On April 15, 2025, the third installment of the lecture series "Six Lessons for Future Founders of the Greater Bay Area" took center stage. Organized by faculty member Dr. Pan Yanping, this lecture series focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship. The latest session, titled "Self-Drive of Founders," aimed to guide participants on how founders can sustain internal motivation amidst a complex environment and foster both personal and organizational growth.
Dr. Pan Yanping kicked off the lecture by outlining its objectives and learning trajectory and revisiting key points from the previous session on "Founder's Learning Power." Afterwards，external practice advisor Dr. Wang Aiyang introduced the "Five Forces of Founders" model. He highlighted that self-drive is the linchpin among the five forces—Insight, Learning, Technology, Self-drive, and Relationships. It serves as the fundamental impetus that propels individuals to take consistent action and is crucial for achieving the leap from zero to one.
The seminar featured a special guest, Shao Honghua. Shao holds multiple prominent positions, including Vice President of the China Foreign Economic and Trade Statistics Association, Director of the Trade Digitization Committee, and Founder and Chairman of Global Wise (Beijing) Data Technology Co. A pioneer in China's trade digitization research and practice, Shao founded Global Wise in 2001 and steered it to become a world-leading provider of international trade data and analysis solutions. His work extends to academic research, with published monographs likeTrade Digitization and Big Data for Foreign Trade, and involvement in formulating national trade policies. With a career spanning politics, business, and academia, Shao brought rich theoretical and practical insights to the lecture.
During the sharing segment, Shao centered his talk on "Self-drive." He explored its pivotal role in founders' development, covering personal growth, entrepreneurial experiences, and enterprise management. Shao emphasized that it's not external rewards or pressures that truly enable entrepreneurs to persevere; instead, it's the inner belief and passion. He noted that self-drive encompasses goal clarity, consistent action, as well as the capabilities for active learning, self-selection, and rational decision-making.
In the interactive part, Shao posed the question: "Have you ever had a ‘highlight moment’ in your life that was led by self-drive?" This sparked vibrant discussions. One participant shared their journey of learning composition from scratch to pursue a music dream and eventually entering an ideal college with outstanding grades. Shao responded by highlighting that genuine passion requires no external motivation; when individuals are clear about their internal desires, self-drive naturally surfaces, enabling them to overcome challenges. When asked about personal positioning in a rapidly changing landscape, Shao advised finding the overlap between "what one wants to do, what one can do, and what one should do" as the optimal development path. He stressed that the essence of entrepreneurship lies not in having a perfect plan but in recognizing one's unique value and elaborated on the core role of self-drive in the development of founders from the dimensions of personal growth, entrepreneurial experience to enterprise management. He pointed out that it is never the external rewards or pressures that really support entrepreneurs to go further, but the belief and love from the bottom of their heart. He emphasized that self-drive is not only embodied in the clarity of goals and continuity of actions, but also the ability of active learning, self-selection and rational trade-offs.
