創業公司爲什麼總會以失敗落幕

When the founder of a startup company shuts down her or his business, it is customary to pen an essay that tells the rest of the community what went wrong, called a failure post-mortem. It’s estimated that nine out of 10 startups fail, which is why the technique has become so common as to be a Silicon Valley cliché. Some of these essays are honest, enlightening, and brave. Others point fingers or issue backward non-apologies. Medium, the publishing platform co-founded by Twitter co-founder Evan Williams, is the preferred medium.

當創業公司的創始人關掉公司時，他們往往會寫上一篇文章，對圈中人交代一下自己走過的彎路，這種文章就叫失敗剖析。據估計，每10家創業公司中就有9家會失敗，這也是爲什麼失敗剖析文章層出不窮，成爲硅谷的陳詞濫調。這類文章有些寫得坦誠、勇敢、發人深思，還有一些就只知道推卸責任，或是根本不認爲自己有什麼應該檢討之處。當創業家發表失敗剖析時，他們往往最青睞由Twitter公司聯合創始人伊萬o威廉姆斯參與創辦的出版平臺Medium。

The proliferation of the failure post-mortem has helped create a bizarre cult of failure that seems wrong-headed. Celebrating failure (“Fail fast” goes the mantra) seems to let people off the hook for bad behavior. Upon closer inspection, it seems less misguided than necessary. Starting a high-growth business is a roller coaster. Founder-CEOs feel pressure to keep up the facade of success, even when things are actually falling apart behind the scenes. Only recently, after the tragic suicide of Jody Sherman, CEO of a startup called Ecomom, did the technology community begin to publicly acknowledge the problems with its “entrepreneur as hero” narrative. Publicly admitting to failure, and examining it, can take guts. It also distills the narrative to a case study from which other entrepreneurs can learn.

失敗剖析文章風行一時，催生出一種荒誕的失敗崇拜現象，這似乎是一種執迷不悟的舉動。慶祝失敗（“快速失敗”成了口頭禪）似乎可以讓那些因行爲不當而失敗的人擺脫困境。進一步深入審視會發現，這麼做似乎並不算過分。要開創一番高速成長的業務猶如坐上過山車。重壓之下，創始人兼首席執行官必須時時擺出一副成功在握的樣子，哪怕在光鮮的表面背後，公司實際上早已千瘡百孔。也就是最近，在Ecomom公司首席執行官喬迪o謝爾曼悲慘自殺後，科技界纔開始承認它一貫推崇的“創業家就是英雄”觀點是有問題的。公開承認失敗並加以檢討需要很大勇氣。它還能將各種親身講述的經歷提煉爲案例，供其他企業家學習。

CB Insights recently parsed 101 post-mortem essays by startup founders to pinpoint the reasons they believe their company failed. On Thursday the company crunched the numbers to reveal that the number-one reason for failure, cited by 42% of polled startups, is the lack of a market need for their product.

近日，CB Insights公司深入剖析了101篇由公司創始人撰寫的失敗剖析文章，探尋了他們心目中自己公司失敗的根本原因。對數據進行分析後，這家公司於週四指出，42%的受訪創業公司選擇的失敗首要原因，是產品缺乏市場需求。

That should be self-evident. If no one wants your product, your company isn’t going to succeed. But many startups build things people don’t want with the irrational hope that they’ll convince them otherwise.

這其實是不言自明的。如果壓根就沒人想要你的產品，你的公司當然不會成功。但是很多創業企業卻恰恰製造了人們不想要的產品，同時又不切實際地希望能夠說服人們接受這些產品。

The most prominent modern example of this phenomenon is the mobile phone. People dismissed it as a novelty in its early days. Obviously, they are no longer a novelty. The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs famously said, “A lot of times, people don’t know what they want until you show it to them.” The problem is that entrepreneurs have taken that to heart. For every $19 billion company like Uber, the private transportation service, there are all manner of frivolous products that never evolve past the phase.

關於這個現象，一個最明顯的例子就是手機。在手機剛問世時，人們覺得它只是個新鮮小玩意兒，不怎麼當回事。當然，現在手機再也不算什麼新鮮玩意了。蘋果公司（Apple）聯合創始人史蒂夫o喬布斯有句名言，“很多時候，人們並不知道自己真正的需求，直到你放在他們眼前時他們纔會醒悟。”問題是很多創業者都太把這句話當真了。每出現一個類似打車軟件製造商Uber這樣市值達到190億美元的公司，或許便有無數沒有走出研發階段的膚淺產品。

There are more practical concerns. Polled founders also cited a lack of sufficient capital (29%), the assembly of the wrong team for the project (23%), and superior competition (19%) as top reasons for failure.

當然失敗還和更實際的問題有關。受訪創始人們列舉的原因還有，缺乏足夠資金（29%），項目團隊的人員組成問題（23%）以及競爭激烈（19%）。

The self-assessment lines up, for the most part, with what industry experts have said. Paul Graham, a partner at the Y Combinator startup accelerator, wrote in 2007 that startups usually die because they run out of money or a founder leaves.

這些自我評估中，絕大多數都和業內專家所說的一致。比如著名孵化器Y Combinator的創始人保羅o格雷厄姆2007年就曾在文中表示，創業公司倒閉的原因通常是耗光了資金或是某位創始人離職。

Steve Hogan, who runs a startup turn-around shop called Tech-Rx, says companies with founded by one person—that is, no partners—are most likely to fail. He ranks product demand, or a lack thereof, second. The existence of a co-founder helps avoid many of the reasons cited at the bottom of the CB Insights chart, he says, including disharmony, poor marketing, and the wrong team.

斯蒂夫o霍根經營着一家名爲Tech-Rx的公司，教創業公司如何扭轉不利局面。他表示，那些由一個人（也就是沒有合夥人）創立的公司是最容易失敗的。而產品需求，或者說缺乏產品需求，則排在第二位。他還表示，如果有聯合創始人，就能規避掉CB Insights圖表中一些靠後的問題，比如團隊不和諧，營銷不力，以及團隊人員不合適等。

Running out of cash does not cause a startup’s failure, Hogan says—it’s merely a symptom of another issue. Excluding instances of “stupid spending” or the inability to raise capital in the first place, startups tend to run out of cash when a CEO has overlooked all other indicators of failure. “Unfortunately, sometimes it’s the only ‘symptom’ that the leadership sees,” he says.

他還說，資金用光並不會讓創業公司倒閉——那只是其他問題的症狀而已。如果排除掉“胡亂花錢”或是創辦時就缺乏募資能力這些原因，創業公司之所以容易花光錢，主要是因爲首席執行官忽視了所有其他失敗的苗頭。他說：“不幸的是，有時候缺錢卻是領導層所能看見的唯一‘症狀’。”