TED演讲：创业者成功不可缺少的5条法则

I'm really excited to share with you some findings that really surprise me about what makes companies succeed the most, what factors actually matter the most for startup success. I believe that the startup organization is one of the greatest forms to make the world a better place.

我很高兴能和大家分享一些令我惊讶的发现，是什么让公司取得了最大的成功，什么因素对创业成功最重要。我相信创业组织是使世界变得更美好的最伟大的形式之一。

If you take a group of people with the right equity incentives and organize them in a startup, you can unlock human potential in a way never before possible. You get them to achieve unbelievable things. But if the startup organization is so great, why do so many fail?

如果你把一群拥有正确股权激励的人组织起来，你可以以一种前所未有的方式释放人类的潜能。你让他们实现令人难以置信的事情。但如果创业组织这么棒，为什么这么多人失败了？

That's what I wanted to find out. I wanted to find out what actually matters most for startup success. And I wanted to try to be systematic about it, avoid some of my instincts and maybe misperceptions I have from so many companies I've seen over the years.

这就是我想知道的。我想找出对创业成功最重要的是什么。我想要系统地处理这件事，避开一些我的直觉，也许是我多年来从这么多公司看到的误解。

I wanted to know this because I've been starting businesses since I was 12 years old when I sold candy at the bus stop in junior high school, to high school, when I made solar energy devices, to college, when I made loudspeakers.

我想知道这一点，因为我从12岁起就开始创业，那时我在初中的公共汽车站卖糖果，上高中，当我做太阳能设备上大学的时候，我做扩音器的时候。

And when I graduated from college, I started software companies. And 20 years ago, I started Idealab, and in the last 20 years, we started more than 100 companies, many successes, and many big failures. We learned a lot from those failures.

当我大学毕业时，我创办了软件公司。20年前，我创立了Idealab，在过去的20年里，我们创办了100多家公司，取得了许多成功，还有很多重大的失败。我们从这些失败中学到了很多。

So I tried to look across what factors accounted the most for company success and failure. So I looked at these five. First, the idea. I used to think that the idea was everything. I named my company Idealab for how much I worship the "aha!" moment when you first come up with the idea.

因此，我试图找出哪些因素对公司的成功和失败起着最重要的作用。所以我看了看这五个。首先，这个想法。我曾经认为这个想法就是一切。我给我的公司起名叫依拉达，是因为我有多崇拜这个“啊哈！”当你第一次想到这个主意的时候。

But then over time, I came to think that maybe the team, the execution, adaptability, that mattered even more than the idea. I never thought I'd be quoting boxer Mike Tyson on the TED stage, but he once said, "Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face."

但随着时间的推移，我开始想，也许团队，执行力，适应性，这比想法更重要。我从没想过我会在TED舞台上引用拳击手迈克·泰森的话，但他曾经说过“每个人都有自己的计划直到他们被打在脸上。“

And I think that's so true about business as well. So much about a team's execution  is its ability to adapt to getting punched in the face by the customer. The customer is the true reality. And that's why I came to think that the team maybe was the most important thing.

我认为商业也是如此。一个团队的执行很大程度上取决于它是否能够适应客户的当面攻击。客户才是真正的现实。这就是为什么我开始认为球队可能是最重要的事情。

Then I started looking at the business model. Does the company have a very clear path generating customer revenues? That started rising to the top in my thinking about maybe what mattered most for success. Then I looked at the funding.

然后我开始研究商业模式。公司是否有一条非常清晰的途径来创造客户收入？在我思考什么对成功最重要的问题上，这开始上升到了顶峰。然后我看了一下资金。

Sometimes companies received intense amounts of funding. Maybe that's the most important thing? And then of course, the timing. Is the idea way too early and the world's not ready for it? Is it early, as in, you're in advance and you have to educate the world?

