一位连续创业者写给20多岁年轻人的创业生存指南
本文编译自Medium，作者Leslie Bradshaw是一位已过而立之年的连续创业者。他曾创办过三家公司，现在正在创办第四家。他从多年的创业实践中，为20多岁的年轻创业者总结出7条生存指南。
作为一名创业者，你必须明白，创业的过程中根本没有朝九晚五这回事儿，每周也不可能只工作 5 天。你需要时刻想着团队、现金流、消费者、产品还有公司运营过程中无数的细节。你得随时待命，在救火员、调解人、警察、谈判者、保姆、清洁工等角色之间切换，解决公司、团队和消费者面临的各种问题。
你没有充裕的资金，没有良好的办公场所，在陷入困境时，也没有完善的组织架构帮你解决问题。你就是最终的责任人。
不论你在哪个行业创业，都需要强大的承压能力，承受公司财务上的反复波动以及个人情绪的起起落落。创业并不是一条直线，在遭遇逆境和失败时，你不能停下来，而要不断前进。
那么，你有些什么？你有你自己，有你的视野，你的思想，你的交际网络，以及一颗坚定追求成功的心。一旦选择了创业这条路，你就得像斯巴达 300 勇士一样，身披重甲，历经百战，为的不仅仅是生存，更是取胜。
我是一名连续创业者，30 岁之前我与其他人联合创办了 3 家公司。现在，我正在创办第 4 家公司。多年的创业历程让我深刻地体会到创业的酸甜苦辣。当我遭遇困境时，多数情况下我会硬扛着，继续走下去。但有时，继续坚持并没有太大的意义，我也会转变方向，开始新的征程。
在多年的创业历程中，我总结出一些基本的原则，我认为是每个年轻创业者应该了解的，共有 7 条，希望对于你的创业之路会有所帮助。
1. 掌握一门手艺。
我用到了手艺（craft）这个词，指的是广义上的手艺，包括运营、战略、团队领导等方面的能力。你需要不断提高自己在某方面的技能，更好地利用它。
在创办公司之前，你至少要在某一方面非常出色，你需要表现出严格的纪律性，信守承诺，适应能力要强。只有这样，人们才会愿意和你共事，才有可能会给你投资，你才能高效地执行各项决策，把公司的各项业务向前推进。
你的手艺是什么？你每天花费多长时间来磨练自己的手艺？你有好的老师、合适的工具和足够的金钱把自己磨练成顶尖人才吗？如果没有，那你就需要深刻反思一下了。
2. 制定计划，适时调整，但始终保持明确的方向。
如果你连目的地在哪儿都不知道，还怎么到达那里？你需要为你的业务发展做出明确的计划，不论是制定线上营销战略、开发移动 app，亦或是撰写公司的商业计划书，你都需要明确以下几点：
你的目标——必须要清楚成功的标准。
必要的资源——包括“最好有的”、“必须有的”资源列表以及如何获取它们。
所需的步骤——包括这些步骤之间的衔接。
顾虑和风险——在开始之初就搞清楚可能会出现的情况，如果问题真的出现也更容易解决。
限制条件——时间和预算是最常见的两个限制条件。
制定好计划在面临困境时会很有用，也能帮助你的团队成员了解他们个人的角色以及整个公司的发展方向。如果你在考虑创办一家公司，撰写商业计划书是必须做的。我听说过很多年轻的创业者（包括一些投资人）不做商业计划，只关注产品的质量。但是如果你连公司如何挣钱、何时盈利、需要什么条件才能盈利这些问题都回答不上的话，那还怎么行。你需要做好计划，在短时间内快速清晰地向你的目标听众介绍公司的产品和战略。
LivePlan这样的 SaaS 产品可以帮你快速创建商业计划书，你只需要拖拽必要的部分就可以，而且还能自动保存，支持多人协作完成文档。
3. 找到合适的团队成员和合伙人。
在学生时代，我曾参加过一些团队运动和课外学生活动，因此我深知协作对于成功的重要性。不幸的是，很多人并不重视这一点，他们工作只是为了工资和头衔。
在接受一份工作、创办公司或者选择供应商时，你需要首先衡量一点：和你共事的是不是善于合作并且真正有才华的人。如果一个人很有能力，但是待人粗鲁，还是别理他了。如果合作伙伴很有趣，你们能聊得来，但是他业务水平太差，工作积极性不高，也不要跟他共事。
