Y Combinator合伙人,世界級創新大師邁克爾·賽博爾為參加硅谷TechConneXt峰會的企業家們上了一堂精彩紛呈的創業課。Y Combinator是一家種子加速器,曾推動多家初創公司獲得驚人的成功。賽博爾以已故的塞隆尼斯·孟克表演爵士樂《勇往直前》(straight no chaser)的方式,分享了一些關于科技創業的教益。 創業者渴望聽到賽博爾的建議有諸多原因。首先,他利用自己的技術和商業才能共同創辦和運營了Socialcam(2012年以6000萬美元的價格售出)和Justin.tv/Twitch(2014年被收購,成交價高達9.7億美元)等公司?,F在,他成為YC合伙人。從軟件行業到航空航天業,這個創業孵化器每六個月資助100到120家公司,涉及各種領域。此外,非洲裔美國企業家可能尤其贊賞賽博爾的想法:“我希望每個找到YC的少數族裔創始人,都能躋身行業前20%。我希望每個少數族裔的創始人都能擁有優秀的團隊,迅速成長,并占據一個龐大的市場,讓那些以創始人種族為由不愿投資的投資人變得像白癡一樣。” 他稱,在YC投資的公司中大約15%的團隊有黑人或拉丁裔創始人——這在硅谷風險投資圈前所未聞。 在他20分鐘的講話中,他道出了在硅谷掙扎、生存和成功的真相:“這不是實現夢想的地方。這是個賺錢的地方?!彪m然他說得略顯直白,但事實證明,賽博爾的坦率令人耳目一新,而且他言語幽默又振奮人心。 在以下經過編輯的摘錄中,我們挑選了他在TechConneXt的分享中七大要點: 走上創業之路 如果有人要創業,我會告訴他們先準備夠花一年的現金。年輕時這很容易做到,跟兩個、三個或四個室友住在一起,吃一年拉面花不了太多錢。但你得愿意辭去目前的工作。我們經常說的一句話是,“如果你不是100%投入,怎么能期待我們這樣做?”這些先決條件真的、真的、真的很難。這是人們正在尋找的模式。我要告訴你的是,帶上你應用到產品中的所有天賦,開始思考如何讓自己適應這種生活。 拋棄那種憑借創意就能獲得融資的幻想 創意會改變; 創意是一種商品,課堂里正在講授的課程都是錯的。事實并不是你想出一個好主意就能得到錢,然后做出點什么東西。這不過是一個謊言。你與誰共事才是最主要的。當你考慮做什么時,我會建議他們跟有可能成為聯合創始人的朋友先認真討論下,如果你們都能興奮起來,好啦!跟你一起聊的人就是你的創業伙伴。 熱衷于解決問題 創意是一種解決方案。第一個解決方案不會太好,但沒關系。投資者完全可以接受。如果你對要解決的問題沒有熱情,你就不會想出第二個、第三個、第四個、第五個想法。如果你的客戶每天都碰到一個問題,而不是隔天才碰到一個問題,你就擁有多得多的機會為他們提供幫助。 了解你的市場規模 每個投資者都想知道你的市場規模。為什么?答案很簡單。你得把公司發展到十億美元的估值,投資人才能賺到錢,如果市場很小,打造價值十億美元的公司就很難。有兩種方法可以做到這一點。如果你要進入已存在的市場就容易些。比如你要建一家在線小型商業銀行,只要在線查詢小型企業銀行市場規模,砰!你就知道你的市場多大。如果你想創業的領域之前不存在,就要弄清楚有多少潛在客戶,你計劃每年收取多少費用,砰!市場規模有了。這不是什么艱深學問,只是不知不覺踢你出局的潛規則之一。 拿出最簡可行產品 最簡可行產品(MPV)。一旦你成立起團隊,做出了一款有瑕疵的產品,這就是你需要著手解決的事情。說清楚些,不是從一開始就要這么干。你不要說,“我要請人做個MVP,證明是個好點子后組建團隊。”有七個原因可以證明這樣做不對,但其中最重要的一個是大多數投資者不會投資。然而,你需要他們的資金。大多數投資人一看到外包開發團隊就會說,“不,謝謝你?!弊詈喛尚挟a品是你第一次有機會把產品展示給用戶,那一刻的確令人提心吊膽。很多人選擇拖延,因為他們認為,“如果我發布了一款糟糕的產品,業務可能永遠沒法順利起步?!笔聦嵣希恍┥虡I專家確實就此討論過。這完全是胡說。很少有人記得谷歌什么時候上線。也很少有人記得亞馬遜或Facebook什么時候上的線。人家現在都做得很好。做出什么就趕緊交給用戶。如果你正在解決客戶經常遇到的視頻問題,你的產品再爛他們也會用,總好過沒得用。從這一點開始,你會了解到他們喜歡什么,不喜歡什么,產品就會逐漸改進。 了解啟動和控制權的價值 我們要告訴創業公司的是:“啟動之前你們什么都不是”。我不想聽你的想法。我不想聽你的偉大戰略。我不想聽到你的偉大幻想。我只想聽到你的公司已經啟動了。然后我們可以談一談。現在,成立一家公司要比以前便宜得多。我一直想告訴創業者,要掌握控制權。不要把控制權拱手讓與投資者。如果你告訴我這樣一個不錯的投資者,拿到我的錢后才能啟動公司,那么控制權就握在我手里。我會不慌不忙,甚至先去度個假。如果你告訴我你們已經啟動了,那我就得留心了,因為下一次你再來跟我談時,你的公司可能已經成長起來,價格自然也更高。你的產品上線會讓我恐懼,而恐懼是讓別人認真對待你的好辦法,比喜愛有效多了。 要么成長,要么死亡 從啟動那一刻起的每一周,如果沒有成長就是在走向死亡。這事不復雜。我們會做很多準備和額外工作幫你成長。創業公司時時刻刻面臨著失敗。你會問,“為什么沒實現每周成長?” 你永遠也解決不完技術問題,永遠也解決不完經營問題,永遠處理不完人事問題。公司越大,問題就越多,這是必然的。所以還不如專心成長。此外,我曾經得到的最好建議之一是,成長是樹立企業文化的第一要務。每個人都想加入贏家的團隊,而一個致力于成功的團隊每周都在成長。(財富中文網) 譯者:Peter Pei 審校:夏林 |
Entrepreneurs who attended our Silicon Valley-based TechConneXt Summit were treated to a master class from Michael Seibel, a partner at Y Combinator, the seed accelerator that’s propelled scores of startups to stratospheric heights. This world-class innovator offered lessons on tech entrepreneurship the way the late Thelonious Monk played jazz—straight no chaser. There are a number of reasons why company founders covet Seibel’s advice. For one, he’s applied his technical chops and business prowess to co-found and operate Socialcam, acquired for $60 million in 2012, and Justin.tv/Twitch, purchased for $970 million in 2014. Today, he’s affiliated with YC, which has funded 100 to 120 companies in a range of sectors—from software to aerospace—every six months. Moreover, African American entrepreneurs can fully appreciate Seibel’s approach: “I want every minority founder