初创科技公司的得与予

    初创公司因那些慷慨得不可思议的福利而出名，从针灸到私人厨师，从摇滚音乐厅到健身球办公椅，应有尽有，甚至还有帮你在家里等待有线电视安装工的私人助理。曾有一度，纽约电子商务初创公司Fab.com每周都有抽奖活动，给员工发放500美元现金。位于加利福尼亚州雷德伍德城的软件初创公司Evernote会给假期被工作占用的员工1,000美元的补偿。

    这些做法都是为了招聘并留住人才。初创公司清楚，他们要与大型的上市科技公司争夺人才，而后者甚至可以提供更优厚的福利，比如可流通的股票期权。最近，苹果（Apple）和Facebook宣布，他们将为女员工支付冷冻卵子的费用。

    但与此同时，初创公司自身也是福利政策的受益者，服务供应商、大型科技公司、甚至其他初创公司以折扣价的方式提供了这些福利。位于马塞诸塞州坎布里奇的营销软件公司HubSpot，就对运营资本和收入低于100万美元的早期初创公司提供一年的优惠，使它们能以一折的价格使用HubSpot非常昂贵的软件。参与创业加速器500 Startups训练的公司则能享受250种优惠，包括免费使用群发电子邮件服务SendGrid一年，获得信用管理公司邓白氏（Dun and Bradstreet）的免费商业信用报告咨询，以及价格更便宜的办公室零食。

    与一般公司不同，初创公司发展速度极快。一个不需要在服务上花钱的微型公司，可以迅速成长为一个拥有许多现金的大型公司。（比如，有报道称，成立3年后，Uber就通过其打车服务获得了10亿美元的收入。）

    除了抓住这些增长很快的客户之外，服务供应商还相信，如果这些初创公司使用他们的服务，影响会渐渐渗透到更大的公司。招聘服务平台HireArt的共同创始人艾莉•沙里夫表示：“这就像是在说‘我们是一家为初创公司服务的企业’。这些初创公司声誉良好，它们在用的服务总是很棒的。”

    HireArt本身也是一家初创公司，享受了很多福利，包括亚马逊网络服务（Amazon Web Services）的云托管信用额度，Heroku给予的5万美元免费云服务时间，以及法律公司Wilmer Hale提供的大幅折扣，这些优惠都持续到公司完成首轮融资为止。

    如今，HireArt也为初创公司提供福利。该公司的招聘平台每个月要对每个职位收费995美元以上，对还处于萌芽阶段的初创公司而言，这笔费用过于昂贵。艾莉表示：“大多数只有5个人的初创公司都是自己去招聘，比如在AngelList社区和广告网站CraigsList上发布信息。”但在HireArt，有许多求职者都希望就职于早期初创公司，所以艾莉决定对资金不足200万美元、由创业加速器培养的新公司提供免费服务。（创业加速器在此可以作为一种审查机构。）

    一家由风投支持的初创公司为另一家由风投支持的初创公司提供服务，是一个非常有趣的现象，但这是让初创公司的生态系统运转起来的要素之一。沙里夫表示，如果不是由风投基金给HireArt提供了240万美元的资助，公司也无法承担预支的营销费用。

    她表示：“这就像是风投公司的一大笔钱从一家公司挪到了另一家公司。”自2012年成立以来，HireArt已经积累了大约500名客户，大部分都是由风投支持的。其中15%左右的公司拥有100至200名员工。幸运的话（也许还有招聘费），其中一部分客户将会变成拥有500至1000名员工的公司，一些萌芽阶段的客户也会成长为有风投支持的大型付费客户。如果情况并非如此呢？那整个初创公司的生态系统可能就会有麻烦了。（财富中文网）

    译者：严匡正

    Startups are known for their lavish and often ridiculous perks, from acupuncture to personal chefs, “rock rooms” to ball pits, even assistants who wait for the cable guy on your behalf. At one point, the New York e-commerce startup Fab.com held weekly raffles to give employees $500 in cash. Evernote, the productivity software startup in Redwood City, Calif., pays employees $1,000 just to use their allotted vacation days.

    It’s all in the name of employee recruitment—and, once they’re hired, employee retention. Startups know that they compete for talent with the big, public technology companies that can offer even sweeter benefits packages, including liquid stock options. This week, Apple AAPL 1.46% and Facebook FB 4.57% announced that they would pay for female employees to freeze their eggs.

    But startup companies are also the beneficiaries of perks, often in the form of discounts from service providers, larger technology companies—even other startups. HubSpot, a marketing software company in Cambridge, Mass., offers 90% off its very expensive software for one year to early-stage startups with less than $1 million in funding and revenue. Participants in the 500 Startups accelerator have access to 250 different perks, including a year of free email distribution from SendGrid, a free business credit report consultation from Dun and Bradstreet, and cheaper snacks for the office.

    Unlike regular businesses, startups are geared for hyper-growth. A tiny client without money to spend on services can quickly turn into a massive one that is flush with cash. (Consider Uber, which reportedly brought in $1 billion in car service bookings after just three years in business.)

    Beyond snagging high-growth clients, the service providers are betting that if startups use their services, they will trickle up to larger companies. “It’s about being able to say, ‘We’re a company that serves startups,’” says Elli Sharef, co-founder of HireArt, a recruiting services platform. “They have cachet, as in, whatever the newest startups are using, it must be good.”

    HireArt, itself a startup, has benefitted from many perks, including credits for cloud hosting from Amazon Web Services, $50,000 of free cloud services time through Heroku, and a steep discount from the law firm Wilmer Hale, effective until the company raises a Series A round of funding.

    Now, HireArt is offering its own perks to startups. The company’s recruitment platform costs $995 per month per position or more, which is too pricey for a seed-stage startup. “Most five-person startups are scrambling to recruit with D.I.Y. solutions like posting on AngelList and CraigsList,” she says. But many of HireArt’s job candidates want to work at early stage startups, so Sharef decided to offer free services to startups with less than $2 million in funding that have graduated from a startup accelerator. (The accelerators serve as a vetting mechanism.)

    It’s amusing to see one venture-backed startup giving its services away to other venture-backed startups, but that’s part of what makes a startup ecosystem tick. Sharef notes HireArt couldn’t afford such an up-front marketing expense if it weren’t backed by $2.4 million in venture funding.

    “It’s like this big pile of VC money moves from one company to another,” she says. Since launching in 2012, HireArt has accumulated about 500 clients, most of which are venture-funded. Around 15% have 100 to 200 employees. With any luck (and maybe recruitment fees), some of those clients will turn into 500- to 1,000-person companies and some of its new seed-stage clients will turn into large, venture-backed, paying clients. And if not? Then the whole startup ecosystem might find itself in trouble.