無用功

????另一個不妙的跡象是，你不斷向公司投入更多的資金和時間，但公司毫無向好的趨勢。

????邁克爾?帕盧奇花了三年時間打造紐約點對點就業市場Solvate，但公司總是缺乏良好的增長勢頭，不能持續吸引風投。事實上，這家公司增長平平，去年底已關門歇業，沒有再尋求新一輪融資。

????“我們太超前市場了，”帕盧奇說?！霸诨ヂ摼W上以特定的方式交易某些類型的工作對于人們來說有點太超前了。我相信我們試圖實現的東西在將來某個時候必將成為現實?！?/p>

????與此形成對比的是，帕盧奇目前是Slooh的共同創始人兼董事長，這家小公司已經盈利，公司將望遠鏡連接到互聯網上，播報像月食、日食等天文現象。公司正處于緩慢而穩定上升的階段。他說：“它不適合風投模式。我們預計它會每年一點點好轉?！?/p>

新障礙

????對于波士頓Go Gaga公司的創始人吉爾?卡特萊特而言，這場經濟衰退就像橫亙在眼前的一堵墻。她在2007年創建了這家人體工程學媽咪包公司，公司很快就盈利了，分銷渠道遍布美國、加拿大和澳大利亞，業務合作伙伴包括Babies R Us、Diapers.com、亞馬遜（Amazon.com）和eBags等。

????但到了2010年下半年，卡特萊特平均每個月有3家獨立門店（因為破產）而關門。憑借虛擬供應鏈和極低的管理成本，她本可以大幅縮減規模，蹣跚前行。但去年10月，她最終決定暫停生產。

????“和很多創業者一樣，我希望我創立的公司總能保持活力，不斷前進，”她說。“我發現自己陷入了經營公司的細枝末節之中，而不是繼續擴張。這不是我想要的自己?！?/p>

????與此類似，費城Reproduct的首席執行官帕特里克?菲茲杰拉德對公司的前景也曾經非常樂觀。這家公司回收賀卡，制成辦公家具和地毯。直到他遇到美國郵政（U.S. Postal Service），了解到如果要降低客戶回寄賀卡用于回收的郵資，可能需要美國國會表決。不調低郵資，他的業務模式就行不通。

????“如果行業老大說：‘不成，這事沒戲’。這時，你只能說：‘好吧，行不通，那就算了’，”菲茨杰拉德說?，F在在賓夕法尼亞大學（University of Pennsylvania）沃頓商學院（The Wharton School）擔任講師的菲茨杰拉德過去曾成功創立過Recyclebank等公司?！叭绻愠姓J失敗，你會說，‘我會關掉這家，把它作為下一家公司的積累?！绻銢]有汲取任何教訓，那就是在浪費時間。”（財富中文網）

You're pushing a boulder uphill

????Another bad sign: you keep sinking more money and time into a venture -- and it doesn't get any easier.

????Michael Paolucci spent three years building Solvate, a New York-based peer-to-peer labor market, but kept falling short of the momentum and growth he needed to continue attracting venture capital. Instead, the company showed flat growth and was shuttered late last year rather than seeking another round of funding.

????"We were ahead of the market," Paolucci says. "It's a little early for people to be transacting in certain ways for certain kinds of work through the network. I think what we tried to achieve is going to exist at some point."

????By contrast, Paolucci is now co-founder and chairman of Slooh, a small, profitable company that connects telescopes to the Internet, broadcasting celestial events like lunar and solar eclipses. This company is on a slow-and-steady upward trajectory. "It doesn't fit the venture mold. We see it getting a little bit better every year," he says.

New or newly discovered roadblocks

????For Jill Cartwright, founder of Boston-based Go Gaga, the recession came on like a brick wall. She'd launched the ergonomic diaper bag company in 2007, and it quickly became profitable, with distribution channels throughout the U.S., Canada and Australia and business partners like Babies R Us, Diapers.com, Amazon.com, and eBags.

????But by the last half of 2010, Cartwright was losing an average of three independent boutiques a month, due to bankruptcy. With a virtual supply chain and minimal overhead, she could have dramatically scaled back and kept limping along. Instead, she decided to halt production last October.

????"Like so many entrepreneurs, I wanted the business I created to be something dynamic that was constantly evolving," she says. "I found myself so bogged down in the nuts and bolts of running the business that I wasn't growing it. This wasn't what I had envisioned for myself."

????Similarly, CEO Patrick FitzGerald was optimistic about the prospects of Reproduct, a Philadelphia-based company that recycled greeting cards into office furniture and carpets. That is, until he met with the U.S. Postal Service and learned that it would take an act of Congress to reduce the postage required for customers to return used cards for recycling. Without a lower postal rate, his business model fell apart.

????"When the 800-pound gorilla says, 'No, it's never going to happen,' you have to say, 'Okay it's done, it's a failure,' " says FitzGerald, now a lecturer at The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, who previously founded successful companies including Recyclebank. "If you embrace failure, you say, 'I'm going to shut this down and I'm going to use it for my next company.' You wasted your time if you didn't learn anything from it."