that goes to YC, to be in the top 20% of the batch. I want every minority founder to have such a good team, so much growth, such a big market that investors look like idiots if they let race get in the way of making an investment.” At YC, he says roughly 15% of its portfolio companies have either a black or Latino founder—unheard-of within the Silicon Valley venture community. In his 20-minute talk, he laid out the real deal of scratching, surviving and making it in the Valley: “This place is not about realizing your dreams. This place is about making money.” And although blunt in his delivery, Seibel proved to be refreshing, engaging, and motivational in his candor. In the following edited excerpts, we reveal seven powerful nuggets he shared at TechConneXt: Take the entrepreneurial journey I tend to tell people they need to have a year’s worth of cash. When you’re younger, this is a lot easier, this is like a year’s worth of cash to live with two, three, four roommates and eat ramen. You need to be willing to quit your job. One of the things we say all the time is that “If you’re not in 100%, how do you expect us to be?” These prerequisites are really, really, really hard. It’s the pattern that people are looking for. What I would tell you is take all the genius you’re applying to the product and start thinking about how you can get yourself set up in this kind of life. Discard the myth you’ll gain financing on the strength of your idea: Ideas change; ideas are a commodity, and the lesson that’s being taught out there in the world is just simply wrong. It’s not you come up with a genius idea and you get the money and then you build something. That’s just a lie. Whom you’re working with is primary. When you think about what you want to work on, I tend to tell people to brainstorm the problems with people who you might want to be your co-founders because when you all get excited, bam, the same people you’re brainstorming with can be the people you can start a company with. Be passionate about problem solving: Ideas are solutions. The first solution that can be released won’t be good, and that’s OK. Investors are completely happy with that. If you’re not passionate about the problem that you’re solving, you’re not going to be coming up with the second, third, fourth, fifth idea. You have so many more opportunities to help your customer if they have a problem every day than if they have a problem every other day. Know the size of your market: One question every investor wants to know is how big is your market. There’s a very simple answer to why. They don’t make money unless you build a billion-dollar company and it’s hard to build a billion-dollar company in a small market. There’s really two ways of doing this. It’s really easy if you’re building a company in a space that already exists. Let’s say you’re building an online small business bank. All you have to do is look up online how big small business banking is and, bam, you know your market size. If you’re looking up something that never existed before all you have to do is figure out how many potential customers there are, how much you’re going to charge per year and, bam, there’s your