'Lessons from 1,000+ YC startups: Resilience, tar pit ideas, pivoting, more | Dalton Caldwell (YC)'

Dalton Caldwell: Seeing everything people apply to YC with.

Dalton Caldwell：了解人们申请 YC 的所有内容。

People all have the same idea.

人们都有同样的想法。

Lenny Rachitsky: One of these themes is simple, pragmatic advice.

Lenny Rachitsky：这些主题之一是简单、务实的建议。

Sell shit, make money.

卖东西，赚钱。

Dalton Caldwell: One of my mantras is just don't die.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我的座右铭之一就是不要死。

Being coached and being reminded of the fundamentals and basics puts you in the right mindset.

接受指导并提醒您基本原理和基础知识可以让您保持正确的心态。

Lenny Rachitsky: You have this concept of tarpit ideas.

Lenny Rachitsky：你有柏油坑想法的概念。

Dalton Caldwell: Seems like an unsolved problem.

道尔顿考德威尔：似乎是一个未解决的问题。

You'll get all this positive feedback from the world and people have been starting that startup since the '90s.

你会从世界各地得到所有这些积极的反馈，人们自 90 年代以来就开始创办这家初创公司。

Lenny Rachitsky: Recently you put out a request for startups, 20 categories of ideas and the YC wants to fund.

Lenny Rachitsky：最近您提出了对初创公司的请求，YC 想要资助 20 个类别的想法。

Dalton Caldwell: We're trying to mix up some of the information diet about what kind of ideas people might be contemplating they are currently.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我们正在尝试混合一些有关人们目前可能正在考虑的想法的信息。

Lenny Rachitsky: A lot of people say you're the king of the pivot.

Lenny Rachitsky：很多人说你是枢轴之王。

Dalton Caldwell: A good pivot is like going home.

道尔顿·考德威尔：一次好的转向就像回家一样。

It's warmer, it's closer to something that you're an expert at.

它更温暖，更接近你所擅长的事情。

Lenny Rachitsky: Are there other patterns you find across startups that do well?

Lenny Rachitsky：您在初创公司中是否发现了其他表现良好的模式？

Dalton Caldwell: There's a lot of founders that come this close to it, all being over and through sheer will just keep it going.

道尔顿·考德威尔（Dalton Caldwell）：有很多创始人都非常接近这个目标，一切都经过彻底的完成才能让它继续下去。

Lenny Rachitsky: Today my guest is Dalton Caldwell.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：今天我的客人是道尔顿·考德威尔。

Dalton is managing director and group partner at Y Combinator where he's worked for over 10 years across 21 different YC batches, including working closely in the earliest days of Instacart, Retool, Brex, Deal, DoorDash, Webflow, Replit, Amplitude, Whatnot, Razorpay and 20 other Unicorns.

Dalton 是 Y Combinator 的董事总经理和集团合伙人，他在 Y Combinator 的 21 个不同的 YC 批次中工作了 10 多年，包括在 Instacart、Retool、Brex、Deal、DoorDash、Webflow、Replit、Amplitude、Whatnot、Razorpay 和其他 20 个独角兽公司的早期密切合作。

Prior to Y Combinator, Dalton was the co-founder and CEO of imeem, which was acquired by Myspace, and Co-founder and CEO of App.net, which was an early ads-free competitor to Twitter.

在加入 Y Combinator 之前，Dalton 是 imeem（后来被 Myspace 收购）的联合创始人兼首席执行官，也是 App.net（Twitter 的早期无广告竞争对手）的联合创始人兼首席执行官。

Dalton has seen and worked with more startups than nearly any human alive and in our conversation we get incredibly tactical and deep on the startup journey.

道尔顿见过的初创公司并与之合作过的初创公司数量几乎比任何活着的人都多，在我们的谈话中，我们对初创公司的旅程进行了令人难以置信的战术和深入探讨。

Why it all comes down to simply not losing hope and not letting your startup die.

为什么这一切都归结为不要失去希望，不要让你的初创公司消亡。

What to do when your startup is struggling and how to know when it is time to give up.

当您的初创公司陷入困境时该怎么办以及如何知道何时该放弃。

What makes a great pivot and signs it's time to pivot.

是什么造就了伟大的转型，以及是时候转型的标志了。

How to actually talk to customers.

如何与客户进行实际交谈。

Lenny Rachitsky: Why every single startup goes through a point where they feel like all hope is lost.

Lenny Rachitsky：为什么每个初创公司都会经历一个感觉所有希望都破灭的时刻。

Why investors say no to startups.

为什么投资者对初创公司说不。

What most often leads to startups failing.

最常导致初创企业失败的是什么。

Why you need to avoid over-delegating early on.

为什么您需要尽早避免过度授权。

Plus startup ideas that you should avoid.

还有你应该避免的创业想法。

And also 20 ideas Dalton is looking to fund.

道尔顿还寻求资助 20 个创意。

Also so many great stories and lessons.

还有很多精彩的故事和教训。

This episode is action packed.

这一集动作戏十足。

With that, I bring you Dalton Caldwell after a short word from our sponsors.

在我们的赞助商简短发言后，我为您带来了道尔顿考德威尔。

And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

如果您喜欢这个播客，请不要忘记订阅并在您最喜欢的播客应用程序或 YouTube 中关注它。

It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes and it helps the podcast tremendously.

这是避免错过未来剧集的最佳方式，并且对播客有很大帮助。

This episode is brought to you by Eppo.

本集由 Eppo 为您带来。

Eppo is a next generation A/B testing and feature management platform built by alums of Airbnb and Snowflake for modern growth teams.

Eppo 是由 Airbnb 和 Snowflake 的校友为现代增长团队构建的下一代 A/B 测试和功能管理平台。

Companies like Twitch, Miro, ClickUp and DraftKings rely on Eppo to power their experiments.

Twitch、Miro、ClickUp 和 DraftKings 等公司依靠 Eppo 来支持他们的实验。

Lenny Rachitsky: Experimentation is increasingly essential for driving growth and for understanding the performance of new features.

Lenny Rachitsky：实验对于推动增长和了解新功能的性能越来越重要。

And Eppo helps you increase experimentation velocity while unlocking rigorous deep analysis in a way that no other commercial tool does.

Eppo 可以帮助您提高实验速度，同时以其他商业工具无法做到的方式解锁严格的深度分析。

When I was at Airbnb, one of the things that I loved most was our experimentation platform where I could set up experiments easily, troubleshoot issues, and analyze performance all on my own.

当我在 Airbnb 时，我最喜欢的事情之一就是我们的实验平台，我可以在其中轻松设置实验、解决问题并自行分析性能。

Eppo does all that and more with advanced statistical methods that can help you shape weeks off experiment time and accessible UI for diving deeper into performance and out-of-the-box reporting that helps you avoid annoying, prolonged analytic cycles.

Eppo 通过先进的统计方法实现了这一切以及更多功能，可以帮助您节省数周的实验时间，并且可访问的 UI 可以更深入地了解性能，而开箱即用的报告可以帮助您避免烦人的、延长的分析周期。

Eppo also makes it easy for you to share experiment insights with your team, sparking new ideas for the A/B testing flywheel.

Eppo 还使您可以轻松地与您的团队分享实验见解，激发 A/B 测试飞轮的新想法。

Eppo powers experimentation across every use case, including product, growth, machine learning, monetization, and email marketing.

Eppo 为每个用例提供实验支持，包括产品、增长、机器学习、货币化和电子邮件营销。

Check out Eppo at geteppo.com/Lenny and 10X your experiment velocity.

请访问 geteppo.com/Lenny 查看 Eppo，将您的实验速度提高 10 倍。

That's get E-P-P-O dot com slash Lenny.

这就是 E-P-P-O . com 斜线莱尼。

Lenny Rachitsky: This episode is brought to you by Vanta.

Lenny Rachitsky：本集由 Vanta 为您带来。

When it comes to ensuring your company has top-notch security practices, things get complicated fast.

当谈到确保您的公司拥有一流的安全实践时，事情很快就会变得复杂。

Now, you can assess risk, secure the trust of your customers and automate compliance for SOC 2, ISO 27001, HIPAA and more with a single platform, Vanta.

现在，您可以使用单一平台 Vanta 评估风险、确保客户信任并自动实现 SOC 2、ISO 27001、HIPAA 等合规性。

Vanta's market-leading trust management platform helps you continuously monitor compliance alongside reporting and tracking risks.

Vanta 市场领先的信任管理平台可帮助您持续监控合规性以及报告和跟踪风险。

Plus, you can save hours by completing security questionnaires with Vanta AI.

此外，您还可以通过 Vanta AI 完成安全调查问卷来节省时间。

Join thousands of global companies that use Vanta to automate evidence collection, unify risk management, and streamline security reviews.

加入数千家使用 Vanta 自动化证据收集、统一风险管理和简化安全审查的全球公司行列。

Get $1,000 off Vanta when you go to vanta.com/Lenny.

访问vanta.com/Lenny，即可享受Vanta 1,000 美元优惠。

That's V-A-N-TA dot com slash Lenny.

那是 V-A-N-TA . com 斜杠莱尼。

Dalton, thank you so much for being here and welcome to the podcast.

道尔顿，非常感谢您来到这里，欢迎来到播客。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

Thanks so much, Lenny.

非常感谢，莱尼。

I'm really excited to talk to you today.

今天能和你说话我真的很兴奋。

It's been great.

太棒了。

Lenny Rachitsky: So to prep for this podcast interview, I asked a bunch of founders that worked with you during YC what advice you shared with them along the journey that was most transformative to the way they think about product, the way they think about building their startup, the way they operate.

Lenny Rachitsky：为了准备这次播客采访，我询问了在 YC 期间与您共事的一群创始人，您在整个旅程中与他们分享了哪些建议，这些建议对他们对产品的看法、他们对建立初创公司的看法以及他们的运营方式最具变革性。

And there's a bunch of themes that emerged and I'm going to touch on a number of these themes.

出现了很多主题，我将讨论其中的一些主题。

One of these themes is just how often you get to very simple pragmatic advice and how much of your message is just sell shit, make money, don't run out of money.

这些主题之一就是你多久会得到非常简单的实用建议，以及你的信息有多少只是卖狗屎，赚钱，不要把钱花光。

Why do you think founders need to hear this advice, which is seemingly simple and obvious?

您认为为什么创始人需要听到这个看似简单明了的建议？

Dalton Caldwell: Have you ever seen in NBA basketball or college basketball where they have the coach mic'd up and it shows what they're actually saying in the huddle?

道尔顿·考德威尔：你有没有见过在 NBA 篮球或大学篮球比赛中，教练打开麦克风，然后显示他们在人群中实际所说的话？

You ever listen to what they actually are saying?

你有听过他们实​​际上在说什么吗？

They're like, "Okay, we need to really focus and get the ball and win this game." If you actually listen to what the greatest, smartest, most successful athletes are talking about, if you listen to what Tiger Woods is saying to his caddy, it all sounds like pretty mundane stuff.

他们会说，“好吧，我们需要真正集中注意力，拿到球并赢得这场比赛。”如果你真的听听最伟大、最聪明、最成功的运动员在谈论什么，如果你听听泰格·伍兹对他的球童说的话，这一切听起来都很平常。

It's not like what Tiger Woods is talking about with his caddy is some impossible to decipher jargon.

老虎伍兹与他的球童谈论的并不是一些难以理解的行话。

It's like, "Yeah, you really need to keep your head down on this one." It's things like that.

就像是，“是的，你真的需要在这件事上保持低调。”就是这样的事情。

And I think the reason this is true is that even if you're in the best in the world, being coached and being reminded of the fundamentals and basics is what puts you in the right mindset and that you already know everything, right?

我认为这是正确的原因是，即使你处于世界上最好的水平，接受指导并提醒你基本原理和基础知识会让你处于正确的心态，并且你已经知道一切，对吗？

You're at the top of your game if you make it to the elite levels of being a startup founder or basically doing anything that's really hard psychologically.

如果你达到了创业公司创始人的精英水平，或者基本上做了任何心理上非常困难的事情，那么你就处于游戏的顶端。

Dalton Caldwell: And so yeah, one of my mantras is just don't die.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，我的口头禅之一就是不要死。

Just keep your startup going.

只要让你的创业公司继续下去。

Just keep going.

继续吧。

And I say that over and over again and honestly, that is often what people tell me is the most impactful thing I said.

老实说，我一遍又一遍地这么说，人们常常告诉我，这是我说过的最有影响力的事情。

It's not that I said some Ninja 5D chess mood that they never would've thought of before.

并不是我说了一些他们以前想不到的忍者5D棋意。

It's just the constant affirmation that continuing to keep going and doing high quality reps is the game.

这只是不断地肯定，继续前进并做高质量的代表就是游戏。

Lenny Rachitsky: I know that you'd give a talk that's exactly called that, How Not To Die.

Lenny Rachitsky：我知道你会做一个演讲，名字就叫“如何不死”。

Just to pull on this thread a little bit more, what is the general advice you share there for people that also don't want to die?

只是为了进一步拉动这个话题，您对那些也不想死的人分享的一般建议是什么？

Dalton Caldwell: The way to summarize that is if you look at all the startup stories that we have at YC and all the companies we funded over all the years, the underlying theme is that rationally the founder should have given up at some point.

Dalton Caldwell：总结一下，如果你看看我们在 YC 的所有创业故事以及我们多年来资助的所有公司，潜在的主题是，从理性上讲，创始人应该在某个时候放弃。

And so again, let's talk about Airbnb, obviously something you know a lot about.

再次，我们来谈谈 Airbnb，显然您对此非常了解。

They probably should have shut down three or four times before they got into YC.

他们在进入 YC 之前可能应该关闭三四次。

It objectively wasn't working.

客观上它没有发挥作用。

They were basically ruining their lives, they were disappointing their parents, everything was wrong and it was a purely irrational act for the founders of Airbnb to keep working on their goofy startup.

他们基本上毁了自己的生活，让父母失望，一切都错了，Airbnb 的创始人继续致力于他们愚蠢的初创公司纯粹是非理性的行为。

And again, that's just one story.

再说一次，这只是一个故事。

If you look across the portfolio of YC and non-YC companies, there has to be this irrational intention to keep going even when the world tells you it's not working and you feel completely defeated.

如果你纵观 YC 和非 YC 公司的投资组合，你就会发现，即使世界告诉你这不起作用并且你感到彻底失败，你也会有这种继续前进的非理性意图。

And you likely have to go through this many times and have these near-death experiences.

你可能必须经历很多次，并有这些濒临死亡的经历。

And then you get lucky and then you look like an overnight success.

然后你就很幸运，看起来就像一夜暴富。

Right?

正确的？

Dalton Caldwell: And so that is the theme that is a summary and I provide lots of data and lots of stories there, but this is one of those things that the longer I have this job, the more I really, really believe this is true.

道尔顿·考德威尔：这就是总结的主题，我在那里提供了大量的数据和故事，但这是我从事这份工作的时间越长，我就越真的、真的相信这是真的。

Lenny Rachitsky: What's your advice on the flip side of that where there's a lot of startups, especially these days that are just super struggling, have been added for a while, there are mental health challenges, they'd be very sad if they had to shut this thing down, but often it's probably the right move?

Lenny Rachitsky：另一方面，你有什么建议，因为有很多初创公司，特别是现在，它们的处境非常艰难，已经添加了一段时间，存在心理健康挑战，如果他们不得不关闭这个东西，他们会非常难过，但通常这可能是正确的举动？

What's your advice to folks on deciding, okay, actually does make sense to give up in this case?

对于在这种情况下决定放弃实际上是否有意义的人们，您有什么建议？

Dalton Caldwell: I think this is a nuanced question and it's hard for me to say something on a podcast that'll actually be useful to people, but here's a couple of thoughts.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为这是一个微妙的问题，我很难在播客上说一些对人们实际上有用的东西，但这里有一些想法。

One, are you still having fun?

一、你还玩得开心吗？

Do you still enjoy doing what you're doing?

你仍然喜欢做你正在做的事情吗？

Do you enjoy spending time with your co-founders?

您喜欢与联合创始人共度时光吗？

Is this actually a fun thing you're doing?

这实际上是你正在做的一件有趣的事情吗？

And if the answer there is yes, I would tend to lean on the keep going.

如果答案是肯定的，我会倾向于继续前进。

And then if it's more of, wow, this is actually profoundly affecting me a negative way and my relationships with people in my life and I don't really want to work with my co-founder anymore and things like that, then I would lean on the probably don't do it anymore.

然后，如果更多的是，哇，这实际上对我以及我生活中与人的关系产生了深远的负面影响，而且我真的不想再与我的联合创始人一起工作以及类似的事情，那么我可能会不再这样做。

Something that a lot of the folks that turn it around have in common is they actually do love their customers and they love their product.

许多扭转局面的人都有一个共同点，那就是他们确实爱他们的客户，也爱他们的产品。

Dalton Caldwell: And again, in the Airbnb story, again, you know it really well, but they really liked Airbnb and they liked working with each other and they liked the first host that they met and they knew all their names.

道尔顿·考德威尔：再说一次，在 Airbnb 的故事中，你很清楚，但他们真的很喜欢 Airbnb，他们喜欢互相合作，他们喜欢他们遇到的第一位房东，而且他们知道他们的名字。

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

They loved their startup even though it was going bad.

他们热爱自己的创业公司，尽管它的情况很糟糕。

And so that's to me a signal to keep going is that you really, really love what you're doing and the people you're doing it with and you love your customers and you love the problem.

所以这对我来说是一个继续前进的信号，那就是你真的、真的热爱你正在做的事情以及和你一起做事的人，你热爱你的客户，你热爱这个问题。

Versus where you're just like, "Yeah, I could care less about any of those things.

