视频信息
- 标题: 斯坦福：YC创业课 - 第19集：如何与投资者谈话，融资会谈
- BV号: BV1oWKpzoE1Z
- 时长: 48分48秒（2928秒）
- 作者: 常春藤中英字幕课
- 原始链接: B站视频
视频摘要
本视频为YC（Y Combinator）创业孵化器分享融资与销售技巧的课程，分为两部分：前半部分由Clever CEO Tyler分享销售经验，后半部分由YC合伙人Michael Seibel和Dalton Caldwell讲解如何向投资者pitch。Tyler强调销售漏斗、倾听客户、快速获得明确反馈等核心技巧；Michael Seibel重点讲解30秒和两分钟pitch的框架，包括公司定位、市场规模、traction、独特洞察、商业模式、团队介绍和大请求。Dalton通过实际角色扮演演示了糟糕pitch与成功pitch的对比，强调融资不是终点，公司增长才是关键。
核心要点
销售漏斗： prospecting（寻找潜在客户）、对话、确认意向、签约、收入是漏斗的五个阶段，早期创始人需要亲自全职投入销售。
倾听原则：最优秀的销售员只花30%时间说话，让对方说70%，通过大量提问深入理解客户需求，而非滔滔不绝介绍产品功能。
跟进力度：完成一笔交易可能需要60个步骤，创始人必须有超人的意愿持续跟进，直到获得明确的是或否答案。
快速决策：避免大量可能客户堆积，快速获得肯定或否定反馈比无限期等待更有利于公司推进。
redlining陷阱：签约不是为了完美条款，而是为了获得收入和验证，过度争论条款会陷入关闭陷阱。
30秒pitch三句话：公司做什么、市场有多大、有多少traction，用妈妈测试确保语言简洁易懂。
融资时机：有traction时融资更有优势，要创造你强投资者弱的局面，保持团队全职投入、快速进展的状态。
温暖介绍优先：安排投资者会议应通过其他企业家的温暖介绍，平行安排同一周的所有会议，发出不急于融资的信号。
视频全文转录（中英双语）
以下为完整中英双语转录，已加标点。英文在前，中文在后，逐段对照。
由 Groq Whisper 转录 → M2.7 B 方案整文标点 + 分段 → M2.7 段号保留翻译 → 逐段对照。
[段 1]
So, okay, great, thanks for having me. So, my name’s Tyler, I’m the CEO of Clever, and what I want to talk about today is sales. And I have a little bit of insight into this. I graduated college, I actually studied math and statistics, probably like some of you here in this room, and thought I was destined for this world of finance. I was about to go start at a hedge fund, and at the last second, a friend of mine roped me in to join his startup, and asked me to do sales there, which was something that I knew nothing about. And so had to figure out on the fly and spent a couple of years there figuring out sales for this very early stage company.
[译文 1]
所以，好的，很好，谢谢你们邀请我。我叫Tyler，我是Clever的CEO，今天我想谈的是销售。我在这方面有一些见解。我毕业于数学和统计学专业，可能和你们在座的一些人一样，当时以为自己注定要进入金融领域。我正准备去一家hedge fund工作，就在最后一刻，我的一个朋友把我拉进了他的startup，让我做销售，而我对销售一无所知。所以我不得不在实践中摸索，在那里花了几年时间为这家早期公司做销售。
[段 2]
And then when it came time to start Clever, we started Clever, and I did it with two co-founders who were very technical and one very product-oriented. And we wanted to build this product for schools, and I thought that experience would have no relevancy whatsoever. But it turns out that some of the things that I picked up at this previous job where I was figuring out sales have been huge parts of what’s made Clever grow so quickly today. A quick background on Clever. We build software for schools. We are an app platform used by developers. And it’s used today by about one in five schools in America. And we started it about two years ago. And so sales has been a key piece of that, and I want to use this time to just share some of the things that have worked for me along the way.
[译文 2]
然后当到了要创办 Clever 的时候，我们创办了 Clever，我和两位技术背景非常强的联合创始人以及一位产品导向很强的联合创始人一起做了这件事。我们想为学校开发这个产品，我以为那段经历完全不会有任何关联。但事实证明，我在之前那份探索销售工作的经历中所学到的一些东西，对 Clever 今天能够如此快速地成长起到了巨大的作用。简单介绍一下 Clever。我们为学校开发软件。我们是一个供开发者使用的应用平台。如今美国大约每五所学校中就有一所在使用我们的产品。我们大约在两年前创办了它。所以销售一直是其中的关键部分，我想利用这个机会来分享一些在这一路走来对我有效的经验。
[段 3]
Of course, there’s a million ways to do this, so you’ll find what works for you. So first I want to start about how I used to perceive sales. And a lot of people see sales as having a lot of mystique around it. It’s people who are really articulate and impossibly charming, and they have these killer closing lines that they use. And I think this is how I saw sales, and I think this is how a lot of founders I talk to see sales, because they say things to me like, we’re just going to work on the product and build a great product, and then when it’s finally finished, we’re going to hire the salespeople. And what I’ve learned is that hire the salespeople, as a founder, the reality is that’s you.
[译文 3]
当然，这有一百万种方法来做这件事，所以你会找到适合你的方法。所以首先我想谈谈我过去是如何看待销售的。很多人认为销售充满神秘感。销售人员是那些真正能言善辩、魅力惊人的人，他们会使用这些杀手级的成交话术。我认为这就是我过去对销售的看法，我认为这也是我交谈过的很多founder对销售的看法，因为他们对我说类似的话：我们只需要做产品，打造出色的产品，然后等它最终完成后，我们会雇佣salespeople。而我所学到的是，雇佣salespeople，作为founder，现实情况是那个人就是你自己。
[段 4]
And so Paul Graham likes to talk about how there’s two things you should be doing at any point in time when you’re starting your company. You’re either talking to your users or you’re building your product. And that talking to your users part, that’s selling. And so, you know, this is intimidating to some people because they’re like, I’ve never done sales and I wouldn’t even know where to begin. But it turns out that as a founder, you have some unique advantages that make it possible for you to be really, really good at sales. And one of those is your passion for the product and what you’re building. And the second is your industry knowledge of the industry and the problem that you’re solving.
[译文 4]
Paul Graham喜欢谈论在创业的任何阶段，你应该做两件事：要么在与用户交谈，要么在打造产品。而与用户交谈这部分，就是销售。这会让一些人感到畏惧，因为他们觉得自己从未做过销售，甚至不知道从何开始。但事实证明，作为创始人，你有一些独特的优势，可以让你在销售方面做得非常出色。其中一个优势是你对产品和你正在打造的事物的热情。第二个优势是你对所在行业和你正在解决的问题的行业知识。
[段 5]
And those two things actually totally trump sales experience from what I’ve seen. So this is actually my co-founder doing sales. This is what sales looks like, you know, in the very early days of a startup. It’s not Don Draper. It’s a lot of calls like these. But this is something that, even as a founder who’s never done it before, it’s very easy to do, but you have to commit yourself. And what we did at Clever was we dedicated one founder, which was me, to peel off and say, okay, Tyler, you’re going to go figure this out and work on this full-time because it’s so important to our business. So a couple of things that I’ve picked up about sales along the way in trying to figure this out.
[译文 5]
从我的观察来看，这两件事实际上完全胜过销售经验。所以这实际上是我的联合创始人在做销售。你知道，这就是初创公司早期销售的样子。这不是Don Draper。就是像这样的很多电话。但这件事，即使作为一个从未做过销售的创始人，也很容易做到，但你必须全身心投入。在Clever，我们做的就是这样分配一位创始人，也就是我，去专注做这件事，然后说，好的Tyler，你要去搞清楚这件事并全职投入，因为它对我们的业务非常重要。所以在这一路探索的过程中，我学到了一些关于销售的东西。
[段 6]
The first thing that everybody knows about sales is they say, okay, it’s a funnel, and you have these different stages of the funnel, and you move your customers through it. Pretty common categories, there’s this prospecting category where you’re trying to figure out who’s even interested. Then you’re having a lot of conversations, which is the second level of the funnel. Then you’re finding out who’s really serious and you want to close them and sign the deal. And then, of course, you’re in the promised land of revenue. And what I thought would be interesting would be to talk about each of the stage, a couple of strategies that we’ve used at Clever that have worked really well, so that these aren’t abstract things, but things that you can hopefully use at your startup.
[译文 6]
每个人都清楚的销售第一原则是，好，这是一个漏斗，你有漏斗的不同阶段，你需要让客户通过这些阶段。
相当常见的分类，有勘探阶段，你在努力找出谁真正有兴趣。然后你在进行很多对话，这是漏斗的第二层。然后你找出谁真正认真，你想和他们成交并签署协议。然后，当然，你就进入了收入的应许之地。
我觉得有趣的是谈谈每个阶段，我们在 Clever 使用的一些非常有效的策略，这样这些就不是抽象的东西，而是你希望在创业公司中使用的东西。
[段 7]
So prospecting. So prospecting is the process of figuring out who will even take your call. And one of the things that I realized early on, so there’s this guy, Everett Rogers, who’s created this technology lifecycle adoption curve. And he describes it as a bell curve, where you’ve got your innovators who will try new things, and you’ve got your early adopters, your mid-stage adopters, your late adopters, your laggards. And one of the things that was really helpful for me in understanding sales at an early startup is he’s quantified the tail of this bell curve. And this part over here, the innovators, those are your potential customers. And it might seem discouraging that only 2.5% of companies are your potential customers or would even consider buying from a startup that has no users and no revenue.
[译文 7]
所以客户开发。客户开发就是弄清楚谁会接你电话的过程。我早期认识到的一件事是，有这么一个人叫Everett Rogers，他创建了技术生命周期采用曲线。他将其描述为一条钟形曲线，其中有你愿意尝试新事物的创新者，有早期采用者、中期采用者、晚期采用者和落后者。在理解早期创业公司销售方面对我真正有帮助的一件事是，他量化了这条钟形曲线的尾部。这里的这部分，创新者，是你的潜在客户。可能看起来令人沮丧的是，只有2.5%的公司是你的潜在客户，或者会考虑从一个没有用户和收入的新公司购买。
[段 8]
But actually, I found just the opposite. I found it to be extremely helpful to have this frame of mind because you realize when only 2.5% of companies will even take your call or consider using your product, you realize what a numbers game this becomes. So if you want to reach that 2.5% and you want to get some early sales, if you’re starting to do the math, you’re hopefully starting to realize you have to do a lot of calling. You have to talk to a lot of people. So early on in the early days at Clever, this was my job. In the first two months of YC, I reached out to over 400 companies trying to get them to take a call and talk to us about what we were building.
