The 18 Mistakes That Kill Startups
<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> Want to start a startup?
<img src="http://www.virtumundo.com/images/spacer.gif" height=15 width=1> 想要创业吗？
Get funded by Y Combinator .
获得 Y Combinator 的资助。
</td > October 2006 In the Q & A period after a recent talk, someone asked what made startups fail.
</td> 2006 年 10 月 在最近一次演讲后的问答环节，有人问是什么导致了初创企业失败。
After standing there gaping for a few seconds I realized this was kind of a trick question.
站在那里目瞪口呆了几秒钟后，我意识到这是一个棘手的问题。
It's equivalent to asking how to make a startup succeed — if you avoid every cause of
这相当于问如何让一家初创公司取得成功——如果你避免了每一个导致成功的原因
failure, you succeed — and that's too big a question to answer on the fly.
失败，你就会成功——这是一个太大的问题，无法即时回答。
Afterwards I realized it could be helpful to look at the problem from this direction.
后来我意识到从这个方向看问题可能会有所帮助。
If you have a list of all the things you shouldn't do, you can turn that into a recipe for succeeding just by negating.
如果你列出了所有不应该做的事情，你可以通过否定将其变成成功的秘诀。
And this form of list may be more useful in practice.
而这种形式的列表在实际中可能更有用。
It's easier to catch yourself doing something you shouldn't than always to remember to do something you should.
发现自己在做不该做的事情比总是记得做应该做的事情更容易。
[ 1 ] In a sense there's just one mistake that kills startups: not making something users want.
[1] 从某种意义上说，只有一个错误会扼杀初创公司：没有制造出用户想要的东西。
If you make something users want, you'll probably be fine, whatever else you do or don't do.
如果你做了用户想要的东西，那么无论你做什么或不做什么，你都可能没问题。
And if you don't make something users want, then you're dead, whatever else you do or don't do.
如果你没有做出用户想要的东西，那么无论你做什么或不做什么，你都死定了。
So really this is a list of 18 things that cause startups not to make something users want.
事实上，这列出了导致初创公司无法生产出用户想要的产品的 18 件事。
Nearly all failure funnels through that.
几乎所有的失败都源于此。
1.
1.
Single Founder Have you ever noticed how few successful startups were founded by just one person?
单一创始人您是否注意到只有一个人创办的成功初创企业是多么少？
Even companies you think of as having one founder, like Oracle, usually turn out to have more.
即使是你认为只有一位创始人的公司，比如甲骨文，通常也会有更多创始人。
It seems unlikely this is a coincidence.
这似乎不太可能是巧合。
What's wrong with having one founder?
只有一位创始人有什么问题吗？
To start with, it's a vote of no confidence.
首先，这是一次不信任投票。
It probably means the founder couldn't talk any of his friends into starting the company with him.
这可能意味着创始人无法说服他的任何朋友与他一起创办公司。
That's pretty
真漂亮
alarming, because his friends are the ones who know him best.
令人震惊的是，因为他的朋友是最了解他的人。
But even if the founder's friends were all wrong and the company is a good bet, he's still at a disadvantage.
但即使创始人的朋友们都错了，公司是一个不错的赌注，他仍然处于劣势。
Starting a startup is too hard for one person.
创业对于一个人来说太难了。
Even if you could do all the work yourself, you need colleagues to brainstorm with, to talk you out of stupid decisions, and to cheer you up when things go wrong.
即使你可以自己完成所有工作，你也需要同事进行集思广益，说服你不要做出愚蠢的决定，并在出现问题时让你振作起来。
The last one might be the most important.
最后一项可能是最重要的。
The low points in a
的低点
startup are so low that few could bear them alone.
启动资金如此之低，以至于很少有人能够独自承受。
When you have multiple founders, esprit de corps binds them together in a way that seems to violate conservation laws.
当你有多个创始人时，团队精神就会以一种似乎违反守恒定律的方式将他们联系在一起。
Each thinks "I can't let my friends down." This is one of the most powerful forces in human nature, and it's missing when there's just one founder.
每个人都认为“我不能让我的朋友们失望”。这是人性中最强大的力量之一，当只有一位创始人时，这种力量就消失了。
2.
2.
Bad Location Startups prosper in some places and not others.
位置不佳 初创公司在某些地方会蓬勃发展，而在其他地方则不然。
Silicon Valley dominates, then Boston, then Seattle, Austin, Denver, and New York.
硅谷占主导地位，然后是波士顿，然后是西雅图、奥斯汀、丹佛和纽约。
After
之后
that there's not much.
没有太多。
Even in New York the number of startups per capita is probably a 20th of what it is in Silicon Valley.
即使在纽约，人均初创企业数量也可能只有硅谷的二十分之一。
In towns like Houston and Chicago and Detroit it's too small to measure.
在休斯顿、芝加哥和底特律等城镇，它太小而无法测量。
Why is the falloff so sharp?
为什么衰减如此剧烈？
Probably for the same reason it is in other industries.
可能出于与其他行业相同的原因。
What's the sixth largest fashion center in the US?
美国第六大时尚中心是哪个？
The sixth largest center for oil, or finance, or publishing?
