Those who can get things done have simply grasped these four points.

Source of content: In September 2025, the sharing session of the 10th Zhongke Chuangxing Hard Technology Champion Enterprise Entrepreneurship Camp.

Guest speaker: Yuan Bo, Partner of Zhongke Chuangxing.

It is often said that entrepreneurship might be the toughest job, especially for hard - technology entrepreneurs.

They can get trapped in business dilemmas: having a perfectly polished product but missing the market window; leading in technology but struggling to break through customer barriers.

So, how can they bridge this gap, balance technology and business, and truly transform technology into sustainable competitiveness?

Yuan Bo, a partner at Zhongke Chuangxing, points out that the key to breaking the deadlock lies in waging a systematic battle that integrates "mind, matter, people, and time".

In hard - technology entrepreneurship, success lies in rhythm and is achieved through a systematic approach.

This article will systematically break down how hard - technology enterprises can control the complete path from technology obsession to business breakthrough, based on this core framework. It aims to help you move forward more steadily and go further in long - cycle and high - risk entrepreneurship.

Hello, everyone. I'm Yuan Bo from Zhongke Chuangxing. Today, I'll share with you four key words about entrepreneurship: mind, matter, people, and time.

I. Mind: The Inner Cultivation of Entrepreneurs

1. Vision: See the Future to Create the Future

After working at Zhongke Chuangxing for many years, I believe that the most important thing for an entrepreneur is to have vision.

"Vision" in English is "vision", which means you can see trends that don't exist currently but are likely to happen in the future, and you need to align with these trends.

Next, I'll use three cases to talk about my understanding of vision.

① The Tesla Case: Alternating Current Disrupts Edison's Direct Current

Many people may know the story of Tesla inventing alternating current. At that time, Edison was the king of invention and the inventor of the practical incandescent lamp, famous all over the world. Tesla was just a young man in his twenties, unknown.

Tesla went to work at Edison's company. During his work, he found a major problem with direct current - when the transmission distance exceeded 800 - 1000 meters, the voltage dropped significantly, and it couldn't even drive a light bulb.

To solve this problem, it was necessary to build a power transmission and distribution station for voltage boosting, stabilization, and step - up every kilometer or every 800 meters. In this situation, how could electricity be popularized?

So Tesla started researching and found alternating current. Alternating current can be transmitted over long distances with relatively little voltage drop. Tesla tried to convince Edison, but it was difficult. He had no choice but to leave Edison's company.

After leaving, he continued his research. Later, Haus from Westinghouse Electric collaborated with him and invested in his alternating - current project. During the implementation process, Edison and his company realized that Tesla posed a different challenge. As conservatives, they started to resist alternating current in various ways.

For example, they publicized that alternating current was unsafe and conducted many experiments on electrocuting cats, dogs, and even elephants. The experimental results showed that alternating current was unsafe - it could electrocute an elephant, so there would be big problems for humans using it. Moreover, the government's "electric chair execution" used alternating current.

On a social level, since people saw that alternating current was unsafe, it was naturally difficult to promote.

However, Tesla and Westinghouse Electric persevered until an opportunity arose at the Chicago World's Fair in 1895. At the fair, Westinghouse Electric bid for the lighting project at an extremely low price. The lighting project required about 90,000 lights at that time.

They lit up all 90,000 lights in the venue using alternating current, which caused a worldwide sensation and a huge reaction.

Through the Chicago World's Fair, alternating current truly proved to be safe, effective, and user - friendly. Later, it gradually replaced direct current.

From this case, we can see that this insignificant young man, Tesla, with his vision and faith - like perseverance, ultimately succeeded in influencing the whole world and human society.

② The Toutiao Case: Zhang Yiming Reconstructs the Portal Era

Zhang Yiming also tried many things during his entrepreneurial journey. Before founding Toutiao, portal websites like Sohu, NetEase, and Alibaba were very popular. These portals piled up a large amount of information, and people had to search for the information they needed on them.

He believed that "people searching for information" was against human nature, uneconomical, and unreasonable. Instead, "information finding people" was a better approach.

