创业者说

以下是Marc Andreessen多年前的一篇经典文章，最近收集一些资料时顺便简单的翻译了一下。上图是今年Marc在Wired的封面照（该图很可能涉及侵权，随时准备好把图片下架，呵呵），The Man Who Makes The Future。

The Pmarca Guide to Startups, part 4: The only thing that matters

Pmarca初创公司指南，第4部分：唯一重要的事情

 

This post is all about the only thing that matters for a new startup.

这篇博客是关于初创公司唯一重要的事情

But first, some theory:

但首先，一些理论：

If you look at a broad cross-section of startups — say, 30 or 40 or more; enough to screen out the pure flukes and look for patterns — two obvious facts will jump out at you.

如果你去观察更广的不同领域的初创企业，例如，30家、40家或者更多；数量足以筛除纯粹的运气，并寻找其中的模式——两个非常明显的事实会蹦到你面前。

First obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of success — some of those startups are insanely successful, some highly successful, many somewhat successful, and quite a few of course outright fail.

第一个明显事实：这世上的成功有着难以置信的差异：初创公司中一些成功得一塌糊涂，一些高度成功，很多还算成功，而相当数量的当然是直线坠落了。

Second obvious fact: there is an incredibly wide divergence of caliber and quality for the three core elements of each startup — team, product, and market.

第二个明显事实：每个初创公司在最核心元素——团队、产品和市场——能力和质量上也有着难以置信的差异。

At any given startup, the team will range from outstanding to remarkably flawed; the product will range from a masterpiece of engineering to barely functional; and the market will range from booming to comatose.

对任何一个初创公司，团队都处在西班牙队与中国队两个极端中任何可能的一点；产品则处在巧夺天工与糟糕透顶两个极端中任何可能的一点；而市场则从蓄势待发到夕阳西下之间；

And so you start to wonder — what correlates the most to success — team, product, or market? Or, more bluntly, what causes success? And, for those of us who are students of startup failure — what’s most dangerous: a bad team, a weak product, or a poor market?

于是你开始好奇，究竟什么与成功最为关联——团队，产品还是市场？或者更粗暴点，什么导致了成功？对我们这些享用过初创失败的学生——什么是最危险的：一支糟糕的团队？一个孱弱的产品？还是一个悲剧的市场？

Let’s start by defining terms.

让我们从定义术语开始。

The caliber of a startup team can be defined as the suitability of the CEO, senior staff, engineers, and other key staff relative to the opportunity in front of them.

一个初创团队的能力可以定义为CEO的合适程度，资深的员工，工程师，和其他与所面对的机遇相关的关键员工。

You look at a startup and ask, will this team be able to optimally execute against their opportunity? I focus on effectiveness as opposed to experience, since the history of the tech industry is full of highly successful startups that were staffed primarily by people who had never “done it before”.

你观察一个初创公司并问道，这个团队有能力在面对他们的机会时具备最优的执行力吗？我关注的是有效性而不是经验，因为高科技工业的历史充满的是这样的高度成功的公司，那里主要由一群“从没干过这事”的人掌握着。

The quality of a startup’s product can be defined as how impressive the product is to one customer or user who actually uses it: How easy is the product to use? How feature rich is it? How fast is it? How extensible is it? How polished is it? How many (or rather, how few) bugs does it have?

初创公司的产品质量可以被定义为对于那些确实使用它的用户/客户，它究竟能有多“令人印象深刻”：产品有多易用？功能多丰富？运行的有多快？扩展性有多好？有多雅致？有多少功能问题？

The size of a startup’s market is the the number, and growth rate, of those customers or users for that product.

初创公司的市场大小指的是产品的用户/客户的数目和增长率。

(Let’s assume for this discussion that you can make money at scale — that the cost of acquiring a customer isn’t higher than the revenue that customer will generate.)

（为了这里的讨论我们假设你可以规模化的赚钱——即获取一个用户的成本不会高于这个用户产生的收入。）

Some people have been objecting to my classification as follows: “How great can a product be if nobody wants it?” In other words, isn’t the quality of a product defined by how appealing it is to lots of customers?

