创业者如何熬过第一年
【创业者如何熬过第一年】1.别随便招人；2.持有现金；3.获得客户并跟进；3.保持健康，否则必败；4.每周五都请一名女按摩师犒劳员工；5.马上解雇态度消极的员工；6.对每个客户都要过度承诺，并过度实现，仅限第一次；7.别轻易委任销售主管或经销商，你自己就是；8.抢竞争对手的客户。 投资者 作者 创业者 程序员James Altucher【创业者如何熬过第一年】①别随便招人②持有现金③获得客户并跟进④保持健康,否则必败⑤每周五都请一名女按摩师犒劳员工⑥马上解雇态度消极的员工⑦对每个客户都要过度承诺,并过度实现,仅限第一次⑧别轻易委任销售主管或经销商,你自己就是⑨抢竞争对手的客户最近热门话题：比特币最大交易所破产,京东要上市,阿里随后,微信支付红包袭击支付宝,理财通pk余额宝,嘀嘀pk快的打车,等都与互联网金融息息相关，互联网金融风险是什么？没吃过亏的创业者,投资者,消费者是没避险意识！北上广深#创业成长退出上市沙龙#主题:【如何控制互联网金融的风险】：
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How to Survive Your First Year As An Entrepreneur
如何熬过第一年
Dec 29, 2011 by James Altucher at TechCrunch
James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him@jaltucher.
作者詹姆斯·阿尔图切 ( James Altucher) 是一位投资人、作者、程序员兼创业人士。同时也是资产管理公司 Formula Capital 的总经理，曾写过 6 本关于投资的书，最新的作品为 I Was Blind But Now I See。此人经常会写一些经验类的文章给创业者和投资人，文风幽默犀利。这是发表在 Techcrunch 上的一篇文章，作者根据自己的创业和投资经验，总结出了 9 点非常重要的经验，相信会对创业者在第一年的发展有所帮助。以下为正文：
我以前在 HBO 有一份固定的工作：IT 部门的初级程序员分析师 (Junior Programmer Analyst in the IT department)。我告诉 HBO：“你们做原创的电视节目，为何不做做看互联网节目呢？”于是很神奇地，从 1996-98 年，他们让我在凌晨三点做任何我想做的东西，并把内容放到网上去。我最早的工作是和 Unix/Oracle 相关的，可惜我完全不合格，也不知道该怎么办。所以我想到了一个更有趣的主意，并让别人允许我开展。
市场部门的一个人告诉我说：“你不可以那样做。”但是，对一心想干番事业的人来说，这正是催促你行动的信号。约翰·洛克菲勒把全美的石油公司收入囊中，而没人认为他可以办到。卡内基买下了全美的钢铁公司，拉里·佩奇在对商业模式毫无概念的时候就打造出了一个搜索引擎。他们都成了亿万富翁。詹姆斯·阿尔图切 (James Altucher，作者自己) 则几乎是不计酬劳地在凌晨三点的纽约市区街头采访性工作者。我们骨子里都有基因决定了的偏爱和嗜好。
接着有另一家娱乐公司开始让我帮他们做同样的东西。“你能把我们的网站变得更有趣更有娱乐性吗？”他们都要有趣的东西。于是我就上船了，进入了一个陌生的世界。我一下子就成了“创业者”了，而我还不知道这个词是什么意思呢。到了办公室，不知给谁打电话，也没有人愿意回我的电话。我不再属于 HBO 了。每天我都想哭。我并不是一个天生的生意人，但我努力从第一年犯下的 5000 个错误里吸引教训。
我在这里要说的是，你们这些新手真是幸运，有我告诉清楚地告诉你们从创业的第一天要怎么做。照着我说的去做，否则你很有可能会失败。我是认真的，没有在开玩笑。
-别随便招人。只有在你濒临绝望迫切需要帮手的时候才招人。首先要招的是自由职业者，这样你就可以随时解雇他们了。我注意到，人们从 VC 那里拿到钱以后，做的第一件事情往往是开始招人。我成立的第一家公司从第一天就开始盈利，从来没有募集过一分钱。接着我成立了第二家公司，从 VC 那里拿到了 3000 万美元，接着就把这些钱都花在了招聘上面。后来我这个 CEO 就被董事会给扫地出门了。他们接着又募集了 5000 万美元，在一年前很廉价把公司给卖了。
-持有现金。要是 VC 给你的公司投钱了，别管他们怎么说，都要把钱放在银行里，别一下子就装个大公司的样子出来。你真的需要请每小时要价 400 美元的律师在董事会议上做笔记吗？你真需要开董事会议吗？在你获得至少五个大方付钱的客户之前，你甚至连秘书都不需要。在创业的第一年里，你不需要什么销售主管或市场主管，你自己就是销售和市场主管。你不需要任何的 VP，你自己就是 VP。你才刚起步呀！
