Ramen Profitable
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</td > July 2009 Now that the term "ramen profitable" has become widespread, I ought to explain precisely what the idea entails.
</td> 2009 年 7 月 既然“拉面有利可图”这个词已经变得很普遍，我应该准确地解释一下这个想法的含义。
Ramen profitable means a startup makes just enough to pay the founders' living expenses.
拉面盈利意味着一家初创公司的收入仅够支付创始人的生活费。
This is a different form of profitability than startups have traditionally aimed for.
这是与初创公司传统目标不同的盈利形式。
Traditional profitability
传统盈利能力
means a big bet is finally paying off, whereas the main importance of ramen profitability is that it buys you time.
意味着一次大赌注终于得到了回报，而拉面盈利的主要重要性在于它为你赢得了时间。
[ 1 ] In the past, a startup would usually become profitable only after raising and spending quite a lot of money.
[1] 过去，初创公司通常只有在筹集并花费大量资金后才能盈利。
A company making computer hardware might not become profitable for 5 years, during which they spent $50 million.
一家生产计算机硬件的公司可能在 5 年内无法盈利，在此期间他们花费了 5000 万美元。
But when they did they might have revenues of $50 million a year.
但当他们这样做时，他们每年的收入可能会达到 5000 万美元。
This kind of
这种
profitability means the startup has succeeded.
盈利意味着初创公司成功了。
Ramen profitability is the other extreme: a startup that becomes profitable after 2 months, even though its revenues are only $3000 a month, because the only employees are a couple 25 year old founders who can live on practically nothing.
Ramen 的盈利能力是另一个极端：一家初创公司在 2 个月后就开始盈利，尽管其每月收入只有 3000 美元，因为唯一的员工是一对 25 岁的创始人夫妇，他们几乎靠什么生活。
Revenues of $3000 a month do not mean the company has succeeded.
每月 3000 美元的收入并不意味着公司已经成功。
But it does share something with the one that's profitable in the traditional way: they don't need to raise
但它确实与以传统方式盈利的公司有一些共同点：他们不需要筹集资金
money to survive.
钱来生存。
Ramen profitability is an unfamiliar idea to most people because it only recently became feasible.
拉面盈利对大多数人来说是一个陌生的想法，因为它直到最近才变得可行。
It's still not feasible for a lot of startups; it would not be for most biotech startups, for example; but it is for many software startups because they're now so cheap.
对于很多初创公司来说这仍然不可行；例如，对于大多数生物技术初创公司来说，情况并非如此；但这对于许多软件初创公司来说都是如此，因为它们现在太便宜了。
For many, the only real cost is the founders' living expenses.
对于许多人来说，唯一真正的成本是创始人的生活费用。
The main significance of this type of profitability is that you're
这种盈利能力的主要意义在于，您
no longer at the mercy of investors.
不再受投资者摆布。
If you're still losing money, then eventually you'll either have to raise more or shut down.
如果你仍然亏损，那么最终你要么不得不筹集更多资金，要么关门大吉。
Once you're ramen profitable this painful choice goes away.
一旦你的拉面盈利了，这种痛苦的选择就会消失。
You can still raise money, but you don't have to do it now.
您仍然可以筹集资金，但不必现在就这样做。
* * * The most obvious advantage of not needing money is that you can get better terms.
* * * 不需要钱最明显的好处是可以获得更好的条件。
If investors know you need money, they'll sometimes take advantage of you.
如果投资者知道你需要钱，他们有时会利用你。
Some may even deliberately
有的甚至可能是故意的
stall, because they know that as you run out of money you'll become increasingly pliable.
拖延，因为他们知道，当你的钱用完时，你会变得越来越柔顺。
But there are also three less obvious advantages of ramen profitability.
但拉面盈利能力还有三个不太明显的优势。
One is that it makes you more attractive to investors.
一是它让你对投资者更具吸引力。
If you're already profitable, on however small a scale, it shows that (a) you can get at least someone to pay you, (b) you're serious about building things people want, and (c) you're disciplined enough to
如果你已经盈利，无论规模多么小，它都表明（a）你至少可以让有人付钱给你，（b）你认真地构建人们想要的东西，（c）你有足够的纪律性
keep expenses low.
保持较低的开支。
This is reassuring to investors, because you've addressed three of their biggest worries.
这让投资者感到安心，因为您已经解决了他们最大的三个担忧。
It's common for them to fund companies that have smart founders and a big market, and yet still fail.
他们资助那些拥有聪明创始人和广阔市场但仍然失败的公司是很常见的。
When these companies fail, it's usually because (a) people wouldn't pay for what they made, e.g. because it was too hard to sell to them, or the market wasn't ready yet, (b) the founders solved the wrong
当这些公司失败时，通常是因为（a）人们不会为他们所做的事情付费，例如因为卖给他们太难了，或者市场还没有准备好，(b) 创始人解决了错误的问题
problem, instead of paying attention to what users needed, or (c) the company spent too much and burned through their funding before they started to make money.
问题，而不是关注用户需要什么，或者（c）公司花费太多，在开始赚钱之前就烧光了他们的资金。
If you're ramen profitable, you're already avoiding these mistakes.
如果你的拉面盈利，那么你就已经避免了这些错误。
Another advantage of ramen profitability is that it's good for morale.
拉面盈利的另一个优点是它有利于士气。
A company tends to feel rather theoretical when you first start it.