一些人反对我的分类：如果没人想要，一个产品怎么叫做伟大？换句话说，难道产品的质量不是由她能吸引众多客户的程度来定义的吗？

No. Product quality and market size are completely different.

不。产品质量和市场大小是完全不同的。

Here’s the classic scenario: the world’s best software application for an operating system nobody runs. Just ask any software developer targeting the market for BeOS, Amiga, OS/2, or NeXT applications what the difference is between great product and big market.

这里有一个经典的场景：世界上最好却无人使用的操作系统软件。只要问问任何面向BeOS，Amiga，OS/2或者NeXT市场的软件开发者，伟大的产品和巨大的市场之间的区别是什么。

So:

于是：

If you ask entrepreneurs or VCs which of team, product, or market is most important, many will say team. This is the obvious answer, in part because in the beginning of a startup, you know a lot more about the team than you do the product, which hasn’t been built yet, or the market, which hasn’t been explored yet.

如果你问企业家或VC，团队、产品或市场哪个最重要，很多会回答团队。这是个明显的答案，部分因为在一个初创团队起步阶段，你对团队的了解要远远多于你对产品（还没构建好），你对市场（还未被发掘）的了解。

Plus, we’ve all been raised on slogans like “people are our most important asset” — at least in the US, pro-people sentiments permeate our culture, ranging from high school self-esteem programs to the Declaration of Independence’s inalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness — so the answer that team is the most important feels right.

而且，我们都是在这样的信条下长大：“人是我们最重要的资本”——至少在美国，对人的“钟爱”渗入我们的文化，从高中的自我尊严的课程到独立宣言里对生命、自由和快乐追求的天赋人权——于是，团队最重要让人感觉是正确的。

And who wants to take the position that people don’t matter?

而且谁愿意站在一个认为“人不重要”的立场呢？

On the other hand, if you ask engineers, many will say product. This is a product business, startups invent products, customers buy and use the products. Apple and Google are the best companies in the industry today because they build the best products. Without the product there is no company. Just try having a great team and no product, or a great market and no product. What’s wrong with you? Now let me get back to work on the product.

而另一方面，如果你问工程师，很多人会说产品。这是因为，在一个产品为基础的商业里，初创公司创造产品，客户购买使用产品。苹果和谷歌成为今天最牛逼公司，因为它们构建了最棒的产品。没有产品就没有公司。试试弄支没有产品的伟大的团队，或者一个没有产品的庞大的市场。你秀逗了吗？让我继续搞产品吧。

Personally, I’ll take the third position — I’ll assert that market is the most important factor in a startup’s success or failure.

就个人来说，我选择第三种立场——我断言市场是一个创业团队成功或失败最重要的因素。

In a great market — a market with lots of real potential customers — the market pulls product out of the startup.

在一个伟大的市场——一个充满了真正庞大的潜在客户的市场——市场会将产品从初创团队里“拉”出来。

The market needs to be fulfilled and the market will be fulfilled, by the first viable product that comes along.

市场需要被满足也一定会被满足，只要第一个“可用”的产品横空出世。

The product doesn’t need to be great; it just has to basically work. And, the market doesn’t care how good the team is, as long as the team can produce that viable product.

这个产品不需要伟大；它只要能基本运作。而且，市场也不在乎这个团队有多强，只要这个团队能制作出可用的产品。

In short, customers are knocking down your door to get the product; the main goal is to actually answer the phone and respond to all the emails from people who want to buy.

简而言之，客户是敲着你的门来要产品；而你最主要的目标是切实的接起电话，回复邮件给那些想买产品的人。

And when you have a great market, the team is remarkably easy to upgrade on the fly.

而当你有一个伟大的市场，团队在短期内升级简直易如反掌。

This is the story of search keyword advertising, and Internet auctions, and TCP/IP routers.

这就是关键字广告、互联网拍卖和TCP/IP路由器的故事。

Conversely, in a terrible market, you can have the best product in the world and an absolutely killer team, and it doesn’t matter — you’re going to fail.

