来自1000多家YC初创公司的经验教训：韧性、泥潭想法、转型及其他 | Dalton Caldwell（Y Combinator董事总经理）

看到人们申请YC时提交的内容，大家的想法都大同小异。

Seeing everything people apply to YC with, people all kinda have the same idea.

其中一个主题就是简单实用的建议：卖东西，赚钱。

One of these themes is simple pragmatic advice. Sell shit, make money.

我的人生信条之一就是'别死就行'。接受指导并牢记基本原则能让你保持正确心态。

One of my mantras is just don't die. Being coached and being reminded of the fundamentals and basics puts you in the right mindset.

你们提出了'焦油坑想法'这个概念。

You have this concept of tar pit ideas.

这似乎是个未解难题。你会得到全世界的积极反馈，而人们从上世纪90年代就开始创办这类初创公司了。

Seems like an unsolved problem. You'll get all this positive feedback from the world, and people have been starting that startup since the nineties.

最近你们发布了初创企业征集令，列出了YC想投资的20类创意。

Recently, you put out a request for startups, 20 categories of ideas that YC wants to fund.

我们试图整合各类信息，帮助人们思考可能会涉及哪些类型的创意。

We're trying to mix up some of the information diet about what kind of ideas people might be contemplating they incur.

很多人都说你是转型之王。

A lot of people say you're the king of the pivot.

成功的转型就像回家一样。更温暖，更接近你擅长的领域。

A good pivot is like going home. It's warmer. It's closer to something that you're an expert at.

你还发现其他表现优异的初创企业有哪些共同模式吗？

Are there other patterns you find across startups that do well?

很多创始人曾濒临绝境，但凭借纯粹意志力硬是撑了下来。

There's a lot of founders that come this close to it all being over and, through sheer will, kinda just keep it going.

今天我的嘉宾是道尔顿·考德威尔。道尔顿是Y Combinator的董事总经理兼集团合伙人，他在YC工作超过十年，参与了21期孵化项目，包括早期深度参与Instacart、Retul、Brex、Deal、DoorDash、Webflow、Replit、Amplitude、Whatnot、RazorPay等20多家独角兽企业。加入YC前，道尔顿是iNeme联合创始人兼CEO（后被Myspace收购），以及App.net联合创始人兼CEO（早期无广告版Twitter竞争者）。道尔顿接触过的初创企业数量堪称在世之最。本次对话中，我们将深入探讨创业历程中的实战策略。

Today, my guest is Dalton Caldwell. Dalton is managing director and group partner at Y Combinator, where he's worked for over ten years across 21 different YC batches, including working closely in the earliest days of Instacart, Retul, Brex, Deal, DoorDash, Webflow, Replit, Amplitude, Whatnot, RazorPay, and 20 other unicorns. Prior to Y Combinator, Dalton was the cofounder and CEO of iNeme, which was acquired by Myspace, and cofounder and CEO of App dot Net, which was an early ads free competitor to Twitter. Dalton has seen and worked with more startups than nearly any human alive. And in our conversation, we get incredibly tactical and deep on the startup journey.

为什么一切归根结底就是不放弃希望、不让初创企业夭折；当企业陷入困境时该怎么办；如何判断何时该放弃；成功转型的要素与转型时机信号；客户沟通的实际方法；为何所有初创企业都会经历至暗时刻；投资人拒绝初创企业的原因；最常见的失败诱因；早期避免过度授权的重要性；应该规避的创业方向；以及道尔顿正在寻求投资的20个创意。本期节目还包含大量精彩故事和经验教训，内容极其充实。接下来请收听赞助商插播后的道尔顿·考德威尔专访。若喜欢本播客，别忘了在您常用的播客平台或YouTube订阅关注。

Why it all comes down to simply not losing hope and not letting your startup die, what to do when your startup is struggling and how to know when it is time to give up, what makes a great pivot and signs it's time to pivot, how actually talk to customers, why every single startup goes through a point where they feel like all hope is lost, why investors say no to startups, what most often leads to startups failing, why you need to avoid over delegating early on, plus startup ideas that you should avoid, and also 20 ideas Dalton is looking to fund. Also, so many great stories and lessons. This episode is action packed. With that, I bring you Dalton Caldwell after a short word from our sponsors. And if you enjoy this podcast, don't forget to subscribe and follow it in your favorite podcasting app or YouTube.

这是避免错过后续节目的最佳方式，也是对播客的极大支持。本期节目由EPO赞助播出。EPO是由Airbnb和Snowflake校友为现代增长团队打造的新一代AB测试与功能管理平台，Twitch、Miro、ClickUp和DraftKings等企业都依赖EPO进行实验。测试验证对推动增长和评估新功能表现正变得愈发关键。

It's the best way to avoid missing future episodes, and it helps the podcast tremendously. This episode is brought to you by EPO. EPO is a next generation AB testing and feature management platform built by alums of Airbnb and Snowflake for modern growth teams. Companies like Twitch, Miro, ClickUp, and DraftKings rely on EPO to power their experiments. Experimentation is increasingly essential for driving growth and for understanding the performance of new features.

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道尔顿，非常感谢你来做客，欢迎来到播客节目。

Dalton, thank you so much for being here, welcome to the podcast.

非常感谢，莱尼。今天能和你交流真的很兴奋，太棒了。

Yeah. Thanks so much, Lenny. I'm really excited to talk to you today. It's been great.

为准备这次访谈，我采访了多位在YC期间与你合作过的创始人，询问你分享过哪些最具变革性的建议——关于产品思维、创业构建和运营方式。这些建议呈现出若干主题，我将逐一探讨。其中一个主题是你常给出的简单务实建议，比如'卖产品、赚钱、别断资金'。为什么创始人需要听这些看似简单直白的建议？

So to prep for this podcast interview, I asked a bunch of founders that worked with you during YC what advice you shared with them along the journey that was most transformative to the way they think about product, the way they think about building their startup, the way they operate. And there's a bunch of themes that emerge, and I'm gonna touch on a number of these themes. One of these themes is just how often you get to, like, very simple pragmatic advice and how much of your message is just, like, sell shit, make money, don't run out of money. Why do you think founders need to hear this advice, is seemingly simple and obvious?

你看过NBA或大学篮球赛里教练戴着麦克风在暂停时说的话吗？他们实际上说的是'专注抢球，拿下比赛'。如果你留意最伟大、最聪明的运动员的对话内容...

Have you ever seen in in, like, NBA basketball or college basketball where they have the coach miked up and it shows what they're actually saying in the huddle? You ever listen what they actually are saying? They're like, okay. We we need to really focus and get the ball and win this game. Like, if you actually listen to what the greatest, smartest, most successful athletes are talking about.

比如，如果你听泰格·伍兹和他的球童之间的对话，内容听起来都很平常。他们谈论的并非什么难以理解的行业黑话。更像是'这一杆你确实需要保持低头'这类话。

Like, if you listen to what Tiger Woods is saying to his caddy, it all sounds like pretty mundane stuff. They're not it's not like what Tiger Tiger Woods is talking about with his caddy is some, you know, impossible to decipher jargon. It's like, yeah. You really need to keep your head down on this one. It's things like that.

我认为这背后的原因是，即使你是世界顶尖选手，被指导和被提醒基本功才是让你保持正确心态的关键。你其实已经掌握了一切，对吧？当你成为创业公司创始人或从事任何心理上极具挑战性的事情并达到精英水平时，你就是这个领域的佼佼者。所以我有个口头禅就是：别死就行。

And and I think the reason this is true is that even if you're the the best in the world, being coached and being reminded of the fundamentals and basics is what puts you in the right mindset. And that you already know everything. Right? You're at the top of your game if you make it to the elite levels of being a startup founder or basically doing anything that's really hard, psychologically. And so, yeah, one of my mantras is just don't die.

只要让你的初创公司继续运转。坚持下去。我反复强调这句话。说实话，很多人反馈这是我说过最有影响力的话——不是什么他们从未想过的绝妙高招。

Just keep your startup going. Just keep going. And I say that over and over again. And honestly, that is often what people tell me is the most impactful thing I said. It's not that I said some ninja five d chess move that they never would have thought of before.

这其实是一种持续的肯定：坚持做下去并保持高质量的重复练习才是真正的成功之道。

It's just the constant affirmation that continuing to keep going and doing high quality reps is the game.

我知道你做过一个同名演讲《如何不死》。再深入探讨下，对于那些也不想'死'的人，你通常会给出什么建议？

I know that you'd give a talk that's exactly called that, how how not to die. Just to pull on the thread a little bit more, what is what is the general advice you share there for people that also don't wanna die?

总结来说，如果你研究YC所有的创业案例和我们多年来投资的公司，核心主题是：从理性角度，创始人们早该在某个节点放弃。以Airbnb为例——显然你很熟悉——他们在进入YC前可能有三四次该关门的时刻，客观上看项目根本行不通，他们简直是在毁掉自己的人生。

The way to summarize that is if you look at all the startup stories that we have at YC and all the companies we funded over all the years, the underlying theme is that rationally, the founders should have given up at some point. And so, again, let's talk about Airbnb, obviously, something you know a lot about. You know, when they probably should have shut down, like, three or four times before they got into YC. It objectively wasn't working. They were basically ruining their lives.

他们让父母失望，事事不顺。Airbnb创始人继续坚持那个看似荒唐的创业项目完全是非理性的行为。这只是一个案例，纵观YC和非YC的投资组合，都需要这种非理性的坚持——即使全世界都说行不通，即使你感到彻底失败。

They were disappointing their parents. Everything was wrong. And it was a purely irrational act for the founders of Airbnb to keep working on their goofy startup. And so, and again, that's just one story. If you look across the portfolio of YC and non YC companies, there has to be this irrational, you know, intention to keep going even when the world tells you it's not working and you feel completely defeated.

你可能需要多次经历这些濒临失败的考验，然后才会幸运地看起来像是一夜成名。

And you likely have to go through this many times and have these near death experiences. And then you get lucky and then you look like an overnight success.

对吧？

Right?

这就是主题，也是我的总结。我提供了大量数据和案例，但这件事让我感触最深的是：这份工作做得越久，我就越坚信这个道理。

And so that is the theme, that is a summary and I provide, you know, lots of data and lots of stories there, But this is one of those things that the the longer I had this job, the more I really, really believe this is true.

对于那些处境相反的创业者，你有什么建议？现在有很多初创企业，特别是近年来，长期挣扎求生。他们面临心理健康问题，如果被迫关停会非常难过，但往往这才是正确选择。你对他们如何决定放弃有什么建议？

What's your advice kind of on the flip side of that, where there's a lot of startups, especially these days that are just super struggling, have been at it for a while. Their mental health challenges, they're really they'd be very sad if they had to shut this thing down, but often, it's probably the right move. What's your advice to folks of deciding, okay. Actually, it does make sense to give up in this case?

这是个微妙的问题，很难在播客里给出真正有用的建议。但我有几个思考方向：一、你还在享受这个过程吗？二、你仍然热爱正在做的事吗？三、你还喜欢和联合创始人共事吗？

I think this is a nuanced question, and it's hard for me to say something on a podcast that will actually be useful to people. But here here's here's a couple of thoughts. One, are you still having fun? Do you still enjoy doing what you're doing? Do you enjoy spending time with your co founders?

比如，你现在做的事真的有趣吗？如果答案是肯定的，我会倾向于坚持。但如果它已经严重负面影响你的生活、人际关系和团队氛围——比如不想再和合伙人共事之类——那我建议及时止损。很多成功翻盘的企业都有个共同点：他们真心热爱自己的客户和产品。就像Airbnb的故事，虽然情况糟糕，但他们真心喜欢这个事业。

You know, like, is this actually a fun thing you're doing? And if the answer is yes, I would tend to lean on the keep going. And then if it's more of, wow, this is actually profoundly affecting me in a negative way and my relationships with people in my life and my team, you know, I don't really wanna work with my co founder anymore and things like that, then I would lean on the probably don't do it anymore. Something that a lot of the folks that turn it around have in common is they actually do love their customers and they love their product. And again, if you the Airbnb story, again, you know it really well, but they really liked Airbnb.

他们喜欢彼此合作，记得第一位房东的名字。明白我的意思吗？尽管处境艰难，他们依然热爱自己的创业项目。所以对我来说，继续坚持的信号应该是：你真心热爱正在做的事、合作的伙伴、服务的客户以及解决的问题。而不是觉得'这些我都不在乎，只是硬撑着'的状态。

Like and they liked working with each other, and they liked the first host that they met, and they knew all their names. You know what I'm saying? Like, they were actually they loved their startup even though it was going bad. And so that's kind of, to me, a signal to keep going is that you really, really love what you're doing and the people you're doing it with and you love your customers and you love the problem versus when you're just like, yeah, I could care less about any of those things. I'm just having a bad time.

在这种情形下要鼓励别人确实更难，对吧？但这是个可以解决的问题，你可以把它变得更像你喜欢的样子，不是吗？

Hard harder to be encouraging in that situation, you know? And this is a fixable situ you know, you can make it more like the thing you love, can't you?

是的。这实际上是非常实用且很棒的建议。人们能感受到这一点。好吧，我是否真的乐在其中？

Yeah. This is actually very practical and great advice. Like, this is something people can sense. Okay. Am I actually enjoying this?

我还想继续做这个吗？而不是像，天啊，继续经营这家初创公司真是种折磨。对于那些觉得‘我不能停手，否则就像失败了一样’的人，你有什么想说的吗？

Do I wanna keep doing this? Versus, like, man, such a drag that I have to keep running the startup. Is there anything you could say to folks that are just like, I can't stop because it'll feel like I failed?

如果情况真的很糟，或者你过得非常糟糕，那也没什么大不了的。十年或二十年后，可能没人会记得你关闭了公司。只要你有诚信，是个诚实的人，无论顺境逆境都表现良好，人们就会对你留下好印象。要知道，人生苦短，我们能用于职业生涯的年份实在有限。

If it's really going poorly or if you're having a really bad time, it's no big deal. No one will remember that you that you shut down your company probably in ten years or twenty years. Like time, as long as you have integrity, as long as you're an honest person, as long as you handle yourself well through good times and bad, people will remember you fondly. And it's, you know, better we have such a short life. There's only so many years we get to to to have our careers.

