Part7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要作者Marc Andreessen编辑Rework阅览室整理A startup's initial business plan doesn't matter that much,because it is veryhard to determine up front exactly what combination of product and market willresult in success.初创公司最初的商业计划并不那么重要，因为很难预先确定产品和市场的具体组合会带来成功。By definition you will be doing something new,in a world that is a veryuncertain place.You are simply probably not going to know whether your initialidea will work as a product and a business,or not.And you will probably haveto rapidly evolve your plan-possibly every aspect of it-as you go根据定义，你将在一个非常不确定的世界中做一些新的事情。你可能根本不知道你最初的想法是否会作为产品和业务发挥作用。而且你可能必须在进行过程中快速改进你的计划—可能是它的每个方面。(The military has a saying that expresses the same concept-"No battle planever survives contact with the enemy."In this case,your enemy is the world atlarge.)(军方有句俗话表达了同样的概念一"没有任何作战计划能够在与敌人接触后幸存下来。"在这种情况下，你的敌人就是整个世界。)It is therefore much more important for a startup to aggressively seek out a bigmarket,and product/market fit within that market,once the startup is up andrunning,than it is to try to plan out what you are going to do in great detailahead of time.因此，对于初创公司来说，一旦初创公司成立并开始运营，积极寻找一个大市场以及适合该市场的产品/市场比尝试规划你将在未来做什么更重要。提前详细说明。Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要The history of successful startups is quite clear on this topic.关于这个主题，成功初创公司的历史非常清楚。Normally I would simply point to Microsoft,which started as a programmingtools company before IBM all but forced Bill Gates to go into the operatingsystem business,or Oracle,which was a consultancy for the ClA before LarryEllison decided to productize the relational database,or Intel,which was amuch smaller company focused on the memory chip market until the Japaneseonslaught of the mid-80's forced Andy Grove to switch focus to CPUs.通常我会简单地提到微软，它是一家编程工具公司，在BM之前几乎迫使比尔盖茨进入操作系统业务，或者是甲骨文，在拉里·埃里森决定将关系数据库产品化之前，它是中央情报局的一家咨询公司，或者英特尔，这是一家规模小得多的公司，专注于内存芯片市场，直到80年代中期日本的冲击迫使安迪·格罗夫(Andy Grove)将重点转向CPU.However,I've recently been reading Randall Stross's marvelous book aboutThomas Edison,The Wizard of Menlo Park.然而，我最近正在阅读兰德尔·斯特罗斯(Randall Stross)关于托马斯·爱迪生(Thomas Edison)的精彩著作《门洛帕克的巫师》(The Wizard of MenloPark)。Edison's first commercially viable breakthrough invention was the phonograph-the forerunner to what you kids know as the record player,the turntable,theWalkman,the CD player,and the IPod.Edison went on,of course,to becomeone of the greatest inventors and innovators of all time.爱迪生第一个商业上可行的突破性发明是留声机，它是你们孩子们所知的电唱机、转盘、随身听、CD播放器和Pod的先驱。当然，爱迪生后来成为有史以来最伟大的发明家和创新者之一。As our story begins,Edison,an unknown inventor running his own startup,isfocused on developing better hardware for telegraph operators.He isparticularly focused on equipment for telegraph operators to be able to sendvoice messages over telegraph lines.Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要正如我们的故事开始的那样，爱迪生是一位不知名的发明家，经营着自己的初创公司，专注于为电报运营商开发更好的硬件。他特别关注电报操作员能够通过电报线发送语音消息的设备。Cue the book:提示书：The day after Edison had noted the idea for recording voicemessages received by a telegraphy office,he came up with avariation.That evening,on 18 July 1877,when [his lab's]midnight dinner had been consumed...[Edison]turnedaround to face [his assistant Charles Batchelor]and casuallyremarked,"Batch,if we had a point on this,we could make arecord of some material which we could afterwards pullunder the point,and it would give us the speech back."在爱迪生注意到记录电报局收到的语音消息的想法的第二天，他想出了一个变体。