创业者的十条军规

经营一家公司需要付出什么？对于这个问题，创业者一定会收到来自各方的建议——朋友、合伙人、导师和投资者等。有些建议是有用的，但有些却没有价值。我们应该听从哪个人的哪条建议？这个问题非常棘手，创业者往往很难弄明白。我在最初创建网上订餐平台OpenTable时就曾经历过这种困惑。现在我也经常看到我指导的创业者们为这个问题所困扰。以下是我的一些建议，希望能帮助创业者们在难以回避的信息拉锯战中，找准自己的方向。

创业是一场马拉松，而不是短跑

你的目标在于增加成功的机会。创业之路异常的艰难。创业者必须做出牺牲。不要梦想着一夜成功（或许会有一两个这样的情况），大多数成功者背后的故事，都要比我们想象的更加跌宕起伏。成功不会一蹴而就。有时候，创业者会经历上下起伏，会产生左右摇摆，会有前进也会有后退。OpenTable用了11年时间才成功上市。你的目标应该是每天前进一两步，并清楚你会遭遇挫折。我最喜欢的一种说法，是将创业比喻成在南极爬山。成功的攀登者不会去想峰顶；他们只关注接下来的20英尺，就这样一步步地向上攀登。创业需要时间。你必须能够经受住暴风骤雨的考验，并抓住偶然间降临的好运气。

不要迷信专家

要听听导师们怎么说，但你要记住，你是唯一一个在这个特殊的时间点创建这家公司的人。此前的例证都不能完全复制到你的公司。而且，以前有效的做法并不意味着现在依旧有效，反之亦然。我从不相信专家。认为某个人（包括我）是专家，是愚蠢的想法。在某些方面，确实有的人知道的比其他人多，但通常情况下，你将遇到的导师们的世界观，只适合某家处于特定历史时期的公司。一旦情势改变，他们那些曾经颇有见地的观点，将会被淘汰。我认为，许多“专家”都是某一个时期的产物。当然，你从导师身上还是能学到许多知识，但不要把他们的只言片语奉为真理。

不要做“乒乓球”

要以宽广的胸怀对待他人的反馈意见。要从中总结经验教训，但不要变成没有立场的“乒乓球”。我喜欢与谦虚自信的创业者合作。我喜欢有自知之明的创业者。他们能够接受反馈，并且认识到虽然自己聪明，但仅靠自己不可能成功。（任何事情的成功都有一定的运气成分。）此外，创业者必须激发出自信心。再强调一下，他们能够接受反馈，但不会一听到别人的不同想法，就像乒乓球那样跳来跳去，失去自己的立场。他们有自己的观点。这是他们对这个世界的理解，他们将围绕这种理解来打造自己的公司。

走出办公室

始终以行动为导向。创建公司并不是坐在白板前面，设想客户的需求和公司的发展大计。创业者要“走出办公楼”，与客户互动。客户真正想要什么？你应该如何向他们推销？如果客户面临的问题或痛苦足够大，他们会愿意购买不完美的产品。所以，创业者应该尽快开发出一款具有最低限度可用性的产品，然后去弄清楚谁愿意花费多少钱购买这款产品。将你的产品放到市场当中，去向你的客户学习。

保持高度专注

我经常说这句话，所以创业加速器Impact Engine投资的一家公司，还专门为我做了一件印有这句话的T恤衫。我喜欢在最开始非常专注于一种盈利模式、一个客户群体和一种解决方案的初创公司。随着公司规模的扩大，你可以将资源分配到更多项目，但在最开始，创业者首先应该确定如何赚钱（即盈利模式），以及如何利用赚来的钱扩大规模（即增长模式）。许多初创公司之所以失败，正是因为他们试图根据多种客户类型扩展多个销售模式。

不要担心，保持斗志

尽可能争取足够多的“上场击球”（译注：棒球术语）次数。大多数创业努力会失败。你的大多数想法也会失败。要增加成功的机会，最可靠的方法是保持尽可能长的生存时间。而要实现这个目标，最好的方式是节俭。本杰明•富兰克林曾谈论过节俭与勤奋。要审慎花钱，但不能采用一种抑制增长的方式。你的经营时间越久，获得“上场击球”的机会也就越多。但愿你能够抓住其中的一次机会，一鸣惊人。我的朋友、创业家克里斯•格拉德温说得好：“要想经营你的生意，首先你必须留在商界。”一旦确定了盈利模式和增长模式，并且业内有套利机会，你便可以大胆投资。任何公司都有一种自然增长率，而资本可以帮助加快这一速度，但在某些情况下，边际资本会被浪费，无法发挥作用。

