Junxian Ma / Writings

Recently, I have been thinking a lot about entrepreneurship. This feeling that keeps emerging from within seems like an inevitable result of the past year: after first stepping into industry, I have met, learned, and absorbed many new things. I have thought about this for a long time, probably several months. At this stage, I still do not feel that I have fully figured out what I will do in the future, nor do I know which path can best lead me toward the goal I once wanted to fight for.

Summer is coming soon, and I feel that it is time to do something. So I met many people who have already built, or are currently building, truly impressive things in industry. I talked with them about many topics, and after those conversations, I felt that they gave me a lot of inspiration.

• Keep the passion for solving problems. It seems that these outstanding people, whether or not they are entrepreneurs, can always find something they genuinely want to do right now, regardless of whether that thing is immediately practical or profitable. This may be the most essential point. Whether doing research or building a business, I think the most important thing is always to start from real problems. From this perspective, utilitarian reasons become less fundamental. Trying to discover and solve problems in real production and daily life seems to be the most primitive starting point, and it provides the strongest motivation.

• Do not try to predict what you will do in the future. Everyone I talked with has something they believe is important to do right now. But in the early stages of entrepreneurship, they all admitted that they had no way to predict what they would be doing three months later. I think learning to live with uncertainty is an important ability. Perhaps this will be the normal state of my next stage.

• Be confident, and feel that there is nothing to lose. Perhaps successful people always have the courage to leave behind what they already have and pursue an ideal. This is one of the most powerful qualities I saw in them. Some people got into top universities but gave up their degrees to start companies alone. Having the courage to keep sunk costs out of major decisions may be a necessary condition for success.

I think these points are important. They provide meaningful guidance for what I should do in the next stage. Since I have this opportunity, I want to plan my next steps more carefully.

• Have deep conversations with at least two people I find meaningful every week. Learn how they solve their problems, build their work, and distill the experience behind their success.
• Read biographies of successful entrepreneurs, such as Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and others.
• Spend the summer going deep into one technical direction, and see whether I am suited for technology-driven entrepreneurship.
• If possible, build a product: turn an idea into something others can use, see, and evaluate, then use that feedback loop to find direction.
• Write down what I learn as much as possible and publish it as logs.

That is roughly it. I hope this can be a good beginning.