做一件让你痛苦的事，唯一的理由是为了避免丢脸，而你知道自己心不在焉——我不知道，这似乎是在用你的人生支付巨大的机会成本，对吧？

Doing something that makes you miserable and the only reason you're doing it is to avoid losing face and you know when your heart is not gonna work, I don't know. That seems like a pretty big opportunity cost on on literally your life. Right?

没错。这正是我常对创始人们说的。人生短暂，没必要强迫自己继续做这件事。

Yeah. That's exactly what I tell founders all the time. Life is short. There's no need to force yourself to work on this. Yeah.

我特别喜欢你说的那个观点：它仍然让你快乐吗？你喜欢和你的创始人们共事吗？顺着这条‘奋斗列车’的线索再深入一点。曾与你在YC共事的一位创始人丹尼·阿尔伯森分享过一个故事，在YC某期培训中，有位创始人举手问你：‘我们这批人怎么了？每个人都在挣扎。’

And I really like your point of just like, is it still enjoyable? Do you like working with your founders? Kind of following this thread of the struggle train a little bit more. One of the founders that was that worked with you during y c, his name is Danny Alberson, shared a story how during one of the batches of YC, somebody one of the founders raised his hand and asked you, what is wrong with our batch? Everyone is struggling.

没人做得好。我们做了什么？我们做错了什么？而你分享了一个关于Brex的故事，让大家感觉好了一点。这听起来熟悉吗？

Nobody is doing well. What did we done? What have we done wrong? And you shared a story about Brex that made everyone feel a little better. Can does that ring a bell?

如果是这样，你愿意分享一下吗？

And if so, you share that?

那确实发生过。我想这个故事是关于2017年冬季批次的。在那个批次里，我投资了大约35到40家公司，我把它们分成小组。所以公司数量不算多，我对每一家都非常了解。

That definitely happened. And I think the story is the story of the winter seventeen batch. And in the winter seventeen batch, I funded something like, I don't know, 35, 40 companies in my group. So we subset them into groups. So it wasn't like a lot of companies, and I knew I knew all of them really well.

创始人总忍不住互相比较谁做得好谁不好。在我的小组里有家公司叫Dispatch，当时叫Vyond，是几个斯坦福辍学生做的VR头显项目。

And founders can't help but compare themselves with other founders all the time about who's doing well and who's not doing well. And there was this one company in in my group dispatch. It was called Vyond. That was their name at the time. And it was like a VR headset thing from these, Stanford dropouts.

他们来参加小组办公时间时简直羞愧难当。他们说'我们的点子糟透了，可能想关掉公司，太丢人了'。

And they basically showed up to group office hours and were just ashamed. And they're like, our idea is horrible. You know? We might wanna shut our company down. This is, like, really embarrassing.

基本上我得恳求他们别放弃。如果问同期哪家公司最差，大家肯定会说是这家。

Like, they just I had to, like, beg them to not give up, basically. And if you would have asked people in the batch what the worst company was, I think they would have said this one.

哦。

Oh.

是啊。不是因为他们人品不好，而是创始人自己看起来对项目进展很沮丧。有趣的是，这还不是全部——我们组里还有个叫Cashew的初创公司，做的是英国版P2P支付Venmo，结果也做得一塌糊涂毫无起色。如果在那期项目中期做个快照，看看哪些公司肯定不行，那明显就是这家Vijond公司和Cashew公司。长话短说，Vijond后来彻底转型，团队对新方向充满热情，公司也更名为Brex。

Yeah. Not because, like, they were, like, bad people, but it was just, like, the founders themselves seemed, like, despondent about how it was going. And then funnily enough, this isn't the story too, there was another startup also in my group called Cashew, which was this p two p for The UK p two p Venmo, excuse me, in The UK, and it was going really poorly also and not growing. And so if you just took this snapshot in time in the middle of the batch of, like, who is definitely not doing well, it would clearly have been this Vijond company and this Cashew company. And so to catch the chase, Vijond changed their idea and got really excited about it and renamed to Brex.

这就是现在的Decacorn企业Brex。而Cashew也转型并更名为Retul。在我投资的35家公司里，那些当时看起来各方面都糟糕透顶的企业，事后证明恰恰是那批公司中最成功的。

And this was Brex, which is like a Decacorn. And Cashew changed their idea and renamed to something called Retul. And so out of my 35 companies, the ones that objectively seemed the worst in terms of, like, it's everything is going bad were by far, in retrospect, the most successful companies in that group.

哇等等，你是说Brex最初是做VR头显的？

Wow. Wait. So you're saying, Brex was a VR headset company?

他们觉得这特别高科技，想做高端初创项目，就说‘我们要造新款VR头显’。虽然他们编程很厉害，但对光学原理等头显制造必备专业知识一窍不通。

They thought it was really high-tech. They wanna do a really high-tech startup, and so they're like, we're gonna build a new VR headset. And, you know, they were good programmers, but they just didn't know anything about optics or the things you might want to be an expert in to build a headset.

哇，这故事太精彩了。正好引出另一个话题——很多创始人提到你给出的建议时都说，你简直是帮助团队转型的‘转向之王’。

Wow. That's an amazing story. It's a great segue to another theme that emerged from talking to founders about advice that you've shared. A lot of people say tell me. You were kind of the the king of the pivot of helping people figure out how to pivot.

我很好奇，在你看来什么样的转型才算成功？

I'm curious just what you've seen makes a good pivot.

通常成功的转型会向你的专业领域靠拢而非偏离，并能借鉴之前项目的经验。以Brex为例，创始人年轻时在巴西做过金融科技公司。我就说‘你们应该深耕熟悉的领域，而不是完全陌生的领域’。这正是他们后来成功的关键。

Usually, a successful pivot gets warmer instead of colder from what you're an expert at and somehow builds on what you learned on the prior idea. Right? And so in the case of Brex, it was let's they had worked on a a fintech company in Brazil when they were younger. And so I'm like, you need to work more on the thing you know all about and not the thing you know nothing about. And that was what worked for them.

以Retul为例，情况也是如此。他们在实习期间以及为Cashew工作时都构建了类似的内部工具。他们建立了所有这些仪表盘来运营他们的Venmo竞品。因此他们非常清楚应该构建什么。至于Posthog转向他们的想法时，他们对分析领域非常了解并有强烈见解。

In the case of Retul, it was the same thing. They built similar internal tools, both at their internships as well as for Cashew. They had all these dashboards they built to like operate their their Venmo competitor. And so they knew a lot about what to build. In the case of Posthog pivoting into their idea, they knew a lot about analytics and had strong opinions about it.

所以这比最初的想法要接近得多。就Zip而言，Rajul对很多事情都知之甚详。他非常了解AirPnBG那疯狂的采购流程，因为他曾在那里工作。所以一个好的转型就像回家一样，你知道吗？那更温暖。

And so it was much closer than what the original idea is. In the case of Zip, Rajul knows a lot about a lot of things. And he knew a lot about, like, the crazy procurement process at AirPnBG because he worked there. And so it was kind of like a good pivot is like going home, you know? It's it's warmer.

它更接近某些你从未想过的事情——你精通的事物竟可能是个好主意。或者也许你有意识地认为，我不想做这个，因为我已经厌倦了。有时候，某人必须克服他们不愿从事某个想法的心理障碍。

It's closer to something that you and it never occurred to you that this thing you know all about would be a good idea. Or maybe you consciously you're like, I don't wanna work on this because I'm burnt out on it. Like, sometimes you have to someone someone has to get over this barrier they have on why they don't wanna work on a certain idea.

这些见解太棒了。我喜欢你如此谦逊的态度。我本来期待听到宏大的想法，结果你却给出了非常实用的寻找方向。所以根据你的经验，一个好的转型本质上是向你有实际经验的领域更近、更温暖地靠拢。其次，它建立在你的既有成果之上。

These are amazing. I like how modest you are. I'm like, oh, here's, like, a big idea, and then you just give very tactical, items to look for. So essentially, a good pivot in your experience is you're getting closer, warmer towards something you have experience actual experience in. And two, it builds on something you've done.

本质上这就是转型的核心思想，对吧？当你处于...

Essentially, the core idea of a pivot. Right? Where you're like

以Segmet为例（这显然是一家非常成功的公司），他们最初的产品是向教授反馈课堂疑惑的软件，卖给大学的。两年后他们转向了类似Mixpanel的竞品。这是因为他们在运营第一个想法时学习了分析工具的工作原理。

In in the in the example of Segmet, which is obviously a really big successful company, they started with something to tell your professor you were confused in class. It was like software that they sold to universities. And then they ended up pivoting to something kind of like a mixed panel competitor after like two years. And it's because they didn't they learned about how analytics works running their first idea. Okay.

后来没人愿意采用他们的Mixpanel竞品。于是他们想：我们应该做个JavaScript插件嵌入网站，能同时向多个终端发送事件数据。这样人们就愿意同时试用我们的Mixpanel竞品来证明它更好。结果发现——哦，其实没人需要这个。

And then no one wanted to adopt their Mixpanel competitor. And so they were like, we should make this JavaScript thing that you embed on your website that can send events to multiple endpoints at the same time. So that way people would be willing to try our Mixpanel competitor side by side with Mixpanel to show that it's better. And then they were like, oh, yeah. No one actually wants that.

他们只是想让这段JavaScript代码把事件发送到不同位置。所以那些创始人最初绝不可能想到最终方案。你懂我意思吗？他们当时根本不可能凭空想出分段方案，因为那时他们对分析系统一无所知。但正因为他们坚持多年钻研，成为领域专家——这是他们早期想法的副产品——最终获得了真正独特深刻的见解。

They just want this JavaScript to send events to different locations. And so there's no way those founders could have started with the final idea. You get what I mean? There was no universe where they would have made up the idea for segment because they didn't know anything about how analytics worked. But because they were grinding for multiple years and became experts on these things is a side effect of their earlier ideas, they ended up with really good, unique insights.

我认为这里有个关键点：创业前你未必需要相关经验。经验可以在创业过程中积累。没错。人们总在纠结一个大问题：我该转型吗？现在是不是该转型的时机？

I think that's a really important point there is you don't need to necessarily have that experience before you start the company. It could come from trying to build the company. Exactly. A big question people are always wondering is like, should I pivot? Like, is this the time to pivot?

我该继续坚持这个想法吗？你的建议是什么？比如该怎么判断现在确实该考虑其他方向了？

Is this should I keep trying this idea? What's your advice there of just like, okay. Now you should really be thinking about something else?

重申一下，这类问题我倾向于为YC的创业者提供高度定制化的具体建议。不过可以先给你个思路预览：我会看创始人还有多少促进增长的想法。如果进展不顺且创意枯竭，通常就是转型时机。但如果你手头还有六七个没尝试过的好点子——那就去试。

Again, this is one of those where I like to give very bespoke nuanced advice on a case by case basis to the folks in YC. But again, just to give you a preview of how I would think about it. I would look at how many more ideas the founder has on how to make it grow. Like, if it's not going well and you're out of ideas, that is usually a good time to pivot. But when there's a you you have, half a dozen or a dozen really good growth ideas that you haven't tried yet, Try them.

对吧？就像Airbnb的故事，他们尝试了各种方法，包括卖麦片和蹭展会。他们有一堆疯狂的增长点子，而且永不枯竭。所以我认为当某个方向还有潜力可挖时，或许就该坚持。

Right? Like, hey, give it a shot. Again, in the Airbnb story, right, they they tried all sorts of stuff, including cereal and conventions. Like, they had a bunch of zany ideas on growth and they didn't run out of them. And so I think when you I think when there's still, gas in the tank, on an idea, that might be a reason to stay the course.

而当创始人真的说出'好吧，也许我们该找网红推广？'这种话的时候——当他们的点子已经沦落到这种程度，可能才是转型的信号。

And when when when literally the founder's like, yeah. I don't know. I guess maybe we should pay influencers or something. When that's when that's the kind of ideas they're coming up with, that's that might be a better sign to pivot.

这建议太有用了。快速问下Zip的案例，他们在找到现在这个价值十亿的业务方向前经历了六次转型。这段曲折历程中有没有什么让你特别感兴趣的点？因为他们尝试过会计服务平台等太多不同方向...

That is incredibly helpful. Coming back to zip real quick, they went through, I think, six different pivots before they landed on this idea that is now a billion dollar business. Is there anything from that specific journey that you found really interesting? Because they went in so many different directions, like accounting marketplaces and

是的。我想到Zip创始人的例子。他们都是非常出色的专家。而且，我和Rajul非常熟。他实际上在YC作为访问合伙人跟我共事过。

Yeah. I think of the example of the Zip founders. They were both such great experts. And, you know, I knew Rajul really well. He actually worked with me at at YC as a visiting partner.

所以我跟Rajul关系非常密切。他年轻时创办过一个叫Flight Car的市场平台，完成了B轮融资。虽然没成功，但那是个很酷的公司。我对他的商业运营能力、快速执行力以及敏锐直觉充满信心。他真的很懂基本功。问题是他们对该进入哪个市场不够明确。

And so I was I was really close to Rajul, and he'd done this marketplace called Flight Car when he was younger, which was, you know, raised a series b. It didn't work out, but it was a really cool company. And I had a lot of confidence in his competence on running a business and executing fast and just having great instincts. Like, really knows the fundamentals. And the problem was they weren't as clear on what market to go into.

他现在还在我这边。所以我实际上建议他们做了一些事情。再次强调，这是高度定制化的建议。但我提议从研究上市公司或被私募股权持有的大型企业入手，特别是那些被客户厌恶的公司。要刻意寻找那些存在可预知大市场但现有软件极其糟糕的领域。

He's still with me. And so I actually suggested to do something in their case. Again, this is very bespoke. But my suggestion was to start by looking at what companies are publicly traded and or owned by private equity that are large and that also are hated by their customers. And to try to intentionally find where there's a knowable big market with an incumbent combined with the software is horrible.

他们某种程度上做到了，基本上摸清了所有采购软件的现状。这就是那个契机。也许他告诉过你。这基本上就是整个过程。

And they kind of did that, like they basically found out about all this procurement software and what the state of the art was. And that was that was the prompt. Again, maybe he told you this. That was that was basically the process.

他确实告诉过我，我太喜欢这个例子和建议了。不知道为什么没有更多人这样做——基本上就是找一个客户满意度极低的大型现有企业，然后试图颠覆他们。如此简单直接。

He did tell me that I love that example and piece of advice so much. I don't know why more people don't do this basically find a large incumbent with very low NPS, and try to disrupt them. So straightforward.

