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原文来自Switch VC的blog。创业公司有几十个度量指标，但是最重要也是决定走向伟大还是平庸的指标就一个：月复合增长。如果你能保持20%的月度增长2年，你的公司就会增长80倍。惊叹吧，复利！ Compounding growth is powerful. Even a modest improvement in monthly growth can lead to order-of-magnitude differences in a startup's final outcome. Consider this: a company growing at 15% monthly over four years will be 8x larger than one growing at 10%. 复合增长是强大的。即使每月的增长改善一点，也会导致创业公司最后的结果产生数量级的差别。想想看：一家公司每月增长15%，4年后它是每月增长10%的公司的8倍。 Let that sink in. It's an amazing difference. More than anything else, consistent and compounding growth drives the gap between the iconic companies that break out and those that muddle along toward mediocrity. 让我们进一步理解下。这是一个惊人的差异。持久的复合增长是最重要的原因，导致了那些脱颖而出的明星公司和逐步走向平庸的公司之间的巨大差距。 To my mind, no measure is more useful than sustained monthly growth. There are dozens of ways to measure a startup, and each has its place. But nothing is as helpful in evaluating startups across different industries and business models. It is important whether the company is building a consumer product or one for businesses—or creating a consumer, marketplace, infrastructure, eCommerce, or SaaS product. 在我看来，没有任何指标比每月的持续增长更为有用。有几十种方法来衡量创业公司，每个都有自己的用途。但没有什么能像复合增长率这个指标这么有用，可以评估不同行业和商业模式的初创公司。不管是对2C的公司还是对2B的公司，它都很重要 ——无论消费产品，交易市场，基础设施，电子商务，或SaaS产品。 The impact is striking over periods as short as one or two years, which is the time a typical seed-stage round is meant to covers. The chart below shows three monthly-growth scenarios over two years. 它的影响即使在1~2年的长度上看也是惊人的，这是一个典型的种子期覆盖的时间。下面的图显示了2年时间长度上的三种按月增长场景。 You can see how large the gap grows over these first two years. A company with 20% monthly growth is nearly an order of magnitude larger than one whose monthly growth rate is just half as fast. The gap only widens if you consider growth over longer periods of time. 你可以看到差距在头两年有多大。一个公司如果有20％的月增长率，几乎要比一个月增长率仅一半的公司大一个数量级。如果你考虑更长的时间，差距拉的更大。 So what level of growth should startups target? The short answer is it depends on their stage. Young companies grow faster as they capture early adopters. Rates of growth slow as companies mature, following a predictable S-Curve (a logistic function). Seed- and early-stage financing happens near the start of that curve, when growth rates are at their peak. 那么，创业公司应该目标什么样的增长速度呢？简短的回答是，这取决于他们的阶段。年轻的公司，因为他们获得的是早期用户，增长会比较快。随着公司的成熟，增长速度放缓，遵循可预测的S曲线（LOG函数）。种子和早期阶段融资发生在曲线开始的地方，所以增长率处于峰值。 I compiled data on some of the most successful companies in venture history to put some measure around this. I included Google, Amazon, Apple, Airbnb, WhatsApp, and Facebook. The first four focused on revenue growth from the beginning, while the latter two focused on user adoption. I measured either revenue or user growth as appropriate. 我整理了风险投资历史上最成功的一些公司的数据来做参考。我包括了谷歌，亚马逊，苹果，Airbnb，WhatsApp的和Facebook。前4个集中在开头几年的收入增长，而后2个集中在用户增长。根据情况适宜，我要么度量收入或要么度量用户增长。 All six followed a pattern of peak growth near the beginning of their life, with aggressive but slowing growth after that. These companies represent the performance watermarks most startup founders (and their investors) aim to achieve. 所有6家公司都遵循一个模式：开始的时候，是增长的顶峰，随后尽管仍然很猛，但已经放缓。这些公司代表了创业公司的创始人和投资人梦寐以求的增长的水位线。 A few rough rules of thumb can be taken away about building a huge, iconic company.
我们可以总结出一些粗略的准则，关于如何建立一家巨无霸的明星公司： - 种子阶段。持续保持20％左右的月度收入或用户的复合增长， - A轮。15％的月增长 - B轮。10％的月增长 Obviously, higher numbers are always better—who doesn't want to build the next Google? 显然，数字越高越好—谁不希望构建下一个谷歌？ Equally important is to understand your growth-rate danger zone. If you come into an early seed round with $170,000 in ARR, and you know you have 24 months to reach $5,000,000 to prepare for a Series A, you should also know the 10% monthly growth will not get you there. And while 15% will, you'd achieve it just in the nick of time—better to aim higher to buffer against obstacles along the way. 同样重要的是，要了解你成长率的危险区域。如果你处于一个早期的种子轮，有17万美金的年收入，你知道你24个月内要达到500万美金去融A轮，那么你应该知道10％的月度增长是不行的。虽然15％的增长率可以，但也是勉勉强强够到—最好把目标设定的更高来缓冲路上可能遇到的障碍。 This simple table may help you think about what you need to be driving to hit your milestones. Calculate the monthly growth targets that are right for your startup. 这个简单的表格可以帮助你思考你需要什么样的增长速度达到你的下一个里程碑。你可以计算适合你的月复合增长率。 Growth is not the only performance metric that matters, of course. Revenue quality matters, such as organic and purchased growth, margins, churn, and so forth. User growth must consider frequency and time spent engaged, rates of loss and retention, etcetera. While there are dozens of metrics to consider, which ones matter depends on the nature of the business. 成长当然不是唯一重要的业绩指标。收入的质量也很重要，比如有机和购买的增长，利润率，客户流失等等。用户增长还必须考虑频率和花费的时长，用户流失和留存率等等。虽然有几十个指标可以考虑，哪一个重要还是取决于商业的性质。 But remember this: For most startups, compounding growth is the most important metric of all. 但是，要记住一点：对于大多数初创企业，复合增长是所有指标中的最重要的指标。 愉悦资本是新一代的VC基金，由刘二海、李潇、戴汨创立，我们是创始人也是投资经理；愉悦资本，创始人和创始人对话。 |
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