而你会说，“是的，我可以不关心这些事情。

I'm just having a bad time." Harder to be encouraging in that situation.

我只是过得很糟糕。”在这种情况下更难鼓励。

And this is a fixable situation.

这是一个可以解决的情况。

You can make it more like the thing you love, can't you?

你可以让它更像你喜欢的东西，不是吗？

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的。

This is actually very practical and great advice.

这实际上是非常实用且很好的建议。

This is something people can sense, "Okay, am I actually enjoying this?

这是人们可以感觉到的，“好吧，我真的喜欢这个吗？

Do I want to keep doing this?" Versus, "Man, such a drag that I have to keep running this startup." Is there anything you could say to folks that are just like, "I can't stop because it'll feel like I failed"?

我想继续这样做吗？”与“伙计，这真是太累了，我必须继续经营这家​​初创公司。”你有什么话可以对那些“我无法停下来，因为我会觉得自己失败了”的人说吗？

Dalton Caldwell: If it's really going poorly or if you're having a really bad time, it's no big deal.

道尔顿考德威尔：如果事情真的很糟糕或者你过得很糟糕，那也没什么大不了的。

No one will remember that you shut down your company probably in 10 years or 20 years time.

没有人会记得你可能会在 10 年或 20 年后关闭你的公司。

As long as you have integrity, as long as you're an honest person, as long as you handle yourself well through good times and bad, people will remember you fondly.

只要你有正直，只要你是一个诚实的人，只要你无论顺境或逆境都处理好自己，人们就会深深地记住你。

We have such a short life.

我们的一生如此短暂。

There's only so many years we get to have our careers, doing something that makes you miserable and the only reason you're doing it is to avoid losing face and you know in your heart is not going to work, I don't know, that seems like a pretty big opportunity cost on literally your life.

我们的事业只有这么多年，做一些让你痛苦的事情，你这样做的唯一原因是为了避免丢脸，你心里知道这是行不通的，我不知道，这似乎对你的生活来说是一个相当大的机会成本。

Right?

正确的？

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, that's exactly what I tell founders all the time.

Lenny Rachitsky：是的，这正是我一直告诉创始人的。

Life is short.

生命是短暂的。

There's no need to force yourself to work on this.

没有必要强迫自己去做这件事。

And I really like your point of just, is it still enjoyable?

我真的很喜欢你的观点，它仍然令人愉快吗？

Do you like working with your founders?

你喜欢和你的创始人一起工作吗？

Following this thread of the struggle training a little bit more, one of the founders that worked with you during YC, his name is Danny Alberson, shared a story how during one of the batches of YC, one of the founders raised his hand and asked you, "What is wrong with our batch?

沿着这条斗争训练的线索再多一点，在 YC 期间与你一起工作的一位创始人，他的名字叫 Danny Alberson，分享了一个故事，在 YC 的其中一批中，一位创始人举手问你：“我们这批产品出了什么问题？

Everyone is struggling, nobody is doing well.

每个人都在挣扎，没有人过得很好。

What have we done wrong?" And you shared a story about Brex that made everyone feel a little better.

我们做错了什么？”你分享了一个关于 Brex 的故事，这让每个人都感觉好一点了。

Does that ring a bell and if so, can you share that?

这是否引起了人们的注意？如果是的话，您能分享一下吗？

Dalton Caldwell: That definitely happened and I think the story is the story of the Winter-17 batch.

Dalton Caldwell：这确实发生了，我认为这个故事是 Winter-17 批次的故事。

And in the Winter-17 batch, I funded something like, I don't know, 35, 40 companies in my group.

在 17 年冬季批次中，我资助了我团队中的 35 家、40 家公司，我不知道。

So we subset them into groups.

所以我们将它们分组。

So it wasn't a lot of companies and I knew all of them really well.

所以公司并不多，而且我对他们都很了解。

And founders can't help but compare themselves with other founders all the time about who's doing well and who's not doing well.

创始人总是情不自禁地与其他创始人进行比较，看看谁做得好，谁做得不好。

And there was this one company in my group, this batch, it was called Vyond, that was their name at the time and it was a VR headset thing from these Stanford dropouts.

我的团队里有一家公司，这一批，它叫 Vyond，这是他们当时的名字，这是斯坦福大学辍学学生推出的一款 VR 耳机。

And they basically showed up to group office hours and were just ashamed and they're like, "Our idea is horrible.

他们基本上在小组办公时间出现，只是感到羞愧，他们会说，“我们的想法太糟糕了。

We might want to shut our company down.

我们可能想关闭我们的公司。

This is really embarrassing." I had to beg them to not give up basically.

这实在是太尴尬了。”我不得不恳求他们基本上不要放弃。

And if you would've asked people in the batch what the worst company was, I think they would've said this one.

如果你问这批人中最糟糕的公司是什么，我想他们会说这家。

Again, not because they were bad people but the founders themselves seemed despondent about how it was going.

再说一遍，并不是因为他们是坏人，而是创始人本身似乎对事情的进展感到沮丧。

Dalton Caldwell: And then funnily enough, this is in the story too, there was another startup also in my group called Cashew, which was this P2P Venmo, excuse me, in the UK and it was going really poorly also and not growing.

Dalton Caldwell：有趣的是，这也在故事中，我的团队中还有另一家名为 Cashew 的初创公司，这是 P2P Venmo，对不起，在英国，它的发展也非常糟糕，而且没有增长。

And so if you just took this snapshot in time in the middle of the batch of who is definitely not doing well, it would clearly have been this Vyond company and this Cashew company.

所以，如果你在这批表现肯定不好的人中间及时拍下这张快照，那显然就是这家 Vyond 公司和这家 Cashew 公司。

And so to cut to the chase, Vyond changed their idea and got really excited about it and renamed to Brex and this was Brex, which is like a decacorn.

因此，为了切入正题，Vyond 改变了他们的想法，并对此感到非常兴奋，并将其重命名为 Brex，这就是 Brex，就像一个十角兽。

And Cashew changed their idea and renamed to something called Retool.

Cashew 改变了他们的想法，并更名为 Retool。

And so out of my 35 companies, the ones that objectively seemed the worst in terms of everything is going bad, were by far, in retrospect, the most successful companies in that group.

因此，在我的 35 家公司中，那些客观上看起来一切都在恶化的最糟糕的公司，回想起来，却是该组中最成功的公司。

Lenny Rachitsky: Wow.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：哇。

Wait, so you're saying Brex was a VR headset company?

等等，你是说 Brex 是一家 VR 耳机公司？

Dalton Caldwell: They thought it was really high-tech.

道尔顿·考德威尔：他们认为这确实是高科技。

They want to do a really high-tech startup, and so they're like, "We're going to build a new VR headset." And yeah, they were good programmers, but they just didn't know anything about optics or the things you might want to be an expert in to build a headset.

他们想做一家真正高科技的初创公司，所以他们会说，“我们要打造一款新的 VR 耳机。”是的，他们是优秀的程序员，但他们只是对光学或你可能想成为构建耳机的专家的东西一无所知。

Lenny Rachitsky: Wow, that's an amazing story.

Lenny Rachitsky：哇，这是一个很棒的故事。

It's a great segue to just another theme that emerged from talking to founders about advice that you've shared.

这是对另一个主题的一个很好的延续，这个主题是在与创始人讨论你分享的建议时出现的。

A lot of people tell me you are the king of the pivot of helping people figure out how to pivot.

很多人告诉我，你是帮助人们弄清楚如何进行转型的转型之王。

I'm curious just what you've seen makes a good pivot.

我很好奇你所看到的是什么构成了一个很好的支点。

Dalton Caldwell: Usually a successful pivot gets warmer instead of colder from what you're an expert at and somehow builds on what you learned on the prior idea.

道尔顿·考德威尔：通常，成功的转向会从你所擅长的领域变得更热而不是更冷，并且以某种方式建立在你从先前的想法中学到的东西上。

Right?

正确的？

And so in the case of Brex, it was they had worked on a FinTech company in Brazil when they were younger, and so I'm like, "You need to work more on the thing all about and not the thing nothing about." And that was what worked for them.

就 Brex 而言，他们年轻时曾在巴西的一家金融科技公司工作过，所以我想，“你需要在所有事情上投入更多精力，而不是无关紧要的事情。”这对他们来说是有效的。

In the case of Retool, it was the same thing.

对于 Retool 来说，情况也是一样。

They had built similar internal tools both at their internships as well as for Cashew.

他们在实习期间以及为 Cashew 构建了类似的内部工具。

They had all these dashboards they built to operate their Venmo competitor.

他们拥有所有这些仪表板来运营他们的 Venmo 竞争对手。

And so they knew a lot about what to build in the case of postprod, pivoting and through idea, they knew a lot about analytics and had strong opinions about it.

因此，他们非常了解在后期生产、转型和创意方面要构建什么，他们非常了解分析，并对此有强烈的看法。

And so it was much closer than what the original idea is.

所以它比最初的想法更接近。

Dalton Caldwell: In the case of Zip, Rujul knows a lot about a lot of things and he knew a lot about the crazy picture and process at Airbnb because he worked there.

Dalton Caldwell：就 Zip 而言，Rujul 了解很多事情，而且他对 Airbnb 的疯狂景象和流程也了解很多，因为他在那里工作过。

A good pivot is like going home.

一次好的转向就像回家一样。

It's warmer, it's closer to something that you...

它更温暖，更接近你想要的东西......

And it never occurred to you that this thing you know all about would be a good idea or maybe you consciously are like, "I don't want to work on this because burnt out on it." Sometimes someone has to get over this barrier they have on why they don't want to work on a certain idea.

你从来没有想过，你所了解的这件事会是一个好主意，或者你可能有意识地想，“我不想做这件事，因为我已经精疲力竭了。”有时，有人必须克服他们为什么不想研究某个想法的障碍。

Lenny Rachitsky: These are amazing.

Lenny Rachitsky：这些太棒了。

I like how modest you are.

我喜欢你的谦虚。

I'm like, "Oh, here's a big idea." And then you just give very tactical items to look for.

我想，“哦，这是一个好主意。”然后你只需提供非常战术性的物品来寻找即可。

So essentially a good pivot in your experience is you're getting closer, warmer towards something you have actual experience in, and two, it builds on something you've done.

因此，从本质上讲，你的经历的一个良好的支点是你越来越接近、更热衷于你有实际经历的事情，第二，它建立在你已经做过的事情的基础上。

Can be essentially the core idea of a pivot, right?

本质上可能是枢轴的核心思想，对吗？

Where you're...

你在哪里...

Dalton Caldwell: In the example of Segment, which is obviously a really big successful company, they started with something to tell your professor you were confused in class.

Dalton Caldwell：以 Segment 为例，这显然是一家非常成功的大公司，他们一开始就告诉教授你在课堂上感到困惑。

It was software that they sold to universities.

他们向大学出售的是软件。

And then they ended up pivoting to something like a mixed panel competitor after two years and it's because they learned about how analytics works running their first idea, okay?

然后两年后他们最终转向了混合面板竞争对手之类的东西，这是因为他们了解了分析如何运行他们的第一个想法，好吗？

And then no one wanted to adopt their mixed panel competitor.

然后没有人愿意采用他们的混合面板竞争对手。

And so they were like, "We should make this JavaScript thing that you embed on your website that can send events to multiple endpoints at the same time so that way people would be willing to try our mixed panel competitor side by side with mixed panels to show that it's better." And then they were like, "Oh yeah, no one actually wants that.

所以他们说，“我们应该让这个 JavaScript 东西嵌入到你的网站上，它可以同时向多个端点发送事件，这样人们就会愿意尝试我们的混合面板竞争对手与混合面板，以证明它更好。”然后他们就说，“哦，是的，没有人真正想要这样。

They just want this JavaScript to send events to different locations." And so there's no way those founders could have started with the final idea.

他们只是希望这个 JavaScript 将事件发送到不同的位置。”因此，这些创始人不可能从最终的想法开始。

You get what I mean?

你明白我的意思吗？

Dalton Caldwell: There was no universe where they would've made up the idea for Segment because they didn't know anything about how analytics worked, but because they were grinding for multiple years and became experts on these things is a side effect of their earlier ideas.

Dalton Caldwell：他们不会提出细分市场的想法，因为他们对分析如何运作一无所知，但因为他们多年来一直在努力并成为这些事情的专家，这是他们早期想法的副作用。

They ended up with really good unique insights.

他们最终获得了非常好的独特见解。

Lenny Rachitsky: I think that's a really important point there is you don't need to necessarily have that experience before you start the company, could come from trying to build the company.

Lenny Rachitsky：我认为这一点非常重要，在创办公司之前你不一定需要拥有这种经验，这些经验可能来自于尝试建立公司。

Lenny Rachitsky: A big question people are always wondering is, should I pivot?

Lenny Rachitsky：人们总是想知道的一个大问题是，我应该转向吗？

Is this the time to pivot?

现在是转折点的时候了吗？

Should I keep trying this idea?

我应该继续尝试这个想法吗？

What's your advice there of just, okay, now you should really be thinking about something else?

你有什么建议，好吧，现在你真的应该考虑点别的事情吗？

Dalton Caldwell: Again, this is one of those where I like to give very bespoke nuanced advice on a case by case basis to the folks in YC.

Dalton Caldwell：同样，这是我喜欢根据具体情况向 YC 的人们提供非常定制的细致建议的地方之一。

But again, just to give you a preview of how I would think about it, I would look at how many more ideas the founder has on how to make it grow.

但同样，为了让你预览一下我的想法，我会看看创始人对于如何让它成长还有多少想法。

If it's not going well and you're out of ideas, that is usually a good time to pivot.

如果进展不顺利并且你没有想法，这通常是转变的好时机。

But when you have half a dozen or a dozen really good growth ideas that you haven't tried yet, try them.

但是，当你有六六个或十几个非常好的增长想法尚未尝试时，请尝试一下。

Right?

正确的？

Hey, give it a shot.

嘿，试一试。

Again, in the Airbnb story, right?

还是在 Airbnb 的故事中，对吗？

They tried all sorts of stuff including cereal and conventions.

他们尝试了各种各样的东西，包括谷物和会议。

They had a bunch of zany ideas on growth and they didn't run out of them.

他们对增长有很多奇特的想法，但他们并没有用完。

And so I think when there's still gas in the tank on an idea that might be a reason to stay the course.

所以我认为，当一个想法仍有动力时，这可能是坚持到底的理由。

And when literally the founder is like, "Yeah, I don't know, I guess maybe we should pay influencers or something." When that's the kind of ideas they're coming up with, that might be a better sign to pivot.

当创始人字面意思是，“是的，我不知道，我想也许我们应该付钱给有影响力的人或者其他什么。”当他们提出这样的想法时，这可能是一个更好的转变迹象。

Lenny Rachitsky: That is incredibly helpful.

Lenny Rachitsky：这非常有帮助。

Coming back to Zip real quick, they went through I think six different pivots before they landed on this idea that is now a billion-dollar business.

很快回到 Zip，他们经历了六次不同的转变，然后才想到了这个现在价值十亿美元的业务的想法。

Is there anything from that specific journey that you found really interesting?

在那段特定的旅程中，有什么事情是您觉得真正有趣的吗？

Because they went in so many different directions like accounting, marketplaces and-

因为他们进入了很多不同的方向，比如会计、市场和——

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

I think in the example of the Zip founders, they were both such great experts and I knew Rujul really well.

我认为以 Zip 创始人为例，他们都是非常出色的专家，而且我非常了解 Rujul。

He actually worked with me at YC as a visiting partner.

事实上，他作为访问合伙人在 YC 与我一起工作。

And so I was really close to Rujul and he had done this marketplace called FlightCar when he was younger, which was raised a series B, it didn't work out, but it was a really cool company.

所以我和 Rujul 关系非常密切，他年轻时曾做过一个名为 FlightCar 的市场，该公司获得了 B 轮融资，虽然没有成功，但这是一家非常酷的公司。

And I had a lot of confidence in his competence on running a business and executing fast and just having great instincts.

我对他经营业务、快速执行以及敏锐的直觉的能力充满信心。

He really knows the fundamentals and the problem was they weren't as clear on what market to go into, is still with me.

他确实了解基本面，但问题是他们不太清楚要进入哪个市场，这一点仍然困扰着我。

And so I actually suggested to do something in their case, again, this is very bespoke, but my suggestion was to start by looking at what companies are publicly traded and/or owned by private equity that are large and that also are hated by their customers, and to try to intentionally find where there's a knowable big market within incumbent combined with the software is horrible.

所以我实际上建议在他们的情况下做一些事情，这也是非常定制的，但我的建议是首先看看哪些公司是公开交易的和/或由私募股权公司拥有的，这些公司规模很大，而且也被他们的客户所讨厌，并试图故意找到现有的已知大市场与软件相结合是可怕的。

Dalton Caldwell: And they did that.

道尔顿·考德威尔：他们就这么做了。

They basically found out about all this procurement software and what the state of the art was and that was the prompt.

他们基本上了解了所有这些采购软件以及最先进的技术，这就是提示。

Again, maybe he told you this, that was basically the process.

再说一遍，也许他告诉过你这个，这基本上就是这个过程。

Lenny Rachitsky: He did tell me that.

Lenny Rachitsky：他确实告诉过我这一点。

I love that example and piece of advice so much.

我非常喜欢这个例子和建议。

I don't know why more people don't do this.

我不知道为什么更多的人不这样做。

Basically find a large incumbent with very low NPS and try to disrupt them.

基本上找到一个 NPS 非常低的大型现有企业并尝试扰乱它们。

So straightforward.

