和贏得商業計劃書大賽相比，創業更是難上加難

????你必須狂熱地投入到你的初創公司當中。BlackLocu團隊的羅德里格?卡爾瓦略說道：“我以為畢業之后，可以把全部時間用于創業，事情會變得簡單許多。實際上并非如此，一切都變得更加困難。”

????賽特說道，向投資者闡述你的想法變得更加容易，因為你已經習慣了在一大群觀眾面前展示自己；而且，這個過程會帶給你許多驚喜和收獲。拖掛汽車銷售公司AT Dynamics的CEO安德魯?史密斯仍記得，在公司業務從僅售六臺拖車到獲得3,500份訂單的時候。他回憶道：“工程師們都激動得要瘋了，對于我來說，那是開心的一天。”

????當然，“有驚喜的時刻，必然也會有‘老天，我們要完蛋了’這樣的時刻，”賽特說道。“要繼續下去，必須得有足夠多的勇氣與毅力，晚上能夠睡著，且要維持好各種關系，相對于失敗來說，這些事情更加重要。”

像“相親”一樣挑選投資者

????投資伙伴形形色色，各不相同。并非所有合作關系都是平等的。賽特說道：“在選擇投資者時，必須非常謹慎。這種關系如同婚姻一般。”不論創業成功與否，你們都要同舟共濟。他說道：“他們必須在你身邊支持你。但是，并非和任何一位投資者都能培養出這樣的關系。”

????卡爾瓦略表示，他在賴斯大賽上遇到了兩位風險投資家，他們對于公司的成功至關重要。他說道：“重要的不是你從投資者那里獲得的資金。你必須尋找那些能夠提供幫助的投資者。”

????有些投資者的表現，就像直升機家長一樣，時刻盤旋在創業者頭頂，監視創業者的一舉一動；而有的投資者則會給予創業者更多獨立性。史密斯表示：“如果你能找到曾經創辦過公司的天使投資人，并且他們能夠理解創業的波動性與起伏不定的特點，他們就是你的最佳拍檔。”（財富中文網）

????翻譯：劉進龍/汪皓

Business plan competitions are hard, entrepreneurship is harder

????You must be fanatically devoted to your startup. "I thought that after graduation, being able to focus full-time on the business, it was going to get easier," says BlackLocus's Rodrigo Carvalho. "No! It just gets harder from there."

????Pitching a group of investors gets easier, Seet says, because you're used to working a big room. And there are some pretty great highs. Andrew Smith, CEO of AT Dynamics, remembers when his business went from having sold six models to logging a 3,500 order. "That was a fun day for me," he recalls. "The engineers went nuts, but I had fun."

????Still, "for every amazing moment, there's a moment of 'Oh God, we're all gonna die,'" Seet says. "It takes a lot of chutzpah to continue and still be able to sleep at night and maintain the relationships that are technically more important than that big exit."

Choose your investors like you'd choose your spouse

????Investing partners come in all shapes and sizes. Not all are created equal. "Just be very careful who you take money from," Seet says. "It's a relationship just like marriage." You should be in the same boat to either success or failure. "They need to be standing by your side," he says, "and that relationship doesn't happen with every investor."

????Carvalho says he met two VCs at Rice who were pivotal to his company's success. "It's not just the money that you're getting," he says. "You should be looking for investors that can help you."

????Some investors act like helicopter parents, while others allow more independence. "If you can find the angels that have built companies," Smith says, "and understand the volatility and the roller coaster [of entrepreneurship], those are phenomenal people to team up with."