那天晚上，1877年7月18日，当[他的实验室]的午夜晚餐吃完时.[爱迪生]转身面对[他的助手查尔斯·巴彻勒，漫不经心地说：“巴奇，如果我们对此有观点的话，我们可以记录一些材料，然后我们可以将其拉到要点下，然后它就会将演讲内容返回给我As soon as Edison had pointed it out,it seemed so obvious that they did notpause to appreciate...the suggestion.Everyone jumped up to rig a test...within an hour,they had the gizmo set up on the table...Edison sat down,leaned into the mouthpiece...[and]delivered the stock phrase the lab usedto test telephone diaphragms:"Mary had a little lamb."当爱迪生指出这一点时，它似乎是如此明显，以至于他们没有停下来欣赏…这个建议。每个人都跳起来进行测试.不到一个小时，他们就把小玩意放在桌子上…爱迪生坐下来，靠在话筒上…[并]说出了实验室用来测试电话的常用短语隔膜："玛丽有一只小羊羔。”...Batchelor reinserted the beginning of the [strip on which the phrase hadbeen recorded]...out came "ary ad ell am.""It was not fine talking,"Batchelor recalled,"but the shape of it was there."The men celebrated withPat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要a whoop,shook hands with one another,and worked on.By breakfast thefollowing morning,they had succeeded in getting clear articulation fromwaxed paper,the first recording medium-in the first midnight recordingsession.巴彻勒重新插入了[记录该短语的条带的开头]结果是"ary ad ell am”。"说话不太好，"巴彻勒回忆道，“但它的形状就在那里。"男人们欢呼雀跃，互相握手，然后继续工作。第二天早上吃早餐时，他们在第一次午夜录音过程中成功地从第一种录音介质一蜡纸上获得了清晰的清晰度。...The discovery was treated suprisingly casually in the lab's notebooks......这个发现在实验室的笔记本中得到了令人惊讶的随意处理…It was a singular moment in the modern history of invention,but,in the yearsthat would follow,Edison would never tell the story the way it actuallyunfolded that summer,always moving the events from July 1877 toDecember.We may guess the reason why:in July,he and his assistantsfailed to appreciate what they had discovered.At the time,they wereworking feverishly to develop a set of working telephones to show their bestprospect...Western Union...There was no time to pause and reflect on theincidental invention of what was the first working model of thephonograph...这是现代发明史上的一个奇特时刻，但在接下来的几年里，爱迪生永远不会按照那个夏天实际展开的方式讲述这个故事，总是把事件从1877年7月移到12月。我们可以猜到原因：七月份，他和他的助手们没有意识到他们的发现。当时，他们正在疯狂地开发一套工作电话，以展示他们最好的前景…西联汇款…没有时间停下来思考留声机第一个工作模型的偶然发明。…The invention continued to be labeled in the notebooks with the broaderrubric "speaking telegraph",reflecting the assumption that it would be put touse in the telegraph office,recording messages.An unidentified staffmember draw up a list of possible names for the machine,which included:tel-autograph,tel-autophone,"chronophone time-announcer speakingclock","didaskophone teaching speaker portable teacher","glottophonelanguage sounder or speaker","climatophone weather announcer","klangophone bird cry sounder","hulagmophone barking sounder".Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要…这项发明继续在笔记本上贴上更广泛的“语音电报"标签，反映出它将在电报局中使用、记录消息的假设。一名身份不明的工作人员列出了该机器的可能名称，其中包括：tel-autograph、tel-autophone、."chronophone=时间播音员=发言时钟"、“didaskophone=教学扬声器=便携式教师"、"glottophone=语言发声器或扬声器"、"climatophone=天气播音员"、"klangophone=鸟叫发声器"、hulagmophone=吠声发声器"....In October 1877,[Edison]wrote his father that he was "at present veryhard up for cash,"but if his "speaking telegraph"was successful,he wouldreceive an advance on royalties.The commercial potential of his still-unnamed recording apparatus remained out of sight......1877年10月，[爱迪生]写信给他的父亲说，他“目前非常缺钱”，但如果他的“语音电报"成功，他将获得预付款。