Because they’re street smart, most great entrepreneurs tend to prefer getting out and talking with real customers rather than sitting in a cubicle all day doing beautiful PowerPoint slides. And when they walk in my office and present you can tell that they know what they’re talking about. You can practically hear the “voice of the customer” when they’re presenting their concept.

I often tell people that I’m looking for people that weren’t born with a silver spoon in their mouths. I like people who aren’t worried about social consequences of doing something they’re not supposed to. That’s why I personally believe many immigrants or children of immigrants fare well in business. It never occurs to them to play by the same rules as everybody else; in fact, I’m not sure if they even know what the “rules” are. It leads many of these people to be more street smart than those defined by convention.

If I were writing about the most important attributes of a VC (hmmm) one of the things that would make my list is “ability to spot patterns.” I see the same things over-and-over again and being able to spot things and compartmentalize them is important – it helps with short-handing analysis and learning. Thinking out loud – I’m sure that’s important for entrepreneurs as well.

So I had written this whole series the week of Thanksgiving but virtually every day I wake up and see examples. Two quick stories from just yesterday.

On social conventions: Two years ago I was in New York and I called the little brother of one of my wife’s best friends from Wharton. He was at a startup that was in a super hot sector. I saw him again yesterday for the first time in 2 years. He told me that when the markets soured they were no longer hot. They realized that they were selling a bunch of cool products but none that had enough economic value. They had wasted a lot of money because they had raised a lot of money and therefore hired a large staff. A new and experiened CEO was brought in and cleared house. The CEO helped identify the one key product that had huge value as confirmed via customer feedback and he built the organization around this.

He asked each sales / biz dev person to call customers and tell them they had to change their contracts. He said, “call the customers, tell them the news and let them scream at your for 5 minutes. Hold the phone far away from your ears. When they’re done being mad at you and when you haven’t yelled back then they’ll say, ‘OK, so what are we going to do about this?”

I loved that story because it’s so true. Only a real entrepreneurial leader would have taken this chance and encouraged his team to make these calls. For anyone involved I’m sure the first call was mortifying. The second one was embarrassing. But by the fifth or sixth it was kind of fun. Sort of a game. You had done something you knew society told you that you weren’t supposed to do but you knew you had to anyways. And the world didn’t fall apart. As I always tell people, “being an entrepreneur is a gritty business.”

I was once involved with a company (not mine and not one I invested in personally) that had a great product but had blown through tons of cash and was being run by somebody who is off-the-charts smart and charming but was not (is not) an entrepreneur. How I got involved goes in the “no good deed goes unpunished category.” The CEO was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Went to the right schools / worked at the right strategic consultancies.

We were heading into this most recent recession but it wasn’t fully known yet. I just knew that our sales sucked wind and we were burning through tons of cash. I advocated LOUDLY at the board that we needed to cut our burn rate. We were SMOKING cash. The CEO told me that we couldn’t cut people in customer support (where we had 7 people for just a dozen customers and sales were sub $1 million) because we had made contractual commitments to clients that required all these people. We couldn’t cut product development (we had 23 people!) because we had made product commitments to a large customer who was about to agree to a nationwide rollout. We couldn’t cut marketing because they were instrumental to the sale. “OK, then let’s renegotiate with our customer!” I was told that this was impossible or at least imprudent.

When I was at BuildOnline (my first company) and things went “pear shaped” we called all of our customers and said, “I know that we signed contracts with you. The reality is that the market has changed and I need to change to the new realities. We committed to product features. I can’t ship those as promised. I’m sorry. Do you like our product & service? Yes? Ok, thank you. Listen, I know that if you like what we do then you’ll want a healthy supplier / partner. I need to be able to earn a profit and with the contracts we’ve signed I cannot. I either need to cut product development staff (and therefore can’t ship products as promised) or I need to be able to charge you slightly more for our service or for features you want to see so that I can make ends meet. Help me understand which you prefer.” I lost zero customers. In fact, we built tighter relationships. I had no choice and as they say, “necessity is the mother of all invention.”

The problem for the company smoking cash was that it was beneath the CEO to make these calls or to make the difficult cuts. We missed our sales targets that year by 66% and the next year by 45% and never really cut costs very much. The company incinerated cash. And I asked to leave the board. Or I was asked. OK, it was very consensual. When your board is eating in the company dining room with silver spoons you certainly don’t want awkward old me at the party asking the tough questions.

On Street Smarts / Working with customers: I had coffee with another startup founder yesterday. Really nice guy and clearly smart. He was at a 3-person startup where he was a co-founder but not the CEO. The CEO was the “ideas guy.” My coffee date told me about the product they were building. I told him that it sounded like an interesting feature but not something customers would pay for or adopt. I walked through my logic, “well, if a customer installs your tool on his website he’s going to have to hire an entire staff to manage the project. If the tool doesn’t grow his revenue then how is he going to cover the additional costs – especially in this market?”

