2013年/03月/16日
12条创业建议
This isn’t something I’ve heard. This is something I’ve lived.
1) Ideas are worthless. Execute. No one wants to sign your NDA. No one cares that you think your idea is so special. Guess what? Any VC or well connected person in Silicon Valley will know 10 other people with the same idea, some of whom will be working on it. Talk to people. Get feedback. Improve your idea. Most importantly make it happen. That is where the value is – execute. “Vision without execution is just hallucination” Henry Ford knew what was up. I know a ridiculous number of people in SV. I have heard your idea 10x before. I am not even a VC being pitched 3000 times a year.
你的那些所谓的好点子在被执行前，一文不值。
没人想要签你的合同，没人在乎你那些好主意。你知道吗？在硅谷，任何一名风投或者拥有些人脉的人都从好几打人那里听过相同的点子，其中有一些正在执行过程中。多找人交流，获得回馈，提升你的想法，当然最关键的还是把它变成现实。一个好点子的价值在于执行。Henry Ford深知这一点：“梦想不付诸实践，就仅仅是幻想。”
我虽然不是一名风投，但我认识很多硅谷人，连我都可能听你的那些点子听到耳朵都出茧了，更别提那些每年被骚扰3000次的风投了。
2) Define founder roles clearly. Make sure the founders have complimentary but different skill sets. If you are both strong in the exact same area but have no one with skills in others, your weaknesses will be an even greater hurdle to overcome. You also need to have people involved who do not want to do each others jobs and who you can trust will get the job done. You won’t always know how to do everything but you need to cover a broad range of bases and reduce areas of friction. Also make sure everyone actually has skills. Unless you are a business development or sales business, you most likely only need people who can actually contribute to the product.
清晰地定义每一名创始人的角色。
你公司的每一名创始人除了拥有优秀的能力之外，也要确保他们能胜任不同的分工。如果每个人的强项都是相同的领域，那公司的缺陷就会暴露得更明显。你需要那些只想专心做好自己本职工作的人，也需要值得信任的能做好你所布置的任务的人。你也得确保每个人都是有真本事的，除非你是干业务拓展或者销售的，不然的话，你需要的就必须是能对产品做出实际贡献的人员。
3) Hustle. I’ve watched several friends have an idea that was not taking off but seemed like it was interesting. They hit a hard point and stopped. Several months later several other startups pretty much came out with the same product idea and all got funded. I don’t think the later products were better but the teams had more push to do whatever it takes to make it happen. You have got to have push in this world. One of your team members better know how to do the hustle.
积极推进。
我认识很多朋友，他们拥有一个看起来有趣的点子，却一直停留在原地，原因是他们碰到了某个瓶颈，于是他们就不再往前了。几个月后，他们眼睁睁看着其他一些拥有相似产品创意的创业公司得到了投资。在我看来，这些后来者们抢得先机，并不是因为他们的产品有多棒，而是他们推进事情更为积极。迎难而上，创造条件，Make it happen. 在你的团队里，最好有一两个人是擅长干这个的。
4) Ship It. There is no such thing as perfection. Holding back and waiting too long can prevent you from learning very valuable information about your product and the market. There is rarely a tech product that is “done.” If it is “done” it is probably a one time use service or obsolete. Ship it. Rinse and repeat.
I’ve built in a vaccuum and I’ve built products with users testing from week 1. What people do and what they say they want is different. You want to observe rather than listen as fast as possible.
尽快推出你的产品，别拖着。
完美主义害死人。踌躇不前、犹豫不决会让你得不到关于市场和你的产品的宝贵信息。很少有一个科技产品是“已经完成”状态的，如果真的有，那也可能是一次性服务或者已经过时的产品。别等了，赶紧发布，然后再慢慢地反复地打磨。
*我曾经打造的产品，从第一周就开始进行用户测试。人们口头上说他们想做的，和他们真正会做的是不同的。你需要尽可能快地去观察用户行为，而不是听他们说。
5) Problem Solve. You will never have all the answers or know how to do everything that needs to be done to get your startup off the ground. The ability to identify problems and solve them quickly is at the core of creating a company from scratch. Starting a company is like being on the island in Survivor. You have to be consistently resourceful to make things happen. Part of solving problems is being honest and open to criticism and taking it less personally. It’s also a great opportunity to practice the art of constructive criticism.