-获得客户。为你公司筹得现金的办法从易到难依次是：客户、预支应收账款、抵押房产、向亲戚朋友借钱，接着是天使投资、风险投资和上市。注意：VC 几乎是排在最后的，说不定你根本就用不着他们呢。为什么人人都要追着 VC 不放呢？你银行帐户上真的需要 1000 万美元么？你才刚刚开始呀！我该把这个列作第一条：在有第一个客户之前，别开始创业。
-获得客户，之二。要想法设法地获得愿意付钱的客户。如果是个内容网站就找个赞助商吧。你要卖的是产品或者服务，就找个客户。你要是连个客户都找不着，只能说明你的产品真的很烂，或者你的激情还不够。请在白板前再费费工夫，仔细想想。再多花个 5000 美元，开发点新的功能。注意：我说的是 5000 美元，而不是 1000 万美元。
-获得客户，之三。对所有事情说“Yes”，所有事情。要是他们要来个手术，你就披“褂”上阵。要是他们要更新数据库，而你公司造的是网球，你也要说：“没问题，我手下有人懂这个。他之前是印度班加罗尔的数据库专家，现在在帮我们做网球。我让他周六早上就给您整数据库去，他会给您再捎上些点心。”
-综上：要想办法让你的潜在客户点头，哪怕你要免费帮他们做事。比如，如果你说：“我可以免费帮你把你的对头给摆平了。”他们就没办法拒绝你了。
-对每一个客户都要过度承诺，并过度实现(Over-promise and over deliver)。但仅限于在第一次的时候，不要一直对每个人都这样，你会累垮的，你也要休息的不是？
-假如客户说：“我想在我们的办公室里谈。”请仔细听着：绝对不要去他们的办公室。再也别去。
-最重要的一点：保持幸运。如果你不保持健康（身体上、情感上、心智上、精神上），你在第一年必败无疑。在失败上面我称得上是个专家。你坐的凳子要是没有上面那四条腿，你跟头是摔定了。
-如果有人说：“招你进来我可冒了不少的风险。”听我的，尽早拿到薪水，最好拿到预付薪水，你不会再和那个人打交道了。如果他所说的“风险”指的就是招聘你，那不干也罢。像这类人会跑上街头卖红薯去的（在此没有任何侮辱卖红薯的劳动人民的意思）。
-每周五都请一位女按摩师犒劳犒劳你的所有员工。当然，首先你得有间办公室。最理想的状态是，你没有办公室。但你要是有，而且员工也都在那的话，就请个女按摩师吧。对你的员工来说，“终于到周五了”的意思就是“今天能来办公室，真不错。”我第一家公司被卖掉时，我有 50 多位员工，除我之外，每个人都能享受按摩（我不喜欢有人碰我）。
-我不善于跟进客户，但你必须得这样做。如果你有一个潜在的客户，尽快从电话转到会议，再尽快转到饭桌上去。生意都是在饭桌上谈成的。把帐单给付了，再问问看他们的爱情生活，要是还是单身的话，把他 / 她和你最好的单身朋友撮合在一起（当然，性别和性向要合适）。
-等他们成为客户以后，就把他们变成伙伴。有三个办法：
* 橄榄枝得一直给他们伸着，等他们最终从蹩脚的工作跳到你公司的时候，你就给他们一份酷酷的市场 VP 的工作。
* 征询意见。问问他们你有什么可以为他们效劳的，必要的时候哪怕免费也给帮忙办了（初次要过度承诺，并过度实现。）
* 问问他们还有谁需要你帮忙的。
最好的新客户就是你的老客户。第二好的新客户就是老客户的朋友们。
-在你所有的闲暇时间里，为你的客户效劳。雇佣他们有智力障碍的侄子外甥，为他们的慈善事业出一份力，去他们做志愿者的地方做志愿者。作为创业者，第一年的所有闲暇时间都得花在为客户效劳上面。想法设法帮助客户建立他们的关系网，他们的关系网越大，你的关系网就越有价值。
-马上解雇那些态度消极的员工。有员工开始在楼梯间里抽烟并谈论你了。消极态度传染起来就和癌细胞一样，而摆脱癌症晚期的唯一办法是用激进疗法把坏的细胞给消灭掉。立刻把消极的员工解雇掉，别给第二次机会，你不会因此后悔的。但这并不是说要你留着那些唯唯诺诺一味附和的员工，有不同意见的人必须得是和你一起努力的，而不是在背后捣蛋。如果他们开始心有不忿，就把他们扫地出门。
-如果有人想当你的销售主管，只有在他们可以马上给你带来足够的收入和利润来支付他们的薪水的时候才给他们这个职位。招聘别的人都是在浪费时间。
如果有人向你做了自我介绍但并不成功（比如没获得什么客户），那就不用再听他们的了。他们做了最好的尝试但不成功，因而他们第二次的尝试自然也不会有效。要是你给了他们做第三次尝试的机会，你大概也聪明不到哪儿去吧。
-别订什么经销商协议。公司都在艰难销售自家的产品，没人会在乎你的产品或服务。或许第二年会有人在乎，但是在第一年，如果有人要替你代卖，你可以对他说：“没问题，先给我几个电话号码看看。”接着请参考上一段。
