我们当年为什么敢投资LinkedIn

    回顾历史，我们很容易就能发现那些最佳的风险投资其实在早期就已经显露出成功迹象。然而，它们中只有极少数是在刚刚获得投资的时候就已经出落得光彩照人。实际上，我们回顾了格雷洛克风投公司（Greylock）的投资历程，发现最成功的几次投资起初毫不起眼，在后来的合作中才逐渐开始展现光芒。九年前对商务社交网站LinkedIn的投资便是其中之一。

    投资背景

    2014年10月对于后来演变成为社交网站的先驱者而言是一个奇怪的时间段。

    当时，Friendster渐入颓势的迹象已经十分明显。尽管它又跌跌撞撞地支撑了许多年，却注定要成为伊卡洛斯那样的悲剧神话，而不是埃德蒙•希拉里的登顶传奇。它的投资者舔着自己的伤口，尚未出资的人则暗呼侥幸，毕竟它曾是如此炙手可热的投资对象。这两种人做了同样的一件事——发誓一定要从这段历史中吸取教训。

    MySpace是当时的一个新创公司。2003年8月成立的它预计将在2005到2008年初成为全球访问量最大的社交网站。2006年6月，它将超过谷歌（Google），成为全美访问量最大的网站。不过在2004年10月，尽管它增长很快，规模却仍然相对较小——每月只有大约500万的用户访问量。显然，它也有着伊卡洛斯的宿命，虽然它与Friendster的剧情并不相同。

    那Facebook呢？好吧，它在当年2月刚诞生于哈佛（Harvard）无名小卒马克•扎克伯格之手。那时它叫“thefacebook”（一个单词，全是小写），只是一个哈佛大学、耶鲁大学（Yale）和斯坦福大学（Stanford）的封闭式校园网站，用户不过几千人。实际上，在那时，MySpace和Friendster之后第三大的社交网站可能是Orkut，这是一个由谷歌（Google）于2004年1月启动的项目，充满了活力。

    也是在同年8月的一个周一，LinkedIn的共同创始人兼首席执行官雷德•霍夫曼来到格雷洛克进行融资演示。大家也许觉得LinkedIn在2004年是一个不可错过的投资对象。不过在那时，我们也有着合理的担忧：

    • Friendster、MySpace和Orkut的规模都远大于LinkedIn，后者仍然在试图达到100万注册用户的目标。

    • LinkedIn预测自己将有能力建立营收渠道，但是他们还没挣到一分钱，也没有证明自己的这种能力。

    • 大多数人并不熟悉职业社交网络的概念。

    时间快进到今天，雷德仍毫不掩饰他一贯的对于帮助企业家的兴趣。他发布了当日曾在格雷洛克用过的融资演示，还加上了自己的观点、评注和建议。无论你是一家公司的创始人，打算开创公司的人，抑或只是个研究创新和初创公司史的学生，它都称得上极具价值，值得一读。

    The best early-stage venture capital investments appear obvious in retrospect, however very few of them are actually obvious when you make them. In fact, we reviewed our process at Greylock and discovered that the best investments are non-obvious enough that they result in a mixed vote by our partnership. Such was the case with LinkedIn (LNKD) nine years ago.

    The context of the investment

    October 2004 was a strange times for the pioneers of what would become social networks.

    The signs of Friendster's decline into irrelevance were already evident. Although it would limp on for a number of years more, Friendster was clearly destined to be a tale like Icarus, not Sir Edmund Hillary. Its investors licked their wounds and those that hadn't been investors counted themselves lucky, given how white-hot the investment had been. One thing that both groups had in common is that they vowed to learn from history.

    MySpace was the new upstart. Founded in August, 2003, MySpace would go on to be the most visited social networking site in the world from 2005 until early 2008. In June 2006, it would pass Google (GOOG) as the most visited website in the United States. But in October, 2004, though growing rapidly, it was still relatively tiny — seeing roughly 5 million users per month. Obviously, it too would have an Icarus-like ending, but that's a different story.

    And what of Facebook (FB)? Well, it had just been foundedthat February by an unknown kid named Mark Zuckerberg at Harvard. It was called "thefacebook" (onewordalllowercase) and It was a small, closed college network at Harvard, Yale and Stanford with members numbering in the low thousands. In fact, at that time, the next biggest social networking site after MySpace and Friendster was likely Orkut, an internal passion-project launched by Google in January, 2004.

    And it was on a Monday in August of that same year that LinkedIn co-founder and CEO Reid Hoffman visited Greylock to present to the team. You may think LinkedIn was an obvious investment in 2004. At the time, however, there were legitimate concerns:

    • Friendster, MySpace, and Orkut were all massively larger than LinkedIn, which was still approaching its first million registered users.

    • LinkedIn projected the ability to build revenue but didn't have a dollar of revenue and hadn't proven it.

    • Most people were unfamiliar with the concept of professional social networking.

    Fast forward to today and, with his usual focus on transparency in the interest of helping entrepreneurs, Reid has now published the pitch deck he used at Greylock that day with additional perspective, commentary and advice. It's a great read whether you are a founder of a company, thinking about becoming one, or simply a student of innovation and start-up history.