Ideas for Startups
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</td > October 2005 (This essay is derived from a talk at the 2005 Startup School.
</td> 2005 年 10 月（本文摘自 2005 年创业学校的一次演讲。
) How do you get good ideas for startups ?
）你如何获得创业的好创意？
That's probably the number one question people ask me.
这可能是人们问我的第一个问题。
I'd like to reply with another question: why do people think it's hard to come up with ideas for startups?
我想回答另一个问题：为什么人们认为创业公司很难想出点子？
That might seem a stupid thing to ask.
这似乎是一件愚蠢的事情。
Why do they think it's hard?
为什么他们认为这很难？
If people can't do it, then it is hard, at least for them.
如果人们做不到，那就很难，至少对他们来说是这样。
Right?
正确的？
Well, maybe not.
嗯，也许不是。
What people usually say is not that they can't think of ideas, but that they don't have any.
人们通常说的不是想不出点子，而是没有点子。
That's not quite the same thing.
这不完全是一回事。
It could be the reason they don't have any is that they haven't tried to generate them.
他们没有任何东西的原因可能是他们没有尝试生成它们。
I think this is often the case.
我认为这种情况经常发生。
I think people believe that coming
我认为人们相信即将到来
up with ideas for startups is very hard-- that it must be very hard-- and so they don't try do to it.
为初创公司提出想法是非常困难的——这一定是非常困难的——所以他们不会尝试去做。
They assume ideas are like miracles: they either pop into your head or they don't.
他们认为想法就像奇迹：它们要么突然出现在你的脑海中，要么不会。
I also have a theory about why people think this.
我也有一个关于人们为什么这么想的理论。
They overvalue ideas.
他们高估想法。
They think creating a startup is just a matter of implementing some fabulous initial idea.
他们认为创建一家初创公司只需实施一些美妙的初始想法即可。
And since a successful startup is worth millions of dollars, a good idea is therefore a million dollar idea.
由于成功的初创公司价值数百万美元，因此好主意就是价值数百万美元的主意。
If coming up with an idea for a startup equals coming up with a million dollar idea, then of course it's going to seem hard.
如果提出一个创业想法就等于提出一个价值百万美元的想法，那么这当然会显得很难。
Too hard to bother trying.
太难了，懒得去尝试。
Our instincts tell us something so valuable would not be just lying around for anyone to discover.
我们的直觉告诉我们，如此有价值的东西不会只是随处可见。
Actually, startup ideas are not million dollar ideas, and here's an experiment you can try to prove it: just try to sell one.
事实上，创业想法并不是价值百万美元的想法，这里有一个实验你可以尝试证明这一点：尝试出售一个。
Nothing evolves faster than markets.
没有什么比市场发展得更快。
The fact that there's no market for
事实是没有市场
startup ideas suggests there's no demand.
创业想法表明没有需求。
Which means, in the narrow sense of the word, that startup ideas are worthless.
从狭义上讲，这意味着创业想法毫无价值。
Questions The fact is, most startups end up nothing like the initial idea.
问题 事实上，大多数初创公司最终都没有达到最初的想法。
It would be closer to the truth to say the main value of your initial idea is that, in the process of discovering it's broken, you'll come up with your real idea.
更接近事实的是，你最初的想法的主要价值在于，在发现它被破坏的过程中，你会想出你真正的想法。
The initial idea is just a starting point-- not a blueprint, but a
最初的想法只是一个起点——不是蓝图，而是一个
question.
问题。
It might help if they were expressed that way.
如果以这种方式表达，可能会有所帮助。
Instead of saying that your idea is to make a collaborative, web-based spreadsheet, say: could one make a collaborative, web-based spreadsheet?
不要说您的想法是制作一个基于网络的协作电子表格，而是说：可以制作一个基于网络的协作电子表格吗？
A few grammatical tweaks, and a woefully incomplete idea becomes a promising question to explore.