相反，在一个糟糕的市场，你能够拥有这个世界上最棒的产品和见佛杀佛的团队，但这也不能怎样——你注定要失败

You’ll break your pick for years trying to find customers who don’t exist for your marvelous product, and your wonderful team will eventually get demoralized and quit, and your startup will die.

为了你那亮瞎双眼的产品你会花上无谓的数年去寻找并不存在的客户，你的神奇团队最终会在士气低落后自由转会，而你的初创公司也就此落幕。

This is the story of videoconferencing, and workflow software, and micro payments.

这就是视频会议，工作流软件和微支付的故事。

In honor of Andy Rachleff, formerly of Benchmark Capital, who crystallized this formulation for me, let me present Rachleff’s Law of Startup Success:

向曾经高就于Benchmark的Andy Rachleff致意，他帮我理清了这个公式，允许我在这里陈述“Rachleff的初创成功法则”

 

The #1 company-killer is lack of market.

公司第1大杀手是缺乏市场

Andy puts it this way:

Andy是这样描述的：

• When a great team meets a lousy market, market wins.
• 当一个伟大的团队遇到一个见鬼的市场，市场胜
• When a lousy team meets a great market, market wins.
• 当一个见鬼的团队遇到一个伟大的市场，市场胜
• When a great team meets a great market, something special happens.
• 当一个伟大的团队遇到一个伟大的市场，某些特别的事情就会发生

You can obviously screw up a great market — and that has been done, and not infrequently — but assuming the team is baseline competent and the product is fundamentally acceptable, a great market will tend to equal success and a poor market will tend to equal failure. Market matters most.

明显你可以弄糟一个伟大的市场——有人干过，而且也不是那么少见——但假设一个团队至少具备基本的能力，而产品也基本可以接受，那么一个伟大的市场会倾向于把他们与成功划等号，而一个可怜的市场则倾向于把他们与失败划等号。市场最重要。

And neither a stellar team nor a fantastic product will redeem a bad market.

而无论是巴萨般的团队还是神一般的产品都不能救赎一个糟糕的市场。

OK, so what?

那又如何？

Well, first question: Since team is the thing you have the most control over at the start, and everyone wants to have a great team, what does a great team actually get you?

好吧，第一个问题：既然团队是你最开始最能掌握的事情，而所有人都希望有一个伟大的团队，那么一个伟大的团队究竟能带给你什么？
Hopefully a great team gets you at least an OK product, and ideally a great product.

但愿一个伟大的团队至少能带给你一个还行的产品，理想点，一个伟大的产品。

However, I can name you a bunch of examples of great teams that totally screwed up their products. Great products are really, really hard to build.

但是，我可以拉出一大坨的例子，伟大的团队完全搞砸了他们的产品。创造伟大的产品真的真的非常非常难。

Hopefully a great team also gets you a great market — but I can also name you lots of examples of great teams that executed brilliantly against terrible markets and failed. Markets that don’t exist don’t care how smart you are.

但愿一个伟大的团队可以带给你伟大的市场——但我也可以给你拉出另一大坨的例子，精英版的团队在糟糕的市场完美的执行最后沦为失败（让巴萨踢中超吗？），一个不存在的市场不关心你是不是乔布斯。

In my experience, the most frequent case of great team paired with bad product and/or terrible market is the second- or third-time entrepreneur whose first company was a huge success. People get cocky, and slip up. There is one high-profile, highly successful software entrepreneur right now who is burning through something like $80 million in venture funding in his latest startup and has practically nothing to show for it except for some great press clippings and a couple of beta customers — because there is virtually no market for what he is building.

以我的经验，伟大的团队傍上屎一般的产品和/或市场的案例里最常见的是第二次或第三次创业，而第一家公司又有巨大成功的人。人都会变得自鸣得意，然后翘尾巴。这儿正有个超成功的软件创业者在他最新的一家创业公司里烧着风投8千多万美元的投资，而除了几个beta客户和媒体报道外基本什么也没做出来，因为他正为一个虚无缥缈的市场构建产品。

Conversely, I can name you any number of weak teams whose startups were highly successful due to explosively large markets for what they were doing.