不要自欺欺人

要在精益创业法与不切实际之间找到平衡。你必须以公正的心态看待自己的公司。你真的认为一切顺利吗？在定向越野比赛中，人们将这种情况称为“折叠地图”。当你在越野过程中遇到一座山时，你会用指南针标记它的位置，以便以后找到它。但当你试图在地图上找到它时，你却会分不清方向，这时你会骗自己你在地图上看到的那座山就是你面前的这座山。但你内心很清楚，这并非事实。创业者也会落入这样的陷阱。他们知道公司存在问题，但他们欺骗自己，认为一切顺利。虽然你不应该放弃自己的梦想，但你应该诚实地对待自己看到的结果，并做出相应调整。

Undoubtedly, as an entrepreneur, you’re going to get a lot of advice from a multitude of sources—friends, partners, mentors, and investors—about what it takes to run a business. Some of it will be useful and some of it won’t. Knowing who and what to listen to can be tricky not to mention overwhelming. I experienced this confusion firsthand while founding OpenTable, and I see how it affects the entrepreneurs I mentor today. So here’s my best advice for navigating the information tug of war that inevitably happens when you start a business.

It’s a marathon, not a sprint

The goal is to increase your chances of success. Being an entrepreneur is hard. It takes sacrifice. There are no overnight successes (well, maybe one or two), but for most successes out there, the real backstory is much more tumultuous. Success is almost never linear. Sometimes there are ups and downs, rights and lefts, forwards and backwards. OpenTable took 11 years to go public. The goal is to take one or two steps forward every day, with the understanding that there will be setbacks. My favorite analogy is comparing entrepreneurship to mountain climbing in Antarctica. Successful climbers don’t dwell on the peak; they focus on the next 20 feet, and then the next, and then the next. Building a business takes time. You need to be able to weather the storms and take advantage of serendipity.

There’s no such thing as an expert

Listen to what mentors have to say, but remember that you are the only one building this business at this particular point in time. No example before you is an exact replica of your business. And just because something worked in the past, or didn’t work in the past, doesn’t mean that it will or won’t now. I don’t believe in experts. The idea that anyone (including me) is an expert is silly. There are people that know more than others about a particular topic, but often times the mentors you will encounter have a worldview that fits a particular time and business in history. But once things change, their view, which used to be insightful, will likely be obsolete. To me, many “experts” are a product of a time. With that said, there’s obviously things you can learn from mentors, but their word is not gospel.

Don’t be a ping pong ball

Be open to feedback. Learn, but don’t be a ping pong ball. I prefer to work with entrepreneurs that have what I consider humble confidence. I like entrepreneurs that are somewhat self-effacing. They take feedback well and realize that while they are smart, they can’t do it alone. (And that some luck plays into everything.) With that said, entrepreneurs must evoke confidence. Again, they take feedback well but don’t bounce around on ideas. They have a point of view and they own. It’s their unique take on the world, and they are building their business around it.

Get out of the building

Always be action-oriented. Building a business isn’t about sitting around a white board and hypothesizing about what customers might want and how to grow your business. It’s about getting “out of the building” and interacting with customers. What do your customers actually want? How should you sell to them? If the problem or pain is big enough, they will buy an imperfect product. So get to a minimum viable product ASAP and find out who will pay and how much they will pay. Get your product into the wild and learn from your customers.

Be maniacally focused

I say this so often that one of Impact Engine’s portfolio companies made me a shirt with this slogan on it. I like startups that are extremely focused on a single revenue model, a single customer segment, and a single solution, to start. Once you’re bigger, you can divert resources to more than one initiative, but in the beginning, it should be all about figuring out your revenue model and growth model. How do you make money: revenue model. How do you scale that money: growth model. I’ve seen several startups fail because they are trying to scale multiple sales models to multiple customer types.

Don’t worry, be scrappy

Get as many “at bats” as possible. Most entrepreneurial efforts fail. And most of your ideas will also fail. The best way to increase your chances of success is to be alive as long as possible. The best way to do that is to be frugal. Benjamin Franklin talked about being frugal and industrious. So be wise with your money, but not in a way that suffocates growth. The longer you can stretch your runway, the more chances you have at bat. And hopefully one of those chances leads to a hit. My friend and entrepreneur Chris Gladwin says it so well, “to be in business you have to be in business.” Once you have the revenue model and growth model figured out and there is arbitrage in the business, then you can invest aggressively. Businesses have a natural rate of growth that capital can help accelerate, but at some point the marginal capital is wasted and inefficient.

Don’t bend the map

Balance lean startup methodologies with being unreasonable. You have to be unbiased about your business. Do you really see it working? In orienteering, they call it “bending the map.” When you come upon a hill during a hike, you mark it with your compass to find it later. But when you try to find it on the map you get disoriented, and you trick yourself into believing that the hill you see on the map is also the hill you see in front of you. But deep down, you know that it’s not. Entrepreneurs can get caught in that trap as well. They know something isn’t right but they fool themselves into believing things are working. While you shouldn’t give up on your dreams, you need to be incredibly honest with the results you are seeing and adjust accordingly.