【中英双语】旅行使人成为更好的创业者
Traveling the World Made Me a Better Entrepreneur
Photo by Andrew Nguyen
After college, I took an unconventional career path. No two-year contract with a bank or consulting firm, no paralegal work, not even a stint on my parents’ couch. I took a contract to teach English in China for a month and decided I’d figure out the rest along the way.
大学毕业后，我没有选择常规的职业路线。没有银行或咨询公司的合约，没有从事律师助理之类的工作，也不曾为了节省开支而搬去与父母一起生活。我选择了去中国做一个月英语教师，并打算在这段时间规划好以后去做什么。
Over the next five years, I lived and worked my way through Mongolia, Russia, Thailand, Afghanistan, Syria, Kuwait, Qatar, and Turkey. I taught English, worked as a freelance journalist, wrote analysis for a consulting firm, and threw parties to bring together the fascinating people I met along the way.
结果接下来的5年里，我以工作生活的方式一路走过蒙古、俄罗斯、泰国、阿富汗、叙利亚、科威特、卡塔尔和土耳其。我教英语，做自由撰稿人，为咨询公司写分析报道，以及举办派对召集一路上结识的精彩人物。
Friends openly wondered if I’d ever get back on the career path after “disappearing” for years. What they—and I, for that matter—didn’t realize then is that I was well on my way along my career path of choice: being an entrepreneur. As I found ways to support myself in my travels, and picked where I would settle, I learned several key skills that have served me well in the course of building a venture-backed startup.
一些朋友曾公开质疑，在“消失”这么多年后我是否还会回到职业道路上。他们，其实是我自己，当时并没有意识到我正在通往职业途径的选择上：成为一名创业者。当我在旅行途中寻找养活自己的办法，以及选择在哪里落脚时，我学到了一些关键技能。这些技能让我在创建有风险投资支持的创业项目时受益匪浅。
In the U.S. we’ve become accustomed to clear processes. If someone breaks a contract, you sue them. If you have a problem with someone at work, you go to HR. If a website isn’t working, you file a support ticket.
在美国，我们已经习惯了那些明确清晰的流程。如果有人违约，起诉他们。如果工作中遇到问题，去找HR。如果网站遇到问题，发送错误报告。
In much of the world, those services and structures don’t exist or don’t work. When there’s a problem, you need to fix it yourself. Usually, you have to find out who’s responsible, then convince him or her to help you fix your problem.
在世界上很多地方，这些服务和系统组织根本不存在或一无是处。遇到问题时，你需要自己想办法解决。
I once got stranded at the northern border of Badakhshan, an autonomous region bordering Afghanistan, Pakistan, China, Tajikistan, and Kyrgyzstan. I had three days before I needed to catch a flight out of western Tajikistan and there were two ways to get there: drive through southern Kyrgzstan or retrace my steps along the Afghan border, which would take a minimum of five days. Until that point, it had been easy to find a ride around the region, but because of a recent dispute in southern Kyrgyzstan the border was technically closed.
我曾被迫滞留在巴达赫尚北部边境，一个与阿富汗、巴基斯坦、中国、塔吉克斯坦和吉尔吉斯斯坦接壤的自治区。3天后我需要赶往塔吉克斯坦西部，搭乘那里的班机，而抵达那里的路径只有两种：驱车经过吉尔吉斯斯坦南部或沿着阿富汗边境往回走，不管选择哪种路径，都至少需要5天时间才能到达。以前那个地区搭乘便车向来不是什么难事，然而近期吉尔吉斯斯坦南部的一场纷争导致边境被正式关闭。
My problem was compounded by the fact that I had only $200 left, the nearest ATM was on the other side of the Hindu Kush, and even if I’d been able to get there I didn’t have enough money in my bank account to buy a new plane ticket.
让我处境雪上加霜的是我身上仅剩200美元，距离最近的ATM也在兴都库什山脉的另一边，即便我找到了那个ATM，我银行卡里的钱也不足以支付一张新机票。
Resource-constrained in unfamiliar territory with no clear source of authority, explanation, or help? That’s basically startup life.
困在陌生的国度，遭遇资源不足，缺乏明确的信息、说明或是帮助。这就是创业的人生。
In the end, the son of the owner of the hut I’d been staying in made it his mission to find a driver, and we went door to door until we found someone with good connections at the border. We bought a few packs of cigarettes for the border guards, who were more than happy to wave us through, and I caught my flight.
最终，我在当地房东的儿子帮我找到了一个司机，然后我们挨家挨户的打听，找到了一个跟边境关系还不错的人。我们备了几包烟，打点边境的那些守卫，他们轻松将我放行，我最终登上了那班飞机。
As noted above, when you get stuck on something on the road, you need to find someone who can help you solve your problem, because there won’t be an obvious process. You can do this most effectively when you have an extensive network of contacts. Every developing region I’ve worked in has a specific word for influence or connections. In Chinese it’s guanxi, in Arabic it’s wasta. The more you have, and the more you use it, the more effective you can be.
如上文所述，当你在路上遇到困境时，你需要找到能够帮你解决问题的人，因为没有一个通用的程序能够处理这些问题。如果你有一个很广的人际网，那么你处理起这种事情就会高效许多。我所工作过的每一个发展中地区都有一个特定的词来表示人际关系的影响力。中文里称之为“关系”，阿拉伯语是“wasta”（背后帮助你的人）。你拥有的人际关系越广，运用得越多，你的能力就越强。
Many of my peers in the U.S. seem to think that the way to get a job or the way to get into a program is to apply. They send in their paperwork and have a reasonable expectation that if they are deemed worthy, they’ll get to the next step.