是啊。我不能保证这对每个人都适用。但在Rajul这个高度定制化的情况下效果非常好，因为他一旦锁定那个方向后，天啊，他简直开了个大师课。懂吗？

Yeah. I mean, I can't promise that works for everyone. But again, in the in the very bespoke situation with Rajuul, it worked really well because he actually knew exactly once he locked in on that prompt, oh, man. He was he ran a masterclass. You know?

他们确实做得非常出色。Lou作为联合创始人也功不可没。当然，抱歉差点忘提。

Like, they did they did they did an a plus job. It was really good. Also, Lou, his cofounder. Credit to him too. Of course, like sorry.

是的，我们得好好表扬一下Lou。Lou做得太棒了。在他参与YC之前我对他了解不多，但你说得对，功劳确实应该归Lou。

Yeah. We gotta give Lou the shout out. Lou did an amazing job. I just didn't know Lou as well before he did y c, but you're right. We gotta give Lou the credit.

我看了你和Michael Seibel关于转型的对话，你们提到要'朝着山脉和沙漠前进寻找新创业想法的黄金'，而不是在旧金山市区找黄金。这方面你有什么可以分享的吗？

I was watching your chat with Michael Seibel talking about pivots and you either you or he used this phrase of you wanna move towards the mountains and the desert to find the gold of a new startup idea versus the middle of the city, you're unlikely to find gold in the middle of San Francisco. Is there anything along those lines that you you can share?

是的，我觉得这和我们从申请和面试中看到的情况有关。从我的角度观察所有申请YC的项目和面试表现...人们往往都有相同的想法。想象一下，假设你的信息获取渠道——听着同样的播客（你懂的），

Yeah. I think maybe this pertains into what we see from applications and interviews, which is from where I sit, seeing everything people apply to YC with and what they interview with and and whatnot. People don't people all kinda have the same idea. Like like, basically, imagine this. Imagine your information consumption where you're listening to the same podcast, wink wink.

刷着推特上同一批人的动态，读着相同的博客文章。基本上和其他创始人有着完全相同的信息食谱，还和同一群人交朋友。这样你们最终产生相似的创业想法或创业理念，难道不是很自然吗？

You're reading the same people on Twitter. You're reading the same blog post. Basically, have the same information diet of all these other founders. And you're friends with all the same people. Does it seem surprising then that you would all end up with similar startup ideas or similar philosophies on what makes a good startup idea?

当然会这样。所以城市这个比喻的意思是：如果你遵循相同的原则，让相同的信息流入大脑，你产生的想法就会和别人雷同。这里的建议是尝试另辟蹊径，要么从个人经历出发（比如Brex和Retool的例子），当时没人想做Funko玩偶交易平台。要么深入挖掘个人兴趣或经历，找到那些你的同龄人完全想不到的点子。再比如Zip的例子，我不认为其他人会想开发那种古怪的采购软件。

Of course you are. So this is the metaphor on cities is that if you just are following the same principles and have the same information flow into your brain, you're gonna come up with the same ideas as everybody else. And so the prompt here is to try to go more off the beaten path, either from your personal experience, like in the case of Brex and retool or whatnot, you know, there was no one else trying to build marketplaces for Funko pops. You know, go deeper in your own personal interest or experience to find something that just your exact peer wouldn't come up with in exactly the same way. And again, the Zip example, I don't think other people were trying to build wonky procurement software.

这个创意我们很少见到。所以再次强调，给创业者的建议是：尝试改变你的信息食谱或专业领域，深入挖掘，而不是和大家保持同样的想法。再举个例子，几年前货运类初创公司非常新颖，因为没人做这个领域，结果大获成功。后来这类创业就变成了陈词滥调。

That was just, that was not an idea that we saw much of. And so again, the prompt to people is try to mix up what your information diet is or what areas of expertise you have and mine that well versus just having all the same thoughts as everybody else. And so again, me give you one more example. A few years ago, startups around trucking were super new and fresh because no one was doing them and they worked really well. And then it became completely conventional wisdom to do like trucking related startups.

是的，我并不是要贬低谁，但你会发现某些领域会因为有人在冷门赛道取得成功而迅速变得时髦起来。

Yeah. I'm not trying to diss anyone, but you you'll see things that become fashionable really quickly because someone found success in this unfashionable space, and then it becomes fashionable.

这是个很好的过渡，我想重点谈谈你提出的‘焦油坑’概念。本质上这是指那些人们容易被吸引却难以脱身的创业点子——看似可以转型脱困，但实际上是持续失败的创业方向。能否详细说说？再举些例子，哪些是应该被淘汰的糟糕创业点子？

This is a good segue to something I definitely want to spend time on, which is you have this concept of tar pit ideas, which are essentially ideas people all kinda gravitate towards and get stuck in and either pivot into and then can pivot out of or try to pivot out of. And, essentially, it's just, like, consistently bad startup ideas that people continue to try to start. Can you just talk about this? And then what are some what are some examples of just, bad startup ideas that people should stop trying to start?

熟悉我们术语的人有时会感到被冒犯而误解。让我明确一下：只有看似可行实则不然的才叫焦油坑。普通困难点子不算。焦油坑的特点是：很多人想到它，看似未解难题，还能获得大量积极反馈。明白吗？

For people that are familiar with this terminology from us, sometimes they get defensive and don't get what we were saying. So let me, by definition, it is only a tar pit if it seems like it's not. Like like, if it's just a regular idea that is hard, that is not a tar pit. The the weird aspect of what we call a tar pit idea is an idea that a lot of people come up with, and then it seems like an unsolved problem, and you get lots of positive feedback for. Right?

这类点子往往能列出一套完美论证，让人误以为是好项目。这与明显糟糕的点子不同。懂我意思吗？明显糟糕的点子比如...举个例子，开发朋友聚会协调APP——初衷虽好，但...

And you have a really good set of arguments that it's a really good startup idea. And that's different than a bad startup idea. Do you get what I'm trying to say? A bad startup idea is like, I don't know, something that is obviously bad or something where you just can't get any positive feedback on. But some of the the most common tarp it would be something like building, like, an app to coordinate with your friends to decide where to go out at night or where to meet up with people, which is it which is a really it's coming from a good place.

表面看确实不错。你问朋友'要不要用APP来约聚会增进感情'，他们肯定说好。全世界都会给你积极反馈。

Like, it's a good idea. If you ask your friend, hey. Would you like an app for us to coordinate to hang out more so we can be friends? They're like, yeah, I would love that. Like, you'll you'll get you'll get all this positive feedback from the world.

但这类创业从90年代就有人做。你能验证它——真正的焦油坑特征就是初期验证良好。懂吗？老实说我自己也踩过这种坑，比如音乐发现平台...

And then people have been starting that startup since like the nineties. And so you can validate it. Like part of being a true tarp it is that you can get good initial validation. Do you get what I mean? And so anyway, and honestly, I worked on tarp and ideas myself as a founder, which is a music discovery.

我首次创业就做这个。音乐类创业本就艰难，说什么'我们要革新音乐发现'——这种项目能获得大量积极反馈和用户，但某些特性注定了它的艰难。

This is something I did in my first startup. That was that you know, music startups are hard. And trying to be like, oh, we're gonna fix music discovery. This was classic things where you can get lots of positive feedback and even get users to work on those things. But there are aspects of it that make it a very hard idea.

这样说清楚了吗？

So does that make does that make sense?

确实如此。我自己也犯过这个错。我曾创办过一个叫LocalMind的初创公司，它让你能通过Foursquare和Goala（当年的应用）在城市各处签到并与当地人交流，询问他们的情况。每个用过的人都惊叹不已，说这是他们见过最神奇的东西。

Absolutely. I'm also guilty of this. I had the startup called LocalMind that, allowed you to talk to people, check-in in in various locations around the city on Forescore and Goala back in the day and ask them how's going. And everyone, when they used it, they're like, holy shit. This is the most incredible thing I've ever seen.

我能看到即将前往的酒吧里正在发生什么。但之后他们再也没用过。

I could see what's happening at this bar that I'm about to go to. And then they never use it again.

你还记得吗，有整整两年时间所有人都在做Foursquare的克隆产品

Do you remember when Foursquare clones was all anyone worked on for two They

当时人们告诉我们：Foursquare会垄断这个领域，你们做的这个创意根本不可能独立存活。而现在呢？Foursquare转型成了B2B业务。

told they told us, Foursquare is gonna own this. There's no way this idea you're building is gonna be its own thing. And now, yeah, Foursquare is a b two b business.

是啊。所有Foursquare的模仿者如果不转型，早就死透了。总之这就是个陷阱——看似极具吸引力，很多人都会尝试，还能获得些表面认可。

Yeah. And all the Foursquare clones, if they didn't pivot out of doing what they're doing, wouldn't have worked. So anyway, that's that's a tarp. It's just something that's super appealing and a lot of people do it. And that you can you can kinda get validation.

正因如此它才是个致命陷阱：先吸引你入局，然后让你无法脱身。因为它看起来是个好主意，还能获得各种积极反馈。

And that's why that's why it is a tarp pit is it draws you in and you get stuck. Mhmm. Because it seems like it's like a good idea and you get all this positive feedback.

顺着这个话题，我最近和一位创始人聊过。她问我：'融资时投资者会因为什么原因拒绝你？'我知道每个投资人的雷区都不同。但有没有哪些行为会让你觉得——只要创业者这么做，投资人肯定会拒绝？

Kind of along these lines, I was talking to a founder recently and she's asking me, what causes an investor to say no to you when you're trying to raise money from them? And I know there's every investor has a very different perspective on what turns them off to a start up. But is there anything that you find is just like, here, if you do these things, investors will say no.

也许我最好的建议是让创始人们设身处地为投资者着想，想象他们的生活状态——如果你处在他们的位置会如何决策。基于这个框架，很多投资者其实并不会做太多投资。正如我们之前谈到的，人生苦短。投资者心里可能觉得很多项目都还不错，比如‘我喜欢这个创始人，也喜欢他们的提案’，但他们只会选择少数几个进行投资。

Maybe my best advice here is for founders to put themselves in the shoes of investors and just imagine what their life is like and how if you were in their shoes, you would make decisions. And so given this framework, a lot of investors just don't make that many investments. And as per what we talked about earlier, life is short. And so there's lots of things that an investor that in their hearts thinks is, like, pretty good. And they're like, oh, like, I like this person and I like their pitch, but I only am gonna do a few investments.

所以即便我对这个项目有很多欣赏之处，我还是会选择拒绝。我常觉得创始人总认为拒绝背后藏着什么不为人知的真相，或者他们渴望得到更多反馈。但实际上反馈很简单：我们就是不想投资，仅此而已。

And so even though I really like a lot about this, I'm gonna say no. And then I I often think that founders think that there's some secret truth that's being held from them on why someone says no, or like they're, you know, like they want more feedback. I need feedback. And it's like, well, the feedback is we didn't want to invest. And it really is just that.

因此我认为，如果你站在投资者的角度思考——‘我一年只能投几个项目，预算非常有限’，他们真正要挑选的要么是自己最感兴趣的项目，要么是可能以某种方式取得巨大成功的项目。毕竟你也做投资，应该明白作为投资者机会是有限的。

And so I think if you put yourself in the shoes of an investor of like, hey, I only could do a few of these a year. I have very limited budget. They're really just trying to pick the things that they're either personally most excited about or things that they think can be truly phenomenally big in some way. Or, you know, again, I know you do investments too. So it's that you only get so many shots as an investor.

所以任何看起来不像是‘就是它了，这就是我想投的项目’的提案，都会被拒绝。这才是他们说‘不’的真正原因，而不是什么‘你Zoom设置有问题’或者‘我们不喜欢你衬衫的颜色’这种理由。

And so anything that doesn't seem like this is the one, this is the one I want to do is a no. And that that's actually why they're saying no versus this. You did you know, oh, you you had a bad Zoom setup or something. You know? Oh, we didn't we we didn't like what color your shirt was.

我们拒绝就是单纯不想投。我觉得实际情况根本不是那些细枝末节的问题。

We said no. I don't think that's I don't think that's how this actually works.

知道吗？我觉得这个建议特别有价值——拒绝不一定代表他们不认可你的事业，只是他们有更好的选择，他们在等待达到更高标准的项目，毕竟他们可选的范围太广了。

You know? I think that's such a good piece of advice that it's not necessarily they don't believe in what you're doing. It's they have better options, and they're waiting for something that hits a higher bar just because because they have a lot of options.

没错。再说如果你问别人‘换位思考，如果你是投资者难道不会做同样的决定吗？’通常创始人都会认同。当你做这个思维练习时，很多事突然就变得合理多了。

Yeah. Because, again, and you if you ask someone, well, put yourself in investor shoes, wouldn't you be making decisions the same way? Usually, founders are like, yeah. Like like, they come if you if you do that exercise, a lot of this starts to make way more sense.

具体来说，当你评估初创企业时——我本来不打算深入这点，但考虑到市场规模可能很有趣。作为YC的投资者，你如何看待庞大总体可寻址市场（TAM）的重要性？

Specifically, when you're evaluating startups so I wasn't gonna go into this, but I think it might be interesting as mark market size. How do you think about the importance of of large TAM as an as an investor YC?

我认为这完全取决于你投资的阶段，越后期越关键，对吧？如果投资估值很高，这点就非常重要。越早期，重要性越低。有些极其优秀的初创企业，如果你真的死抠数据，它们的TAM会显得极小。比如Uber的TAM最初看起来几乎为零。

I think it really depends on what stage you're investing at, and it's absolutely critical the later stage you get, right? If you're gonna invest in a very high valuation, it is really important. The earlier you go, the less it matters. And some of the most phenomenally good startups, if you were really panantic about it, the TAM would be, like, tiny. Like, the TAM of Uber would be, like, nothing.

对吧？就像Airbnb的TAM最初也近乎没有。我投资的RazorPay——现在可能是印度最大的支付处理商——当初TAM也很小，因为2015年印度几乎没人用信用卡。你必须相信印度信用卡产业规模会增长百倍。

Right? Like, how the TAM of Airbnb would have been nothing. The TAM of I I was a I funded RazorPay, which is, I think, the largest payment processor in India. And the TAM of that was tiny because no one was using credit cards in 2015 in India. So you had to believe that the size of the credit card industry in India were, like, 100 x.

