家族企业是非多，风险投资绕着走
|
最近，我接触了一家十分有前景的新公司，由一对夫妻创建。这并不是一次正式的投资者定调见面会。我和这对夫妻档中的丈夫已认识多年，于是答应和他们见个面，聊聊如何加快公司的发展。 说实话，我很少碰到这种带有亲情性质的公司，常见的带有私人关系性质的公司往往由大学同学，同事和老朋友组建而成，相比起来，亲情来得更为紧密。每年，在获得风投公司注资的新建公司中，这些由已婚夫妇或家族成员共同新建的公司几乎是凤毛麟角。考虑到美国商界现在和历史上都不乏夫妻档式的公司，这一现象十分奇怪。有鉴于此，得到风投公司注资的家族式创业公司少之又少，这一现象十分耐人寻味。 诚然，家族创业公司拿到风投公司投资并获得成功的先例并不是没有。企业软件开发商WebMethods就是这样一家公司。但是，长期以来，基于一些令人不安的事实，传统风投公司对家族式创业一直存在偏见。 1．由夫妻或家族成员领导的团队存在特定风险。不言而喻，投资年轻、资历尚浅的企业需承担很大的风险。为确保成功，风投家必须老练地权衡这一风险。这包括选择和权衡在风投过程中哪些风险可以容忍和接受，而哪些不能。风投公司之所以对家族创业敬而远之，原因在于家族公司的风险与其本身的性质息息相关。因此，这些风险是特定的，而那些基于同事、大学室友和朋友等普通关系所组建的公司却不存在这样的问题。 其中风险之一就是夫妻离婚或家族成员之间的严重不和。这两者将使管理的有效性陷入瘫痪。弹劾投资组合公司联合创始人的程序十分复杂，而且这一举动也会在公司引起混乱，凡是有过相关经历的风投公司必定深有体会。我们经常会看到公司的创始人之一图谋赶走另一位联合创始人，然而，离任的联合创始人有可能和另一个创始人是夫妻关系，一旦如此，事情就将变得极其错综复杂。儿子炒父亲鱿鱼或兄弟之间同室操戈同样也会为公司和投资者带来莫大的痛楚。由此引发的情绪崩溃足以导致公司瘫痪。 2. 人事雇用方面的问题。任何新兴成长型公司的发展壮大都需要一支顶尖的团队来出谋划策。然而，面对家族企业，即便是那些极具眼光的高端管理人才也会望而却步，因为公司有关招聘、晋升或补偿的决定都会被抹上浓重的家庭或裙带关系色彩。不管准确与否，人们普遍认为在家族公司最高领导职位的竞选中，有才干的经理往往会输给家族成员。除此之外，对氛围紧张的感恩节晚餐有过切身体会的人大都不会喜欢成天陷入家庭内部或夫妻间的口水战。 3. 角色界定不明确。最后，我们来讨论一下商业和家庭/婚姻中角色界定的重要性这一较为敏感的话题。夫妻/家族成员经常会惊愕地发现合伙经商这种模式竟然会损害夫妻关系和亲缘关系。为了保持公司交流渠道的通畅，坦诚而务实的批评意见不可或缺，但这些批评也会造成情感上的摩擦并为家庭关系蒙上阴影，有时候甚至是永久性的创伤。角色界定变得模糊不清。由于工作上的需要，夫妻和兄妹原有的身份定义荡然无存，他们发现双方除了工作之外再也找不到任何话题。 任何一本管理学教科书都会告诉我们，高效的管理团队要求拥有清晰的领导构架，客观的决策，较为合理的“职业划分”和明确的角色及责任界定。在家族公司中，职业身份和家庭角色模糊不清，创始人/经理在办公室里与某些“同事”是一种关系，回到家里又是另外一种关系，事实上，正是这种模糊导致的不安让风投公司望而却步。 乔纳森•陶尔是国际性私人募股和风投资本公司Citron Capital的执行董事，主要负责消费网络、软件、电子媒体以及网络服务的投资。他的博客地址是Adventure Capitalist。 |
I recently met with a promising start-up led by a husband-and-wife founding team. This was not a standard investor pitch meeting. I had known the husband for several years and agreed to meet informally to be brought up to speed on the company's progress. Admittedly, it is not often that I meet with a founding team that is connected via bonds any deeper than college, a previous work experience or a long-standing friendship. Start-ups founded by married couples or other familial bonds amount to a tiny fraction of the companies that successfully raise venture funding each year. On the one hand, might appear odd given how many "mom and pop" businesses factor into America's current economy and economic history. The dearth of family-founded venture-backed start-ups, therefore, is intriguing. To be sure, there have been family-founded start-ups that have raised venture money and gone on to be quite successful. WebMethods is one such company. However, the bias in traditional venture circles against investing in such startups is long-standing and rooted in some uncomfortable realities. 1. Idiosyncratic risks in a husband-wife or family-dominated team. It's axiomatic that investing in young, unproven companies involves a great deal of risk. To be successful, a venture investor must adroitly balance that risk. That involves making choices and tradeoffs over which risks are tolerable and acceptable as part of the venture process, and which risks are not. What differentiates family-run startups to a venture investor is that they introduce risks that are unique by their very nature. Hence, these risks are idiosyncratic and not in evidence at start-ups backed by the more common assemblage of former colleagues, college roommates, and friends. One such risk is that of divorce in a husband-wife team or a severe disruption in a familial relationship. Both can cripple management effectiveness. Any venture investor who has been involved in the removal of a founding member from a portfolio company can attest to how complicated and disruptive that process can be. Add to that the aspect that the co-founder being removed could be bound by marriage to another co-founder–with the common circumstance that one co-founder is engineering the removal of the other–and one can quickly see what a morass this situation can become. Sons firing fathers or brothers firing brothers play out no less dramatically and painfully for the companies and the investors involved. The emotional fallout in such disruptions can all but disable a company. 2. Recruiting difficulties. For any emerging growth company to scale effectively, it must attract a world-class team. However, top management talent interested in advancement will typically avoid a family-dominated startup where decisions on hiring, promotions or compensation could be colored by family relations or other marginalia. Accurate or not, the perception will persist that a talented manager will be unable to ever take the top leadership post at a company where the competition for that post is likely a family member. Additionally, few people who ever sat through a tense Thanksgiving dinner of their own relish the idea of ever getting in the middle of a familial or matrimonial spat, much less on a daily basis. 3. Lack of defined roles. Finally, there is the touchier discussion about the importance of clearly defined roles in both the business context and in the familial/marital one. Couples and family members that go into business together too often learn that this is a decision that can damage their underlying romantic or familial bonds in ways they never imagined. The bluntness and constructive criticisms that must occur in order for there to be efficient business communications can often fray emotional connections and strain relationships, sometimes permanently. Roles get convoluted. Spouses and siblings lose their identities in service to the needs of the business and find they have trouble talking about anything outside of work but work itself. As any management textbook will attest, the effective management of teams requires clear leadership, objectivity in decision-making, some reasonable approximation of "professional boundaries" and a clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities. The blurring of lines that comes from founders and/or managers having one role at the office with their "colleagues" and another role at home too often flies in the face of that reality for venture investors to ever become sufficiently comfortable in order to proceed with an investment. Jonathan Tower (@jonathan_tower) is a Managing Director at Citron Capital, a global private equity and venture capital firm, where he focuses primarily on Consumer Internet, Software, Digital Media, and Web Services investments. He blogs at Adventure Capitalist. |