第六大石油、金融或出版中心？
Whatever they are they're probably so far from the top that it would
不管他们是什么，他们可能离顶峰太远了，以至于
be misleading even to call them centers.
即使称它们为中心也会产生误导。
It's an interesting question why cities become startup hubs, but the reason startups prosper in them is probably the same as it is for any industry: that's where the experts are.
为什么城市成为创业中心是一个有趣的问题，但初创企业在城市蓬勃发展的原因可能与任何行业相同：那就是专家所在的地方。
Standards are higher; people are more sympathetic to what you're doing; the kind of people you want to hire want to live there; supporting industries are there; the people you run into in chance meetings are in the
标准更高；人们更同情你所做的事情；你想雇用什么样的人想住在那里；配套产业有；你在偶然的聚会中遇到的人都在
same business.
相同的业务。
Who knows exactly how these factors combine to boost startups in Silicon Valley and squish them in Detroit, but it's clear they do from the number of startups per capita in each.
谁知道这些因素如何综合起来促进硅谷的初创企业发展并压制底特律的初创企业，但从每个地区的人均初创企业数量来看，它们的作用很明显。
3.
3.
Marginal Niche Most of the groups that apply to Y Combinator suffer from a common problem: choosing a small, obscure niche in the hope of avoiding competition.
边缘利基市场 大多数申请 Y Combinator 的群体都面临着一个共同的问题：选择一个小的、不起眼的利基市场，希望避免竞争。
If you watch little kids playing sports, you notice that below a
如果你观察小孩子做运动，你会注意到下面的
certain age they're afraid of the ball.
到了一定年龄他们就会害怕球。
When the ball comes near them their instinct is to avoid it.
当球靠近他们时，他们的本能是避开它。
I didn't make a lot of catches as an eight year old outfielder, because whenever a fly ball came my way, I used to close my eyes and hold my glove up more for protection than in the hope of catching it.
作为一名八岁的外野手，我接球的次数并不多，因为每当一个飞球飞向我时，我都会闭上眼睛并举起手套，更多的是为了保护而不是希望接住它。
Choosing a marginal project is the startup equivalent of my eight year old strategy for dealing with fly balls.
选择一个边际项目相当于我八年前处理飞球的策略。
If you make anything
如果你做了什么
good, you're going to have competitors, so you may as well face that.
很好，你将会有竞争对手，所以你最好面对这一点。
You can only avoid competition by avoiding good ideas.
你只能通过避免好的想法来避免竞争。
I think this shrinking from big problems is mostly unconscious.
我认为这种面对大问题的退缩大多是无意识的。
It's not that people think of grand ideas but decide to pursue smaller ones because they seem safer.
这并不是说人们想到了宏伟的想法，而是决定追求较小的想法，因为它们看起来更安全。
Your unconscious won't even let you think of grand ideas.
你的潜意识甚至不会让你想到伟大的想法。
So the solution may be to think about ideas without involving yourself.
因此，解决方案可能是在不涉及自己的情况下思考想法。
What would be a great idea for
什么是个好主意
someone else to do as a startup?
别人来做初创公司吗？
4.
4.
Derivative Idea Many of the applications we get are imitations of some existing company.
衍生想法 我们得到的许多应用程序都是对某些现有公司的模仿。
That's one source of ideas, but not the best.
这是想法的来源之一，但不是最好的。
If you look at the origins of successful startups, few were started in imitation of some other startup.
如果你看看成功初创公司的起源，就会发现很少有初创公司是模仿其他初创公司而开始的。
Where did they get their ideas?
他们的想法是从哪里来的？
Usually from some specific, unsolved problem the founders identified.
通常来自创始人发现的一些具体的、未解决的问题。
Our startup made software for making online stores.
我们的初创公司开发了用于创建在线商店的软件。
When we started
当我们开始的时候
it, there wasn't any; the few sites you could order from were hand-made at great expense by web consultants.
它，没有；您可以订购的少数网站是由网络顾问花费巨资手工制作的。
We knew that if online shopping ever took off, these sites would have to be generated by software, so we wrote some.
我们知道，如果在线购物蓬勃发展，这些网站将必须由软件生成，因此我们编写了一些网站。
Pretty straightforward.
非常简单。
It seems like the best problems to solve are ones that affect you personally.
看起来最好解决的问题是那些影响你个人的问题。
Apple happened because Steve Wozniak wanted a computer, Google because Larry and Sergey couldn't find stuff online, Hotmail
苹果的出现是因为史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克想要一台电脑，谷歌的出现是因为拉里和谢尔盖在网上找不到东西，Hotmail
because Sabeer Bhatia and Jack Smith couldn't exchange email at work.
因为萨比尔·巴蒂亚 (Sabeer Bhatia) 和杰克·史密斯 (Jack Smith) 无法在工作中交换电子邮件。
So instead of copying the Facebook, with some variation that the Facebook rightly ignored, look for ideas from the other direction.
因此，与其抄袭 Facebook，但不要做出 Facebook 正确忽视的一些变化，而是从另一个方向寻找想法。
Instead of starting from companies and working back to the problems they solved, look for problems and imagine the company that might solve them.
不要从公司开始，回过头来研究他们解决的问题，而是寻找问题并想象可能解决这些问题的公司。
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