如此简单。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I mean, I can't promise that works for everyone, but again, in the very bespoke situation with Rujul, it worked really well because he actually knew exactly once he locked in on that prompt, oh man, he ran a masterclass.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，我的意思是，我不能保证这对每个人都有效，但同样，在鲁朱尔的定制情况下，它非常有效，因为他实际上知道一旦他锁定了那个提示，哦天哪，他举办了一场大师班。

They did an A-plus job, was really good.

他们做得非常出色，真的很棒。

Lenny Rachitsky: Also Lou, his co-founder, credit to him too.

Lenny Rachitsky：Lou，他的联合创始人，也归功于他。

Dalton Caldwell: Of course.

道尔顿·考德威尔：当然。

Sorry.

对不起。

Yeah.

是的。

We got to give Lou the shout-out.

我们必须向卢大声喊叫。

Lou did an amazing job.

卢做得非常出色。

I just didn't know Lou as well before he did YC.

只是在 Lou 加入 YC 之前我不太了解他。

But you're right, we got to give Lou the credit.

但你是对的，我们必须把功劳归功于卢。

Lenny Rachitsky: I was watching your chat with Michael Seibel talking about pivots and either you or he used this phrase of you want to move towards the mountains in the desert to find the gold of a new startup idea versus the middle of the city.

Lenny Rachitsky：我正在看你和 Michael Seibel 谈论枢纽的聊天，你或他用了这句话，你想要走向沙漠中的山区，寻找新创业想法的黄金，而不是市中心。

You're unlikely to find gold in the middle of San Francisco.

在旧金山市中心你不太可能找到黄金。

Is there anything along those lines that you can share?

您有什么可以分享的吗？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I think maybe this pertains into what we see from applications and interviews, which is from where I sit seeing everything people apply to YC with and what they interview with and whatnot.

Dalton Caldwell：是的，我认为这可能与我们从申请和面试中看到的情况有关，即我看到人们申请 YC 的所有内容以及他们面试的内容等等。

People all have the same idea.

人们都有同样的想法。

Basically imagine this, imagine your information consumption where you're listening to the same podcast, wink, wink, you're reading the same people on Twitter, you're reading the same blog post.

基本上想象一下，想象一下你的信息消费，你正在收听相同的播客，眨眼，眨眼，你在 Twitter 上阅读相同的人，你正在阅读相同的博客文章。

Basically you have the same information diet of all these other founders and you're friends with all the same people.

基本上，你和所有其他创始人都有相同的信息饮食，而且你和所有同样的人都是朋友。

Does it seem surprising then that you would all end up with similar startup ideas or similar philosophies on what makes a good startup idea?

那么，对于如何打造一个好的创业想法，你们最终都会有相似的创业想法或相似的理念，这似乎令人惊讶吗？

Of course you are.

当然是。

So this is the metaphor on cities is that if you just are following the same principles and have the same information flow into your brain, you're going to come up with the same ideas with everybody else.

所以这就是城市的比喻，如果你遵循相同的原则并且让相同的信息流入你的大脑，你就会想出与其他人相同的想法。

Dalton Caldwell: And so the prompt here is to try to go more off the beaten path either from your personal experience, like in the case of Brex and Retool or Whatnot.

Dalton Caldwell：所以这里的提示是尝试从你的个人经历中走更多的路，比如 Brex 和 Retool 或 Whatnot 的例子。

There was no one else trying to build marketplaces for Funko Pops.

没有其他人试图为 Funko Pops 建立市场。

Go deeper in your own personal interests or experience to find something that just your exact peer wouldn't come up with in exactly the same way.

深入研究你自己的个人兴趣或经验，找到一些你的同行不会以完全相同的方式提出的东西。

And again, the Zip example, I don't think other people were trying to build wonky procurement software.

再说一遍，以 Zip 为例，我认为其他人并没有试图构建不稳定的采购软件。

That was not an idea that we saw much of.

我们并没有看到太多这样的想法。

And so again, the prompt to people is try to mix up what your information diet is or what areas of expertise you have and mine that well, versus just having all the same thoughts as everybody else.

同样，对人们的提示是尝试将你的信息饮食是什么或者你拥有哪些专业领域并进行挖掘，而不是仅仅拥有与其他人相同的想法。

And so again, let me give you one more example.

让我再举一个例子。

Dalton Caldwell: A few years ago, startups around trucking were super new and fresh because no one was doing them and they worked really well and then it became completely conventional wisdom to do trucking related startups.

道尔顿·考德威尔：几年前，围绕卡车运输的初创公司是非常新的和新鲜的，因为没有人在做它们，而且它们运作得非常好，然后做卡车运输相关的初创公司就完全成为传统智慧。

I'm not trying to diss anyone, but you'll see things that become fashionable really quickly because someone found success in this unfashionable space and then it becomes fashionable.

我并不是想贬低任何人，但你会看到一些东西很快就会变得时尚，因为有人在这个不时尚的领域取得了成功，然后它就变得时尚了。

Lenny Rachitsky: This is a good segue to something I definitely want to spend time on, which is you have this concept of tarpit ideas, which are essentially ideas people all gravitate towards and get stuck in and either pivot into and then can't pivot out of or try to pivot out of.

Lenny Rachitsky：这是我绝对想花时间做的事情的一个很好的延续，这就是你有这种柏油思想的概念，这些思想本质上是人们都被吸引并陷入其中的想法，要么转向，然后无法转向，要么试图转向。

And essentially it's just consistently bad startup ideas that people continue to try to start.

从本质上讲，人们不断尝试开始的只是一贯糟糕的创业想法。

Can you just talk about this and then what is examples of just bad startup ideas that people should stop trying to start?

您能简单谈谈这个问题吗？那么人们应该停止尝试的糟糕创业想法有哪些例子呢？

Dalton Caldwell: For people that are familiar with this terminology from us, sometimes they get defensive and don't get what we were saying.

道尔顿·考德威尔：对于熟悉我们这个术语的人来说，有时他们会采取防御态度，不明白我们在说什么。

By definition it is only a tarpit if it seems like it's not.

根据定义，它只是一个柏油坑，如果它看起来不是的话。

If it's just a regular idea that is hard, that is not a tarpit.

如果这只是一个很难的常规想法，那它就不是柏油坑。

The weird aspect of what we call a tarpit idea is an idea that a lot of people come up with and then it seems like an unsolved problem and you get lots of positive feedback for.

我们所说的“柏油坑想法”的奇怪之处在于，很多人都提出了这个想法，然后它似乎是一个未解决的问题，并且你得到了很多积极的反馈。

Right?

正确的？

And you have a really good set of arguments that it's a really good startup idea.

你有一系列非常好的论据证明这是一个非常好的创业想法。

And that's different than a bad startup idea.

这与糟糕的创业想法不同。

Do you get what I'm trying to say?

你明白我想说的吗？

A bad startup idea is, I don't know, something that is obviously bad or something where you just can't get any positive feedback on.

我不知道，一个糟糕的创业想法是指那些明显不好的想法，或者是你无法得到任何积极反馈的想法。

But some of the most common tarpit would be something like building an app to coordinate with your friends to decide where to go out at night or where to meet up with people, which is really, it's coming from a good place.

但一些最常见的柏油坑就像构建一个应用程序来与你的朋友协调来决定晚上去哪里或在哪里与人见面，这确实是一个好地方。

It's a good idea.

这是个好主意。

Dalton Caldwell: If you ask your friends, "Hey, would you like an app for us to coordinate to hang out more so we can be friends?" They're like, "Yeah, I would love that." You'll get all this positive feedback from the world.

道尔顿·考德威尔：如果你问你的朋友，“嘿，你想要一个应用程序来让我们协调更多时间出去玩，这样我们就可以成为朋友吗？”他们会说，“是的，我会喜欢的。”您将从世界上得到所有这些积极的反馈。

And man, people have been starting that startup since the '90s and so you can validate it.

伙计，人们从 20 世纪 90 年代就开始创办这家公司，所以你可以验证它。

Part of being a true tarpit is that you can get good initial validation.

成为真正的 tarpit 的一部分是您可以获得良好的初始验证。

Do you get what I mean?

你明白我的意思吗？

And so anyway.

无论如何。

And honestly I worked on tarpit ideas myself as a founder, which is a music discovery.

老实说，作为创始人，我自己也致力于沥青坑的想法，这是一种音乐发现。

This is something I did in my first startup.

这是我在第一次创业时所做的事情。

Music startups are hard and trying to be like, "Oh, we're going to fix music discovery." This was classic things where you can get lots of positive feedback and even get users to work on those things, but there are aspects of it that make it a very hard idea.

音乐初创公司很难，并试图表现出“哦，我们要解决音乐发现问题”。这是经典的事情，你可以获得很多积极的反馈，甚至让用户去做这些事情，但它的某些方面使它成为一个非常困难的想法。

So does that make sense?

那么这有道理吗？

Lenny Rachitsky: Absolutely.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：当然。

I'm also guilty of this.

我对此也有罪。

I had this startup called Localmind that allowed you to talk to people, check-in in various locations around the city, on Foursquare and Google back in the day and asked them, "How's it going?" And everyone when they used it, they're like, "Holy shit, this is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

我有一家名为 Localmind 的初创公司，它允许你与人们交谈，在城市的各个地点、Foursquare 和 Google 上签到，然后问他们，“进展如何？”每个人在使用它时都会说：“天哪，这是我见过的最不可思议的事情。

I could see what's happening at this bar that I'm about to go to." And then they never use it again.

我可以看到我要去的这个酒吧里发生了什么。”然后他们就再也没有使用过它。

Dalton Caldwell: Do you remember when Foursquare clones was all anyone worked on for-

Dalton Caldwell：你还记得吗，当 Foursquare 克隆是所有人的工作目的时——

Lenny Rachitsky: They told us Foursquare is going to own this.

Lenny Rachitsky：他们告诉我们 Foursquare 将拥有这个。

There's no way this idea you're building is going to be its own thing.

你正在构建的这个想法不可能成为它自己的东西。

And now, yeah, Foursquare is a B2B business.

现在，Foursquare 是一家 B2B 企业。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

And all the Foursquare clones, if they didn't pivot out of doing what they're doing, wouldn't have worked.

所有的 Foursquare 克隆产品，如果不放弃他们正在做的事情，就不会成功。

So anyway, that's a tarpit, is just something that's super appealing and a lot of people do it.

不管怎样，那是一个柏油坑，是非常有吸引力的东西，很多人都这样做。

And then you can get validation and that's why is a tarpit, is it draws you in and you get stuck because it seems like it's a good idea and you get all this positive feedback.

然后你就可以得到验证，这就是为什么会有柏油坑，它会吸引你，然后你就会陷入困境，因为这似乎是个好主意，你会得到所有这些积极的反馈。

Lenny Rachitsky: Along these lines, I was talking to a founder recently and she's asking me, "What causes an investor to say no to you when you're trying to raise money from them?" And I know every investor has a very different perspective on what turns them off to a startup, but is there anything that you find is just like, here, if you do these things, investors will say no.

Lenny Rachitsky：沿着这个思路，我最近与一位创始人交谈，她问我：“当你试图从投资者那里筹集资金时，是什么原因导致他们拒绝你？”我知道每个投资者对于是什么让他们对初创公司失去兴趣都有不同的看法，但是你会发现有什么事情就像在这里，如果你做了这些事情，投资者会说不。

Dalton Caldwell: Maybe my best advice here is for founders to put themselves in the shoes of investors and just imagine what their life is like and how if you are in their shoes you would make decisions.

道尔顿·考德威尔：也许我最好的建议是让创始人将自己置于投资者的立场上，想象他们的生活是什么样的，以及如果你处于他们的立场上，你会如何做出决定。

And so given this framework, a lot of investors just don't make that many investments and as per what we talked about earlier, life is short.

因此，考虑到这个框架，很多投资者只是不会进行那么多投资，而且根据我们之前谈到的，生命是短暂的。

And so there's lots of things that an investor that in their hearts thinks it is pretty good and they're like, "Oh, I like this person and I like their pitch, but I only am going to do a few investments.

因此，有很多事情是投资者内心认为非常好的事情，他们会说，“哦，我喜欢这个人，我喜欢他们的推销，但我只会做一些投资。

And so even though I really like a lot about this, I'm going to say no." And I often think that founders think that there's some secret truth that's being held from them on why someone says no or they want more feedback.

因此，尽管我真的很喜欢这个，但我还是要说不。”我经常认为创始人认为他们隐瞒了一些秘密真相，说明为什么有人拒绝或他们想要更多反馈。

"I need feedback." That's like, well, the feedback is we didn't want to invest and it really is just that.

“我需要反馈。”这就像，嗯，反馈是我们不想投资，事实就是这样。

Dalton Caldwell: And so I think if you put yourself in the shoes of an investor of like, "Hey, I only could do a few of these a year, I have very limited budget." They're really just trying to pick the things that they're either personally most excited about or things that they think can be truly phenomenally big in some way.

道尔顿考德威尔：所以我认为，如果你把自己放在投资者的立场上，“嘿，我一年只能做其中的一些，我的预算非常有限。”他们实际上只是想选择他们个人最兴奋的事情，或者他们认为在某种程度上可能真正非常大的事情。

Or again, I know you do investments too, so it's that you only get so many shots as an investor.

或者再说一次，我知道你也做投资，所以作为投资者你只能得到这么多机会。

And so anything that doesn't seem like this is the one, this is the one I want to do is a no. And that that's actually why they're saying no versus, "Oh, you had a bad zoom setup or something.

所以任何看起来不是我想要做的事情都是不。这实际上就是为什么他们会说“不”，而不是“哦，你的变焦设置不好或者什么的。

Oh, we didn't like what color your shirt was.

哦，我们不喜欢你衬衫的颜色。

We said no." I don't think that's how this actually works.

我们说不。”我不认为这实际上是这样的。

Lenny Rachitsky: I think that's such a good piece of advice that it's not necessarily they don't believe in what you're doing, it's they have better options and they're waiting for something that hits the higher bar because they have a lot of options.

Lenny Rachitsky：我认为这是一个很好的建议，他们不一定不相信你正在做的事情，而是他们有更好的选择，他们正在等待达到更高标准的东西，因为他们有很多选择。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

Because again, if you ask someone or put yourself in the investor's shoes, wouldn't you be making decisions the same way?

因为，如果你询问某人或将自己置于投资者的立场上，你不会以同样的方式做出决定吗？

Usually founders are like, "Yeah." If you do that exercise, a lot of this starts to make way more sense.

通常创始人都会说“是的”。如果你做了这个练习，很多事情就会变得更有意义。

Lenny Rachitsky: Specifically when you're evaluating startups.

Lenny Rachitsky：特别是当你评估初创公司时。

I wasn't going to go into this, but I think it might be interesting, is market size.

我本来不打算讨论这个问题，但我认为这可能很有趣，那就是市场规模。

How do you think about the importance of large TAM as an investor YC?

您如何看待大TAM作为YC投资人的重要性？

Dalton Caldwell: I think it really depends on what stage you're investing at and it's absolutely critical the later stage you get.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为这实际上取决于您在哪个阶段进行投资，并且您所处的后期阶段绝对至关重要。

Right?

正确的？

If you're going to invest in a very high valuation, it is really important.

如果你要投资一个非常高的估值，这一点真的很重要。

The earlier you go, the less it matters.

走得越早，事情就越不重要。

And some of the most phenomenally good startups, if you were really pedantic about it, the TAM would be tiny.

对于一些最出色的初创公司来说，如果你真的很迂腐的话，TAM 就会很小。

The TAM of Uber would be nothing, right?

Uber 的 TAM 就什么都不是了，对吧？

The TAM of Airbnb would've been nothing.

Airbnb 的 TAM 就什么也不是了。

TI funded Razorpay, which is I think the largest payment processor in India, and the TAM of that was tiny because no one was using credit cards in 2015 in India.

TI 资助了 Razorpay，我认为这是印度最大的支付处理商，其 TAM 很小，因为 2015 年印度没有人使用信用卡。

So you had to believe that the size of the credit card industry in India would 100X.

所以你必须相信印度信用卡行业的规模将扩大 100 倍。

Well, guess what happened?

好吧，猜猜发生了什么？

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

So I'm not saying that having a large market someday doesn't matter, of course it does eventually.

所以我并不是说有一天拥有一个大市场并不重要，当然最终会重要。

But trying to be super pedantic about market size when it's a pre-seed company or someone applying to YC, it's just not something I'd put a lot of thought.

但当它是一家前种子公司或申请 YC 的人时，我不会对市场规模过于迂腐，我不会花很多心思。

Dalton Caldwell: And again, Whatnot.

道尔顿考德威尔：再说一次，什么。

What's the TAM of the collectible Funko Pop industry?

Funko Pop 收藏品行业的 TAM 是多少？

I don't know.

我不知道。

I don't think it's that big, man.

我不认为它有那么大，伙计。

I don't know if you did that analysis when you invested, but I think is pretty small, but I wasn't worried about it.

我不知道你投资的时候有没有做过这样的分析，但我认为这个分析很小，但我并不担心。

That was the last thing I was worried about.

这是我最后担心的事情。

Lenny Rachitsky: It makes so much sense that at YC you don't think about it that much because of, as you said, many startups pivot anyway.

Lenny Rachitsky：这很有意义，在 YC，你不会考虑太多，因为正如你所说，许多初创公司无论如何都会转向。

So if you like the team-

所以如果你喜欢这个团队-

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

And I'm not saying it's not important, it's not...

我并不是说这不重要，这不是......

And the things I'm worried about is like, hey, how do you get users?

我担心的事情是，嘿，你如何获得用户？

Hey, how do you grow?

嘿嘿，你怎么成长啊？

Things like that.

诸如此类的事情。

Are you making something people want?

