On December 15, 2019, the "2019 China Economic Summit Forum and the 17th China Economic Person of the Year Awards Ceremony" jointly organized by Keizai Magazine, Global Times and China Association for Asian Economic Development was held at Grand Hyatt Oriental Hotel in Beijing. With the aim of "focusing on economic development and judging news figures", the China Economic Summit Forum is an annual economic event that unites experts and scholars at home and abroad, promotes China's entrepreneurial spirit, and sets an example for China's economy, and has been held for 16 consecutive years. At this summit forum, Wu Ting, the founder of the guest university, was awarded the "Outstanding Entrepreneur of China's Economy in the 70 Years".
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❶If one day your company goes down....</h1>
On the eve of Weilai Automobile's submission of the prospectus, Wu Ting, the founder of the guest university and the "chief question officer" of the business community, led the third season of the guest university students to "pick the thorns" for Li Bin on the spot.
Located on the first floor of Shanghai Center, weilai experience center should be Li Bin's proud work. The location of China's tallest building itself constitutes a perfect image – climbing to the top of the industry, but the 46 students at the guest university are clearly more concerned about the present: Why did WEILAI delay the delivery? Differences from Tesla's positioning? How to control the supply chain?
The vast majority of the students at the guest universities are relatively mature entrepreneurs in the field of the new economy. Wei Dong, CEO of Shouqi Ride-hailing, remembers that Principal Wu Ting's question was the most brutal: "If One day Weilai falls, what do you think will be the reason?" ”
Wei Dong himself was hit instantly. This problem is cruel for any founder, especially since NIO is on the rise. It didn't matter how Li Bin answered, Wei Dong opened the notebook and wrote down the question to himself: "If one day I fall, what will be the reason?" In June 2019, 10 months after that confrontation, Wei Dong shared his answer after thinking: "There are two possibilities: one is not to grasp what is at its core; the other is to not respond in a timely manner when the industry environment changes." ”
This is also the classic soul torture that Wu Ting once issued to more than 200 entrepreneurs, and the source of the question is a book that Wu Ting likes, "Will the next fall be Huawei".
There are too many cases in business history where the biggest risk to startups stems from the fact that the speed at which founders evolve can't keep up with the speed at which the market evolves. In an era full of uncertainty, if we can awaken the crisis awareness of entrepreneurs and help them shape the "change force", will it be a very valuable thing?
Many people will eventually shelve the idea of a single move, but Wu Ting is a fiery activist. In 2016, that is, the year when Wu Ting officially started her business, the guest university landed. A veteran media personality, turned into a principal of more than 200 entrepreneurs and a global business observer.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" > ❷ business is not for learning</h1>
2019 is Wu Ting's third year of business education. Guest University has seen mountains and split mountains all the way, built bridges in water, led everyone to study nearly 100 good companies in depth, and Wu Ting also promoted her research with an average yield of one topic a week. At the third birthday party of the guest university in April, a serial entrepreneurial veteran took a special trip from Shanghai to Beijing by high-speed rail. He said, "We recognize Sister Ting and what she is doing, and the guest university has brought us so much growth." ”
Dai Wenjian, the founder of Truck Gang, enrolled in Chaos University and Guest University after formulating the next two-year study plan in 2017. Wei Dong had also previously studied at a top business school in China.
There are not many business education institutions in China. There are large enterprises such as Lakeside University and Qingteng University, as well as special training camps for chaos universities, entrepreneurial dark horses and various opinion leaders. The current business environment is changing all the time, and the competitive dimension of business education is also upgrading. In addition to the quality of teachers and students, entrepreneurs pay special attention to landing and uniqueness.
Entrepreneurship races against the clock, and these savvy and discerning entrepreneurs don't spend time on one thing repeatedly. Why do they recognize Guest Universities?
As a marathon enthusiast, Wu Ting has won 6 marathon medals. However, in the track of entrepreneurship, she no longer pursues personal achievements, but hopes to become the "rabbit" who leads the way. During the 42-kilometer race, the "rabbit" is usually an experienced runner, who does not pursue personal bests, but will provide a stable pace for the runners, guide the runners when to drink water, when to eat energy glue, when to speed up and slow down, and accompany the runners all the way to the finish line.
Not only the "rabbit" that accompanies the run. Wu Ting's heart still returned to the special side of the media manpower: to be a bow watcher like Pulitzer. Use your own familiar judgment of the industry to build a 1,000-one-night story map for entrepreneur managers, help entrepreneurs get inspiration from the story, get thinking models and ways of doing things, and achieve growth. Therefore, Wu Ting adopts the method of full case teaching, collects the "experienced hundred battles" of others, and injects nutrition into herself.
❸ Take the initiative to face cruelty</h1>
Guest Universities have created benchmark corporate visiting courses. In traditional business schools, 90% of the learning form is to teach classic business theories at home and abroad, or borrow business cases to verify their own models. Guest University, on the other hand, moves classes to the conference rooms of benchmarking companies – the closest place to business decisions and battlefield battles.