结果呢？你懂我意思吧？我不是说未来市场大小不重要，最终当然重要。但对pre-seed阶段或申请YC的公司过分纠结市场规模...说实话我根本不会多考虑。

Well, guess what happened? You know what I'm saying? And so so I'm not saying that the having a large market someday doesn't matter. Of course, does eventually. But trying to be super pedantic about market size when you when it's like a pre seed company or someone applying to YC is not you know, it's just not something I put a lot of thought.

比如那些Funko Pop收藏品行业的TAM有多大？天知道。我觉得不大吧。当初投资时可能都没分析这个——规模确实很小，但我压根没担心过。

You get whatnot. Oh, what's the TAM of the collectible Funko Pop industry? I don't know. I don't think it's that big, man. I I don't know if you did that analysis when you invested, but I you know, things are pretty small, but I I wasn't worried about it.

这完全不在我的顾虑清单上。

That was, like, the last thing I was worried about.

听你这么说就完全合理了——YC确实不需要太纠结这个，毕竟很多初创企业都会转型。只要团队靠谱...

It makes so much sense that at YC, you don't think about it that much because of as you said, many startups pivot anyway. So if you like the team.

但我并不是说这不重要。只是我更关心的是，嘿，如何获取用户？嘿，如何实现增长？

But and I'm not saying it's not important. I just it's not and the things I'm worried about is like, hey. How do you get users? Hey. How do you grow?

诸如此类的问题。比如，你们做的东西是用户真正需要的吗？这些才是我真正担忧的，而不是什么‘我做了个Excel模型，担心市场规模不够大’——这根本不在我的优先考虑清单上。

Things like that. Like, are you making something people want? Those are the things I'm really worried about as opposed to, oh, I ran an Excel model, and I'm worried this might not be a big enough TAM. That's that's not at the top of my list.

我认为必须承认，很多投资机构都像YC这样——当然YC在很多方面是独特的，你们投资早期项目并全程扶持创业者。但多数投资者非常关注市场规模，你可能会因为市场不够大而被拒绝，他们认为你无法做成大生意。对吧？

I think it's important to acknowledge that a lot of investors are very like, YC, I think, is unique in a lot of ways where you invest very early and you help people through this journey. A lot of investors are very focused on TAM, so you may find you're getting turned down because they don't think there's a big enough market for you to build a big business. Right?

是啊。或者你要求他们相信一个疯狂的超前设想，他们可能会说‘理论上你的销量确实可能超过Funko潮玩’。我理解这是你的卖点，但我手上有更稳妥的选择。懂我意思吗？就像...

Yeah. Or that you're asking them to believe a crazy leap of faith that and, yeah, they could say, well, it's theoretically possible you'll be able to sell more than Funko Pops. And I understand that that is your pitch, but I am I have other opportunities that are less risky. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's

不是因为很多

not because a lot of

创始人会强调市场很大，你可以回应‘哇，这个论点很有意思，我无意争论，但抱歉我还是不会投’。说到底，即便你有数据支撑，也很难让投资人就市场规模展开辩论——很多人就是厌恶这种风险。这很合理。

founders make the argument that the TAM is big, and you can say, wow. That's a really interesting argument, and I have no I have no you know, I'm not gonna argue with you about it, but, no, I'm not going to And so, again, it's it's hard to get someone to engage in a debate about TAM even if you have, you know, even if you have some proof points. Ultimately, a lot of investors just don't like that risk. Fair enough.

确实合理。换个话题——有位曾与你共事的Lenny Bogdanoff（他创办过Milk公司，后来短暂担任OpenAI增长负责人）托我问你：产品负责人和初创公司需要警惕哪些陷阱？这问题你有印象吗？

Fair enough. Going in a slightly different direction. So someone else that worked with you, another Lenny, Lenny Bogdanoff, who started a company called milk, and then he was head of growth at OpenAI for a bit. He asked me to ask you about things product leaders and startups should watch out for. Does that ring a bell?

我不记得具体的办公时间了，但我理解这个问题，当然也记得Lenny。我认为他在这里提到的建议就是：不要过度放权，创始人必须保持对事务的密切参与，同时要警惕在创业初期就雇佣那些简历光鲜的资深人士的陷阱。我想这就是他所指的内容。这确实是我们经常反复强调的基本要点之一，大家总是嘴上说着'明白明白'。

I don't remember the specific office hours, but I I understand the question, and I, of course, remember Lenny. I think that the advice that he's referencing here is just how important it is to not overdelegate and for the founders to stay close to things, as well as watch out for the trap of hiring super senior people with fancy resumes really early in a startup. I think that's what he's referencing there. And, again, this is definitely one of those very basic things that we find ourselves repeating a lot, where they're like, yeah. Yeah.

我懂。就像'别过度放权'这个道理，在Dalton时我们就明白了。结果两年后他们还是会感叹：'天啊，我们放权过度了'。

I get it. Like, don't over delegate. We get it at Dalton. And then, two years later, they're like, wow. We over delegated.

我们需要...需要去收拾这个烂摊子。这可能是最好的产品建议。那些真正擅长产品的创始人，总是深入产品细节，持续关注用户需求，无论公司发展到什么阶段。就像你在Airbnb文化中体会到的，关心用户和产品品质是绝不能委派给他人的，这至关重要。

We need to we need to go clean that up. So that is probably the best product advice. And the folks that are really great at product, the founders that are, are always deeply in the weeds on product and still care a lot and are still talking to customers no matter how late stage it gets. Again, I'm sure you've experienced this in Airbnb culture, but you know, you can't delegate caring about your users, and you can't delegate caring that the product is great. That is so critical.

为了让这个观点更具体，

To make this even more real, what

你看到他们具体做了什么？就是过早雇佣产品经理，过早聘请资深销售人员。还有哪些

are what is it that you see them do? It's hire a PM too early. They hire a senior salesperson too early. What are the

是的。我觉得投资人常常会施压让你雇佣高管、扩充团队，说什么'融了这么多钱就得花出去'，'你要展现对增长和打造世界级组织的决心'之类的话。

Yeah. I think just I think that you get pushed often by investors to hire executives or to scale the team or we need, you know, we need we you raise all this money. You gotta spend it. You know? We gotta you gotta show you're serious about growth and building a world class organization, whatever, stuff like that.

结果你就招来了来自大科技公司、简历闪闪发光的精英。'哇！他们在谷歌做过这么厉害的事情'。然后某天醒来你会发现：'糟糕，全乱套了'。

And so you end up with super nice people with super shiny resumes from from big tech companies. Oh, wow. They they did this amazing thing at Google. And then you hire them and then you wake up one day and you're like, oh, wow. Everything went wrong.

这真的不是任何人的错。只是你你你你一时疏忽了，这种情况在初次创业者身上很常见。

It's not really anyone's fault. It's just that you you you you took your eye off the ball, and this is what happens to first time founders a lot.

作为创始人，你如何有时间处理所有这些事务？你有什么指导原则吗？比如不要过度授权、不要过度招聘？但一天只有24小时，是单纯挤时间、做好优先级排序，还是有更深层的策略？

How do you as a founder then have time to do all these things? Is there any guidance you give just like, don't over delegate, don't over hire? But also, you need to you you have you have 24 in a day. Is it just find the time, prioritize well, or is there more

更深层的因素？我认为如果你真正关心客户和产品，你的直觉会很好地告诉你该把时间花在哪里。比如花大量时间与投资人社交很可能不是重点——这应该是我会削减的事项。明白我的意思吗？就像我们之前讨论的那样。

more to it? I think if you just care a lot about your customers and you care a lot about the product, your instincts are pretty good on what to spend time on. And so for example, spending tons and tons of time, like, hanging out with investors and networking is probably not it's probably the thing that I would be cutting. You know I'm saying? Like, it's it's what we talked about earlier.

如果你真心热爱所做的事，根本不需要别人教你如何重新分配时间。你的直觉会准确指引你把所有时间都用在最重要的事上——那就是对产品的极致专注。

If you really love what you're doing, no one needs to tell you how to reprioritize your time. Your intuition will be correct on what you should be spending all your time on, which is being obsessed with product.

这个建议太棒了。本节目由Coda赞助播出——我这话是认真的。我每天都用Coda来策划这档播客的每期内容，包括内容日历、嘉宾调研和预设问题。录制时我也会开着Coda页面提醒自己要讨论的话题。

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Coda.i0/lenny。好的。你的一位前同事...不对，是现任同事Gustaf，之前上过我们的播客。他的那期节目，我认为是目前史上第四受欢迎的节目，所以别紧张。

Coda.i0/lenny. Okay. So one of your former one of your colleagues current colleagues, not former colleagues, Gustaf, was on the podcast previously. His episode is, I think, the fourth most popular episode of all time currently, so no pressure.

哦，很棒。好吧。我不知道自己能不能比得上。行吧。

Oh, cool. Okay. I don't know if I can compete with that. Alright.

我认为你可以的。我问他创业公司失败最常见的原因是什么。他的回答是：他们不和客户沟通。他们找不到产品市场契合点。如果做不到这点，其他都白搭。

I think you can. So I asked him what is often the most common reason a startup fails. And his answer was, they don't talk to customers. They don't find product market fit. Nothing else matters if they can't do that.

所以他给出的建议是多和客户交流。这里有两个问题。首先，关于创业失败的原因，你还有什么要补充的吗？虽然我们之前讨论过一些，但你现在想到什么？

And so his advice is talk to customers more often. So two questions here. First of all, just is there anything else you would add to why do startups fail? I know we talked about some of these already, but just what comes to mind there?

我完全同意Gustav的观点，但换个角度看，我认为是创始人失去了希望。当你在心里觉得'是的，我们要失败了'的时候——我在和创始人会面时能看出来，当他们认命接受失败时，和那种'我们还能再拼一把'的状态完全不同。你能从他们眼中看出是还有想法，还是在做最后的垂死挣扎。

I completely agree with what Gustav said, but to to look at this from a different frame, I think is that the founders lose hope. And when you and your heart is like, yeah, we're failing. Like, once I can see it when I'm meeting with a founder when they've resigned themselves that they're failing versus when, like, we got one more move in us. We got one more try. Like, you can see in their eyes when they feel like there's more ideas or there's some last ditch Hail Mary thing.

虽然不总是奏效，但几乎可以说你必须拒绝接受失败。只要你不认输，通常就还有很多方法可以挽救公司——可能是实现盈利，可能是尝试些疯狂的新招，也可能是推出新产品。

It doesn't always work, but it's it's almost like you have to not accept that you're going to fail. And as long as you don't accept that that's going to happen, there's usually a lot more moves you can try to save the company. What maybe it's to get profitable. Maybe it's to, like, do some other zany thing. Maybe it's, you know, to launch a new product.

所以我敢说，真正因为'弹药充足、士气高涨却突然资金耗尽'而死亡的情况其实很罕见——比创始人以为的要罕见得多。更常见的是他们其实还有些资金（不是说很多，但确实还有），却直接选择了放弃。

And so it's pretty rare, I would argue, that the cause of death is that they had lots of firepower and they were feeling really positive and they just ran out of money. That's actually like more rare than founders think. It's much more common that they still have some money left. I'm not saying a lot, but some money. And they're just like, yep.

我受够了。我已经没主意了。我不想再继续了。而且，再次强调，这很公平。你懂吗？

I'm done. I'm out of ideas. I don't wanna do this anymore. And, again, fair enough. You know?

但...但你能明白我的意思吗？我觉得创始人害怕资金耗尽，所以他们会选择关闭公司。但更常见的情况是，他们的想法行不通，和联合创始人发生激烈争执，无法就工作方向达成一致，然后他们就会说'我不想再继续了'。

But but do you get what I'm saying? Like, I think founders are afraid that they're gonna run out of money, and that's why they're gonna shut down. And it's way more common that they, like their idea doesn't work, and they have a big fight with their co founder. And then they can't agree on what to work on. And then they just like or like, I don't wanna do this anymore.

于是他们关闭公司。最常见的失败原因就是类似这样的故事。

And they shut down. That is the most common cause of death is something that sounds like that story.

这太有意思了。这又回到了你的核心建议：别放弃。就是别放弃。我们之前讨论过，有时候放弃其实是可以接受的。

That is so interesting. And again, this comes back to your core advice. Don't die. Just don't die. We talked about this already of just like, sometimes it's actually okay to die.

我想重温一下这个教训：如果你不再感到快乐，也许...

And I guess just to refresh that lesson is if you're not having fun anymore, maybe

是的。当你黔驴技穷，觉得'我真的受够了'。如果你心里明白自己已经到极限了，就不必再勉强继续。那样对谁都没好处。

Yeah. You're out of ideas. You're like, I'm just I'm done. Like, if you know in your heart that you're done, you don't have to keep going through the motions. No one benefits from that.

对吧？

Right?

你也已经见过足够多的案例了。你分享过一些例子，他们当时几乎失去所有希望，但仍坚持前行，最终成为巨大的成功故事。我认为大多数人看不到这些案例。我想问，你能分享一下这种情况发生的频率吗？你看到这种逆转的频率有多高？

And you've also seen enough cases now. You've shared a few of these where they their all hope was potentially lost, but they kept going, and then they turned into a huge success story. And I think most people don't see those examples. I guess, is there anything you can share just like how often that happens, how often you see that turn around?

我认为，如果我们将其定义为公司经历过濒临死亡的困境——运营糟糕，创始人严重怀疑是否一切都将结束——那么100%的创业者都会经历这种阶段。你知道，就是创始人会说‘好吧，我们完了，该收摊了’。至少在创业旅程的某个时刻，你会有这种感觉。我是说，每个人都经历过。

I would argue that if we define it as the company had a near death experience where it was going poorly and the founders seriously wondered if it was all gonna be over a 100% of the time people go through that. You know, where the founders like, yeah, guess we're done. Guess we should pack it in. And at least you feel that way at some point in your startup journey. I mean, everyone goes through that.

而且，程度也有不同。对于那些真正陷入极其艰难境地的人来说，比例仍然很高，可能达到50%。

And, again, there's gradations. People that actually truly got down to very, very hard situations, it's still a high percentage, like maybe 50%.

我是说，你可以

I mean, you can

问问创始人。有很多创始人曾濒临绝境，但凭借纯粹的意志力硬是撑了下来。明白吗？

ask founders. There's a lot of founders that come this close to it albeit over and through sheer will kinda just keep it going. You know?