我喜欢的人一般兼具两方面特性，他们有专业素养，精通一项手艺，而且有着很强的团队合作精神。举个例子，我的第一份工作在华盛顿，我的一位同事后来成为了我的创业合作伙伴。他非常睿智，能够出色地完成分配给他的各项工作；同时，和他一起工作也充满乐趣，遇到困难时，我们能共同面对，相互信任。他就是合作伙伴的典范。你认识哪些这样的人？你们还保持联系吗？当你创业的时候，他们应该是你优先考虑的合作伙伴。
此外，我还得特别向 20 多岁的创业者强调一点：你必须学会和比你年长，比你有经验的人合作。你可以当公司的 CEO，但你也需要一个顾问委员会，甚至是一个正式的董事会来指导你。当公司的发展远远超出你的控制能力时，你要学会交出控制权，Twitter、Daily Worth 和 Groupon 创始团队中的成员都曾做过类似的决定。
4. 尊重和善待你所遇到的每一个人。
我们从小就学过这些道理，但是我发现很多成年人都不注意这点，他们冲别人大吼大叫，甚至进行人身攻击，在背后说别人坏话。我曾在一个团队工作，这个团队的领导对人就很不友善，最终失去了人们的信任和尊重，造成人才流失，公司利益受损。相反，在另一家公司，整体氛围非常好，即使在困难时期人们也能保持相互尊重，人们认真听取各方意见，平等对待每一个工作岗位。
你是什么样的人？你愿意在什么样的团队工作？
5. 做好困难重重、筋疲力尽的准备，但也要注意爱惜自己。
创业的过程中，你肯定会遇到各种不顺心的事，经常要同时处理多个任务，经常赶飞机，下班时间也得接电话，在周末还要忙工作上的事。
创业者往往需要身兼数职。在创办我的第 2 家公司时，我要负责公司的战略，还要负责客服、公关、行政、财务和人力。直到公司创办后第 4 年，我们才有时间和精力来招聘培训新人，帮我分担这些工作。
但是你也要注意劳逸结合。曾经，我以为自己可以和斯巴达勇士一样，不停的战斗，不需要太多睡眠，能应付各种困境，我睡得很少，饮食不规律，缺乏锻炼，但是后来，我意识到，这种做法是不可持续的。
20 多岁时，我就像是在水里瞎扑腾，想要呼吸一口空气，不愿被淹死。但 30 岁之后，我才发现，其实我所在的水池很浅，轻而易举地就能站起来了。
6. 随时做好笔记，让每次会议都起到作用。
这两点可能是 20 多岁的创业者最容易犯的错误。
年轻人总是对自己非常自信，总觉得自己能在几天甚至几周后把事情记得清清楚楚。好记性不如烂笔头，随时记好笔记能够最大程度的还原信息，让你可以回顾和组织好这些信息，及时跟进。Moleskins 笔记本、Google Docs、Google Calendar 和报事贴等都是不错的工具。
很多创业者也不知道珍惜别人的时间，开会效率很低。试着计算一下每次和他人会面的时间成本，算出消耗了公司多少的资源。你需要确保每次会议都起到应有的效果，明确将实现什么样的目标，会带来什么产出。
7. 利用好文字、图像、语言等媒介，清晰地向他人阐释和说明问题。
作为一名创业者，你应该掌握说服的艺术，有理有据地论证你的观点，通过可视化的方式展示数据，学习一些科学的方法，来论证你的假设，比如精益创业的模型就很适合创业者使用。你的最终目的是让听众信服你，按照你的建议采取行动。
以上就是我的一些经验。千言万语汇成一句话：创业不是件简单的事，但绝不会枉费你的青春。
A Survival Guide for the Millennial Entrepreneur
I’ve co-founded three companies and am helping to scale a fourth. Here’s what I wish I knew at the beginning of it all.