I went through more examples. I told him that he needed to go visit these customers and understand what problems they had today attracting and retaining customers at their websites. He needed to brainstorm solutions with them to solve their problems. He needed to ask whether they would be willing to pay if he could deliver features that would help him grow revenue or cut costs. He confided in me that his team had built the product because it sounded like a good idea but had never validated it with customers. My street smarts told me it was not going to fly with customers.

I told him not to be despondent. The thing is – 80%+ of startups build products in a vacuum without really ever testing the business value with customers or listening to their needs. Sure, they talked to one or two guys – but didn’t do it methodically. If you don’t understand how your product adds value to your customer base it is unlikely that it will unless you come from that industry and already know the products from your own experience.

Why do people do this when it’s kind of obvious? Because it’s far easier to get a bunch of smart guys to show up in a living room every night and do screen mockups, to riff off of other products you see in the market and to build, then show your friends your tools than it is to network like hell meeting potential customers that you think will be bothered by your calling them. What I explained is that the middle managers at large companies often want to feel like they’re involved with startups and are more approachable than you think. You just have to get out of your comfort zone.

Do you have similar experiences when you built your companies?

本文为《企业家基因》连载的第二篇，作者认为：走出去了解顾客要比书本上学来的聪明或电脑上得来的研究结果重要得多。

2. 街头智慧 —— 好吧，阁下是意志坚定之人 —— 遇事从不言弃。不过若是创业想法全不对路，那显然一切亦是白费功夫。我不认为只有传统意义上聪明绝顶的人才能建立伟大的公司 —— 有时那甚至是一种阻碍。不过你的确得是一个心怀智慧的人。所谓智慧我个人在此更倾向于街头智慧。我需要的是那种能把事情「搞得掂」的人。他们生来就明白顾客想要什么而我该如何调动其积极性。他们冥冥之中能感应到对手的种种弱点。他们能预见远处的机会而据此设计出产品一发中的。

正因为他们有街头智慧，大多数优秀的企业家习惯走上街头直接与顾客交流而非蜷居一室捉摸着制作精美的 PowerPoint 幻灯片。因此当他们走进我的办公室时，你一眼就能看出他们对自己的计划胸有成竹。而在阐述自己的经营理念时，你仿佛能听见「顾客的心声」。

我常告诉人们自己所寻觅的不是温室里的花朵。我青睐不因社会传统而做事畏首畏尾的人。这便是为何我个人认为很多外国移民或他们的子女能把生意做好的原因。他们从不曾想过要和别人遵守同样的规则，事实上，我估计他们恐怕都不知道规则是什么。这导致了他们比那些思维传统的家伙更具街头智慧。

如果本文是在讲一个风投应具备的最重要能力，我会把「模式识别力」作为列表中的一项内容。看到重复出现的事物而有能力发现并将它们归类是十分重要的 —— 这对减少重复分析和认知很有帮助。大胆思考 —— 我确信那对企业家而言也是同样重要的。

虽然我在感恩节忙于写作此系列，但其实每天醒来我都能发现支持自己观点的例子。下面就简要地讲两个故事，就发生在昨天。

关于传统思维：两年前我在纽约给老婆的一个来自沃尔顿的好朋友打电话。他当时在一家热门行业的创业公司上班。昨日是两年来我们第一次碰面。他告诉我当产业后来萎缩时他们的公司不再欣欣向荣。他们意识到尽管自己在出售一些很棒的产品，但经济效益却差强人意。他们之前筹了不少款而雇了庞大的团队，因此现在资金大量流失。一名有经验的 CEO 新被聘入负责理清业务。他通过客户的反馈情况来帮助公司找出一个中心产品并在此基础之上再展开其他工作。

他让每一个销售人员给顾客打电话告诉他们以前的合同需要修改。他说，「给他们打电话，告诉他们这个消息，让他们对你吼上 5 分钟。同时把话机拿得离耳朵远一点。当他们吼完而发现你并不还嘴之后，他们会说『好吧，那现在我们怎么办？』」

我喜欢这个故事因为它非常真实。唯有真正的企业家会抓住这个机会并鼓励他的团队去打这样的电话。对任何人来说第一个电话必然是令人气恼。第二个则令人尴尬。然而第五第六个却会变得有趣起来。有如游戏一般。你知道自己做了一件社会公理不允许的事，但你也知道它非做不可。而之后世界依旧美好。就如我经常告诉人们的一句话，「当一名企业家不是个轻松活儿。」

我曾和一家公司打过交道（并非我自己的公司，我个人也没有投资），它有非常好的产品但烧钱烧得厉害。它的掌门人不算（现在也不是）企业家，但聪明绝顶且相貌不凡。我被牵扯其中的原因可归结为「善无善报」四个字。而这位 CEO 便属于温室里的花朵。她曾就读于顶级学府且在有名的策略咨询公司有工作经历。

