怎样做到专注?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman IV.2)

如果说创业成功有口诀的话,那就是“专注、投入”。

(创业由四个部分组成,理念、团队、产品、执行力。Startup Playbook 是YC掌门人Sam Altman对这四个方面的完整阐述,这是执行力当中关于专注的部分。我们都知道专注的重要性,然而真正能做到专注的并不多,为什么呢,请看看Sam是怎么说的。)

If I had to distill my advice about how to operate down to only two words, I’d pick focus and intensity. These words seem to really apply to the best founders I know.

如果要用两个词来提炼我对运营一个公司的看法,我觉得应该是 “专注” 和 “速度”。我认识的最强创始人都符合这两点。

They are relentlessly focused on their product and growth. They don’t try to do everything—in fact, they say no a lot (this is hard because the sort of people that start companies are the sort of people that like doing new things.)

首先,他们都丧心病狂般地专心聚焦在打磨产品和增长上。他们不会尝试着什么都做——事实上,他们经常说 “不” (其实这很难做到,因为对很多创业者来说,之所以会去创业正是因为喜欢做新东西啊)。

As a general rule, don’t let your company start doing the next thing until you’ve dominated the first thing. No great company I know of started doing multiple things at once—they start with a lot of conviction about one thing, and see it all the way through. You can do far fewer things than you think.

总的原则就是,在一件事做得足够好之前,不要让你的公司去做第二件事。据我所知,没有哪个伟大的公司是靠同时做好几件事情起家的。他们都是从做一件事开始,先把这件事想清楚、做到底。别忘了你真正同时能做的事情比你以为的要少得多。

A very, very common cause of startup death is doing too many of the wrong things. Prioritization is critical and hard. (Equally important to setting the company’s priorities is setting your own tactical priorities. What I’ve found works best for me personally is a pen-and-paper list for each day with ~3 major tasks and ~30 minor ones, and an annual to-do list of overall goals.)

创业公司的一个非常普遍的死因就是做了太多事,而这些事是错的,所以分清楚事情的轻重缓急是一项重要且不易完成的任务。(跟设定公司事项的轻重缓急一样重要的是,设定你自己个人事项的轻重缓急。对我而言最有用的办法还是用纸和笔,每天写下三个主要任务和三十个次要任务,还有写下每年的总目标及工作清单。)

While great founders don’t do many big projects, they do whatever they do very intensely. They get things done very quickly. They are decisive, which is hard when you’re running a startup—you will get a lot of conflicting advice, both because there are multiple ways to do things and because there’s a lot of bad advice out there. Great founders listen to all of the advice and then quickly make their own decisions.

优秀的创业者不会同时做很多大项目,可他们一旦决定做什么事,就会重拳出击。他们做事非常雷厉风行,也擅于作出决策(创业中要做决策其实很难——你会听到相互矛盾的各种建议,因为事情往往有多种解决方法,而且有许多低质量的建议冒出来)。优秀的创业者总是听所有人的意见,然后迅速做出自己的决定。

Please note that this doesn’t mean doing everything intensely—that’s impossible. You have to pick the right things. As Paul Buchheit says, find ways to get 90% of the value with 10% of the effort. The market doesn’t care how hard you work—it only cares if you do the right things.

请注意我不是说每件事都要快速重拳出击——那是不可能的,你必须把最该做的事情找出来。Paul Buchheit说过,要找到靠 10% 的力气就能撬动 90% 价值的事。残酷的市场不会在意你工作有多勤奋,它只会体现出你是否做对了事情。

It’s very hard to be both obsessed with product quality and move very quickly. But it’s one of the most obvious tells of a great founder.
I have never, not once, seen a slow-moving founder be really successful.

的确,又要保证产品质量又要快速向前推进简直太难了。但也正是这点,成为优秀创业者与平庸之辈的分水岭。
我从来没有见过,一次都没有,哪个行事慢条斯理的创业者能做得很成功。

You are not different from other startups. You still have to stay focused and move fast. Companies building rockets and nuclear reactors still manage to do this. All failing companies have a pet explanation for why they are different and don’t have to move fast.

你跟别的创业公司没什么不同,你也必须保持专心致志并且快速推进。所有卢瑟公司都会有各种理由来解释他们为啥做不到快速成长。可是想想吧,连那些造火箭和核反应堆的公司也能做到这点,你为啥不能?

When you find something that works, keep going. Don’t get distracted and do something else. Don’t take your foot off the gas.

就好像在一片漆黑之中,你看到某个方向显出了曙光,那就赶紧朝着那个方向走去。不要分神去做别的事,脚不沾地一路飞奔过去吧!

Don’t get caught up in early success—you didn’t get off to a promising start by going to lots of networking events and speaking on lots of panels. Startup founders who start to have initial success have a choice of two paths: either they keep doing what they’re doing, or they start spending a lot of time thinking about their “personal brand” and enjoying the status of being a founder.

切记不要被一点早期小成功冲昏了头脑,参加各种大会或者当演讲嘉宾不会对你做好事情有什么帮助。小有成就的创业者一般分两种:一种继续埋头做事,另一种开始考虑他们的 “个人品牌” ,并且开始享受头上的 “创业者” 光环。

It’s hard to turn down the conferences and the press profiles—they feel good, and it’s especially hard to watch other founders in your space get the attention. But this won’t last long.

你往往很难对参加各种大会以及在媒体上露脸的机会说 “不”——当众人的焦点感觉好极了,尤其是看到同领域的竞争对手出尽风头而你却默默无闻,你心里会更加痒痒的。但要相信,烟火总是稍纵即逝。

Eventually the press figures out who is actually winning, and if your company is a real success, you’ll have more attention than you’ll ever want. The extreme cases—early-stage founders with their own publicists—that one would think only exist in TV shows actually exist in real life, and they almost always fail.
Focus and intensity will win out in the long run. (Charlie Rose once said that things get done in the world through a combination of focus and personal connections, and that’s always stuck with me.)

当媒体最终发现你才是真正的赢家,你的公司成了江湖大佬,那时你被关注的程度会绝对超出你的想象。有些早期创业公司还有自己的炒作团队,那肯定最终会失败,有些狗血故事你以为在电视里才能看到吗,现实生活中真的存在 【注:我觉得贾老板的故事就比电视连续剧吸引眼球啊,然而公司做不好唱啥也没用】,只有专注和速度才能笑到最后。(访谈节目主持人 Charlie Rose 曾说,只有集中资源并充分利用人脉关系才能办成大事,我非常认可这点。)

怎样验证创业理念?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman I)

创始团队需要什么样的特质?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman II)

怎样做出NB的产品?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman III)

怎样做增长?(Startup Playbook from Sam Altman IV.1)

原创文章,作者:创业百花谷,如若转载,请注明出处:https://www.liuwanlan.com/interlocution/374

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