-从竞争对手手上抢客户过来。记位，他们一开始会对客户过度承诺并过度实现，然后他们就会让人失望了（或表现得和别人一样）。致电给决策的人 (客户)，提议帮他们做个不费多少钱的小项目，并超出期望地实现出来。一旦你的竞争对手最后让客户失望，客户第一个就会想起你。记住，最容易的新客户是你的老客户，然后是他们的朋友们，再然后是竞争对手的客户。
-最后，别犯这九个错误里的任何一个。
如果你照着上面的做，在你第二年的第一天里，你就会获得客户、现金流、许多熟人、为你两肋插刀的新朋友，你的个性也整个会改变。要是没做到，请回头再把上面所讲的重复做一遍，并保持健康（你发财了才不至于疯掉）。
How to Survive Your First Year As An Entrepreneur
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/29/how-to-survive-your-first-year-as-an-entrepreneur/
Dec 29, 2011 by James Altucher, Contributor
Editor’s note: James Altucher is an investor, programmer, author, and entrepreneur. He is Managing Director of Formula Capital and has written 6 books on investing. His latest book is I Was Blind But Now I See. You can follow him@jaltucher.
I loved talking to the skankiest prostitutes at three in the morning with a camera crew around me, fires burning in the street, sad, abused people clinging to scraps of life for their pleasures, bailed out prisoners and the drug dealers waiting for them to be released, homeless addicts with nowhere to go and they only weren’t freaks if you saw them at three in the morning .
In short,I loved my job.
Entrepreneurship ruined it. I’m not like how Mark Zuckerberg describes himself: “a builder”. My guess is, I’m not like most of the smart people who read this blog who go out there and build things to improve the lives of others. And yet, I kept doing it to myself over and over again. Once you enter the world of “eat what you kill” you can’t go back to being spoon-fed by the pencil factory anymore. Sadly. I write about my first job here (and the prostitutes).
I had a regular job at HBO. My title: Junior Programmer Analyst in the IT department. I told HBO, “you do original TV programming so why not do original web programming.” And magically, from 1996-98, they let me do whatever I wanted to do at three in the morning and then put it on their website.My original job was to do some Unix/ Oracle thing that I was totally unqualified for and didn’t know how to do. So I figured out a more fun idea for myself and persuaded them to let me do it.
