青春创业梦

    美国科技博客VentureBeat最近撰文探讨：“青少年能否成为优秀创业者？”

    作为一个青少年的母亲，我对该问题的第一反应是，“对，没错，学会收拾桌子和整理房间之后，他们完全可以成为优秀的创业者，不过整天迷恋最新的《暮光之城》电影（Twilight）可不成。”

    谁知道呢？事实证明，有些孩子确实从舒适的沙发里站起身来，开始进行创业，希望成为下一个史蒂夫•乔布斯。

    VentureBeat上那篇文章讲述了一个由科技青训营（Teens in Tech）组织的创业孵化平台，通过为期八周的暑期项目，帮助六组年轻的创业者在夏季推出六种产品。各团队需拿出自己的点子，然后获得导师和所需资源，在指导下完成将理念转化为产品的过程。八周之后，各团队在风险投资家、科技界名流、媒体工作者和其他社会人士面前展示自己的创业成果。这些孩子不像同龄人那样忙于考驾照或者勾搭毕业舞会的舞伴，而是在学习如何打造一家公司。参与该项目之前还是为青春痘发愁的孩子，离开时可能已与投资人签下协议。

    该组织成立的前提是：创业精神可以很早就开始培养——这些富有创新精神的青少年需要的是教育和领导，以帮助他们缔造充满创意、变革现状的企业。科技青训营为青少年创业者提供经验丰富的导师、工作地点和引导，作为回报，其孵化、促成的公司“长大成人”后，该组织可获得部分股权。

    这很大程度是硅谷独有的现象，年少得志者在这里随处可见。若你年满40还在硅谷工作，那简直就是以长寿著称的彭祖。如果你走在街头，风投扶持的年轻人正意气风发地踩着滑板去上班，他们或许会停下来搀扶过马路。实际上年龄问题很有趣，因为风投行业里对年龄和经验的价值始终存在巨大的争议。一方面，年轻被视为等同于发现炫酷新事物并真正领会新趋势和潮流的能力，更不用说年轻人对科技的反应更加灵敏。这还用说吗？如果你家电脑出毛病了，你是问儿子还是退休的老父亲？

    另一方面，专业的风险投资者在衡量企业CEO是否称职时，非常重视他们的经验和资质。如果某公司的多数员工都太年轻，早上起床完全不觉得腰酸背痛，那我们甚至要考虑在该公司设置“成人监督者”。

    科技青训营完全回避了这个问题，声称他们注重的不是打造公司，而是培养创业家。其基本理念是，这种创业经验就像是生意场上的青春期。与一般人青春期经历的变声和发育同理，他们经历的是市场、包装、制造、定价、销售、管理和其他相关事宜方面的学习，从而完成从追梦少年到成熟创业者的转变。不过，我担心这些青少年与他们的成年人导师合作时，会不会很不耐烦，心想：“天哪，他说的这些东西我早就懂了。”

    科技青训营孵化项目首批赞助的那六家公司中，好几个是典型青少年思维模式的产物。其中之一专注于实时了解你的朋友中哪位现在有空出去闲逛（这是对“我太无聊了”这个棘手问题的高科技解答）；另一个的设计目的是帮助高中生分享课堂笔记（过去这可是被当作抄袭的！）；还有一项是给iPhone开发僵尸题材游戏。不过，剩下的几项看起来能吸引更广泛的用户，分别专注于云计算、个人财务管理和工作场合的分享。

    令我惊讶的是，这些创业者中竟然没人开发一款对青少年着装风格进行快速分类的应用，有了这种应用，父母们就可以迅速分清哥特、情绪、硬核和嬉皮，而不用尴尬地开口询问。或许更有前途的创意是把青少年那难以压制的性冲动拿来发电，既清洁环保，又能获得几万亿美元收入。

    VentureBeat那篇文章指出了几个有趣的现象，其中之一是：青少年创业者们急切地希望与其合作的成人导师把他们当做大人看待，但一旦项目失败又不希望真正受到责罚。文章援引一位青少年参与者的话说：“现在是试验和学习的时间……因为我不用养家糊口，也不会背负房贷，我可以作出高风险决定，然后从惨痛教训中认识到什么可行什么不可行。”

    这恐怕谈不上“惨痛教训”，不过能在不招致真正严重后果的前提下，承担各种风险并获得丰厚回报，确实有其优势。作为一个青少年，跟父母的关系紧张恐怕天经地义，可只有在父母同意的基础上，你才能参与这个活动，并同意分享股权。

    科技青训营专门帮助那些不仅有梦想，而且拥有能使梦想成真的点子的孩子门，培养他们的创造力，我觉得这样一个组织的存在实在是件非常酷的事情。伟大的创意可能随时随地涌现，使其最终获得成功的最大障碍往往是：不知道下一步该干什么。让经验丰富的企业家早早参与到成长中的创业者的培养中去，将使这些后起之秀有更大的成功希望，同时也帮助美国维持在世界科技领域的领袖地位。将年轻和激情与经验和老道掺在在一起，可以调合出一道非常神奇的鸡尾酒。

    我对科技青训营活动唯一一点不满在于：评选委员会中没有一位女性成员，参与该活动的61位导师中也只有5位女性。当今的创业与风投世界仍未摆脱“女性不得入内”式的偏见，而这些“下一代”创业家甫一踏入创业圈，就浸淫于同样的偏见之中，实在令人扼腕。我希望追随我的脚步进入这个领域的人会更加开明，更愿意改变科技界和风投界男性主导的现有格局。显然科技青训营尚未着手解决这个问题，因此，希望他们能把我这篇文章当成一种敦促。此外，考虑到青少年投入大量时间精力，以求与异性共处，引入更多女性导师的裨益是不言而喻的。

    本文作者丽莎•苏南是风险投资公司Psilos Group的联合创始人兼管理层成员，该公司专注于医疗保健领域，管理的资金超过5.77亿美元。

    译者：小宇

    VentureBeat recently asked: "Do teens make good founders?"