当你刚创办一家公司时，你往往会感觉相当理论化。
It's legally a company, but you feel like you're lying when you call it
法律上是一家公司，但你打电话的时候感觉自己在撒谎
one.
一。
When people start to pay you significant amounts, the company starts to feel real.
当人们开始向你支付大笔报酬时，公司开始变得真实。
And your own living expenses are the milestone you feel most, because at that point the future flips state.
而你自己的生活费用是你最有感觉的里程碑，因为在那一点上，未来的状态会发生翻转。
Now survival is the default, instead of dying.
现在生存是默认的，而不是死亡。
A morale boost on that scale is very valuable in a startup, because the moral weight of running a startup is what makes it hard.
对于初创企业来说，这种规模的士气提升非常有价值，因为经营一家初创企业的道德分量使其变得困难。
Startups are still very rare.
初创公司仍然非常罕见。
Why don't more people do it?
为什么没有更多的人这样做呢？
The financial
金融方面
risk?
风险？
Plenty of 25 year olds save nothing anyway.
无论如何，很多 25 岁的人什么也没存。
The long hours?
长时间工作？
Plenty of people work just as long hours in regular jobs.
很多人的正常工作时间也一样长。
What keeps people from starting startups is the fear of having so much responsibility.
人们之所以不敢创业，是因为害怕承担如此多的责任。
And this is not an irrational fear: it really is hard to bear.
这并不是一种非理性的恐惧：它确实难以忍受。
Anything that takes some of that weight off you will greatly increase your chances of surviving.
任何减轻你体重的事情都会大大增加你的生存机会。
A startup that reaches ramen profitability may be more likely
一家初创公司实现拉面盈利的可能性可能更大
to succeed than not.
成功总比不成功。
Which is pretty exciting, considering the bimodal distribution of outcomes in startups: you either fail or make a lot of money.
考虑到初创公司结果的双峰分布，这是非常令人兴奋的：你要么失败，要么赚很多钱。
The fourth advantage of ramen profitability is the least obvious but may be the most important.
拉面盈利能力的第四个优势是最不明显的，但可能是最重要的。
If you don't need to raise money, you don't have to interrupt working on the company to do it.
如果你不需要筹集资金，你不必中断公司的工作来进行融资。
Raising money is terribly distracting.
筹集资金非常令人分心。
You're lucky if your productivity is a third of what it was before.
如果您的工作效率是以前的三分之一，那您就很幸运了。
And it can last for
并且可以持续
months.
几个月。
I didn't understand (or rather, remember) precisely why raising money was so distracting till earlier this year.
直到今年早些时候，我才明白（或者更确切地说，记得）为什么筹集资金如此令人分心。
I'd noticed that startups we funded would usually grind to a halt when they switched to raising money, but I didn't remember exactly why till YC raised money itself.
我注意到，我们资助的初创公司在转而融资时通常会陷入停滞，但直到 YC 自己筹集资金之前我不记得具体原因。
We had a comparatively easy time of it; the first people I asked said yes; but it took months to work out the details, and during that time I got hardly any real work done.
我们度过了一段相对轻松的时光；我问的第一批人说是的；但花了几个月的时间才弄清楚细节，在那段时间里我几乎没有完成任何实际工作。
Why?
为什么？
Because I thought about it all the time.
因为我一直在想这个问题。
At any given time there tends to be one problem that's the most urgent for a startup.
在任何特定时间，往往都会有一个问题对于初创公司来说是最紧迫的。
This is what you think about as you fall asleep at night and when you take a shower in the morning.
这就是你晚上入睡和早上洗澡时所想的事情。
And when you start raising money, that becomes the problem you think about.
当你开始筹集资金时，这就会成为你考虑的问题。
You only take one shower in the morning, and if you're thinking about investors during it, then you're not thinking about
你早上只洗一次澡，如果你在洗澡的时候想着投资者，那么你就不会想着
the product.
产品。
Whereas if you can choose when you raise money, you can pick a time when you're not in the middle of something else, and you can probably also insist that the round close fast.
然而，如果你可以选择筹集资金的时间，你可以选择不在其他事情中间的时间，而且你也可以坚持让本轮融资快速结束。
You may even be able to avoid having the round occupy your thoughts, if you don't care whether it closes.
如果您不在乎比赛是否结束，您甚至可以避免让这一轮比赛占据您的思绪。
* * * Ramen profitable means no more than the definition implies.
* * * 拉面盈利仅指定义所暗示的内容。
It does not, for example, imply that you're "bootstrapping" the
例如，它并不意味着您正在“引导”
startup—that you're never going to take money from investors.
创业公司——你永远不会从投资者那里拿钱。
Empirically that doesn't seem to work very well.
从经验来看，这似乎不太有效。
Few startups succeed without taking investment.
很少有初创公司能够在不接受投资的情况下取得成功。
Maybe as startups get cheaper it will become more common.
也许随着初创公司变得更便宜，它会变得更加普遍。
On the other hand, the money is there, waiting to be invested.
另一方面，钱就在那里，等待投资。
If startups need it less, they'll be able to get it on better terms, which will make them more inclined to take it.
如果初创公司对它的需求减少，他们将能够以更好的条件获得它，这将使他们更愿意接受它。
That will tend to produce an equilibrium.
这往往会产生平衡。