我们当时正进入之前不久开始的萧条期，其庐山真面目尚未全部显露。我只知道公司一边在大量烧钱而另一边却在喝西北风。我在董事会上大声疾呼削减投资 —— 目前的资金正在急速蒸发！而我们这位 CEO 告诉我无法裁掉客户服务部门的员工（只有 7 个人面对十几个客户，销售额不到一百万美元）因为我们在和客户的合同中约定需要这些人。我们亦无法裁掉产品开发部门的人员（有 23 个人！）因为已接下了一个将要在全国范围内进行销售的客户订单。我们也不能动市场部因为他们就是销售业绩的基础。「好吧，那咱们就重新和客户谈谈！」我被告知那也不行，或者至少不是明智之举。

当我在 BuildOnline（我第一个公司）把事情搞砸时，我会给所有的客户致电解释，「我明白咱们签过合同。可目前的现实是市场发生了变动而我必须因时应事。我们对产品功能有所承诺，但恐怕无法按约发货了。我很抱歉。您喜爱我们的产品和服务吗？是吗？很好，非常感谢。我知道如果您喜欢我们业务的话您就需要一个健康的合作伙伴。我们需要赚取一点利润来维持周转，但以之前的合同来看恐怕有些困难。我不得不裁减部分产品开发的员工（因此就无法按约定发货），或稍微抬点价来信守承诺。您愿意告诉我您的选择吗？」结果没有客户选择离开。事实上，我们之间的关系得到了巩固和加深。我当时毫无选择，但就如常言道，「创新来自需要。」

那个烧钱公司的问题在于，给顾客打电话或进行艰难的裁员都未摆上其 CEO 的桌面。那一年我们的销售额低于预计 66%，第二年低了 45%，而支出问题一直未得到真正的解决。公司消耗了大量现金，而我要求退出董事会，也可以说我是被要求 —— 反正双方意见达成了一致。当你的董事会成员在公司餐厅拿着银质刀叉大吃大喝时，当然没人愿意听到我问出那些令人难看的问题了。

关于街头智慧/与客户打交道：我昨天和另一家创业公司的创始人共进咖啡。人很不错且十分聪明。他与别人联合创立了一家目前只有 3 个人的公司。CEO 是另一个「想出点子的人」。这位喝咖啡的人告诉了我他们目前正在做的产品。我对他说那听上去像个有趣的东西但顾客不会为此买单。之后我又详细地讲了一下自己的思路，「这么说吧，如果一个客户在自己的网站上安装了你的产品，他会需要一班人马来维护这玩意儿。如果它自己不能产生利润，客户如何来填补它造成的支出呢 —— 特别是在这块市场上？」

我又举了些别的例子。我建议他去拜访一些客户并了解目前他们的网站在吸引和保持顾客上有些什么问题。他需要和这些人一起想办法解决这些问题。他需要请教如果自己能为网站提供增加收益或降低成本的办法，那他们是否会愿意掏钱。他悄悄对我说自己的团队已经完成了产品制作因为它听上去像个好主意，但从来不曾与客户有过交流。我的街头智慧告诉我顾客不会喜欢它。

我告诉他不要气馁。事实是 —— 80% 以上的创业公司会选择闭门造车 —— 他们不在客户身上检验自己产品的商业价值或倾听顾客的需求。当然，他们会和一两个人聊一聊 —— 但没有一套科学的方法。如果你不明白自己的产品会如何提高客户基础，那么它很可能不会，除非你已经对其有深刻的认识并兼有相关经历。

那么，为什么人们会犯这样显而易见的错误呢？因为对一帮聪明人而言，每天晚上凑在一起钻研模型、比较市场同类，而后再做出自己的产品要比广泛接触那些你认为会讨厌接电话的潜在客户容易多了。我想说明的是，大公司里的中层管理人员会比你想象中的要好接近，因为他们经常想着自己某天会去创业。你需要做的只是离开自己的温床。

在创立自己的公司时，诸君也有类似的经历吗？

So what skills does it take to be a successful entrepreneur? What attributes am I looking for during the process? Having been through the experience as an entrepreneur twice myself I have developed a list of what I think it takes. This post covers the first out of 10 that I’ll write about.

1. Tenacity – Tenacity is probably the most important attribute in an entrepreneur. It’s the person who never gives up – who never accepts “no” for an answer. The world is filled with doubters who say that things can’t be done and then pronounce after the fact that they “knew it all along.” Look at Google. You think that anybody really believed 1999 that two young kids out of Stanford had a shot at unseating Yahoo!, Excite, Ask Jeeves and Lycos? Yeah, right. Trust me, whatever you want to build you’ll be told by most VC’s something like, “Social networking has already been done,” “You’ll never get a telecom carrier deal done,” or “Google already has a product in this area.” You’ll be told by the people you want to recruit that they’re not sure about joining, by a landlord that you’ll need a year’s deposit or by a potential business development partner that they’re too busy to work with you, “come back in 6 months.”
If you’re already running a startup you know all this. But some founders have that extra quality that makes them never give up. At times it goes as far as being chutzpah. And I see this extra dose of tenacity in only about 1 of 10 entrepreneurs that I see. And if you’re not naturally one of these people you probably know it, too. You see that peer who always pushes things further than you normally would. What are you going to get further out of your comfort zone and be more tenacious? It is really what separates the wheat from the chaff.

