【中英双语】创业有风险，先把“精神问题”想清楚
What is entrepreneurship?
什么是创业精神？
You probably think that the answer is obvious, and that only an academic would bother to ask this question. As a professor, I suppose I am guilty of mincing words. But like the terms “strategy” and “business model,” the word “entrepreneurship” is elastic. For some, it refers to venture capital-backed startups and their kin; for others, to any small business. For some, “corporate entrepreneurship” is a rallying cry; for others, an oxymoron.
或许你认为，只有咬文嚼字的教授才会问这种多余的问题。但实际上，和“战略”、“商业模式”等词汇一样，“创业精神”的涵义并不固定。说到创业精神，有人会想到风投打造的初创企业，另一些人则用它谈论一般小公司。“具有创业精神的企业”对一些人来说是鼓舞人心的口号，另一些人则认为这个说法本身就自相矛盾。
It was formulated by Professor Howard Stevenson, the godfather of entrepreneurship studies at HBS. According to Stevenson, entrepreneurship is the pursuit of opportunity beyond resources controlled.
哈佛商学院创业研究领域教父霍华德·史蒂文森（Howard Stevenson）将“创新精神”定义为：追寻现有资源范围以外的机遇。
“Pursuit” implies a singular, relentless focus. Entrepreneurs often perceive a short window of opportunity. They need to show tangible progress to attract resources, and the mere passage of time consumes limited cash balances. Consequently, entrepreneurs have a sense of urgency that is seldom seen in established companies, where any opportunity is part of a portfolio and resources are more readily available.
“追寻”指绝对专注的态度。创业者能察觉转瞬即逝的机遇，在有限时间内展现实力，吸引外部资源。时间一分一秒过去，真金白银不断流失，因此创业者有一种紧迫感。而成熟公司拥有稳定的资源，面临机遇时选择更多，往往缺乏紧迫感。
“Opportunity” implies an offering that is novel in one or more of four ways. The opportunity may entail: 1) pioneering a truly innovative product; 2) devising a new business model; 3) creating a better or cheaper version of an existing product; or 4) targeting an existing product to new sets of customers.
“机遇”指在以下一个或多个方面有所作为：
1）推出创新产品；
2）设计全新商业模式；
3）改进已有产品，使其质更优、价更廉；
4）发掘新客户群。
These opportunity types are not mutually exclusive. For example, a new venture might employ a new business model for an innovative product. Likewise, the list above is not the collectively exhaustive set of opportunities available to organizations. Many profit improvement opportunities are not novel–and thus are not entrepreneurial–for example, raising a product’s price or, once a firm has a scalable sales strategy, hiring more reps.
创业者完全可能兼顾这些方面，例如用全新商业模式推出一款创新产品。以上列举的这些并未穷尽企业可能把握的机遇。企业仍可通过提价或灵活雇用更多销售代表提升利润，但这些手段并无新意，与创业精神无关。
“Beyond resources controlled” implies resource constraints. At a new venture’s outset, its founders control only their own human, social, and financial capital. Many entrepreneurs bootstrap: they keep expenditures to a bare minimum while investing only their own time and, as necessary, their personal funds. In some cases, this is adequate to bring a new venture to the point where it becomes self-sustaining from internally generated cash flow. With most high-potential ventures, however, founders must mobilize more resources than they control personally: the venture eventually will require production facilities, distribution channels, working capital, and so forth.
“现有资源之外”指突破资源限制。初创企业刚起步时，创始人只能掌控现有的人力、社会和财务资源。很多创业者主张自力更生，节衣缩食，万事不求人。固然，有些新创企业可以仅凭一己之力生存下来；但为了长远发展，创始人必须设法引进生产设备、分销渠道、营运资本等外部资源。
Because they are pursuing a novel opportunity while lacking access to required resources, entrepreneurs face considerable risk, which comes in four main types. Demand risk relates to prospective customers’ willingness to adopt the solution envisioned by the entrepreneur. Technology risk is high when engineering or scientific breakthroughs are required to bring a solution to fruition. Execution risk relates to the entrepreneur’s ability to attract employees and partners who can implement the venture’s plans. Financing risk relates to whether external capital will be available on reasonable terms. The entrepreneur’s task is to manage this uncertainty, while recognizing that certain risks cannot be influenced by their actions.