market size. This isn’t rocket science but it’s one of those sneaky things that can disqualify you without you really knowing. Achieve MVP status: Minimal Viable Product. Once you have that team and once you have that product that has a problem you will solve, this is what you get to work on. Let’s be clear, you don’t start with this. You don’t say, “Let me hire someone to build an MVP and prove that there’s something good here, and then hire my team.” There are seven different reasons why that’s a bad idea but the most important one is most investors will not invest. You need their money. Most of them will look at outsource development team and say, “No thank you.” When you think about your minimal viable product, this is the first opportunity you have to get something in customer’s hands and it’s very scary. A lot of people delay this because they think, “If I release something that sucks, I’ll never be able to get my business off the ground.” In fact, some business gurus talk about this. It’s complete bulls**t. Very few of you remember the day that Google GOOGL -0.79% launched. Very few of you remember the day that Amazon AMZN 0.19% launched or the day that Facebook launched. Those guys are doing pretty well. Just get anything in your customer’s hands. If you’re solving a video problem that the customers have often, they will use whatever piece of crap you release because it’s better than nothing. Then from that point forward you’ll learn what they like and what they don’t, and you’ll make it better. Learn the value of launching and leverage: What we tell startups: “You’re nothing until you launch.” I don’t want to hear about your idea. I don’t want to hear about your great strategy. I don’t want to hear about your delusions of grandeur. I want to hear you launched. Then we can have a conversation. Nowadays, launching is significantly less expensive. One thing I always try to tell founders is that you want to own leverage. You don’t want to give the investor the leverage. If you tell me—this good investor—that you can’t launch until you have my money, now I have all the leverage. I can take my time. I can go on vacation. If you tell me we’ve already launched, well now I’ve got to pay attention because the next time you talk to me, you might be growing and the price might go up. By launching, you put fear into me and fear is a great way to get someone to take you seriously. Way better than love. Grow or die: The second that you launch, every week that you’re not growing, you’re dying. Don’t think about this as some kind of complicated setup. We have to do a lot of prep work and a lot of extra stuff to prepare yourself to grow. A startup is constantly in the state of failure. You say, “Why doesn’t it grow every week?” You’ll never get ahead of your technical debt. You’ll never get ahead of your operational problems. You’ll never get ahead of your personnel problems. The bigger you are, the more problems you will have, guaranteed. So you might as well grow. Also, one of the best pieces of advice I ever got was that growth was the No. 1 thing to help start your culture. Everyone wants to be on the winning team, and a winning team grows every week. |