解决问题的能力。
你不可能全知全能，在运营公司的过程中难免会碰到一些未知的问题。白手起家创建一个公司，最核心的能力就是发现问题并能快速地解决它们。你就好比是“幸存者”中的参赛者尝试在岛上生存那样，需要始终足智多谋来克服困难。想要有效地解决问题，你需要诚实并开放地面对批评。这也是一个实践建设性批评的艺术的好机会。
6) Practice self-compassion and be very honest with yourself. Creating something from scratch is challenging. Have compassion for where you are at, the imperfections that happen, the ups and the downs and the people around you. To succeed you need to be ruthlessly honest about your strengths and weaknesses. They will come out in both the good and bad direction so the more aware you are of this the more you can set yourself up for success.
清醒认识自己，对自己绝对诚实。
白手起家创建公司不是一件容易的事情。充分理解所处的现状、过程中出现的瑕疵、潮起潮落和你身边的战友们。想要成功，你必须要对自己的优缺点保持绝对的、“无情的”诚实。它们（优缺点）会往好的方向也会往坏的方向发展，所以你对它们的认识越是清楚，你就越容易成功。
7) Have vision. People will ask you about x, y, z competitor etc. You are the only one with the power to know where you are sailing your ship. You never will understand why something is working or not if you are only copying nor will you have direction. Be the real thing. This does not mean close yourself to the world and don’t learn from others: this means know where you are going.
拥有愿景。
人们会向你问起你与竞争者x、y或者z的差异，而你是唯一了解自己公司前进方向的人。如果你仅仅是一个跟风者，你永远不会明白有些东西是否行得通，你也不会有一个明确的方向。务实一点，明白自己的方向。
8) Ask for advice. You will not know all the answers. Ask your friends, your network, and people you respect for their advice. You are not alone. People will help if they can. That said I always take the time to try to help others if I can. We are all here to help the whole human race move and excel. I guarantee it someone in the world has dealt with a variation of your problem. It won’t be your exact issue but your problems are not quite as unique as you think they are. That said – advice is advice and not meant to be the solution.
虚心向别人征求意见。
你不可能会知道所有问题的答案，虚心向你所尊重的朋友们征求他们的意见。你并不孤独，人们会力所能及地帮助你。广义上来讲，我们所做的一切都是在帮助人类进步和发展，不是吗？我向你保证，这世界上总有一个人是知道怎么解决你面临的这个问题的。要知道，你面临的这些难题并不是你想象的那么独一无二。不过话虽如此，意见也只是意见，不能直接当做问题的解决方案。
9) This is a marathon not a sprint. Work hard and constantly but consistently. A company takes time to build. If you are pulling all nighters constantly and run down you are setting yourself for worse output overall.
你所参与的是马拉松，而不是短跑。
不断地努力工作，同时也要注意持续性。公司并不是一朝一夕建立的，如果你经常通宵工作，最后累倒了，那最终不会有好结果。
10) Persist. It takes time. Things are never as good as they seem. Things are never as bad as they seem. Just do it and keep moving.
坚持不懈。
创业公司需要时间。事情永远不像它们看起来的那么好，也不像它们看起来的那么差。坚持做下去吧，不要停下来。
11) Enjoy the journey. This Miley Cyrus song came to mind when I was writing this article because so few startups make it – you better be in it for the win but you better also be in it for the climb. There is only a myth of the overnight success propogated by the press to feed into people’s fantasies. There is overnight awareness. There is usually years of work behind that. And don’t take yourself too seriously. I can illustrate with Miley Cyrus. The point is to be accessible, real and get the job done. I am enjoying my journey :-)
The Climb (I guess Medium does not allow you to embed videos) http://youtu.be/NG2zyeVRcbs
享受整个过程。
在我写这篇东西的时候，Miley Cyrus的那首The Climb跃入我的脑海，又有多少创业公司能够做到Enjoy他们的创业过程呢？创业的确是为了有朝一日胜利登顶的结果，但同时也是为了整个攀爬的过程。媒体整日喧嚣着一夜暴富的幻梦，但我要提醒你，取得胜利，通常需要年复一年的辛勤工作。
12) GO FOR THE WIN. There is no such thing as being partly in this game. If you’re not all in, you aren’t even on the playing field. There is no such thing as a company started on the side with people working on it part time and continuing to do it part time and that somehow blew up to be worth a billion dollars. (You can code an app like SnapChat at college but when things are blowing up you can’t be on the sidelines.) Show me the company that was part-time and I will show you a mirage.
为胜利而战。
如果你不全身心投入游戏，你根本没有机会获胜。这世上根本就没有一个由兼职者组成的公司，能够突然膨胀成为一个十亿级别的传奇的。（没错，你可以在大学里编出一个如SnapChat的热门应用，但一旦它火起来了，你也就必须全身心投入了。）