(Rockefeller. The opposite of me)
Someone in the marketing department at HBO told me, “You CAN’T DO THAT.” But, as the readers of this blog already know, that’s the call to action to anyone who is going to do anything. For John D. Rockefeller it was to roll up all the oil companies in America. Nobody thought he could do it. For Andrew Carnegie, it was to buy all of the steel companies in America. For Larry Page, it was to build the 100th search engine without any ideas about a business model. They became billionaires. For James Altucher, it was to interview all of the prostitutes at three in the morning in NYC for almost no money. We each have the built-in predilections given to us by genes, upbringing, and whatever black magic you call god.
Then other entertainment companies started asking me to do the same thing for them. “Can you make our web presence entertaining and fun?” We want fun, they all said. So I jumped ship. Entered the world of the wild. Suddenly I was an “entrepreneur”. I didn’t even know what that meant. I got to the office. I had nobody to call. And nobody would return my calls anymore. I was no longer at HBO.I would cry every day. I wasn’t a natural businessman. But I tried to learn from the 5,000 or so mistakes I made that first year.
All I’m saying is, thank god you first-timers have me to now tell you exactly what you should do in your first year of being an entrepreneur. Do everything I say below or you’ll probably fail. I’m dead serious.
- Don’t hire anyone. Only hire people when you are absolutely desperate for more hands. And then start with freelancers. So you can fire them right away. When people raise money from VCs I notice the first thingthey do is hire people. After my first company, which was profitable from day one and never raised a dollar,I started a second company where I raised $30 million from VCs and then hired $30 million worth of people, was fired as CEO and from the board, they then raised another $50 million or so and sold a year or so ago for about $1.
- Keep the cash. If VCs put money in your business then no matter what they say, keep cash in the bank. Don’t act like a big company all of a sudden. Do you really need your lawyer at $400 an hour to take notes at a board meeting? Do you really need a board meeting? You don’t need a secretary until you have at least five, paying, profitable customers, if ever. You don’t need a head of sales or marketing your first year. You are the head of sales and marketing. You don’t need any VPs. You’re all VPs. You just started!
- Get a customer. In order, here is the easiest cash you can get for your business: Customers, borrow against receivables, borrow against your house, friends and family, angels, venture capitalists, the public. Note that the VCs are near the end. Maybe you never need them. Why does everyone chase big-time VCs all the time? Do you really need $10 million in the bank. You just started! I shoud’ve made this point number one. Don’t even start your business unless you have a customer.
- Get a customer, part II. Give equity if you have to. Sell your first baby (or take mine). Do whatever it takes to get one paying customer. If you are a content site: get a sponsor. If you are a product or a service, get a customer. If you can’t get a customer then that means you have a shitty product or you’re not passionate enough about it. Go back to the drawing board. Take an extra $5,000 and make some new features. Note: I said “$5,000”. Not “$10 million”.
- Get a customer, part III – I mentioned this last week. Say “yes” to everything. EVERYTHING. If they need surgery performed on them, you’ll do it. If they need a database updated and your company makes tennis balls then say, “no problem, I have a guy for that. He was the database expert of Bangalore. And now he makes tennis balls for us. I’ll send him over Saturday morning to fix your database. And he’ll bring some pastries.”
- Corollary to the above: get the potential customer to say “yes”. Even if you have to do stuff for free. Just get them to yes. They can’t say no, for instance, if you say, “we can blow up your enemy for free.”
- Over-promise and over deliver for every customer. But only the first time. Don’t kill yourself for everyone all the time. You need sleep!
- If a client says, “I’d rather have this conversation in our offices,” then listen to me: DO NOT EVER go to their office. Don’t go there ever again.
- Most important: Stay Lucky.If you don’t stay healthy: physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, in your first year, its a guaranteed failure. I’m an expert on failure. Not having the four legs mentioned above means the chair you are sitting on is going to break and you are going to fall.
- If someone says, “I’m taking a big chance by hiring you”, get paid as quickly as possible. Get paid up front. You’re never going to do business with that person again. If his version of “chance” was hiring you then that’s it. He’s back to the pencil factory for his next vendor (no insult to pencil factory workers.)