许多美国与我同龄的人都倾向于认为得到一份工作或加入某个项目的途径就是去申请。他们递出自己的申请表，保持乐观的期待，如果申请获准，他们就沿着这条路往前走。
In less developed areas, the default assumption is that any piece of paper that is sent needs to be tracked to its final destination, and its recipient must be encouraged (gently or otherwise) to provide the desired outcome. I once overheard a banker and his trainee discussing driving licenses in a Middle Eastern country. The trainee, an American, said he was confused about why his driver’s license application was denied despite the fact that he’d crossed and dotted his Ts and Is. The senior banker explained that you had to send your license application through an intermediary who had wasta if you wanted to be sure it would get approved.
在那些比较不发达的地区，递出的每一份申请都需要追踪它最终去向，对处理申请的人也最好做些打点，这是大家默认的规则。我曾听到一位银行家和他的实习生谈起关于在中东国家申请驾照的一些事情。那个实习生是位美国人，他不明白他的驾照申请为什么没有通过，即使他能确保申请表格没有任何事实错误。这位高层银行家解释说，如果想确保驾照申请得以通过，他应该将申请转给有wasta关系的中间人，由中间人帮他递交。
When you try and raise money without wasta, you’re going to get a lot of no’s. The entrepreneurs who rise the fastest tend to be the ones who know to work their connections rather than just pitching wildly. If you’re applying to an accelerator, don’t just ship in an application. Find out who has invested in the fund that supports it, or who is mentoring, and buy those people drinks. Or at least tweet at them.
如果在没有wasta帮助的情况下你想试图筹集资金，你会发现这条路根本就走不通。那些取得飞速进展的企业家往往是懂得如何利用人脉的人，而不是仅靠大胆的投资。如果你需要一笔投资，不要只是递出申请表。找到这个行业的投资人，请他们小酌一杯，或至少加他们twitter，给他们发信息。
Watching Antiques Roadshow is the closest most Americans come to haggling. We’re used to seeing a price tag on things. Even when there’s an opportunity for negotiation—buying a car, for example—we never really expect more than 25% off the initial asking price.
看看Antique Roadshow，那就是大多数美国人讨价还价的方式。我们习惯了每件出售商品上都有一个价签。即便是在有议价空间的情况下，比如买车，我们从不期望能从最初的报价得到超过25%的优惠让利。
Living in Turkey, I got used to negotiating the price of everything from a bottle of milk upward. Often money is dispensed with entirely and an elaborate system of favors takes its place. Give me this leather jacket for free and I’ll tell all my friends to come buy from you. Fix my plumbing and I’ll have my cousin fix your car, and I’ll set my cousin up with my cute friend. You get the picture.
然而在土耳其生活，我习惯了对一切购买的商品进行还价，哪怕只是一瓶牛奶。通常，一些小恩小惠就能完全抵消金钱上的投入。这件皮夹克免费赠我，我会带我所有朋友来光顾你的生意。帮我修理管道，我堂兄会帮你修车，或者将我的朋友介绍给我堂兄。你明白是怎么回事了吧。
In the entrepreneurial world, startups don’t tend to have a lot of seed capital, so their leaders need to learn how to bargain other things. What does a company in prototype phase have to offer Expedia, or Google, or Citibank? You have to sell a story: an option on new technology, or access to an otherwise difficult-to-reach market. How does a startup convince highly qualified candidates to work for next to nothing? You learn quickly to sell the strengths that you do have (flexibility, autonomy, potential upside) and de-emphasize the risks (bankruptcy).
在创业者的世界里，初创公司往往不会拥有很多原始资本，因此公司的领导者需要学会如何对其他东西进行讨价还价。一家小小的初创公司能够为Expedia、谷歌或是花旗的巨人做什么？你必须有可做卖点的故事：科技的新应用，或是打开难以企及的市场。你如何说服有能力的候选人几乎免费为你工作？你很快就能学会出售你确实拥有的优势(灵活性、自主性、潜在的上行空间)，并淡化风险(破产)。
Chris Sacca, one of Silicon Valley’s most colorful VCs, once tweeted that the one thing he required from people he hired was that they had at one point been “lost, alone, in a place where you don’t speak the language and are dependent on the kindness of others.”
硅谷最出色的风投家之一的克里斯·萨卡（Chris Sacca）曾发Twitter说道，他雇用的人必须要满足一个条件，那就是曾经在一段时间有过“独自迷失在一个语言完全不通的环境里，借助其他人的帮助得以度过难关”的经历。
When traveling, you find yourself in this position all the time. I’ve been in all sorts of places where, in retrospect, I should have freaked out. (Hitchhiking in southern Syria when the civil war was starting, spraining my ankle halfway up a mountain in rural Romania, getting severe food poisoning and diarrhea in central Myanmar… sorry Mom).
当你出门远行时，你会发现自己时刻都身处这样的环境。我去过很多不同的地方，现在回顾起来，仍会心有余悸(内战开始时在叙利亚南部搭便车，在罗马尼亚农村半山腰扭伤了脚踝，在缅甸中部得了严重的食物中毒和腹泻…。对不起，妈妈)。
Thankfully, in the vast majority of these situations, you find out that the world isn’t that scary. Things do tend to work out if you stay calm, hope for the best, and keep moving forward.
幸运的是，在这些国家的大多数地区，你会发现世界并非想象中那么可怕。如果你能保持冷静、继续前行，事情会好起来的。
In startups, as in travel, there are unexpected pitfalls and hard times. There’s no guarantee that you’ll make the summit, but in almost every case you will survive, and you’ll be better off for having taken the journey.
在初创公司就如同身在旅途，会有很多意想不到的误区和艰难时刻。更糟的是，这些并不能确保你一定会达到顶峰，但是大多情况下你会顺利过关，而且它们会让你变得更好。
吉莉安·莫里斯是Hitlist共同创始人兼CEO。
时青靖 | 译 安健 | 编辑
