TED演讲 中英双语

The single biggest reason why start-ups succeed

I’m really excited to share with you some findings that really surprise me about what makes companies succeed the most, what factors actually matter the most for startup success.

I believe that the startup organization is one of the greatest forms to make the world a better place. If you take a group of people with the right equity incentives and organize them in a startup, you can unlock human potential in a way never before possible. You get them to achieve unbelievable things.

But if the startup organization is so great, why do so many fail? That’s what I wanted to find out. I wanted to find out what actually matters most for startup success.

And I wanted to try to be systematic about it, avoid some of my instincts and maybe misperceptions I have from so many companies I’ve seen over the years.

I wanted to know this because I’ve been starting businesses since I was 12 years old when I sold candy at the bus stop in junior high school, to high school, when I made solar energy devices, to college, when I made loudspeakers. And when I graduated from college, I started software companies. And 20 years ago, I started Idealab, and in the last 20 years, we started more than 100 companies, many successes, and many big failures. We learned a lot from those failures.

So I tried to look across what factors accounted the most for company success and failure. So I looked at these five. First, the idea. I used to think that the idea was everything. I named my company Idealab for how much I worship the “aha!” moment when you first come up with the idea. But then over time, I came to think that maybe the team, the execution, adaptability, that mattered even more than the idea.

I never thought I’d be quoting boxer Mike Tyson on the TED stage, but he once said, “Everybody has a plan, until they get punched in the face.” (Laughter) And I think that’s so true about business as well. So much about a team’s execution is its ability to adapt to getting punched in the face by the customer. The customer is the true reality. And that’s why I came to think that the team maybe was the most important thing.

Then I started looking at the business model. Does the company have a very clear path generating customer revenues? That started rising to the top in my thinking about maybe what mattered most for success.

Then I looked at the funding. Sometimes companies received intense amounts of funding. Maybe that’s the most important thing?

And then of course, the timing. Is the idea way too early and the world’s not ready for it? Is it early, as in, you’re in advance and you have to educate the world? Is it just right? Or is it too late, and there’s already too many competitors?

So I tried to look very carefully at these five factors across many companies. And I looked across all 100 Idealab companies, and 100 non-Idealab companies to try and come up with something scientific about it.

So first, on these Idealab companies, the top five companies — Citysearch, CarsDirect, GoTo, NetZero, Tickets.com — those all became billion-dollar successes. And the five companies on the bottom — Z.com, Insider Pages, MyLife, Desktop Factory, Peoplelink — we all had high hopes for, but didn’t succeed.

So I tried to rank across all of those attributes how I felt those companies scored on each of those dimensions. And then for non-Idealab companies, I looked at wild successes, like Airbnb and Instagram and Uber and Youtube and LinkedIn.

And some failures: Webvan, Kozmo, Pets.com Flooz and Friendster. The bottom companies had intense funding, they even had business models in some cases, but they didn’t succeed. I tried to look at what factors actually accounted the most for success and failure across all of these companies, and the results really surprised me.

The number one thing was timing. Timing accounted for 42 percent of the difference between success and failure. Team and execution came in second, and the idea, the differentiability of the idea, the uniqueness of the idea, that actually came in third.

Now, this isn’t absolutely definitive, it’s not to say that the idea isn’t important, but it very much surprised me that the idea wasn’t the most important thing. Sometimes it mattered more when it was actually timed.

The last two, business model and funding, made sense to me actually. I think business model makes sense to be that low because you can start out without a business model and add one later if your customers are demanding what you’re creating. And funding, I think as well, if you’re underfunded at first but you’re gaining traction, especially in today’s age, it’s very, very easy to get intense funding.

So now let me give you some specific examples about each of these. So take a wild success like Airbnb that everybody knows about. Well, that company was famously passed on by many smart investors because people thought, “No one’s going to rent out a space in their home to a stranger.” Of course, people proved that wrong. But one of the reasons it succeeded, aside from a good business model, a good idea, great execution, is the timing.

That company came out right during the height of the recession when people really needed extra money, and that maybe helped people overcome their objection to renting out their own home to a stranger.