[译文 8]
但实际上，我发现恰恰相反。我发现拥有这种心态非常有帮助，因为你会意识到只有2.5%的公司会接你的电话或考虑使用你的产品，你就会意识到这变成了一个数字游戏。所以如果你想接触到那2.5%，如果你想获得一些早期销售，如果你开始做数学计算，你也许会开始意识到你必须打很多电话。你必须和很多人交谈。所以在Clever早期，这是我的工作。在YC的前两个月，我联系了超过400家公司，试图让他们接电话并和我们谈谈我们在做的东西。
[段 9]
There’s three ways that I have found most successful in prospecting and getting these people. One is your personal network. That’s obvious. I’m not going to spend any time there. Another one is conferences, which is surprising to a lot of people. And then the one that people are most familiar with is cold email. And when I say conferences, this is what people think. They think I’m talking about CES or E3 or something. And actually, the kind of conferences where sales happen look more like this. And we, in the early days, would go to a lot of these because you’ve got to go to where your users are. And if you’re selling to CIOs and there happens to be a gathering of them at a hotel in Milwaukee, guess what?
[译文 9]
我在客户开发方面发现了三种最成功的方法。一种是建立人脉网络。这很明显，我不打算在这里花时间。另一种是参加行业会议，这让很多人感到惊讶。然后人们最熟悉的一种是冷邮件。当我说会议时，人们想到的是 CES 或 E3 这样的展会。但实际上，真正能产生销售的那些会议看起来更像这样。在早期，我们会去参加很多这样的活动，因为你必须去用户所在的地方。如果你面向的是 CIO 群体，而恰好在 Milwaukee 的一家酒店有他们的聚会，你知道该怎么做。
[段 10]
That’s probably where you should be. So we’d go to conferences like these. We’d get the attendee list in advance. We’d email every single person in advance and try and set up meetings so that when you get there, every single minute of that trip was well spent. And this was huge in Clever’s early days. This is where we met all of our earliest customers. The second thing I mentioned is cold email. A lot of people don’t know how to write cold emails. It’s actually really easy, and the key is not to write a lot. It should be really concise. This is an email template that I used early on, and you’re welcome to copy it, but it’s really short.
[译文 10]
这可能是你应该去的地方。所以我们会去参加这样的会议。我们会提前获取参会者名单。我们会提前给每一个人发邮件，试着安排好会议，这样当你到达那里时，行程的每一分钟都能充分利用。这在Clever早期非常重要。这就是我们认识所有最早客户的地方。我提到的第二件事是冷邮件。很多人不知道怎么写冷邮件。实际上真的很简单，关键是不要写太多。应该非常简洁。这是我早期使用的一个邮件模板，你可以随意复制，但它真的很短。
[段 11]
Here’s who I am, here’s what I’m building, and I’d love to talk to you about this. Could we find time tomorrow? It’s really easy, and you can customize this and find out for every business you want to sell to who’s the right person to send it to, and you can send out quite a few of these. So, all right, that’s prospecting. And the reason this is so important is because you’ve got to build that first layer of the funnel. Then you get them to take your call. And this is another place where a lot of founders, I think, just have a lot of questions about what to actually do. And the biggest thing to take away is, In fact, if you only take away one thing from this presentation today, the number one thing you should remember is: when you get them on the phone, remember to shut up.
[译文 11]
以下是我的自我介绍，这是我在做的东西，我很乐意和您聊聊这个。我们明天能找个时间吗？这非常简单，你可以自定义这个，找出你想销售的每个企业中谁是正确的发送对象，而且你可以发送相当多的这些。所以，好的，这就是寻找潜在客户。之所以这如此重要，是因为你必须建立漏斗的第一层。然后你让他们接你的电话。这又是另一个地方，我认为很多创始人对于实际该做什么有很多疑问。最重要的一点是，事实上，如果你今天只能记住一件事，你要记住的最重要的事情是：当你在电话上和他们通话时，记住要闭嘴。
[段 12]
And that’s really surprising to people. So many founders, when I help them with their first sales pitch, they finally get somebody on the phone who wants to talk to them about their product. And they’re so proud of this thing they’ve been building for the last three months that all they want to do is get on the phone and talk about every feature and talk about all the different things it can do and talk about why it’s the greatest thing in the world. And I have that temptation, too. It’s just part of being really proud of something. But it turns out that if you watch the best salespeople, like the best salespeople in the world, the top 1%, and you have a chance to listen in on a call with some of those people like I have, the most surprising thing is how little talking they do.
[译文 12]
这真的让很多人感到惊讶。当我帮助这么多创始人为他们的第一次销售演示做准备时，他们终于找到了一个愿意在电话里和他们聊产品的人。他们对自己三个月来一直在打造的东西感到非常自豪，以至于他们只想打电话聊每一个功能、聊它能做的所有不同的事、聊为什么它是世界上最伟大的东西。我也有这种冲动。这只是对自己用心打造的事物感到骄傲的正常反应。但事实是，如果你观察最优秀的销售人员——比如全世界最顶尖的那1%——如果你有机会像我一样听这些人打电话，你会惊讶地发现他们说得是多么少。
[段 13]
In fact, I’ve seen calls where the salesperson told me their goal was to only spend 30% of the call talking and have 70% of the call the other person. And they would ask a lot of questions. They say things like, Why did you even agree to take my call today? This problem that we’re talking about solving for you, how do you solve it today? What would your ideal solution look like? And they’re not doing the talking; they’re doing everything they can to find out what this person needs and hopefully understand their problem even better than they do. That’s what really great sales is. And in fact, this is something I drill into everybody at Clever.
[译文 13]
事实上，我见过这样的电话场景，销售人员告诉我他们的目标是只在通话中用30%的时间说话，让对方占用70%的通话时间。他们会问很多问题，比如说：“你为什么会同意接我今天的电话？”“我们今天要帮你解决的这个问题，你目前是怎么解决的？”“你理想的解决方案是什么样的？”他们不是在说话；而是尽一切可能去了解这个人需要什么，并希望能比对方自己更深入地理解他们的问题。这才是真正出色的销售。事实上，这是我反复灌输给Clever公司每个人的东西。
[段 14]
It’s a really important part of sales. And there’s actually now, if any of you use Uber Conference, they have this amazing feature where when you hang up a call, it sends you an email automatically and tells you how much you talked versus how much the other person talked. And looking at one of those emails, someone doing sales at Clever, I get one of those emails, I can tell immediately how likely the sale is based on how much talking we were doing. So you’ve got all these people. Now you’ve got on the phone, do a lot of listening, really understand their problem. And then the other part of this stage that surprises a lot of people is follow-up.
[译文 14]
这是销售中非常重要的一部分。实际上，现在如果你使用Uber Conference，他们有一个很棒的功能，当你挂断电话时，它会自动给你发一封邮件，告诉你你说了多少话，对方说了多少话。看那些邮件的时候，有个在Clever做销售的人，我收到那些邮件，我马上就能根据我们说话的比例判断这笔交易成功的可能性有多大。所以你有所有这些人。现在你打电话时，要多倾听，真正了解他们的问题。然后这个阶段让很多人惊讶的另一个部分是跟进。
[段 15]
So here’s a lot of different steps that you can imagine going through: emailing somebody, not getting a response, and emailing them back; calling them, leaving a voicemail, having a pricing call. There’s probably like 60 things up here on this slide that could be steps for closing a deal. These actually aren’t just random things. This is one deal. This was the second deal Clever ever signed. These are all the different steps that we had in order to get this done. And you can see there’s a lot of really embarrassing things up there. Like I emailed somebody and they didn’t respond, and I emailed them again and they didn’t respond, and then I emailed them and they didn’t respond, and I emailed them again, and they didn’t respond, and then I emailed them again.
[译文 15]
所以这里有很多不同的步骤，你可以想象会经历这些步骤：发邮件给某人，没有得到回复，再发邮件；打电话给他们，留语音邮件，进行定价通话。这页幻灯片上大概有60个事项，可能是成交的步骤。这些实际上不仅仅是随机的步骤。这是一笔交易。这是Clever签署的第二笔交易。这些都是我们为完成这笔交易所经历的不同步骤。你可以看看上面有很多非常尴尬的事情。比如我给某人发邮件他们没有回复，我又发了一封他们没有回复，我又发了一封他们没有回复，我又发了一封他们没有回复，然后又发了一封。
[段 16]
And this is from somebody who wanted to buy our product. Isn’t that crazy? And that surprises a lot of people. I see so many founders who have a great call with someone, they send an email, they don’t hear back, and they say, Oh, that person might not be interested. Well, guess what? This is what it looks like in the best case. And so you really have to have kind of this unhuman, unreasonable willingness to follow up and drive things to closure. Now, I’ll qualify that with one thing, which is to say: when you’re starting a company, your time is extremely valuable because it’s your only resource. And you couldn’t possibly do this for every single person who might buy your product.
[译文 16]
这来自一个想要购买我们产品的人。这不是很疯狂吗？这让很多人感到惊讶。我看到很多创始人与人进行了一次很棒的通话后，发送了邮件，却没有收到回复，然后他们说：“哦，那个人可能不感兴趣。”好吧，你知道吗？这已经是最好的情况了。所以你真的需要有这种超乎常人的、不合理的意愿去跟进并推动事情达成。现在，我需要补充一点，那就是：当你在创业时，你的时间极其宝贵，因为这是你唯一的资源。你不可能对每一个可能购买你产品的人都这样做。
[段 17]
So your goal should be to get people to a yes or a no as quickly as you can. Where you die is if you have a thousand maybes. And sometimes I talk to founders who say, Oh, yeah, I have this great pipeline of, you know, a hundred people who have expressed interest in our product. And the maybes are what kill you. If you can get to a yes or a no, in some ways a no is even better than a maybe because it allows you to move on and focus on somebody who might be a yes. So have this superhuman level of follow-up and ambition, but make sure you’re focusing it on the right pieces.
[译文 17]
所以你的目标应该是尽快让人们给出肯定或否定的答复。真正致命的是你有一千个“也许吧”。有时候我和创业者聊天，他们说：“哦，是的，我有一个很好的漏斗，呃，有一百个人表示对我们的产品感兴趣。”而“也许吧”才是最致命的。如果你能够得到肯定或否定的答复，在某些方面，否定比“也许吧”更好，因为它让你能够继续前进，专注于那些可能是肯定的人。所以要保持超人的跟进力度和野心，但一定要确保你把它用在正确的事情上。
[段 18]
All right. So you’ve talked to a ton of people. You’ve had all these phone calls. You’ve followed up with them ridiculously to the point where they just know you’re not going away and they’ve got to sign an agreement. This final step is something that, if you haven’t done before, might seem opaque, but it’s actually really simple. It’s called redlining. So you’ll send over an agreement, their lawyers will mark it up, your lawyers will mark it up, and you kind of go back and forth. If you’re part of YC, this is really easy because YC has standard template agreements that they give you, so you don’t have to find these and you can just, you know, use those.
[译文 18]
好的。你已经和很多人聊过了，打了无数电话，也极其疯狂地跟进他们直到他们知道你不会放弃，他们不得不签署协议。这最后一步，如果你是第一次做，可能会觉得模糊不清，但实际上非常简单。这叫做 redlining。所以你会发送一份协议给对方，他们的律师会做标注，你的律师也会做标注，然后你们来回往返。如果你是 YC 的一员，这就非常容易，因为 YC 有标准的模板协议给你，你不需要自己去寻找这些，直接用就行了。
[段 19]
But they’ve never been available, you know, if you weren’t part of YC, you kind of had to figure this out on your own. One of the things that I’m really excited about is, as part of this presentation, YC has agreed to open source their deal documents. So these documents that YC founders used to get are now going to be available to everybody. So this should never, hopefully, never be a barrier to anyone who wants to do sales for their startup. You’ve got some great documents. And then the other thing I’ll say about this: a place I see so many smart, smart people go wrong is you’ve got to remember what your goal is. Your goal is to sign some deals and get some reference customers and get some validation and get some revenue.