One of the most important things to understand about being an entrepreneur is that there is no such thing as a 9-to-5 or a five-day workweek. You are always thinking about your team, cash flow, customers, company, product, and about a million other details unique to your business. For each thing pulling on your thoughts and time, you are always on call and available to effectively suit up as a firefighter, referee, police officer, high-stakes negotiator, babysitter, garbage collector, disciplinarian, or peacemaker to deal with whatever your company, team, and customers are facing. Furthermore, for each suit you put on, you have to wear it until the job is done.
If you are an entrepreneur, you also don’t have a lot of capital, a well-established infrastructure, or a personnel hierarchy to turn to when things get tough. You are the end of the line.
So what do you have? On the shortlist you have: yourself, your vision, your mental faculties, your network, and your sheer will to succeed. Regarding one’s will, if you’ve chosen the path of entrepreneurship, it means you are likely the professional equivalent of one of the Spartan soldiers from the movie 300. You have the ability to wear many hats, fight many battles, be available at a moment’s notice (and at any hour!), and withstand the financial and emotional ups and downs that come with starting your own company — no matter the industry.
Implicit in these Spartan attributes are the concepts of flexibility and commitment. A word that embodies both is “resilience.” The etiology of resilience is particularly instructive here, as it is rooted in the Latin prefix re-, translated here to mean “back” and the Latin verb salire, or “to jump, leap.” The word resilience therefore connotes an ability to jump back in the face of mounting challenges, distractions, and obstacles.
While resilience embodies flexibility (think of a bouncing spring), it also suggests that one must have endurance through not only the good times, but especially the pitfalls and failures. To paraphrase Pattie Sellers, Senior Editor at Large at Fortune and Executive Director of Live Content at Time Inc., ‘one’s career is more of a jungle gym than a ladder’. Similarly, one’s experience as an entrepreneur is more of a heart monitor than the coveted hockey stick. In both the case of the ladder and the heart monitor analogies, there is a departure from some idealistic model of success that instead says: “Sorry, it is not linear, it is not contiguous, and it is not always headed in the ‘up’ direction.”
As a serial entrepreneur who has been on the founding team of three companies by the age of 30 (Bradshaw Vineyards, JESS3, and the now defunct text-to-video startup Guide) and (currently) the managing partner of a company expanding to the U.S. from London (Made by Many), I have had a number of jungle gym and heart monitor moments in my career, while helping build four companies. When things get difficult, I mostly choose to weather the storm and have resilience. I also have found that there were times when the cost of enduring was not worth the expected outcome, which meant I decided to go in a different direction.
At 32, I will be the first to admit that I am still a work in progress. However, when it comes to striving to be a world class professional every day, in every interaction, and through every project, there are seven (7) fundamental elements that have not wavered since as long as I can remember (arguably, back to grade school days). These elements have helped me survive, thrive, and succeed in the face of just about anything. I hope they can be helpful to you on your journey.
1. Master your craft. One of the most important things to do before starting your own company is to be the best at something. This is what you need to build your company around and why people will want to work with you, hire you, and invest in you. There is another important reason that you need to master your craft as a foundational step: you must have the ability to express high levels of discipline, commitment, and flexibility when you are running a company. When you are mastering a craft, you are showing equal parts commitment and discipline, while at the same time remaining flexible as you learn new and more efficient ways to execute and as you learn and apply advancements in your field.