I once had a debate with a prominent VC on a panel. The moderator asked the question, “if an entrepreneur writes an email to a VC and doesn’t hear back what should they do?” This VC responded, “Move on. Next on the checklist. He’s not interested.” Without much thought I shot back, “That’s the worst advice I’ve ever heard someone give an entrepreneur.” Doh. I almost couldn’t believe I had blurted it out, but what came out of my mouth was so heart felt that it just rolled out.

If you fold at the first un-returned email what hope to you have as an entrepreneur? As an entrepreneur people who aren’t going to respond to you and it’s your responsibility to politely and assertively stay on people’s radar screen. You no longer work for Google, Oracle, Salesforce.com or McKinsey where everybody calls you back. You had no idea how important that brand name was until you left it behind. Your customers don’t care that you went to Stanford, Harvard or MIT. It’s just you now. And frankly if you went to a state college in Florida you’re at no disadvantage in the tenacity column. Persistence will pay off.

A simple example
When I launched my second company I was new to Silicon Valley. I had spent the previous 11 years in Europe and Japan. My company was relatively unknown. We were launching a cloud-based document management into a space that was increasingly being called Enterprise 2.0. It just so happened that there was a conference coming up run by a guy named Ismael Ghalimi, a very well respected software executive who also was keeping a blog at the time for companies in the space.

He was having his first ever conference and people from the who’s who of VC firms in Silicon Valley would be attending. There were also press and other senior executives from the sector. I got my friends over at Lewis PR to give me an introduction to Ismael, who kindly invited me to present at the conference. He sent me the schedule and I was to speak on the second day in an afternoon session in a break-out room. Ugh.

I wrote to Ismael requesting that I be on in the first day and in a panel on the main stage with Om Malik, Shel Israel, Rajen Sheth (from Google), Karen Leavitt (WebEx) and Ismael himself. He wrote back and told me it wasn’t going to be possible. I emailed him back with my bona fides and made the case again. He, being the nicest guy in the world, very politely told me it wasn’t possible. I had a friend email him and tell him what a great panelist I was. I called Ismael directly. I came up lots of reasons why I was the perfect fit. He said he would think about it but that the stage was already crowded. “Yes, but you don’t have any startups on the stage. I think it would make a better balance.”

I asked him to breakfast to talk about it. I know he didn’t really want me on the panel but I knew it was too important for me in gaining recognition. I walked the very fine line between pushing the boundaries with my chutzpah but not crossing the line. In the end he relented and this was a very important session for me in building out early awareness for Koral. The picture above is from the actual event courtesy of Dan Farber who was writing for ZDNet. And in the end I became quite good friends with Ismael, whom I miss since I’ve moved to LA.

For those who know me well know that this is just a normal day in the life of Mark Suster. It’s not always pretty, but it’s part of my DNA. I can’t help it. And it’s one of the things I look for in entrepreneurs I evaluate. Some companies don’t push hard enough. Others cross the line. I wish I could tell you some formula for the right amount of chutzpah but I’ve always said it’s a bit like art – you know it when you see it.

本系列文章是由原 Salesforce 副总裁、风投 Mark Suster 撰写的对创业的一些思考以及建议。下面是该系列的首篇，后面文章将在今后陆续刊载。在文中，作者认为：一个企业家最重要的品质是永不言弃。

作为一个风投我最常被问及的问题之一便是如何能博取我的投资。我曾公开表示 70% 的情况下我的决定取决于你的团队，而团队的好坏则又取决于创始人。我观察过那些上顶级学校、成绩名列前茅并且在所有优秀企业工作过的人。

那么要成为一个成功的企业家到底需要些什么技能呢？在选拔过程中我会注意哪些指标？在拥有了两次创业经历的前提下，对以上问题的答案我有了一个列表。本文会主要讲述列表中的第一项。

1、意志力 —— 顽强的意志力对一个企业家而言可能是最重要的品质。它指的是一个人永不放弃 —— 从不接受「不」这个答案。这个世界充满了质疑者，他们认为很多事都无法完成，而当其他人失败时就跳出来宣布「我早知如此。」瞧瞧谷歌吧。你以为 1999 年真的有人相信两个斯坦福出来的小孩儿能把雅虎、Excite、Ask 和 Lycos 拉下马？哈，想得美。相信我，无论你想做什么大多数风投都会告诉你类似如下的箴言「社交网络格局已定，」「你不会找到合适的运营商的，」或者「谷歌已经涉足了这块领域了。」你想要招募的人会告诉你自己不确定是否应该加入，办公室的房东会要你先交一整年的押金，或者潜在的商务伙伴说他们目前抽不出时间与你合作，「半年之后再来吧。」