[译文 19]
但这些从来没有开放过，你知道，如果你不是YC的一员，你就得自己摸索。我非常兴奋的一件事是，作为这次演示的一部分，YC已经同意开源他们的交易文件。所以YC创始人以前才能拿到的这些文件，现在将对所有人开放。所以这应该永远不会——希望永远不会——成为任何想要为自己的创业公司做销售的人的障碍。你有一些很棒的文件。另外我要说的另一点是：我看到很多非常聪明的人犯错的地方是，你必须记住你的目标是什么。你的目标是签署一些交易，获得一些参考客户，获得一些验证，并获得一些收入。
[段 20]
If you don’t do that, your startup is toast. So in light of that, it’s really surprising how many smart people will want to do 10 rounds of document review, quibbling over the most minor points because of pride, because of intelligence, whatever. Make sure the agreement is the way you want it, but then sign it and move on. I’ve seen founders spend months quibbling over some indemnification clauses and their business would have been way better off if they’d just signed the deal and moved on to the next one. So that’s one closing trap you can fall into. I have two more. One other closing trap that I see founders struggle with a lot is they’re talking to a company who says, I will use your product, but I just need one more feature.
[译文 20]
如果你不这样做，你的创业公司就完蛋了。因此，鉴于这一点，非常令人惊讶的是，有多少聪明的人会想要进行10轮文档审查，因为骄傲，因为聪明或其他原因，在最微小的问题上争论不休。确保协议是你想要的方式，但然后就签署它并继续前进。我见过创始人在一些赔偿条款上花费数月时间争论，而如果他们只是签署交易并继续进行下一个交易，他们的业务会好得多。所以这是你会陷入的一个成交陷阱。我还有两个。另一个我看到创始人们经常挣扎的成交陷阱是，他们正在与一家公司交谈，该公司说，我会使用你的产品，但我只需要一个功能。
[段 21]
Or they say, I’d love to use your product, but it doesn’t have this one feature, so we’re just not ready. And to most people, especially if you’re ambitious, when somebody says that to you, what you want to hear is, Oh, well, I can build that feature. Great. I’ll build that feature, and then they’re going to use my product. But the problem is it almost never works that way. In fact, somebody telling you that they want to use your product, but it’s just missing this one feature, I would almost map that to a pass in your mind. Because nine times out of ten, if you actually built that feature, you go back to them, and then there’d be one more feature, or there’d be some other reason that they’re not using the product.
[译文 21]
或者他们会说，我很想要使用你们的产品，但它没有这一个功能，所以我们还没准备好。对大多数人来说，尤其是如果你有雄心壮志，当有人对你说这话时，你想要听到的是，哦，好吧，我可以开发这个功能。太好了。我来开发这个功能，然后他们就会使用我的产品了。但问题是这几乎从来没有这样成功过。事实上，当有人告诉你他们想要使用你的产品，但只是缺少这一个功能时，我几乎会把它在你心里标记为"跳过"。因为十有八九，如果你真的开发了这个功能，你再去找他们，然后就会还有一个功能，或者其他某个他们不使用产品的原因。
[段 22]
So if somebody says to you, Hey, there’s this one thing that’s preventing us from using your product, I would do one of two things. One, say, Well, that’s great. Let’s sign an agreement, and we’ll put in the agreement that we’re going to build this feature, in which case you know that if you build it, you’re off to the races. Or more commonly, what we did at Clever was we would say, That’s great. We’re going to wait to see if we hear that demand from our customers. And then once you have a lot of customers requesting it, then you should build it regardless. And then you’re not then you should build it regardless, and then you don’t have to worry about doing something that’s customer one-off, which is what you really want to avoid.
[译文 22]
所以如果有人对你说，嘿，有一件事阻止我们使用你的产品，我会做两件事之一。第一，说，好啊，我们签个协议吧，协议里写明我们要开发这个功能，这样你就知道如果你开发了，你就可以开始了。或者更常见的是，我们在Clever的做法是，我们会说，好啊。我们会等等看是否从客户那里听到这个需求。一旦有很多客户要求这个功能，那么你就应该开发它，而不用担心做单个客户的定制需求，这才是你真正要避免的。
[段 23]
So don’t fall into this trap. It happens all the time. And the other trap I would highly Highly recommend you try to avoid is the free trial trap, because this happens all the time. People, you know, they go down this path with a customer, it seems really exciting, and then the customer says, Oh, well, can I get a free trial? And you can’t blame them. That’s a totally reasonable thing to ask for. But the problem is, when you’re starting a startup, you need revenue, you need validation, you need users, you need commitment, and free trials get you none of those things. So you do all this work, and if you end up with a free trial, unfortunately you haven’t made as much progress as you…
[译文 23]
所以不要落入这个陷阱。这种事时有发生。另外我强烈强烈建议你尽量避免的另一个陷阱是免费试用陷阱，因为这种事也经常发生。大家知道，他们和客户走到这一步时，看起来真的很有希望，然后客户说，哦，那我能先免费试用一下吗？你不能怪他们，这是完全合理的要求。但问题是，当你创办一家 startup 时，你需要收入，需要验证，需要用户，需要承诺，而免费试用一样都给不了你。所以你做了这么多工作，结果却是免费试用的话，很遗憾，你并没有取得你……
[段 24]
It’s actually terrible. You think you’ve made progress, but really, at the end of the free trial, you’re going to have to sell them all over again. So the way I handle this that has worked really well is when somebody says, Can I get a free trial? You say, Well, we don’t do free trials, but what we can do is we do annual agreements here. And what we’ll do is for the first 30 or 60 days, if for any reason you’re not happy, you can opt out. And that’s a way to get you the things that you need while giving them the comfort that they might need to take a chance on a startup. So that minor change actually makes a night and day difference when you’re thinking about these things.
[译文 24]
这其实很糟糕。你以为已经取得了进展，但实际上，免费试用期结束时，你不得不再次向他们推销所有东西。所以我处理这个问题的方式非常有效：当有人说"我能获得免费试用吗？“你说，“我们不做免费试用，但我们可以做的是，我们这里做年度协议。而且我们在前30或60天内，如果出于任何原因你不满意，你可以选择退出。“这是一种方式，既能让你获得你需要的东西，同时给他们安心感，他们可能需要这种安心感才能冒险尝试一个初创公司。所以当你思考这些事情时，这个小小的改变实际上会产生天壤之别。
[段 25]
Alright, so you’ve prospected, you’ve had a lot of conversations, now you’ve closed people, you’ve gone through the red line process, you worked out the free trials, and you’re on your way, hopefully, to your first sales. Now, early on, you can think of sales as just like any other thing of a startup. Your goal is that you don’t have to do things at scale. In fact, you can purposely do unscalable things to try and get early customers. That’s the fun of it. But the other thing that I think is really important to keep in mind is once you’ve done this enough, what you should start thinking about is, Well, what aspects of this are repeatable? And what aspects of this are we going to scale further?
[译文 25]
好的，你已经进行了客户开发，进行了很多沟通，现在你成功签单了，你走过了签约流程，你搞定了免费试用，你正在走向你的第一笔销售。早期阶段，你可以把销售看作创业公司的任何其他事情一样。你的目标是，你不需要规模化地去做事情。实际上，你可以刻意做一些不可规模化的事情来争取早期客户。这就是其中的乐趣所在。但是，我認為還有一件真正重要的是要記住，一旦你做了足夠多，你應該開始思考：這當中有哪些方面是可重複的？有哪些方面我們會進一步擴大？
[段 26]
Christophe Jantz has this really great blog post online about the five ways to build a $100 million company. And he talks about how you can have 1,000 customers buy a product that costs $100,000. Or you can have 10,000 customers buy a product that costs $10,000. Or you can have 100,000 customers buy a product that costs $1,000. And even though you don’t need to know on day one which bucket you’re going to fall into, most companies do fall into one of these buckets. And so you start thinking about that as you’re doing this. If you want to be in the elephant category of a $100,000 product, that’s great, and you’re going to have a really high-touch sales cycle, and that’s fine.
[译文 26]
Christophe Jantz在网上有一篇很棒的博文，讲述了建立一家价值$100 million公司的五种方式。他谈到，你可以让1,000个客户购买价值$100,000的产品，或者让10,000个客户购买价值$10,000的产品，或者让100,000个客户购买价值$1,000的产品。尽管你不需要在第一天就知道自己会落入哪个类别，但大多数公司确实会落入这些类别之一。所以当你在做这件事的时候，你开始思考这个问题。如果你想要处于价值$100,000产品的大象类别，那很好，你将会有一个非常高接触式的销售周期，这也没问题。
[段 27]
That’s Salesforce. That’s Workday. That’s great. But if you think you’re going to be a rabbit and sell products for $1,000 a year to businesses and your sales process involves flying out to see them three times and eight demos and three months of redlining, then you probably have to rethink something. And so I see a lot of startups, most commonly, who want to be the rabbits and sell for a low-priced product to businesses, not thinking about how to do it in a scalable way. And that’s one area where you can get underwater, or it just forces you to increase your prices. So this is how I think about different businesses. And it’ll be helpful for you once you get started and once you’ve done enough of the sales to say, OK, where am I?
[译文 27]
那是Salesforce。那是Workday。很棒。但如果你认为自己会成为"兔子”，向企业销售每年$1,000的产品，而你的销售流程涉及飞过去见他们三次、八次演示和三个月的合同修订，那么你应该重新思考一些事情。所以我看到很多初创公司，最常见的是，那些想要成为"兔子"并向企业销售低价产品，却没有考虑如何以可扩展的方式来做。这是一个你可能会亏损的领域，或者它会迫使你提高价格。所以这就是我思考不同业务的方式。一旦你开始行动，一旦你做了足够多的销售，说"好的，我在哪里？"，这对你会有帮助。
[段 28]
and the corollary to that is, How do I have to price my product to be a viable business? So that is those are some of the things that I figured out along the way building sales now at a few different companies and specifically on this very narrow stage of zero to one million. After you get to one million, you’ll find there’s a million blog posts about how to get from five million to fifty million or ten million to a hundred million. But the zero to one step, I wanted to focus the presentation on that today because there’s not as much written about it. And it is something that I think is very opaque to a lot of founders.
