Friday, March 13, 2009

从参与别人创业到自己创业

很久以前看到“赢在中国”栏目里有我的前boss钱江,今天又看到了这个名字,随即跟踪搜索了一下,感慨良多啊。

03年底国庆前,刚大三,手头奇缺钱,随即着手找活干。偶然的机会发现师兄mono再内部bbs上发文找人,壮了下胆子,看了看对方的网站,就去了。说实话当时没怎么看明白,SNS这个概念也是刚出来不久,heiyou那会儿刚起来,东西挺乱的,真不知道是干啥的。

当天去就去办公室,见了Mono,和大老板田范江。俩人都是清华计算机系的师兄,非常和蔼,友善,在我表达了不太会那些技术之后,都让我试试学学,说我肯定没问题,让我对这个公司好感倍加。面试主要是他们谈了谈SNS的构想,以及来上班的一些细节,我没资历,就坐那听啊听。

去上班了,很拼命的干活,希望不辜负期望。我以前的性格就是拿人钱财,给人拼命,所以国庆7点在大哥老家沧州闭关,闭到第6天扛不住了,病倒了。。。那时候还仰仗大哥跟我一起功课难题,现在想起来,这段经历非常宝贵。在Heiyou上班,最羡慕的就是老板的本事。三剑客都是同学,什么沃顿商学院,麦肯锡,埃森哲,副总裁,乱七八糟的头衔太多了,而且都以战养战,外面做咨询,内部搞创业。期间还见过一个海外回来的股东,也是牛烘烘的,所以当时都没怎么觉得自己幸运,能受这些人的指点,光羡慕去了。。。

现在入了职场,又想起他们的一些处事手段,真的很厉害。

04年底做了个手术,之后就离开公司了,现在想起来,一是人事变动,我的上司mono走了;二是自己也没了拼劲,懒惰了;三是公司换主营业务了,改百合网了。没有看到百合的发展,非常遗憾,但见证了一个创业公司怎么熬初期,特别是几个经验丰富的大老板,受益匪浅。

手术之后还没休息够,mono师兄的老婆介绍我去另一家创业公司Feedsky做技术负责人。那时候心里有点底了,趾高气昂就去了。见到了一群自称草根的人,吕总,邢总和我打交道最多,给我印象最深刻。他们虽然没有无敌的文凭头衔,可有一种独特的社会经验。当时公司刚租好办公室,连具体想干啥都没很清楚,不停地想创意,我负责做国外网站的研究,然后和他们讨论,然后做有中国特色的山寨模型。Feedsky我只呆了不到10个月,当时要出国,而Feedsky的风投始终未到,权衡之下,就舍弃了。Feedsky对我很好,当初让老婆陪着上班,估计也是首创吧。没我之后,他们又到处找牛人,构架,公司最后也有很了不起的成就,细节我也不清楚了,人走茶凉的事。在Feedsky学的东西,主要是技术上的,很多事亲自动手,还有一些管理小屁的错误,都是那时候悟到的。 吕欣欣是非技术的技术爱好者,每天都想用新技术,想着公司以技术为核心,网上看看采访他的稿子,他都多次提到。我感觉这个还是一个市场策略,国内就兴这一口子,其实在和草根对立的“精英”眼里,web2.0和技术牛也没啥关系,牛的做算法,得图灵奖,写操作系统内核去了。。。

两家创业公司,两种风格,共同点有:

  • 一分钱掰开用 (民宅,请大妈做饭,找学生兼职)
  • 专注品牌,干活拼命 (每次加班吕总必在)
  • 创新而非走老路子 (百合的婚介,独创)

还有很多总结不出来,只能在德明泰上轨道之后碰上了,试着套一套了。感受最深的就是觉得当初不应该光干事,还应该看人家怎么干事的。大哥、猴子去过heiyou一段时间,cg去过feedsky一段时间,不知道你们学到了什么。

德明泰经过最近3个月的发展,通过几个软件项目磨合,已经基本完善了软件工厂所需要的规章制度,之后就是几位牛人带领小屁做项目,攒经验了。公司把软件服务作为定位,是在没有金点子的情况下走传统的路线完善自我,在自我完善中慢慢自主研发,做强靠实力,做大还是靠创新吧。

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百合:

几个月后,开始有很多人打听这个网站“是谁在做”。百合网飞速的发展,让风险投资商们没有料到,于是纷纷找上门来。就在三人身上只剩1000块钱的时候,终于有风险投资商决定投钱。仅几个月时间,境遇天壤之别!三人感慨良多,“心情很激动,明白了所谓‘天道酬勤’。投资者也是看中你的团队是不是有勇往直前的决心。再有就是证明了我们当时的决定是正确的,我们辞职创业是正确的,开始决定不去融资也是正确的。” 拿到了钱,三人换了一幢商住两用公寓办公。钱是有了,他们却又遇到了招不来人的尴尬。很多应聘者一听他们是婚恋交友网站都认为是骗人的,他们跟人家说拿到了200万美元的风投,可人家一来面试,看到他们的办公环境,便说什么也不肯来上班了。通过朋友,费了九牛二虎之力,田范江总算聘请了一位人力资源管理人员,“我面试那位人力资源管理人员特意选在了外面的咖啡厅,可人家第一天来上班原本是来辞职的,却没想到,我们热情的招呼使得他最终没有说出口来,就这样留了下来。”
在资金和人才的双重助力之下,百合网很快就拥有了100万的注册用户,VC又开始了新一轮的攻势,先前冷眼看百合网的那些VC们纷纷找上门来,劝说田范江再融一笔资金。“我们并不想继续融资稀释自己的股份,第一笔200万美元我们只花了很小的一部分,因为一直自己打工创业,养成了很多省钱的习惯,200万美元足够我们运营很长的时间。”但还是有一个VC说动了他们,对方说:“不要看风险资金进入时稀释了多少自己的股份,关键要看退出时你所拥有的股份的价值。有人肯投钱,就应该先拿着,因为你永远也预测不了未来会发生什么。有了这些钱,至少是发展的保证。” 此时的百合网员工都像上了发条那样拼命工作,加班是常事,创业的氛围感染着所有员工。那位VC约田范江晚上8点多在百合网的办公地点见面,当他故意11点多赶到的时候,还有一半的员工在工作。这种创业团队的精神坚定了VC一定投钱给百合网的决心。就这样,被风险投资商追着,第二次融资,他们拿到了900万美元。
爱情猎头拿到第二笔资金后,百合网的发展势如破竹,注册用户一跃达到500万。公司的规模也开始快速扩张,从7、8人迅速扩张到70多人。田范江现在回头想想,觉得那钱拿得还是有点早了,“拿到钱有好有坏,快速的扩张冲淡了我们刚刚建立的创业公司文化,几乎每周五下午我们都会召开新人见面会,发展太快,有的时候我们还顾不上加固公司的文化。” 这仅是一个小小的阻力,田范江很快控制了扩张的速度,他希望每一步都稳扎稳打。在公司发展进入轨道后,钱江选择了离开公司管理团队,去开创新的事业,“我们当年未雨绸缪建立的完善退出机制在这个时候起到了很好的效果,钱江顺利地退出,但他依旧是公司的大股东,依旧关注着百合网的成长。”百合“三剑客”的时代并没有真正意义上的结束,而是从内部的三角稳定支撑,转换到内外结合的三角稳定支撑。在一步步稳扎稳打中,百合网的盈利模式也逐渐清晰。一开始,百合网的盈利方式主要集中在无线增值业务和少许广告,然而无限增值业务很容易受到政策的影响,十分不稳定,田范江觉得应该改变盈利的模式,然而改变却并非易事。

Wednesday, March 11, 2009

Career Couch - Don’t Neglect to Send a Cover Letter When Applying for a Job - Interview - NYTimes.com

Career Couch - Don’t Neglect to Send a Cover Letter When Applying for a Job - Interview - NYTimes.com

Career Couch

A Cover Letter Is Not Expendable

Published: February 14, 2009

Q. You are getting ready to apply for a job electronically, and your résumé is ready to go. Do you need to prepare a cover letter? Are they necessary in this day and age?

A. Cover letters are still necessary, and in a competitive market they can give you a serious edge if they are written and presented effectively.

Cover letters are a graceful way to introduce yourself, to convey your personality and to impress a hiring manager with your experience and your writing skills, said Katy Piotrowski, an author of career books and a career counselor based in Fort Collins, Colo. You can also tailor them to a specific company in ways that you cannot with a résumé.

Ms. Piotrowski recently had a job opening at her small company, Career Solutions Group, and she was dismayed when about a quarter of the 200 applicants did not send cover letters. Most were within five years of graduating from college, she said, reflecting a more informal mind-set among younger people.

Q. How should your cover letter be organized, how long should it be, and what should it say?

A. First, do your best to find the decision maker’s name, and use it in the salutation. If you are applying to a blind ad, say “Dear Sir or Madam” or “To the Hiring Manager.” Ms. Piotrowski said she received cover letters that had no salutation at all or began with “Hey there” — not a strong start. If you want to be on the safe side, use a colon after the salutation, although some people now feel it is permissible to use a comma in an e-mail message.

Your cover letter should be short — generally no longer than three or four paragraphs, said Debra Wheatman, a career expert at Vault, a jobs Web site.