一些语法上的调整和一个非常不完整的想法成为一个有希望探索的问题。
There's a real difference, because an assertion provokes objections in a way a question doesn't.
这是一个真正的区别，因为断言会引起反对，而问题则不会。
If you say: I'm going to build a
如果你说：我要建造一个
web-based spreadsheet, then critics-- the most dangerous of which are in your own head-- will immediately reply that you'd be competing with Microsoft, that you couldn't give people the kind of UI they expect, that users wouldn't want to have their data on your servers, and so on.
如果您使用基于网络的电子表格，那么批评者（其中最危险的是您自己的想法）会立即回复说您将与微软竞争，您无法为人们提供他们期望的用户界面，用户不希望将他们的数据放在您的服务器上，等等。
A question doesn't seem so challenging.
一个问题似乎并不那么具有挑战性。
It becomes: let's try making a web-based spreadsheet and see how far we get.
它变成：让我们尝试制作一个基于网络的电子表格，看看我们能走多远。
And everyone
还有大家
knows that if you tried this you'd be able to make something useful.
知道如果你尝试这个，你就能做出一些有用的东西。
Maybe what you'd end up with wouldn't even be a spreadsheet.
也许您最终得到的甚至不是电子表格。
Maybe it would be some kind of new spreadsheet-like collaboration tool that doesn't even have a name yet.
也许它会是某种新的类似电子表格的协作工具，甚至还没有名字。
You wouldn't have thought of something like that except by implementing your way toward it.
除非你按照自己的方式去实现，否则你不会想到类似的事情。
Treating a startup idea as a question changes what you're looking for.
将创业想法视为一个问题会改变你正在寻找的东西。
If an idea is a blueprint, it has to be right.
如果一个想法是一个蓝图，它就必须是正确的。
But if it's
但如果是
a question, it can be wrong, so long as it's wrong in a way that leads to more ideas.
一个问题，它可能是错误的，只要它的错误方式能够带来更多的想法。
One valuable way for an idea to be wrong is to be only a partial solution.
一个想法犯错误的一个重要原因是它只是部分解决方案。
When someone's working on a problem that seems too big, I always ask: is there some way to bite off some subset of the problem, then gradually expand from there?
当有人正在解决一个看起来太大的问题时，我总是会问：是否有某种方法可以解决问题的某些子集，然后从那里逐渐扩展？
That will generally work unless you get trapped on a local maximum, like 1980s-style
这通常会起作用，除非你陷入局部最大值，就像 20 世纪 80 年代那样
AI, or C.
人工智能，或者C.
Upwind So far, we've reduced the problem from thinking of a million dollar idea to thinking of a mistaken question.
逆风 到目前为止，我们已经将问题从思考一个百万美元的想法简化为思考一个错误的问题。
That doesn't seem so hard, does it?
这看起来并不难，不是吗？
To generate such questions you need two things: to be familiar with promising new technologies, and to have the right kind of friends.
要提出这样的问题，你需要满足两件事：熟悉有前途的新技术，并拥有合适的朋友。
New technologies are the ingredients startup ideas are made of, and conversations with friends are the kitchen they're cooked in.
新技术是创业创意的原料，与朋友的对话是烹饪创意的厨房。
Universities have both, and that's why so many startups grow out of them.
大学两者兼备，这就是为什么如此多的初创企业都是从大学中成长起来的。
They're filled with new technologies, because they're trying to produce research, and only things that are new count as research.
他们充满了新技术，因为他们试图进行研究，只有新的东西才算研究。
And they're full of exactly the right kind of people to have ideas with: the other students, who will be not only smart but elastic-minded to a fault.
他们中充满了可以一起提出想法的合适人选：其他学生，他们不仅聪明，而且头脑灵活。
The opposite extreme would be a well-paying but boring job at a big
相反的极端是在大公司做一份高薪但无聊的工作。
company.
公司。
Big companies are biased against new technologies, and the people you'd meet there would be wrong too.