[译文 28]
其必然推论是，我该如何为产品定价才能成为一家可持续经营的企业？所以，这些是我在建立销售的过程中摸索出来的经验，现在在几家不同的公司都验证过，特别是关于从零到一百万这个非常狭窄的阶段。当你达到一百万之后，你会发现有无数博客文章讲述如何从五百万增长到五千万，或者从一千万到一个亿。但从零到一这一步，我今天想把演讲的重点放在这上面，因为这方面的资料并不多。而且我认为这对于很多创始人来说是非常不透明的。
[段 29]
I figured this out just by doing it. And I’m confident that if you’re starting a company, you can too. If for whatever reason you would like to do what I did and join a startup that’s figured it out and hone your skills and hone your craft, we are hiring at Clever. So that’s an option. But even if you do want to start your own company and you have questions about sales, I put my email address up here and feel free to reach out anytime. I’m happy to help. So, thank you. Thank you very much. Yeah, that was awesome. All right, so now we’re going to talk about a little bit more detail on how to raise money.
[译文 29]
我是通过亲身实践弄明白这些的。而且我坚信，如果你在创业，你也同样可以做到。如果出于某种原因，你想像我一样加入一家已经解决了这些问题的创业公司，磨练你的技能和手艺，我们在 Clever 正在招聘。所以这是一个选择。但即使你想要创办自己的公司，对销售有疑问，我在这里放了我的邮箱地址，随时欢迎联系我。我很乐意帮忙。谢谢大家。非常感谢。是的，非常棒。好的，现在我们来详细聊聊如何融资。
[段 30]
Michael Seibel is first going to talk about how to pack the pitch. And then Dalton and Pastor will do investor role playing. Yeah, I’m just going to go for my best craft. I’m going to start with a question. It’s mind-blowingly new. It really is basic blocking and tackling. But one point I wanted to make before we get started is we actually don’t spend a lot of time at YC focusing on this. The main reason is the best way you can make your pitch better is to improve your company. If you have traction and your product is doing well, these conversations are like the investors want to see you succeed. And so if you remember anything, it’s make your company better and the pitch will be easier.
[译文 30]
Michael Seibel 首先会讲如何准备演讲稿。然后 Dalton 和 Pastor 会进行投资人角色扮演。是啊，我会尽力展示最好的技巧。我会从一个问题开始。这非常令人惊叹。说起来这确实是基本的阻挡和擒抱。但在我们开始之前，我想强调的一点是，我们在 YC 实际上不会花很多时间关注这个。主要原因是让你的演讲变得更好的最好方法就是改善你的公司。如果你有增长势头，而且你的产品表现良好，这些对话就会很顺利，因为投资者希望看到你成功。所以如果你记住任何东西的话，那就是：让你的公司变得更好，演讲就会变得更容易。
[段 31]
We’re gonna spend the time into three kind of sections: before the meeting, which Michael will kind of focus on; we’ll do a kind of a roleplay of what meetings actually look like; and then we’ll just wrap it up. We are gonna do Q&A at the end. We’ll kind of say five minutes, so if there’s something we don’t cover, please write down your questions and we’ll go through them. Without further due, thank you. Are we good here? All right. So, my name is Michael Seibel. I’m a current YC partner. I’ve started two companies. One was called Justin TV. It ended up selling to Amazon. The other was called SocialCam, which sold to Autodesk. And what I really wanted to do was break down and demystify the process of creating a pitch.
[译文 31]
我们将把时间分成三个部分：会议前的部分，Michael会专注于这个部分；我们会做一个角色扮演，展示会议的实际样子；然后我们就总结一下。
我们最后会进行问答环节。
我们大概留five minutes，所以如果有什么我们没覆盖到的内容，请写下你们的问题，我们会逐一解答。
话不多说，谢谢大家。
这边准备好了吗？
好的。
那么，我叫Michael Seibel。
我是YC现在的合伙人。
我创立过两家公司。
一家叫Justin TV。
最后卖给了Amazon。
另一家叫SocialCam，卖给了Autodesk。
我真正想做的是分解并揭秘创建pitch的过程。
[段 32]
So I think what happens too often when I see companies come to talk to me is that they don’t know how to simply explain what they do and then ask for money. And that’s basically what you have to do as a founder. So we’re going to go over four things. The first is what your 30-second pitch is. This you need to be armed with constantly. This is basically how you talk about your company. This is magic. Whether you’re talking to people who want to give you money or don’t want to give you money, you’re talking to your parents, this is your go-to. The second is your two-minute pitch. This is for people who are more interested.
[译文 32]
所以我认为，当我看到很多公司来找我交流时，经常发生的情况是，他们不知道如何简单明了地解释自己是做什么的，然后直接要钱。而这基本上就是作为创始人你必须做的事。所以我们今天要讲四件事。第一件事是你的30秒电梯演讲。你需要时刻准备好这个。这基本上就是你怎么向别人介绍你的公司。这非常关键。无论你是在跟想给你投资的人说话，还是跟不想投资的人说话，或者是在跟你父母说话，这都是你的必备说辞。第二件事是你的两分钟演讲。这适用于那些更感兴趣的人。
[段 33]
This is people who you might want to raise money from or people who you might want to get to work for you or people who actually kind of need to get a little bit deeper. Notice that’s where I stop. A lot of people practice 10, 30-minute pitches, hour pitches. I think that’s all garbage. I think you can get everything you need done in two minutes. And one thing I like to tell founders is the more you talk, the more you have opportunity to say something that people don’t like. So just talk less and it’ll probably be better. So then I want to tell you about when to fundraise because I think a lot of companies get this a little bit wrong.
[译文 33]
这些人可能是你想向他们融资的人，或者是你想让他们为你工作的人，或者是那些实际上需要更深入了解的人。注意，我就是在那里停下来。很多人练习10分钟、30分钟的推销，或者一小时的推销。我认为那都是垃圾。我认为你可以在两分钟内完成所有你需要做的事情。我喜欢告诉创业者的一件事是，你说得越多，你就越有机会说出人们不喜欢的东西。所以少说话可能会更好。所以接下来我想告诉你们关于什么时候融资的问题，因为我认为很多公司在这方面有点搞错了。
[段 34]
And then quickly how to set up investor meetings. So 30 second pitch. This is so simple. It’s three sentences. You can take your time. You can breathe when you do this. You don’t have to get that much information out. You can breathe when you do this. You don’t have to get that much information out. The first is one sentence on what does your company do. Everyone I meet for the first time screws this up. You have to be able to do it in a way that is simple and straightforward that requires no pre-information on my part. You have to assume I know nothing. Literally nothing about anything. This is how you make it super simple.
[译文 34]
然后快速讲讲如何安排投资人会议。所以是30秒的电梯演讲。这非常简单。就是三句话。你可以慢慢来。做这个的时候你可以呼吸。你不需要传递那么多信息。做这个的时候你可以呼吸。你不需要传递那么多信息。第一是一句话讲你的公司是做什么的。我遇到的每个初次见面的人都搞砸了这件事。你必须能够用一种简单直接的方式做到，不需要我事先了解任何信息。你必须假设我什么都不知道。真的是对任何事都一无所知。这就是让你做得超级简单的方法。
[段 35]
So, you know, usually what we tell people is, apply the mom test. If in one sentence you cannot tell your mom what you do, then rework the sentence. There is a one-sentence explanation that your mom or your dad is going to understand. So really, really start there. And it’s okay if you use really basic language. It’s okay if you’re saying, hey, we’re Airbnb, and we allow you to rent out the extra room in your house. That’s simple, right? You don’t have to say, We’re Airbnb and we’re a marketplace for space. I don’t know what that is. That’s going to acquire more time. So use simple language. Very, very important. The second is, how big is your market?
[译文 35]
所以，你知道，通常我们告诉别人的是，用“妈妈测试”。如果你不能用一句话告诉你妈妈你是做什么的，那就重新组织这句话。一定有一句话的解释是你妈妈或你爸爸能理解的。所以真的，真的从那里开始。用非常基础的语言也没关系。如果你说“嘿，我们是Airbnb，我们让你可以出租你房子里多余的房间”，这也没关系。这很简单，对吧？你不需要说我们是Airbnb，我们是一个空间交易市场。我不知道那是什么。这会花费更多时间。所以用简单的语言。非常重要。第二个是，你的市场有多大？
[段 36]
It makes sense to do a couple hours of research, figure out what general industry your product is in, figure out how big it is. Investors like to hear that you’re in a multi-billion dollar market. It’s pretty simple to do this. Airbnb might say, How big is the hotel market? How big is the vacation rental market? How big is the online hotel booking market? These are simple numbers to look up on Google, and it makes sense. Simple numbers to look up on Google, and it makes an investor understand, Oh, wait, if we’re big, if we really blow this company up, it can be worth billions of dollars. Don’t skip this step. Second sentence, how big is your market?
[译文 36]
花几个小时做调研，搞清楚你的产品属于哪个大致行业，弄清楚市场规模，这是有道理的。投资者喜欢听到你处于一个价值数十亿美元的市场中。做到这一点非常简单。Airbnb可能会说，酒店市场有多大？度假租赁市场有多大？在线酒店预订市场有多大？这些都是可以在Google上查到的简单数字，这是有道理的。简单数字，可以在Google上查到，这能让投资者理解，“哦，等一下，如果我们做得足够大，如果我们真的把这家公司做大，它可能价值数十亿美元。”不要跳过这一步。第二句话，你的市场有多大？
[段 37]
Third sentence, how much traction do you have? Ideally, this sentence is saying something on the order of, We launched in January, and we’re growing 30% month over month. We have this number of sales, this amount of revenue, this number of users. Very simple. If you can’t speak to traction in terms of pre-launch, you need to convince the investor that you’re moving extremely quickly. So, The team started working in January. By March, we launched a beta. By April, we launched our product, right? Convince the investors that you guys are moving fast, that this isn’t some long slog, that you guys aren’t thinking about this like a big corporation. You’re thinking about it like a startup where you can move fast and make mistakes.
[译文 37]
第三句，你的进展如何？理想情况下，这句话要表达的是：“我们1月上线，每月增长30%。”我们有X笔销售、X额收入、X个用户。非常简单。如果你无法用预发布阶段的数据来谈进展，你需要说服投资人你正在飞速前进。所以，团队从1月开始工作。到3月，我们发布了测试版。到4月，我们发布了产品，对吧？说服用投资人你们正在快速行动，这不是什么漫长的苦差事，你们不是像大公司那样思考。你们是像初创公司一样思考，可以快速行动和犯错。
[段 38]
That’s all you have to do in 30 seconds. Three sentences. From that basis, you should be able to start a conversation about your company. From that basis, I understand exactly what you do. You have no idea how valuable it is to be able to explain to someone what you do in 30 seconds. So really internalize that. If you take nothing else away, that’s going to help you. Okay, two-minute pitch. Now you’ve got someone you actually have to convince of something. Maybe even someone you have to ask for money. So I like to add four additional components. And these also go by very quick. The first is unique insight. Now, if you talk to VCs, they’ll say stuff like, What’s your secret sauce?