这对许多听到的创始人来说真的很鼓舞人心，知道每个创始人都经历过‘好吧，我觉得真的完了’的阶段。关于古斯塔夫提到的与客户沟通的建议，我想快速跟进一下。你对于如何有效与客户交谈有什么建议吗？

That is really, empowering, I imagine, for many founders hearing this of just knowing every single founder goes through. Okay. I think it's actually over. Yep. Following on this real quick, the advice that Gustaf shared, which is about talking to customers, I'm just gonna keep trying to pull wisdom out of your Do have any advice for just how to effectively talk to customers?

我们总是听到‘与客户交谈，做他们想要的东西’。说起来容易做起来难。你会收到大量需求，一个客户可能提出很多要求。有大公司会说‘做这个东西，我们就花一百万美元买’。你有没有通用的指导原则，告诉我们该关注什么、该做什么以及该避免什么？

We're always hearing talk to customers, build things they want. Easier said than done. You get a lot of asks, you get one customer asking for a lot of stuff. There's a big company that's like, build this thing, we'll buy, pay a million dollars. Just do you have a general guidance of just like what to pay attention to and what to build versus avoid?

是的。我记得跟很多有抱负的创始人聊这个时，他们总是说‘嗯嗯，我跟客户谈过了’。

Yeah. I think when I talked to to aspiring founders about this a lot, they're like, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I talked to customers.

我们懂了。很棒。然后问‘那你跟多少客户聊过？’他们就突然沉默了。

We get it. Cool. And they're like, cool. Well, how many customers you talk to? And they're like, wow.

这就像人们都知道应该健康饮食、每天锻炼，但知道不等于做到。所以首先你得走出去，面对面和人交流，不能躲在键盘后面自欺欺人。

And they get really quiet. And so I think this is one of those things like, hey. You should have a healthy diet and exercise every day or or whatever where people know it, and that doesn't mean they do it. And so I think to start with, you have to get out in the world and talk to people in person. And you can't just hide behind your keyboard and call that talking to customers.

对吧？很多人本能反应是建个登录页，买点Instagram广告让人注册。这么做可能也有用，但根本原因其实是害羞——当面交流确实有点尴尬，你得鼓起勇气走进现实世界，让人认真对待你展示的产品。

Right? And I think a lot of folks, their inclinations are to, like, you know, build a landing page and buy some Instagram ads and try to get people to sign up for something. And again, maybe I maybe that's something, but I think a lot of the reason people do that is they they're just shy and they don't wanna put themselves out there because it's a little awkward to go talk to people. And and you kinda have to suck yourself up to go out in the physical world, get people to meet with you, get them to take you seriously, show them a product you're building. And so again, to be very tactical here, you can do a self assessment.

做个自我评估：过去一个月，你和潜在客户有过多少次线下会面？可能你做得很好，但令人震惊的是，很多公司说‘我们要先完成种子轮融资再接触客户’。归根结底，这其实是社交焦虑和怕出丑的心理在作祟。

In the past month, how many in person physical meetings have I had with potential customers? Maybe you've done a lot. I don't know, listener, maybe you have, but you know, it's shocking how many companies I talk to. They're like, well, we're focused on raising our pre seed round before we talk to customers, like things like that. And again, I think the core, core, core thing going on is just social anxiety and like looking stupid.

你必须跨过这个心理障碍。就像Airbnb创始人当初说‘把房子租给我住吧，这里有充气床垫’时，肯定也觉得特别蠢。

And I think you just gotta get past that. You know? You just gotta start doing it until it doesn't feel bad anymore. But, you know, think about how how stupid the Airbnb founders must have felt they were like, hey. You should rent out your house, and I'm gonna come and sleep in your house, and here's an airbag.

整个事情确实有点尴尬。但你必须硬着头皮克服这种不适感，等习惯后反而会觉得有趣。一旦适应了这种交流方式，客户沟通就会顺利得多。

Like, I guess the whole thing is a little awkward. Right? So you gotta power through the awkwardness of talking to people. And, once you start doing it, it's actually kind of fun. And so once you once you get used to to overcoming this awkwardness, I think people do much better at talking to customers.

当有人进行这种自我评估时，是否有某种经验法则能告诉你‘这就够了’？你在寻找什么指标？甚至有没有具体数字，比如每周多少次、每月多少次？

When someone does this self evaluation, is there a heuristic that tells you this is enough? What do you look for? Is there a number even, like, how many per week, how many per month?

是的。我不确定是否知道一个理想的数字。我认为应该看看你的日程表，上面应该有大约20%到30%的时间标记着‘客户会议’、‘客户电话’，比如与傅会面、与某人会面。如果日程表上没有这些内容，或者你实际上只是在购买广告来验证想法，那我认为这算不上真正与客户交流。

Yeah. I don't know if I know a good number. I think it's look at your calendar, and there should be, you know, 20 or 30% of your time that the calendar says something like customer meeting, customer call, like meeting with Fu, meeting with this person. And when the calendar is not that or it's all you know, again, what you're actually doing is just buying ads to try to validate your idea. That I don't I don't think that's talking to customers.

明白吗？我觉得那是另一回事。

You know? I think that's something else.

这个经验法则太棒了。所以至少应该把大约五分之一的时间用于与客户交流。

That's an awesome heuristic. So roughly a fifth of your time at least should be talking to customers.

当然，这还取决于你正在探索的创意领域。有些需要更多交流，有些则少些。但总之应该投入相当多时间，没有什么能替代真正的对话，光盯着分析仪表盘是不够的。

And, again, it depends on the idea space you're working on. Some are more, some are less. So, yeah, I just it should be a fair amount of time, and nothing substitutes for an actual conversation versus just staring at analytics dashboards.

非常有道理。Airbnb就是个经典案例，他们去纽约与房东面对面交流。能想到其他在这方面做得特别好的初创公司吗？我指的是那些找到了非常酷且接地气的方式与客户沟通的企业。

Makes so much sense. So Airbnb is a classic example of they went to New York and talked to their host and things like that. Is there another startup that comes to mind that did this really well? I've found just a really cool way and household to talk to customers.

其实我们之前讨论过的公司里，比如Brex，他们只是和同批孵化团队交流就取得了惊人效果。ReDuel也是，他们直接在YC网络内部销售。至于Zip，他们简直是约谈企业的猛兽，不断打电话询问采购需求。我估计他们花在客户交流上的时间远超20%——看他们的日程表就知道，天哪，他们在打造首款产品时几乎每天都在和客户沟通，甚至在产品成型前就开始预售了。

Well, again, if you if you some of the companies we talked about, I mean, for Brex, they were just talking to other people in their batch and that worked extremely well. Same with ReDuel is they just sold it inside of the YC network. I think with Zip, they were just beasts at getting companies on calls with them to ask them about procurement. And I think they had way more than 20% of their time. Like when you looked at their calendars, oh man, I think they were doing, they were talking to customers a lot to build their first product and kind of pre selling it before they built it.

Posthoc的情况类似，我想他们的市场策略有所不同。他们最初推出了这个开源项目。结果，他们的日程排满了那些试图实施Posthoc首个开源版本或对此感到兴奋的人。Hacker News上的用户也为之沸腾。他们迎来了大批对Posthog存在感到兴奋、提供大量反馈和网络报告的人群。

Same with Posthoc, I guess that's a different go to market. They launched this open source thing to start with. And it was, their calendars are filled with people that were trying to implement the first open source version of Posthoc or were so excited about it. And people on Hacker News were excited about it. And like, they had this like huge influx of people that were excited that Posthog existed and had lots of feedback and web reports.

虽然不全是正面评价，但自发布以来，他们从不缺想与之交流的人，这

Like, it wasn't always positive, but they never lacked for people that wanted to talk to them once once they launched that, which

非常有帮助。关于Zip，我其实在我的一篇关于如何打造B2B初创企业的系列文章中详细记录了他们的事迹。实际上，如你所知，他们只是在LinkedIn上直接私信陌生人，询问建议：'我们想了解您对现有采购产品的使用体验'。最终这些人成了他们的早期测试用户。

was very helpful. On Zip, I actually have a lot of their story in one of my series on how to build a b to b startup. And what they did actually, as you know, is they just cold DM'd people on LinkedIn and asked them for advice on, hey. We're we're trying to understand how you enjoy your current procurement products. And then they ended up being early beta testers.

我记得他们做了大概100次，甚至数百次这样的尝试。他们就是

I think that and I think they did a 100 like, hundreds of these. They just

哦，没错。这就是个概率游戏。他们就是埋头苦干。所以，是的，这招非常有效。

Oh, yeah. No. It was a numbers game. They they they were just grinding at this. And so, yeah, that was that was very good.

另一个经典的YC故事是呼叫中心碰撞，我记得是这么叫的，或者说

The other classic YC story is the the call center collision, I think it's called or the

呼叫

Call

呼叫中心安装。哦，呼叫中心安装。好吧。你能简短地讲讲那个故事吗？

center install. Oh, call center install. Okay. Where can you tell that story briefly?

呼叫中心安装的情况经常发生在客户身上，他们会说'是的，我想买你们的产品'，但之后却不实施。他们就突然没动静了，就像完全没有实施一样。如果你向别人销售软件，这种情况非常糟糕。

The call center install is what often happens with customers is that they say, yes, I want to buy your product. And then they do not implement it. They just go quiet. They're like, there's no implementation. And this is very bad if you're selling software to someone.

如果他们从不实施，他们就会流失，你基本上就在最后一码线上失败了，明白吗？所以他们想出了这种策略，比如'哦，我正好在附近，我可以顺路去你办公室帮你实施Stripe'，某种程度上再次创造机会。就像我们之前讨论的，这有点尴尬，但你会说'好的，没问题'。

If they never implement it, they're gonna churn and you're not, you know, you basically failed on the on the one yard line. Okay? And so they kind of developed this tactic to be like, oh, well, you know, I'm in the neighborhood. You know, I'll drop by your office to help you implement Stripe and and kinda just, like, create again, it was a little awkward like we talked about earlier, but you would you would be like, yeah. You know?

我正好在附近，要不我顺路过来一趟？然后他们就会出现，说'太好了，太好了。你能打开你的文本编辑器吗？'

I'm I'm in I'm in the neighborhood. Like, how about I drop by? And then they would show up, and they'd be like, cool. Cool. Can you, like, pull up your text editor?

哦，对。酷。好的。嘿。你能让我开车吗？

Oh, yeah. Cool. Alright. Hey. Can you can I can I drive?

我能用下键盘吗？他们基本上就是帮客户在网站上安装Stripe支付系统。你知道的，面带微笑，表现得很有魅力。客户就会觉得，哦，这挺酷的。好吧。

Can I have the keyboard? And they would just sort of, like, install Stripe into the customer's website. You know, smiling, being, charming charming guys. And they'd be like, oh, that's cool. Okay.

那我们现在能上线网站吗？他们基本上会一直跟进，直到你完成Stripe的接入。而且说实话这其实很有帮助，因为他们提供全套VIP服务来确保系统落地。这招非常有效。我觉得这个故事的关键启示是：即使客户点头同意了，销售工作也还没真正结束。

Well, can we, like, roll out the website now? And and they basically would kinda not go away until you finish the implementation of Stripe. And, like, again, it was actually helpful because they were doing all this white glove service to get it implemented. That was very effective. And I think the takeaway from that story is even when you get a yes, you're not actually done with sales.

你必须完成最后一公里才能实现目标，而他们在这方面做得非常好。

You have to finish the last mile to get the thing implemented, and, they were very good at that.

这真是个不可思议的故事。现在他们已经成为一家价值千亿美元的企业，而这一切就是这样开始的。

That was an incredible story. And, now they're, like, I don't know, a $100,000,000,000 business, and that's how it all begins.

是的。我早期创业时就是Stripe的客户。那时候我们用Google Talk交流，帕特里克每周都会给我发消息跟进情况。这些人后来如此成功，想想还挺有趣的。

Yeah. I was an early, Stripe customer at my startup. And, yeah, Patrick would like, we used Google Talk at the time. Patrick would be sending me messages, like, on a weekly basis just, like, checking in. And so, again, it's funny how successful these folks get.

但帕特里克确实对所有客户都亲力亲为，随时都能找到他。我这么说是因为我就是其中之一。

But, yeah, Patrick was very hands on with all of his customers and was extremely available. Like, I I can say that because I was one of them.

是啊，我敢肯定他这么做时也承受着社交焦虑。不断推动别人安装你的软件并部署，这可不是件轻松的事。

Yeah. And I'm sure he had social anxiety going through all that. That wasn't a comfortable thing to do just, like, keep pushing people to install your software and deploy.

当然不容易。但要想创业成功，这就是必须做的事。我当时也是这么过来的。

Oh, surely not. It's just you gotta do like, you want your startup to work, this is just what you gotta do. You know? I was in the territory.

这个问题可能太宽泛了，不知道你是否有答案——你发现成功创业公司还有其他共同模式吗？这大概是个价值六千四百万美元的问题，关于创始人做了什么最终导向成功。

This is gonna be just a way broad question, and I don't know if you'll have an answer, but just are there other just patterns you find across startups that do well? This is, like, maybe the sixty fourth million dollar question of just founders and what they do that ends up leading to success.

我不认为性格类型有那么重要。我见过非常安静的人，非常外向的人，各种各样的性格类型都有。所以对我个人而言，我不认为存在某种正确的性格模板，人们不该想着'我要模仿这个人'。你明白吗？

I don't think personality types matter as much. I've seen very quiet people, very extroverted people, very, you know, you name it. I've seen all sorts of personality types. So for me personally, I don't think that there's a right or I don't think there's a personality type that people should copy and be like, I need to be like this person. You know?

我不需要成为史蒂夫·乔布斯，也不需要成为埃隆那样。说实话我不相信这套，因为人的差异性太大了。就像DoorDash的托尼就和很多人截然不同。

I need to be like Steve Jobs. I need to be like Elon. You know? I I don't really believe in that because there's just so much variation. Like, Tony from DoorDash is so different than a lot of folks.

Rejul也与众不同，Whatnot的格兰特也是。这些人性格都千差万别。帕特里克是另一种类型，Flexport的瑞恩也是——这些人的性格类型都大不相同。

And Rejul is so different and Grant from whatnot. These are all very, very different people. Patrick is a different kind of person. Ryan from Flexport. Like these are just very different personality types.

