创业公司什么时候该关门大吉

    在分类信息网站Craigslist和Monster.com出现之前，曾有这样一家名为Drei Tauben Ltd的公司，提供独有的科技行业职位招聘平台。1991年，克里斯托弗•弗兰克与两位合伙人创立了这家公司，花了两年时间来打造这项业务。

    他们创造了一个用户友好平台，用人单位如果想在自己品牌下发布在线招聘广告，可以进行定制。已经开始有收入进账，而且他们还联系到了一家科技学院协会，有意使用这一系统。一切看起来都充满着希望，他们将从市值1亿美元的科技招聘广告市场中分得一杯羹。

    但收入增长比他们预想的慢。每过一、两个月，合伙人们都必须把更多的个人资金投入到这家公司。到了1993年秋季，他们决定关闭公司。

    “很痛苦，就像宣判死刑一样，”现年45岁的弗兰克说。如今他是美国运通（American Express）的一位副总裁，并著有《超越信息泛滥：聪明人的决策之道》（Drinking from the Fire Hose: Making Smarter Decisions Without Drowning in Information）一书。“当你对一件事充满激情的时候，你会感到它就在你的骨子里。一旦它没有按计划进行，你会感觉非常失落。”

    关掉公司，放弃最初曾激励你创立公司的大好前景，这或许是创业者最难接受的事情。本质上，创业者把“挫折”视为只是解决方案未明。如果答案其实是你不想听的“别干这个了”，也许他们会视而不见。 纵观小公司的创业史，有太多本可能成功的故事——这些公司有着出色的点子，但时机尚不成熟，或者要实现盈利难度太大。

    “乐观主义既是创业者的宝贵财富，也是风险所在，”芝加哥系列创业家乔•格洛茨说。“乐观与空想仅一纸之隔。”

    本文采访了多位创业者，总结了几种值得警惕的典型症状。如果你的公司存在这些症状，或许最佳的选择是关掉公司，重新开始。

曲高和寡

    回顾过去，弗兰克认为，在Drei Tauben与传统印刷出版物的一系列会面中，Drei Tauben的问题凸显无疑。这些出版物熟知广告业务的方方面面和那些为招聘广告付钱的客户。但他们就是不理解为什么人们要上网找工作，而不是打开报纸。当时，互联网的影响与今天还不可同日而语。

    如果你无法说服战略性合作伙伴或客户，让他们相信你商业模式背后的逻辑，即便最后证明你是正确的，又有何用？不管潜在市场可能有多大，你首先需要有真实而活跃的客户给你开支票，不停地再开支票。

    “当你试图做出这个决定时，不管是去是留，都不能盯着宏观经济，”弗兰克表示。“你得评估本地市场和目标受众。有没有收入支撑这项业务？谁是你的客户？”

    Before Craigslist, before Monster.com, there was Drei Tauben Ltd, a proprietary system for help-wanted advertising for technology jobs. Christopher Frank started the company with two business partners in 1991 and spent two years building the business.

    They created a user-friendly platform that could be customized by organizations that wanted to advertise job opportunities online under their own brand. Revenue started to come in and the partners had connected with an association of technology schools interested in using the system. All the signs were promising to tap into the $100 million market for technology job ads.

    But revenue was growing more slowly than they had anticipated. Every month or two, the partners had to sink more of their own money into the business. In the fall of 1993, they decided to shutter the company.

    "It was painful. It was like a death," says Frank, 45, who is currently a vice president at American Express and author of Drinking from the Fire Hose: Making Smarter Decisions Without Drowning in Information. "When you're passionate about something, you feel it in your bones. When that doesn't work as planned, it just drains you."

    Closing down a business and giving up on the potential that inspired you to launch it in the first place is perhaps the hardest thing an entrepreneur can do. By nature, entrepreneurs see setbacks simply as problems whose solutions aren't yet evident. That same quality can put a blind spot when the answer is one you just don't want to hear: "Move on." The history of small business is littered with the shells of could-have-been success stories, companies built on a brilliant idea whose time hadn't come or was too challenging to execute profitably.

    "Optimism is a gift of the entrepreneur and also an occupational hazard," says Jay Goltz, a Chicago-based serial entrepreneur. "There's a very thin line between optimistic and delusional."

    From interviews with entrepreneurs, here are a few classic signs that the best choice is simply to close your small business and start fresh.

You draw blank stares

    In retrospect, Frank pinpoints his company's trouble to the series of meetings Drei Tauben had with the traditional print publications that knew the ins and outs of the advertising business as well as the clients that paid for job ads. They just couldn't understand why anyone would go online to look for a job instead of opening up a newspaper. At the time, the Internet wasn't anything like it is today.

    When you cannot convince your strategic partners nor your customers of the logic behind your business model, it doesn't matter if you're ultimately proven right. No matter how big the potential market may be, you first need real, live customers to write one check, and then a second.

    "When you're trying to make that decision, should you stay or should you go, you can't base it on the macroeconomics," Frank says. "You need to assess your local market and your target audience. Is there revenue to support the business? Who are your customers?"