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,这是第三部分,关于产品。
Here is the secret to success: have a great product. This is the only thing all great companies have in common.
If you do not build a product users love you will eventually fail. Yet founders always look for some other trick. Startups are the point in your life when tricks stop working.
创业成功的秘诀就一个,就是要有好产品。这是所有伟大公司唯一的共性。
虽然创始人们总会想办法耍一些花招,可是如果用户不热爱你的产品,那最终还是会失败的。在创业这件事上,小花招真的没有用。
A great product is the only way to grow long-term. Eventually your company will get so big that all growth hacks stop working and you have to grow by people wanting to use your product. This is the most important thing to understand about super-successful companies. There is no other way. Think about all of the really successful technology companies—they all do this.
好产品是保持长期增长的唯一方法。随着公司的发展,总有一天所有 “黑客增长” 的方法都不再奏效,你还是得寄希望于用户真正喜欢你的产品。超级成功的公司为什么会成功,这是最重要的一条。没有其他的捷径。看一下所有真正成功的技术公司吧,他们全这么做。
You want to build a “product improvement engine” in your company. You should talk to your users and watch them use your product, figure out what parts are sub-par, and then make your product better. Then do it again. This cycle should be the number one focus of the company, and it should drive everything else. If you improve your product 5% every week, it will really compound.
在公司内部需要有一个 “产品改进引擎”。你得跟用户交流,观察他们是如何使用产品的,弄清楚交互的各个环节,然后优化产品。不断迭代。这个过程应该是公司的第一重点,并且成为所有其他事情的驱动力。如果能做到每周让产品提升 5% ,它就会有指数级的改变。
The faster the repeat rate of this cycle, the better the company usually turns out. During YC, we tell founders they should be building product and talking to users, and not much else besides eating, sleeping, exercising, and spending time with their loved ones.
上述迭代速度越快,公司的整体情况往往越好。在 YC ,我们告诉所有创始人他们应该打磨产品并且和用户聊,然后除了吃饭、睡觉、锻炼、跟亲人在一起之外,就不要干什么别的事了。
To do this cycle right, you have to get very close to your users. Literally watch them use your product. Sit in their office if you can. Value both what they tell you and what they actually do. You should not put anyone between the founders and the users for as long as possible—that means the founders need to do sales, customer support, etc.
Understand your users as well as you possibly can. Really figure out what they need, where to find them, and what makes them tick.
要把迭代循环做好,你必须非常靠近用户。真的去看他们是如何使用产品的。可以的话甚至坐到他们的办公室里。既要听他们说的,也要看他们实际是怎么做的。创始人必须直接面对用户,中间不要有其他人,这个阶段越长越好,这意味着创始人需要亲自负责销售和客户支持之类的事情。
尽可能地了解你的用户。真正去明白他们想要什么,哪里能找到他们,还有如何打动他们。
“Do things that don’t scale” has rightfully become a mantra for startups. You usually need to recruit initial users one at a time (Ben Silbermann used to approach strangers in coffee shops in Palo Alto and ask them to try Pinterest) and then build things they ask for.
“做小规模的事情”已经成了很大创业公司的座右铭。你需要一个个地拉用户(Ben Silbermann 曾经在 Palo Alto 的咖啡馆内和陌生人搭讪,请他们去试用 Pinterest),然后根据他们提出的需求进行开发。
Many founders hate this part, and just want to announce their product in the press. But that almost never works. Recruit users manually, and make the product so good the users you recruit tell their friends.
许多创始人却不愿意这么做,就喜欢在媒体上发布他们的产品。但是那样几乎起不了什么作用。亲自挖掘早期用户吧,不断打磨产品,让产品好到令早期用户会主动推荐给身边的朋友,那才是王道。
You also need to break things into very small pieces, and iterate and adapt as you go. Don’t try to plan too far out, and definitely don’t batch everything into one big public release. You want to start with something very simple—as little surface area as possible—and launch it sooner than you’d think. In fact, simplicity is always good, and you should always keep your product and company as simple as possible.
你还需要把事情分解成非常小的部分,然后进行迭代和调整。不要做太长远的计划,并且绝对不要将所有功能都挤到一个版本去发布,而是要从非常简单的需求开始,越小越好,然后以最快的速度迭代上线。事实上,简单永远是好的,永远需要尽可能地保持产品和公司的简单。
Some common questions we ask startups having problems: Are users using your product more than once? Are your users fanatical about your product? Would your users be truly bummed if your company went away? Are your users recommending you to other people without you asking them to do it? If you’re a B2B company, do you have at least 10 paying customers?
对于那些遇到问题的创业公司,我们经常会问这样的问题:
- 用户是否会重复使用产品?
- 用户对你的产品狂热吗?
- 如果你的公司倒闭了用户是否会感到沮丧?
- 用户是否会自发地推荐产品给其他朋友?
- 如果你是一款面向企业的产品,你是否拥有至少 10 个付费用户?
If not, then that’s often the underlying problem, and we tell companies to make their product better. I am skeptical about most excuses for why a company isn’t growing—very often the real reason is that the product just isn’t good enough.
如果不是的话,通常是有潜在的问题了,这些公司就应该继续打磨产品。我对于大部分关于公司发展不好的解释都持怀疑态度,其实真正的原因基本上就是产品不够好。
When startups aren’t sure what to do next with their product, or if their product isn’t good enough, we send them to go talk to their users. This doesn’t work in every case—it’s definitely true that people would have asked Ford for faster horses—but it works surprisingly often. In fact, more generally, when there’s a disagreement about anything in the company, talk to your users.
当创业公司不清楚产品下一步的发展方向,或者不清楚产品是不是足够好的时候,我们提醒他们去和用户交流。这招不见得什么时候都好使 – 没见过汽车的人们的确会要求福特弄出速度更快的马 – 但很多时候还是很有效的。事实上,更多情况下,当公司内部发生一些分歧的时候,去跟用户聊聊是最好的解决方案。
The best founders seem to care a little bit too much about product quality, even for seemingly unimportant details. But it seems to work. By the way, “product” includes all interactions a user has with the company. You need to offer great support, great sales interactions, etc.
最好的创始人对于产品的质量有时会过于苛刻,即使是在一些看上去并不重要的细节上。但它其实是有用的。顺便提一句, 所谓“产品” 还包含从公司到用户之间的所有交互环节。你还得有最好的客服支持和销售互动等等。
Remember, if you haven’t made a great product, nothing else will save you.
记住,如果你还没有做出一款伟大的产品,没有任何其他事情可以救你。
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