When the Resource and Scale Gap Is Too Wide, Fight a Different Battle

In mid-July, e-commerce veteran Wang Zhiren (王志仁) published an article in CommonWealth Magazine titled ‘If I Were Hung-Tze Jan, How Would I Save PChome?’ Its contents deserve another careful look from e-commerce operators. Here, I would also like to quote the last two passages of veteran American venture capitalist Fred Wilson’s article ‘Staying Positive’ for PChome. ---- Let me quote the last two passages of Fred Wilson’s article ‘Staying Positive’ for PChome. It is also time to stay positive. When you are the leader of a company (or anything else), you have to lead with optimism, enthusiasm, and positive energy. It is best to ignore all of that (meaning all the pessimistic commentary), focus on what you are building, and find some wins for the team, and for yourself. The great thing about working in tech is that there are always new problems to solve, new markets to create, new products to ship. The macro events don’t change that. So focus yourself and your team on building and shipping those things, get some wins, and move forward with optimism and positive energy. It will be infectious. ---- Sometimes the gap in resources and scale is so large that you have to rethink how to fight the battle. MOMO is backed by Taiwan’s largest financial holding company, Fubon Financial, and its second-largest telecom operator, Taiwan Mobile. Its market capitalization is now fifteen times PChome’s, and its revenue about 2.5 times as large. Gaps like these demand a different kind of battle. Against a competitor already operating on a different order of magnitude, the entire strategy, choice of tactics, and actual execution all need reexamination. But as the passage above says, entrepreneurs must always remain positive and optimistic, and keep exploring. There are always new problems to solve, new markets to create, and new products and services to deliver. Keep going! ----