Y Combinator致创业者的11条建议，愿你看后别再踩坑

YC给创业公司的很多建议是战术性的,针对于每日或者每周的运作有帮助。 但有一些建议更为根本。在此我们收集了一些在YC看来最重要的，最具变革潜力的创业建议。它们可能是常识，也可能是反直觉的，但相信对大多数创业公司找到成功之路都会有举足轻重的作用。

A lot of the advice we give startups is tactical; meant to be helpful on a day to day or week to week basis. But some advice is more fundamental. We’ve collected here what we at YC consider the most important, most transformative advice for startups. Whether common sense or counter-intuitive, the guidance below will help most startups find their path to success.

Launch now及时发布

我们始终告诉创始人的第一件事是立即推出他们的产品。原因很简单，这是全面了解客户问题以及产品是否满足他们需求的唯一途径。尽快推出一款普普通通的产品，然后通过和客户反复沟通交流，远比你花长时间建立一款“完美”产品要好得多。

The first thing we always tell founders is to launch their product right away; for the simple reason that this is the only way to fully understand customers’ problemsand whether the product meets their needs. Surprisingly, launching a mediocre product as soon as possible, and then talking to customers and iterating, is much better than waiting to build the “perfect” product.

Do things that don’t scale别急着规模化

许多创业顾问叫初创企业规模化的时机都有点为时过早。因为这需要通过技术和流程的建立来支持，操之过急只是在浪费时间和精力。 相反，YC会告诉创业公司去通过任何必要的手段获得他们的第一个客户。哪怕是体力活，哪怕尽能力之所及只能达到10个客户目标。在这一阶段，创始人仍需要努力摸索出自己品牌要建立的是什么样的产品，而最好的方式就是直接与客户交流。

Many startup advisors persuade startups to scale way too early. This will require the building of technology and processes to support that scaling, which, if premature, will be a waste of time and effort. Rather, we tell startups to get their first customer by any means necessary, even by manual work that couldn’t be managed for more than ten, much less 100 or 1000 customers. At this stage, founders are still trying to figure out what needs to be built and the best way to do that is talk directly to customers.

例如，Airbnb的创始人一开始提出要用专业照片使他们发布的住宿环境看起来更具吸引力。但是后来当Airbnb用房主亲自拍摄的照片之后，发布在网上的房源反而更受欢迎、转化率也更高，与客户之间更直接的“对话”取得了惊人的收获。

For example, the Airbnb founders originally offered to “professionally” photograph the homes and apartments of their earliest customers in order to make their listings more attractive to renters. Then, they went and took the photographs themselves. The listings on their site improved, conversions improved, and they had amazing conversations with their customers.

Find the 90/10 solution90/10原理

与用户交流之后通常会产生一个待完善的冗长而复杂的产品功能列表。 在这种情况下，YC合伙人Paul Buchheit给出的一个建议是寻找“90/10解决方案”。 也就是说，寻找最佳途径，投入10％的时间/精力去解决90％的需求。一个能及时解决90％真正用户问题的方案，比要花很长时间才能构建的100％解决方案要好得多。

Talking to users usually yields a long, complicated list of features to build. One piece of advice that YC partner Paul Buchheit always gives in this case is to look for the “90/10 solution”. That is, look for a way in which you can accomplish 90% of what you want with only 10% of the work/effort/time. Most importantly, a 90% solution to a real customer problem which is available right away, is much better than a 100% solution that takes ages to build.

Don't do fake work别放错重点

随着公司刚起步，常常会有一些使创始人分散精力的事情：大会，会餐，和风险投资人会面，寻求媒体报道等等。 YC的CEO（Sam Altman）将这些称为“假工作”，因为比起真正的工作它们更具玩乐性质。所以我们始终提醒创始人们，不要忘记对于初创企业来说最重要的任务就是与用户交流。

为了做出市场想要的产品，你必须先有个初具雏形的东西，然后与用户沟通看是否满足他们的需求，根据他们的反馈完善迭代。以上才是那些应该占据你几乎所有时间和注意力的事情。对于伟大的公司来说，这个循环永远不会结束。

As companies begin to grow there are often tons of potential distractions. Conferences, dinners, meeting with venture capitalists, chasing after press coverage and so on. Sam Altman calls this “fake work”, because it tends to be more fun than real work. We always remind founders not to lose sight that the most important tasks for an early stage company are to write code and talk to users.

In order to make something people want: you must launch something, talk to your users to see if it serves their needs, and then take their feedback and iterate. These tasks should occupy almost all of your time/focus. For great companies this cycle never ends.

It’s ok to fire your customers学会“炒”客户

大多数创始人可能并没有意识到他们也可以选择客户，就像客户可以选择他们一样。 我们常说，少数真正喜欢你产品的消费者远比“有点喜欢”的一大群人来得好。

换句话说，拥有10个有大问题的客户远远胜过拥有1000名有小问题的客户。所以有时候学会“炒”客户对于创业者来说也是至关重要的。投入到这些客户身上的成本可能远比他们能贡献的利润或收益要来的多。

When it comes to customers most founders don’t realize that they get to choose customers as much as customers get to choose them. We often say that a small group of customers who love you is better than a large group who kind of like you.

