The Pooled-Risk Company Management Company

July 2008 At this year's startup school, David Heinemeier Hansson gave a <a href="http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/david-heinemeier-hansson-at-startup-school-08">talk in which he suggested that startup founders should do things the old fashioned way.

2008 年 7 月，在今年的创业学校中，David Heinemeier Hansson 发表了演讲，他建议初创企业创始人应该以传统方式做事。

Instead of hoping to get rich by building a valuable company and then selling stock in a "liquidity event," founders should start companies that make money

创始人不应希望通过建立一家有价值的公司然后在“流动性事件”中出售股票来致富，而应该创办能够赚钱的公司

and live off the revenues.

并靠收入为生。

Sounds like a good plan.

听起来是个好计划。

Let's think about the optimal way to do this.

让我们考虑一下执行此操作的最佳方法。

One disadvantage of living off the revenues of your company is that you have to keep running it.

靠公司收入谋生的缺点之一是你必须继续运营它。

And as anyone who runs their own business can tell you, that requires your complete attention.

任何经营自己企业的人都会告诉您，这需要您全神贯注。

You can't just start a business and check out once things are going well, or they stop going well surprisingly fast.

你不能只是开始创业并在事情进展顺利时就结账，否则事情会以惊人的速度停止进展。

The main economic motives of startup founders seem to be freedom and security.

初创公司创始人的主要经济动机似乎是自由和安全。

They want enough money that (a) they don't have to worry about running out of money and (b) they can spend their time how they want.

他们想要足够的钱，以便（a）他们不必担心钱花光，（b）他们可以按照自己的意愿度过时间。

Running your own business offers neither.

经营自己的企业两者都无法提供。

You certainly don't have freedom: no boss is so demanding.

你当然没有自由：没有哪个老板会这么要求。

Nor do you have security, because if you stop paying attention to the company, its revenues go away, and with them your income.

你也没有安全感，因为如果你不再关注公司，它的收入就会消失，你的收入也会随之消失。

The best case, for most people, would be if you could hire someone to manage the company for you once you'd grown it to a certain size.

对于大多数人来说，最好的情况是，当你的公司发展到一定规模时，你可以聘请某人来为你管理公司。

Suppose you could find a really good manager.

假设你能找到一位非常优秀的经理。

Then you would have both freedom and security.

那么你就会拥有自由和安全。

You could pay as little attention to the business as you wanted, knowing that your manager would keep things running smoothly.

您可以随心所欲地关注业务，因为您知道您的经理会让事情顺利进行。

And that being so, revenues would continue to flow in, so you'd have security as well.

既然如此，收入就会继续流入，所以你也会有安全感。

There will of course be some founders who wouldn't like that idea: the ones who like running their company so much that there's nothing else they'd rather do.

当然，会有一些创始人不喜欢这个想法：他们非常喜欢经营自己的公司，以至于没有其他事情愿意做。

But this group must be small.

但这个群体一定很小。

The way you succeed in most businesses is to be fanatically attentive to customers' needs.

在大多数企业中，成功的方法就是狂热地关注客户的需求。

What are the odds that your own desires would coincide exactly with the demands of this powerful, external force?

你自己的愿望与这个强大的外部力量的要求完全一致的可能性有多大？

Sure, running your own company can be fairly interesting.

当然，经营自己的公司可能相当有趣。

Viaweb

维亚网

was more interesting than any job I'd had before.

比我以前做过的任何工作都更有趣。

And since I made much more money from it, it offered the highest ratio of income to boringness of anything I'd done, by orders of magnitude.

由于我从中赚了更多的钱，因此它提供了我所做过的任何事情中收入与无聊的最高比率（按数量级计算）。

But was it the most interesting work I could imagine doing?

但这是我能想象到的最有趣的工作吗？

No. Whether the number of founders in the same position is asymptotic or merely large, there are certainly a lot of them.