如果你已在创业就会知道所有的这些。然而有些创始人就比别人多一点永不言弃的品质。这种品质有时可以达到肆无忌惮的程度。拥有这样比别人「多一点」意志力的人在我看来是十里挑一。如果你不属于这类人群你恐怕自己也心知肚明。你见过那个总是不满现状而想把事情做得比普通人更好的家伙吧。让你离开自己的安乐窝而变得更顽强到底有什么好处呢？那其实是区分谷与糠的关键。

我曾跟一位颇有名气的风投有过一次辩论。主持人问道，「如果一个企业家向风投写了一封电子邮件而未收到回复该怎么办？」这位仁兄答曰，「那么他应向下一位风投写信。现在这位明显不感兴趣。」我没想太多便反驳道，「那简直是我听到给企业家最差劲的建议了。」啊哦。我几乎不敢相信自己竟说出那样的话，不过它实为我心之所想于是便脱口而出。

作为一名企业家如果因为一封未回复的邮件就认输了，那你还有什么希望呢？

对一名企业家而言，如果别人不搭理你的请求，那么你自己应该想办法礼貌而不懈地努力引起他人的注意。你不再为谷歌、甲骨文、Salesforce.com 或 McKinsey 这些别人在意的企业工作。只有当这些品牌被弃于身后之时你才会意识到它是多么的重要。你的顾客不在乎你曾经上过斯坦福、哈佛或麻省理工。你只是你自己而已。事实上如果你曾经上的是佛罗里达州的某个二流大学，在意志力这一栏里你并没有任何劣势。坚持不懈才是关键。

一个简单的例子

当我第二次创业时在硅谷还是个新面孔。过去的 11 年我都在欧洲和日本。我的公司相比之下显得不见经传。我们当时准备为所谓的 Enterprise 2.0（企业 2.0）领域做一个以云计算为本的文件管理公司。天赐良机，一个名叫伊斯梅·加利米（Ismael Ghalimi）的人正筹备研讨大会。此君在软件业高薪厚职，备受尊敬。他亦曾经营博客一枚，专门面向业内公司，传道解惑，指点江山。

这是他第一次召开大会，硅谷风投界的不少重量级人物都会出席。前来参加的还有媒体以及产业中其他公司的几位高管。我让在 Lewis PR 的朋友介绍自己和伊斯梅认识，他好心的邀请我参加他的会议。他把日程安排发给了我，让我在第二天下午的一个分会场演讲。这…

我回信给伊斯梅要求自己在第一天的主会场讲话，和奥姆·马利克（Om Malik）、希尔·以色列（Shel Israel）、谷歌的拉金·西斯（Rajen Sheth）、WebEx 的凯伦·李维特（Karen Leavitt）以及伊斯梅本人同台一道。他回信说那不可能。我又诚恳地回复并重述了自己的请求。伊斯梅，这个世界上最好的人，再次礼貌地回答说不行。我请一个朋友向他写邮件说我是多么好的一个演讲者。此外我又专门给伊斯梅打了电话。我陈述了大量理由试图说明自己是合适的人选。他称会考虑我的请求但也需要我明白名额已经很满了。「我明白您的意思，不过讲话的人里没有来自创业公司的代表。我想我的出现能使发言更加全面。」

我邀请他共进早餐来讨论这件事。我明白他并不想给我这次机会，但那对我自己获得早期声誉实在太重要了。我小心行事，既使自己能探查对方的底线又不过分要求而伤了双方和气。最后他答应了我的提议，而那次会议则成了我为 Koral 创建早期影响力的重要事件之一。后来我与伊斯梅成了十分要好的朋友，可惜自我搬到洛杉矶后竟再未谋面。

熟悉我的人都知道那仅是我生命中再平常不过的一天了。虽然它并不一定轻巧愉快，却是构成我 DNA 的一部分。对此我还真无能为力。事实上它也是我在考察企业家时至关重要的一方面。有的人太随遇而安，余者又太得寸进尺。我希望我能告诉你如何精确地把握其尺度，然而就像我一直认为的那样，它更是一种艺术 —— 知之为知之。

Entrepreneurs make fast decisions and move forward knowing that at best 70% of their decisions are going to be right. They move the ball forward every day. They are quick to spot their mistakes and correct. Good entrepreneurs can admit when their course of action was wrong and learn from it. Good entrepreneurs are wrong often. If you’re not then you’re not trying hard enough. Good entrepreneurs have a penchant for doing vs. over-analyzing. (obviously don’t read this as zero analysis)

I spent nearly a decade building software for large companies and then advising companies on the same. I didn’t have to make many serious decisions. So I was surprised at the sheer volumes of decisions that had to be made when I became a startup CEO. Most of them are completely mundane such as choosing which: bank, office space, 1-year lease vs. 2-year lease, logo, URL, pricing structure or which VC.