[译文 38]
这就是你30秒内要做的。三句话。在此基础上，你应该能够开启一段关于你公司的对话。在此基础上，我能清楚地了解你是做什么的。你不知道能够在30秒内向别人解释清楚你是做什么的有多重要。所以真的要把它内化。如果你别的都没记住，这一点会帮到你。好，two-minute pitch。现在你面对的是一个你真正需要说服的人。也许还是一个你需要向他要钱的人。所以我喜欢加上四个额外的组成部分。这些也讲得很快。第一个是unique insight。如果你和VCs聊天，他们会说一些类似"What’s your secret sauce?“这样的话。
[段 39]
What’s your competitive advantage? What’s your unique insight? It’s all the same thing. When I think about unique insight, what I think about is, here’s your opportunity to tell me something that I don’t know. Here’s your opportunity to tell me something that the biggest players in the market you’re trying to enter don’t understand or don’t do well. This is the aha moment. And you better have it down in two sentences. The aha moment. So you’ve got to crystallize all of the reasons why you guys are going to kill the competitors, or the really intelligent thought that got this business started, in two sentences. And I need to aha. You can see whether it’s happening when you’re saying it.
[译文 39]
你的竞争优势是什么？你的独特洞察是什么？其实这是同一件事。当我思考独特洞察时，我想到的是，这是你告诉我一些我不知道的事情的机会。这是你告诉我一些你想进入的市场中的最大玩家不理解或做得不好的事情的机会。这就是那个"啊哈"时刻。而且你最好能用两句话把它说清楚。那个"啊哈"时刻。所以你必须把你们为什么能打败竞争对手的所有原因，或者促使这项业务起步的那个真正聪明的想法，浓缩在两句话里。而我需要得到一个"啊哈”。当你说出这些话的时候，你就能看到它是否正在发生。
[段 40]
That’s why I like two sentences, so you get in and out fast. So if I look at you and I’m like, Oh, then it’s okay. You nailed it. If I look at you and I’m like, I already knew that, then you didn’t nail it. If I looked at you and I just don’t understand what you’re talking about, you definitely didn’t nail it. So practice that unique insight. In your two-minute pitch, that’s all. You’re only going to get two sentences to get that out there. So it can’t be complicated. And that’s basically the theme of this whole thing, right? It cannot be complicated. Next, how do you make money? You know, your business model. I see so many founders run away from this question because they think things like, If I say advertising, people are going to be like, oh, that’s stupid.
[译文 40]
这就是为什么我推崇两句话，这样你能快速进入和退出。所以如果我看着你，心想“噢”，那就OK了，你做到了。如果我看着你，心想“这我早就知道了”，那你就没做到。如果我看着你，完全听不懂你在说什么，那你绝对没做到。所以要练习那个独特的见解。在你两分钟的pitch中，就这样。你只能用两句话来表达。所以不能复杂。这基本上就是整个的主题，对吧？不能复杂。接下来，你怎么赚钱？你知道的，你的商业模式。我看到太多创始人在回避这个问题，因为他们觉得像比如说“我说广告”，人们就会觉得“噢，这太蠢了”。
[段 41]
Just say it. Don’t run away. If it’s advertising, say advertising. Facebook’s a massive advertising business. So is Google. If it’s direct sales, it’s direct sales. If it’s a game and you’re selling in-app add-ups, that’s fine. Just say it. Don’t run away from this sentence. It only has to be one sentence long. Where founders get tricked on how will you make money is they say, Well, we’re going to run advertising, maybe some virtual goods. We’re going to figure out how to do this and maybe this and maybe this. Well, now you’re saying nothing. Now you’ve told me you have no idea how you want to monetize this. This was a checkmark that I just wanted to write, Oh, they know how they’re going to monetize.
[译文 41]
说出来吧。别逃避。如果是广告，就说广告。Facebook 就是个庞大的广告业务。Google 也是。如果是直销，就是直销。如果是个游戏，你在卖应用内附加品，那也没问题。就说出来。别逃避这句话。它只需要一句话那么长。创始人在“你怎么赚钱”这个问题上是怎么被坑的呢，他们说，呃，我们会做广告，可能还有一些虚拟商品。我们会想办法做这个，可能还有那个，可能还有那个。好了，现在你等于什么都没说。现在你告诉我，你根本不知道你想怎么变现。这个本来是我想打勾的一个检查项——哦，他们知道要怎么变现。
[段 42]
Instead, I’m writing a big question mark. So do the thing that everyone else in your industry does to monetize 95% of the time. Say it and move on. Like, it’s totally okay. No one’s going to hold your feet to the fire and say, Three years later, you didn’t monetize this way. But it’s much better to be clear and concise than it is to start spouting out every single way your company can make money. The next one is team. I think that this answer is actually really clear. I think you’re trying to do two things. If your team has done something particularly impressive, you need to call that out. We were the founders of PayPal. Probably want to say that.
[译文 42]
反而，我写了一个大大的问号。所以就做你所在行业其他人在95%的时间里做的事情来变现。说出来然后继续往下讲。比如说，这完全没问题。没人会紧盯着你不放说，“三年后你还没用这种方式变现”。但清晰简洁要好得多，而不是开始滔滔不绝地列出你公司赚钱的每一种方式。下一个是团队。我认为这个回答实际上非常清晰。我认为你试图做两件事。如果你的团队做出了特别令人印象深刻的事情，你需要指出来。我们是PayPal的创始人。可能想说这个。
[段 43]
We were the founders of Amazon. Probably want to say that. So if you guys have done something that has made investors money, you want to say that. If not, then please don’t go on about the awards your team has won or the PhDs or the… I don’t care. I don’t care. What we want to hear is how many founders, hopefully between two and four. We want to hear is how many of them are technical, how many engineers versus business people. Hopefully it’s 50, 50 or more engineers. We want to hear is that how long have you guys known each other? We don’t want to hear you guys met at a founders dating event three days ago.
[译文 43]
我们是亚马逊的创始人。可能你们也想这么说。所以如果你们做出了一些让投资人赚钱的业绩，你们就想说出来。如果没有，那就请别再提你的团队得了什么奖，或者什么博士之类的……我不在乎，我不在乎。我们想听的是你们有多少位创始人，最好是两到四位。我们想听的是其中有多少是技术出身，有多少工程师和商务人员。最好是50对50，或者工程师更多一些。我们想听的是你们认识多久了。我们不想听你们三天前在某个创始人相亲活动上刚认识。
[段 44]
Um, ideally you’ve known each other either personally and professionally for at least six months. We want to hear is that you’re all working full time. It’s really helpful. We’re all committed to this business. And what we want to hear is how you met. That’s it. You can get it out of that two sentences. Very easy. Your only way to build credentials is if you’ve accomplished something. And with an investor, typically it’s if you’ve accomplished something that’s made someone some money. So don’t try to over-inflate yourself if you don’t have that stat on your resume. Move on. The more you talk about a bad thing, the worse it looks. So the last one is the big ask.
[译文 44]
嗯，理想情况下，你们彼此至少在个人层面和专业层面认识 six months。我们想听到的是你们都在全职工作。这真的很有帮助。我们都致力于这项业务。我们想听到的是你们是如何认识的。就这样。你可以用 two sentences 概括出来。非常简单。你建立信誉的唯一方式是如果你有所成就。对于投资者来说，通常是如果你有所成就，让某些人赚到了一些钱。所以如果你简历上没有那个数据，就不要试图过度夸大自己。继续。你谈论一件坏事越多，它看起来就越糟糕。所以最后一个是大的请求。
[段 45]
When it comes to this, and you have to figure out whether this is a conversation that involves fundraising or not, what I tell people is, like, this is the time where you kind of have to know what you’re talking about. This is a time where you have to know, are you raising on a convertible note? Are you raising on a SAFE? You have to know what the cap of that SAFE is. You have to know how much money you’re raising. You have to know what the minimum check size is. These are things where if you don’t know these things, investors are going to be like, Oh, these guys aren’t serious or they haven’t done their homework.
[译文 45]
关于这一点，你必须弄清楚这是一场涉及融资的对话，还是不是。我告诉人们的是，这个时候你必须知道自己说的是什么。这个时候你必须知道，你是在用 convertible note 融资吗？你是在用 SAFE 融资吗？你必须知道那个 SAFE 的 cap 是多少。你必须知道你要融多少钱。你必须知道 minimum check size 是多少。这些事情如果你不知道，投资者就会觉得，“哦，这些人不认真”或者“他们没有做过功课”。
[段 46]
So whereas in the rest of this whole thing, you shouldn’t use any jargon, in this part, you shouldn’t just be like, Oh, we’re just raising some money. Like now it’s time to actually use a little bit of that jargon. If you don’t know that jargon, Google search it. Like it’s real simple. You guys will learn it fast. So that’s it. By the way. That’s all your pitch. Done. Like, game over. Now you let them talk. So when to fundraise? I think this is so important, right? You’ve got this little growth graph here. Investors like to invest based on traction. And so literally, it’s always better to raise money when you’ve got more traction than less.
[译文 46]
所以在整个演讲的其他部分，你不应该使用任何行话，但在这个部分，你不能只是说，“哦，我们只是在融资”。现在是时候真正用一点那些行话了。如果你不知道那些行话，Google搜索一下。真的很简单。你们学得很快的。所以就是这样。顺便说一句。这就是你们全部的pitch了。完成了。像这样，游戏结束。现在让他们说话。那么什么时候fundraise？我觉得这个非常重要，对吧？你这里有一个小小的增长图表。投资者喜欢基于traction来投资。所以从字面上讲，当你有更多traction时融资总是比更少时要好。
[段 47]
Oftentimes, though, you guys will be in a situation where you’re just starting or maybe you just launched. So what you need to do is you need to think about how do you flip the equation? Your entire mindset should be typically you are the ones asking investors for money, and therefore they are strong and you are weak. How do you create a scenario where you are strong and they are weak, right? That’s where you want to be fundraising. So first, how do you know that you’re strong? If investors are asking you to give you money, you’re strong. That might be a good time to start fundraising. If investors aren’t asking about capitalization, if investors aren’t asking about giving you money, are you talking to people about your startup?
[译文 47]
然而，通常你们会处于这样一种情况：你刚刚起步，或者刚刚推出产品。所以你需要做的是思考如何翻转这个等式？你的整个心态通常是：你是在向投资者要钱的人，因此他们处于强势地位，你处于弱势地位。你如何创造一个你处于强势、他们处于弱势的局面，对吧？这就是你想要进行融资的时机。那么首先，你怎么知道自己处于强势地位？如果投资者主动要求给你钱，你就处于强势地位。这可能是一个开始融资的好时机。如果投资者没有询问你的资本化情况，如果投资者没有要求向你提供资金，你是否在与人们谈论你的创业项目？
[段 48]
Or are you running super stealth? If you’re talking to people about your startup and you’re getting the word out, either that’s through the press or just through talking to your friends or people you know doing startups, that’s a good way to kind of start feeding that. The second thing is have you created a plan so that you can launch and grow without needing to raise a bunch of money? 95% of the startups that I meet can get a product to market with a very, very little bit of money. So never put the investor in the ultimate position of power. We can’t do anything until you give us money. You always want to flip it around.