In other words, recruiting 10 customers who have a burning problem is much better than 1000 customers who have a passing annoyance. Sometimes it’s also critical for startups to fire their customers. Some customers can cost way more than they provide in either revenue or learning.

Growth is the result of a great product有市场的产品才有增长率

增长始终是创业公司的焦点。 然而，对于如何和何时增长往往存在误区。YC有时会被批评为了推动公司增长不惜一切代价。但事实上，我们推动的是企业与用户交流，创造客户要的产品，并且快速迭代。做好以上三件事，增长就是自然而然的事。

如果你还没有做出你的客户想要的东西 ，换句话说，没做到产品与市场匹配，增长是没有意义的。结果就是客户保持率低下。另外，如果你生产一个无利可图的产品，增长带来的仅仅只是公司现金的流失。

Growth is always a focus for startups. However, how and when to grow is often misunderstood. YC is sometimes criticized for pushing companies to grow at all costs, but in fact we push companies to talk to their users, build what they want, and iterate quickly. Growth is a natural result of doing these three things successfully.

If you have not yet made something your customers want – in other words, have found product market fit, it makes little sense to grow. Poor retention is always the result. Also, if you have an unprofitable product, growth merely drains cash from the company.

Do one thing well往细处想，往精准做

创始人们常常有这样一个直觉认知就是做得越多越好，然而最好的策略往往却是少做一些。举个例子，初创企业常常试图追求与大公司的合作，这样的合作关系似乎会很了不起。然而，事实证明大公司和创业公司之间的合作耗时长、成本高，很少有Happy Ending（对于创业者来说）。

初创企业有着罗列不完的待办事项可以去做。关键在于你要在早期确定一到两个用来衡量成功的关键指标，作为创始人你要竭尽全力集中在与这些指标息息相关的事项上。

Startup founders’ intuition will always be to do more whereas usually the best strategy is almost always to do less, really well. For example, founders are frequently tempted to chase big deals with large companies which represent amazing, company validating relationships. However, deals between large companies and tiny startups seldom end well for the startup. They take too long, cost too much, and often fail completely.

A startup will always have an infinite list of things that could be done. It is vital that very early a startupchoose the one or two key metrics it will use to measure success, then founders should choose what to do based nearly exclusively on how the task will impact those metrics.

Ignore competitors无视竞争对手

作为初创企业的创始人很难不被实际的或者潜在的竞争对手困扰。但事实证明，花时间去担心你的竞争对手往往是一个坏主意。我们常说创业公司总是死于自杀而非他杀。在未来某个时间点，关乎你公司成败的激烈竞争会到来，但很大可能这不会是在你起步的第一年或者第二年。

It is very difficult as a new startup founder not to obsess about competition, actual and potential. It turns out that spending any time worrying about your competitors is nearly always a very bad idea. We like to say that startup companies always die of suicide not murder. There will come a time when competitive dynamics are intensely important to the success or failure of your company, but it is highly unlikely to be true in the first year or two.

A few words on fund-raising关于融资

首先，最好的建议是尽快筹集资金，然后投入实际工作。不要只会看着增长曲线找融资，增长持平时更忙着找融资。

The first, best bit of advice is to raise money as quickly as possible and then get back to work. It is often easy to actually see when a company is fund-raising by looking at their growth curve and when it flattens out they are raising money.

同样重要的还有：明白你公司的估值不等于成功甚至成功的概率。YC的一些最优秀的公司的初始估值也是非常小的（Airbnb，Dropbox，Twitch，都是很好的例子）。

Equally important is to understand that valuation is not equal to success or even probability of success. Some of Y Combinator’s very best companies raised on tiny initial valuations (Airbnb, Dropbox, Twitch, are all good examples).

还有非常重要的一点，记住你筹集的钱不是你的钱。你的信托责任和道德责任只允许你将筹到的钱花在你的企业中。

By the way, it is vital to remember that the money you raise IS NOT your money. You have a fiduciary and ethical/moral duty to spend the money only to improve the prospects of your company.

Take good care of yourself善待自己

在创业过程中不可避免的疯狂生活里，保持理智也是至关重要的。所以YC总是告诉创始人们，工作再紧张、专注，也要抽时间休息、花时间陪家人朋友、得到充足睡眠还有进行锻炼。

It is also important to stay sane during the inevitable craziness of startup life. So we always tell founders to make sure they take breaks, spend time with friends and family, get enough sleep and exercise in between bouts of extraordinarily intense, focused work.

Be nice! Or at least don’t be a jerk.友善待人

铁铮铮的事实证明，大多数公司的快速失败是由合伙人之间的争吵或散伙引起的。合伙人之间的关系比你想象的要重要得多，彼此之间的坦诚沟通会大大降低未来合作破裂的可能性。当创业赢家，甚至是人生赢家，你可以做的最好的事情之一，很简单，Be nice。

It turns out most companies fail fast because founders fall out. The relationships with your co-founders matter more than you think and open, honest communications between founders makes future debacles much less likely. It turns out that one of the best things you can do to make your startup successful, in fact, to be successful in life, is to simply be nice.