The technology team disagrees on direction and wants resolutions. Your head of sales thinks she should fire somebody. You need to decide whether or not to launch at TechCrunch50. Somebody asks whether you plan to set up 401k’s and do contribution matching. I think this paralyzes many people.

I learned quickly that I needed to just do things. Yet I initially had a team full of people that seemed to either over analyze things or more likely wait for a higher source within the company to make the tough decisions for them. You’re sales person is getting blocked by the CTO who says she shouldn’t go above him but the CTO isn’t approving the deal. Should she take a chance and potentially ruffle feathers?

Yes, I know it’s my job as the CEO to be the coach for people and that’s fine. But if everybody is looking for me to make their decisions we’ll never get anything done. I felt like I had done the hard bit and chosen people that I truly respected and I would rather empower them to make decisions and accept consequences.

Sometimes you need to break some eggs to get things done so if that’s what it takes I wanted my team to go for it and I wanted to symbolize that it was OK with me. I would far rather have some messes to clean up than to never have them cross the line trying.

So I took on the motto JFDI to symbolize this. And I think my team did a great job and rose to the occasion. Maybe it helps that I love controversy and pushing the boundaries so people felt it was OK for them to do it as well.

Another side of JFDI is finding ways to get stuff done that seem impossible. Entrepreneurs have a way of doing that. Getting suppliers to accept terms that they said they never normally agree, getting accepted to speak on a panel when the conference organizer initially said “no,” getting people to moonlight for you until you have the cash to bring them on board.

A couple of quick stories / examples:

1. Making Things Happen

There’s a guy in Los Angeles that I met at several tech networking events. He was a really nice and personable guy who had deep domain knowledge in an industry that he’d worked in for 10 years that is in need of technological advancement. He wanted to be the guy who did it. So we discussed his ideas several times. I usually try to avoid getting stuck reviewing people’s PowerPoint decks (I get this request too often and frankly I’m already behind on my own work!) but there are some people you just take an (extra) liking to and want to help. This was such a guy.

So over several months I went through a few iterations on his idea. He was stuck on capital raising. He wanted to know how to get started and “Could I intro him to a couple of local angels?” One night after a DealMaker Media event we got 20 minutes together after the event ended. I was blunt (warning: that sometimes happens with me) and told him not to bother and that I wasn’t prepared to help with angels.

“Why?” he asked. I told him he wasn’t a real entrepreneur. He looked stunned. I said that he had been talking about doing this for too long. He still had no website and no prototypes. But “he didn’t have the budget to hire a developer until he had raised money!”

I said that was my point. “A real entrepreneur would have done it anyway. He would have found somebody technical and inspired that individual to work for equity or deferred payment. Real entrepreneurs are contagious. They are filled with ideas and they get those ideas onto paper. That paper can be in the form of wireframes or in the form of a PowerPoint plan. Or worst case your ideas can be conveyed verbally. But they GET THINGS DONE. You have the skills and knowledge to do that.”

I walked away kind of feeling bad. I don’t like to intentionally crush people’s hopes. But I always view my job as being honest so that people don’t waste time, money or both if their ideas aren’t good or the positive execution isn’t likely. But then something awesome happened. He took my comments as a challenge. He went out and found a developer and built a product. He refined his business plan and he got commitments for $150-200k but needed some lead angels to commit first. When he re-approached me he had a much better plan and he had a prototype! I introduced him to some angels and his round was OVER SUBSCRIBED!

That is a true story. I don’t know whether the entrepreneur feels comfortable with my saying who he is so if he does and he reads this perhaps he’ll put his details in the comments section. But I bring up this story for a reason.

2. Analysis Paralysis

I used to sit on the board of a company (for which I DID NOT invest) with a very smart and very likable CEO. This person was educated at the best US schools and had worked for a top-tier strategy consulting firm – one of the big 3. The CEO led every board meeting with vigor and the board members (sans me) were always wowed. The CEO had 60-page Powerpoint presentations analyzing every micro detail of the business. The company had less than $5 million in revenue yet we had a multi-tab spreadsheet doing activity-based costing on our customer service staff, operations and technology.

We had every chart every invented by man (or McKinsey) showing failure rates of our product, mean-times-to-repair, detailed sales forecast charts, etc. Charts. What lovely charts! I know they would have been very useful in dissected the woes of General Motors. I was the only unimpressed board member. I was the one pointing out that we were behind on our sales targets and our “Elephant Deal” that had been promised was 6 months late.

After a few board meetings I finally spoke up. I was a bull in a china shop. I said (out loud), “I sure wish that some of the time that went into these PowerPoint slides would have gone into meetings with the COO, CFO or CMO of [Elephant Customer].” The CEO had never met with any of them.