    As the parent of a teenager, my immediate thought was, "Yeah, sure, right after they clean up their rooms and set the table, they can be totally awesome founders, as long as they can tear themselves away from the latest installment of the Twilight series."

    What do I know? As it turns out, some kids actually do get off the couch and take action to be the next Steve Jobs.

    The VentureBeat post was about an entrepreneurial incubator put together by Teens in Tech, an 8-week summer program that helped six teams of young entrepreneurs launch six products over the course of a summer. Teams came with ideas, got paired up with mentors and resources, and were guided through the process of bringing their ideas to life. At the end of the 8 weeks, the teams presented their startups to a group of venture capitalists, tech influencers, media members and others. Instead of getting their driver's licenses and hooking up with their prom dates, these kids are getting a lesson in how to build a business. Come with your Clearasil, leave with a term sheet.

    The organization was founded on the premise that entrepreneurship can be nurtured from a very early age—all these innovateens need is education and leadership to help them create innovative and disruptive businesses. It provides access to seasoned mentors, a place to work and a guiding hand. In exchange, Teens In Tech gets equity in the companies that they help nurture through adolescence.

    This is very much a Silicon Valley phenomenon, where wunderkinds are everywhere. By the time you're 40 in Silicon Valley you are like Methuselah, hanging on for eternity and likely to get offered assistance crossing the street from venture-backed phenoms riding their skateboards to work. It's funny, actually, because there is a huge tension in venture capital about the value of age and experience. On the one hand, youth is equated with the ability to identify the cool new thing and be truly in-touch with what's up and coming, not to mention facile with technology. I mean seriously, whom do you ask when you can't figure out your computer at home?

    On the other hand professional venture capitalists place a huge emphasis on the experiential qualifications of a company's leader when evaluating CEOs; we even talk about it in terms of ensuring there is "adult supervision" at companies when the preponderance of workers are so young they are still able to get out of bed in the morning without groaning about their backs.

    Teens in Tech skirts this whole issue by saying that they aren't really focused on building companies, but on building entrepreneurs. The basic idea is that this experience is like business puberty. Instead of voice changes and training bras, they get lessons in market savvy, packaging, manufacturing, pricing, selling, managing and all of the other stuff you need to know to matriculate from a kid with a dream to an entrepreneur. I wonder if it's hard for the teenagers to work with their adult mentors without rolling their eyes and thinking, "Oh my god, I totally know that stuff already."

    Many of the six companies that went through the inaugural Teens In Tech Incubator program are definitely products of the teen mind. One is focused on knowing in real-time which of your friends is available right now to hang out (the technology answer to "I am so bored"); another is designed to let high school students share school notes (hey, back in the day that was considered cheating!); another is a Zombie game for iPhones. But some of the others sound like they would have pretty broad appeal, focusing on cloud computing, budgeting and workplace sharing.

    I am surprised that none of the entrepreneurs developed an app for classifying teens on sight so parents can rapidly tell the difference between goth, emo, scene and hipster without having to ask. Even better, there has got to be a mega-billion dollar potential for a product that turns pent-up teen sexual tension into green energy.

    One of the interesting points raised by VentureBeat was how badly the teen entrepreneurs want to be taken seriously by the adult mentors with whom they work, but also how they don't want real repercussions if they fail. One of the teen participants is quoted as saying, "This is a time to experiment and learn... Since I don't have a mortgage to pay or food to buy, I can make risky decisions and figure out the hard way what works and what doesn't."

    That's not exactly "the hard way," but there certainly is an advantage to be able to take all the risk and all the reward with none of the serious consequences. As a teenager, you may be legally required to hate your parents, but they are the ones that had to co-sign to get you into this program and agree to share your equity.

    I think it is really cool that there is an organization like this to help nurture the creative spark in kids who have not just a dream, but an idea for how to make it real. Great ideas can come from anywhere; often the biggest barrier to getting it over the goal line is knowing what to do next. By using experienced entrepreneurs to mentor budding ones early in life, the newbies can have even more shots on goal and help the U.S. maintain its position as the world's technology leader. The combination of youth and enthusiasm with experience and seasoning can be a very powerful cocktail.

    My one complaint about the Teens In Tech program, however, is that none of the selection committee members were women and only 5 of the 61 mentors focused on the program are female. It's unfortunate that the "next generation" of entrepreneurs is being sent out into the world laden with the same female-free bias that is present in the entrepreneurial and venture capital worlds today. I'd like to think that those who will follow me in this field will be more enlightened and less likely to perpetuate the male-dominated reality of our current technology and venture capital landscape. Apparently the Teens In Tech haven't quite tackled that issue yet, so hopefully they will consider this article a challenge to do so. Considering how much time teenagers spend desperately seeking the company of the opposite sex, this one seems like a no-brainer opportunity.

    Lisa Suennen is a co-founder and Managing Member of Psilos Group, a healthcare-focused venture capital firm with over $577 million under management.