从彻底失败到百万美元：一位创业者重头做起的故事
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此文作者是Simon De Baene，GSoft、Sharegate的联合创始人。
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引言
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Teaser
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这里要说的不是 Elon Musk 把所有钱投到 Tesla 上差点破产的故事，我也不打算讲乔布斯在最后一刻接管苹果拯救公司。我要说的这个故事没有什么特殊，不会像前面两个那样创造历史，但是它发生在像你我这样的创业者身上的机会却要现实得多。这是我的故事，它彻底改变了我的人生。我真的希望你可以感同身受，希望它能帮助你做出艰难抉择。
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This story is not about Elon Musk putting his entire fortune in Tesla on the edge of a bankruptcy or Steve Jobs taking over Apple to save the company at the last minute. This story is not as exceptional and will not make history the same way, but the chances of it happening to an entrepreneur like you and I is much more realistic. This is my story and it changed my life completely. I really hope you can relate to it and that it can help you make the tough call.
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源起
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Where it began
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故事要回到 2009 年，当时我 24 岁，自己的 Gsoft 软件咨询公司已经小有成就。我有 25 名员工，我们为魁北克的各种组织开发软件。生意很好也很有趣，但我们需要改变一下好上升到新的高度。那时候，微软 SharePoint 非常流行，我们看到了围绕着它开发一款简单工具的机会。Sharegate 就是在那个时候诞生的，我们踏上了成为产品公司的征途。
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Back in 2009, I was 24 years old and was already experiencing some success with my software consulting company (GSoft). I had around 25 employees and we were building software for all kinds of organizations in Quebec. It was fun and business was good, but we needed some changes in order to reach the next level. At the time, Microsoft SharePoint was getting very popular and we saw an opportunity to build simple tools around it. At that point, Sharegate was born and we started our journey as a product company.
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一、灾难配方
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The recipe for disaster
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没有产品理念
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No product mindset
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说实话，我对产品公司应该是什么样的一无所知，这一点在我们的失败中扮演了关键角色。如何开发出人人愿意购买和使用的好产品？好的想法很容易找，但是付诸实现就复杂多了。这需要对产品开发有适当的理念和知识，这些都不是立竿见影的事情。要想成功推销产品也需要做很多事情。
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What is it to be a product company? To be honest, I had no idea and this played a key role in our failure. How do you build a great product that people are willing to buy and use? It’s easy to find great ideas, but it is very complicated to make it happen. This requires the right mindset and a knowledge around product development that can’t just be assimilated in a single day. There’s a lot that needs to be going on if you want to successfully market a product. It starts with the right mindset.
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没有清晰的愿景
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No clear vision
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我们组建了一支只有程序员的团队（包括我自己），告诉他们要开发一款新产品，产品必须在几个月后某场大型会议来临前准备好。产品愿景是什么？产品目的是什么？我们为什么要做这个？服务对象是谁？如何与别人竞争？所有这些问题我们统统都没想过，因为我们太过关注与市场机会了。是的，很多人都陷进了这个陷阱。我们发现了某个缺陷，然后没有把基础打牢就过快的去修补了。我们也犯了那个错误。
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So we assembled a team of only programmers (including myself) and told them to build a new product and it had to be ready for a big conference coming in just a few months. But what’s the vision? What’s the purpose of the product? Why are we doing it? Who are we serving? How are we going to conquer our industry? These are just some of the basic questions that we never answered because we were too focused on the market opportunity. Yes, a lot of us fall into this trap. We find a flaw somewhere and we’re too quick to fix it without really putting the right foundation in place. We made that mistake.
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不懂行
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No knowledge of our industry
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最糟糕的是，我们对 SharePoint 一无所知（即对行业一无所知）。我们纯粹是为某件我们一无所知的事情敲代码开发产品的程序员。团队里面没有一个人对我们所做的东西具备商业知识。这听起来很荒谬，但我们就是这样。我们就是一群冲劲十足的毛头小伙，想要干出点什么。我们只知道有些事必须做。
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Worst of all, we didn’t know jack about SharePoint (aka our own industry). We were programmers writing lines of code to build a product for something we didn’t know anything about. Nobody on the team had the business knowledge around what we were doing. I know it sounds ridiculous, but what can I say. We were just a bunch of young motivated entrepreneurs trying to make shi%$6 happen. We just knew something had to be done.