When I use the word “craft,” you might think about design, textiles, or other forms of artistry. While I mean to encompass a much wider spectrum (operations, strategy, and team leadership are my crafts), I am purposely invoking the devotional aspects of these artisan pursuits. To be an artist is to commit to quality, try new expressions of your craft, and adhere to a regiment in order to master and perform your craft. What is your craft? How many hours do you spend on it each day? Do you have the right resources — teachers, tools, money — to become the best? These are important questions for which you need an answer.
2. Develop a plan and adjust as needed, but make sure you’re following a north star. “If you don’t know where you are going, how will you know when you get there?” As simple as that saying is, it could not be truer. Whether you are putting together a roadmap for a month-long digital campaign, the build plan for a mobile app, or the business plan and foundation for your company, you need to clearly articulate the following:
Your objectives — knowing what a win looks like is sine qua non.
Necessary resources — these include the nice-to-haves, must-haves, and a plan to fill any gaps.
Required steps — that also means having dependencies within these steps.
Concerns — name these at the onset so that you can work to solve them.
Constraints — time and budget are usually the main two.
Having a plan helps you be accountable to something sane in the face of chaos, while also helping your team understand both their individual roles as well as the big picture. If you are thinking about starting a company, developing a business plan is a must. I’ve read a lot about young entrepreneurs (and some investors) who don’t believe in having a business plan, because they focus solely on the quality of the product. My counter-argument? It’s unacceptable to not have to answer questions such as: How do you make money? When will you be profitable? What will it take to get you to profitability? Similarly, it is unacceptable to not know your strategy for engaging a target audience around a product launch. Both require varying levels of planning, but your efforts will ultimately not be successful without going through the exercise of planning and executing against the plan.
The folks over at LivePlan have an excellent SaaS product that will allow you to drag and drop the necessary sections — and will autosave for you so nothing is lost and other team members can collaborate in the document.
3. Find the right team members and partners. As someone who played team sports all through high school and participated in oodles of extracurricular activities like yearbook, Future Business Leaders of America, and student leadership, I’ve known this to be true since about age 10. Unfortunately, some people are still learning this lesson of teamwork the hard way and taking jobs simply because of the salary and the title. If you are doing this, stop. If people you love are doing this, tell them to stop.
The number one qualification you should be evaluating when taking a job, building a company, or hiring a vendor should be this: Are the people A players who I can learn from and truly enjoy their company? If they are A players, but are rude, forget it. If they are fun to hang out with, but are C players who aren’t terribly talent and / or motivated, don’t jump in.
I’ve kept a list of the people I love working with that embody both of these attributes — professional excellence, craft mastery, and a positive demeanor — and look to partner with them or flat-out hire them whenever I can. For instance, my officemate at my first job in Washington, DC, became one of our lead strategy managers at JESS3. Not only was he super sharp and great at any task you threw at him, but he was also a true pleasure to work with daily. We laughed often, divided and conquered assignments, and delivered hard on our projects. We also earned battle scars together while in the trenches (at both jobs) and have implicit trust in one another. He is just one of the dozens of examples of team members I go out of my way to hire (even when they are in another time zone or country).
Who are the people you’ve enjoyed working with due to their work ethic, talent, and their attitude? Do you stay in touch? They should be the first people you call when you are in a position to hire people, especially if it is at your own company.
I also want to underscore for the millennials reading this: You need to partner with people who are older and more experienced than you are. That doesn’t mean you still can’t be your company’s CEO, but it does mean that you need to establish an advisory board or even formal board of directors to help guide you. You should also be prepared to hand over the reins if the time comes to scale your company beyond your wildest dreams; Ev Williams did it at Twitter; Amanda Steinberg did it at Daily Worth; and Andrew Mason did it at Groupon.