有时公司收到大量的资金。也许这是最重要的事？当然还有时间。这个想法是不是太早了，世界还没准备好呢？是不是太早了，就像在，你提前到了，你得去教育世界？

Is it just right? Or is it too late, and there's already too many competitors? So I tried to look very carefully at these five factors across many companies. And I looked across all 100 Idealab companies, and 100 non-Idea lab companies to try and come up with something scientific about it.

刚刚好吗？还是太晚了竞争对手已经太多了？因此，我试图仔细研究这五个因素在许多公司。我查看了所有100家公司，以及100家非伊特拉布公司试图拿出一些科学的东西来解决这个问题。

So first, on these Idealab companies, the top five companies -- City search, Cars Direct, Go To, Net Zero, Tickets.com -- those all became billion-dollar successes. And the five companies on the bottom -- Z.com, Insider Pages, My Life, Desktop Factory, People link -- we all had high hopes for, but didn't succeed.

所以首先，关于这些伊特拉布公司，排名前五的公司--City Search，Cars Direct，Go to，Net Zero，Tickets.com--这些都成了数十亿美元的成功。最底层的五家公司--Z.com，内幕页面，我的生活，桌面工厂，人民网--我们都对此寄予厚望，但没有成功。

So I tried to rank across all of those attributes how I felt those companies scored on each of those dimensions. And then for non-Idea lab companies, I looked at wild successes, like Airbnb and Instagram and Uber and Youtube and LinkedIn. And some failures: Webvan, Kozmo, Pets.com Flooz and Friendster. 

还有一些失败：Webvan，Kozmo，Pets.com，Flooz和Friendster。所以我试着对所有这些属性进行排序，我觉得这些公司在每一个维度上都会得分。然后对非Idealab公司来说，我看到了疯狂的成功，比如Airbnb，Instagram，Uber，YouTube和LinkedIn。

The bottom companies had intense funding,  they even had business models in some cases, but they didn't succeed. I tried to look at what factors actually accounted the most for success and failure across all of these companies, and the results really surprised me. The number one thing was timing. 

最底层的公司有大量的资金，在某些情况下，他们甚至有商业模式，但他们没有成功。我试着看看是什么因素导致了所有这些公司的成功和失败，结果真让我吃惊。第一件事是时机问题。

Timing accounted for 42 percent of the difference between success and failure. Team and execution came in second, and the idea, the differentiability of the idea,  that actually came in third. Now, this isn't absolutely definitive, it's not to say that the idea isn't important, but it very much surprised me that the idea wasn't the most important thing.

在成功与失败之间的差异中，时间占了42%。团队和执行排在第二位，还有这个想法，这种想法的可微性，这个想法的独特性，实际上排在第三位。现在，这不是绝对确定的，并不是说这个主意不重要，但这个想法并不是最重要的，这让我非常惊讶。

Sometimes it mattered more when it was actually timed. The last two, business model and funding, made sense to me actually. I think business model makes sense to be that low because you can start out without a business model and add one later if your customers are demanding what you're creating.

有时候，它更重要的是，当它是真正的时间。最后两个，商业模式和资金，对我来说很有意义。我认为商业模式如此之低是有道理的，因为您可以在没有业务模型的情况下开始工作，如果您的客户要求您所创建的内容，您可以在稍后添加一个模型。

And funding, I think as well, if you're underfunded at first but you're gaining traction, especially in today's age, it's very, very easy to get intense funding. So now let me give you some specific examples about each of these.

还有资金，我想也是，如果一开始你资金不足，但你正在获得牵引力，尤其是在今天这个时代，很容易得到大量资金。现在让我给大家举几个具体的例子。

So take a wild success like Airbnb that everybody knows about. Well, that company was famously passed on by many smart investors because people thought, "No one's going to rent out a space in their home to a stranger." Of course, people proved that wrong.所以就拿大家都知道的Airbnb.

