斯坦福商学院创业工厂解密

    团队成员走出课堂，通过采访潜在客户，业内其他企业和专家等方式取得进步。第一个月结束时，学生们会确定用户群体和市场需要，最终产生一个独特的见解，足以使他们确信自己能够以一种新的方式解决客户的需求。

    如果学生带到潜在客户面前的第一个产品原型不能奏效，那就意味着“你没有理解他们的痛点——你还没有解决5件或10个问题，”赞尼奥斯说。随后，学生们重返创业车库，继续修改。

    这门课程的核心是来自创业车库指导老师的不断审议和反馈。这支指导团队共4人，其中包括席格曼，以及另外两位风险资本投资人萨尔•古尔和理查德•林。上课时，他们在团队间来回走动，提供指导意见。古尔是查尔斯河风险投资公司(Charles River Ventures)的普通合伙人。林是斯坦福商学院MBA，三拱门风投公司(Three Arch Partners)合伙人，他曾经在加州大学旧金山分校医学院(UCSF School of Medicine)和哈佛医学院(Harvard Medical School)从事科研工作。

    负责协调课程日常运作的创业车库副主任瑞安•普赖斯说，赞尼奥斯与这三位风投精英的合作已经取得了非常好的效果。有时候，老师本人也会成为投资人。

    去年，创业工厂学生托尼•徐和埃文•摩尔计划并测试了一个名为DoorDash的创意，尝试把圣荷西/南湾地区的餐厅和送外卖的司机联系起来。

    几位学生在冬季学期花了一些工夫，研究餐厅外卖的经济性，尝试着计算他们每小时需要交付多少订单才能盈利。随后，徐和摩尔连同另外两名斯坦福学生一起创办了DoorDash公司。

    2013年9月，毕业仅仅几个月后，他们就获得了230万美元的风投资金，主要投资者包括科斯拉风投公司(Khosla Venture)的基思•拉布伊斯和查尔斯河风投公司的古尔。

    古尔和赞尼奥斯确信，创业精神是可以传授的。“如果把创业分解为一个过程，就可以教人们创业，”赞尼奥斯说。“可以教不同的创业要素，这样它就变得不那么吓人。还可以帮助学生了解在创业的每一个步骤会发生什么事情。”（财富中文网）

    译者：叶寒

    Teams progress by interviewing potential customers, other businesses in their space, and industry experts -- hitting the pavement outside of class. At the end of the first month, students identify their user, the market need, and a unique insight that makes them believe they can address a customer need in a new way.

    If the first prototype brought in front of potential customers doesn't work, it means "you don't understand their pain point -- there are five or 10 things you are not addressing," Zenios says. The students go back and revise.

    At the core of the course is constant review and feedback from the Startup Garage team of four instructors, which includes Siegelman and fellow venture capital investors Saar Gur and Richard Lin, who move from team to team during class. Gur is a general partner at Charles River Ventures. Lin, a Stanford MBA, is a former research scientist at the UCSF School of Medicine and Harvard Medical School, and a partner at Three Arch Partners.

    Pairing Zenios with these three successful investors has worked well, says Startup Garage assistant director Ryann Price, who coordinates the day-to-day operations of the course. Sometimes, the teachers become investors.

    Last year, Startup Garage students Tony Xu and Evan Moore were planning and testing the idea behind DoorDash, which matches local restaurants with drivers who deliver takeout in the San Jose/South Bay area.

    The students spent hours during the winter quarter studying the economics of restaurant takeout, trying to figure out how many orders they needed to deliver per hour to run a profitable business. Xu and Moore went on to launch DoorDash with two other Stanford students.

    In September 2013, just months after graduation, Khosla Ventures' Keith Rabois and Charles River Ventures's Gur led DoorDash's $2.3 funding round.

    Gur and Zenios clearly believe that entrepreneurship can be taught. "If you break it down as a process, then you can teach it," Zenios says. "You can teach people the different elements and it becomes less intimidating. You can teach them what to expect from every part of the process."