创业者不断追求新机遇，但缺少必要的资源，因此面临四大类风险：
需求风险：消费者可能对创新产品或服务不买账；
技术风险：创新方案能否得到技术支持；
执行风险：创业者能否聚拢执行力强的团队；
财务风险：能否合理引入外部资金。
创业者应承认风险存在的客观性，同时力图驾驭各种不确定性因素。
Entrepreneurs face a Catch-22. On the one hand, it can be difficult to reduce risk without resources. For example, outside capital may be required to develop and market a product and thereby demonstrate that technical and market risks are limited. On the other hand, it can be difficult to persuade resource owners to commit to a venture when risk is still high. Entrepreneurs employ four tactics in coping with this Catch-22:
创业行动容易陷入死循环：控制风险需要资源，资源却更倾向于进入低风险区域。例如，若想开发推广一款产品，需要向投资人证明技术和市场风险可控，但降低风险本身就需要外部资金投入。为避开这个死循环，创业者有以下四种对策：
Lean experimentation allows them to resolve risks quickly and with limited resource expenditure, by relying on a “minimum viable product,” that is, the smallest possible set of activities required to rigorously test a business model hypothesis.
Staged investing allows entrepreneurs to address risks sequentially, expending only the resources required to meet a given milestone–before committing the resources needed to achieve the next milestone.
Partnering allows entrepreneurs to leverage another organization’s resources and thereby shifts risks to parties better able/more willing to bear them. In a variation of this tactic, entrepreneurs rent resources to keep costs variable and to avoid the big fixed outlays associated with resource ownership.
“Storytelling” by entrepreneurs–conjuring a vision of a better world that could be brought about by their venture–can encourage resource owners to downplay risks and in the process commit more resources than they would if they had not been inspired. Steve Jobs, for example, was famous for his mesmerizing “reality distortion field,” through which he impelled employees, partners, and investors to go to extraordinary lengths to help fulfill his dreams.
1、精益测试，采取最小规模的行动，以最低代价迅速评估风险、测试商业模式可行性。
2、分阶段投入，将困难各个击破，在实现阶段目标之前，不占用计划外资源。
3、建立合作伙伴关系，借用其他公司的资源，将风险转移给承受风险能力更高或意愿更强的盟友。同理，新创企业可以放弃购买资产，通过灵活租赁资产，将高额固定成本转化为可变成本。
4、掌握“讲故事”的艺术，向投资人展示，自己的事业能让世界变得更好。如果投资人被你的故事打动，他们将甘冒风险，支持你的事业。乔布斯就是最著名的例子：他特有的“现实扭曲力场”俘获了众多员工、合伙人、投资人，让他们一往无前跟随他追逐梦想。
So, does Stevenson’s definition of entrepreneurship matter, in practical terms? I’d argue that it does, for two reasons. First, it sees entrepreneurship as a distinctive approach to managing rather than a specific stage in an organization’s life cycle (i.e., startup), a specific role for an individual (i.e., founder), or a constellation of personality attributes (e.g., predisposition for risk taking; preference for independence). In this view, entrepreneurs can be found in many different types of organizations, including large corporations. That should be encouraging if you believe that entrepreneurship is an engine of global economic development and a force for positive change in society.
或许你会问：史蒂文森对创业精神的定义有现实意义吗？在我看来，答案是肯定的。原因有两点。
首先，他把创业精神理解为一种独特的整体管理观念，而非将其限定于企业发展的某个特定阶段（如初创企业）、某种个人角色（如创始人），或某类精神气质（如激进、独立）。按照这个定义，各类企业，包括大型企业，都可能孕育创业精神。如果你相信，创业精神是全球经济增长的引擎、社会改良的动力，这无疑是个好消息。
Second, the definition provides a guidepost for entrepreneurial action; it points to tactics entrepreneurs can take to manage risk and mobilize resources. One of my former students put it well when asked to give advice to aspiring entrepreneurs: “For me, ‘pursuing opportunity beyond resources controlled’ sums up perfectly what I do day-to-day. You need to be inventive, creative, opportunistic, and persuasive, because you rarely have enough resources. Embracing this definition helps me in my role.”
其次，这个定义为创业行动指明了方向，创业者可据此控制风险，调动、利用资源。我的一位学生曾被要求为积极进取的创业者提出建议，他的回答很精彩：“因为资源极其有限，你必须具有创新精神，善于把握机会，并且掌握说服的艺术。‘追寻现有资源范围以外的机遇’概括了我日常工作的方方面面，鞭策我不断前行。”
托马斯·艾森曼(Thomas R. Eisenmann) | 文
托马斯·艾森曼是哈佛商学院工商管理Howard H.Stevenson教席教授。
王晨 | 译 安健 | 校