They have created a syllogism learning method: first, in-depth study, through report study and professor interpretation, full-dimensional understanding of the company's internal and external survival factors and anti-recession factors; second, near-field input, face-to-face experience of the success factors of the interviewed leading enterprises and the ability to cope with changes; third, the interaction of the topic and the private board, through the exchange and discussion of specific topics, enlighten the interviewed enterprises "how to cope with challenges"; fourth, self-adaptive iteration, from reflection to practice.
As a student, Wei Dong has expectations for every visit to the company. One is that I don't know what kind of decision-making process and dark moment the founder will present in the story, and the other is that I have gained every time, and sometimes even forced myself to take the initiative to face cruel business problems.
A study visit is not a formality. He said very frankly that if it is a simple PPT case display or an exchange on a given topic, it is not much fun. The founder of every head enterprise is bloody. Getting in close contact with the entrepreneur, feeling his feelings and dreams, and then understanding the development of the enterprise, and then asking real questions, this is a complete system.
What guest universities have to do is to find the core founding team, let the founders sit directly in the conference room, under the specific course proposition, openly and honestly communicate their own mental journey with the students, and accept the challenge without reservation. The depth of thinking brought by the master's tricks is far more than the sharing of simple books or PPT.
To this end, the guest university creatively designed a practical session of mutual tearing and reflection, and held a new product tearing board meeting for the interviewed enterprises. Every "tear-up board meeting" is a closed-door battle. Before the visit, in order to ensure that everyone is open to communication, the participants will receive an elaborate lesson plan "Study Manual" for pre-study. The mobile phone will be taken away on the spot and a confidentiality agreement will be signed to ensure that the content of the class will not be leaked.
In the interview, many students mentioned an interview with Xiaomi co-founder Liu De in October last year. At that time, some students asked Liu De: How big a giant will Xiaomi become in the next ten years? Liu De's answer was astonishing: I just have to do a good job this year and arrange for next year. In fact, it is good to think of the second half of this year. The industry is changing too fast.
This answer sounds cruel, but it is true. A student sighed: even Xiaomi has such an insecurity, in the face of uncertainty, our kind of startup should maintain a more vigilant.
In similar closed-door exchanges, there are not only words and swords, but also collective wisdom. The guest university visited the live broadcast platform Yingke, the founder Feng Yousheng is a straightforward Hunan native. He sincerely threw out his confusion and sought advice from entrepreneurs: Should Yingke diversify? If so, what is the path to diversification?
Some trainees in the audience pointed out on the spot: The current task of Yingke is to change from an entrepreneurial type to a growth company, and as for diversified development, it should form a systematic enterprise management concept, method and tool on the basis of summarizing the successful experience of entrepreneurship, and solve specific problems in a targeted manner. Feng Yousheng kept nodding humbly.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >❹ guest university you can't learn
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However, in the increasingly fierce business education market, can only rely on a "syllogism" to cover the world?
This does not seem to be the case.
Strictly speaking, there is no special threshold for the visiting mode of guest universities. Investor Yu Tiecheng found that after the guest university, at least two business education institutions have begun to follow up and imitate. But many respondents are convinced that it is difficult to see a surpasser in the short term. Because transcendence takes time, it requires insight into the industry and the establishment of a visiting system.
Wu Ting herself never seems to worry about being imitated, "our core competitiveness is something they can't learn." "It's genetically determined. Education and media have similarities, both pay attention to slow work and fine work, and need the coexistence of founder pattern and patience. Behind the visit, Wu Ting led a content-based taiwanese unit of dozens of people to collect and edit, develop cases, and design courses. For each module, the guest university prepares a study report for the participants, about the professors who teach, about the city, about the industry topic, about each visiting company.
Wu Ting has a background in content and has more than 10 years of experience as an investigative journalist and video producer. Her team loves to mention "works like character" and has an almost demanding pursuit of quality. Many visiting courses have an unserious "unspoken rule": as long as entrepreneurs have a certain degree of popularity, they can basically enroll directly. But this path does not work at Guest University.
Yu Tiecheng, the guest university brother, was particularly impressed by the process of interviewing the master and disciple. Dai Wenjian, a fourth season student and founder of Truck Gang, is the founder of a unicorn company valued at tens of billions of dollars. During the registration period, Dai Wenjian was in Australia, but the guest university did not give special care.
Later, Dai Wenjian flew to Shanghai for an interview. He himself said afterwards that if he did not have to interview, he might not have actually attended the class. Because he saw through this detail, the guest university is a reliable organization with its own requirements and principles.
Speaking of principles, in the internal work manual of the guest university, "network" and "resource" are taboo words and are all included in the "negative list". Wu Ting does not allow employees to have the slightest idea of treating students as "resources". "No one is your resource." She sees this very clearly: in the business world, "value sharing" and "altruism" are the premise of all cooperation, and through bits and pieces, the only thing you can accumulate is brand trust.
"I spent more time leading the team to grow than I did educating my daughter." Wu Ting has an 8-year-old daughter, but she only stays with her on weekends.