那样的成功为例吧。好吧，那家公司被许多聪明的投资者传了下来，因为人们认为，“没有人会把家里的空间租给陌生人。”当然，人们证明了这是错误的。

But one of the reasons it succeeded, aside from a good business model, a good idea, great execution, is the timing. That company came out right during the height of the recession when people really needed extra money, and that maybe helped people overcome their objection to renting out their own home to a stranger.

但它成功的原因之一，除了一个好的商业模式，一个好主意，很好的执行，是时机。那家公司是在经济衰退最严重的时候出现的，当时人们真的需要额外的钱，这也许帮助人们克服了将自己的房子出租给陌生人的反对意见。

Same thing with Uber. Uber came out, incredible company, incredible business model, great execution, too. But the timing was so perfect for their need to get drivers into the system. Drivers were looking for extra money; it was very, very important.

优步也是一样。优步出来了，令人难以置信的公司，难以置信的商业模式，伟大的执行。但是这个时机对于他们让司机进入系统来说是非常完美的。司机们在寻找额外的钱，这是非常非常重要的。

Some of our early successes, City search, came out when people needed web pages. Go To.com, which we announced actually at TED in 1998, was when companies were looking for cost-effective ways to get traffic. We thought the idea was so great, but actually, the timing was probably maybe more important.

我们早期的一些成功，城市搜索，当人们需要网页的时候就出来了。Go to.com，我们在1998年TED上宣布的，当时公司正在寻找符合成本效益的交通方式。我们觉得这个主意太棒了，但实际上，时机可能更重要。

And then some of our failures. We started a company called Z.com, it was an online entertainment company. We were so excited about it -- we raised enough money, we had a great business model, we even signed incredibly great Hollywood talent to join the company.

然后我们的一些失败。我们成立了一家名为Z.com的公司，那是一家在线娱乐公司。我们很兴奋--我们筹到了足够的钱，我们有一个很好的商业模式，我们甚至签下了令人难以置信的好莱坞天才加盟这家公司。

But broadband penetration was too low in 1999-2000. It was too hard to watch video content online, you had to put codecs in your browser and do all this stuff, and the company eventually went out of business in 2003.

但在1999至2000年，宽带普及率太低。很难在网上看到视频内容，你得把编解码器放进浏览器里做这些事，该公司最终于2003年停业。

Just two years later, when the codec problem was solved by Adobe Flash and when broadband penetration crossed 50 percent in America, YouTube was perfectly timed. Great idea, but unbelievable timing. In fact, YouTube didn't even have a business model when it first started.

就在两年后，当AdobeFlash解决了编解码问题，当美国宽带普及率超过50%时，YouTube的时机恰到好处。好主意，但难以置信的时机。事实上，YouTube刚开始的时候甚至没有商业模式。

It wasn't even certain that that would work out. But that was beautifully, beautifully timed. So what I would say, in summary, is execution definitely matters a lot. The idea matters a lot. But timing might matter even more. And the best way to really assess timing is to really look at whether consumers are really ready for what you have to offer them.

甚至不确定那会不会成功。但这是美丽的，美丽的时间。总之，我要说的是，处决绝对是很重要的。这个主意很重要。但时机可能更重要。而真正评估时机的最好方法就是真正审视消费者是否真的准备好接受你必须提供的服务。

And to be really, really honest about it, not be in denial about any results that you see, because if you have something you love, you want to push it forward, but you have to be very, very honest about that factor on timing.

实际上，老实说，不要否认你看到的任何结果，因为如果你有你喜欢的东西，你想把它推进，但你必须非常，关于时机的因素很诚实。

As I said earlier, I think startups can change the world and make the world a better place. I hope some of these insights can maybe help you have a slightly higher success ratio, and thus make something great come to the world that wouldn't have happened otherwise.

就像我之前说的，我认为创业公司可以改变世界，让世界变得更美好。我希望这些见解能帮助你获得更高的成功率，从而使一些伟大的事情来到这个世界上，否则就不会发生。

Thank you very much, you've been a great audience.

非常感谢, 你们是很好的观众。