你在做人们想要的东西吗？

Those are the things I'm really worried about as opposed to, ooh, I ran an Excel model and I'm worried this might not be a big enough TAM.

这些是我真正担心的事情，而不是，哦，我运行了一个 Excel 模型，我担心这可能不是一个足够大的 TAM。

That's not the top of my list.

这不是我的首要任务。

Lenny Rachitsky: I think it's important to acknowledge that a lot of investors are very...

Lenny Rachitsky：我认为重要的是要承认很多投资者非常......

YC I think is unique in a lot of ways where you invest very early and you help people through this journey.

我认为 YC 在很多方面都是独一无二的，你很早就进行投资，并帮助人们度过这段旅程。

A lot of investors are very focused on TAM, so you may find you're getting turned down because they don't think there's a big enough market for you to build a big business, right?

很多投资者都非常关注 TAM，所以你可能会发现你被拒绝了，因为他们认为没有足够大的市场让你建立一个大企业，对吧？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

Or that you're asking them to believe a crazy leap of faith that, again, they could say, "Well, it's theoretically possible you'll be able to sell more than Funko Pops, and I understand that that is your pitch, but I have other opportunities that are less risky." You know what I'm saying?

或者你要求他们相信一个疯狂的信念，他们可能会说，“好吧，理论上你的销量可能会超过 Funko Pops，我明白这是你的想法，但我还有其他风险较小的机会。”你知道我在说什么吗？

A lot of founders make the argument that the TAM is big, and you can say, "Wow, that's a really interesting argument and I'm not going to argue with you about it, but no, I'm not going to..." And so again, it's hard to get someone to engage in a debate about TAM even if you have some proof points.

很多创始人都认为 TAM 很大，你可以说，“哇，这是一个非常有趣的论点，我不会和你争论这个问题，但是不，我不会……”所以，即使你有一些证据，也很难让人们参与到关于 TAM 的辩论中。

Ultimately, a lot of investors just don't like that risk.

最终，许多投资者就是不喜欢这种风险。

Fair enough.

很公平。

Lenny Rachitsky: Fair enough.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：很公平。

Going in a slightly different direction.

朝着稍微不同的方向前进。

So someone else that worked with you, another Lenny, Lenny Bogdonoff who started a company called Milk, and then he was head of growth at OpenAI for a bit.

与你一起工作的另一个人，另一个 Lenny，Lenny Bogdonoff，他创办了一家名为 Milk 的公司，然后他在 OpenAI 担任过一段时间的增长主管。

He asked me to ask you about things product leaders and startups should watch out for.

他让我问你产品领导者和初创公司应该注意的事情。

Does that ring a bell?

这是否敲响了警钟？

Dalton Caldwell: I don't remember the specific office hours, but I understand the question and I of course remember Lenny.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我不记得具体的办公时间，但我理解这个问题，我当然记得莱尼。

I think that the advice that he's referencing here is just how important it is to not overdelegate and for the founders to stay close to things, as well as watch out for the trap of hiring super senior people with fancy resumes, really early in a startup.

我认为他在这里引用的建议是，不要过度授权，创始人要密切关注事情，并提防在初创公司的早期就聘用简历精美的超级高级人才的陷阱。

I think that's what he's referencing there.

我认为这就是他所指的内容。

And again, this is definitely one of those very basic things that we find ourselves repeating a lot where they're like, "Yeah, yeah, I get it.

再说一次，这绝对是那些非常基本的事情之一，我们发现自己经常重复这些事情，他们就像是，“是的，是的，我明白了。

Don't overdelegate.

不要过度授权。

We get it, Dalton." And then two years later they're like, "Wow, we overdelegated.

我们明白了，道尔顿。”两年后，他们会说：“哇，我们授权过多了。

We need to go clean that up." So that is probably the best product advice.

我们需要去清理它。”所以这可能是最好的产品建议。

And the folks that are really great at product, the founders that are always deeply in the weeds on product and still care a lot and are still talking to customers, no matter how late stage it gets, again, I'm sure you experienced this in Airbnb culture, but you can't delegate caring about your users and you can't delegate caring that the product is great.

那些真正擅长产品的人，那些总是深入研究产品的创始人，无论发展到多晚，仍然非常关心并仍在与客户交谈，我相信你在 Airbnb 文化中也经历过这种情况，但你不能把对用户的关心委托给他人，也不能把对产品的关心委托给别人。

That is so critical.

这非常关键。

Lenny Rachitsky: To make this even more real, what is it that you see them do?

Lenny Rachitsky：为了让这更加真实，你看到他们做了什么？

It's they hire a PM too early, they hire a senior salesperson too early, what are the-

是他们太早聘用了产品经理，他们太早聘用了高级销售人员，这些是什么——

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I think that you get pushed often by investors to hire executives or to scale the team or you raise all this money, you got to spend it, you got to show you're serious about growth and building a world-class organization, whatever, stuff like that.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的，我认为你经常受到投资者的推动，聘请高管或扩大团队规模，或者你筹集了所有这些钱，你必须花掉它，你必须表明你对增长和建立世界级组织的认真态度，诸如此类的事情。

And so you end up with super nice people with super shiny resumes from big tech companies.

所以你最终会得到来自大型科​​技公司的超级好人，拥有超级闪亮的简历。

"Oh wow, they did this amazing thing at Google." And then they hire them and then you wake up one day and you're like, "Oh wow, everything went wrong." It's not really anyone's fault, it's just that you took your eye off the ball and this is what happens to first-time founders a lot.

“哇哦，他们在谷歌做了一件了不起的事情。”然后他们雇佣了他们，然后有一天你醒来，你会想，“哦，哇，一切都出了问题。”这并不是任何人的错，只是你把注意力从球上移开了，这就是首次创始人经常遇到的情况。

Lenny Rachitsky: How do you as a founder then have time to do all these things?

Lenny Rachitsky：作为创始人，您如何有时间做所有这些事情？

Is there any guidance you give just like don't overdelegate, don't over hire?

您是否提供了任何指导，例如不要过度授权，不要过度雇用？

But also, you have 24 hours in a day?

而且，你一天有24小时吗？

Is it just find the time, prioritize well, or is there more to it?

是只是找到时间，分清轻重缓急，还是还有更多的事情要做？

Dalton Caldwell: I think if you just care a lot about your customers and you care a lot about the product, your instincts are pretty good on what to spend time on.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为如果你非常关心你的客户并且非常关心产品，你的直觉就会很好地决定花时间在哪里。

And so for example, spending tons and tons of time hanging out with investors and networking, it's probably the thing that I would be cutting.

例如，花费大量时间与投资者和人际交往，这可能是我要削减的事情。

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

It's what we talked about earlier.

这就是我们之前谈到的。

If you really love what you're doing, no one needs to tell you how to reprioritize your time.

如果你真的热爱你正在做的事情，没有人需要告诉你如何重新安排你的时间。

Your intuition will be correct on what you should be spending all your time on, which is being obsessed with product.

你的直觉是正确的，你应该把所有的时间花在什么事情上，那就是对产品的痴迷。

Lenny Rachitsky: I love that advice.

Lenny Rachitsky：我喜欢这个建议。

This episode is brought to you by Coda and I mean that literally.

本集由 Coda 为您带来，我的意思是字面上的意思。

I use Coda every day to help me plan each episode of this very podcast.

我每天都使用 Coda 来帮助我计划这个播客的每一集。

It's where I keep my content calendar, my guest research, and also the questions that I plan to ask each guest.

这是我保存内容日历、客人研究以及我计划向每位客人询问的问题的地方。

Also, during the recording itself, I have a Coda page up to remind myself what I want to talk about.

另外，在录音过程中，我会打开一个 Coda 页面来提醒自己要谈论什么。

Coda is an all-in-one platform that combines the best of documents, spreadsheets, and apps to help you and your team get more done.

Coda 是一个一体化平台，结合了最好的文档、电子表格和应用程序，可帮助您和您的团队完成更多工作。

Now is the perfect time to get started with Coda, especially its extensive planning capabilities.

现在是开始使用 Coda 的最佳时机，尤其是它广泛的规划功能。

With Coda, you can stay aligned and ship faster by managing your planning cycles in one location.

借助 Coda，您可以通过在一个地点管理您的计划周期来保持一致并加快发货速度。

You can set and measure OKRs with full visibility across teams and stakeholders.

您可以设置和衡量 OKR，并在团队和利益相关者之间具有完全可见性。

You can map dependencies, create progress visualizations, and identify risk areas.

您可以映射依赖关系、创建进度可视化并识别风险区域。

Lenny Rachitsky: Plus, you can access hundreds of pressure-tested templates for everything from roadmap strategy to final decision-making to PRDs.

Lenny Rachitsky：此外，您还可以访问数百个经过压力测试的模板，涵盖从路线图策略到最终决策再到 PRD 的所有内容。

If you want a platform that empowers your team to strategize, plan and track goals together, you can get started with Coda today for free.

如果您想要一个让您的团队能够共同制定战略、计划和跟踪目标的平台，您可以立即免费开始使用 Coda。

And if you want to see for yourself why product teams at high-growth companies like Pinterest, Figma and Qualtrics run on Coda, take advantage of this special limited-time offer just for startups.

如果您想亲自了解为什么 Pinterest、Figma 和 Qualtrics 等高增长公司的产品团队在 Coda 上运行，请利用这一专为初创公司提供的特殊限时优惠。

Head over to Coda.io/Lenny to sign up and get $1,000 in credit.

前往 Coda.io/Lenny 注册并获得 1,000 美元的积分。

That's C-O-D-A dot I-O slash Lenny to sign up and get $1,000 in credit.

这是 C-O-D-A 点 I-O 斜线 Lenny 注册并获得 1,000 美元的信用。

Coda dot I-O slash Lenny.

尾声点 I-O 斜线莱尼。

Okay, so one of your current colleagues, not former colleagues, Gustav, was on the podcast previously.

好的，所以你现在的同事之一，而不是前同事，古斯塔夫，之前在播客上。

His episode is, I think, the fourth most popular episode of all time currently, so no pressure.

我认为他的剧集是目前有史以来第四受欢迎的剧集，所以没有压力。

Dalton Caldwell: Oh, Cool.

道尔顿考德威尔：哦，酷。

Okay.

好的。

I don't know if I can feed with that.

我不知道我能不能吃这个。

All right.

好的。

Lenny Rachitsky: I think you can.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：我想你可以。

So I asked him what is often the most common reason a startup fails?

所以我问他创业失败最常见的原因是什么？

And his answer was they don't talk to customers, they don't find product market fit.

他的回答是他们不与客户交谈，他们找不到适合市场的产品。

They nothing else matters if they can't do that.

如果他们做不到这一点，其他一切都不重要。

And so his advice is talk to customers more often.

因此他的建议是更频繁地与客户交谈。

So two questions here.

所以这里有两个问题。

First of all, just is there anything else you would add to why do startups fail?

首先，对于初创企业失败的原因，您还有什么要补充的吗？

I know we talked about some of these already, but just what comes to mind there?

我知道我们已经讨论过其中的一些内容，但是我们想到的是什么？

Dalton Caldwell: I completely agree with what Gustav said, but to look at this from a different frame, I think is that the founders lose hope.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我完全同意古斯塔夫所说的，但从不同的角度来看，我认为是创始人失去了希望。

And when you and your heart is like, "Yeah, we're failing." I can see it when I'm meeting with a founder, when they resign themselves that they're failing versus.

当你和你的心说：“是的，我们失败了。”当我与创始人会面时，当他们承认自己失败时，我可以看到这一点。

First is when like, "We got one more move in us.

第一种情况是，“我们还有一个动作。

We got one more try." You can see in their eyes when they feel like there's more ideas or there's some last ditch Hail Mary thing.

我们还有一次尝试。”当他们觉得有更多的想法或者有一些最后的万福玛丽的事情时，你可以从他们的眼睛里看到。

It doesn't always work, but it's almost like you have to not accept that you're going to fail.

它并不总是有效，但几乎就像你必须不接受你会失败。

And as long as you don't accept that that's going to happen, there's usually a lot more moves you can try to save the company.

只要你不接受这种情况将会发生，通常你可以采取更多措施来拯救公司。

Maybe it's to get profitable, maybe it's to do some other zany thing, maybe it's to launch a new product.

也许是为了盈利，也许是为了做一些其他滑稽的事情，也许是为了推出新产品。

Dalton Caldwell: And so it's pretty rare, I would argue, that the cause of death is that they had lots of firepower and they were feeling really positive and they just ran out of money.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为，这种情况很少见，因为他们拥有大量火力，而且他们感觉非常积极，但他们的钱用完了。

That's actually more rare than founders think.

这实际上比创始人想象的更为罕见。

It's much more common that they still have some money left.

更常见的是，他们还剩下一些钱。

I'm not saying a lot, but some money and they're just like, "Yeah, I'm done.

我没说太多，只是给了一些钱，他们就说：“是的，我完成了。

I'm out of ideas.

我没主意了。

I don't want to do this anymore." And again, fair enough.

我不想再这样做了。”再说一次，这很公平。

But do you get what I'm saying?

但你明白我在说什么吗？

I think founders are afraid that they're going to run out of money and that's why they're going to shut down.

我认为创始人担心他们会耗尽资金，这就是他们要倒闭的原因。

And it's way more common that their idea doesn't work and they have a big fight with their co-founder, and then they can't agree on what to work on, and then they just like, "I don't want to do this anymore." And they shut down.

更常见的是，他们的想法行不通，他们与联合创始人发生了激烈的争吵，然后他们无法就做什么工作达成一致，然后他们就说，“我不想再这样做了。”他们就关门了。

That is the most common cause of death, is something that sounds like that story.

That is the most common cause of death, is something that sounds like that story.

Lenny Rachitsky: That is so interesting.

Lenny Rachitsky：这太有趣了。

And again, this comes back to your core advice.

再说一次，这又回到了你的核心建议。

Don't die.

别死。

Just don't die.

只是别死。

We talked about this already of just sometimes it's actually okay to die.

我们已经讨论过这一点，只是有时死其实也没关系。

And I guess just to refresh that lesson is if you're not having fun anymore, maybe it's okay-

我想只是为了重温这一课，如果你不再玩得开心，也许没关系-

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, you're out of ideas.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的，你没主意了。

You're like, "I'm done." If in your heart that you're done, you don't have to keep going through the motions.

你会说：“我完成了。” If in your heart that you're done, you don't have to keep going through the motions.

No one benefits.

没有人受益。

Lenny Rachitsky: And you've also seen enough cases now, you've shared a few of these where all hope was potentially lost, but they kept going and then they turned into a huge success story.

Lenny Rachitsky：您现在也看到了足够多的案例，您分享了其中一些可能失去所有希望的案例，但它们继续前进，然后变成了一个巨大的成功故事。

And I think most people don't see those examples.

我认为大多数人没有看到这些例子。

I guess is there anything you can share just how often that happens, how often you see that turn around?

我想你可以分享一下这种情况发生的频率，你看到这种转变的频率吗？

Dalton Caldwell: I would argue that if we define it as the company had a near death experience where it was going poorly and the founders seriously wondered if it was all going to be over, a hundred percent of the time people go through that where the founder's like, "Yeah, I guess we're done.

道尔顿·考德威尔（Dalton Caldwell）：我认为，如果我们将其定义为公司经历了一次濒临死亡的经历，公司经营状况不佳，创始人认真地想知道这一切是否都会结束，那么百分之一百的人都会经历创始人的情况，“是的，我想我们已经完成了。

I guess we should pack it in." And at least you feel that way at some point in your startup journey, man, everyone goes through that.

我想我们应该把它打包进去。”至少在你的创业之旅中的某个时刻你会有这种感觉，伙计，每个人都经历过这种情况。

And again, there's gradations, people that actually truly got down to very, very hard situations.

And again, there's gradations, people that actually truly got down to very, very hard situations.

It's still a high percentage, maybe 50%.

这个比例仍然很高，可能是 50%。

I mean, you can ask founders, there's a lot of founders that come this close to it all being over and through sheer will just keep it going.

我的意思是，你可以问创始人，有很多创始人已经非常接近一切都结束了，并且纯粹会继续下去。

Lenny Rachitsky: That is really empowering, I imagine, for many founders hearing this of just knowing every single founder goes through, okay, I think it's actually over.

Lenny Rachitsky：我想，对于许多创始人来说，这确实是一种力量，因为他们知道每个创始人都经历过，好吧，我认为这实际上已经结束了。

Following on this real quick, the advice that Gustav shared, which is about talking to customers.

紧接着古斯塔夫分享的建议，即与客户交谈。

I'm just going to keep trying to pull wisdom out of your head.

我只是想继续努力从你的头脑中汲取智慧。

Do you have any advice for just how to effectively talk to customers?

对于如何有效地与客户交谈，您有什么建议吗？

We're always hearing, "Talk to customers.

我们总是听到，“与客户交谈。

Build things they want." Easier said than done.

建造他们想要的东西。”说起来容易做起来难。

You get a lot of asks.

你会收到很多询问。

You get one customer asking for a lot of stuff.

你会遇到一位顾客要很多东西。

There's a big company that's like, "Build this thing, we'll pay a million dollars." Just do you have general guidance of just what to pay attention to and what to build versus avoid?

有一家大公司说，“建造这个东西，我们将支付一百万美元。”您是否对要注意什么以及要构建什么和避免什么有总体指导？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I think when I talked to aspiring founders about this a lot, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I talked to customers.

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I think when I talked to aspiring founders about this a lot, they're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I talked to customers.

We get it.

我们明白了。

Cool." And I'm like, "Cool.

酷。”我想，“酷。

Well, how many customers do you talk to?" And they're like, "Well." And they get really quiet.

