创业者：别被自己打败

    人们总说创业不易，这种说法都有些保守，事实上，创业是一个极其痛苦的过程。有时候，你仿佛处于世界之巅，但其他时候呢？你只能看着一切在你面前分崩离析，自己却无能为力，内心满是失意沮丧。

    有经验的创业者从“事后诸葛亮”式的反省总结中汲取力量，支撑他们坚持不懈，但第一次创业的人却没有那么幸运。每个障碍都有可能把你卡住，就此放弃——在你尚未真正开始之前，你的创业之梦便戛然而止。

    当你第一次创业时，很难看到未来的曙光。暂时的挫折看起来接连不断，而你可能不会意识到，你自己才是最大的障碍和敌人。

    不过，这样的情况并不少见。每一位有经验的创业者都经历过你当前的困境，他们得到了一条最重要的教训：如何不让自己成为妨碍公司成功的绊脚石。

    以下是来自其他创业者的三条建议：

    开始实施前，先验证自己的创意

    “第一次创业时，在没有跟客户进行任何沟通之前，我们便投入了数千美元资金。我们想创建一个博客网络，结果我们的许多设想是完全错误的。那次创业最后以失败告终，我们甚至没能把产品摆放在任何客户面前。”——克莱•赫伯特，众筹网站CrowdfundingHacks创始人

    如果你创建了一个没有明确市场的产品，或者你创建的产品并不是客户想要的，最终的结果只能是浪费资金。创业者很容易陷入过快执行的陷阱。（当我们对某件事情充满激情的时候，我们经常难以抵挡将自身创意迅速付诸实施的诱惑。）

    但你的设想可能是错误的。你可能认为自己追求的理念正是客户想要的，可事实却截然相反。

    赫伯特说道：“在第二次创业的时候，我要求设计师创建一个可以点击的原型。结果是，其中90%的解决方案并非我的客户想要的，但他们却对最简单的10%很感兴趣。因此，我可以节省25万美元不必要的开发成本，以不足1万美元的成本开发出一个能够运行的原型。”

    尽早并且经常授权

    “我注意到创始人妨碍公司成功的最大原因在于，他们认为自己必须事必亲恭。尤其是在初期，创业者们认为自己必须事事过问，每件事都必须经过自己的批准，并且不分主次，一次处理多项事物。”——加布•鲁纳-奥斯特拉塞斯基，UpShift Partners创始人

    作为创业者，你可能是一个非常认真的人，可能会身兼数职。你不断地调动左右脑的技能组合，以推动公司发展。说到底，你是那个对客户、投资者与合伙人承担终极责任的人。所以，你认为你需要参与公司运营的方方面面，密切关注公司内发生的所有事。

    但这种思维只会给你带来伤害。

    “很不幸，我有过两次这样的教训，我仍能清晰记得，当初因为自己变成了所有事情的瓶颈，以及采取这种自上而下的经营方式，我身心俱疲。”

    鲁纳-奥斯特拉塞斯基作为创始人最重要的决定之一，就是将自己从公司的成长方程式中解放出来，而这一决定增加了公司收入——从零增加到2,500万美元。

    要认识到这个世界并不亏欠你任何东西

    “我非常幸运，当初我发布的Grammaropolis iOS应用，被苹果（Apple）放在了其教育应用商店上方，并制作了一个旋转标题。这当然令人兴奋，但也让我以为，Grammaropolis太优秀了，我不需要进行任何营销。”——考尔特•沃利斯，Grammaropolis创始人

    作为创业者，你需要努力开拓发展道路——要提供超出预期10倍的价值。虽然你的公司可能是你的生命，但对于整个世界而言，它只是一个微不足道的存在。简而言之，没有人关心你在做什么：你需要吸引人们的关注。

    沃利斯表示：“这个世界并不关心你要发布的产品，但创业者往往因为没有充分理解这一点，而妨碍了公司的成功。换言之，创业者可能太过专注于自己的创意，却忘了其他人并不见得像她一样热情。”

    后来，沃利斯意识到这款应用不会自己营销，他需要制定一个可扩展、可持续的营销计划。他鼓励其他创业者学习他的做法——要认识到，只有不懈努力，才能给人们留下印象。(财富中文网)

    译者：刘进龙/汪皓

    It’s an understatement to say that starting a business is hard: It’s excruciating. Some days, you’re on top of the world, and others? Everything collapses under your feet, and there is nothing you can do but simply “deal” with the sinking feeling in your chest.

