What can entrepreneurs learn from mega success?

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Although the IPOs have attracted a lot of attention this year on top operators such as Slack, Lyft, Uber and Pinterest, the exceptional deal has Zoom. Last week, the company launched its bid and the stock jumped 72% on the first trading day, bringing the market capitalization to nearly $ 16 billion. Now, Zoom is one of the most valuable cloud computing companies in the world.

All this is the vision of Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of the company.

Here is an information document: & nbsp; While attending college in China in the 1980s, he specialized in computer science because he admired technology entrepreneurs like Bill Gates. In 1997, Eric arrived in America – after many difficulties with the immigration system – and joined the team of WebEx engineers. This was fortuitous because the company was going to revolutionize the conference market.

In 2007, WebEx was sold to Cisco and, unfortunately, innovation began to fall behind. Eric tried to push for change, but he was mostly pushed back. In 2011, he launched Zoom, raising a seed among a variety of angels.

As expected, Eric had a rather unconventional strategy, which was consistent with Silicon Valley standards. & Nbsp; For example, it did not spend heavily (the original offices were quite modest) and the focus was little on sales and marketing.

Overall, the formula is perfect. & Nbsp; To date, Zoom & nbsp; is growing at over 100% and is profitable. There are also 50,000 corporate customers and 344 of them pay more than $ 100,000 a year.

OK, what are the takeaways for entrepreneurs? What are the lessons here that can help with your own business? Well, let's take a look:

The customer first: Eric is obsessed with creating the best product possible. Do not forget that he worked on the Zoom platform for two years before its launch. He also personally answered customer questions and contacted each customer who canceled.

The bottom line: Zoom has a Net Promoter Score (NPS) greater than 70.

"Zoom was successful when so many did not succeed," said Roy Raanani, co-founder and CEO of Chorus.ai. "When Eric launched the company, he was very familiar with the videoconferencing industry and understood that existing products did not meet the needs of users. It was his vision that everyone should "rejoice" and aim to create a simple product experience, "Just Works", by recruiting an excellent team focused on the correct implementation of the fundamentals and placing happiness customers and employees at the center of Zoom culture. "

Viral: The conference is intrinsically viral and can create network effects that can make attacks more difficult for competitors. Admittedly, it's not an easy thing to do, but Eric has focused on creating a solid product.

The Zoom S-1 Remarks"Our rapid adoption is guided by a virtuous cycle of positive user experiences. People usually start using our platform when a colleague or associate invites them to a Zoom meeting. When participants discover our platform and reap the benefits, they often become paying customers to unlock additional features. "

Big market, big problemWhen Eric founded Zoom, there was a lot of skepticism. Is not the market already won? How could he fight rivals like Microsoft, Google, WebEx and GoToMeeting?

But like any entrepreneur, Eric was convinced of his vision. He understood that there was a lot to do in the industry, which did not invest enough in new technologies.

"The cardinal rule for any start-up: solve a very big problem and solve it well," said Jamie Sutherland, founder and CEO of Sonix. "Zoom did that. Although there is a lot of rhetoric about the idea that videoconferencing has been solved, the reality is that it has not been really well resolved. Everyone … literally, all the human beings I knew were having trouble with videoconferencing. And when it does not work, it's a huge pain. So add that to a huge global market and you'll have a huge opportunity. "

Tom sits on the advisory boards of technology startups and can be contacted at his& nbsp;site.

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Although the IPOs have attracted a lot of attention this year on top operators such as Slack, Lyft, Uber and Pinterest, the exceptional deal has been so far at Zoom. Last week, the company launched its bid and the stock jumped 72% on the first trading day, bringing the market capitalization to nearly $ 16 billion. Now, Zoom is one of the most valuable cloud computing companies in the world.

All this is the vision of Eric Yuan, founder and CEO of the company.

Here is an information document: While attending college in China in the 1980s, he specialized in computer science because he admired technology entrepreneurs such as Bill Gates. In 1997, Eric arrived in America – after many difficulties with the immigration system – and joined the team of WebEx engineers. This was fortuitous because the company was going to revolutionize the conference market.

In 2007, WebEx was sold to Cisco and, unfortunately, innovation began to fall behind. Eric tried to push for change, but he was mostly rejected. In 2011, he launched Zoom, raising a seed among a variety of angels.

As was to be expected, Eric was unconventional in his strategy, that is to say by Silicon Valley standards. For example, it did not spend heavily (the original offices were quite modest) and the focus was little on sales and marketing.

Overall, the formula was perfect. To date, Zoom is growing at over 100% and is profitable. There are also 50,000 corporate customers and 344 of them pay more than $ 100,000 a year.

OK, what are the takeaways for entrepreneurs? What are the lessons here that can help with your own business? Well, let's take a look:

The customer first: Eric is obsessed with creating the best product possible. Do not forget that he worked on the Zoom platform for two years before its launch. He also personally answered customer questions and contacted each customer who canceled.

The bottom line: Zoom has a Net Promoter Score (NPS) greater than 70.

"Zoom was successful when so many did not succeed," said Roy Raanani, co-founder and CEO of Chorus.ai. "When Eric launched the company, he was very familiar with the videoconferencing industry and understood that existing products did not meet the needs of users. It was his vision that everyone should "rejoice" and aim to create a simple product experience, "Just Works", by recruiting an excellent team focused on the correct implementation of the fundamentals and placing happiness customers and employees at the center of Zoom culture. "

Viral: The conference is intrinsically viral and can create network effects that can make attacks more difficult for competitors. Admittedly, it's not an easy thing to do, but Eric has focused on creating a solid product.

The Zoom S-1 states: "Our rapid adoption is guided by a virtuous cycle of positive user experiences. People usually start using our platform when a colleague or associate invites them to a Zoom meeting. When participants discover our platform and reap the benefits, they often become paying customers to unlock additional features. "

Big market, big problemWhen Eric founded Zoom, there was a lot of skepticism. Is not the market already won? How could he fight rivals like Microsoft, Google, WebEx and GoToMeeting?

But like any entrepreneur, Eric was convinced of his vision. He understood that there was a lot to do in the industry, which did not invest enough in new technologies.

"The Cardinal Rule for any start-up: solve a really big problem and solve it," said Jamie Sutherland, founder and CEO of Sonix. "Zoom did that. Although there is a lot of rhetoric about the idea that videoconferencing has been solved, the reality is that it has not been really well resolved. Everyone … literally, all the human beings I knew were having trouble with videoconferencing. And when it does not work, it's a huge pain. So add that to a huge global market and you'll have a huge opportunity. "

Tom sits on the advisory boards of technology startups and can be contacted at his site.