With a CEO that likable, smart, educated and accomplished it made board members squirm that I was willing to call bullshit.

I’m sure you know what happens next. We missed our sales target by more than 66% for the year but we had great slides explaining why. The next year we set the sales budget equal to the previous year’s sales budget that we had missed. We missed the next year by more than 33%. Nobody seemed shocked. The company has burned through serious cash. I complained the whole way. It was not fun. No “independent” board members seemed to care (or even comprehend the lunacy of the whole situation).

To this day I’m sure they see the situation differently. Beautiful slides by top-tier consultants have hoodwinked large companies for years and I can see why. They are intoxicating, complex, insightful and tell a great story. But in the end they’re usually just that – a story. Sometimes a fantasy.

I still really like this CEO and have deep respect for this person outside of the role of being a CEO. The “Peter Principle” says that “everybody rises to their level of incompetency.” Read this as some people who are great at analyzing to not make great doers and therefore do not make great entrepreneurs. I think many VCs have learned this the hard way when they step in to temporarily run companies as I have seen happen.

The problem with the company that I described above was that there was somebody willing to fund ongoing losses and the board continued to believe that good times were just around the corner. Maybe they’ll be proved right some day. I certainly hope so. But in the UK we used to call this “promising jam tomorrow.” I was tired of jam tomorrow. I left the board. The company never JFDI.

本文为《企业家基因》的一篇相关文章，作者认为：不管纸上分析做得再好，若没有放手去做的实践精神，事情终究无法成功。真正的企业家「敏于行」。

我初次创业时办公室墙上曾贴有以上图片和四个大写字母 JFDI（如果你不知其所指，它是对耐克标语「Just Do It」的改写 Just F敏感词进行时态 Do It）。我相信作一名成功的企业家需要能搞定很多事。你得不停地作决定而已知条件总是不完整。这会难倒很多人。但不是你。

企业家们作决策雷厉风行，他们知道在最好的情况下自己有七成可能选中答案。他们每日都将游戏向前推进。他们快速机敏地查漏补缺。优秀的企业家会勇于承认自己的错误并从中汲取教训。优秀的企业家常常犯错。如果你不是只说明你努力的还不够。优秀的企业家善于权衡实践之于过度分析。（显然别将此误读为分析无用）

我用了将近十年时间为大型企业编写软件，之后又为别的软件公司作顾问。其间我并未做过太多重大决策。因此当我成为一家创业公司的 CEO 时，被突然冒出的这许多待定的决策吓了一跳。它们中的绝大多数都是些无聊的选择：选哪家银行、办公室大小、一年还是两年租约、公司商标、网站地址、定价方案以及哪家风投。

技术团队在前进方向上产生了分歧而需要解决方案。你的销售主管认为她应该炒某人鱿鱼。你得考虑要不要在 TechCrunch50 上推出产品。有人又问你是否会为员工建立 401(k) 退休储蓄计划并以贡献多少为准增加补偿。我想这会令许多人的创业陷入瘫痪。

我很快认识到自己需要不想太多地把事情处理好。一开始我曾有一个团队，大家要么就对问题纸上谈兵，要么更有可能就等公司高层来帮他们定夺。你的销售人员被卡在 CTO 那里，后者认为自己应对交易负责，然而却迟迟不作批准。销售人员此时应该自作主张吗？那可能会把事情搞砸。

是的，我明白自己作为 CEO 应该指导公司员工 —— 我并不反对这一点。但如果每个人遇到问题时都转向我那咱们做不了任何事。我感觉自己已经做了相对困难的一部分工作并找到了愿意与之共事的人，我更希望他们能主动出击哪怕将来需要承担后果。

有时你在完成任务时会制造一些麻烦。如果那是不可避免的，我希望我的团队能勇往直前并明白我会站在他们这一边。比起从不敢于越界尝试，我宁愿清理努力失败后留下的烂摊子。

于是我用 JFDI 这句座右铭来象征这种态度。而我的团队也的确拿出干劲并做出了杰出的成绩。也许是因为我喜欢不按常理出牌并挑战极限，于是身边的人也纷纷效仿吧。

JFDI 的另一层含义是完成看似不可能的任务。企业家们就有这样的本事。让供货商们接受他们从不肯接受的协议条款，让一开始满口拒绝的会议组织者允许你在其论坛上发言，让人们用业余时间为你工作 —— 在你有足够现金来正式聘用他们之前。

一些故事和例子：

1. 主动出击

我曾好几次在洛杉矶的技术界活动中碰到某君。他人很不错，在一个技术上有待进步的产业工作了十年，积累了不少经验和认识。他希望自己能为这个产业的技术发展做出贡献。于是我们有过几次交谈。通常我不会把时间花在观看别人做的 PowerPoint 幻灯片上（提出类似要求的人太多，我连自己的工作都完不成了！），但有些人确实让你愿意花多余的精力来帮助他。上面这位就是一个例子。

