" is a basic path for us to learn.

Now that I am exposed to more and more strategic design and business decisions, I should first find where the most mature practices are. When I saw CEIBS in 2020, I felt that I needed to learn some business knowledge, which could directly help my work.

Although I have been in school for nearly half a year, I have not attended many classes because of the epidemic. However, I think CEIBS has several characteristics. First, it is very serious. Whether it is the teacher's lesson preparation, or the students in the class are very serious. Everyone will consider, am I late for this class? Is it late for homework? Do I do the homework myself or do an assistant do it for me? The classmates may be some executives of some large companies, such as executives of Ping An and BYD. To put it bluntly, everyone has to make a lot of business decisions in their daily work, or a lot of business strategy design, and everyone is very serious.

And CEIBS professors themselves will have a lot of business insights that can help us. Like the "Noise" I recommended earlier, it will tell us what the right way to do a certain type of thing might be. Although the professor can't help us directly judge whether the decision is right or not, he can help us judge whether the decision-making process is scientific enough.

Now I have taken two or three classes, mostly learning some basic principles of this move. Even after taking two or three classes, I already feel that I have gained a lot of gain, inspiration and thinking.

From scratch: What kind of decisions do you find difficult to make? What are the decisions you encounter in your daily life?

Kid: I think there are two types of decisions that are more difficult to make. One is incomplete information, which I think is the norm. The other type is that they have not thought about it clearly, the information is sufficient, but they do not know how to make a decision. So how can you figure it out? In fact, there are many methods that have been summed up by many people in business companies or business academia.
This is a circle. When you feel very anxious, I will find that someone actually said a solution ten years ago. If you take a look at it, you think it works, and it works well, you will feel that saying , I should study rhythmically.

Why do I feel that the concept of "keeping, breaking, and leaving" is particularly correct. We often encounter a lot, including myself, sometimes I tend to skip the "guarding" stage, and I go straight to it when I have a lot of ideas, only to find that stepping on the pits that others have stepped on is not very efficient.

Or we have another idea. We just need to keep following the system of others and not do too much innovation. Maybe for various reasons, we may not know that we should innovate, or we may think this thing is difficult. ?

There may be some relaxation in the mentality, and there will be this state. So for any thing, it is actually a better state to step on these three steps step by step.

In the past, when I started to do management, I thought, I have to figure it out. If the information is incomplete, get it clear and complete. Later, I gradually found out that there are many situations where the information is always incomplete. It is in the case of incomplete information that everyone has a higher accuracy rate.

When we were doing research and development, sometimes classmates told me that there might be risks here, so how do we make decisions until there is no risk? It's just a difference in how much time it takes to get everything done. Later you will find that, no matter how much time you spend, there will be unclear places.

This is also the difference between waterfall thinking and agile thinking when we are doing project management. The waterfall thinking is more about saying that I think the world is mechanical, that I can figure everything out with time, and I figure it out and it's stable and safe. In fact, it is not. In most cases, the information is incomplete. But we have some practices that can help us to develop in the right direction, our success rate can be higher.

I think it's the norm to be accompanied by uncertainty and incomplete information, and the more stable something is, the more fragile it is. Maybe it's good for me to find a stable job now, but after ten years it may not be a stable job. When it becomes unstable, it already lacks the ability to resist blows.

It is also very important for us to give ourselves some stimulation from time to time, to give ourselves a little so-called harm, and to continuously increase our anti-fragile ability.

Zero Daoyi: From your point of view, what are the imaginations of the domestic To B ecology now, and how do they do it? What difficulties did ONES face in To B?

Kid: When we talk about ecology, there are two most critical factors, one is customers, the other is our partners, and the players in between. I think customers are getting better. When I first heard people say that Every company is a software company, I didn't really understand where that point was.

Now I understand that software has penetrated into all walks of life. To give a simple example, for the manufacturing industry, everyone needs to do supply chain and digitization. If it is too inefficient, then you have to have your own software team. For example, if our customers are in the supply chain, how do I manage an orange, from the orchard to one of my stores, when and how much, and how does the entire inventory change after it is finished?

This is called digital capability. We use a lot of big data methods to optimize, operate, and analyze our various links. These abilities are actually needed. So now any company is indeed a software company, because it will have a software team to do something.

ONES can help these companies improve efficiency. The number of customers in the entire Chinese market is rapidly increasing, and everyone's needs are rapidly becoming stronger. Essentially, the demand for engineers in the entire software industry is increasing. This is the first point.