[译文 48]
或者你是在超级低调地运作？如果你的startup正在和人们交流，正在传播消息，无论是通过媒体还是只是通过和你的朋友或认识的在做startup的人聊天，这都是开始积累关注的好方法。第二件事是你是否已经制定了一个计划，让你不需要筹集大量资金就能推出和增长？我遇到的95%的startup都可以用非常少的资金将产品推向市场。所以永远不要把投资人放在绝对主导的位置。不要说“在你给我们钱之前我们什么都做不了”。你总是要反过来掌握主动权。
[段 49]
You always want it to be, this thing’s moving. We all left our jobs. We’re all working full time. And it’s moving. If you want to jump on, great. If not, there are a lot of angel investors. That’s the attitude you want to have. That’s the confidence you want to have. If you need money early, always plan for needing less money and always be able to show that you’ve got a fully committed team that’s working fast. That’s going to be how you gain an advantage when you can’t show traction. If you can show that investor that you haven’t launched yet, but you’ve done eight months of work in one month or two months, that you’ve got a great team that have all quit their jobs and they’re totally committed, you get some of that advantage back, but you don’t get all of the advantage unless you’re launched and growing.
[译文 49]
你总希望事情是这样的，这个项目在推进。我们都辞掉了工作。我们都在全职做这件事。它在推进中。如果你想加入，很好。如果不想，还有很多天使投资人。那就是你需要有的态度。那就是你需要有的信心。如果早期需要资金，始终计划需要更少的钱，并且始终能够展示你拥有一支完全投入的团队在快速推进。当你还无法展示增长的时候，这就是你获得优势的方式。如果你能向投资人展示，你还没有上线，但你已经在一个月或两个月内完成了八个月的工作量，你拥有一支优秀的团队，他们都辞掉了工作而且完全投入，你就能把一部分优势夺回来，但除非你已经上线并在增长，否则你无法获得全部优势。
[段 50]
So something to keep in mind. Finally, how to set up investor meetings. This is really, really simple, but I’m surprised at how many companies don’t get this right. The first is you want a warm introduction from another entrepreneur, preferably, or a previous investor of yours. That’s where you want to start. If someone who’s passed on your company as an investor offers you to make introductions, that’s kryptonite. Don’t touch that. So first, warm introduction. Very simple. You don’t want to cold call these people. You don’t want to bum rush these people. The credibility of the person who’s introducing you to an investor is a big part on whether the investor will take that meeting. Second, think in parallel.
[译文 50]
所以有一件事要记住。最后讲讲如何安排投资人会议。这真的非常简单，但我很惊讶有这么多公司没有做对。首先，你需要一个来自另一位企业家的热情引荐，最好是这样，或者是之前投资过你的人。这才是你应该开始的地方。如果有人作为投资人已经拒绝投资你的公司，却主动提出为你做引荐，那是氪金石。别碰这个。所以第一点，热忱引荐。非常简单。你不想冷不丁地打电话给这些人。你不想贸然打扰这些人。引荐你给投资人的那个人的可信度，在很大程度上决定了投资人是否会接受这次会面。第二，并行思考。
[段 51]
So many people that I meet will run the fundraising, this super slow process. We met with one guy this week. We’re going to schedule a meeting with another guy next week, another guy three weeks from now. When you’re fundraising, you’re on. It’s a sprint. It’s not a marathon. So you want to schedule all of your meetings during the same week. It’s extremely hard to do, but here’s one trick that I love. Tell when you’re emailing investors, you’re getting those warm intros, the investors email you back. You say, hey, we’d love to set up a meeting, but we’re building like crazy for the next two weeks. So can we set it up in that third week, right?
[译文 51]
我遇到的很多人都把融资搞成了这个超级慢的过程。我们这周见了一个人，下周要约见另一个人，三周后再约见另一个人。当你融资的时候，你要全力以赴。这是一场冲刺，不是马拉松。所以你想把所有的会面都安排在同一周。这非常难做到，但我有一个很喜欢的技巧。当你给投资人发邮件，你得到了那些热情引荐，投资人给你回邮件时。你会说，嘿，我们很希望能安排一次会面，但接下来两周我们要疯狂赶工了，所以能不能约在第三周？
[段 52]
So then you’ve emailed everyone that, right? So everyone schedules that meeting three weeks out. It’s better for them because their calendar’s open. It’s better for you because you’ve got all your meetings in one week. And also, what did you do? You hinted, hey, I’m not desperate for the money. We’re building. Like, I can meet you in three weeks. We’re building, we’re busy. Like it’s signaling all of the right things. So that’s the best way to kind of go about how you’re going to do that. The last thing is one team member should be invested in fundraising full time. It shouldn’t be something that takes over the whole company because it’s very, very distracting. So with that, let’s kick it off to the next part of this.
[译文 52]
所以你已经给每个人都发了那封邮件，对吧？所以每个人都会把会议安排在three weeks out。这样对他们更好，因为他们的日程是空的。这样对你也更好，因为你把所有的会议都集中在一周内了。还有，你做了什么？你暗示了，嘿，我不急于要这笔钱。我们正在发展中。比如，我三周后可以见你。我们很忙。这样就传递了所有正确的信号。所以这是处理这件事的最好方式。最后一点是，一个团队成员应该全职投入融资工作。这不应该是占据整个公司的事情，因为它会非常、非常让人分心。那么，接下来让我们进入下一部分。
[段 53]
Give me a hand in a two. Big Dalton. Yeah. Hi. So my name is Dalton Caldwell. I’m one of the partners at YC. And one of the things that we’re going to do today real quick is a mock pitch. And first of all, I know this is a bit contrived, but this is in this format of like a college class. We’re going to do our best to have fun and kind of demonstrate what it’s like. And I realize there’s a million reasons why you could say, oh, this isn’t realistic of what pitch is really like. But, you know, again, there’s a lot that we can show you. Just in terms of my background, over my career, I’ve raised $85 million over several companies.
[译文 53]
帮个忙，两秒钟。Big Dalton。好，大家好，我叫Dalton Caldwell，是YC的合伙人之一。今天我们要快速做的事情之一是模拟路演。首先，我知道这有点做作，但这是大学课堂的风格。我们会尽量玩得开心，同时演示一下路演是什么样的。我知道你们有一百万个理由可以说，哦，这不是路演真正应该有的样子。但是，你知道，此外，还是有很多可以展示给你们的东西。就我的背景而言，在我的职业生涯中，我已经在几家公司募集了8500万美元。
[段 54]
So I’ve sat in a lot of investor meetings, and so I’m going to be pulling as many things as I can. So, again, we’re just going to try to show you something to talk to and use it as a learning session. And you already did your intro earlier, Casper, right? Yeah, I mean, I’ve done a couple startups. Cool. So we’re going to do two pitches, and we’re going to go through them pretty fast. As Michael said, these tend to go fast. So let’s go dive into the first one, okay? So, Casper, I understand you. You’re coming to pitch me. So what can you tell me about what you do? So we’re building a communication platform that will allow businesses and consumers to collaborate on one single platform, rather than the kind of fracture state that they’re in right now.
[译文 54]
所以我参加过很多投资者会议，所以我尽可能多地收集各种信息。所以，我们只是想展示一些东西让你们讨论，把它当作一个学习环节。而且你之前已经做过自我介绍了吧，Casper？是的，我是说，我做过几个初创公司。好的。那我们要做两个pitches，我们会很快地过一遍。正如Michael所说，这些通常会进行得很快。那我们开始看第一个吧，好吗？所以，Casper，我理解你，你要来向我做pitch。那你能告诉我你是做什么的吗？我们正在构建一个通信平台，让企业和消费者能够在单一平台上协作，而不是像现在这样处于割裂状态。
[段 55]
I don’t know. I don’t follow. So think about what WhatsApp or Snapchat does for consumers. We want to do that for businesses. And so what… I have to do this to the straight face. What that means is we want to enable consumers to talk to businesses. That’s really what the goal of our startup is. I still don’t… So who uses this product? What does the product do? So, I mean, it’s for consumers and businesses. It’s a messaging product. It allows consumers to send… Why would a consumer want to use your product? Because they want to message the business. Okay, well, okay. What can you tell me about the market or what the opportunity… What’s the size of this?
[译文 55]
我不知道。我不太明白。所以想想WhatsApp或Snapchat为消费者做了什么。我们想为企业做同样的事。那么……我得一本正经地说。这意味着我们想让消费者和企业对话。这才是我们创业公司的真正目标。我还是不明白……那么谁会使用这个产品？产品做什么用？就是说，这是面向消费者和企业的。这是一个消息产品。它允许消费者发送……消费者为什么会想用你的产品？因为他们想给企业发消息。好的，嗯，嗯。你能告诉我市场情况或机会……市场规模有多大？
[段 56]
How big is this company to get? Messaging companies are very big. Obviously, WhatsApp sold for like $19 billion, and Snapchat is really growing very quickly as well. We think the opportunity is very big. OK. So. OK, tell me a little bit about your traction, your numbers. Have you given this to people yet? Yeah, I mean, we don’t want to open the Komodo and go into all the details here. At a high level, we’re live. We definitely have thousands of users in the Bay Area, hundreds of businesses. Can you tell me who some of those businesses are? There’s ones that you’ve been to. We don’t really want to get too much into the details because we’re still early and we’re trying to stay stout.
[译文 56]
这家公司的发展空间有多大？消息应用公司体量非常大。显然，WhatsApp 以大约 190 亿美元的价格售出，Snapchat 的发展也非常迅速。我们认为这个市场机会非常大。好的。那么，告诉我一下你们的增长情况，你们的数据。你们已经推出给人们使用了吗？是的，我的意思是，我们不想在这里打开 Komodo 深入到所有细节。从高层来看，我们已经上线了。我们湾区确实有成千上万的用户，数百家企业。你能告诉我其中一些企业是哪些吗？有几家你去过的。我们真的不想透露太多细节，因为我们还处于早期阶段，正在尽量保持 stout。
[段 57]
Okay, well, can you tell me about what you’ve learned so far, what insights that you’ve had from these customers? Yeah, the consumers are sending messages to these businesses, and we think that’s great. And these businesses are responding to the messages. And we think that’s, you know, I don’t think that’s obvious that that would happen. So can you tell me about what your business model is and how? Yeah, so we charge businesses… resses like a monthly rate. We haven’t precisely figured out what that is. Right now we’re free for the few hundred companies we’re in right now. But we’re looking to probably do a monthly subscription. How much do you think a business would be willing to pay?
[译文 57]
好的，你能告诉我你到目前为止学到了什么，从这些客户那里获得了什么洞察吗？是的，消费者正在给这些企业发送消息，我们认为这很棒。这些企业也在回复这些消息。我们认为，你知道，我觉得这并不是显而易见的会发生的事。所以你能告诉我你的商业模式是什么，以及怎么运作吗？是的，我们向企业收取… resses like a monthly rate。我们还没有精确地确定具体是多少。目前对于我们目前合作的几百家公司是免费的。但我们可能会采用月度订阅的方式。你认为企业愿意支付多少？
[段 58]
We think certainly $10,000 to $15,000 a month. Okay. So anyway, can you tell me a little about your team and who you have working on this? Yeah, we have five founders. Technically, I’m the only one who’s full-time right now. We’re raising money so we can get the rest of the team on board. Yeah. Can any of the founders program? or… Yeah, yeah. I mean, we have, I mean, one of them is a bio PhD, but he’s like, he’s really picked up coding. The, I mean, I’m a Python developer. I did learn Python the hard way. Oh, look at the time. Well, it’s been really great meeting you. Yeah. Please keep me in the loop. This sounds fantastic.
