Hello, this is dialogue.

Today, I would like to share with you the experience and experience of a Tsinghua university student who went from zero to one to become a CTO of a listed company. He constantly broke his own boundaries and eventually became a technology tycoon.

First, the start-up stage

In the early stage of entrepreneurship, I was the person who made things by myself, and was fully responsible for everything from theory to implementation, from processing to debugging, what to do and what not to learn. I made the first prototype on my hands. I was so excited, I slept four to six hours a day, no alarm clock, I woke up excited.

I am not only the technical vice president, but also the technical director, the department director, but also the front-line staff.

Two. Small teams

Later, a few people were recruited and there was a division of labor.

  1. I told the structural engineer my idea and asked him to implement it. He drew it and showed it to me, and I finalized it.

  2. Tell the circuit engineer how it works, let him improve my circuit, and I’ll check it for him.

  3. Tell the software engineer what functionality I want, I design the architecture, he writes the software.

  4. I told the algorithm engineer what I wanted to achieve, and he did it and asked me if it was true.

  5. Tell the debug engineer how to debug, because I know the principle best.

  6. Tell the application engineer what the customer wants and let him try it out.

At this stage, we are faced with cutting the work interface, coordinating the division of labor and cooperation, and solving the conflicts between the work.

My approach is democratic centralism, open discussion, and I make the final decision.

At this stage, some engineers always like to find fault with my design. Of course, as long as he wants to do a good job, I am tolerant of this, I am afraid that some idiot will fail there. I remember a FPGA engineer, I told him ideas, he from the very beginning with a kind of challenge and confrontation, to find my problems as the goal of work. I even said in private that I don’t know what to do. Okay, shit? Well, that’s obviously not one of our team, so there’s no chance of us, so you’re going to challenge the next employer.

Anyway, at that stage, I was leading them through the vision that I had in my head. The revolution has not yet succeeded, so comrades have to complete the part of the work that I have failed to complete.

Like this. The first prototype is ready. The prototype is much better than the prototype, both stable and beautiful, after all, professional people do professional things.

** At this stage, I was not only the technical vice president, but also the technical director and the department head. I participated in and directed the front-line work, ** but was no longer responsible for the front-line work. I lost the role of “front-line employee”.

** My work philosophy began to shift from managing myself to managing others. The main job is to figure out what to do, plan well, and lead people toward a goal. Of course, it is necessary to be in the first line of guidance.

I sleep less at this stage, relying on passion, responsibility, and alarm clocks.

Three.

Then the line grew again, and there were more than twenty of them.

There are basically a few people in each position.

At this point, the development was based on prototypes, and the ugly prototype I had built was already in the showroom. After the second stage, several people were already familiar with the prototype, but I was not familiar with every detail, so I promoted those with organizational ability and high technical level to the department head.

At this point, I’m no longer involved in every detail (too much to care about), basically meeting and catching up instead of fighting on the front lines. Only when confronted with problems of principle, the department head would come to me to discuss technical problems and offer advice.

I’m both the TECHNICAL VICE president and the technical director. I took off the “head of department” role again.

My working concept at this stage was to find the right person to be the department head, and I worked with them to design the product, make the work plan and supervise the implementation.

The better the people I pick, the less I get involved in r&d. The more rational my plan is, the more harmonious we all work together.

At this time, the structural engineer said that the structure was designed by him, the circuit engineer said that the circuit was developed by him, the software engineer said that the software was written by him, the algorithm engineer said that the algorithm was researched by her, and the debugging engineer found that there were also many problems that I could not solve and they needed to consider by themselves… The new employees felt that their department heads and older employees were much better than I was, and THAT I wasn’t even as familiar with the prototype as their supervisor. They think I’m superior to them, but I’m no good at anything else. Even in their eyes, I didn’t do anything as head of technology to build this device. I’m happy with this thought. It means I’ve chosen good managers and I’ve retained good employees.

With the efforts of the department heads, the alpha version of the instrument came out! I began to set up the test team and production team, communicated with the marketing team to do customer trial, and connected with the production team for trial production.

At this stage, I slept less, because I had a lot of things to think about, and my improper consideration would kill the army. Every step was like treading on thin ice, and I had to buy a thick pile of books to learn scientific management methods. Often I wake up in the middle of the night, light a cigarette and go back to work.

Iv. Ensure the operation of the process and look for high-quality talents

After the trial iteration of alpha version, the product was improved quickly, the team made rapid progress, and the production transfer process was completed. The whole work process can run completely.

And so the beta version came out soon!

I don’t know this instrument as well as I know my hand. The staff all thought that the device was not made by me, but by the collective wisdom of everyone. When I feel that people have this idea, I am very happy, it shows that people have a strong sense of participation, the team is very cohesive.

I found a very reliable, and very smart employee, let him do the test department director. I only ask him whether the instrument can pass. He is only responsible for me. So I don’t have to check the quality of the product myself.

I am still working as the vice president of technology and the technical director, and my working concept has been basically changed to managing people. I’ll step down as cTO when I find the right person and the time is right.

Now, my job is to meet with the general manager to make the annual plan, meet with the product managers to meet the needs, meet with the department heads to make the work plan and listen to the report, and work with the hr director to find good people. In addition, as the technical director of the company to lead interns, at the appropriate time to encourage everyone.

As long as the workflow runs smoothly, all development work flows through the departments like water, and the final product flows out. I coordinate everything to keep the flow flowing, and then I can go home.

It could have been, but I didn’t. I am still working overtime, a lot of time is reading and thinking about things, completely hobby and personal working attitude.

More and more, I’m thinking about how to make the process more efficient, cleaner, smoother, and how to make the team more effective, which is to get the right people in the right positions.

Research and development, it seemed to the engineers that I was not doing it at all, I had become dispensable in the company. It doesn’t matter. I’m not evaluated by the employees. I’m evaluated by the general manager and the board of directors.

V. Scientific and new challenges

Above is my wild way to complete the CTO growth from 0 to 1, the whole process does not start from the top design.

Through learning, practice and thinking, I have been able to build and manage a team from the top-level design.

So last year I was asked to join a new startup as general manager, employee Zero.

Since the establishment of the company, I began to set up a team and adopted the IPD research and development management mode. In my new company, I didn’t seem to do any specific RESEARCH and development work at the beginning. Many of my new colleagues assumed THAT I would do nothing but set rules, have meetings and reviews, and then write documents, check my phone, and drink tea and smoke cigarettes.

Finally, I welcome you to follow my wechat official account: Duibainotes, which tracks the forefront of machine learning such as NLP, recommendation system and comparative learning. I also share my entrepreneurial experience and life perception on a daily basis. Students who want to further communicate can also add my wechat account to discuss technical problems with me, thank you!