Liberation of thinking: Transform open-ended goals into solutionable optimization problems
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This article The author is [Li Junchen](https://www.facebook.com/ jiunchenlee), founder of [BP Lightup Strategy Studio] (https://www.facebook.com/lightupyourbusiness), has plunged into the world of online entrepreneurship since 2009. He has long been paying attention to the trends in the entrepreneurial circle, focusing on innovation and entrepreneurship, business plans, business strategies and business models. Thank you for your permission to publish. I would like to express my gratitude.
I recently read the article by Cheetah Mobile CEO Fu Sheng, and I felt something. Therefore, I will briefly summarize Fu Sheng’s key points in one of the CEO series “[How to be a good CEO of a startup company] (https://mp.weixin.qq.com/s/oPaWp9gcOoGlhwz1F6cUpQ)” and try to export his own opinions and transform them into thinking that can be used in the future.
1. Challenges facing entrepreneurship: too much freedom
Freedom seems to be the biggest benefit of starting a business, but in reality it is not.
In the past, whether I was coming up with ideas for starting a business or thinking about the theme of an entrepreneurial competition, I would probably feel that every concept was unworkable, and even it took a very long time to decide. Do you feel like you can do anything? But in fact, it may be impossible to do anything!
Even if we have a clear product or service today, we will always think without restrictions and try to construct a very beautiful “state” instead of an actually achievable “goal”. Although we work very hard during the execution process, we actually don’t know how to do it at all, resulting in the failure to produce the expected results.
2. Reduce the difficulty of starting a business: “Convert an open-ended problem into a closed-ended problem”
Entrepreneurship always implies a bit of emotion, and the dream of changing society, or even the whole world, but this is very difficult and may not be practical. Using the method proposed by Fu Sheng to change the thinking mode of the problem makes me want to use the studio I am currently running as an example.
For example, I hope that BP Qidian Strategy Studio can become the best consulting company in Taiwan. This is an open-ended question, so it may be difficult to know clearly and clearly what constitutes the best consulting firm? Moreover, there are many types of consulting services.
If it can be turned into a closed question, for example: BP Startup Strategy Studio wants to become the McKinsey of Taiwan’s government subsidy fundraising industry, perhaps such a setting will make the goal clearer and easier to understand.
If we further turn the current services provided into a closed question, for example: We are determined to become Taiwan’s leading consulting company in the government-subsidized fundraising industry in business plan writing and guidance in the consulting service industry in Taiwan, this setting may be more accurate.
3. The core task of a good startup CEO is: “Set a simple and feasible goal.”
Turn entrepreneurial sentiment into concrete problems. The more specific this question is, the better.
Taking the BP Qidian Strategy Studio as an example, I put forward a closed slogan to be the best business plan consultant for small and medium-sized enterprises, write a business plan quickly, and complete it within a week. We can work hard towards this goal. Can small and medium-sized enterprises in any industry complete writing a business plan within a week? The problem is much simplified.
4. Starting a business is like solving a math problem
If we imagine entrepreneurship as a mathematical problem, we define our goal as the optimal objective function, and our resources and industry competition status are defined as many different constraints. When we can transform the entrepreneurial situation into a specific mathematical problem, perhaps we can try to find the regional optimal solution (Local Optimum), or even the global optimal solution (Global Optimum).
Here, please let me use a Linear Programming from Wikipedia as an example to explain such a concept:
Suppose a farmer has a piece of agricultural land A square kilometers and plans to plant wheat or barley, or a mixture of the two in a certain proportion. The farmer can only use a limited amount of fertilizer F and pesticide P, and each unit area of wheat and barley requires different amounts of fertilizer and pesticide. Wheat is represented by (F1, P1) and barley is represented by (F2, P2). Assuming that the selling prices of wheat and barley are S1 and S2 respectively, then the wheat and barley planting area problem can be expressed as the following linear programming problem:
max Z = S 1 x 1 + S 2 x 2 (maximize profit—objective function)
s.t. x 1 + x 2 ≤ A (limitation of planting area)
F 1 x 1 + F 2 x 2 ≤ F (limit on fertilizer quantity)
P 1 x 1 + P 2 x 2 ≤ P (limit on pesticide quantity)
x 1 ≥ 0, x 2 ≥ 0 (negative area cannot be planted)
5. Think clearly about your goals and then do them immediately
From the linear programming problem above, maybe you can imagine it a little bit, right?
Therefore, if we can transform open-ended problems into closed-ended problems, we can have solutions. These constraints may also have different appearances as resources and environments change, but the only constant is our objective function.
The restrictive formula allows us to think about whether there are other strategies that can break through or transform. Through repeated deduction and thinking, it may be possible to improve the objective function from the original regional optimal solution (Local Optimum) to the global optimal solution (Global Optimum)?
Therefore, in the process of entrepreneurship, the ability to convert open-ended problems into closed-ended problems is the core capability we really need most. I hope you can explain it from more different angles, and perhaps let more people understand it in a simpler way. Friends who are interested are welcome to communicate with me.
If you also want to discuss your personal career blueprint or Business Model development with Vista, please feel free to [Contact] me (mailto:iamvista@gmail.com)!
★ Photo Credit: Cathryn Lavery
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