The second point is that in To B in recent years, we will also see other companies following the same path as us. I think a good To B company must be a product-based company, and it must be a company that makes standard products, and its strategy should not sway. There may be a lot more in the middle. It may be said that we really can't make products for two years, or should we do outsourcing for two years? Then we slowed down and started making products. This method is not very efficient. If we run slower, we can also see that some companies can come out and make products with the idea of standard products, which can really help customers to improve efficiency in a long period of time.

Why do we feel that customization or outsourcing is not efficient in the long run? Not only is it inefficient for ourselves, but it is also inefficient for our customers. After I made customization for customer A, customer B came and could not enjoy our customization on customer A. After we designed a general function for customer A, we thoroughly understood this scenario, and the same scenario was also used for customer B. He could use it immediately and enjoy the results that we had created with customer A before. This efficiency is the highest.

Whether in China or around the world, we still use companies like JIRA Atlassian or Salesforce as the best To B companies. Everyone is doing flexible coordinates.

From zero to one: Will there be customers who tell you that helping me implement a specific function can give you a lot of money?

Kid: It seems like in 2017, a client came over and said there was a big budget management project to do. There may be millions of income. As I mentioned at the beginning, we were lonely for a year or two, which seemed to be a big temptation. But after reading it, we will find that if we really follow these functions, our current product can only satisfy 20%, and we have to do the rest for it.

This is actually very similar to customization, and it is difficult for us to think about how to abstract on that basis. So at that time, we made an active rejection, and we made this strategy more clear later. We don't want to serve very large customers from the beginning, we hope to serve those high-quality customers. This quality means two points. One is that he really has needs and pain points; the other is the large team size, which proves that he has the ability to generate revenue and has the budget to buy some mature solutions.

However, there are also many categories of such customers. For example, we started serving a team of 100 people, and gradually began to serve 300 people, 500 people, 1,000 people, and recently began to serve some teams of tens of thousands of people. With the improvement of our product capabilities, we can gradually use a standard product and common functions to serve more and more large-scale customers.

If you skip to the end at the beginning, it will be the state I just mentioned. Maybe only 20% of the functions or scenarios can be solved, and the latter cannot be solved.

From zero to one: Customers always have customized needs. What is the difference between "standard products" and "customer needs"? Do you subjectively judge whether the customer's needs are extensive?

Kid: There are two aspects. One is that we need to be clear about our own boundaries. If the boundaries are expanded too much, it will be bad. However, we cannot help but expand our boundaries. We must expand at a certain pace and gradually serve larger-scale customers.

Then the second point is that software has a very good feature called scalability and openness. For example, the customer said that I really have some customized functions that I want, and we have some corresponding APIs.
APIs are something we think about the first day we start coding. No matter how complete we do ONES, we must be connected with the customer's system. So on Day 1, we asked the team to say that our APIs should be ready. So we now have a very rich API. If the customer really has certain needs, at least integrate the API here, it can take out our data for processing by itself, or use it in other places, or pour other data into our system to do related "Secondary Development".

From scratch: Some of the successful products I have come across now, they all provide a very rich API to the public.

Kid: Back to the biggest concept. When we do digitization, we really do connect. It can get through, it can be automated.

From zero to one: at the moment of two career choices, you have chosen to start a business without exception. For young programmers who have just graduated, what advice would you give them? At that time, maybe the big names with big names were not attractive to you, and were the numbers they gave not enough to attract you?

Kid: First of all, for a classmate who has just become an engineer, my advice may be three points:

The first point is that first of all you have to have a "unique trick", you have to find a good weapon that is handy. For example, as an engineer, you must be very proficient in a language, such as Java, its entire object-oriented concept, various features of the JVM, and knowledge of Java peripherals such as Tomcat and Spring. You must be very, very familiar with it. When you are very familiar with it, you don't have to learn a second language, you should study it deeply and lay the foundation. My first piece of advice is, be sure to find your first weapon first. Sharpen it first, and it guarantees a lower limit for you. Whatever you use to chop, at least chop well.

The second point is to pay attention to the cultivation of general ability. Like Chinese and history, I used to think that people who are interested are interested. It seems that there is not much use and it is "useless knowledge", but language, including philosophy, is actually very useful for the development of people's soft skills. In the soft or general ability, there are two points that are actually the most important:

One possibility is how to generate one's own internal drive, including the way I mentioned before in the process of my studies, how to set foot on the major of computer science, in fact, it is not because of "internal drive", it is more a coincidence. The rear is the drive. I remember a joke from the past: Every boy's dream when he was a kid would not be to buy a house. right? I don't think this thing can be thrown away. The basic life security can be solved by the knife in front of us, the weapon in hand, but we cannot excessively pursue those external things. I asked everyone during the interview, why do you want to manage? If the answer is that at this age, it is time to do management, and the future of management development will be greater. Then I will think that they will have a hard time in the future, because these are external motivations, and when they encounter many difficulties, it will be very difficult to overcome.