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糟糕的软件架构
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Bad Software Architecture
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我们不单对行业一无所知，而且还因为这种无知而开发了最糟糕的软件架构。我们的无知让我们做出了糟糕的设计决策，最终导致软件无法维护。其主要后果是添加新功能成本太高，这对于像我们这样的初创企业来说是非常糟糕的。
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Not only did we not know jack about our industry, but because of that we built the worst software architecture. Our lack of knowledge made us take bad design decisions and we ended up with a software impossible to maintain. The main consequence is that the cost of adding new features became too high and this was bad for a new startup like ours.
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技术力量之旅
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A Technological Power Trip
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必须承认，相对于解决真正的商业问题，我们对编写复杂的代码更有激情。如果组建的团队只有年轻的程序员的话，这几乎是不可避免的。我们太忙了，整天忙着开发最史诗般的软件架构以至于忘了需要解决的问题。用户体验显然不是优先级，我们甚至让程序员按照自己喜好设计界面。所以，由于大多数程序员痛恨设计界面，用户界面很糟糕，极其难用。真丢脸！
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I have to admit that we were more passionate about writing complex lines of code than solving a real business problem. This is almost inevitable if you assemble a team of only young programmers. We were too busy trying to build the most epic software architecture that we forgot the problem we were trying to solve. The user experience was clearly not a priority and we even let programmers design the screens as they wished. So because most programmers hate to design screens, the user interface was horrible and very difficult to use. What a shame!
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没有营销
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No Marketing
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营销团队又如何呢？什么营销团队，那不过是一伙想进行营销的程序员。很多人都会一厢情愿。他们认为由于自己有了很好的软件，所以软件自己就可以推销自己，然后发布日那天所有人都会排队购买。糟糕的营销令许多好产品埋没，而好的营销则可以把很多坏产品救活。营销的重要性完全被我们低估了。我们的网站很糟。没有 CMS（内容管理系统）。没有 SEO（搜索引擎优化）。没有价值定位。没有登陆页。什么都没有！没办法，敲代码太忙了！
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And what about the marketing team? What marketing team? It was a team of only programmers trying to do marketing. A lot of people fall into that magical thinking. They think that because they have a great software it will market itself and that everyone will lineup on launch day. Trust me, this is not going to happen. Bad marketing made a lot of great products fail and good marketing made a lot of bad products succeed. It’s all about marketing and we totally underestimated it. We had a poor website. No CMS. No SEO. No value proposition. No landing pages. We had nothing! Too busy coding the software!
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一厢情愿地认为下一功能就是救世主
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Magical thinking that the next feature is the ONE
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即便我们的营销策略糟糕（可以说没有），仍然有很多人在网上找到了我们并试用产品。我们收到了反馈，然后以为如果有人问什么事情的话就代表着所有人都这么想。我们实现了许多要求的功能，希望突然之间就能给我们带来一批新客户，这种好事并未发生。下一个要发布的大功能并不能马上令你的业务起色，人们很容易就会掉进这个砸钱到无人使用的新功能的陷阱里面。企业的发展应该是循序渐进的，如果没人使用你的产品，你的问题显然要比缺少功能大。
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Even if our marketing strategy was bad (or absent), there’s still a lot of people who found us online and tried our product. We received feedback and took for granted that if someone was asking for something it meant that everyone would want the same thing. We implemented many requested features in the hope that it would suddenly bring a flow of new customers, but they never came. The next big feature you’re about to release will not suddenly change your business and it’s too easy to fall into this trap and spend huge amounts of money on new features that nobody wants. A business’ growth should be gradual and if nobody is buying your product, you clearly have a bigger problem than a lack of features.
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功能太多，价值没有
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Too many features bringing no value
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我本该学会对大多数的反馈说不，因为我们最终做出的产品功能太多却对客户没有价值。太多的选项、太多的按钮，太多无用的报告，一切都太多了，但是大家要寻找的基本功能却太过不完美。记住，功能最多的软件永远也赢不了比赛。
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I should have learned to say NO to most of the feedback, because we ended up with a product with too many features bringing no value to the table for the customers. Too many options, too many buttons, too many useless reports, too much of everything, but the nice basic features people were looking for were too imperfect. The software with the most features will never win the race. Keep that in mind.