[译文 58]
我们认为每月10,000到15,000美元肯定是可行的。好吧，总之，你能告诉我一些关于你的团队情况吗，是谁在做这个项目？是的，我们有五位创始人。从技术上来说，目前只有我一个人是全职的。我们正在融资，这样我们就能让团队的其他成员加入进来。是的。创始人中有会编程的吗？……是的，是的。我的意思是，我们有一位生物博士，但他已经很好地掌握了编程。我的意思是，我是一名Python开发者。我是自学Python的。哦，看看时间了。嗯，和你见面真的非常愉快。是的，请随时和我保持联系。这听起来太棒了。
[段 59]
I will, I will send you updates. Yeah, I’ll send you, I’ll send you an update. Great. That was awful. All right. Okay. So let’s just go through. So that was obviously not strong. So let’s just talk about some of the mistakes. So first of all, you need to make sure the person you’re talking to knows what you do. This seems really simple. This seems simple, but it’s not. So many times people get flustered, they get nervous, and they start talking really fast. And there’s no way you’re ever going to convince anyone of anything if they don’t know even what your app actually is. You have to know your numbers, obviously, if you’re very vague or evasive.
[译文 59]
我会的，我会给你发更新。是的，我会发给你，我会给你发个更新。好吧。刚才那太糟了。好的，那我们来回顾一下。刚才显然不够有力。那我们来聊聊其中的一些错误。首先，你需要确保跟你交谈的人知道你做什么。这看起来很简单。看起来很简单，但实际上不是。很多时候人们会紧张，会焦虑，开始说得很快。如果对方连你的应用到底是什么都不知道，你根本不可能说服任何人。当然，你需要了解你的数据，如果你非常含糊或者回避的话。
[段 60]
Like, don’t even have a meeting. If you don’t feel comfortable telling an investor what your numbers are, don’t even meet with them. It means you’re not ready yet. For market size, try to give some plausible bottom-up analysis and don’t just name-drop big company. bottom-up analysis and don’t just name drop big companies that aren’t even really related to what you’re doing. People tend to do that a lot. Try to have insights. Try to convince me that there’s something that I don’t already know about the market that I learn talking to you rather than just what everyone knows about what the market is. I learned nothing during that particular pitch. Also, the team, just like, why are you working on this?
[译文 60]
就是不要见面。如果你连跟投资者分享数据都觉得不自在，那就别见。因为这说明你还没准备好。关于市场规模，尽量给出一个可信的自下而上分析，别只是点名那些跟你做的事根本没什么关系的大公司。人们特别喜欢这么做。尽量展示你的洞察力。让我相信你对这个市场有一些我不知道的东西——是跟你聊过之后我才学到的，而不只是那些大家都知道的市场信息。那次pitch我什么都没学到。还有团队这块，为什么要做这个？
[段 61]
Why are you suited for it? It’s a good thing to do. And finally, he didn’t drive the conversation anywhere. Obviously, that went poorly and he just let the conversation just like flail around until I cut the meeting because we ran out of time as fast as I could. So anyway, that was not a good pitch. So let’s try that again. Okay. All right. Let’s do this. Okay. All right, Kasser. Well, so I understand you have a company and can you just tell me a little bit of what you guys do? Yes. So we’re a messaging product. We allow, I mean, that sounds kind of vague. So what we allow you to do is essentially message a location.
[译文 61]
为什么你适合它？这是件好事。最后，他没有把对话引向任何方向。显然，那次表现很差，他只是让对话四处漂移，直到我结束了会议，因为我尽可能快地耗完了时间。总之，那不是一个好的演示。所以让我们再试一次。好的，好，让我们开始吧。好的，好，Kasser。嗯，我了解你有一家公司，你能告诉我一下你们是做什么的吗？是的，我们是一款消息产品，我们允许……嗯，这听起来有点模糊。我们允许你做的本质上是通过一个位置发送消息。
[段 62]
So when you walk into a crate and barrel, you can send the crate and barrel manager a message like, hey, there’s puke in the hallway. Or if you’re in the airport, I’m trying to find this specific gate because I’m not at this airport, where is the terminal for Virgin? Or if you’re at Target, what aisle is the channel? Okay, so is this a mobile app? Yeah, so on the consumer side, we have iOS and Android app, but really getting consumers to download apps is obviously very difficult. Yeah, I don’t usually just download apps to send a message to crate and barrel. In most businesses, we have a call to action, which says text the owner directly.
[译文 62]
所以当你走进 crate and barrel，你可以给店铺经理发消息，比如说，“嘿，走廊里有呕吐物。”或者如果你在机场，我想找到这个登机口，因为我不在这个机场，维珍的航站楼在哪里？或者如果你在 Target，哪个通道是（某个）频道？好的，所以这是一个手机应用吗？是的，所以在消费者端，我们有 iOS 和 Android 应用，但让消费者下载应用显然非常困难。是的，我通常不会为了给 crate and barrel 发消息而下载应用。在大多数企业中，我们有行动号召，上面写着“直接给店主发短信”。
[段 63]
We’ve tested actually a bunch of copy that works the best. In small print we have the messages that are anonymous. In small print, we have the messages are anonymous. It also lowers the barrier to entry. I think the most counterintuitive thing we’ve learned in the kind of launch that we’ve had were in 350 locations in the Bay. We’ve been doing this for about three months. We’re about 11% weekly growth rate in terms of acquiring businesses. But the most counterintuitive thing that we learned, because we weren’t actually sure, is will people send messages when they walk into it? Do people send messages? And they do. What’s the number one type of message that people send? So originally we started this product off thinking this was going to be like in-location feedback.
[译文 63]
我们实际上测试了一堆文案，这些文案效果最好。在小字部分，我们的消息是匿名的。它还降低了进入门槛。我认为我们在Bay地区的350个地点进行这种发布时，学到的最反直觉的事情是。我们做这件事大约已经三个月了。在获取企业方面，我们大约有11%的周增长率。但我们学到的最反直觉的事情是，因为我们实际上并不确定，人们走进去时会发送消息吗？人们会发送消息吗？会的。人们发送的最主要消息类型是什么？所以最初我们推出这个产品时，认为它会像是现场反馈。
[段 64]
That was the premise. in location feedback, what we found is more than half the messages are actually not about feedback at all. They ask things like, we were in this location in San Jose, this kebab stand, father and son, it’s just a takeout place, and we saw a message that went through that said, like, are you hiring? And that’s very strange, because you would think, why wouldn’t you just ask the owner? But we realized that we know this is the owner, and the person who’s walking in doesn’t. And so they do prefer to actually just text the owner, because they think that’s an easier way. So it’s like a suggestion box, or it’s like a way to just message.
[译文 64]
这就是前提。在位置反馈中，我们发现超过一半的消息实际上根本不是关于反馈的。他们问的问题比如，我们在San Jose的这个地方，这家烤肉串摊，父子经营的，只是个外卖店，我们看到一条发送过来的消息，内容是比如说，你们在招人吗？这很奇怪，因为你会想，为什么不直接问店主呢？但我们意识到，我们知道这是店主，而走进来的人不知道。所以他们确实更倾向于直接给店主发信息，因为他们觉得这样更方便。所以这就像一个意见箱，或者就像一种发消息的方式。
[段 65]
Yeah, initially that’s what we thought the word was, but what we actually discovered is vast majority of the, I shouldn’t say vast majority, over half the messages are actually just things like when do you open, when do you close, because that’s not on Google. Do you, you know, are you catering? Can you, you know, do you have any reservations available tonight? Okay, okay. Well, look, in terms of your traction, it sounds like you said you had some businesses. Like, tell me about what you guys have right now. So we have 350 businesses, all from San Jose to San Francisco. We sold them ourselves as three founders. We’re all technical, but we actually did all the sales because we learned a lot about how these businesses work.
[译文 65]
是的，我们最初以为这个词是这个意思，但实际上我们发现的是，绝…不对，我不该说绝大多数，超过一半的信息实际上只是一些像你们几点开门、你们几点关门这样的问题，因为这些在Google上找不到。
你们提供餐饮服务吗？你们能…你们今晚还有空位吗？
好的，好吧。嗯，在你的推广情况方面，听起来你说你有一些商家。给我讲讲你们现在有什么。所以我们有350个商家，全部从San Jose到San Francisco。我们三个创始人自己完成了所有销售工作。我们都是技术出身，但我们实际上做了所有的销售工作，因为我们学到了很多关于这些商家如何运作的东西。
[段 66]
the sales because we learned a lot about how these businesses work. We actually come from a retail background. We originally built this product for large enterprise players like Starbucks and Walmart, but we recognized that closing those contracts and our limited amount of runway wouldn’t really be possible, so we wanted to get the product in the hands of users, so we did SMBs. That’s when we discovered, hey, this messaging product is really missing. That sounds interesting. It sounds like you have some customers. How could this be big, though? Like, okay, maybe you can get a couple thousand stores. In terms of numbers, we see one and a half messages on average per location per day. That might not sound a lot, but for a business that’s getting 30 messages.
[译文 66]
the sales because we learned a lot about how these businesses work. 我们在销售方面学到了很多关于这些企业如何运作的知识。
We actually come from a retail background. 我们实际上来自零售行业背景。
We originally built this product for large enterprise players like Starbucks and Walmart, but we recognized that closing those contracts and our limited amount of runway wouldn’t really be possible, so we wanted to get the product in the hands of users, so we did SMBs. 我们最初是为像Starbucks和Walmart这样的大型企业客户开发这个产品的，但我们认识到，签署这些合同以及我们有限的资金跑道并不太可行，所以我们想让产品到达用户手中，于是我们转向了SMB（中小企业）。
That’s when we discovered, hey, this messaging product is really missing. 那时我们发现，嘿，这个消息传递产品确实很缺乏。
That sounds interesting. It sounds like you have some customers. 这听起来很有趣。听起来你们有一些客户。
How could this be big, though? Like, okay, maybe you can get a couple thousand stores. 但这怎么能做大呢？好吧，也许你能获得几千家门店。
In terms of numbers, we see one and a half messages on average per location per day. 在数字方面，我们看到每个门店平均每天有1.5条消息。
That might not sound a lot, but for a business that’s getting 30 messages. 这听起来可能不多，但对于一个每天收到30条消息的企业来说。
[段 67]
You take a Yelp review or a Google review, in a lifetime of business they might get five or seven. So they’re getting a huge volume of messages relative to what they tend to experience. And they’re private, so they’re not public. So in terms of how do we actually make money, frankly speaking, we don’t have a very clear answer there. the two paths are the SMB side or the LCS side, the large customer side. Large customers, we know from our retail experience, just regular feedback tools are $3 million to $4 million per year. It’s like a Sears where we came from. SMBs, we’ve tested, are willing to pay $50 a month. So, you know, certainly I think this is going to be a large business, and there’s clear ways to make money.