对比之下，我可以举出大量较弱的团队，因为一个爆炸性的市场而取得极大的成功。（看？那不是群风口飞起来的粉红猪吗？）

Finally, to quote Tim Shephard: “A great team is a team that will always beat a mediocre team, given the same market and product.”

最后，引用Tim Shephard：同样的市场和产品，一支伟大的团队永远能击败一支中庸的团队

 

Second question: Can’t great products sometimes create huge new markets?

第二个问题：伟大的产品有时能创造庞大的新市场吗？

Absolutely.

绝对的。

This is a best case scenario, though.

然而，这是最佳案例中描述的情景

VMWare is the most recent company to have done it — VMWare’s product was so profoundly transformative out of the gate that it catalyzed a whole new movement toward operating system virtualization, which turns out to be a monster market.

VMWare是取得这一成就的公司——VMWare的产品带来如此深刻的变革，导致其催化了操作系统虚拟化的新运动，而这最终导致了一个巨兽般的市场。

And of course, in this scenario, it also doesn’t really matter how good your team is, as long as the team is good enough to develop the product to the baseline level of quality the market requires and get it fundamentally to market.

当然，这个场景里，同样不在于你有多好的团队，只要团队能够开发出满足市场需求的基线级产品，并投放市场。

Understand I’m not saying that you should shoot low in terms of quality of team, or that VMWare’s team was not incredibly strong — it was, and is. I’m saying, bring a product as transformative as VMWare’s to market and you’re going to succeed, full stop.

请理解，我不是说你应该在团队质量上低标准，或者VMWare的团队不是特么的牛逼——他们绝对是牛逼滴。我是说，将一个如VMWare这样变革性产品带到市场，你就会成功，仅此而已。

Short of that, I wouldn’t count on your product creating a new market from scratch.

而简单的说，我不指望你的产品能从头开始创造一个新市场。

 

Third question: as a startup founder, what should I do about all this?

第三个问题：作为一个创始人，我该为此做些什么？

Let’s introduce Rachleff’s Corollary of Startup Success:

让我们介绍Rachleff的初创成功法则推论：

The only thing that matters is getting to product/market fit.

唯一重要的事情是达到产品/市场契合

Product/market fit means being in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market.

产品/市场契合意味着一个好的市场“配合”以一个能够满足该市场的产品

You can always feel when product/market fit isn’t happening. The customers aren’t quite getting value out of the product, word of mouth isn’t spreading, usage isn’t growing that fast, press reviews are kind of “blah”, the sales cycle takes too long, and lots of deals never close.

当产品/市场契合尚未发生时，你总能感觉到。客户并没能完全从产品中得到价值，口碑没有传播起来，使用增长的不是那么快，媒体报道总是有那么些夸夸其谈，而销售周期太长，很多业务总是结算不了。

And you can always feel product/market fit when it’s happening. The customers are buying the product just as fast as you can make it — or usage is growing just as fast as you can add more servers. Money from customers is piling up in your company checking account. You’re hiring sales and customer support staff as fast as you can. Reporters are calling because they’ve heard about your hot new thing and they want to talk to you about it. You start getting entrepreneur of the year awards from Harvard Business School. Investment bankers are staking out your house. You could eat free for a year at Buck’s.

当市场/产品契合发生时，你也总能感觉到。客户购买产品的速度和你生产速度一样块——或者使用量和你添加服务器的速度一样快。从客户那送来的钱不断的堆进公司账户里。你以最快的速度雇佣销售和客户支持。记者不停打电话因为他们希望知道你最热最新的产品，他们希望知道你的观点。你开始从哈佛商学院年度企业家奖。你可以享受在海底捞免费一年的霸王餐。

Lots of startups fail before product/market fit ever happens.

很多初创公司在产品/市场契合发生前就失败了。

My contention, in fact, is that they fail because they never get to product/market fit.