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不信任自己的产品
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Didn’t trust our own product
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有一段时间，我们需要为我们的咨询公司的一个项目使用我们的产品，但我们却从未让产品离开我们的环境运行过，因为我们对它缺乏足够的信任。这太糟糕了。产品根本无法在现实环境下运行，到了那个时候我们意识到得做点什么了。
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At some point, we needed to use our product for a project in our consulting company, but we never had the guts to run it against our own environment, because we didn’t trust it enough. How bad is that? It just didn’t work well in a real-life scenario and at that point we realized that something needed to be done.
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二、孤注一掷
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2 年过去，我们几乎投入了 100 万美元，进行约 100 次努力，最终却只拿到 4 个客户（其中 2 个还是咨询公司的老客户，购买只是出于好意）。产品很不稳定，漏洞很多，根本就是个彻底的失败，我们也没剩多少钱了。
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The Do or Die Decision
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After 2 years the first line of code was written and almost 1M$ invested, we had around 100 trials and only 4 customers (including 2 existing customers from the consulting company who bought it just to be nice to us). The product was unstable and we had plenty of bugs. It was a total failure and not much money left.
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思考时间
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Time to think (TTT)
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于是我决定跑到阿根廷去静一下。这是我所谓的思考时间（TTT）。我需要时间后撤一下，抽身于家里的烦心事。有时候太过投入，对成功太过迫切往往会忽视残酷的现实，但我们都知道这样下去是行不通的。到了那个时候，你得跳出去一下。伟大的创业者都是解决问题的能手，许多解决方案都需要以退为进才能出现。
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So I decided to travel for a month to Argentina. This is what I call Time To Think (TTT). I needed time to step back a little bit and disconnect from the nightmare at home. Sometimes you get so involved in a project, and you want it to succeed so badly that you’re willing to ignore the hard reality, but we all know this is not the way to go. When you get to that point, you need to get out for a bit. Great entrepreneurs are problem solvers, and many solutions need a step back to emerge.
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因此，当我回来后，我有了 3 个选择：
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1）继续尝试寄望奇迹发生
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2）干掉产品回到自己成功得多的咨询公司
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3）干掉产品重新开始
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我决定干掉产品重新开始。
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So when I came back, I had 3 choices:
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1) Keep trying in the hopes that a miracle would happen
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2) Kill the product and get back to the consulting company where I was far more successful
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3) Kill the product and restart from scratch
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Well, I decided to kill the product and start all over again.
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大家都很伤心，但我们都明白这是必须的。不大改的话奇迹不可能发生。是的，我们付出了惨痛的教训，但是市场仍然在等待一位像我们这样的玩家，这就是我们决定再试一次的原因。我有信心，但也很紧张。我说服合伙人再度投资到一个未显示出成功迹象的产品上。有时候，你打心里不希望自己将来后悔，所以我们要再试试。
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This was heartbreaking for everyone, but we all knew it was necessary. Without a big change, nothing was going to happen. Yes, we learned the hard way, but the market was still waiting for a player like us and that’s why we decided to try again. I was confident, but nervous. I had convinced my partners to invest again in a product that showed no signs of success. Sometimes, you just feel it in your guts and you don’t want to regret it later, so we went for it.
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表决心
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A Clear Statement to the Team
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我清楚地向整个团队表达了对所做事情的信心，甚至还给项目取名为“重生”，这样大家就会明白自身的特殊使命：让我们的孩子重生。
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At that point, I made a clear statement to the entire team that I still believed in what we were doing and I even named the project “Reborn” so everyone would know we were on a special mission. It was the renaissance of our little baby.
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完全透明的愿景
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A Crystal Clear Vision
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这一次我们有了清晰的愿景。我们要开发一款简单到极致的工具，简化 SharePoint 的使用。简单就是一切，下图不断提醒着我们的愿景：
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This time, we had a clear vision. We wanted to build an insanely simple tool to make your life just damn simple within SharePoint. Simplicity was all over the place and we were not joking about it. It was serious business. This picture was a constant reminder of our vision:
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掌握你的行业
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Master your Industry
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这一次我们还吸收了行业专家进产品设计和路线图规划中。有了具备深厚行业知识的人的加盟，情况变得大不一样。我们终于知道我们在做什么了。
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We also involved industry experts in our product design and roadmap. People with deep knowledge of our industry would now be constantly involved in the product. That made a huge difference. We finally knew what we were doing.
