Mark Suster 【企业家基因（十）-果断】
翻译by林萍地
【企业家基因】系列12篇（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。）
10.果断-就像我之前说的， 作为一个企业家，你每天把企业推向前一些。当我从做一个企业高管到自己创业转变，我最惊讶的是，我每天变得要做很多决定，有小的，有大的。
当不用你做决定的时候，你可能会觉得这些都是最基本的事情。是否该用亚马逊的网页服务？是否该把服务器放在RACKSPACE? 该用哪一种脚本语言呢， BUBY, JAVA, 或者是.NET？ 是该一次就租两年呢，还是一个月一个月的租？是否现在就该聘请一名开发人员？是该拿天使投资的钱呢，还是种子基金的钱呢？还是企业贷款好呢? 是否该申请TECHCRUNCH 50? 是否一开始就收费呢，还是先建立一个免费试用版本呢？
没完没了的决定，而且在初创公司，你根本不可能等有足够的信息再做决定。好的企业家能过迅速做出决定，能接受他们做的决定有70%正确就很不错的了。 他们清楚有一些决定是错误的，而他们将必须去改正它们。创业就是赛跑，但是你没有“时间到”，你可以任意分析你的决定，没有人会限制你的截止时间。但是如果你面对决定，优柔寡断，你就慢人家一步。招聘新员工比别人慢，解雇不称职的员工也比别人慢，你浪费时间在犹豫，是否该融资，融资多少，从谁那里融资。也许你不愿意抛开日常事务，直接跳到最重要的事情上。
我最近考虑投资一个硅谷企业家。他在犹豫是接受更高的职位，还是自己出来干。我跟他说我觉得你是时候出来自己干了。不到一周，他就给我看他对新公司的规划。很快他就飞来见我的合伙人。 然后他就定了机票到中国，与供应商洽谈。他事情处理的非常快。下一次我和他谈话的时候，他已经拿到了一个125，,00美元的订单，尽管连产品都还没有建好。
我预感，下次谈话，他肯定会取得更大的进步，说不定他会犹豫是否该拿我的钱。我相信他一定和其他资金谈过。也切实应该这样做。 如果你自己在考虑做某件事情，并和VC谈了很久，不要觉得奇怪，如果最后VC并没有站在那支持你。VC很清楚他们的生意模式和你的生意模式是不一样的。
企业家不能模糊不不定，他们必须果断。
Entrepreneurs Don’t "Noodle" They Do
This is part of my series on Entrepreneurial DNA that was originally published on VentureHacks. I know this series has been running for a while (and is getting long in the tooth) – I promise it’s nearly over. I started with a “top 11″ list – only because I couldn’t fit them into a top 10. But in the end I ended up with 12. So only two more after this.
I’m not anti VC. Obviously. I am one. But there are a lot of things that become norms in the VC industry that always drove me crazy from entrepreneur’s side of the table. They still do. One of them is when VCs say, “I’d like to ‘noodle’ on that for a while.”
Translation for any first time entrepreneurs can mean one of:
a. I’m not interested but it’s easier to say than “no”
b. I’m not really sure whether I’m interested but if you suddenly get a lot of “traction” I’d love for you to see me soon
c. I’m super busy with other stuff. I’d love to spend time thinking about whether your business would be successful but I’m not gonna.
In short Noodle = No. I’d love it if VCs gave more honest and direct feedback. But I’m totally off topic.
In the VC industry you can’t take daily actions. It’s our job to say “no” 99.9% of the time. Literally. That’s the one thing that sorta sucks about being a VC because nobody enjoys saying “no” all the time but we have to. Right before I got into the industry I was at a cocktail party in Palo Alto and spoke with James Currier, the founder of Tickle and a former VC for Battery Ventures. He said that as a VC he really struggled to have a job where he had to say “no” all the time. So he left and focused on starting companies. I get that. As an entrepreneur you’re used to being optimistic and finding a way to make things work despite the odds.
But as a VC you simply can’t do the majority of deals you look at. So our job is to think a lot about things but not to take action on most of them. When looking at new deals we analyze, consider, contemplate, talk to colleagues, go to conferences, reference check, triangulate, debate and … noodle. Mostly we say “no” a lot.
That’s not you or you’re dead. In an entrepreneur I need to see the anti VC character. You need to be “The Decider.” OK, maybe not. But you need to be uber decisive.
10. Decisiveness – As I’ve said previously, being an entrepreneur is about moving the ball forward a few inches every day. What astounded me when I switched from being a big company executive to being an entrepreneur was the sheer amount of decisions I had to make on a daily basis. The minutiae. Some of it incredibly important.
The decisions sound so basic when you’re not the one having to make them. Should you go with Amazon Web Services (AWS) or have your own servers hosted at RackSpace? Should you build in Ruby, Java or .NET? Should you sign a 2-year lease or rent month-to-month? Should you hire an extra developer now or a business development resource? Should we take angel money or just go for a seed round from a VC? Is venture debt a good idea? Should we launch at TechCrunch50? Should we charge for a product or offer fremium? Should we ask for a credit card up front or after their free trial?
It never ends. And there is no such thing as a startup decision with complete information. The best entrepreneurs have a bias for making quick decisions and accept that at best 70% of them will be right. They acknowledge that some decisions will be bad and they’ll have to recover from them. Building a startup might be a game of inches but you don’t get timeouts to pause and analyze all of your decisions. As I’ve posted about before: my startup motto is JFDI (think Nike).
And it is so easy to spot entrepreneurs who struggle to make these decisions. They’re slow to hire new staff. They’re slow to fire even when a person isn’t performing. They lollygag on deciding whether to raise money, how much and from whom. They are reluctant to quit their day job and jump in head first.
I was recently considering investing in an entrepreneur in Silicon Valley. He was deciding between taking another senior role at a prominent Silicon Valley tech company or starting his own business. I told him I didn’t think he needed any more resume stuffers and now was the time to go do something big on his own. It was time to earn! Within a week he had me a deck with a strategy for a new company. He offered to fly down on 24 hours notice and meet with my partners (which he did).
He then booked tickets to China to talk with suppliers and he promised to revise his strategy by the time he got back. He is getting stuff done in entrepreneur years which is a step change faster than dog years. The next time I spoke with him he had a customer order for $125,000 – and he doesn’t even have a product built!
But I have the feeling by the time we speak again he’ll have made so much progress that he’ll question whether he should take my money. I’m certain he will have talked with other funding sources. This is how it should be. (If he reads this he’ll know that I’m still open to being an angel investor )
If you’ve been “thinking about doing something” for a long time and batting this idea around with your favorite VC for six months to a year, don’t be surprised if they’re not prepared to back you in the end. VC’s understand the difference between the way their job function works and the way yours does. Entrepreneurs don’t “noodle” they “do.”
http://www.juexiang.com/2010/02/04/entrepreneurs-dont-noodle-they-do/