[译文 67]
你看看Yelp评价或Google评价，企业一辈子可能只会收到五到七条。所以相对于他们平时的经历，他们收到了大量的消息。而且这些是私密的，所以不是公开的。所以说到我们实际上如何赚钱，坦白讲，我们还没有一个很明确的答案。两条路是SMB端或者LCS端，即大型客户方面。大型客户，根据我们的零售经验，光是常规的反馈工具每年就要花300万到400万美元。就像我们之前所在的Sears一样。SMB，我们测试过，愿意每月支付50美元。所以，可以肯定的是，我认为这将是一个大企业，而且有明确的赚钱方式。
[段 68]
I could see that. Just a couple things. Can you tell me about your distribution strategy and also just a little bit about the team? Yeah. So distribution, so the thing that we learned in selling these SMBs is it’s really freaking hard. The formula LTV minus CPA, lifetime value minus cost per acquisition of an SMB is nevera CPA, lifetime value minus cost per acquisition and SMB is never going to work out. And so we have two solutions. One is to go upmarket like we originally planned at Starbucks or Walmart. Or two is actually essentially pair with consumer-facing companies, Yelp, Google, Facebook. Have you been talking to them? Do they actually want to do it? So we’ve talked to Google and Facebook.
[译文 68]
我明白了。还有几件事。能说说你们的分销策略吗？还有团队方面的情况？好的。分销方面，我们在销售这些SMB时学到的就是真的太难了。这个公式，LTV减去CPA，中小企业的一生价值减去获客成本，永远是行不通的。所以我们有两个解决方案。一个是向上市场发展，就像我们最初计划的Starbucks或Walmart那样。第二个是实际上与面向消费者的公司合作，Yelp、Google、Facebook。你们和他们谈过了吗？他们真的想做吗？我们和Google还有Facebook谈过了。
[段 69]
We’re meeting with Yelp. What we’re basically going to do is every time you search for a business, there should be a message button. We want to get consumers in the habit of knowing they can send essentially a text message to any business. that can help us get broad distribution. Our real vision is to become kind of that infrastructure, That messaging infrastructure between consumers and businesses. If that doesn’t work, let’s say Google, Facebook, and Yelp don’t want to give up that valuable property, it’s really an ad unit. We do want to just sell this as a feedback tool to large players. All right, can you tell me a little bit about the team? We’re running low on time.
[译文 69]
我们正在与Yelp会面。我们基本上要做的是，每次你搜索商家时，都应该有一个消息按钮。我们想让消费者养成一种习惯，知道他们可以向任何商家发送短信。这可以帮助我们获得广泛的分发。我们真正的愿景是成为那种基础设施，那种消费者和商家之间的消息基础设施。如果这不行，比如Google、Facebook和Yelp不想放弃那个有价值的属性，那它实际上是一个广告单元。我们确实想把这个作为一个反馈工具卖给大型商家。好的，你能告诉我一些关于团队的事情吗？我们的时间不多了。
[段 70]
Yeah, there’s three of us, all technical. Mike and I did a company before. Sonny is an ex-Google engineer. We come from retail. And our first startup was a failure. So I don’t know if that’s good or bad, but we’ve worked together, and, yeah, we’re all technical. We’ve built everything ourselves, and we sold everything ourselves. Okay. So we’ve already had a couple of conversations with your firm. We’re raising $500,000 and an $8.5 million convertible note. Of that $500,000, $250,000 is committed by Mike Maples, Elad Gill, and Aidan Sinkett. And Mike, with Floodgate, is willing to fill the round. And we think you’re, you know, particularly you and your firm can bring a lot to the team with your retail experience.
[译文 70]
嗯，我们有三个人，都是技术背景。Mike 和我之前创办过一家公司。Sonny 是前 Google 工程师。我们来自零售行业。我们的第一次创业失败了。所以我不知道这是好是坏，但我们一起工作过，而且，是的，我们都是技术背景。我们自己做所有东西，自己销售所有东西。好的。所以我们已经和贵公司有过几次交谈了。我们正在融资 500,000 美元和 850 万美元的可转换债券。在 500,000 美元中，有 250,000 美元是由 Mike Maples、Elad Gill 和 Aidan Sinkett 承诺的。Mike 和 Floodgate 愿意填补这一轮。我们认为你，特别是你和你的公司，可以凭借你们的零售经验为我们团队带来很多价值。
[段 71]
Is this something that’s interesting to you? Yeah, you know, I think this is really interesting. I mean, I would need to talk to a couple more folks on my side, but I do think this could be pretty big. Yeah, since we’ve had a couple of conversations before and we’re certainly willing to meet again, we are closing around this Friday. And so certainly take time and let your other partners know. I’ll be available between now and Friday. I’ll give you another call before Friday before we close around. But we’d love to actually see you in the room. Okay, well, sounds good. I gotta go, but thanks. Great. Thanks. Alright. So, very different type of conversation. So, in terms of that one, you know, some key points here is: try to actually tell a narrative that makes sense to people.
[译文 71]
这个你感兴趣吗？是的，我觉得这真的很有意思。我是说，我需要跟我这边的几个人再谈谈，但我确实认为这可能会非常大。是的，既然我们之前已经有过几次对话，而且我们当然愿意再见面，我们大概在这个 Friday 左右结束。所以一定要花时间，让你其他的合伙人也知道。从现在到 Friday 之间我都会在。在 Friday 结束之前我会再给你打个电话。但我们真的很想在会议室见到你。好的，听起来不错。我得走了，但谢谢。太好了。谢谢。好吧。所以，这是一次非常不同的对话。所以，就那个而言，你知道，关键点是要讲一个让人们能够理解的故事。
[段 72]
You notice there was narratives there, talking about people how they really use it. We’re able to tie it down to the real world, which is good. He was able to demonstrate insights and actually tell me something I didn’t already know about the market. There were some tidbits there. It was more of a collaborative medium where it felt more like a conversation than just like I was interviewing him about something, in my opinion. He actually asked for money. And this is the other key thing, is at the end, you saw I could have easily just been like, okay, got to go. But he did talk about fundraising, as Michael mentioned. And he was able to provide all the context and all the questions I would need to actually have a serious conversation with him.
[译文 72]
你注意到那里有一些叙事，谈到了人们如何真正使用它。我们能够将其与现实世界联系起来，这很好。他能够展示洞察力，真的告诉我一些我之前不知道的市场信息。那里有一些小细节。在我看来，这更像是一种协作媒介，感觉更像是一场对话，而不是我在采访他什么。他实际上要求了资金。这是另一个关键点，在最后，你看到我本可以轻易地就这样，好了，该走了。但他确实谈到了筹款，正如 Michael 提到的。他能够提供所有背景和所有我需要的问题，以便与他进行认真的对话。
[段 73]
If he was cagey about it or shy about it and not clear on the numbers, there’s a very good chance that I probably would have just ended the conversation due to time pressure. Yeah, it’s interesting. We sit on the other side a lot. You can tell when people are very passionate and know their business very, very well, and that’s what you have to become. Okay, so closing thoughts here, what you want to do after the meeting, before we get into Q&A. We’re running a little short on time. So after the meeting, the first thing, just like Tyler said in the sales things, follow up. This is important. And anything other than a check or wired funds is a no.
[译文 73]
如果他在这个问题上遮遮掩掩、含糊其辞，对数字也不清楚，由于时间压力，我很可能就会直接结束对话。是的，这很有趣。我们经常换位思考。你能感觉到什么时候人们对工作充满热情、非常非常了解自己的业务，而这就是你必须成为的样子。好的，这里是结束语，在进入问答环节之前，你想在会议结束后做什么。我们的时间有点不够了。所以会议结束后，第一件事，就像Tyler在销售环节说的，跟进。这很重要。除了支票或电汇资金外，其他都不行。
[段 74]
So they say we’ve got to keep talking to partners. I assume that’s a no. And so you do want to put some pressure. The way that you can do that is get deal heat. Deal heat is just a term which means there’s a demand to be in your round. This is the easiest way and an important way to actually drive up price, et cetera. Do diligence with investors. So let’s say you have that $500,000 raised for your seed round on the $8.5 million like we used in this example. Do you deal with some investors? If you do find that he’s actually not a great investor, I can’t get Elad or Mike Maples or whoever to actually fill the rest of the round.
[译文 74]
所以他们说我们得继续和合作伙伴谈。我估计那是拒绝的意思。所以你确实想施加点压力。你可以这样做的方式是制造交易热度。交易热度这个术语的意思是，有需求想要参与你的这一轮融资。这是最容易也是重要的方式，来真正推动价格上涨，等等。和投资者做尽职调查。假设你已经为你的种子轮筹集了$500,000，估值$8.5 million，就像我们这个例子中用到的。你会和一些投资者做尽职调查吗？如果你确实发现他实际上不是一个好的投资者，我不能让Elad或Mike Maples或其他人来填补这一轮的剩余部分。
[段 75]
It’s surprising to us how many entrepreneurs don’t do this. It’s like you would actually spend a lot of time hiring somebody. You’re selling a part of your company to somebody. You should know who you’re selling it to to make sure they’re the type of people you think they are. And then last, know when to stop. So some founders get so good at fundraising, they just want to do it all the time because it’s much easier to do than actually building the company. Fundraising does not equal success. And just because you fundraise does not mean you succeeded. And nobody realizes that. And we say this, and we’ll say this now, but I’m sure everyone will still equate fundraising with success and read about someone’s fundraising and assume that means they’re successful.
[译文 75]
这让我们感到惊讶，这么多创业者都不这样做。这就好像你会花大量时间去招聘某个人。你是在把你的公司的一部分卖给某个人。你应该知道你在卖给谁，以确保他们是你们认为的那种人。然后最后，知道何时该停止。所以有些创始人非常擅长融资，他们一直想要融资，因为融资比实际建立公司要容易得多。融资不等于成功。仅仅因为你融了资并不意味着你成功了。没有人意识到这一点。我们这样说，我们现在也会这样说，但我相信每个人仍然会把融资等同于成功，读到某人融资的消息就会认为他们成功了。
[段 76]
My guess is, my intuition is that this is the case because a lot of smart people their whole life, they’ve applied to good schools and applied to good jobs, and they just think fundraising is another application that they can just kind of check off. And building a company is much more ambiguous. But anyways, that’s the session. I don’t know if we have time for… Oh, I’m just underlining that. Build your company. Fundraising is not the goal. Can you guys just stick around for a few minutes after I answer questions? Sure. Yeah, we can do that. All right, thank you guys very much. That was great. Thank you. Thank you.
[译文 76]
我的猜测是，我的直觉告诉我事情是这样的，因为很多聪明人终其一生都在申请好的学校、申请好的工作，他们只是觉得融资就是另一个可以打勾的申请。但创业要模糊得多。但不管怎样，这就是今天的环节。我不知道我们是否有时间… 哦，我只是在强调这一点。建立你的公司。融资不是目标。你们能不能在我回答完问题后再待几分钟？当然。好的，我们可以。好的，非常感谢你们。太棒了。谢谢。谢谢。
Source: bilibili BV1oWKpzoE1Z