I am here to share a driving force within myself: for me, learning is not a means, but a goal, and learning makes me happy.

The other is "thinking expression ability". Whether we can express a meaning in a shorter sentence and more accurately, this general ability is also very important. I remembered that a Chinese teacher told us many years ago that writing essays requires "total marks" and outlines. The overall score structure is probably the most structured and fastest way to express complex things. When I was in my thirties, I began to slowly understand that language is still very useful. In the past, the teacher also told me that you should use more metaphors when writing essays. If you use more metaphors, others will be willing to read your essays. We will now find that if you use metaphors more, it will be easier for others to hear what you mean. If he doesn't understand what you're talking about, but you can use metaphors to connect what he's familiar with with what you're familiar with, it's easier for him to understand something he doesn't know, but I know. I think language is not only language, but can also affect a lot of people's thinking.

So these two general abilities are very important. Of course, we have many other things such as empathy and global thinking, which are also very important. But if there are only two points to be said, it is actually "mind expression" and "inner goal". Because when you think clearly, you can express clearly. That's the second thing I'm talking about -- generic capabilities.

The third is the mentality and method of continuous learning. For example, the "defense and break away" I just mentioned. We must know that we are always accompanied by uncertainty, so we should continue to learn.

The next question is, is there no temptation for me by the big factory? I also went to WeChat for an interview, and all of them passed. I didn’t choose to go. I think there are a few points: First, I have already stayed at a large factory. Although Jinshan is not the top Internet company, there are top Internet companies. A lot of establishment, a lot of practice. After working in this kind of company, I will find that even though the company is so big, it is not always easy to find the most suitable person for me. Yingqi mentioned above is a factor, and if you start your own business, you will have more opportunities for innovation, because in large companies and large systems, the ability to mutate will be relatively slow.

In fact, I figured out what I want to do myself, and I want to choose a way with less resistance to do it. On the one hand, there are people, and on the other hand, there are considerations of speed or resistance to innovation. Of course I'm not saying big companies don't innovate, it's just that it's hard for me to make sure I have that opportunity when big companies want to innovate.

From zero to one: How does ONES attract talents as a startup company? Companies with financial resources first took away a large number of relatively good people with high wages, and then Tier 2 and Tier 3. How do startups attract talents?

Kid: First of all, I think there is a logic that we can figure out: what is the relationship between a person and the environment when a person can grow up quickly? As we talked about earlier, a particularly good company will have a particularly good system, but there may not be a corresponding space. So I said earlier why I chose to start a business instead of working in a big company, and I also have this consideration--to grow rapidly.

I think at this stage, people may live to seventy or eighty years old, and there are still several decades. Should we observe the stock at this time, or should we observe the increment? I think it should be the latter. Then when we observe the increment, we have to think, how can the environment make my increment faster?

I think the most important point is that the business of an environment is developing rapidly, which can be reflected in the increase in the number of things that people do, the increase in people, and the increase in the resources that can be invested. Then there is room for experimentation, because there will be more innovation points. Once the innovation is successful, one's own gains may be financial, reputation, ability, and experience, all of which may be available.

In fact, a large company is not necessarily suitable for a person who wants to develop fast. When we are choosing who to join ONES, or who will choose to join ONES, I think everyone will value it. ONES itself is at this stage. We have developed very fast in the past two or three years. There will be many opportunities for everyone to grow.

I can understand everyone saying that I might get married next year, and I might buy a house next year, but some people will choose to pay more attention to how my abilities will change in five years and how my abilities will change in ten years. I think the space and development speed provided by ONES is no worse than that of big companies.

To be honest, I personally don't recommend that your entire career experience is in startups. Going back to the idea of "guarding and breaking away" just now: to "guard" at the beginning, how to get in touch with some good systems. A more direct method is to go to a big company first, see their system, and learn it for two or three years.

When you are already familiar with some systems and want to take the initiative to do some innovations, there may not be enough space for you here. Then a company that is growing fast and already has enough foundation may be a better choice, such as ONES. I think this would be a good idea.

There are indeed some very good talents. The idea is not to grow very fast, but we choose people who hope to grow fast. We will also have some corresponding opportunities here, and what we do can indeed be shared with everyone. This goal of the company can be matched, and it is mainly to attract these talents.

The book recommended for this article is Noise, by Daniel Kahneman
How to Read a Book, by Mortimer J. Adler, Charles Van Doren