那么，您与多少位客户交谈过？”他们就像，“好吧。”他们变得非常安静。

And so I think this is one of those things like, hey, you should have a healthy diet and exercise every day or whatever, where people know it and that doesn't mean they do it.

所以我认为这是这样的事情之一，嘿，你应该每天保持健康的饮食和锻炼等等，人们知道这一点，但这并不意味着他们会这样做。

And so I think to start with, you have to get out in the world and talk to people in person.

所以我认为首先，你必须走出去，亲自与人们交谈。

And you can't just hide behind your keyboard and call that talking to customers.

而且你不能只是躲在键盘后面并称之为与客户交谈。

Right?

正确的？

I think a lot of folks, the inclinations are to build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something.

I think a lot of folks, the inclinations are to build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something.

And again, maybe that's something, but I think a lot of the reason people do that is they're just shy and they don't want to put themselves out there because it's a little awkward to go talk to people.

再说一次，也许这是一回事，但我认为人们这样做的很多原因是他们只是害羞，他们不想把自己暴露在外，因为与人交谈有点尴尬。

Dalton Caldwell: And you have to set yourself up to go out in the physical world, get people to meet with you, get them to take you seriously, show them a product you're building.

道尔顿考德威尔：你必须让自己走出现实世界，让人们与你见面，让他们认真对待你，向他们展示你正在开发的产品。

And so again, it'd be very tactical here.

再说一遍，这里非常有策略性。

You can do a self-assessment.

您可以进行自我评估。

In the past month, how many in-person physical meetings have I had with potential customers?

在过去的一个月中，我与潜在客户进行了多少次现场会议？

Maybe you've done a lot, I don't know, listener, maybe you have, but it's shocking how many companies I talk to, they're like, "Well, we're focused on raising our pre-seed round before we talk to customers." Things like that.

也许你已经做了很多，我不知道，听众，也许你已经做了，但令人震惊的是，我与许多公司交谈过，他们就像，“好吧，在与客户交谈之前，我们专注于筹集我们的种子轮前资金。”诸如此类的事情。

And again, I think the core, core thing going on is just social anxiety and looking stupid.

And again, I think the core, core thing going on is just social anxiety and looking stupid.

And I think you just got to get past that.

我认为你必须克服这一点。

You just got to start doing it until it doesn't feel bad anymore.

你必须开始这样做，直到不再感觉不舒服为止。

Think about how stupid the Airbnb founders must have felt.

想想看 Airbnb 的创始人一定感到多么愚蠢。

They were like, "Hey, you should rent out your house and I'm going to come and sleep in your house, and here's an airbag."

They were like, "Hey, you should rent out your house and I'm going to come and sleep in your house, and here's an airbag."

Dalton Caldwell: The whole thing is a little awkward, right?

Dalton Caldwell: The whole thing is a little awkward, right?

So you got power through the awkwardness of talking to people, and once you start doing it's actually fun.

所以你通过与人交谈的尴尬而获得了力量，一旦你开始这样做，它实际上很有趣。

And so once you get used to overcoming this awkwardness, I think people do much better at talking to customers.

And so once you get used to overcoming this awkwardness, I think people do much better at talking to customers.

Lenny Rachitsky: When someone does this self-evaluation, is there a heuristic that tells you this is enough?

Lenny Rachitsky：当有人进行自我评估时，是否有启发式告诉你这已经足够了？

What do you look for?

你在寻找什么？

Is there a number?

有号码吗？

How many per week?

每周几次？

How many per month?

每月多少？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I don't know if I know a good number.

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I don't know if I know a good number.

I think it's look at your calendar and there should be 20 or 30% of your time that the calendar says something like customer meeting, customer call, meeting with who, meeting with this person.

我认为看看你的日历，日历上应该有 20% 或 30% 的时间写着诸如客户会议、客户电话、与谁会面、与此人会面之类的内容。

And when the calendar is not that or it's all...

当日历不是那样或者全部都是......

Again, what you're actually doing is just buying ads to try to validate your idea, I don't think that's talking to customers.

再说一次，你实际上所做的只是购买广告来尝试验证你的想法，我不认为这是在与客户交谈。

I think that's something else.

我认为那是另一回事。

Lenny Rachitsky: That's an awesome heuristic.

Lenny Rachitsky：这是一个很棒的启发式方法。

So roughly fifth of your time at least should be talking to customers.

因此，您至少应该用大约五分之一的时间与客户交谈。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

And again, it depends on the idea space you're working on.

And again, it depends on the idea space you're working on.

Some are more, some are less.

有的多，有的少。

So yeah, it should be a fair amount of time.

所以是的，这应该是相当长的时间。

And nothing substitutes for an actual conversation versus just staring at analytics dashboards.

And nothing substitutes for an actual conversation versus just staring at analytics dashboards.

Lenny Rachitsky: Makes so much sense.

Lenny Rachitsky：很有道理。

So the Airbnb is a classic example of they went to New York and talked to their host and things like that.

所以 Airbnb 就是一个典型的例子，他们去了纽约并与他们的房东进行了交谈之类的事情。

Is there another startup that comes to mind that did this really well, that found just a really cool way and hustle to talk to customers?

Is there another startup that comes to mind that did this really well, that found just a really cool way and hustle to talk to customers?

Dalton Caldwell: Well, again, some of the companies we talked about, I mean, for Brex, they were just talking to other people in their batch and that worked extremely well.

道尔顿·考德威尔：嗯，再说一遍，我们谈到的一些公司，我的意思是，对于 Brex 来说，他们只是与他们批次中的其他人进行交谈，而且效果非常好。

Same with Retool is they just sold it inside of the YC network.

Same with Retool is they just sold it inside of the YC network.

I think with Zip, they were just beasts at getting companies on calls with them to ask them about procurement.

I think with Zip, they were just beasts at getting companies on calls with them to ask them about procurement.

And I think they had way more than 20% of their time.

我认为他们有超过 20% 的时间。

When you looked at their calendars, oh man, they were talking to customers a lot to build their first product and pre-selling it before they built it.

当你查看他们的日历时，天哪，他们与客户进行了很多交谈，以构建他们的第一个产品，并在构建之前进行预售。

Same with PostHog I guess that's a different go to market.

与 PostHog 一样，我想这是一个不同的市场进入方式。

They launched this open source thing to start with and their calendars are filled with people that were trying to implement the first open source version of PostHog or were so excited about it.

他们一开始就推出了这个开源项目，他们的日历上挤满了试图实现 PostHog 第一个开源版本的人，或者对此感到非常兴奋的人。

Dalton Caldwell: And people on Hacker News were excited about it and they had this huge influx of people that were excited that PostHog existed and had lots of feedback and web reports.

Dalton Caldwell：Hacker News 的人们对此感到兴奋，大量的人对 PostHog 的存在感到兴奋，并收到了大量反馈和网络报告。

It wasn't always positive, but they never lacked for people that wanted to talk to them once they launched that, which was very helpful.

虽然并不总是积极的，但他们从不缺少想要与他们交谈的人，这非常有帮助。

Lenny Rachitsky: On Zip, I actually have a lot of their story in one of my series on how to build a B2B startup.

Lenny Rachitsky: On Zip, I actually have a lot of their story in one of my series on how to build a B2B startup.

And what they did actually, as you know, is they just called, DMed people on LinkedIn and ask them for advice on, "Hey, we're trying to understand how you enjoy your current procurement products." And then they ended up being early beta testers.

正如你所知，他们实际上所做的就是给 LinkedIn 上的人员打电话，询问他们的建议，“嘿，我们正在努力了解您如何喜欢当前的采购产品。”然后他们最终成为早期的 Beta 测试者。

And I think they did hundreds of these.

我认为他们做了数百个这样的事情。

They just-

他们只是——

Dalton Caldwell: Oh, yeah, no, it was a numbers game.

道尔顿考德威尔：哦，是的，不，这是一场数字游戏。

They were just grinding at this.

他们只是在苦苦挣扎。

And so yeah, that was very good.

是的，那非常好。

Lenny Rachitsky: The other classic YC stories, the Collison Collision, I think it's called or the-

Lenny Rachitsky：YC 的其他经典故事，即 Collison Collision，我认为它的名字是——

Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, Collison Install.

Lenny Rachitsky：哦，科里森安装。

Okay.

好的。

Can you tell that story briefly?

你能简单地讲一下这个故事吗？

Dalton Caldwell: The Collison Install is what often happens with customers, is that they say, "Yes, I want you buy your product." And then they do not implement it, they just go quiet.

道尔顿·考德威尔：科里森安装是客户经常遇到的情况，他们会说：“是的，我希望你购买你的产品。”然后他们不实施它，他们只是保持沉默。

There's no implementation and this is very bad if you're selling software to someone.

没有实施，如果你向某人出售软件，这是非常糟糕的。

If they never implement it, they're going to churn.

如果他们从不实施它，他们就会流失。

You basically failed on the one yard line, okay?

你基本上在一码线上失败了，好吗？

And so they developed this tactic to be like, "Oh, well, I'm at the neighborhood, I'll drop by your office to help you implement Stripe and just create..." Again, it was a little awkward like we talked about earlier, but you would be like, "Yeah.

所以他们制定了这样的策略，“哦，好吧，我在附近，我会去你的办公室帮助你实施 Stripe 并创建......”同样，就像我们之前谈到的那样有点尴尬，但你会说，“是的。

I'm in the neighborhood.

我在附近。

How about I drop by?" And then they would show up and they'd be like, "Cool, cool.

我过来怎么样？”然后他们出现时会说：“酷，酷。

Can pull up your text editor?" "Oh yeah, cool.

可以打开你的文本编辑器吗？” “哦，是的，酷。

All right." "Hey, can I drive?

好吧。” “嘿，我可以开车吗？

Can I have the keyboard?"

可以给我键盘吗？”

Dalton Caldwell: And they would just install Stripe into the customer's website, smiling, being charming guys.

Dalton Caldwell：他们只会将 Stripe 安装到客户的网站上，面带微笑，成为迷人的家伙。

And they'd be like, "Oh, that's cool.

他们会说，“哦，那太酷了。

Okay.

好的。

Well, can we roll out the website now?" And they basically would not go away until you finish the implementation of Stripe.

好吧，我们现在可以推出该网站吗？”在你完成 Stripe 的实现之前，它们基本上不会消失。

And again, it was actually helpful because they were doing all this white glove service to get it implemented.

再说一次，这实际上很有帮助，因为他们正在提供所有这些白手套服务来实现它。

That was very effective.

这非常有效。

And I think the takeaway from that story is even when you get a yes, you're not actually done with sales.

我认为这个故事的要点是，即使你得到了肯定，你实际上还没有完成销售。

You have to finish the last mile to get the thing implemented.

你必须完成最后一英里才能实现这一目标。

And they were very good at that.

他们非常擅长这一点。

Lenny Rachitsky: That was an incredible story.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：那是一个令人难以置信的故事。

And now they're, I don't know, a hundred billion in business and that's how it all begins.

现在，我不知道，他们的业务已达到一千亿美元，这就是一切的开始。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

I was an early Stripe customer at my startup and yeah, Patrick would...

我是我初创公司的早期 Stripe 客户，是的，帕特里克会……

We used Google Talk at the time.

当时我们用的是Google Talk。

Patrick would be sending me messages on a weekly basis just checking in.

帕特里克每周都会给我发消息，只是检查一下。

And so again, it's funny how successful these folks get, but yeah, Patrick was very hands-on with all of his customers and was extremely available.

再说一次，这些人取得的成功很有趣，但是，是的，帕特里克对他的所有客户都非常亲力亲为，而且非常乐意帮助。

I can say that because I was one of them.

我可以这么说，因为我就是其中之一。

Yeah.

是的。

Lenny Rachitsky: And I'm sure he had social anxiety going through all that.

Lenny Rachitsky：我确信他经历了这一切，患有社交焦虑症。

That wasn't a comfortable thing to do, just keep pushing people to install your software and deploy.

这不是一件舒服的事情，只是不断地推动人们安装和部署你的软件。

Dalton Caldwell: Oh, surely not.

道尔顿考德威尔：哦，当然不是。

If you want your startup to work, this is just what you got to do.

如果你想让你的创业公司成功，这就是你必须要做的。

Comes with the territory.

随领土而来。

Lenny Rachitsky: This is going to be just a way broad question and I don't know if you'll have an answer, but just are there other just patterns you find across startups that do well?

Lenny Rachitsky：这将是一个非常广泛的问题，我不知道您是否会有答案，但是您在初创公司中是否发现了其他表现良好的模式？

This is maybe the $64 million question of just founders and what they do that ends up leading to success.

这也许是一个价值 6400 万美元的问题，只涉及创始人以及他们所做的事情最终会带来成功。

Dalton Caldwell: I don't think personality types matter as much.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为性格类型并不那么重要。

I've seen very quiet people, very extroverted people.

我见过非常安静的人，非常外向的人。

You name it.

你说出它的名字。

I've seen all sorts of personality types.

我见过各种各样的性格类型。

So for me personally, I don't think there's a personality type that people should copy and be like, "I need to be like this person.

因此，就我个人而言，我不认为人们应该效仿某种性格类型，比如“我需要像这个人一样。

I need to be Steve Jobs.

我需要成为史蒂夫·乔布斯。

I need to be Elon." I don't really believe in that because there's just so much variation.

我需要成为埃隆。”我不太相信这一点，因为差异太大了。

Tony from DoorDash is so different than a lot of folks, and Rujul is so different and Grant from Whatnot.

DoorDash 的托尼与很多人都非常不同，Rujul 和 Whatnot 的格兰特也非常不同。

These are all very, very different people.

这些都是非常非常不同的人。

Patrick is a different kind of person.

帕特里克是一个不同类型的人。

Ryan from Flexport.

来自 Flexport 的 Ryan。

These are just very different personality types.

这些只是非常不同的性格类型。

But the thing that I would argue folks that build really big companies have in common is they just really want it and they really believe in themselves and they really believe they can make it work.

但我认为，创建真正大公司的人有一个共同点，那就是他们真的想要它，他们真的相信自己，他们真的相信他们可以让它发挥作用。

And that they're somehow deep in their internal psyche, there's something that's like, "I'm the one and I won't accept this not working."

他们在内心深处有一种感觉，“我就是那个人，我不会接受这不起作用。”

Dalton Caldwell: And even though objectively there's all this data coming in, this isn't working, this is bad.

道尔顿考德威尔：尽管客观上有所有这些数据进来，但这不起作用，这很糟糕。

My employees want to quit, my executives want to quit.

我的员工想辞职，我的高管想辞职。

Whatever it is.

不管是什么。

Somewhere deep down in there, they're like, "Oh yeah, I'm going to make this work.

在内心深处，他们会说，“哦，是的，我会让这件事成功。

This company is going to be big." And they just believe.

这家公司将会做大。”他们只是相信。

And it's almost like that internal gravitational force inside of them is so large, it warps the world to bend to that will.

就好像它们内部的引力是如此之大，它扭曲了世界以使其屈服于这种意志。

And people start to believe it because they believe it so much and they convince their employees to believe in and they convince everyone around them that this is going to happen for them.

人们开始相信这一点，因为他们非常相信这一点，他们说服员工相信，他们让周围的每个人相信这将会发生在他们身上。

And so again, this is not a personality trait.

再说一次，这不是一种人格特质。

I'm arguing this is a core belief.

我认为这是一个核心信念。

Lenny Rachitsky: So interesting.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太有趣了。

And it connects so much to what we've been talking about.

它与我们一直在谈论的内容有很大的联系。

Just don't die.

只是别死。

Don't lose hope in what you're working on.

不要对你正在做的事情失去希望。

A founder hearing this might feel like, "Man, I don't know if I'm so convinced this is going to work." In your experience, how much of this is internally, they're so certain and convinced versus externally, they need to show this confidence?

创始人听到这句话可能会觉得，“伙计，我不知道我是否确信这会起作用。”根据您的经验，其中有多少是内部的，他们如此确定和确信，与外部相比，他们需要表现出这种信心？

Dalton Caldwell: Well, I think it's internally they're convinced.

道尔顿·考德威尔：嗯，我认为他们内心是相信的。

Yeah, I'm not sure it's external.

是的，我不确定它是外部的。

But, and this is the big but, no one has this at the early stages when they don't have a good idea and they don't have customers and it's objectively not working.

但是，这是一个大问题，没有人在早期阶段拥有这个，因为他们没有一个好主意，也没有客户，而且客观上不起作用。

And so again, I know a lot of founders are like, "Well, I don't feel that way.

再说一次，我知道很多创始人都会说，“嗯，我不这么认为。

Oh no, maybe I'm an imposter and I shouldn't do a startup." Well, of course you don't feel that way if you haven't talked to any customers and haven't built a product.

哦不，也许我是个冒名顶替者，我不应该创业。”好吧，如果你没有与任何客户交谈并且没有构建产品，你当然不会有这种感觉。

But what usually happens is you pivot to a good idea where you start with a good idea that you care about and customers you care about and you launch it.

但通常发生的情况是，你转向一个好主意，从你关心的好主意和你关心的客户开始，然后推出它。

And the better the product does, the more obsessed you get with your own company.

产品做得越好，你就越痴迷于自己的公司。

Dalton Caldwell: I think in the case of Stripe, I don't want to tell Patrick's story for him, but I recall him saying at some point he wasn't as sure that Stripe was going to work until they were a year or two in.

Dalton Caldwell：我认为就 Stripe 而言，我不想为他讲述 Patrick 的故事，但我记得他曾说过，直到他们成立一两年后，他才确定 Stripe 是否会成功。

And then once it started working and then they really believed in it.

一旦它开始发挥作用，他们就真的相信了它。

But it wasn't like he woke up one day and like, "Stripe is the thing.