不。无论处于同一职位的创始人数量是渐近的还是只是大量的，肯定有很多。

For them the right approach would be to hand the company over to a professional

对他们来说，正确的做法是将公司交给专业人士

manager eventually, if they could find one who was good enough.

最终，如果他们能找到一个足够好的人的话。

_____ So far so good.

_____ 到目前为止，一切都很好。

But what if your manager was hit by a bus?

但如果你的经理被公交车撞了怎么办？

What you really want is a management company to run your company for you.

您真正想要的是一家管理公司来为您管理您的公司。

Then you don't depend on any one person.

那么你就不再依赖任何一个人。

If you own rental property, there are companies you can hire to manage it for you.

如果您拥有出租物业，您可以聘请一些公司来为您管理物业。

Some will do everything, from finding tenants to fixing leaks.

有些人会做所有事情，从寻找租户到修复漏洞。

Of course, running companies is a lot more

当然，经营公司的意义远不止这些

complicated than managing rental property, but let's suppose there were management companies that could do it for you.

比管理出租物业复杂，但我们假设有管理公司可以为您做这件事。

They'd charge a lot, but wouldn't it be worth it?

他们会收取很多费用，但这不值得吗？

I'd sacrifice a large percentage of the income for the extra peace of mind.

我愿意牺牲很大一部分收入来换取额外的安心。

I realize what I'm describing already sounds too good to be true, but I can think of a way to make it even more attractive.

我意识到我所描述的听起来好得令人难以置信，但我可以想出一种方法让它变得更有吸引力。

If company management companies existed, there would be an additional

如果公司管理公司存在，就会有一个额外的

service they could offer clients: they could let them insure their returns by pooling their risk.

他们可以为客户提供的服务：他们可以让客户通过分担风险来确保回报。

After all, even a perfect manager can't save a company when, as sometimes happens, its whole market dies, just as property managers can't save you from the building burning down.

毕竟，当整个市场消亡时（有时会发生），即使是完美的经理也无法拯救一家公司，就像物业经理无法将你从烧毁的建筑物中拯救出来一样。

But a company that managed a large enough number of companies could say to all its clients: we'll combine the revenues from all your

但是，一家管理着足够多公司的公司可以对其所有客户说：我们将合并您所有公司的收入。

companies, and pay you your proportionate share.

公司，并向您支付您相应的份额。

If such management companies existed, they'd offer the maximum of freedom and security.

如果存在这样的管理公司，他们将提供最大程度的自由和安全。

Someone would run your company for you, and you'd be protected even if it happened to die.

有人会替你经营你的公司，即使公司倒闭了，你也会受到保护。

Let's think about how such a management company might be organized.

让我们考虑一下这样一个管理公司应该如何组织。

The simplest way would be to have a new kind of stock representing the total pool of companies they were managing.

最简单的方法是拥有一种代表他们管理的公司总数的新型股票。

When you signed

当你签字时

up, you'd trade your company's stock for shares of this pool, in proportion to an estimate of your company's value that you'd both agreed upon.

向上，您可以按照双方同意的对公司价值的估计比例，用您公司的股票换取该池中的股票。

Then you'd automatically get your share of the returns of the whole pool.

然后你就会自动获得整个池子的回报。

The catch is that because this kind of trade would be hard to undo, you couldn't switch management companies.

问题是，由于这种交易很难撤销，因此你无法更换管理公司。

But there's a way they could fix that: suppose all the company management companies got

但他们有一个办法可以解决这个问题：假设所有的公司管理公司都得到了

together and agreed to allow their clients to exchange shares in all their pools.

共同并同意允许他们的客户交换所有池中的股票。

Then you could, in effect, simultaneously choose all the management companies to run yours for you, in whatever proportion you wanted, and change your mind later as often as you wanted.

然后，实际上，您可以同时选择所有管理公司来为您管理您的管理公司，无论您想要什么比例，并且以后可以根据需要随时改变主意。

If such pooled-risk company management companies existed, signing up with one would seem the ideal plan for most people following the

如果存在这样的联合风险公司管理公司，那么对于大多数遵循这一原则的人来说，与其中一家公司签约似乎是理想的计划。

route David advocated.

