两度失败后东山再起的创业之道

    “权威领导者”（The Leadership Insider）网站是一个在线社区。在该网站上，当代最善思考和最富影响力的商界人士贡献才智，解答网友有关职业生涯和领导力的各种问题。今天的问题是：“有些人打算创业，对此您有何建议？”答问者是周凯文，软件公司Kabam的联合创始人兼首席执行官。

    2006年我与他人合作创立了一家公司，也就是Kabam的前身。该公司最初的定位是社交网络，要与LinkenIn一较高下。我与联合创始人以极大的热情推出了一款名为Watercooer的产品。我们自信满满，邀请所有的朋友和家人都加入这个服务。第一天，有上百人注册登录了我们的网络。遗憾的是，一周后便人去网空了。六个月后，每天登录的用户就只有个位数了。在靠喝苏打水、吃拉面加班加点地苦撑多日后，我们终于痛心地意识到，这个花了一万个小时辛苦打造的产品完全失败了。

    在耗尽资金前，我们必须彻底改变自己的业务。于是创始团队闭关两周，开发了一项全新业务——一款为Facebook开发，支持广告的运动应用。该应用上线后，第一个月就有一百多万人注册，最终用户超过六千万人，并创造了可观的广告收入。

    18个月后，2008年的经济衰退使我们的广告收入大降，迫使我们要么再次改变业务方向，或者干脆关门大吉。于是我们再次闭关，这次我们看好的是Facebook上将逐渐流行的免费游戏。2009年年底，我们将公司更名为Kabam并推出了手游游戏《亚瑟王国》，它最终成为Facebook上排名第一的策略游戏。从那时起，我们已几次调整业务方向，努力引领业界潮流，尤其是全球兴起的手游大潮。

    我们成功的关键并不是什么一根筋的发奋投入——这么做太孤注一掷了。在我看来，我们成功的根本，也是所有创业企业所必需的是：一支凝聚力极强的团队，成员有共同价值观，密切协作、灵活应变。如果创始人价值观趋同，就很容易达成共识并打造企业文化。你聘请的人不光要有合适的技能，还要有正确的价值观。团队的每个成员都要能紧密合作，并能适应逆境。大家要征服的是市场，不可内讧。

    征服市场看起来该是什么状态？创办Kabam公司我们一路经历过各种大起大落，但从来没有闭门开过小会。我们不会相互指责，也不会因为业务失策而苛责任何人。没人会当替罪羊，也绝不会为了权力相互排挤。正因为没有这些行为，才能达到目标，而不是自己先人仰马翻。

    共同征服市场好比演奏交响乐。每个演奏者都必须按照一份总谱演奏，大家协调合拍。如果不这么做，乐曲就会刺耳难听，这对观众来说令人难受并且很失礼。要奏出和谐的乐曲，指挥就要设定节拍、把握力度。我的两位联合创始人和我现在仍然每天都要面对各种困难的决策。这是无法逃避的。但我们能充满信心地处理好各种问题，这是因为从创业那天起，我们就始终怀抱共同的价值观，并致力于通过和谐的团队协作来开展业务。（财富中文网）

    译者：阿周

    审校：任文科

    The Leadership Insider network is an online community where the most thoughtful and influential people in business contribute answers to timely questions about careers and leadership. Today’s answer to the question “What advice would you give someone looking to start their own business?” is by Kevin Chou, co-founder and CEO of Kabam.

    The company I co-founded in 2006, which ultimately became Kabam, started as a social network competing against LinkedIn. My co-founders and I launched a product called Watercooler with great enthusiasm. We confidently invited all of our friends and family to join the service. Hundreds of people in our network signed up on the first day. Sadly, one week later, no one had stuck around. Six months later the number of daily users logging into the site was in the low single digits. After working around the clock–fueled by soda and ramen–we recognized that the product we invested over 10,000 hours to build was, sadly, a dud.

    We needed to make a wholesale change to our business before our funding ran out. The founding team sequestered for two weeks and came up with an entirely new business—an ad-supported sports application for Facebook. Over one million people signed up in the first 30 days and the service ultimately grew to over 60 million users with a profitable ad-supported revenue stream.

    Eighteen months later, the recession of 2008 cratered our advertising revenues and forced us to change our business again or shutter the company. Again we sequestered, and this time we anticipated the popularity of free-to-play games on Facebook. In late 2009 we changed the company’s name to Kabam and launched Kingdoms of Camelot–it became the number one strategy game on Facebook. Since then we have adapted the company several more times to stay ahead of industry trends, most notably the rise of mobile gaming globally.

    The key to our success has not been the laser-focused hard work—that’s table stakes. I attribute our success to something I believe all startups need: a cohesive founding team that shares common values and works fluidly together. When founders share common values, it’s easy to pass along and create a company culture. You hire people not only with the right skills but also the right values.Everyone on the team works well together and is able to adapt to adversity. You fight the market and not yourselves.

    What does fighting the market look like? In my experience through all the ups and downs of creating Kabam, we never had closed-room conversations. We avoided finger pointing and we did not personally blame anyone for business missteps. Scapegoats were never made. And there was never any jockeying for power. It’s an absence of this type of behavior that results in fighting the market and not each other.

    Fighting the market together resembles an orchestra. Each musician is responsible for following the same score and playing in tune. If they don’t, the music is discordant, which is unpleasing (or downright offensive) to the audience. It’s up to the conductor to set the tempo and dynamics for a harmonious sound. My two co-founders and I still face tough decisions on a daily basis. Those are inescapable. But we manage issues with confidence because, since day one, we have approached the business with a shared vision and commitment to harmonious teamwork.