但他并不是有一天醒来就会说：“条纹就是重点。

It's going to work." I think you build conviction and you have this network effect virtual cycle where you get work conviction.

它会起作用的。”我认为你建立了信念，你就有了这个网络效应的虚拟循环，你可以在其中获得工作信念。

The more customers reflect back to you and data reflects back to you that you're on the right track.

越多的客户向您反映，数据向您反映，您正走在正确的道路上。

Lenny Rachitsky: This is exactly what Scott Belsky shared in our episode when I asked him when to pivot is, do you have more conviction this is going to work or less conviction over time?

Lenny Rachitsky：这正是斯科特·贝尔斯基（Scott Belsky）在我们的节目中分享的内容，当我问他何时转向时，随着时间的推移，你是否更有信心这会起作用，还是越来越不那么有信心？

And so I like that connection we just made there.

所以我喜欢我们刚刚在那里建立的联系。

Okay, so we've talked about all these way startups fail, bad ideas, tarpit ideas.

好的，我们已经讨论了初创公司失败的所有方式，糟糕的想法，柏油想法。

I want to go to the flip side and talk about good startup ideas.

我想从另一方面谈谈好的创业想法。

So recently you put out a request for startups, which is essentially 20 categories of ideas that you want to fund, that YC wants to fund.

最近，您向初创公司提出了一个要求，这基本上是您想要资助、YC 希望资助的 20 类创意。

Can you share some of these ideas that you're excited about?

您能分享一些您感到兴奋的想法吗？

And basically you're looking to fund and looking for founders to work on.

基本上，你正在寻找资金并寻找创始人来工作。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah.

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的。

And so we put out the request for startups just to inspire people to maybe apply with ideas that aren't the ones that we always see.

因此，我们向初创公司提出了要求，只是为了激励人们应用一些我们不常看到的想法。

It's not prescriptive like we will only fund ideas on this list.

这并不是规定性的，就像我们只会资助这个清单上的想法一样。

It is not that at all.

根本不是那样的。

Remember what I talked about earlier with information diet?

还记得我之前谈到的信息饮食吗？

We're trying to mix up some of the information diet about what kind of ideas people might be contemplating.

我们正在尝试混合一些有关人们可能正在考虑的想法的信息。

There aren't currently.

目前没有。

And so a couple of the ones that we put out there, I made one about ERPs which is enterprise resource planning software.

因此，在我们发布的几款软件中，我制作了一款关于 ERP 的软件，即企业资源规划软件。

And I did that because I get so few applications on that and they're usually pretty good.

我这样做是因为我收到的申请很少，而且通常都很好。

And I just would love to see more people look at that and learn about what the ERPs are, just because it's so rare that people apply with that.

我只是希望看到更多的人关注这一点并了解 ERP 是什么，因为很少有人申请它。

And now I have a feeling we're going to see a lot more applications working on that.

现在我有一种感觉，我们将看到更多的应用程序致力于此。

And so it worked as intended, which is to introduce this idea space to founders that didn't even know what an ERP was.

所以它按预期发挥作用，即将这个想法空间介绍给甚至不知道 ERP 是什么的创始人。

Now they'll go learn about it.

现在他们要去了解一下。

Dalton Caldwell: Another one is we'd like to fund open source companies.

Dalton Caldwell：另一个问题是我们希望为开源公司提供资金。

And so that's one of the RFSs where if more people apply to YC with open ideas, I think we'd be pretty excited about that.

这就是 RFS 之一，如果更多人以开放的想法申请 YC，我想我们会对此感到非常兴奋。

Maybe founders didn't realize that that would be something we want to fund.

也许创始人没有意识到这将是我们想要资助的事情。

Same with space companies.

航天公司也是如此。

Yeah, we've had a lot of success with space companies.

是的，我们在航天公司方面取得了很多成功。

Several of the folks that are actually going to space right now that aren't SpaceX or YC companies.

现在有几个真正要去太空的人不是 SpaceX 或 YC 公司。

And so I think sometimes founders feel like those ideas are too bold and ambitious, but no, I'd love if more people apply with space companies.

因此，我认为有时创始人会觉得这些想法过于大胆和雄心勃勃，但不，如果有更多的人申请太空公司，我会很高兴。

And so think about it that way, where we're trying to put out of idea spaces that perhaps someone subconsciously filtered out as what might be a good startup idea.

因此，以这种方式思考，我们试图排除可能有人下意识地过滤掉的想法空间，因为这可能是一个好的创业想法。

And hopefully that creates a new set of startup ideation for the person.

希望这能为人们创造一套新的创业理念。

Lenny Rachitsky: And we're going to link to this page in the show notes for folks that want to explore.

Lenny Rachitsky：我们将在节目笔记中为想要探索的人们提供此页面的链接。

I'll give a couple more real quick.

我会很快再给几个。

A way to end cancer, no big deal.

一种结束癌症的方法，没什么大不了的。

Spatial computing, new defense technology, bringing manufacturing back to America.

空间计算、新的国防技术，将制造业带回美国。

So a lot of hard science, deep tech stuff, which is maybe a new...

所以很多硬科学、深层技术的东西，这可能是一个新的......

I don't know.

我不知道。

I imagine you guys have invested this in the past, but it feels like trend.

我想你们过去也投资过这个，但感觉像是一种趋势。

Dalton Caldwell: We totally have, right?

道尔顿考德威尔：我们完全有，对吧？

So these aren't like, "Oh, we've never invested in these before." It's more of like, "Hey, it'd be cool if we saw more applications along these lines." It would be nice because it currently feels a little bit under...

所以这些不像，“哦，我们以前从未投资过这些。”它更像是，“嘿，如果我们看到更多类似的应用程序，那就太酷了。”那就太好了，因为目前感觉有点低……

There could be more startups working on this stuff.

可能会有更多的初创公司致力于这方面的工作。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah, instead of the tarpit ideas.

Lenny Rachitsky：是的，而不是柏油坑的想法。

A couple more real quick, better enterprise glue.

一些更快速、更好的企业粘合剂。

Lenny Rachitsky: Say more about that.

Lenny Rachitsky：多说一点。

What does that look like?

那看起来像什么？

Dalton Caldwell: The software to connect all these business systems is usually pretty brittle and janky, and there's been lots of good startups founded to solve this problem.

Dalton Caldwell：连接所有这些业务系统的软件通常非常脆弱且不稳定，并且已经有很多优秀的初创公司成立来解决这个问题。

I think there's still a lot more room for improvement and likely LLMs will improve.

我认为还有很多改进的空间，法学硕士可能会有所改进。

We'll probably be able to create better and better glue so all sorts of software systems can talk to each other.

我们可能能够创造出越来越好的粘合剂，以便各种软件系统可以相互通信。

And so again, very broad idea.

再说一遍，这是一个非常广泛的想法。

But yeah, I think we'll see a lot of very successful companies where that's the kernel of the idea they start with.

但是，是的，我认为我们会看到很多非常成功的公司，这就是他们开始的想法的核心。

Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

One last one.

最后一张。

Small fine tune models as an alternative to gigantic generic ones.

小型微调模型作为巨大通用模型的替代品。

Yeah.

是的。

Sweet.

甜的。

And so we'll include this link in the show notes and folks can click on each of these and there's a lot more explanation of what it is you're thinking about there.

因此，我们将在节目注释中包含此链接，人们可以单击其中的每一个，并且有更多关于您正在考虑的内容的解释。

Awesome.

惊人的。

Okay, just a couple more questions.

好的，还有几个问题。

Lenny Rachitsky: One is just your background.

Lenny Rachitsky：其中之一就是你的背景。

So from what I've read, in the early 2000s, you were basically hanging out with some of the biggest success stories of today.

据我所知，在 2000 年代初，人们基本上都在关注当今一些最伟大的成功故事。

Folks like Zuck and Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, Elon, Sean Parker.

像扎克和里德·霍夫曼、萨姆·奥尔特曼、埃隆、肖恩·帕克这样的人。

This is before they really became anyone and they all became very successful.

这是在他们真正成为任何人并且都变得非常成功之前。

I'm curious just looking back at that, what you've noticed is consistent across these folks that ended up being really successful over time.

我很好奇，回顾一下，你注意到这些人的情况是一致的，随着时间的推移，他们最终取得了真正的成功。

Dalton Caldwell: Back in 2003, being in Silicon Valley and being interested in startups, it was a really small space.

Dalton Caldwell：早在 2003 年，当时在硅谷，对初创公司很感兴趣，那里的空间非常小。

There just weren't that many people that were into this stuff.

只是没有那么多人喜欢这个东西。

And so I remember I cold emailed Reid Hoffman when LinkedIn was 12 employees and he just responded and he's like, "Oh, let's have lunch." He was just a guy and everyone else that was doing, I guess you could call it social networking, that was the people that I knew.

所以我记得当 LinkedIn 仅有 12 名员工时，我给 Reid Hoffman 发了一封冷冷的电子邮件，他只是回复了，“哦，我们吃午饭吧。”他只是一个人，其他人都在做，我想你可以称之为社交网络，那是我认识的人。

There was a few conferences you would go to and there'd be 30 people there.

你会去参加一些会议，那里有 30 个人。

It reminds me of stories about the Homebrew Computer Club.

这让我想起了自制计算机俱乐部的故事。

I'm not saying this is as cool.

我并不是说这很酷。

But when I read stories about what it was like when the Homebrew Computer Club existed, it was a very small number of people that all knew each other that were real weirdo outsiders that were into this stuff, okay?

但是，当我读到有关自制计算机俱乐部存在时的情况时，只有极少数互相认识的人是真正对这个东西感兴趣的奇怪的局外人，好吗？

And so that's what in the post.com boom Bay Area startup scene, that's legitimately what it felt like.

这就是后网络繁荣时期湾区创业场景中的情况，这就是合理的感觉。

Dalton Caldwell: And so I didn't think a lot about the personality traits of these people.

道尔顿·考德威尔：所以我没有对这些人的性格特征考虑太多。

Again, they were all pretty different people, but what they had in common is the folks that are now the really big names just had a lot of staying power.

再说一遍，他们都是截然不同的人，但他们的共同点是，现在真正的大牌人物都有很强的持久力。

Right?

正确的？

So when I met Sam, he had dropped out of Stanford to work on Loot, which is hilariously a way to find people around you to hang out with.

所以当我遇到 Sam 时，他已经从斯坦福大学退学，去 Loot 工作，这是一种有趣的方式来找到你周围的人一起出去玩。

An interesting theme here, huh?

这里有一个有趣的主题，是吧？

He was cool.

他很酷。

He was this really young guy and he just did that.

他是一个非常年轻的小伙子，他就是这么做的。

It wasn't huge.

它并不大。

And then he got into other stuff and ended up working at YC, ended up getting involved in hard tech and has now reinvented himself as the big mind behind AI, which again, awesome.

然后他开始涉足其他领域，最终在 YC 工作，最终涉足硬技术，现在将自己重塑为人工智能背后的大智囊，这再次非常棒。

But if I think about who he was back in the day, yeah, he was a 23-year-old working on a thing for feature phones to find friends in your neighborhood.

但如果我想想他当时是谁，是的，他是一个 23 岁的年轻人，致力于通过功能手机寻找附近的朋友。

Dalton Caldwell: Their customer was Boost Mobile.

Dalton Caldwell：他们的客户是 Boost Mobile。

I bet you could go find the commercials for Loot that Boost Mobile put out on YouTube.

我打赌你可以找到 Boost Mobile 在 YouTube 上发布的 Loot 广告。

Those are actually pretty funny.

这些实际上很有趣。

Have you seen those commercials?

你看过那些广告吗？

Lenny Rachitsky: No, but I'm going to go check them out.

Lenny Rachitsky：不，但我要去看看。

Dalton Caldwell: Anyway, it's pretty funny.

道尔顿考德威尔：无论如何，这很有趣。

So yeah, that's the real story.

是的，这就是真实的故事。

And then, yeah, I remember I was in downtown Palo Alto at the time, and some of the folks I was friends with were friends with Sean Parker, and this was actually before Sean Parker went to Facebook.

然后，是的，我记得当时我在帕洛阿尔托市中心，我的一些朋友也是肖恩·帕克的朋友，而这实际上是在肖恩·帕克加入 Facebook 之前。

He was part of Napster.

他是 Napster 的成员。

And so one of my friends was like, "Oh, we need to get my friend a ride to the airport." And so I ended up giving Sean Parker a ride to the Oakland Airport.

我的一个朋友说：“哦，我们需要搭车去机场。”所以我最终载了肖恩·帕克去奥克兰机场。

And again, what was he like?

再说一次，他是什么样的人？

I don't know.

我不知道。

He just basically sat in the back seat on the phone the whole time.

他基本上一直坐在后座打电话。

But again, my point is I wasn't like, "Wow, these are going to be really big successful people that one day will be important in the world." It just felt like a bunch of nerds that really liked the internet and computers, doing things that they were interested in and were just obsessed with this.

但我再说一次，我的观点是，我并不是想，“哇，这些人将成为非常成功的人，有一天会在世界上变得很重要。”感觉就像一群真正喜欢互联网和计算机的书呆子，做他们感兴趣的事情，并且对此着迷。

Dalton Caldwell: They weren't like, "Gee, should I move to New York?" Or, "Maybe I should go to law school." It was people that were very bought in to staying working on internet companies.

道尔顿考德威尔：他们不会说，“哎呀，我应该搬到纽约吗？”或者，“也许我应该去法学院。”人们非常愿意留在互联网公司工作。

And so you'll see these folks just reinvent themselves multiple eras, right?

所以你会看到这些人在多个时代重塑自己，对吗？

Okay, like Reid Hoffman, he worked at PayPal, right?

好吧，就像 Reid Hoffman 一样，他也在 PayPal 工作，对吗？

And then he did LinkedIn and then he was a VC.

然后他做了LinkedIn，然后他成为了一名风险投资家。

He's had all these different eras where it's the same person, but it's almost like a different figure, right?

他经历过很多不同的时代，虽然是同一个人，但几乎就像是不同的人物，对吧？

Lenny Rachitsky: There's a lot of interesting lessons there.

Lenny Rachitsky：那里有很多有趣的课程。

One is that your career is long and you'll have the opportunity to do many things and you can continue to shift.

一是你的职业生涯很长，你会有机会做很多事情，并且可以不断地转变。

In my example, this is my fourth career, I realized.

在我的例子中，我意识到这是我的第四份职业。

I was an engineer, then a founder, then a product manager, now whatever this job is.

我是一名工程师，然后是一名创始人，然后是一名产品经理，现在无论这份工作是什么。

And I think that's really common.

我认为这很常见。

I think the other, again, is the personality types point, which I didn't comment on, but I think it's so important that you can be super introverted and be super successful.

我认为另一个是性格类型点，我没有对此发表评论，但我认为这非常重要，因为你可以超级内向并取得超级成功。

You can be super extroverted and be very successful.

你可以非常外向并且非常成功。

And I think the key there is use your skills and strengths to achieve the same things.

我认为关键是利用你的技能和优势来实现同样的目标。

You don't have to be the amazing presenter on Steve Jobs type stage.

您不必成为史蒂夫·乔布斯式舞台上出色的演讲者。

You can do the same thing in a different way.

你可以用不同的方式做同样的事情。

And then the other point there is, again, coming back to you just need to be really excited and enjoy the work you're doing because that'll drive you forward and make you be successful.

另一点是，再次回到你身上，你只需要感到非常兴奋并享受你正在做的工作，因为这会推动你前进并让你取得成功。

So I like that the story is a summary of so many of the things you've shared so far.

所以我喜欢这个故事是对你迄今为止分享的许多事情的总结。

Lenny Rachitsky: There's other two other fun stories, maybe pick one.

Lenny Rachitsky：还有另外两个有趣的故事，也许选一个。

The other one is you sold your startup to MySpace and your job was basically to save MySpace.

另一种情况是，您将自己的初创公司卖给了 MySpace，而您的工作基本上就是拯救 MySpace。

And then the other is you're the reason Andreessen Horowitz missed out on Instagram and couldn't invest.

另一个原因是你是 Andreessen Horowitz 错过 Instagram 且无法投资的原因。

So which of those would you want to share?

那么您想分享其中哪一个？

Dalton Caldwell: Well, it's the same story.

道尔顿考德威尔：嗯，这是同一个故事。

And the way that it's the same story is my second company...

我的第二家公司也是如此……

Basically, I sold my first company to MySpace.

基本上，我把我的第一家公司卖给了 MySpace。

It was the music company that I worked on.

这是我工作的音乐公司。

And they recruited a new CEO who was formerly the COO of Facebook called Owen Van Natta.

他们还聘请了一位新的首席执行官，他是 Facebook 的前首席运营官，名叫欧文·范纳塔 (Owen Van Natta)。

So again, hilariously part of the same little circle of people.

再次，滑稽地属于同一个小圈子。

And Owen was like, "Okay, we need to fix MySpace.

欧文说：“好吧，我们需要修复 MySpace。

Rupert Murdoch's got the juice.

鲁珀特·默多克（Rupert Murdoch）有果汁。

He wants me to fix it.

他要我解决它。

We're going to do it.

我们会这么做的。

So come up with some ideas." And the best idea that I could come up with at the time was doing something around mobile photo sharing, something like Twitter, but for photos.

所以想出一些想法。”我当时能想到的最好的主意就是围绕移动照片共享做一些事情，比如 Twitter，但针对的是照片。

And I figured with MySpace's user base, that would work pretty well.

我认为根据 MySpace 的用户群，这会很有效。

This was in 2010, so it was right as the App Store was getting big, and I had a lot of success in the App Store with imeem.