What does it feel like to have a detail-controlled boss? Younger staff at guest universities may feel like they're walking on thin ice. Writing "record" as "record", or mixing punctuation marks when typesetting, and changing the full angle to half width, these are all unbearable mistakes for Wu Ting. "This essentially reflects that you are not attentive enough to others, and the result reflects that you are difficult to be trusted."
Partner Liu Yunhu once put a PDP form (Note: professional personality test form) in front of Wu Ting's desk to see what kind of style the boss is. 48 species of animals, including tigers, peacocks, koalas, owls, chameleons, etc., correspond to a variety of personality traits such as dominant, extroverted, patient, precise, and integrated.
The test results were not surprising: tiger + owl, which meant that subjects enjoyed solitude, both a strong leadership temperament and a focus on detail and perfection.
"No aesthetic is a terminal illness, and knowledge cannot be saved." Based on this talent and persistence, Wu Ting of Libra also hopes that in this era of science and technology supremacy, a good aesthetic and design education for entrepreneurs and a course of experience economy have come into being.
We can see that Wu Ting pays back for her education with her heart. This return is more immaterial. According to the data of the Guest University Alumni Statistics Report, 76.3% of the guest alumni are recommended by previous alumni. After attending the guest university, 78.4% of the alumni have grown in "insight and pattern", 54.95% of the alumni have "found partners and got value links", and 53% have improved their leadership and management skills. Nearly 80% of alumni have collaborated once to 5 times. In the second week of December 2019, three alumni companies rang the bell in Hong Kong, A-share and US stock listings within one week. Such good news alumni will also be the first time to share with Wu Ting, alumni said that the guest university has its own "Wangqi" physique.
What makes Wu Ting even more proud is that although entrepreneurship has died nine times in her life and the capital winter is also disturbed from time to time, none of the student enterprises of the guest university have died.
This should be the biggest compliment for educators.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" >❺ embrace change
The founder's ceiling determines the ultimate height of a company.
When Wu Ting was asked what height she was going to take the company to, she said, "I really can't answer you." I'm extremely good at learning, so I can't anticipate the future right now. ”
This doesn't sound humble enough, but it can certainly be said to be full of confidence. Wu Ting had reasons for self-confidence. The core team is willing to follow her because they believe that everything she does can be done, and the investors are also praised. Zheng Weihe, the founding partner of Shenzhen Tongchuang Weiye, once said at a dinner: she (Wu Ting) is absolutely reliable, and her next round of financing, no matter what the price, I will follow. In December 2017, the guest parent company completed the A round of tens of millions of yuan financing, and the leading investor was Tongchuang Weiye.
The parties themselves are not satisfied. In 2019, guest universities realized case online and brand internationalization. "We want to build a global library of business video cases to tell the story of China." Wu Ting proposed a more symbolic goal. At the Guest University Q BUSINESS Summit on October 18 this year, Guest University officially released ™ CASE SCHOOL, a global business video case platform.
"Since the main proposition of future business is change, more rapid change, corresponding to this, the future of business education can only be more up-to-date, and it is getting newer and newer." Shaping the "change-seeking power" of entrepreneurs will be the heavy responsibility of mainstream business schools in the future. Wu Ting also quickly iterated on the definition of business school in her thinking.
At the 2019 Asian Economic Community Forum in Incheon, South Korea, in November, Wu Ting shared insights on business trends. First, teach with real-world cases to create a better teaching product experience; second, use technological development to do business and learning benefits and increase wisdom for society; third, build an industrial community and truly empower enterprises; fourth, help enterprises research and think about social responsibility issues.
The characteristics of media people are only fast and unbreakable, sensitive to change. Her team can find the latest course examples in the first place. In 2018, the new high praise of guest university courses was a visit to Luckin Coffee. The company did not appear in the quarterly class schedule because LuckinCoffee had not yet been born when the class schedule was developed. But a company becoming a unicorn in 7 months is something that everyone is curious about. The guest team decided to temporarily add classes due to their professional sensitivity.
Entrepreneurship is essentially a battle against uncertainty. Some young employees have doubts, why do the founders always come up with a lot of radical ideas, some sound unrealistic, and even some people have openly asked: Sister Ting, why are you always changing?
The general director of the guests, Li Junting, has a different understanding of this. Insight and pattern are the most active productive forces in the new economy. Wu Ting has a large number of contacts with entrepreneurs every day, has a rich source of information, and can hear a lot of voices every day, and her rapid absorption ability is strong, which will quickly transform information into new ideas. "Every idea she thinks can be a big company." Li Junting joked. "But she can catch some of them and land quickly, which is the most precious and rare entrepreneurial trait."
At the same time, she is the kind of person whose satisfaction is particularly short-lived. In the words of Wu Ting's husband, after each great breakthrough she made, she was just happy for a short while, and immediately, a new goal was born.
The characteristics of the founders also penetrate into the genes of the guest universities. At the guest university office in Block A of SOHO, Guanghua Road, several values are neatly pasted on the wall, and employees look up every day: the spirit of kings, works such as character, embracing change, loving guests is like loving life.