他尚未命名的录音设备的商业潜力仍然处于人们的视线之外…[A description of the phonograph in Scientific American in early November]set off a frenzy in America and Europe.The New York Sun was fascinatedby the metaphysical implications of an invention that could play "echoesfrom dead voices".The New York Times predicted [in an eerieforeshadowing of their bizarre coverage of the Internet in the mid-1990's]that a large business would develop in "bottled sermons",and wealthyconnoisseurs would take pride in keeping "a well-stocked oratorical cellar."[11月初《科学美国人》对留声机的描述]在美国和欧洲掀起了一阵狂潮。《纽约太阳报》对一项可以播放“死人声音的回声"的发明的形而上学含义着迷。《纽约时报》（在1990年代中期对互联网的怪诞报道中做出了令人毛骨悚然的预言）预测，大企业将在“瓶装布道”中发展，而富有的鉴赏家将为拥有“储备丰富的演讲地窖”而感到自豪”。...Such was the authority of Scientific American's imprimatur that all of thisextraordinary attention was lavished not on the first working phonographmade for public inspection,but merely a description supplied by Edison'sassistant.《科学美国人》的认可是如此权威，以至于所有这些非凡的关注都没有集中在第一台供公众检查的可用留声机上，而仅仅是爱迪生助手提供的描述。Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要...By late November,Edison and his staff had caught onto the phonograph'scommercial potential as a gadget for entertainment...a list of possible usesfor the phonograph was noted [by Edison and his staff],assembledapparently by free association:speaking toys(dogs,reptiles,humans),whistling toy train engines,music boxes,clocks and watches thatannounced the time.There was even an inkling of the future importance ofpersonal music collections,here described as the machine for the wholefamily to enjoy,equipped with a thousand [music recordings],"givingendless amusement."到1月下旬，爱迪生和他的工作人员已经意识到留声机作为娱乐小工具的商业潜力[爱迪生和他的工作人员]列出了留声机的可能用途清单，显然是通过自由联想组装的：会说话的玩具（狗、爬行动物、人类）、会吹口哨的玩具火车引擎、音乐盒、报时的钟表。甚至有人暗示了个人音乐收藏的未来重要性，这里将其描述为供全家人欣赏的机器，配备了一千张[音乐录音]，“带来无尽的乐趣”。...The first actual model,however,remained to be built...On 4 December1877,Batchelor's diary laconically noted,"[staff member John Kruesi]madephonograph today";it received no more notice than the other entry,"working on speaking tel"the invention [for telegraph operators]thatcontinued to be at the top of the laboratory's research agenda...然而，第一个实际模型仍有待建造..1877年12月4日，巴彻勒的日记简洁地指出，“"[工作人员约翰克鲁西]今天制造了留声机"；它没有比另一个条目“致力于语音电话"更受关注，这项发明（针对电报操作员）仍然是实验室研究议程的首要任务.…...On 7 December 1877,[Edison]walked into the New York office ofScientific American,placed a small machine on the editor's desk,and withabout a dozen people gathered around,turned the crank."How do you do?"asked the machine,introducing itself crisply."How do you like thephonograph?"It itself was feeling quite well,it assured its listeners,and thencordially bid everyone a good night...1877年12月7日，[爱迪生]走进《科学美国人》纽约办公室，在编辑桌上放了一台小型机器，周围聚集了大约十几个人，转动了曲柄。“你好吗？”机器问道，简洁地介绍自己。”你觉得留声机怎么样？"它本身感觉很好，它向听众保证，然后诚挚地祝大家晚安…Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要...Having long worked within the world of telegraphic equipment,[Edison]had been perfectly placed to receive the technical inspiration for thephonograph.But that same world,oriented to a handful of giant industrialcustomers,had nothing in common with the consumer marketplace...长期在电报设备领域工作，[爱迪生]完全有能力接收留声机的技术灵感。但同一个世界，面向少数大型工业客户，与消费市场没有任何共同之处…The story goes on and on-and you should read the book;it's all like this.故事还在继续一你应该读这本书；都是这样的。The point is this:重点是：If Thomas Edison didn't know what he had when he invented the phonographwhile he thought he was trying to create better industrial equipment fortelegraph operators.如果托马斯·爱迪生在发明留声机时不知道自己拥有什么，而他认为自己正在努力为电报员创造更好的工业设备…...what are the odds that you-or any entrepreneur-is going to have it allfigured out up front?您或任何企业家预先解决所有问题的可能性有多大？Pat7为什么初创公司最初的商业计划不那么重要