选择慢成长的五家创业公司

面对掌控欲强的投资者

公司名称：SLI Systems

地点：加利福尼亚州，圣荷西

年收益：销售额超过1,000万美元

    公司首席执行官、共同创始人肖恩•瑞恩表示，风险投资家和私募股权机构几乎每周都会与他这家私营公司接触。“他们总在寻找交易目标。”但迄今为止，瑞恩对此并不感兴趣。这家规模50人左右的公司为网站提供托管网站搜索和导航解决方案。他说：“实际上我们并不需要注资。”

    瑞恩和他的同事于2001年创办了这家名为SLI Systems的公司。他们认识到，公司的生存发展需要源源不断的收入来维持，并且公司要围绕该软件建立服务模式。这笔收入使得他们得以缓慢但却步伐扎实地发展业务，从而避免股权投资可能带来的一些缺陷。瑞恩称：“我曾经见过，一些创业者在接受投资后就身不由己了，甚至被逼到失控的边缘。通常，风险投资家会寻求在特定的时间范围内退出。他们通常会催促企业家作出决策，就是有的时候从公司自身或者市场时机来看并不是最佳时机。”

    对瑞恩来说，他更喜欢担任公司掌舵人的角色，并在自己认为适当的时候做出决策。他说：“这样就可以自主选择最佳时机。”

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

When investors get needy

Company: SLI Systems

Location: San Jose, Calif. and Christchurch, New Zealand

Revenues: Over $10 million in sales

    Venture capitalists and private equity firms approach this 50-person, privately held tech firm almost weekly, says CEO and co-founder Shaun Ryan. "They're out there, looking for deals," he says. But so far, Ryan hasn't been interested in making one for the firm, a provider of hosted site search and navigation solutions for websites. "We don't really need the capital," he says.

    When Ryan and his colleagues launched the firm that they eventually named SLI Systems in 2001, they realized they needed recurring revenues to survive and built the company around the software as service (SAS) model. That stream of incoming cash has allowed them to grow the business slowly but steadily by bootstrapping it, avoiding some of the pitfalls of taking an equity investment. "I've seen other founders get pushed to the side and lose control," says Ryan. "Often venture capitalists will have a certain time frame for which they're looking to get an exit. They can often drive an entrepreneur to make decisions or push things to happen that aren't necessarily optimal times for the company and what's happening in the market."

    As for Ryan, he'd rather stay in the driver's seat and make those decisions when they feel right: "You can choose the optimal time yourself," he says.