那是在 2010 年，随着 App Store 的规模不断壮大，我的 imeem 在 App Store 上取得了很大的成功。

It was one of the top downloaded music apps.

它是下载次数最多的音乐应用程序之一。

And so I was like, "Wow, the App Store was really good." And I was really into apps being the thing.

所以我就想，“哇，App Store 真的很棒。”我真的很喜欢应用程序。

Dalton Caldwell: And at this time, Facebook was a little early on.

Dalton Caldwell：此时，Facebook 还处于起步阶段。

They were trying to do cross-platform mobile apps, if you recall.

如果您还记得的话，他们正在尝试开发跨平台移动应用程序。

And their apps were not great.

他们的应用程序也不是很好。

This was, again, ancient history.

这又是古老的历史了。

So that was my plan.

这就是我的计划。

And then immediately Owen Van Natta was fired, and so I didn't even really get onboarded.

然后欧文·范纳塔立即被解雇了，所以我什至没有真正加入。

And so I just left.

于是我就离开了。

I think I worked in MySpace for a month because the person that acquired my company got fired and I think the whole word chart got fired.

我想我在 MySpace 工作了一个月，因为收购我公司的人被解雇了，而且我认为整个单词图表都被解雇了。

I didn't even know who to talk to.

我什至不知道该和谁说话。

It was really great.

真的很棒。

It was a great experience.

这是一次很棒的经历。

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

I wasn't really sure who my point of contact was at that point.

那时我不太确定我的联系人是谁。

I don't think they knew either.

我想他们也不知道。

It was just a mess.

简直是一团糟。

Dalton Caldwell: No, no. He was long gone.

道尔顿·考德威尔：不，不。他已经走了很久了。

Seriously.

严重地。

I know you're kidding.

我知道你在开玩笑。

But no, literally, I don't know who was left at that point.

但不，从字面上看，我不知道当时留下了谁。

Tom was long gone.

汤姆早已不在了。

And so I was like, "Well, I should just do a new startup and I should work on something like what I was thinking about." And I ended up starting the company and quickly was able to raise an angel around because people remembered my company from the first one.

所以我想，“好吧，我应该做一个新的创业公司，我应该做一些像我在想的事情。”我最终创办了这家公司，并很快就培养了一位天使投资人，因为人们从第一家公司就记住了我的公司。

And the major investor we had was Andreessen Horowitz.

我们的主要投资者是 Andreessen Horowitz。

This is one of their first board seat investments, like Marc Andreessen was on my board.

这是他们的第一个董事会席位投资之一，就像马克·安德森 (Marc Andreessen) 是我的董事会成员一样。

And again, I have my own set of stories about that, but it was interesting experience and we launched it in...

再说一次，我有自己的一套关于这方面的故事，但这是一次有趣的经历，我们在……推出了它。

I think we got half a million or a million users.

我认为我们有五十万或一百万用户。

You can go find tech print articles about it.

您可以去查找有关它的技术印刷文章。

We launched on Android and iOS and it was mobile photo sharing, and actually it was growing pretty well.

我们在 Android 和 iOS 上推出了移动照片共享功能，实际上它发展得相当不错。

Okay?

好的？

Dalton Caldwell: And then what happened is there was another portfolio company called Bourbon, which was originally a ForceWare clone that was built by these two guys.

Dalton Caldwell：然后发生的事情是，还有一家名为 Bourbon 的投资组合公司，它最初是由这两个人创建的 ForceWare 克隆版。

And they decided to pivot out of that and into what...

他们决定摆脱这个困境，转向……

Which was pretty similar to my thing.

这和我的事情非常相似。

Again, fair enough, that's just how this works.

再说一次，公平地说，这就是它的工作原理。

And they did something smart.

他们做了一些聪明的事情。

Again, this is just me talking, I don't know what their version of the story is.

再说一次，这只是我在说，我不知道他们的故事版本是什么。

But what I think they did that was smart is if you looked on the paid app store charts, the number one app was Hipstamatic and Hipstamatic cost money.

但我认为他们的做法很聪明，如果你查看付费应用商店排行榜，排名第一的应用程序是 Hipstamatic，而 Hipstamatic 是要花钱的。

And what do we know about what people want?

我们对人们的需求了解多少？

They want things that are free that cost money, right?

他们想要的是免费但需要花钱的东西，对吗？

And so they basically built a pretty legitimate knockoff of the Hipstamatic filters, combining it with a social graph, and they launched it and it pretty quickly took off.

因此，他们基本上构建了一个相当合法的 Hipstamatic 过滤器仿制品，将其与社交图谱相结合，然后他们推出了它，并且很快就取得了成功。

So of course this is Instagram, right?

这当然是Instagram，对吧？

And so it took off really quickly and that was a wild experience for me to be like, "Oh, this seems familiar."

所以它很快就起飞了，这对我来说是一次疯狂的经历，“哦，这看起来很熟悉。”

Dalton Caldwell: And basically because Andreessen Horowitz had invested in my company, was on the board, even though they were investors in Instagram, that was a conflict and they didn't do the deal.

Dalton Caldwell：基本上是因为 Andreessen Horowitz 投资了我的公司，并且是董事会成员，尽管他们是 Instagram 的投资者，但这是一个冲突，他们没有完成这笔交易。

And then for whatever reason, this became a big source of Silicon Valley gossip, which was like, "Wow, I can't believe this happened." And so it was just a really weird experience for me as a founder to be right in the middle of something that became culturally so important.

然后，无论出于何种原因，这成为硅谷八卦的一个重要来源，就像“哇，我不敢相信这发生了。”因此，作为一名创始人，我正处于一个在文化上变得如此重要的事情之中，这真是一次非常奇怪的经历。

Lenny Rachitsky: I imagine there's a bullseye in your back from a16z for a little bit.

Lenny Rachitsky：我想你的背上有一点来自 a16z 的靶心。

Dalton Caldwell: Oh, I don't actually think they care.

道尔顿考德威尔：哦，我实际上认为他们并不关心。

I don't think they held it against me because what did I do wrong?

我不认为他们因为我做错了什么而反对我？

Dalton Caldwell: I started a company.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我创办了一家公司。

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

Obviously there was some frustration, but I was guy who had a company that they invested in.

显然我有些沮丧，但我是有一家他们投资的公司的人。

I don't know.

我不知道。

I didn't feel didn't much higher for them.

我不觉得他们的水平高多少。

I think this is just how life works.

我认为这就是生活的方式。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的。

I wonder if they changed their conflict policies after that at all.

我想知道他们在那之后是否改变了他们的冲突政策。

Dalton Caldwell: I don't think so.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我不这么认为。

I think this has happened multiple other times, but those aren't my stories to tell.

我认为这种情况已经发生过多次，但这些不是我要讲的故事。

Lenny Rachitsky: And by the way, I don't know if you mentioned the name of your startup, it was called PicPlz, right?

Lenny Rachitsky：顺便说一句，我不知道你是否提到过你的初创公司的名称，它的名字是 PicPlz，对吧？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, it's called PicPlz.

Dalton Caldwell：是的，它的名字是 PicPlz。

Yeah.

是的。

Lenny Rachitsky: Great.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

Okay.

好的。

So for the final phase before we get to very exciting lighting round, I have these two segments, recurring segments.

因此，在我们进入非常令人兴奋的灯光回合之前的最后阶段，我有这两个部分，重复的部分。

I have failure corner and contrarian corner.

我有失败角和逆向角。

We can do both or we can pick one or the other.

我们可以两者都做，也可以选择其中之一。

Failure corner, share a story of a time in your career where you failed and when you learned from that experience.

失败角，分享您职业生涯中失败的经历以及您从失败中吸取教训的故事。

Contrarian corner, what's something you believe that most other people don't believe?

逆向角落，有什么是你相信但大多数人不相信的事情？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I think for contrarian corner, I know where I would start and I think it's relevant for your listener.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，我认为对于逆向角落，我知道我会从哪里开始，我认为这与你的听众相关。

I think this is relevant to this and you could argue this isn't contrary, but here's what I think.

我认为这与此相关，你可能会说这并不矛盾，但这就是我的想法。

I think growth and growth hacking and doing all this analytics, A/B testing stuff, is a total waste of time for very early startups.

我认为增长和增长黑客以及所有这些分析、A/B 测试的东西，对于非常早期的初创公司来说完全是浪费时间。

And that one of the weird things about having lots of startup advice on the internet, again, this is one of the reasons we started making videos at YC, is a lot of the advice was catered towards later stage companies.

互联网上有大量创业建议的奇怪之处之一是，很多建议都是针对后期公司的，这也是我们开始在 YC 制作视频的原因之一。

Like, "Oh, here's how you set up your board and here's how you motivate your sales team." It was all aimed at series A, series B founders, and not for seed stage founders.

就像，“哦，这就是你如何建立你的董事会，这就是你如何激励你的销售团队。”它都是针对 A 轮、B 轮创始人，而不是种子阶段创始人。

The problem was seed stage founders would consume all the later stage advice and get really confused.

问题是种子阶段的创始人会吸收所有后期阶段的建议并感到非常困惑。

Dalton Caldwell: And so the anti-pattern I see is there are lots of founders that are very familiar with your awesome work, which again, I really recommend, I like it.

道尔顿考德威尔：所以我看到的反模式是有很多创始人非常熟悉你的出色工作，我再次强烈推荐，我喜欢它。

But when you have no customers and you're reading Lenny's guides on how to set up split testing and how you did growth at Airbnb, oh man, that is so dumb.

但是，当你没有客户，而你正在阅读 Lenny 的有关如何设置对比测试以及如何在 Airbnb 实现增长的指南时，天哪，这太愚蠢了。

That is so not helpful.

那是没有帮助的。

And so you see this inclination away from getting a first customer, getting one customer and talking to that person, and instead they have all this really complex growth hacking theory.

因此，你会发现这种倾向远离了获得第一个客户，获得一个客户并与该人交谈，相反，他们拥有所有这些非常复杂的增长黑客理论。

I think this also happens if you worked in big tech where your product already has scale.

我认为如果你在大型科技公司工作并且你的产品已经具有规模，这种情况也会发生。

And so if you work at Facebook and your job is to launch new little features, yeah, of course you should make heavy use of analytics and A/B testing and split testing and feature flags.

所以，如果你在 Facebook 工作，你的工作是推出新的小功能，是的，你当然应该大量使用分析、A/B 测试、对比测试和功能标志。

Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense.

是啊是啊，有道理。

But when you have no users, what are you doing?

但是当你没有用户时，你在做什么？

So do you think that's contrary?

那么你认为这是相反的吗？

What do you think?

你怎么认为？

I'm just trying to argue this advice applied to a startup that's too early is actively not helpful.

我只是想论证这个建议应用于太早的初创公司实际上没有帮助。

Lenny Rachitsky: I think it's contrarian for many people.

Lenny Rachitsky：我认为这对很多人来说都是逆向思维。

100%.

100%。

I also 100% agree with it.

我也百分百同意。

It makes me feel like I need to, at the top of my post, share here's who this is for.

这让我觉得我需要在帖子的顶部分享这是给谁的。

If you're earlier than this, ignore it.

如果你比这更早，请忽略它。

If you're later than this, ignore it.

如果你晚于此，请忽略它。

Dalton Caldwell: I mean, again, I'm not saying you do anything wrong, but imagine if the OG Airbnb founders took all of your current advice and applied it when they had four users and they knew their names and they were trying to run complicated growth hacking split testings.

Dalton Caldwell：我的意思是，我并不是说你做错了什么，但想象一下，如果 OG Airbnb 创始人采纳了你当前的所有建议，并在他们有四个用户并且知道他们的名字并且试图运行复杂的增长黑客对比测试时应用它。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的。

Maybe just to clarify when you talk about growth hacking.

也许只是为了在谈论增长黑客时澄清一下。

So obviously when you're starting something, say a consumer app, you need to get a bunch of users somehow.

很明显，当你开始做某件事时，比如消费者应用程序，你需要以某种方式获得一批用户。

What's your sense of just when you say don't do this sort of thing, but this is okay?

当你说不要做这种事但没关系时，你的感觉是什么？

What falls in those buckets?

这些桶里会掉什么？

Dalton Caldwell: I think it depends on the idea.

道尔顿考德威尔：我认为这取决于想法。

I think in the case of Whatnot, it was consumer app and they needed to get users.

我认为就 Whatnot 而言，它是消费者应用程序，他们需要吸引用户。

But they were very intellectually honest on the metrics for how you get a marketplace off the ground.

但他们对于如何启动市场的指标非常诚实。

And they didn't just go dump all their money into Instagram ads.

他们并没有把所有的钱都投入到 Instagram 广告中。

They effectively knew they needed to focus on buyers and on the buy side and build momentum on the buy side.

他们实际上知道他们需要关注买家和买方，并为买方建立动力。

They really understood marketplaces.

他们真正了解市场。

And so for consumer, I think it's having a sophisticated view of how you get the consumer company off the ground.

因此，对于消费者来说，我认为它对如何让消费者公司起步有一个复杂的看法。

I think if you look at the Facebook story, them getting a hundred percent penetration on the Harvard campus first instead of launching overall.

我想如果你看看 Facebook 的故事，你会发现他们首先在哈佛校园获得了 100% 的渗透率，而不是全面推出。

Again, good strategy, would recommend that strategy.

再说一遍，好的策略，会推荐该策略。

So again, the way to extrapolate that is know what your comps are of what companies you...

再说一遍，推断这一点的方法是了解你所在公司的比较……

Or type is, and then look at what they did on the zero to one and ignore what they do today.

或者输入 is，然后查看他们从零到一时所做的事情并忽略他们今天所做的事情。

Right?

正确的？

Dalton Caldwell: Don't pay attention to what Facebook does today if you're a brand new startup founder, pay attention to Facebook when they were getting their first thousand users.

Dalton Caldwell：如果你是一个全新的初创公司创始人，就不要关注 Facebook 今天做了什么，而应该关注 Facebook 刚刚获得第一批 1000 个用户时的情况。

What were those tactics?

这些战术是什么？

Lenny Rachitsky: I feel like this should be its own episode where we just go into how to get your first thousand users.

Lenny Rachitsky：我觉得这应该是它自己的一集，我们只讨论如何获得第一批一千名用户。

I know there's a video actually we'll link to that Gustav made with YC's advice on how to get your users.

我知道实际上我们会链接到 Gustav 制作的一个视频，其中包含 YC 关于如何吸引用户的建议。

Did you want to visit failure corner or not?

你想不想参观失败角落？

Or shall we move on?

或者我们继续前进？

Dalton Caldwell: I failed at tons of stuff.

道尔顿考德威尔：我在很多事情上都失败了。

As an investor, I make lots of bad investments as well as good ones.

作为一名投资者，我做过很多糟糕的投资，也做过很多好的投资。

I think in my startups I pivoted a lot and a lot of things I did didn't work out.

我认为在我的初创公司中，我进行了很多调整，但我所做的很多事情都没有成功。

And so again, I just gave you a specific story with PicPlz, right?

再说一遍，我刚刚给你讲了一个关于 PicPlz 的具体故事，对吧？

You just heard a specific story there.

你刚刚在那里听到了一个具体的故事。

I guess what I learned is that you just can't let it get to you too much and you got to keep going.

我想我学到的是，你不能让它影响你太多，你必须继续前进。

And that if you keep going, no one really remembers those as much and it doesn't really define you.

如果你继续前进，没有人真正记住这些，而且它并不能真正定义你。

Fear of failure shouldn't dominate all of your thoughts.

对失败的恐惧不应该主宰你的所有想法。

And instead you should use your energy and positivity to keep trying to do good work, right?

相反，你应该利用你的能量和积极性继续努力做好工作，对吗？

Because back in the day, if I would've been like, "Well, I guess startups aren't for me, I guess tech isn't for me." I wouldn't have had a career doing any of this stuff.

因为在过去，如果我会说，“好吧，我想初创公司不适合我，我想科技不适合我。”我不会从事这些事情。

I wouldn't be working at YC, I wouldn't be advising companies, right?

我不会在 YC 工作，我不会为公司提供建议，对吧？

Dalton Caldwell: So I always had to have in my life a lot of optimism and energy and use that energy and motor to keep me going.

道尔顿·考德威尔：所以我的生活中必须始终保持乐观和活力，并利用这种活力和动力让我继续前进。

And it served me really well, right?

这对我来说真的很有好处，对吧？

Even if lots of stuff I tried didn't work and continue to not work.

即使我尝试过的很多东西都不起作用并且继续不起作用。

Again, obvious stuff I know, but yeah, that doesn't mean it's not true, even though it's obvious.

再说一次，我知道的显而易见的事情，但是，是的，这并不意味着它不是真的，即使它是显而易见的。

Lenny Rachitsky: I feel like that's a recurring theme here and I love that it's another version of just how not to die.

Lenny Rachitsky：我觉得这是这里反复出现的主题，我喜欢它是如何不死的另一个版本。

There's the startup itself that shouldn't die, and then there's your just drive and motivation to keep going and try new things when things don't work out.

创业公司本身不应该消亡，而当事情不顺利时，你就有继续前进并尝试新事物的动力和动力。

I love all the recurring themes and messages for people here.

我喜欢这里的人们反复出现的所有主题和信息。

Dalton, is there anything else you want to leave listeners with before we get to a very exciting lightning round?

道尔顿，在我们进入激动人心的闪电回合之前，您还有什么想留给听众的吗？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, I guess the final thought is if someone wants to do a startup and doesn't know where to start, just to give you permission to talk to potential customers and try to pre-sell something before you write code and have those conversations.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，我想最后的想法是，如果有人想要创业并且不知道从哪里开始，只是为了允许你与潜在客户交谈并尝试在你编写代码并进行这些对话之前预售一些东西。

I think so many folks don't know where to begin on starting a startup, and my tactical advice is start doing customer validation first versus building a PowerPoint deck, versus trying to raise money versus all these other things.