在几个月中我反复考虑了他的想法。他遇到的麻烦是缺乏资金。他迫切地想知道如何「开始」并「通过我结识几位天使投资」。一天晚上在参加了 DealMaker 的一次活动后我们有 20 分钟的时间见面。我直言不讳地告诉他别朝这方面想了，我目前不会去联系什么天使投资的。（提示：我有时真就不给面子）

「为什么？」他问道。我告诉他你算不得真正的企业家。他愣了。我说这么长时间过去了你只会动口。他那时连网站和产品样品都没有。但「若无投资他又哪里有钱来雇人开发呢！」

我告诉他那正是我想阐述的观点。「真正的企业家还是有本事找到解决办法。他会找到程序员并承诺分享股权或延期付款来保持其工作热情。真正的企业家是有感染力的。他们满脑子都是想法并能将它们搬到纸上。所谓纸有时可能是一幅线框图或者用 PowerPoint 做成的计划书。最差你也至少可以用口头语言来表达陈述。但是他们会把事情搞定。你有这个能力和知识储备。」

我略感歉意地独自而去。我不喜欢有意打消人们心中的希望。但我总以为自己工作的一部分是保持诚恳，这样没有足够好想法或执行力的人就不至于浪费自己的金钱和时间。然而令我意想不到的一件事发生了。他将我说的话当作了对自己的挑战。他找到了一名程序员并做出了一个产品。他改善了自己的商业计划并得到 15 – 20 万美金的投资承诺。现在他所需的只是某个天使能率先投资。当他重新找到我时已经有了一个好得多的计划以及一个产品模型！我于是把他介绍给一些天使投资，后来他的所得超出了预期！

这是一则真实的故事。我不知这位企业家对我对他的评价是否感到满意，如果他读到了本文也许会在评论中留下自己的看法。不过我之所以讲这件事是有原因的。

2. 纸上谈兵

我曾是一家公司（我本人未投资）董事会的成员。它有一位非常聪明且优秀的首席执行官。此人曾在美国顶级学府接受教育并在一流的策略咨询机构（前三之一）就职。每一次董事会大家（除了我）都被其绘声绘色地演说打动。这位 CEO 将业务情况总结在一篇长达 60 页的 PowerPoint 报告中，连最小的细节也分析得头头是道。公司的收入还不到 500 万美元，却仍在用作业成本法维持繁杂的数据报表以收集各部门的运营情况。

我们制作了人类（或麦肯锡）有史以来发明出的所有图表来显示自己的产品故障率、平均修复时间、销售预期等等。我们制作了图表。图表是多么好啊！我相信它们会在研究通用汽车破产中发挥重要作用的。我是唯一一个对此不以为然的董事会成员。是我指出了目前公司离销售目标还差很远而我们承诺的一桩大买卖 6 个月后就要兑现了。

几次会议之后我终于忍不住开了口。我就像瓷器店里的醉汉一样毫无顾忌地（大声）说道，「我非常希望能把在这儿欣赏幻灯片的一部分时间花在和客户公司的 COO、CFO 或 CMO 交谈上。」我们的 CEO 连他们的面都不曾见过。

有这样一位和蔼可亲而聪明智慧的 CEO，而我的一席话让大家脸上都很难看。我也有些过意不去。

我相信你知道接下来会发生什么。我们与原定销售目标相差了超过 66%，但同时也做出了能良好解释其原因的书面报告。第二年我们定下了和上年同样的目标，然而我们再次与之相差 33%。没有人觉得震惊。公司已经烧掉了相当数额的现金。我一直坚持提出异议。那种滋味不好受。不过似乎并未引起哪位「独立」董事的注意（他们甚至可能不知道事情已经糟到了何种地步）。

现在来看他们恐怕会对整件事另眼相看了。一流咨询公司制作的精美幻灯片长期以来蒙蔽着企业的头脑，我算是明白个中缘由了。幻灯片使人陶醉。它们看似复杂深邃，且能为你讲述很棒的故事。但最终往往也不过一则故事而已。有时甚至只是一个梦幻。

我仍然十分喜欢并敬重这位 CEO，如果其角色不是一名 CEO 的话。「彼得法则」告诉我们「人人皆有力不能及之时。」在此应将其理解为优秀的分析家不一定能成为优秀的实践家，因此不能等同于优秀的企业家。我想很多风投都在这上走了弯路，我见过不少把钱投进那些「快公司」的例子。

以上所述公司的问题在于有人愿意为持续亏损的业务买单，而董事会就一直相信下一秒好运即会降临。也许他们有天能证明自己是对的。我着实希望如此。但在英国【译者注：读者可自行将其替换为中国】我们将它称为「望梅止渴」。我厌倦了理想中的甘梅，于是我选择了退出。这公司咋就不 JFDI 呢？