我的论点，事实上，他们失败就是因为他们无法达到产品/市场契合

Carried a step further, I believe that the life of any startup can be divided into two parts: before product/market fit (call this “BPMF”) and after product/market fit (“APMF”).

说的远点，我相信任何初创公司的生命可以分为两个部分：产品/市场契合前；产品/市场契合后。

When you are BPMF, focus obsessively on getting to product/market fit.

当你处在产品/市场契合前，疯狂聚焦于达到产品/市场契合

Do whatever is required to get to product/market fit. Including changing out people, rewriting your product, moving into a different market, telling customers no when you don’t want to, telling customers yes when you don’t want to, raising that fourth round of highly dilutive venture capital — whatever is required.

做任何可以达到产品/市场契合所必须的一切。包括换人，重写产品，转移市场，即使你不想也告诉客户“不行”，即使你不想也告诉用户“可以”，进行第四轮高稀释的融资——任何必须的行动。

When you get right down to it, you can ignore almost everything else.

当你正中目标了，你可以忽略几乎其他任何事情。

I’m not suggesting that you do ignore everything else — just that judging from what I’ve seen in successful startups, you can.

我不是在建议你忽略其他任何事情——只是从我已见的成功初创公司来判断，你可以这么做。

Whenever you see a successful startup, you see one that has reached product/market fit — and usually along the way screwed up all kinds of other things, from channel model to pipeline development strategy to marketing plan to press relations to compensation policies to the CEO sleeping with the venture capitalist. And the startup is still successful.

无论何时你发现一个成功的初创公司，你看到的是一个达到产品/市场契合的公司——而且经常伴随着对其他所有事情的“践踏”，从渠道模型到（客户）管道发展策略，到市场规划，到媒体关系，到补偿政策，直到CEO献身VC这事。而初创公司依旧成功。

Conversely, you see a surprising number of really well-run startups that have all aspects of operations completely buttoned down, HR policies in place, great sales model, thoroughly thought-through marketing plan, great interview processes, outstanding catered food, 30″ monitors for all the programmers, top tier VCs on the board — heading straight off a cliff due to not ever finding product/market fit.

相反的，你可以看到数量惊人的确实日常运营不错的初创公司，把运营各方面做得丝丝入扣，HR政策，销售模型，完备完备的市场规划，面试流程，迎宾食物，每个程序员30英寸显示屏，顶级VC坐镇董事会——直线撞入央视大裤衩就因为从未找到产品/市场契合。

Ironically, once a startup is successful, and you ask the founders what made it successful, they will usually cite all kinds of things that had nothing to do with it. People are terrible at understanding causation. But in almost every case, the cause was actually product/market fit.

讽刺的是，一旦一个初创公司成功，而你询问创始人是什么造就了它的成功，他们经常会引用各种与之无关的事来作答。人对因果关系的理解极其糟糕。但几乎每个案例中，原因实际上是产品/市场契合。

Because, really, what else could it possibly be?

因为，说真的，还能是什么呢？

 

[Editorial note: this post obviously raises way more questions than it answers. How exactly do you go about getting to product/market fit if you don't hit it right out of the gate? How do you evaluate markets for size and quality, especially before they're fully formed? What actually makes a product "fit" a market? What role does timing play? How do you know when to change strategy and go after a different market or build a different product? When do you need to change out some or all of your team? And why can't you count on on a great team to build the right product and find the right market? All these topics will be discussed in future posts in this series.]

【编者按：这篇文章提出的问题显然大大多于它所能回答的。如果你没有一击中的，那你究竟如何能够达到产品/市场契合？你如何评估市场的大小与质量，特别是当其还未完全形成以前？究竟什么使得一个产品“契合”一个市场？时机究竟扮演了怎样的角色？你如何知道何时改变策略并以不同的产品去追寻另一个市场？合适需要改变部分或所有的团队？而为什么你无法依赖一支伟大的团队构建一个正确的产品来找到正确的市场？所有这些话题会在这一系列中以后的文章里讨论】