但我认为真正建立大公司的人有个共同点：他们极度渴望成功，深信自己能让事业成功。在他们心灵深处有种信念：'我就是天选之人，绝不接受失败'。即便客观数据显示情况糟糕——员工想离职、高管想退出——

But the thing that I would argue folks that build really big companies have in common is they just really want it. And they really believe in themselves and they really believe they can make it work. And that there's somehow deep in their internal psyche, there's something that's like, I'm the one and I won't take I won't accept this not working. And even though objectively, there's all this data coming in, this isn't working, this is bad, you know, my employees wanna quit, my executives wanna quit,

你知道，

you know,

但内心深处他们始终坚信：'我一定能成功，这家公司必将壮大'。这种内在引力如此强大，足以扭曲现实让世界屈从于他们的意志。因为他们如此坚信，周围人也开始相信，他们能让员工和所有合作方都相信这事能成。

whatever it is, somewhere deep down in there, they're like, oh, yeah, I'm gonna make this work. This is this company is gonna be big. And they and they they just believe. And it's almost like that internal gravitational force inside of them is so large, it kind of warps the world to bend to that will, and people start to believe it because they believe it so much. And they convince their employees to believe it, and they convince everyone around them that this is going to happen for them.

所以重申一遍，这不是性格特征——我认为这是一种核心信念。

And so, again, this is not a personality trait. This is I'm arguing this is like a core belief.

真有趣，这与我们一直在讨论的内容紧密相连。关键是要坚持下去，不要对你正在做的事情失去希望。创始人听到这些可能会想，天啊，我不确定自己是否真的相信这能成功。根据你的经验，这种确信有多少是源于他们内心的坚定，又有多少是出于需要对外展现这种信心？

So interesting, and it connects so much to what we've been talking about. Just don't die. Don't lose hope in what you're working on. A founder hearing this might feel like, man, I don't know if I'm, like, so convinced this is gonna work. In your experience, how much of this is internally they're so certain and convinced versus externally they need to show this confidence?

嗯，我认为主要是内心的确信。我...你知道，我不确定外在因素有多大，但重点是——在早期阶段，当创业者既没有好点子也没有客户时，当事情客观上还没起色时，没人能做到这点。所以我...我认识很多创始人都会想'哇，我完全没这种感觉，糟了'。

Well, I think it's internally they're convinced. I I you know, I'm not sure it's external, but, and this is the big but, no one has this at the early stages when they don't have a good idea and they don't have customers and, it's objectively not working. And so I again, I I know a lot of founders are like, woah. I don't feel that way. Oh, no.

或许我...或许我是个冒牌货，根本不该创业。当然你会这么想——如果你还没和任何客户交流过，也没真正打造出产品的话。但通常情况是，你会转向一个好点子：从一个你真正关心的创意开始，服务你重视的客户，产品推出后表现越好，你就越会痴迷于自己的公司。就像Stripe的例子——我不想替Patrick代言，但我记得他说过，在最初一两年里，他也不确定Stripe能否成功，直到业务真正运转起来后，他们才真正建立起信念。

Maybe I'm, you know, maybe I'm an imposter and I shouldn't do a startup. Well, of course you don't feel that way if you haven't talked to any customers and haven't built a product like, you know. But what usually happens is you pivot to a good idea where you start with a good idea that you care about and customers you care about and you launch it and the better the product does, the more obsessed you get with your own company. Like I think in the case of Stripe, don't want to tell Patrick's story for him, I recall him saying at some point he wasn't as sure that Stripe was gonna work until they were like a year or two in. And it wasn't started working, and then he, you know, they really believed in it.

但这不是说他某天醒来就突然认定'Stripe就是它了，这一定能成'。我认为信念是逐步建立的，就像网络效应的良性循环：客户反馈和数据越能验证你在正确轨道上，你的信念就越强。

But it it wasn't like he woke up one day and like, Stripe is the thing. It's gonna be it's gonna work. I think I think you build conviction and you have this, like, network effect virtual cycle where you get more conviction, the more customers reflect back to you and data reflects back to you that you're on the right track.

这正和Scott Belsky在我们节目里分享的观点一致——当我问他何时该转型时，他说关键指标是：随着时间推移，你对这件事能成功的信念是增强了还是减弱了？我很喜欢我们刚才建立的这个联系。好了，我们已经讨论了初创企业失败的各种原因：糟糕的点子、平庸的点子...

This is exactly what Scott Belsky shared in our episode when I asked him when to pivot is, do you have more conviction? This is gonna work or less conviction over time. And so I like that connection we just made there. Okay. So we've talked about all these ways startups fail, bad ideas, tarpid ideas.

现在我想转到反面聊聊优秀的创业点子。最近你发布了'征召初创企业'计划，本质上是20个YC希望投资的领域。能分享几个让你兴奋的创意方向吗？也就是你们正在寻找创始人来推进的那些项目。

I wanna go to the flip side and talk about good startup ideas. So recently, you put out a request for startups, which is essentially 20 categories of ideas that you wanna fund that YC wants to fund. Can you share some of these ideas that you're excited about? And basically, you're looking to fund and looking for founders to work on.

是的。我们发布这个征召计划主要是为了激发灵感，鼓励人们提交那些我们平时不常见的创意类型。这不是硬性规定——不是说我们只会投资清单上的项目，完全不是这样。

Yeah. And so we we put out the request for startups just to inspire people to maybe apply with ideas that aren't the ones that we always see. It's not like prescriptive. Like we will only fund ideas on those lists. It is not that at all.

还记得我之前提到的信息饮食吗？我们试图混合一些关于人们可能考虑但目前尚未接触的想法类型的信息饮食。我们提出的几个方向中，有一个是关于ERP（企业资源规划软件）的。我之所以选择这个主题，是因为相关申请实在太少，而且通常质量很高。我真心希望更多人能了解并探索ERP领域，毕竟具备这方面背景的申请者实在太罕见了。

It's just sort of remember what I talked about earlier with information diet? We're trying to mix up some of the information diet about what kind of ideas people might be contemplating that they aren't currently. And so a couple of the ones that we put out there, one of them, I made one about ERPs, which is, you know, enterprise resource planning software. And I did that because I get so few applications on that and they're usually pretty good. And I just would love to see more people look at that and learn about what the ERPs are, just because it's so rare that people apply with that.

现在我有预感，我们会收到更多这方面的申请。这个引导确实达到了预期效果——让那些原本不知道ERP为何物的创业者开始接触这个领域。另一个方向是开源公司，这是我们'请求创业'计划中的重点。如果有更多人带着开源创意申请YC，我们会非常兴奋。

And now I have a feeling we're gonna see a lot more applications working on that. And so it kind of worked as intended, which is to introduce this idea space to founders that didn't even know what an ERP was. Now they'll go learn about it. Another one is, you know, we'd like to fund open source companies. And so that's one of the RFSs where, you know, if there if more people apply to YC with open source ideas, I think we'd be pretty excited about that.

可能有些创业者没意识到这也是我们愿意投资的领域。太空公司同样如此。我们在太空领域已经取得很多成功——目前除了SpaceX，真正进入太空的几家公司都来自YC。

And that might maybe fatters didn't realize that would be something we would wanna fund. Same with space companies. Yeah. We've had a lot of success with space companies. You know, several of the folks that are actually going to space right now that aren't SpaceX are YC companies.

所以我认为创业者有时会觉得这些想法过于大胆和雄心勃勃。但事实并非如此。我非常期待更多人申请太空领域的项目。我们的初衷就是播撒那些可能被潜意识过滤掉的创业灵感种子。

And so I think sometimes founders feel like those ideas are too bold and ambitious. But no. We you know, I love more people apply with space companies. And so think about it that way where we're just trying to put out we're trying to plant seeds of idea spaces that perhaps someone subconsciously filtered out as what might be a good start up idea. And and,

你知道，

you know,

希望这能为创业者开辟一套全新的创业构思路径。

hopefully, that creates a a new set of startup ideation for the person.

我们会在节目说明中附上这个页面的链接供大家探索。我再快速补充几个方向：终结癌症的方法。没错。

And we're gonna link to this page in the show notes for folks that wanna explore. I'll give a couple more real quick. Yep. A way to end cancer. Yep.

没什么大不了的。空间计算、新型国防技术、制造业回流美国。很多硬核科技领域的东西，可能是个新方向吧。我知道你们过去应该投资过这类项目，但感觉像是...

No big deal. Spatial computing, new defense technology, bringing manufacturing back to America. So a lot of, like, hard science deep tech stuff, which is which is maybe a new I don't know. I know imagine you guys have invested in this in the past, but it feels like We

确实投过。对吧？所以不是那种'我们从未涉足过'的领域，更像是'要是能看到更多这类应用就好了'。

totally have. Right? So these aren't like, oh, we've never invested in these before. It's more of like, hey. It'd be cool if we saw more applications along these lines.

确实会更好，因为目前感觉这块有点欠缺，

It would be nice because it it currently feels a little bit under,

你懂的 是啊。

you know Yeah.

应该要有更多初创公司专注这个领域。

There there could be more startups working on this stuff.

没错。而不是那些Sharpen式的点子。再快速说几个？更好的企业级粘合剂方案？

Yeah. Instead of the Sharpen ideas. A couple more real quick. Better enterprise glue?

对。我喜欢这个创意。

Yep. I like that idea.

详细说说看。具体是什么样子的？

Say more about that. What does that look like?

连接这些业务系统的软件通常非常脆弱且粗糙，已经有很多优秀的初创公司致力于解决这个问题。我认为仍有很大的改进空间，而且大语言模型会不断进步。我们很可能能够创造出越来越好的‘粘合剂’，让各类软件系统能够相互通信。所以这确实是个非常宽泛的想法，但我相信我们会看到许多非常成功的公司，这就是他们创业理念的核心。

The software to connect all these business systems is usually pretty brittle and janky, and there's been lots of good startups founded to solve this problem. I think there's still a lot more room for improvement and likely LLMs will improve. Like we'll probably be able to create better and better glue so all sorts of software systems can talk to each other. And so again, very broad idea, but yeah, I think we'll see a lot of very successful companies where that's the kernel of the idea they start with.

太棒了。最后一个问题：小型精调模型作为巨型通用模型的替代方案。好的。我们会把这个链接放在节目说明里，听众可以点击查看，那里有你关于这些想法更详细的解释。

Awesome. One last one, small fine tuned models as an alternative to gigantic generic ones. Yep. Sweet. And so we'll send, we'll include this link in the show notes, and folks can click on each of these and you basically there's a lot more explanation of what it is you're thinking about there.

太好了。好的。再问几个问题。

Awesome. Okay. Just a couple more questions.

嗯。

Yep.

一个是关于你的背景。根据我读到的资料，2000年代初你基本上是和如今一些最成功的人士混在一起的，比如扎克伯格、里德·霍夫曼、山姆·奥特曼、埃隆、肖恩·帕克——那时他们都还没成名。后来他们都取得了巨大成功。我很好奇，回顾那段经历，你注意到这些最终获得长期成功的人身上有什么共同点？

One is just, your background. So from what I've read, in the early 2000s, you were basically hanging out with some of the biggest success stories of today, folks like Zuck and Reid Hoffman, Sam Altman, Elon, Sean Parker. This is before they really became anyone. And they all became very successful. I'm curious just what looking back at that, what you've noticed is consistent across these folks that end up being really successful over time.

2003年时，在硅谷做学生创业是个非常小的圈子。当时没多少人热衷这个。我记得我冷邮件联系过里德·霍夫曼，那时领英才12个员工，他居然回复了，说‘一起吃个午饭吧’。那时候他就是个普通人，所有做社交网络的人——基本就是我认识的那批人。

Back in 2003, being in Silicon Valley and being new student startups, they're just it was a really small space. There just weren't that many people that were into this stuff. And so I remember, I cold emailed Reid Hoffman when LinkedIn was like 12 employees, and he just responded. And he's like, oh, let's have lunch. And it wasn't he was just like a guy and everyone else that was doing, I guess you could call it social networking, with that was sort of the people that I knew.

以前有几个会议，你去参加的话大概会有30人左右。这让我想起家酿计算机俱乐部的故事。不是说这个同样酷，但当我读到关于家酿计算机俱乐部存在时的故事，那真是极少数彼此相识的人，都是些真正痴迷于此的怪咖 outsider。懂吗？这就是互联网泡沫后湾区创业圈的真实感觉。

There was a few conferences you would go to and there'd be like 30 people there. Reminds me of stories about the Homebrew Computer Club. I'm not saying this is as cool, but when I read stories about what it was like when when the Homebrew Computer Club existed, it was a very small number of people that all knew each other that were real like weirdo outsiders that were into this stuff. Okay? And so that's what in the post.com boom, Bay Area start up scene, that's legitimately what it felt like.

所以我当时没太考虑这些人的性格特质。他们虽然各不相同，但共同点是那些如今的大佬们都特别能坚持。对吧？比如我认识Sam时，他从斯坦福辍学做Loopt——说来好笑，那是个用来找附近人一起玩的软件。

And so I didn't think a lot about the personality traits of these people. They were all again, they were all pretty different people. But what they had in common is the folks that are now the really big names just had a lot of staying power. Right? So when I when I met Sam, he had dropped out of Stanford to work on looped, which is hilariously a way to find people around you to hang out with.

这里有个有趣的模式。他很酷，就是个特别年轻的小伙子，就这么干了。虽然项目不大，但后来他转向其他领域，进了YC，涉足硬科技，现在又转型成为AI领域的领军人物，这确实很厉害。

Interesting theme here. He was cool. He's just he was this really young guy, and he just kind of did that. It wasn't huge. And then he got into other stuff and ended up working at YC, ended up getting involved in hard tech and is now kind of like reinventing himself as the big mind behind AI, which is, which again, awesome.

但回想当年的他，就是个23岁的小伙子，在开发一个功能机时代用来找邻居朋友的软件。他们的客户是Boost Mobile。你肯定能在YouTube上找到Boost Mobile为Loopt拍的广告，那些广告其实挺搞笑的。

But if I think about who he was back in the day, he was yeah. He was like a 23 year old working on a thing for feature phones to find friends in your neighborhood. Their customer was Boost Mobile. I bet you could go find the commercials for loops that Boost Mobile put out on YouTube. Those are actually pretty funny.

你看过那些广告吗？

Have you seen those commercials?

不知道，不过我现在就去找来看看。

I don't know, but I'm going to go check them out.

总之特别逗。这就是真实故事。记得那时我在帕罗奥图市中心，有些朋友认识肖恩·帕克——那会儿他还没去Facebook，还是Napster的成员。嗯。

Anyway, it's pretty funny. So, yeah, like, that's that's the the real story. And then, yeah, I remember I was in Downtown Palo Alto at the time, and you some of some of the folks I was friends with were friends with Sean Parker, and this is actually before Sean Parker went to Facebook. He was part of Napster. Mhmm.