Same thing with Uber. Uber came out, incredible company, incredible business model, great execution, too. But the timing was so perfect for their need to get drivers into the system. Drivers were looking for extra money; it was very, very important.

Some of our early successes, Citysearch, came out when people needed web pages. GoTo.com, which we announced actually at TED in 1998, was when companies were looking for cost-effective ways to get traffic. We thought the idea was so great, but actually, the timing was probably maybe more important. And then some of our failures. We started a company called Z.com, it was an online entertainment company. We were so excited about it — we raised enough money, we had a great business model, we even signed incredibly great Hollywood talent to join the company. But broadband penetration was too low in 1999-2000. It was too hard to watch video content online, you had to put codecs in your browser and do all this stuff, and the company eventually went out of business in 2003.

Just two years later, when the codec problem was solved by Adobe Flash and when broadband penetration crossed 50 percent in America, YouTube was perfectly timed. Great idea, but unbelievable timing. In fact, YouTube didn’t even have a business model when it first started. It wasn’t even certain that that would work out. But that was beautifully, beautifully timed.

So what I would say, in summary, is execution definitely matters a lot. The idea matters a lot. But timing might matter even more. And the best way to really assess timing is to really look at whether consumers are really ready for what you have to offer them. And to be really, really honest about it, not be in denial about any results that you see, because if you have something you love, you want to push it forward, but you have to be very, very honest about that factor on timing.

As I said earlier, I think startups can change the world and make the world a better place. I hope some of these insights can maybe help you have a slightly higher success ratio, and thus make something great come to the world that wouldn’t have happened otherwise.

初创企业成功的最大原因

我真的很高兴能与你们分享一些发现，这些发现真的让我很吃惊，是什么让公司最成功，什么因素对创业公司的成功其实最重要。

我相信，创业公司的组织是使世界变得更美好的最大形式之一。如果你把一群具有正确股权激励的人组织在一个创业公司里，你可以以一种前所未有的方式释放人类的潜力。你可以让他们实现令人难以置信的事情。

但是，如果创业公司的组织是如此的伟大，为什么有那么多的人失败了？这就是我想找出的原因。我想找出对创业公司成功最重要的东西。

我想试着系统地了解它，避免我的一些直觉，也许是我多年来从许多公司看到的错误观念。

我想知道这一点，因为我从12岁开始就一直在创业，当时我在初中的公交车站卖糖果，到高中，我做太阳能设备，到大学，我做扩音器。而当我从大学毕业后，我开始了软件公司。而20年前，我创办了Idealab公司，在过去的20年里，我们创办了100多家公司，有很多成功的案例，也有很多大的失败。我们从这些失败中学到了很多。

因此，我试图横看竖看，什么因素对公司的成功和失败影响最大。所以我看了这五个方面。第一，想法。我曾经认为，想法就是一切。我把我的公司命名为Idealab，因为我非常崇拜你第一次想出主意时的 “啊哈！”时刻。但随着时间的推移，我开始认为，也许团队、执行力、适应性，甚至比想法更重要。

我从未想过我会在TED舞台上引用拳击手迈克-泰森的话，但他曾经说过，”每个人都有一个计划，直到他们被打脸为止”。(笑声）而我认为这句话在商业上也是如此真实。一个团队的执行力在很大程度上是其适应被客户打脸的能力。客户才是真正的现实。这就是为什么我开始认为团队也许是最重要的东西。

然后我开始看商业模式。该公司是否有一个非常明确的产生客户收入的途径？这在我的思考中开始上升到顶点，也许什么对成功最重要。

然后我看了看资金。有时公司获得了大量的资金。也许这是最重要的事情？

然后，当然是时机。这个想法是不是太早了，世界还没有准备好？是不是太早了，就像你已经提前了，你必须教育世界？它是恰到好处吗？还是太晚了，已经有了太多的竞争对手？

因此，我试图在许多公司中非常仔细地研究这五个因素。我看了所有100家Idealab公司，以及100家非Idealab公司，试图得出一些科学的结论。

因此，首先，在这些Idealab公司中，排名前五位的公司–Citysearch、CarsDirect、GoTo、NetZero、Ticket.com–这些公司都取得了数十亿美元的成功。而底部的五家公司–Z.com、Insider Pages、MyLife、Desktop Factory、Peoplelink–我们都寄予厚望，但没有成功。