我认为很多人不知道从哪里开始创业，我的战术建议是首先开始进行客户验证，而不是构建 PowerPoint 演示文稿，而不是尝试筹集资金，而不是所有其他事情。

I think a lot of people don't use that strategy, and basically if you find people that are really excited and you do line up customers, that is a great green light that it is time to do a startup, right?

我认为很多人不使用这种策略，基本上，如果你发现人们真的很兴奋并且你确实让客户排队，那就是一个很好的绿灯，是时候开始创业了，对吧？

That can get you down the path.

这可以让你走上正轨。

So yeah, I think that's my final advice.

是的，我想这是我的最终建议。

Lenny Rachitsky: And then with that, when does the building come in?

Lenny Rachitsky：那么，这座建筑什么时候竣工呢？

Is it build it while you're talking, build it before you...

是在你说话的时候构建它，在你之前构建它吗？

It depends on basically-

这基本上取决于——

Dalton Caldwell: Build it once you have some conviction and then you're like, "Oh, I think I would have a customer.

Dalton Caldwell：一旦你有了一些信念，然后你就会想，“哦，我想我会有一个客户。

I think that at least one person would use this thing I want to build.

我认为至少会有一个人会使用我想要构建的这个东西。

At least one."

至少一个。”

Lenny Rachitsky: I love it.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：我喜欢它。

I love the simplicity and pragmatism of all of your advice.

我喜欢你所有建议的简单性和实用性。

Dalton, welcome to the very exciting lightning round.

道尔顿，欢迎来到非常激动人心的闪电回合。

I've got six questions for you.

我有六个问题要问你。

Are you ready?

你准备好了吗？

Lenny Rachitsky: What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people?

Lenny Rachitsky：您最向其他人推荐的两三本书是什么？

Dalton Caldwell: I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches and they need all this training, and I'll be like, "Well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads, and just read those and that'll get you 80% of the way there." You know what I'm saying?

Dalton Caldwell：我认为很多创始人害怕做销售，他们不知道如何做销售，他们认为他们需要这些真正有经验的销售教练，他们需要所有这些培训，我会说，“好吧，去亚马逊找到最受欢迎的销售书籍，比如每个人都读的《Getting to Yes》，只要阅读这些书，你就成功了 80%。”你知道我在说什么吗？

They want to hire someone for millions of dollars to give them sales coaching.

他们想以数百万美元聘请某人来为他们提供销售指导。

I'm like, "Well, have you read these really basic sales books?" And they're like, "No." And so I think that's a low cost way to go on Amazon, Getting to Yes and a few other of the top sellers, I forget the names, and just read those, and that is your crash course on how to be great at sales.

我想，“那么，你读过这些非常基础的销售书籍吗？”他们的回答是：“不。”所以我认为这是在亚马逊上进行的一种低成本方式，进入 Yes 和其他一些顶级卖家，我忘记了名字，只是阅读了这些，这就是你如何擅长销售的速成课程。

Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

There's also this book called Founding Sales that I imagine you're familiar with.

我想你也熟悉这本书《Founding Sales》。

Pete Kazanjy was on the podcast talking about that and that's something I always recommend because it's just like, "How founders can do sales."

皮特·卡赞吉 (Pete Kazanjy) 在播客上谈论了这一点，这是我一直推荐的内容，因为它就像“创始人如何进行销售”。

Lenny Rachitsky: Start there.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：从这里开始。

Great.

伟大的。

We'll link to that.

我们将链接到该内容。

Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really enjoyed?

您最近有最喜欢的电影或电视节目吗？

Dalton Caldwell: This may be warping what you're asking for, but I like to watch old shows a lot, and so I keep rewatching The Sopranos and the Wire, and it always is different to me every time and things like that.

道尔顿·考德威尔：这可能会扭曲你的要求，但我很喜欢看老剧，所以我一直在重看《黑道家族》和《火线》，每次对我来说总是不同的，诸如此类。

I think here's a silly answer.

我认为这是一个愚蠢的答案。

I've been really enjoying watching old episodes of Columbo, which was a television show from the '70s and '80s.

我真的很喜欢看《哥伦坡》的老剧集，这是 70 年代和 80 年代的电视节目。

I don't know why, I don't even know if this is destructive, but for some reason, I'm really into that right now.

我不知道为什么，我什至不知道这是否具有破坏性，但出于某种原因，我现在真的很喜欢。

It's very old episodes of Columbo.

这是哥伦坡非常古老的剧集。

Dalton Caldwell: I guess.

道尔顿考德威尔：我想。

I don't know.

我不知道。

It just feels like a time machine to a different time when I watch these things.

当我观看这些东西时，感觉就像一台时光机到了不同的时间。

Lenny Rachitsky: Definitely, maybe one of the most unique answers yet.

Lenny Rachitsky：当然，这可能是迄今为止最独特的答案之一。

Dalton Caldwell: Well, again, I guess I'm not trying to give you an answer where I sound super clever-

道尔顿·考德威尔：嗯，再说一遍，我想我并不是想给你一个听起来超级聪明的答案——

Dalton Caldwell: I'm telling you the real answer.

道尔顿考德威尔：我告诉你真正的答案。

So that's actually what I'm watching.

这实际上就是我正在看的。

Lenny Rachitsky: It does actually sound very sophisticated and clever.

Lenny Rachitsky：听起来确实非常复杂和聪明。

Do you have a favorite interview question that you like to ask, I guess founders in this context?

在这种情况下，你有一个最喜欢问的面试问题吗？我想是创始人？

Dalton Caldwell: I don't really believe in trick questions, and I think I just start with, "Hey, so tell me about what you're working on." Or, "What have you learned since you started?" Again, none of these are trick questions, but I think you can get the most honest and interesting answers by asking the most straightforward basic things and having that be a blank slate for their answers to draw on.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我不太相信诡计问题，我想我只是从“嘿，告诉我你正在做什么”开始。或者，“自从开始以来，你学到了什么？”再说一次，这些都不是棘手的问题，但我认为通过询问最直接的基本问题并让他们的答案成为一张白纸，你可以得到最诚实和有趣的答案。

You know what I'm saying?

你知道我在说什么吗？

So I like the most simple prompts and let them take the conversation where they want to go.

所以我喜欢最简单的提示，让他们随心所欲地进行对话。

Lenny Rachitsky: I know this probably is a very big question, but just what do you look for in their answer that gives you a sense of this is a good or bad answer?

Lenny Rachitsky：我知道这可能是一个非常大的问题，但是您在他们的答案中寻找什么让您感觉到这是一个好答案还是坏答案？

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的。

And I know this is its own podcast episode.

我知道这是它自己的播客剧集。

Dalton Caldwell: I think evidence that they actually have thought about it.

道尔顿·考德威尔：我认为有证据表明他们确实考虑过这个问题。

As per I said earlier, that they've done research, that they have opinions, that they care about it.

正如我之前所说，他们已经做过研究，他们有意见，他们关心它。

Right?

正确的？

Sometimes when people answer questions, you can just tell that it's really superficial, and they haven't put much care or soul into their answers.

有时候，当人们回答问题的时候，你会发现他们的回答很肤浅，没有用心，没有用心。

Lenny Rachitsky: Awesome.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：太棒了。

Do you have a favorite product that you've recently discovered that you really like?

您最近发现有您真正喜欢的最喜欢的产品吗？

Dalton Caldwell: I like my Oura ring and my Apple Watch and all that good stuff.

Dalton Caldwell：我喜欢我的 Oura 戒指和 Apple Watch 以及所有这些好东西。

I've been a fan.

我一直是粉丝。

There's a YC clinic called SiPhox, S-I-P-H-O-X, I just sign up for, and they do at-home blood testing.

有一家 YC 诊所，名为 SiPhox，S-I-P-H-O-X，我刚刚报名，他们在家进行血液检测。

And basically I'm trying to sync that at-home blood testing thing into all my other devices.

基本上，我正在尝试将家庭血液测试同步到我的所有其他设备中。

I don't know.

我不知道。

I really enjoy all the stuff that Apple and other startups are working on and YC companies are working on around personal health.

我真的很喜欢苹果和其他初创公司以及 YC 公司围绕个人健康所做的所有工作。

And so yeah, those are products I'm into.

是的，这些是我喜欢的产品。

Lenny Rachitsky: SiPhox.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：SiPhox。

Okay.

好的。

And wait, then you do a needle and stuff and you take your own blood?

等等，然后你打针之类的东西然后抽自己的血？

Dalton Caldwell: It's this little tiny needle.

道尔顿·考德威尔：就是这根小针。

It doesn't hurt at all.

一点也不疼。

It takes a few drops of blood and you do it at home and you mail it in and then it has all these blood tests.

它需要几滴血，你可以在家里做，然后邮寄出去，然后进行所有这些血液测试。

It's actually really cool.

实际上真的很酷。

Yeah.

是的。

It was one of those cases where I saw it and then I later was like, "Oh, wait, that's a YC company." Basically, I became a customer and was pleasantly surprised that it's a YC company.

在其中一个案例中，我看到了它，然后我就想，“哦，等等，那是一家 YC 公司。”基本上，我成为了客户，并惊喜地发现这是一家 YC 公司。

Lenny Rachitsky: And I think I found it.

Lenny Rachitsky：我想我找到了。

So it's S-I-P-H-O-X health dot com.

这就是 S-I-P-H-O-X 健康网络。

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, it really rolls off the tongue, right?

道尔顿·考德威尔：是的，这确实是脱口而出的，对吧？

Yeah, that's the name of it.

是的，这就是它的名字。

Lenny Rachitsky: Very cool.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：非常酷。

Okay, I see the little needle.

好的，我看到小针了。

Okay, great.

好的，太好了。

Go SiPhox.

去 SiPhox。

Okay, two more questions.

好吧，还有两个问题。

Do you have a favorite life motto that you often come back to, find useful in work or in life, share with friends?

您是否有一条最喜欢的人生格言，您经常回顾，发现它在工作或生活中有用，并与朋友分享？

Dalton Caldwell: Just check in with yourself that you're having fun and that you enjoy what you're doing.

道尔顿考德威尔：只要检查一下自己是否玩得很开心并且喜欢自己正在做的事情。

And if you don't, you should probably make a change, whatever that is.

如果你不这样做，你可能应该做出改变，无论是什么。

And again, if you're a founder, you're in control, right?

再说一次，如果你是创始人，你就拥有控制权，对吗？

You can change your own company.

你可以改变自己的公司。

But I think a lot of people go through life and they don't ask themselves this question, am I having fun?

但我认为很多人在一生中都不会问自己这个问题：我过得开心吗？

Am I enjoying?

我享受吗？

Do I value what I'm spending my time on?

我珍惜我所花的时间吗？

And I think that you just can go back to this over and over and over again as a good prompt on how to decide what to do with your life.

我认为你可以一遍又一遍地回顾这一点，作为如何决定如何度过你的生活的一个很好的提示。

Lenny Rachitsky: Easier said than done to change that in many cases, but it always starts with realizing, okay, this isn't actually what I-

Lenny Rachitsky：在很多情况下，改变这一点说起来容易做起来难，但首先要意识到，好吧，这实际上并不是我-

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, and bidding to yourself.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，对自己出价。

Yeah, I'm not really enjoying this, and then trying to be like, "Well, how can I fix it?" Having that conversation with yourself.

是的，我并不是很喜欢这个，然后试着说，“好吧，我该如何解决它？”与自己进行对话。

Lenny Rachitsky: Yeah.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：是的。

It reminds me of a Steve Jobs quote where you wake up day after day, it's okay to wake up some days being like, "I don't want to be doing this." But if it's every day and continues to happen, then that's a sign you should change it.

这让我想起了史蒂夫·乔布斯的名言，你日复一日地醒来，有些日子醒来时会说“我不想这样做”是可以的。但如果这种情况每天都发生并且持续发生，那么这就是你应该改变它的迹象。

Lenny Rachitsky: Final question.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：最后一个问题。

You and Michael Seibel have been doing this incredible podcast together.

你和 Michael Seibel 一起制作了这个令人难以置信的播客。

If somebody wanted to check out the podcast and dive in, is there an episode that you love most that you think they could start with?

如果有人想查看播客并深入了解，您认为他们可以从您最喜欢的一集开始吗？

Dalton Caldwell: It depends.

道尔顿·考德威尔：这要看情况。

Some of the episodes are more for folks that already have a startup and they're dealing with problems.

其中一些剧集更适合那些已经拥有一家初创公司并且正在处理问题的人。

I don't know.

我不知道。

Some of the episodes about investors or things like that.

一些关于投资者或类似事情的剧集。

It's very clear that the audience for those is current startup founders.

很明显，这些内容的受众是当前的初创公司创始人。

And there's a lot that are just more life advice, how to make decisions and think about.

还有很多只是更多的生活建议，如何做出决定和思考。

And those have strangely become very popular and gotten a lot of views with non-startup founders, which is a pleasant surprise.

奇怪的是，这些都变得非常受欢迎，并得到了非初创公司创始人的很多关注，这是一个令人惊喜的事情。

And so I'd recommend those for folks in the audience that are not currently startup founders.

因此，我会向目前还不是初创公司创始人的观众推荐这些内容。

I don't know.

我不知道。

Life tips from top founders, I think is a good-

顶级创始人的生活秘诀，我认为是一个很好的-

Lenny Rachitsky: Oh, from billionaires?

Lenny Rachitsky：哦，来自亿万富翁？

Is it that one?

是那个吗？

Dalton Caldwell: Yeah, yeah.

道尔顿考德威尔：是的，是的。

I think that was pretty popular.

我认为那很受欢迎。

So what I'd be looking for is diagnose, am I a current founder and I have founder problems?

所以我要寻找的是诊断，我是现任创始人吗？我有创始人问题吗？

Or am I just looking for general philosophy type questions?

或者我只是在寻找一般哲学类型的问题？

And I really like those philosophy ones.

我真的很喜欢那些哲学的。

We have one for high school students, the audience is, here's advice for high school students that are interested in startups.

我们有一个针对高中生的，观众是，这是给对创业感兴趣的高中生的建议。

Here's some tips that you should be thinking about.

以下是您应该考虑的一些提示。

Again, pretty narrow target audience, but I love that episode because we're really trying to speak directly to that audience and I think it's pretty good advice.

再说一遍，目标受众相当狭窄，但我喜欢这一集，因为我们真的想直接与观众交谈，我认为这是很好的建议。

Lenny Rachitsky: Dalton, you are wonderful.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：道尔顿，你太棒了。

Thank you for sharing so much wisdom.

感谢您分享这么多智慧。

This is action packed.

这是充满动作的。

I'm really excited for founders to listen to this.

我真的很高兴创始人能听到这个。

I think it's going to make a big dent in a lot of people's lives.

我认为这将对很多人的生活产生重大影响。

Two final questions.

最后两个问题。

Where can folks find you online if they want to reach out and follow up on some of this?

如果人们想要联系并跟进其中的一些内容，可以在哪里找到您？

And how can listeners be useful to you?

听众如何对你有用？

Dalton Caldwell: I am on Twitter/X.com and Dalton.C is my username.

Dalton Caldwell：我在 Twitter/X.com 上，Dalton.C 是我的用户名。

And also my LinkedIn is pretty good.

而且我的 LinkedIn 也很不错。

It's pretty popular.

它很受欢迎。

I don't know.

我不知道。

Just search for my name on LinkedIn.

只需在 LinkedIn 上搜索我的名字即可。

And yeah, I'd love to see you all there.

是的，我很高兴在那里见到你们。

And then how can folks be helpful?

那么人们可以如何提供帮助呢？

I mean, honestly, it's just great when folks want to apply to YC and do a startup.

我的意思是，老实说，当人们想申请 YC 并创业时，这真是太棒了。

And so feel free to dive into other videos and apply to YC.

因此，请随意观看其他视频并申请 YC。

And something that's really special about my job is I get the privilege of getting to fund companies that they already know me from videos and they're shocked that I'm exactly the same as...

我的工作真正特别的一点是，我有幸获得资助公司的机会，他们已经通过视频认识了我，他们很惊讶我和……一模一样。

Effectively, they're like, "Wow, you're just that guy from the videos I've been watching, and it's so cool that you're just exactly like you seem in the videos." And so basically, yeah, if people like what I have to say and they like the videos and apply to YC, I would love to fund their companies.

实际上，他们会说，“哇，你就是我看过的视频中的那个人，这太酷了，你就像视频中的样子一样。”所以基本上，是的，如果人们喜欢我要说的话，他们喜欢这些视频并申请 YC，我很乐意资助他们的公司。

Lenny Rachitsky: Dalton, thank you so much for being here.

Lenny Rachitsky：Dalton，非常感谢你来到这里。

Dalton Caldwell: Sure thing.

道尔顿·考德威尔：当然可以。

Thanks so much, Lenny.

非常感谢，莱尼。

Appreciate it.

欣赏它。

Lenny Rachitsky: Bye everyone.

莱尼·拉奇茨基：大家再见。

Thank you so much for listening.

非常感谢您的聆听。

If you found this valuable, you can subscribe to the show on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app.

如果您发现这很有价值，您可以在 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 或您最喜欢的播客应用程序上订阅该节目。

Also, please consider giving us a rating or leaving a review as that really helps other listeners find the podcast.

另外，请考虑给我们评分或留下评论，因为这确实有助于其他听众找到播客。

You can find all past episodes or learn more about the show at Lennyspodcast.com.

您可以在 Lennyspodcast.com 上找到所有过去的剧集或了解有关该节目的更多信息。

See you in the next episode.

下一集见。