大公司对新技术存在偏见，你在那里遇到的人也可能是错误的。
In an essay I wrote for high school students, I said a good rule of thumb was to stay upwind-- to work on things that maximize your future options.
在我为高中生写的一篇文章中，我说一个好的经验法则是逆风而上——致力于那些能够最大化你未来选择的事情。
The principle applies for adults too, though perhaps it has to be modified to: stay upwind for as long as you can, then cash in the potential
这个原则也适用于成年人，尽管也许需要修改为：尽可能长时间地呆在上风处，然后利用潜力
energy you've accumulated when you need to pay for kids.
当你需要为孩子付钱时你所积累的能量。
I don't think people consciously realize this, but one reason downwind jobs like churning out Java for a bank pay so well is precisely that they are downwind.
我不认为人们有意识地意识到这一点，但像为银行生产 Java 这样的顺风工作的一个原因就是它们处于顺风位置。
The market price for that kind of work is higher because it gives you fewer options for the future.
此类工作的市场价格较高，因为它为您提供的未来选择较少。
A job that lets you work on exciting new stuff will tend to pay less, because part of the compensation is in the form of the new
一份让你从事令人兴奋的新事物的工作往往报酬会较低，因为部分报酬是以新事物的形式出现的。
skills you'll learn.
您将学到的技能。
Grad school is the other end of the spectrum from a coding job at a big company: the pay's low but you spend most of your time working on new stuff.
研究生院是大公司编码工作的另一端：工资低，但你大部分时间都花在新东西上。
And of course, it's called "school," which makes that clear to everyone, though in fact all jobs are some percentage school.
当然，它被称为“学校”，这让每个人都清楚这一点，尽管事实上所有的工作都有一定比例的学校。
The right environment for having startup ideas need not be a university per se.
产生创业想法的合适环境不一定是大学本身。
It just has to be a situation with a large
它只是必须是一个大的情况
percentage of school.
学校的百分比。
It's obvious why you want exposure to new technology, but why do you need other people?
你想接触新技术的原因很明显，但为什么你需要其他人呢？
Can't you just think of new ideas yourself?
你就不能自己想点新点子吗？
The empirical answer is: no. Even Einstein needed people to bounce ideas off.
经验的答案是：不。甚至爱因斯坦也需要人们互相交流想法。
Ideas get developed in the process of explaining them to the right kind of person.
想法在向合适的人解释的过程中得到发展。
You need that resistance, just as a carver needs the resistance of the wood.
你需要这种阻力，就像雕刻师需要木材的阻力一样。
This is one reason Y Combinator has a rule against investing in
这是 Y Combinator 制定禁止投资的规则的原因之一
startups with only one founder.
只有一位创始人的初创公司。
Practically every successful company has at least two.
事实上，每个成功的公司都至少有两个。
And because startup founders work under great pressure, it's critical they be friends.
由于初创公司创始人的工作压力很大，因此他们成为朋友至关重要。
I didn't realize it till I was writing this, but that may help explain why there are so few female startup founders.
直到我写这篇文章时我才意识到这一点，但这可能有助于解释为什么女性初创公司创始人如此之少。
I read on the Internet (so it must be true) that only 1.7% of VC-backed startups are founded by women.
我在互联网上读到（所以这一定是真的），只有 1.7% 的风险投资支持的初创公司是由女性创办的。
The percentage of female hackers
女性黑客所占比例
is small, but not that small.
虽小，但也不小。
So why the discrepancy?
那么为什么会出现这种差异呢？
When you realize that successful startups tend to have multiple founders who were already friends, a possible explanation emerges.
当你意识到成功的初创公司往往有多个已经是朋友的创始人时，一个可能的解释就会出现。
People's best friends are likely to be of the same sex, and if one group is a minority in some population, pairs of them will be a minority squared.
人们最好的朋友很可能是同性，如果一个群体在某些人口中是少数，那么他们中的两个群体就将是少数的平方。
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