大卫主张的路线。

Good news: they do exist.

好消息：它们确实存在。

What I've just described is an acquisition by a public company.

我刚才描述的是一家上市公司的收购。

_____ Unfortunately, though public acquirers are structurally identical to pooled-risk company management companies, they don't think of themselves that way.

_____ 不幸的是，尽管公共收购方在结构上与共享风险公司管理公司相同，但他们并不这样看待自己。

With a property management company, you can just walk in whenever you want and say "manage my rental property for me" and they'll do it.

对于物业管理公司，您可以随时走进并说“帮我管理我的出租物业”，他们就会这么做。

Whereas acquirers are, as of this

鉴于收购方截至目前

writing, extremely fickle.

写作，极其善变。

Sometimes they're in a buying mood and they'll overpay enormously; other times they're not interested.

有时，他们有购买欲望，会多付很多钱；有时，他们会出高价。其他时候他们不感兴趣。

They're like property management companies run by madmen.

他们就像疯子开办的物业管理公司。

Or more precisely, by Benjamin Graham's Mr. Market.

或者更准确地说，是本杰明·格雷厄姆的《市场先生》。

So while on average public acquirers behave like pooled-risk company managers, you need a window of several years to get average case performance.

因此，虽然平均而言，公共收购方的行为类似于共享风险公司经理，但您需要几年的时间才能获得平均案例绩效。

If you wait long enough (five years, say) you're

如果你等待足够长的时间（比如五年），你就会

likely to hit an up cycle where some acquirer is hot to buy you.

可能会进入一个上升周期，一些收购者会热衷于收购你。

But you can't choose when it happens.

但你无法选择它何时发生。

You can't assume investors will carry you for as long as you might have to wait.

你不能假设只要你需要等待，投资者就会支持你。

Your company has to make money.

你的公司必须赚钱。

Opinions are divided about how early to focus on that.

对于多久开始关注这一问题存在意见分歧。

Joe Kraus says you should try charging customers right away.

乔·克劳斯说你应该尝试立即向客户收费。

And yet some of the most successful startups, including Google, ignored revenue at first and concentrated

然而，包括谷歌在内的一些最成功的初创公司一开始忽视了收入，而是专注于

exclusively on development.

只专注于发展。

The answer probably depends on the type of company you're starting.

答案可能取决于您要创办的公司类型。

I can imagine some where trying to make sales would be a good heuristic for product design, and others where it would just be a distraction.

我可以想象，在某些地方，尝试进行销售对于产品设计来说是一个很好的启发，而在另一些地方，这只会分散注意力。

The test is probably whether it helps you to understand your users.

测试的可能是它是否有助于你了解你的用户。

You can choose whichever revenue strategy you think is best for the type of company you're starting, so long as you're profitable.

只要您能够盈利，您就可以选择您认为最适合您所创办的公司类型的收入策略。

Being profitable ensures you'll get at least the average of the acquisition market—in which public companies do behave as pooled-risk company management companies.

盈利可确保您至少获得收购市场的平均水平——在收购市场中，上市公司确实充当风险共担的公司管理公司。

David isn't mistaken in saying you should start a company to live off its revenues.

大卫说你应该创办一家公司靠收入谋生，这句话并没有错。

The mistake is thinking this is somehow opposed to starting a company and selling it.

错误在于认为这在某种程度上反对创办公司并出售它。

In fact, for most people the latter is merely the optimal case of the former.

事实上，对于大多数人来说，后者只是前者的最佳情况。

Thanks to Trevor Blackwell, Jessica Livingston, Michael Mandel, Robert Morris, and Fred Wilson for reading drafts of this.

感谢 Trevor Blackwell、Jessica Livingston、Michael Mandel、Robert Morris 和 Fred Wilson 阅读本文的草稿。

<!-- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=254335" -->

<!-- http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=254335" -->