In your first paragraph, explain why you are writing — it may be that you are answering an ad, that you were referred to the company through networking, or that you learned that the company is expanding, said Wendy S. Enelow, author of “Cover Letter Magic” and a professional résumé writer in Virginia.

In the middle paragraphs, explain why you are a good candidate, and show that you are knowledgeable about the company. Then convey a clear story about your career, and highlight specific past achievements. This can either be done as a narrative or in bullet points, Ms. Enelow said.

You can also highlight qualities you possess that may not fit the confines of a résumé, Ms. Wheatman said.

She once worked in human resources at Martha Stewart Living, and recalls reviewing applications for a chef in a test kitchen. One woman had a career in manufacturing, but her cover letter described how she had grown up in a family that was passionate about cooking and where she had frequently made meals from scratch. The woman got the job despite her peripheral work experience.

Finish your letter by indicating that you will follow up in the near future (and make good on that promise). Sign off with a “Sincerely,” “Cordially,” “Thank you for your consideration” or similar closer, followed by your name and, if you like, your e-mail address.

Q. Where should your cover letter appear, in an e-mail or in an attachment?

A. You can include your letter in the actual text of your e-mail message or place it above your résumé in an attachment. If you put it in a separate attachment from your résumé, you run the risk that a harried hiring manager will not click on it at all. If you place it in the text of your e-mail message, it should generally be shorter than if you use an attachment, Ms. Enelow said.

Then, if you really want to make an impression, make a hard copy of your cover letter and résumé and send it to the hiring manager by regular mail. Attach a handwritten note that says, “Second submission; I’m very interested,” Ms. Piotrowski said. “I’ve had clients double their rate of interviews simply from doing that,” she said.

Ms. Enelow calls this “double-hitting,” and says she has seen it work remarkably well. She said a senior-level client of hers got an interview and was hired because the hard copy of his cover letter and résumé reached the company president, whereas his electronic application was rejected by someone in human resources because it did not meet certain rigid criteria.

Q. What are some common mistakes in cover letters?

A. A cover letter with typos, misspellings and poor sentence structure may take you out of the running for a job. If you cannot afford to pay someone to review your cover letter and résumé, enlist a friend or a family member with good language skills to do it instead.

Another misguided thing people do is to make the cover letter all about them: “I did this, I’m looking for, I want to ... I, I, I.” Structure your letter so that it stresses the company and what you can do to help it reach its goals, Ms. Piotrowski and others said.

Another danger is including too much information — for example, very specific salary or geographic requirements, Ms. Enelow said. It is also unwise to point out that you do not meet all the criteria in the job description, she said. You can deal with that later, if you get an interview.

Hiring managers are looking for ways to exclude you as they narrow down their applications, she said. Do not give them that ammunition.

Wednesday, February 4, 2009

软件构架中对本地化的考虑

文章提出了使用.net中的资源文件来实现基本的本地化,我以前也这么用过,从构架上来说是个不错的办法。

http://www.c-sharpcorner.com/UploadFile/shivprasadk/1112301222009081643AM/11123.aspx

理解三层构架

文章在http://dotnet.csdn.net/page/08578558-7783-4e9c-ac62-05f97601331a,虽然没有讲细节案例,但是对与理解这个结构写的还行。

程序员、高级程序员、设计师、项目经理、构架师

今天突然被一个问题困扰了,就是学习了那么些书,一会儿agile,一会儿敏捷开发,到底是奔着什么去的。总说要技术nb,要做构架,到头来还没明白构架是啥。所以就翻了翻资料,英文的太长,大家估计肯定懒得看,哎,摘录一段吧,里面很清晰的阐述了构架和设计的区别。

  1. “Architecture is concerned with the selection of architectural elements, their interaction, and the constraints on those elements and their interactions…Design is concerned with the modularization and detailed interfaces of the design elements, their algorithms and procedures, and the data types needed to support the architecture and to satisfy the requirements.”
  2. Software architecture is “concerned with issues...beyond the algorithms and data structures of the computation.”
  3. “Architecture…is specifically not about…details of implementations (e.g., algorithms and data structures.)…Architectural design involves a richer collection of abstractions than is typically provided by OOD” (object-oriented design).

就我每天学的玩意来看,更多的还是偏向于设计(如设计模式,今天刚发现一个实例网站,结合理论学习之后,绝对会无敌!!!)和项目管理,但还没有把基础的程序员本质提升到高级程序员,这么看来有点太急了。大家何尝不需要想想自己要走的技术这条路,要怎么走下去,每天叼嘴边的学字,是打算怎么学?

最后附带一个中文资料网站,算是AR的入门吧,上面很多不错的文章。http://www.ibm.com/developerworks/cn/architecture/newto/