- Every Friday, pay for a masseuse to come in for all of your employees. This assumes you have an office. Ideally, you have no office. But if you do, and employees are there, then get a masseuse. Make: “thank god it’s Friday” mean to your employees: “I’m so glad I’m going into the office today.” I had 50 or so employees at my first business when we got sold. Massages for everyone except me on Fridays (I don’t like anyone to touch me).
- I’m horrible at followup. But you have to do it. If you have a potential client, move it from the phone to the meeting, to dinner as quickly as possible. Dinner seals the deal. Pick up the tab. Ask about their love lives. If they are lonely, hook them up with your best single friend of the appropriate gender and sexual preference.
- Once they are a client, make them a partner. There’s three ways to do that:
* Always hold out the bait that they can eventually make the jump from their crappy job at the pencil factory to the cool VP of Marketing position eventually opening up at your company (no offense to pencil factories).
* Ask for advice. Ask them what else do they need that you can help them with, for free if you have to (over promise and over deliver the first time).
* Ask them if they know anyone else who might need your services.
* The best new customers are your old customers. The second best new customers are your old customers’ friends.
- In all of your spare time, do favors for your clients. Hire their mentally-challenged nephews. Contribute to their charities. Volunteer where they volunteer. Give double everyone else when they run in one of those stupid marathons for cancer. I say “stupid” because why can’t the cancer thing just ask for the money without forcing people to run for 26 miles. Your entire free moments of the first year of being an entrepreneur should be spent thinking of favors to do for your clients. Use the techniques of “Super connecting” to build up your clients’ networks. The bigger their networks, the more valuable yours becomes. Don’t horde your network or your favors.
- Fire immediately any employee with a negative attitude. Employees start to smoke in the stairwell and talk about you. So negative attitudes spread like a cancer. The only way to get rid of advanced cancer is radical chemotherapy to burn off the bad cells. Fire all negative employees immediately. No second chances. You won’t regret it. This doesn’t mean keep only yes-men. But the no-people have to workwith you, not against you. If they start grumbling in anger, then they are fired.
- If someone wants to be your head of sales, only hire them if they are immediately bringing in enough revenues and profits to cover their salary. Everyone else is a waste of time.
Corollary: if someone makes an intro for you and it doesn’t work out (i.e. no customer results out of it) then never listen to them again. They gave their best shot and it didn’t work. So their second best shot won’t work either. And once you are on their third best shot then you’re probably an idiot.
- Reseller agreements are for suckers. Companies have a hard enough time selling their own products. Nobody really gives a shit about your products or services. Maybe in year two. But in year one, if someone wants to resell you then say, “sure, give me some phone numbers to call right now.” Then refer to the corollary above.
- Steal your competitors’ customers from them. Remember, they over-promised and over-delivered the first time. Then they began to disappoint (or perform like everyone else). Call up the decision maker and offer to do a little project for a little bit of money and totally over-deliver. You’ll be first on the speed dial when your competitor eventually disappoints. Which they will. Nobody can make the best purple tennis ball forever. Remember the easiest new customer is…err… your old customers! And then their friends. And then…your competitors’ customers.
- Finally, don’t make any of these nine mistakes. By the way, I plagiarized the post that link goes to. But you’ll never find where I plagiarized it from. Just don’t make those nine mistakes in your first year or you will fail. Free PDF of my latest book if you can guess where I take the 9 mistakes from.
Then, on the first day of your second year, if you follow the above, you’ll have customers, cash flows, a network of contacts, new friends who will kill for you, and your entire personality will be different. For the worse. So go back, try to repeat all of the above, and stay healthy. In order to stay sane while you get rich. By the way, you still might fail on that first business. But now it’s too late for you. You’re never going back to the pencil factory. You’re an animal, you hunt in the wild, you dig your sharp teeth into flesh and enjoy it, and at the top of the mountain you roar like a lion and everyone cowers in fear.
涨姿势。 -假如客户说：“我想在我们的办公室里谈。”请仔细听着：绝对不要去他们的办公室。再也别去。
这是为什么呢？？？ 在创业的第一年里，你不需要什么销售主管或市场主管，你自己就是销售和市场主管。你不需要任何的 VP，你自己就是 VP。
顶这句
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