我有个朋友说，哦，我们得帮我朋友搭车去机场。结果我就载了肖恩·帕克去奥克兰机场。再说一次，他是什么样的人？我不知道。他基本上就是全程坐在后座打电话。

And so one of my friends was like, oh, we need to get my friend a ride to the airport. And so I ended up giving Sean Parker a ride to the Oakland Airport. And, again, what was he like? I don't know. He just basically sat in the back seat on the phone the whole time.

但但，我的意思是，我当时并没有觉得，哇，这些人将来会成为世界上非常重要的大人物。他们看起来就是一群痴迷互联网和电脑的极客，做着他们感兴趣的事情，完全沉迷其中。没人会想，哎呀，我该搬去纽约吗？或者，也许我该去读法学院。

But but, again, my point is I wasn't like, wow. These are gonna be really big successful people that one day will be important in the world. It just felt like a bunch of nerds that really like the Internet and computers kind of doing things that they were interested in and were just obsessed with this. Like there was no they weren't like, gee, should I move to New York? Gee, should I, maybe I should go to law school.

这些人非常坚定地要留在互联网公司工作。所以你会看到这些人多次重塑自己，跨越不同时代。对吧？比如里德·霍夫曼。

Like, was people that were very bought in to to staying working on Internet companies. And so you'll see these folks just reinvent themselves multiple eras. Right? Okay. Like Reid Hoffman.

对吧？他曾在PayPal工作。然后创办了领英，后来又成了风投。就像，他经历了所有这些不同的时代，是同一个人，但几乎像是不同的角色。

Right? He was a worked at PayPal. Right? And then he did LinkedIn, and then he was, a VC. And, like like, he's kind of had, like, all these different eras where it's the same person, but it's it's almost like a different figure.

对吧？

Right?

这里面有很多有趣的启示。一是职业生涯很长，你有机会做很多事情，可以不断转型。比如我意识到，这是我的第四段职业了。我当过工程师、创始人、产品经理，现在做这个说不清是什么的工作。我觉得这很常见。

There's a lot of interesting lessons there. One is that your career is long, and you will have the opportunity to do many things, and you can continue to shift. Like, in my example, this is my fourth career, I realized. I was an engineer, then a founder, then a product manager, and now whatever this job is. And I think that's really common.

另一个启示是关于性格类型，我之前没提，但我觉得非常重要：你可以极度内向却非常成功，也可以极度外向并取得巨大成就。关键在于运用自己的技能和优势达成目标。你不必成为史蒂夫·乔布斯那种惊艳的舞台演讲者，完全可以用不同的方式实现同样的成就。

I think the other, again, is the personality types point, which I didn't comment on, but I think it's so important that you can be super introverted and be super successful. You can be super extroverted and be very successful. And I think the key there is use your skills and strengths to achieve the same things. You don't have to be the amazing presenter on Steve Jobs type stage. You can do the same thing in a different way.

另外一点是，归根结底你需要真正热爱并享受你正在做的工作，因为这能推动你前进并取得成功。我很喜欢这个故事，它基本总结了你目前分享的许多内容。还有两个有趣的故事可选，一个是你把初创公司卖给了Myspace，而你的工作本质上是拯救Myspace。

And then the other point there is, again, coming back to you just need to be really excited and enjoy the work you're doing because that'll drive you forward and make you be successful. So I like that that I love that the story is kind of a summary of so many of the things you've shared so far. There's other two other fun stories. Maybe pick one or the other. One is you sold your startup to Myspace, and your job was basically to save Myspace.

另一个故事是你让Andreessen Horowitz错过了Instagram的投资机会。所以你想分享哪个故事呢？

And then the other is you're the reason Andreessen Horowitz missed out on Instagram Yeah. And couldn't invest. So which of those would you wanna share?

其实这两个故事本质上是同一个故事。我的第二家公司——准确说是把第一家公司卖给了Myspace，那是我经营的音乐公司。

Well, it's it's kind of the same story. Okay. Great. And and and the way that it's the same story is my second company, basically I sold my first company into Myspace. It was the music company that I worked on.

他们聘请了新CEO欧文·范·纳达，他之前是Facebook的COO。巧的是又回到了这个小圈子。欧文说'我们需要挽救Myspace，默多克有资源，他要我来解决这个问题'。

And they recruited a new CEO who was formerly the COO of Facebook called Owen Van Nada. So again, hilariously part of the same little circle of people. And Owen was like, okay, we need to fix MySpace. You know, Rupert Murdoch's got the juice. He wants me to fix it.

我们当时决定要扭转局面。我想到的最佳方案是做移动照片分享，类似照片版Twitter。考虑到Myspace的用户基数，这在2010年应该很可行。

Like, we're gonna turn we're gonna we're gonna do it. So come up with some ideas. And kind of the best idea that I could come up with at the time was doing something around mobile photo sharing, something kind of like Twitter, but for photos. And I figured with MySpace's user base, that would work pretty well. This was like in 2010.

那时App Store刚兴起，我的音乐应用iNIM下载量很高。我觉得应用商店前景大好，特别看好应用的发展潜力。

So it was right as the app store was getting big. And I had a lot I had a lot of success in the app store with iNIM. It was one of the top music top downloaded music apps. And so I was like, wow, the app store was really good. And I was really into apps being the thing.

当时Facebook在移动端还处于早期，他们尝试做跨平台应用（不知道你是否记得），但那些应用做得并不好——这都算是上古历史了。

And at this time, Facebook was a little early on. They were trying to do cross platform mobile apps, if you recall. Mhmm. And their apps were not great. This was, again, ancient history.

这就是我当时的大致计划。然后胡安·万纳达立刻就被解雇了，我甚至都没来得及入职，就直接走人了。我想我在那个岗位上待了大概一个月吧，因为收购我们公司的那个人也被开除了。

And so that was sort of, like, my plan. And then immediately, Juan Vannada was fired. And so I didn't even really get onboarded. And so I just, like, left. I think I worked in my space for, like, a month because the person that acquired my company got fired.

而且我觉得整个组织架构都被裁撤了，我连该找谁对接都不知道。真是太棒了，一次绝妙的经历。你懂我意思吗？那时候我完全不清楚我的联络人是谁。

And there was, like, I think the whole org chart got fired, so I didn't even know I didn't even know who to talk to. It was really great. It was a great experience. You know what I'm saying? I I wasn't really sure who my point of contact was at that point.

我觉得他们自己也不知道。简直一团糟。就剩汤姆了。

I don't think they knew either. It was just a mess. Just Tom.

刚给汤姆发了消息。

Just messaged Tom.

不，不。他早就离职了。

No. No. He was long gone.

好吧。

Okay.

说真的，我知道你在开玩笑，但真的不在了。老实说，我那时都不知道还有谁留在公司。太好了。汤姆早就走了。是啊。

Seriously, I know you're kidding, but, no. Like, literally, I don't know who was left at that point. Great. Tom was long gone. Yeah.

于是我就想，好吧，我应该创办一家新公司，做我一直在思考的项目。最终我确实成立了公司，并且很快获得了天使投资，因为人们还记得我上一家公司。我们的主要投资者是安德森·霍洛维茨基金，这是他们首批董事会席位投资之一，马克·安德森本人还担任了我们董事。

And so I was like, well, I should just do a new startup and I should work on something like what I was thinking about. And I ended up, yeah, starting the company and quickly was able to raise an angel around because people remembered my company from the first one. And the major investor we had was Andreessen Horowitz. This is one of their first board seat investments. Like Marc Andreessen was on my board.

说实话，关于这段经历我有很多故事可以讲，但确实很有趣。我们发布了产品，大概获得了50万到100万用户，现在还能找到当时的科技媒体报道。我们在安卓和iOS平台推出了移动照片分享应用，增长势头其实相当不错。

You know, again, was that that that have my own set of stories about that, but it was it was interesting experience. And we launched it, and I think we've got half a million or a million users. Like, you can go find tech print articles about it. And it was we launched on Android and iOS, and it was mobile photo sharing, and actually it was growing pretty well. Okay?

后来情况是这样的：投资组合里有家叫Bourbon的公司，原本是Forceware的克隆产品，由两个创始人开发。他们决定转型，做的项目和我非常相似。这很正常，行业常态罢了。

And then what happened is there was another portfolio company called Bourbon, which was originally a Forceware clone that was built by these two guys. And they decided to pivot out of that and into what which was pretty similar to my thing. You know? Again, fair enough. That's just how this works.

他们做了个聪明举动——这只是我的个人看法，不清楚他们版本的故事——但我觉得他们的聪明之处在于：当时付费应用排行榜第一名是Hipstomatic，而人们最想要什么？

And they did something smart. Again, this is just me talking. I don't know what their version of story is, but what I think they did that was smart is if you looked on the paid app store charts, the number one app was Hipstomatic. And Hipstomatic cost money. And what do we know about what people want?

当然是想要免费版收费应用啊！于是他们做了个相当精致的Hipstomatic滤镜仿制品，结合社交图谱功能上线后迅速爆红。没错，这就是Instagram。看着它崛起对我来说很魔幻，因为安德森·霍洛维茨既是我的董事会成员，又是Instagram投资人，这种利益冲突导致他们没参与那轮融资。

They want things that are free that cost money, Right? And so they basically built a pretty legitimate knockoff of the hypsomatic filters, combining it with the social graph and they launched it and it pretty quickly took off. So of course this is Instagram, right? And so it took off really quickly and like, you know, that was like a wild experience for me to be like, oh, this seems familiar. And basically because, Andrushin Horowitz had like invested in my company, was on the board, even though they were investors, in Instagram, that was like a conflict and they didn't do the deal.

不知怎么这成了硅谷八卦热点，大家都惊呼难以置信。作为创始人，身处这种文化大事件的漩涡中心真是种奇特体验。

And then for whatever reason, this became like a big source of like Silicon Valley gossip, which is like, wow, I can't believe this happened. And so it was just a really weird experience for me as a founder to, to be right in the middle of something that became culturally so important.

我猜安德森·霍洛维茨基金（16z）背后没少把你当靶子吧。

I imagine there's a bullseye in your back from a 16 z for a little bit.

哦，他们其实并不在乎。我不认为他们因此对我有意见，因为我做错了什么呢？

Oh, they don't I don't actually think they care. I don't think they held it against me, because, like, what did I do wrong?

确实如此。

It's true.

我创办了一家公司。你懂我的意思吗？显然当时有些挫折，但我只是个被他们投资的公司创始人。我不知道...我并没有觉得他们对我有多高的期望。

I started a company. It's like you know what I'm saying? Like, obviously, there was some frustration, but I was like, I I was a guy who had a company that they invested in. I don't know. I I didn't feel like they I didn't feel I didn't feel much higher for them.

我觉得这就是生活的运作方式。

I think it's this is just how this is just how life works.

是啊。不知道他们之后有没有修改过利益冲突政策。

Yeah. I wonder if they changed their conflict policies after that at all.

我觉得没有。这种事...我想这种情况发生过很多次，不过那些就不是我的故事了。

I don't think so. This hap I think this happened I I think this has happened multiple other times, but those aren't my stories as well.

顺便问下，不知道你提过没有，你的初创公司叫Pick Pick Please。

And by the way, I don't know if you mentioned the name of your startup. It's called Pick Pick Please.

对吧？是的，它叫Pick Please。

Right? Yeah. It's called Pick Please.

没错。太好了。好的。那么在进入激动人心的闪电回合之前，最后阶段我有这两个固定环节：失败角和逆向角。

Yep. Great. Okay. So for the final phase, before we get to our very exciting lightning round, I have these two segments recurring segments. I have failure corner and contrarian corner.

我们可以两个都做，或者选其中一个。失败角是分享你职业生涯中一次失败经历及从中得到的教训；逆向角则是讲述一个你相信但大多数人都不认同的观点。

We can do both or we can pick one or the other. Failure corner, share a story of something a time in your career where you failed and what you learned from that experience. Contrarian corner, what's something you believe that a lot of that most other people don't believe?

嗯，对于逆向角，我知道从哪开始说，而且觉得对听众很有参考价值。虽然可能有人不认为这算逆向观点，但我的看法是：对早期初创公司来说，增长、增长黑客以及各种数据分析、AB测试之类完全是浪费时间。

Yeah. I think for contrarian corner, I know where I would start and I think it's relevant for your listener. Like, think this is relevant to this. And so, and you could argue this isn't contrarian, but here's what I think. I think growth and growth hacking and doing all this analytics, AB testing stuff is a total waste of time for very early startups.

互联网上充斥着大量创业建议的奇怪之处在于——这也是我们在YC开始制作视频的原因之一——很多建议都是针对后期阶段公司的。比如如何组建董事会、如何激励销售团队，这些都是面向A轮、B轮创始人的，而非种子轮。问题是种子期创始人吸收了这些后期建议后会非常困惑。所以我看到的不良模式是：很多创始人非常熟悉你出色的工作（我再次强烈推荐），但当你还没有客户时，却去研读Lenny关于如何设置分流测试、如何在Airbnb实现增长的文章——天啊，这太蠢了，毫无帮助。

And that one of the weird things about having lots of startup advice on the internet, again, is one of reasons we started making videos at YC, is a lot the advice was catered towards later stage companies. Like, oh, here's how you set up your board and here's how you motivate your sales team. Like it was all aimed at series A, series B founders and not for seed stage founders. The problem was seed stage founders would consume all the later stage advice and get really confused. And so the anti pattern I see is there are lots of founders that are very familiar with your awesome work, which, again, I really recommend.

我很欣赏这些内容。但当你连一个客户都没有时，却沉迷于这些复杂的增长黑客理论，反而忽视了获取第一个客户、与真实用户对话这些根本。

I like it. But when you have no customers and you're reading, you know, Lenny's guides on how to set up split testing and how you did growth at Airbnb, oh, man. That is so dumb. That is so not helpful. And so you see this inclination away from getting a first customer, getting one customer and talking to that person.

这种情况也常见于大科技公司员工身上——当产品已有规模时，比如在Facebook负责发布新功能，当然应该充分运用分析工具、AB测试和功能开关。这很合理。但当你根本没有用户时，这些操作又有什么意义呢？

And instead they have like all this really complex growth hacking theory. I think this also happens if you worked in big tech where your product already has scale. And so, you know, if you work at Facebook and your job is to launch new little features, yeah, of course you should make heavy use of analytics and AB testing and split testing and feature flags. Yeah, yeah, yeah, makes sense. But when you have no users, what are you doing?

