在我和共同創始人剛剛萌生創業想法之后,我的財務本能就驅使我打開Excel開始分析。在接下來的幾周中,我一直在埋頭計算單位經濟效益,構建商業模型,預測市場規模和其他數據點——例如五年收入預測和客戶擷取成本。我甚至還建模了各種價格下超過50種不同的轉化率,以證實我的假設。進行所有這些分析時,我忘記了產品本身。 天真的是,我們以為這才是建立下一家“獨角獸”公司的第一步。我們的想法是:如果我們沒有清楚地弄明白接下來如何掙錢,我們的公司就不會成功。 直到我們的第一位投資者馬克·庫班阻止我們時,我們才搞清了現實。他說:“不要計算這些數字,你們昨天就該把產品做好。”他是對的。進行分析沒問題,但產品才應該是最重要的。要是能在浪費這么多星期之前就認識到這一點,當然更好。從那時起,我們還學到了更多創業經驗: 辨別那些虛假的肯定 朋友、家人甚至陌生人都可能在沒有私心的情況下對你說謊。“這主意真棒!”“我會買的!”“我喜歡這個概念!”很少有人說:“這可能會失敗,”或“我不會買的。”作為一名有追求的企業家,不要被那些虛假的肯定誤導了。真正重要的觀點來自你的消費者,而且只有他們真正體驗過你的產品才行。想辦法讓你的消費者購買你的最小可行性產品(minimum viable product, MVP),這樣你就可以減少失敗的可能。相信我,不要理會七大姑八大姨的熱情吹捧。 迅速打造產品 按照馬克的建議,我迅速聯系了一名工程師來打造我們的第一代產品。我們想要把產品——即便它還不完美——交到消費者手中,理由很簡單:從我們的目標人群處收集購買數據。在建立技術原型之前,我們在網上進行了調查,研究了消費者的興趣,收集了許多特定數據。但出乎意料的是,在推出第一代產品后,我們發現消費者的興趣與調查結果截然相反。換句話說,消費者沒有說真話。因此,測試我們的最小可行性產品給了我們至關重要、不可替代的定性反饋,讓我們對消費者體驗、招聘需求和公司本身有了更深入的理解。從最小可行性產品測試中了解到的東西,讓我們踏上了新的行程。 不要試圖做到完美 為了做出第一代產品,我們需要變廢為寶,隨機應變。如果我們想要做出產品來收集消費者數據,我們就沒有時間去完善產品(至少現在還沒有)。所以,我們聚集在工程師的車庫里,利用二手3D打印部件、舊電腦配件和一些多余的家居用品做出了我們的產品。老實說,它很丑,但是,這個拼湊起來的機器確認了我們的銷量和定價空間,從而徹底改變了我們之前的單位經濟效益。所以,要隨機應變,不要試圖把每件事都做到最好。即便你沒有得到投資或沒有團隊,也可以打造產品。你需要的只是幾個幫助你制作最小可行性產品和研究市場需求的承包人。 如果你是一名有抱負的企業家,還有下一步的宏偉構想,你就需要真實的消費者數據。打造最小可行性產品,試試它的吸引力。如果你有真實的消費者數據,說服投資者給你的新項目或公司投資就會簡單得多。要從錯誤中吸取教訓:不要沉迷于建立美好的財務模型中。最重要的是,不要害怕打造并不成熟的產品。你可以在未來完善它,但現在,你需要收集重要的反饋,這是成功創立公司的關鍵。 杰基·德·拉·羅莎是一名企業家,也是風投支持的隱形公司BeautyTouch的共同創始人。在BeautyTouch之前,她就職于Radical Ventures風投資本,并讓公司投資組合的價值達到了5500萬美元。在波士頓地區,她積極地給創業者和他們的初創公司提供建議和指導。(財富中文網) 譯者:嚴匡正 審校:任文科 |
As soon as my cofounder and I came up with the idea for our startup, my financial instincts took over and I immediately opened Excel to run analyses. I spent the following weeks calculating the unit economics, building a business model, and guessing market size and other data points—like five-year revenue forecasts and customer acquisition costs. I even modeled more than 50 different conversion rates at various prices to confirm our assumptions. And through all of this analysis and number-crunching, I forgot about the product itself. Naively, we assumed this was the first step in creating the next unicorn. Our thinking was this: If we can’t see an up-front path to clearly making money, our business won’t succeed. Real life didn’t hit us until our first investor, Mark Cuban, stopped us and said, “Instead of projecting these figures, you should have built your product yesterday.” He was right. Analysis is all well and good, but the product should be the horse leading the cart. Of course, I wish I had realized that before wasting so many weeks. Since then, we’ve learned a few more lessons about running a startup: Recognize false positives Friends, family, and even strangers will lie to you in the most altruistic way possible. “What a fabulous idea!” “I would buy it!” “Love the concept!” Fewer will say, “That’s probably going to fail,” or, “I won’t buy that from you.” As an aspiring entrepreneur, don’t be fooled by false positives. The only opinion that really matters is your actual customers’, and even more so if they’ve been able to truly experience your product. Find a way to get your customers to purchase your initial minimum viable product (MVP), and you will reduce the possibility of failure. And believe me, try to tune out your Aunt Sally’s enthusiasm to a degree. Be quick to build Abiding by Mark’s advice, I quickly reached out to an engineer to build our first-generation product. We wanted to get something—even if it wasn’t perfect—into the hands of our customers for one simple reason: to gather purchasing data from our target demographic. Before building the prototype, we sent out online surveys to gauge customer interest and gather more specific data. To our surprise, after rolling out the first-generation product, it became clear that our consumers’ interests were totally contrary to the survey results. In other words, consumers lie. Therefore, testing our MVP gave us vital, irreplaceable, and qualitative feedback that helped shape the customer experience, our hiring needs, and our company itself. Everything we learned from our MVP testing set us on a new course. Don’t try to be perfect In order to pull together our first-generation product, we needed to scavenge and be resourceful. If we wanted to create something to gather customer data, we didn’t have time to engineer the perfect machine (at least, not yet). So, we set up shop in our engineer’s garage and fabricated our product with used 3-D printer components, old computers parts, and surplus Home Depot supplies. Honestly, the product looked ugly, but, our hacked-together machine validated our sales and pricing variables, which in turn completely changed our previous unit economics. So be resourceful and don’t try to make everything perfect. Build even if you don’t have an investment or team. All you need is a few contractors to help cobble together an MVP and gauge market demand. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur with the next big idea, you need real customer data. Build an MVP and test traction. Persuading investors to invest in your new project or company will be significantly easier when you have actual customer data. And learn from our mistakes: Don’t’ get lost in building beautiful financial models. Most importantly, don’t be afraid to build an underdeveloped product. You can advance the product in the future, but right now you want to aggregate important feedback that is critical in successfully launching your business. Jackie De La Rosa is an entrepreneur and cofounder of BeautyTouch, a venture-backed stealth company. Before BeautyTouch, she worked in venture capital for Radical Ventures and managed their portfolio valued at $55 million. She is an avid adviser and mentor for founders and their startups in the greater Boston area. |