He said that when he was in college, people had to scramble for train tickets when going home. Some students who studied programming and computers would write a small software to help scramble for tickets and better push information to serve people. So he founded Toutiao.

The core of Toutiao is the recommendation algorithm, which allows information to find people. This makes the connection between information and people smoother, more reasonable, and better, and also solves the human - nature problem.

Since then, the recommendation mechanism and algorithm of "information finding people" have been continuously refined, iterated, and used in all of Zhang Yiming's products, resulting in today's Douyin and TikTok.

Zhang Yiming saw something different. He had vision, and because of it, he could keep persevering.

③ ChatGPT: OpenAI's Persistence in Architecture Triggers the AI Revolution

As we all know, OpenAI was co - founded by Elon Musk and others in 2015.

At that time, when OpenAI was founded, the development direction of AI was on a downward trend. People were unclear about what the algorithms should be, including large - scale models, and didn't know how to proceed.

In 2017, Google published a famous article. After the algorithm was introduced, although the effect was not good, OpenAI firmly grasped this algorithm and continued to work on it. Finally, they developed a large - scale model.

In the process, Google also developed a model, a variant of the original algorithm. It no longer simply used the cloze - test method of word - by - word prediction but improved the overall convolution efficiency.

Between 2019 and 2020, this model was very influential in the benchmark tests at that time, which also brought huge pressure to OpenAI.

However, in this situation, they always adhered to the established architecture and continued to move forward. It wasn't until the release of ChatGPT in 2022 that people recognized OpenAI as the leader of the new round of technological revolution.

2. Original Intention: Uprightness and Goodness are the Keys to Long - term Success

The term "original intention" is actually quite broad, and it's difficult to understand. People are very complex and constantly changing.

Each of us needs to ask ourselves: Why are we doing this? What is the ultimate goal of doing this? And where does the greatest impact, sense of achievement, and meaning for us lie? We need to figure out these questions clearly.

The clearer we are, the longer we can persevere when encountering difficulties and various problems after starting.

Many entrepreneurs' original intentions are to make money, gain fame, or achieve financial freedom. It's relatively difficult for them to go further when facing difficulties.

However, if an entrepreneur's intention is to develop a certain technology well or create a different product that can make a significant contribution and bring about changes to the industry, then they may persevere for a longer time.

What is the original intention? The original intention is to have an upright mind, pursue a legitimate goal, and also be good - willed, bringing better development to the industry, community, and society.

3. Technological Complex: Be Persistent but Break Free from Perfectionism

Based on my observations over the years, I've found that many scientists' original intention for entrepreneurship is a technological complex.

They've been working on technology since their doctoral studies. After more than a decade of effort, they believe their technology is excellent and want to turn it into a product that can contribute to society.

This is a very good original intention, but we can't be overly "technologically complex".

Being "overly technologically complex" means that many people always think their products aren't perfect enough when developing them. As a result, they keep iterating internally and are slow to launch the products into the market.

However, if our products can't be launched in time, this technological complex will slow down the overall commercialization process.

The correct way of iteration is to let our products interact with the industry, scenarios, and user needs. Through continuous feedback and correction, the iteration process will be meaningful and efficient.

Conversely, if we only focus on internal iteration, pursuing technological perfection and extreme values of certain indicators without external feedback, the commercialization speed will be very slow.

So, in terms of the technological complex, I hope to see a balance between having a passion and not being overly persistent. We need to grasp this degree well.

4. Determination & Transformation: Flexibly Adjust While Persevering

During the entrepreneurship process of technology companies, many problems can arise during the product - implementation stage. For example, it's difficult to attract excellent talents in recruitment; it takes a long time to convince various investors in the financing process; and there are also various difficulties in team management and customer expansion.

In this process, the key lies in whether the entrepreneur has vision and firm beliefs. Only by perseveringly running towards the future you foresee and making unremitting efforts can you avoid the situation of "working intermittently". Otherwise, once the goal and direction waver, work efficiency will decline.