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第一周时，我把整个团队带到了山上的一所小房子。未来数月将是紧张和高强度的工作，因此我们需要好好放松一下。
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In the first week, I brought the entire team to a nice little house in the mountains. The months ahead were going to be stressful and intense, so we needed to spend some good time together. A lot of beers and laughs.
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只用了几天的功夫，我们就编出通常需要 1 个月才能完成的代码。这一周的团队建设实在是太神奇了，然后我们又设法维持了这股当时迫切需要的好势头。
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In just a few days, we were able to code what would usually take a month. It was an amazing team building week and we managed to create a good momentum that was required at the time.
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关键使命
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The Team on a Critical Mission
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挑战很清楚。新版软件需要在 3 个月内交付。因此，我们决定专注于非常基本的功能而不是发布一堆功能。我几乎觉得这么做是没办法争取到客户的，但是我必须避开这个陷阱。只要你开发了合适的功能，总会有人购买产品的。这种想法帮助我们让产品保持简单。
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The challenge was clear. The new version of our software needed to be shipped in less than 3 months. So instead of releasing tons of features, we decided to focus on a very basic feature. I almost felt that it wasn’t enough to get customers, but I had to stay away from that trap. If you’re doing the right feature, someone somewhere will buy your product. This way of thinking helped us keep the product very simple.
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我还规定了两条重要的原则：严令禁止从上一版本拷贝粘贴，不许软件开发者设计界面。这听起来没什么，但对于我们做业界最简单的工具的努力来说，却是生死攸关的事情。
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I also enforced 2 important rules: copy and paste from the previous version was prohibited and software developers were not allowed to design screens. That sounds pretty basic, but this was crucial in our attempt to make the simplest tool in our industry.
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不到3个月把MVP推向市场
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MVP in less than 3 months shipped to market
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这种转型（pivot）让我从编码中抽身出来，从而可以专注于产品管理和营销。我有了合适的开发者开发任何需要的东西，但我需要进阶为营销人员和领袖。我组建了一支很好的营销队伍，大规模把营销努力投放到每一个垂直市场，终于获得了一些能见度。记住这一点很重要：哪怕你拥有最好的产品，如果没有合适的营销的话，永远也不会成功。我的观点是编码每投入1美元相应就要在营销上投20美元。说实话我们也没那么多钱，但你明白我的意思就行了，我们上一个版本就完全没有考虑到这一点。
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This pivot made me retire from coding, so I could strictly focus on product management and marketing. I had the right developers to build anything I wanted, but I needed to step up as a marketer and leader. I built a great marketing team and invested massively in every marketing vertical to finally get some visibility. It’s important to understand that even if you have the best product, if you don’t have the right marketing, you’ll never succeed. I like to say that for every dollar spent on coding, you need to spend 20$ on marketing. I’ll be honest, we never had this kind of ratio, but you get the point and this is something we totally missed in our previous version.
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Growth hacking心态
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Growth hacking mindset
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你需要对产品成功有一个发展的心态。要想让产品被人所知你就得遭罪。一分耕耘一分收获。写完代码只是走完了一半的路，而剩下的另一半的路走起来会非常痛苦，某一刻会令你非常沮丧的，相信我。
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You need a growth mindset to make a product successful. You need to suffer to make your product known. No pain, no gain. Coding the product is only half the way, and trust me, the other half is very painful and can be very depressing at certain moments.
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现在
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现在我可以自豪地告诉你我们已经有了 25 名全职员工投入到这个产品上。产品收入已经达数百万美元。我们盈利了，可以自给自足了。我们拥有业界最好的产品，以其简约而闻名。全球有超过 1 万个组织在使用我们的产品。我们现在还在以非常非常快的速度发展。
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And Now
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Today I’m proud to tell you that we have around 25 employees working full time on this product. We’re a multi-million dollar product. We’re profitable. We’re self-financed. We’re a best-of-breed product in our industry and we’re known for our simplicity. There are more than 10 000 organizations using our software around the world. We’re still growing, very very fast. How crazy is that?
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决断虽然艰难，但事实证明这是值得的，你觉得呢？
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The tough call was worth it. Don’t you think?
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