那么你认为这是逆向思维吗？你怎么看？我只是想论证，这条建议对一家起步过早的初创公司来说，实际上毫无帮助。

So would you think that's contrarian? What do you think? Like, I'm I'm just trying to argue this advice applied to a startup that's too early is, like, actively not helpful.

我认为对很多人来说这绝对是逆向思维。我也100%认同。这让我觉得需要在文章开头就说明：这篇内容适合谁看。如果你比这个阶段更早，请忽略。

I I think it's contrarian for many people, 100%. I also 100% agree with it. It makes me feel like I need to, at the top of my post, share. Here's who this is for. If you're earlier than this, ignore it.

如果你比这个阶段更晚，也请忽略。

If you're later than this, ignore it.

我的意思是，我并不是说你做错了什么，但想象一下如果Airbnb创始人在只有四个用户、连用户名字都记得的时候，就采纳你们现在的所有建议，去搞复杂的增长黑客和A/B测试会怎样。

I mean, again, I'm not saying you do anything wrong, but imagine if the OG Airbnb founders took all of your current advice and applied it when they had, like, four users and they knew their names. And they were, like, trying to run complicated growth hacking split test things.

是的。或许需要澄清一下你说的增长黑客。显然当你创办一个消费者应用时，你需要获取大量用户。当你建议'不要做这类事，但可以做那类事'时，具体怎么区分哪些属于哪类？

Yeah. Maybe just to, clarify when you talk about growth growth hacking. So, obviously, when you're starting something, say a consumer app, there's a you need to get a bunch of users somehow. What's your sense of just, when you say don't do this sort of thing, but this is okay? What kind of falls in those buckets?

我认为这取决于具体想法。以Whatnot为例，作为消费者应用他们需要获取用户。但他们非常理性地看待启动市场平台的指标，没有盲目把钱砸在Instagram广告上。他们清楚地知道需要聚焦买家端，在买方建立势能。

I think it depends on the idea. I think in the case of Whatnot, they obviously it was consumer app, they needed to get users. But they were very intellectually honest on the metrics for how you get a marketplace off the ground. And they didn't just go dump all their money into Instagram ads. Like they effectively knew they needed to focus on buyers and on the buy side and build momentum on the buy side.

他们真正理解市场平台。对于消费者业务，关键是要对如何从零启动有成熟认知。比如Facebook的故事——他们先实现哈佛校园100%渗透率，而非全面推广。这个策略很明智，值得借鉴。所以推而广之，就是要找到对标企业，研究它们从零到一的经验，而不是模仿现在的做法。

They really understood marketplaces. And so for consumer, I think it's having a sophisticated view of how you get the consumer company off the ground. I think if you look at the Facebook story, them getting a 100% penetration on the Harvard campus first, instead of launching overall. Again, good strategy, would recommend that strategy. So again, the way to extrapolate that is know what your comps are of what companies your archetype is, and then look at what they did on the zero to one and ignore what they do today.

对吧？如果你是初创公司的新手创始人，别太关注Facebook现在的做法。应该关注他们获取最初一千用户时的策略。那些是什么方法？

Right? Don't pay attention to what Facebook does today if you're a brand new startup founder. Pay attention to Facebook when they were getting their first thousand users. What were those tactics?

我觉得这完全可以单独做一期节目，专门探讨如何获取最初的一千用户。我记得Gustaf和YC合作拍过相关建议视频，我们会附上链接。你想聊聊失败角吗？还是继续下一个话题？

I feel like this should be its own episode where we just go into how to get your first thousand users. I know there's a video actually we'll link to that Gustaf made with YC's advice on how to get your early users. Did you wanna visit failure corner or not? Or shall we move on?

我失败过无数次。作为投资人，我既有成功投资也有糟糕决策。创业时我频繁调整方向，很多尝试都无果而终。就像刚才用Pickleys举例的那个具体案例，对吧？

I failed at tons of stuff. I I as an investor, I I make lots of bad investments as well as good ones. I think in my startups, I pivoted a lot and a lot of things I did didn't work out. And so, again, I just gave you a specific story with with with Pickleys. Right?

你们刚才听到了具体事例。我学到的就是别被失败过度影响，必须坚持前进。只要你持续努力，没人会过分在意那些挫折，它们不会定义你。恐惧失败不该占据全部思绪，而应该把精力和积极心态投入到有价值的工作中，对吧？

You just heard a specific story there. I guess what I learned is that you just can't let it get to you too much and you gotta keep going. And that if you keep going, no one really remembers those as much and it doesn't really define you. And it shouldn't, you know, fear of failure shouldn't dominate all of your thoughts. And instead you should use your energy and positivity to keep trying to do good work, right?

因为如果年轻时我就想着'可能科技行业不适合我'，就不会有现在的事业轨迹。我不会进入YC工作，也没机会指导创业公司。所以我人生中始终保持着乐观和充沛精力，用这种动力推动自己前进。

Because back in the day, if I would be like, well, you know, I guess starting time for me, I guess tech isn't for me. I wouldn't have had a career doing any of this stuff. I wouldn't be working in YC. I wouldn't be advising companies, right? So I always had to have in my life a lot of optimism and energy and use that energy and motor to keep me going.

这确实让我受益匪浅，对吧？即便很多尝试都失败且持续失败。虽然道理浅显，但真理往往就是如此直白。

And it served me really well, right? Even if lots of stuff I tried didn't work and continue to not work, you know? Again, obvious stuff I know, but yeah, that doesn't mean it's not true even though it's obvious.

我感觉这是反复出现的主题。很喜欢这个'如何避免消亡'的另一种诠释——既要让初创公司存活，也要保持个人驱动力，在受挫时继续尝试新方向。这些循环主题对听众很有价值。Dalton，进入精彩快问快答环节前，你还有什么想对听众说的吗？

I feel like that's a recurring theme here. And I love that it's another version of just how not to die. There's, like, the startup itself that shouldn't die, and then there's your just drive and motivation to keep going and try new things when things don't work out. I love all the recurring themes and messages for people here. Dalton, is there anything else you wanna leave listeners with before we get to our very exciting lightning round?

是的。我想最后的建议是，如果有人想创业但不知从何开始，就请允许自己去和潜在客户交流，在写代码之前尝试预售产品。我觉得很多人不知道创业的第一步该怎么走。我的具体建议是：先做客户验证，而不是先做PPT，不是先融资，也不是其他那些事。我觉得很多人都没采用这个策略。

Yeah. I guess I guess the final thought is, if someone wants to do a startup and doesn't know where to start, just to give you permission to talk to potential customers and try to pre sell something before you write code and have those conversations. I think so many folks don't know where to begin on starting a startup. And my tactical advice is start doing customer validation first versus building a PowerPoint deck versus trying to raise money versus like all these other things. I think a lot of people don't use that strategy.

基本上，如果你发现人们非常兴奋，并且确实有客户排队，那就是个很好的绿灯信号——是时候创业了，对吧？这能帮你走上正轨。所以，是的，我想这就是我最后的

And basically if you find people that are really excited and you do line up customers, that is a great green light that it is time to do a startup, right? That can get you down the path. So, yeah, I think that's my final

建议。那么接下来问题是：什么时候开始构建产品？是边谈边做，还是先谈后做？这取决于

advice. And then with that, when does the building come in? Is it build it while you're talking, build it before you Yeah. It depends on

当你有了些把握后再动手，比如你觉得『噢，我觉得会有客户』，至少会有一个人愿意用我想做的这个东西。至少一个。

Build it once you have some conviction and then you're like, oh, I think I would have a customer. I think at least one person would use this thing I wanna build. At least one.

太棒了。我特别喜欢你这番建议的简洁和务实。道尔顿，欢迎来到激动人心的快问快答环节。我有六个问题要问你，准备好了吗？

I love it. I like I love the simplicity and pragmatism of all of your advice. Dalton, welcome to the very exciting lightning round. I've got six questions for you. Are you ready?

开始吧。

Let's do it.

你最常推荐给别人的两三本书是什么？

What are two or three books that you recommend most to other people?

我觉得很多创始人都害怕做销售，他们不知道如何销售，以为必须找那些经验丰富的销售教练，需要接受各种培训。而我会说，直接上亚马逊找那些最畅销的销售书籍，比如《谈判力》这类必读书目，读完这些就能掌握80%的要领。懂我意思吗？他们总想花几百万雇人来做销售培训。

I think a lot of founders are afraid of doing sales, and they don't know how to do sales, and they think they need these really experienced sales coaches, and they need all this training. And I'll be like, well, go on to Amazon and find the most popular sales books like Getting to Yes that everyone reads and just read those. And that'll give you 80% of the way there. You know what I'm saying? Like they wanna hire someone for millions of dollars to give them sales coaching.

我就问：'你们读过这些最基础的销售书籍吗？'他们通常回答没有。所以我觉得上亚马逊买《谈判力》这类书是低成本的学习方式，还有几本其他...

I'm like, well, have you read these really basic sales books? And they're like, no. And so I think that's a low cost way to go on Amazon, getting to YES and a few other of the

畅销书，我听说过

top sellers, I've heard the

这些书名，读完它们就是你速成销售高手的课程。

names, and just read those. And that is your crash course on how to be great at sales.

太棒了。还有本叫《创始人的销售课》的书，你应该知道。Pete Kazanji在播客里聊过这个，我经常推荐它，因为这本书专门教创始人如何做销售。

Awesome. There's also this book called Founding Sales that I imagine you're familiar with. Pete Kazanji was on the podcast talking about that, and that's something I always recommend because it's just like how founders can do sales.

从这本书开始。

Start there.

从这本书开始。太好了。我们会附上链接。你最近有特别喜欢的电影或电视剧吗？

Start there. Great. We'll link to that. Do you have a favorite recent movie or TV show that you really

喜欢吗？这可能偏离了你的问题，但我非常喜欢看老剧。所以我一直在重看《黑道家族》和《火线》，每次看都有不同的感受，你知道的，就是这类体验。我觉得这个回答可能有点傻，但我最近真的很喜欢看《神探科伦坡》的老剧集，那是七八十年代的电视剧。

enjoyed? This may be warping what you're asking for, but I like to watch old shows a lot. And so I keep rewatching like The Sopranos and The Wire and it always is different to me every time and I, you know, things like that. I think here's a silly answer. I've been really enjoying watching old episodes of Columbo, which was a television show from the seventies and eighties.

不知道为什么。甚至不确定这有没有参考价值，但出于某种原因，我现在特别着迷。都是些非常古老的《科伦坡》剧集。

I don't know why. I don't even know if this is instructive, but it is for some reason, I'm really into that right now. It's very old episodes of Colombo.

你真是个老灵魂，Delta。

You're an old soul, Delta.

也许吧。我也不知道。看这些剧时，感觉就像坐上了时光机，回到了另一个时代。

I guess. I don't know. I it's it just feels like a time machine, to a different time when I watch these things.

确实，这可能是目前最独特的回答了。

Definitely, maybe one of the most unique answers yet.

好吧。

Fair enough.

科伦坡。

Colombo.

好吧，再说一次，我想我并不是要给你一个听起来超级聪明的答案。我只是在告诉你错误的答案。所以这就是我正在观察的。

Well, again, I guess I'm not trying to give you an answer where I sound super clever. I'm just I'm actually telling you the wrong answer. So it that's actually what I'm watching.

这听起来确实非常老练聪明。在这种情境下，你有什么特别喜欢问创始人的面试问题吗？

It does actually sound very sophisticated and clever. Do you have a favorite interview question that you like to ask, I guess, founders in this context?

我并不太相信那些刁难人的问题。我觉得我会直接问：嘿，能告诉我你在做什么项目吗？或者你创业以来学到了什么？这些问题都不带陷阱，但通过最直白基础的提问，反而能得到最真实有趣的回答，就像给他们一张白纸自由发挥。嗯。

I don't really believe in in trick questions. And I think I just start with, hey. So tell me about what you're working on or what have you learned since you started? And none of these are trick questions, but I think you can get the most honest and interesting answers by asking the most straightforward basic things and having that be like a blank slate for their answers to draw on. Mhmm.

你明白我的意思吗？所以我喜欢最简单的提问方式，让他们引导对话走向。

You know what I'm saying? So I like the most simple prompts and let them take the conversation where they wanna go.

我知道这可能也是个很大的问题，但你是如何从他们的回答中判断这是好答案还是坏答案的？

I know this probably is too a very big question, but just what do you look for in their answer that gives you a sense of this is a good or bad answer?

你是说YC面试时的评判标准吗？

For for for YC interviews?

是的。我知道这话题足够单独做一期播客了。

Yeah. And and I know this is like its own podcast episode.

我认为这证明他们确实思考过这个问题。就像我之前说的，他们做了研究，有自己的观点，他们关心这件事。对吧？有时候当人们回答问题，你就能看出他们很敷衍，根本没用心。

I think evidence that they actually have thought about it. Like, as per I said earlier, that they've done research, that they have opinions, that they they care about it. Right? Sometimes when you when people answer questions or, like, you can just tell that it's really superficial and they haven't put much care or soul into their answers, you

懂吗？太棒了。你最近有没有发现特别喜欢的新产品？

know? Awesome. Do have a favorite product that you recently discovered that you really like?

比如我的Oura戒指和苹果手表这些好东西。我一直是这类产品的粉丝。有家YC孵化的诊所叫Syphox（s-i-p-h-o-x），我刚注册了，他们提供上门验血服务。我正尝试把这项上门验血服务和我其他设备数据同步。说实话，我真的很喜欢苹果和其他初创公司，以及YC公司在个人健康领域研发的产品。

Like my Oura Ring and my Apple Watch and all that good stuff. Like, I've been a fan. There's a YC clinic called Syphox, s I p h o x, just, signed up for, and they do at home blood testing. And and basically, I'm trying to sync that at home blood testing thing into all my other devices. I think, I don't know, I really enjoy all the stuff that Apple and other startups are working on and YC companies are working on around personal health.

所以没错，这些都是我感兴趣的产品。

And so, yeah, those are products I'm into.

CyFox是吧。等等，所以你要用针头自己采血？

CyFox. Okay. And wait. Then you do, like, a needle and stuff and you take your own blood?