4. Treat everyone you encounter along the way with civility, dignity, and respect. These are things we learn at a very young age, and yet I have been shocked at how many adults fail to practice a rule that has been deemed ‘golden’ it’s that important. There is absolutely no excuse for being a jerk, for yelling, for making personal attacks, or for talking down to someone. I’ve been on teams where the supposed leaders acted in these ways and they didn’t just lose trust and respect. They lost highly talented people, contracts, and money.
Conversely, I have also worked with people who do an amazing job of keeping their cool despite difficult situations, who are great at listening to feedback from every level of the organization (and actually implementing it), and treat people who are performing even the most basic of jobs as equals.
So which are you? Which do you want to be? Who would you rather work with or work for?
5. Be ready to be uncomfortable and spread thin, but not all the time. When you are building and mastering anything, there is going to be a certain amount of uncomfortability and multitasking that you are going to have to do. Especially in today’s always-on, always-connected, incredibly global marketplace, you are going to have to get on a lot of planes, take a lot of off-hours calls, and respond to requests on the weekends more often than not.
When you are building an enterprise, you are going to have to wear a lot of hats while you get set up. I was part head of strategy, part head of client services, part head of PR, part head of admin / finances, part chief of staff, and part head of HR for JESS3 — and it took nearly four years before we increased our margins so that we had the capital (and, frankly, time and brain space) to recruit, train, and hire people that allowed me to relinquish some of those roles.
The “but not all the time” bit is perhaps one of the biggest things I’ve had to learn over the course of my career, as I thought I was supposed to be a Spartan warrior all of the time, in constant battle, with little sleep, and lots of hardship. Not so. I was making it too hard before. I wasn’t sleeping enough. I wasn’t eating right. I wasn’t exercising. I’ve also worked with people who don’t follow the tenets that I laid out in #4 above. Not anymore. (NB: I will be detailing this transition further here on Medium as a part of The Li.st’s collection on December 2, 2014!)
My realization? In my twenties I was thrashing around in the water, trying to keep my head above it. In my thirties, I realized it was only three feet deep and I stood up.
6) Take notes at all times and make every meeting actionable. This is perhaps one of the biggest things in which I have seen my millennial cohort (and those a bit younger than me) fail. Chalk it up to over-confidence in being able to recall things days (weeks even) after the meeting happened, or to a lack of experience to know how valuable people’s time is… but don’t let these things be your excuse. When you meet with one or more people, you are starting to accrue real costs for which you should be able to point to tangible, objective-achieving outcomes. Whether you measure costs in “billable hourly rates” or in “opportunity cost” (or both), you are eating into company resources and busy people’s time. So you better make it worth it.
Write things down in the moment so the information has high fidelity; return to them and organize them; take and assign action from them; and follow through until what was needed is achieved. Moleskins, Google Docs, and task management systems like Asana (and, admittedly, Post-It notes and Google Calendar for lighter tasks) are my “killer apps”.
7) Learn the art of explanation and persuasion in written, visual, and verbal mediums (or “media” for the Latin-conscious). And know when to use either (or both). Explaining things concisely and clearly should be one of your top goals as an entrepreneur. So should presenting a compelling argument that persuades your audience to believe your viewpoint or take the action you are recommending.
Study and master oration techniques from civilization’s best (personal favorites: Cicero and Mark Twain). Study and master how to formulate an argument. Know how to declare a thesis (or present a hypothesis) and defend it with fact-based evidence (obtain Strunk & White’s Elements of Style and read and appreciate George Orwell’s “Politics and the English Language”). Know how to visually story-tell with data, with integrity (see especially: The Wall Street Journal Guide to Information Graphics: The Dos and Don’ts of Presenting Data, Facts, and Figures). And if you really want to be well equipped: brush up your scientific method skills so that you can run your own experiments to test hypotheses and generate evidence (and to better understand data from other sources). Turns out Eric Ries’ Lean Startup is a great modern, startup-centric application of the scientific method we all used back in the three-panel science fair days in grade school.
If I could sum up my experience so far in just one sentence, it would be this: It is not going to be easy, but it will be worth it.
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