We often say that we should perseveringly strive towards our goals. This is what is called the craftsmanship spirit in the industrial and manufacturing sectors. Through continuous effort and iteration, better results can often be achieved.

During this process, it's also important to know when to make adjustments: while maintaining determination, we should also reflect, summarize, and adjust when necessary. If we find the direction is wrong, we should correct it immediately. Otherwise, if we keep going on the wrong path, we won't achieve good results.

So, here I'm talking about the balance between determination and transformation, or the degree of summarization.

Take Horizon Robotics as an example. Yu Kai from Horizon Robotics was among the first group of Chinese people in the world to see the potential of AI. After studying computer science and AI in the United States, he was recruited by Baidu back to China.

In 2012, after Hinton won the championship in the deep neural convolutional network competition, Yu Kai recognized its value. He tried to negotiate with Hinton to buy the technology and participated in the bidding against Google on behalf of Baidu. Eventually, Google acquired the technology for $44 million.

During this process, Yu Kai's vision made him see the value of AI. So, in 2015, he left Baidu to start his own business, with the core goal of developing edge - side AI.

He believed that with the development of the Internet and mobile Internet, the optimization of pipeline connections would make edge - side AI an inevitable trend.

At that time, there were two directions for the application scenarios of edge - side AI: one was AIoT, and the other was intelligent driving.

By around 2018, the AIoT business had achieved revenues of 200 - 300 million yuan, and the team had about 500 - 600 people. However, due to the wide scope, multiple directions, and complex segmented scenarios of AIoT, there were many problems in terms of gross profit and competition.

So, in 2019, Yu Kai decisively cut off the AIoT product line, laid off half of the staff, and focused on the research and development of intelligent - driving chips. Although he had money, people, and scenarios at that time, he still made the change and stopped the AIoT business to focus on intelligent driving.

Later, with the rise of Tesla and the continuous development of intelligent - driving technology, including the development of Huawei's intelligent - driving technology, cars are moving from electrification to networking and intelligence. Yu Kai accurately grasped this trend.

Now, we can see that Horizon Robotics has grown into a chip company with a market value of over 100 billion yuan. I think this is due to his determination in edge - side AI and the transformation in AIoT and intelligent - driving scenarios.

5. Openness: Break the Information Cocoon and Absorb Diverse Perspectives

While being determined, we also need to know how to summarize and make changes at the right time. If we want to know why, how, and when to make changes, the core is to have an open mind.

As long as our minds are open enough, we can continuously absorb external opinions. Combining them with our past vision and knowledge, we can make the right choices at the right time or when changes are needed.

In fact, this open - minded attitude is also crucial in investment. I always prioritize openness. We must keep an open mind, accept different information, and not have pre - set positions.

Having a pre - set position is like the saying "if you have a hammer in your hand, you always look for nails". It will limit our vision and thinking.

Once we have a pre - set position, just like the "information finding people" recommendation mechanism of ByteDance has become a common trend, it will continuously push the information you like to see. As a result, we will fall into an information - reinforcement cycle, be unable to listen to negative opinions, and have difficulty looking at problems from different perspectives. Then it will be more and more difficult to make changes.

Some time ago, I had a conversation with a industry leader. I asked him how to reduce the impact in an "information cocoon" environment and avoid being continuously reinforced with a single perspective.

He shared an inspiring approach: use two accounts for each information app. One is used to follow positive information, and the other is used to search for its problems and deficiencies. By examining from these two perspectives, we can greatly improve the richness and comprehensiveness of information acquisition.

Nowadays, many apps continuously push information based on personal preferences, which can easily make people fall into a single - perspective trap. By searching for information from multiple angles and making decisions after comprehensive judgment, the results will be better.

In addition, extensive communication is also a good method. I particularly agree with a saying by Ren Zhengfei of Huawei: "Absorb the energy of the universe with a cup of coffee", which means to communicate widely, absorb useful viewpoints from all parties, and continuously improve our knowledge in terms of breadth and depth.

In summary, whether it's the multi - account strategy or extensive communication, the core is to maintain an open mind.