    Experienced entrepreneurs have the power of hindsight to help them persevere, but first-time founders aren’t so lucky. Every new hurdle presents an opportunity to give up — to stop before you’vereally had the chance to start.

    When you’re a first-time founder, it’s hard to see the light at the end of the funnel. Temporary setbacks seem permanent, and you may not realize that you are your own worst obstacle and biggest enemy.

    But you’re also not alone. Every experienced entrepreneur has been exactly where you are now, and a powerful lesson they’ve learned is how to stop sabotaging their own success.

    Here are three tips — from the trenches –to guide you:

    Validate your ideas before building anything.

    “In my first failed startup, we spent thousands of dollars before we ever even talked to the customer. We were trying to build a blog network and so many of our assumptions were completely wrong. We ended up failing before we ever even got the product in front of any customers.” -Clay Hebert, founder at CrowdfundingHacks

    If you build something without a clear market — or if you build something that your customers don’t want — you’ll end up wasting money. It’s easy to fall into the trap of executing too quickly. (When you’re passionate about something, it’s too tempting to simply jump in and start bringing your vision to life.)

    But your assumptions may be wrong. You may be pursuing an idea that you think your customers want, when really you should be pursuing something totally different.

    “In my second startup, I had my designer build a clickable prototype,” says Hebert. “It turns out that my customers didn’t want 90 percent of the solution but were actually interested in the simplest 10 percent of the product. I was able to save $250,000 in unnecessary development costs and build a functioning prototype for less than $10,000.”

    Delegate early and often.

    “I’ve noticed that one of the biggest ways founders sabotage their success is by thinking they have to do everything themselves. There’s this belief, especially in the early days that we have to be involved in everything, sign off on everything and push all the balls forward at once.” -Gabe Luna-Ostraseski, founder at UpShift Partners

    As an entrepreneur, you’re likely to be an extremely intense person who wears many different hats. You’re constantly flexing your right and left-brained skillsets to move your business along. At the end of the day, you are the person who is ultimately responsible to your clients, investors and partners. That’s why you think you need to be involved with every aspect of your business and pay close attention to everything that’s happening.

    This mindset; however, will only hurt you.

    “I unfortunately had to learn this lesson a couple times and can remember clearly the bur out that resulted from being the bottleneck for everything and taking a top down approach like this,” says Luna-Ostraseski.

    One of Luna-Ostraseski’s most important decisions as a founder was to remove himself from his company’s growth equation and grew revenues — from zero to $25 million.

    Recognize that the world owes you nothing.

    “In my case, I was extremely fortunate that when we launched the Grammaropolis iOS app, Apple featured it with a rotating banner at the top of the Education App Store. This was, of course, wonderful, but it also fed into my assumption that Grammaropolis was so awesome that I wouldn’t have to do any actual marketing.” -Coert Voorhees, founder of Grammaropolis

    As an entrepreneur, you need to work hard to forge your own paths — to provide 10 times more value than you should ever expect to receive. While your business is your life, it’s only one small touch point with the rest of the world. The long story short is that nobody cares about what you’re doing: You need to make them care.

    “Entrepreneurs sabotage their success by not fully understanding that the world generally doesn’t care about the product they are about to launch,” says Voorhees. “By that I mean that an entrepreneur might be so focused on her idea that she forgets that the rest of the world doesn’t share her passion.”

    Voorhees, after realizing that his app wouldn’t market itself, realized that he needed to build a scalable, sustainable marketing program. He encourages other entrepreneurs to follow in his footsteps — to realize that you need to fight hard to make an impression in the world.