我是如何成为一名创业者的？

    如果你能设计、建造、拥有和照料这样一台机器，那你就能变得非常富有。当然，这并不意味着创业很轻松，但你认为会阻止你的大多数障碍其实并不会成为拦路虎。感兴趣吗？

    来说说你吧：你年轻，没有钱，没有资历，是一名学生或者讨厌现在的工作？或者有些许叛逆？棒极了。你没有坏习惯，愿意通宵达旦，不辞辛苦地工作。欢迎来创业。

    但如果你现在有一份稳定的工作，有房屋抵押贷款，还有几个孩子，创业之路必将更加艰难。虽然创业可能成功，但过程会像倒退着穿过流沙一样艰难。

    优秀创业者最重要的品质是活力和决心。有说服力自然没有坏处，但这种能力可以通过学习获得。我在21岁开始创业时，是一个害羞的超级书呆子；我很快学会了如何推销，因为这是能养活自己的唯一途径。

    开场白说得够多了。下面谈一谈如何让你赚钱。忘掉那些关于创意价值的骗人废话吧。创意是廉价的、转瞬即逝的东西；商业创意本身的价值比不上一个吃了一半的三明治。至少三明治能填饱肚子。

    当然，创业确实需要一个创意。但你要知道，即便最成功的公司，也并非建立在疯狂的或非凡的创意之上。星巴克（Starbucks）选择西雅图作为其销售咖啡的大本营。Facebook打造出比MySpace更优秀的社交媒体。谷歌则开发出比雅虎（Yahoo）更出色的搜索引擎。

    原创创意的价值总是被高估，而创业时机总是受到轻视。谷歌选择绝佳时机，打造出一款更出色的搜索引擎——如果现在来做这件事，那只能自求多福了。因此，你现在需要更加敏锐地意识到目前被忽视的市场需求。你应该推出一款能够成功的产品或服务——不论它是否原创。对一个没有得到充分实现的现有创意进行完善，比构思一个完全原创的创意，往往要容易得多。

    人们往往不敢在竞争激烈的领域创业，但有竞争是好事。比如，开设餐厅最好的位置就是在另一家成功餐厅的隔壁；因为他们已经非常好心地帮你完成了培养用户群这项艰苦的工作。许多公司都是紧随在其他公司之后取得了成功——有竞争对手往往比没有竞争对手更有利于创业。你只需要比竞争对手优秀10%就行。

    我个人推荐尝试着打造一款你和你的朋友愿意马上购买的商品。你会更了解自己的领域，了解你的客户，会对所从事的事业充满激情。如果你能打造一家“解决问题”，而不只是“提供某种商品”的公司，你便可以激发自己和身边其他人的灵感。而公司要生存下去，你需要一些灵光闪现的时刻。

    创建一家公司类似于养育子女。每个人都认为你知道自己在做什么，但婴儿和公司都不会自带操作说明书。你只能摸着石头过河，边做边学习。

    创业初期，失败的概率最高。你的目标是建造一台神奇的赚钱机器，但你可能尚未备齐所有零件，而你需要的零件的成本或许超出了你的承受能力。你的创意可能至少有一半是错误的，但你尚不清楚错在何处。这些情况均属正常。

    创业的很大一部分工作在于说服人们相信你。史蒂夫•乔布斯创建苹果公司（Apple）时，既没有钱也没有客户；他接下来做的事情充分体现了一位优秀创业者应该具备的品质。首先，他说服当地一家电脑专卖店，订购了尚未面世的苹果电脑，付款方式为交货后付款。然后，他又利用手里的订单，证明自己有偿还能力，说服了一位零件供应商卖给他开发电脑所需要的零部件。乔布斯和一个小团队在他们的车库里，打造出第一批计算机，并按时交货，赚取了一笔可观的利润。苹果公司便是白手起家的典范。

    If you can design, build, own and care for such a machine, you can become very rich indeed. That doesn’t mean it’s easy, but most of the barriers that you think will stop you won’t. Interested?

    Let’s talk about you: are you young, poor and unqualified – a student, or hating your job? Maybe a touch rebellious? Perfect. You have no bad habits, and will work until your fingernails fall out and your eyeballs roll onto the desk. The world awaits you.

    But if you’re experienced with a stable job and a mortgage and kids, your job is much harder. It can be done, but it might feel like you’re trying to dance backwards through quicksand.

    The most important qualities of a good entrepreneur are energy and determination. It doesn’t hurt to be persuasive, but this can be learned. I started as a shy uber-nerd aged 21; I soon learned how to sell when it was the only way to feed myself.

    Enough preamble. Let’s make you a bajillion dollars. Please forget all of the terrible deluded nonsense you’ve heard about the value of ideas. Ideas are cheap, fleeting things; by itself a business idea is worth less than a half-eaten sandwich. At least you can eat the sandwich.

    You do need an idea of course. But understand that even the most successful companies were not founded on wild or brilliant ideas. Starbucks chose the brazen path of selling coffee in Seattle. Facebook built a better MySpace. Google built a better Yahoo search.

    Original ideas are overrated. What isn’t overrated is timing. Google chose the perfect time to build a better search engine – good luck trying to do that now. What you want, therefore, is an astute awareness of a need that is currently underrepresented in the market. You want to spot a product or service that can go places – original or not. It’s usually easier to refine an existing idea that isn’t fully realized than to create a wholly original one.

    People fear setting up a business wherever there’s competition, but competition can be a good thing. The best place to set up a new restaurant is right next to another successful restaurant; they’ve kindly done the hard work for you of building an audience. Many a good business has ridden to success on the coattails of another – it is usually better to have some rivals over none. You just need to become 10% better.

    I personally recommend trying to deliver something that you and your friends would buy in a heartbeat. You’ll know more about your field, you’ll understand your customers, and you’ll be passionate about what you do. If you can make your company about a why – not a what – you’ll inspire yourself and those around you. And to survive the next step, you need a fair sprinkle of inspiration.

    Starting a company is a bit like parenting. Everyone assumes you know what you’re doing, but babies and companies don’t come with instruction manuals. You stumble through it and learn as you go.

    It’s at the start where you’re most likely to fail. Your aim is to build that magical money-making machine, but you probably don’t have all the parts and the ones that you need may cost more than you have. Your idea is probably at least half wrong too, but you won’t know which half yet. All of this is normal.

    A big part of starting a company is convincing people to believe in you before they probably should. When Steve Jobs founded Apple, he had no money and no customers; what he did next is the hallmark of a great entrepreneur. First he convinced a local computer store to order his non-existent Apple computers, with payment on delivery. He then convinced a parts supplier to sell him the components he needed to build them – using the order he just obtained as proof he would be able to pay them back. Jobs and a small team worked in their garage to build the first computers, delivered them on time and made a tidy profit. Apple was born from nothing.