因此，我试图对所有这些属性进行排名，看看我觉得这些公司在每个方面的得分如何。然后，对于非Idealab公司，我看了一下疯狂的成功，如Airbnb、Instagram、Uber、Youtube和LinkedIn。

还有一些失败的案例。Webvan, Kozmo, Pets.com Flooz 和 Friendster。底层的公司有密集的资金，他们甚至在某些情况下有商业模式，但他们没有成功。我试图研究在所有这些公司中，哪些因素实际上对成功和失败的影响最大，结果真的让我吃惊。

第一件事是时机。时机占成功和失败之间差异的42%。团队和执行排在第二位，而想法，想法的差异性，想法的独特性，实际上排在第三位。

现在，这并不是绝对确定的，这并不是说想法不重要，但让我非常惊讶的是，想法并不是最重要的东西。有时它在实际的时间上更重要。

最后两个，商业模式和资金，对我来说其实是有意义的。我认为商业模式是有意义的，因为你可以在开始时没有商业模式，如果你的客户需要你所创造的东西，以后再增加一个。而资金，我认为也是如此，如果你一开始资金不足，但你正在获得牵引力，特别是在今天的时代，非常非常容易获得密集的资金。

因此，现在让我给你一些关于每一个的具体例子。所以就拿大家都知道的Airbnb这样的疯狂成功来说吧。好吧，那家公司被许多聪明的投资者放弃了，因为人们认为，”没有人会把自己家里的空间出租给陌生人”。当然，人们证明这是错的。但它成功的原因之一，除了一个好的商业模式，一个好的想法，伟大的执行，就是时机。

那家公司是在经济衰退的高峰期出现的，当时人们真的需要额外的钱，这也许帮助人们克服了他们对把自己的房子租给陌生人的反对。

Uber也是如此。Uber的出现，令人难以置信的公司，令人难以置信的商业模式，也有伟大的执行。但是，他们需要让司机进入这个系统，时机是如此完美。司机们正在寻找额外的钱；这一点非常非常重要。

我们早期的一些成功案例，如Citysearch，是在人们需要网页时出现的。GoTo.com，实际上是我们在1998年TED上宣布的，当时公司正在寻找低成本的方式来获得流量。我们认为这个想法非常好，但实际上，时机可能更重要。然后是我们的一些失败案例。我们创办了一家名为Z.com的公司，它是一家在线娱乐公司。我们对它非常兴奋 — 我们筹集了足够的资金，我们有一个伟大的商业模式，我们甚至签署了令人难以置信的伟大的好莱坞人才加入该公司。但是在1999-2000年，宽带渗透率太低。在网上观看视频内容太难了，你必须把编解码器放在你的浏览器里，做所有这些事情，公司最终在2003年倒闭了。

仅仅两年后，当编解码器的问题被Adobe Flash解决，当美国的宽带普及率超过50%时，YouTube的时机非常好。伟大的想法，但令人难以置信的时机。事实上，YouTube刚开始时甚至没有一个商业模式。它甚至不确定这是否会成功。但那是非常好的，非常好的时机。

因此，我想说的是，总之，执行肯定很重要。想法很重要。但时机可能更重要。而真正评估时机的最好方法是真正看看消费者是否真的准备好接受你要提供给他们的东西。而且要非常、非常诚实地对待它，不要否认你看到的任何结果，因为如果你有你喜欢的东西，你想推动它，但你必须非常、非常诚实地对待时机的因素。

正如我先前所说，我认为初创企业可以改变世界，使世界变得更美好。我希望这些见解中的一些也许可以帮助你有一个稍高的成功率，从而使一些伟大的东西来到世界上，否则就不会发生。