#1 - 从微软年薪 7.6 万美元到以 1 亿美元以上出售 TinyCo

我就是——

I just-

第一次约会挺难搞的，但他是个很棒的商人，不过那第一次约会确实挺难搞的。

Tough first date, but a great businessman, but a tough first date there.

他是在找结婚对象。

He was looking for marriage.

我真的很欣赏那种做法。

I really appreciated that approach.

而且，现在我对投资条款书有了了解，我回去看过一次那份条款书。

And also, now that I understand term sheets, I went back and looked at that term sheet once.

那是一份对创业者非常友好的条款书。

It was a super entrepreneur-friendly term sheet.

他真是个好人，没有……

He is such a great guy for not...

那全是普通股。

It was all common stock.

不是优先股。

It wasn't preferred stock.

那份条款清单的设置方式对创业者非常友好。

The term sheet is just set up in a super entrepreneur-friendly way.

所以我感激他当时这么做。

So I appreciate that he was doing that.

所以我和他见了面，然后我又安排了和Slide的会面。

So I had the meeting with him, and then I'd set up a meeting with Slide.

Slide是另一家开始做Facebook应用的公司，有风投支持，由Max Levchin和Keith Rabois这两个人经营。

Slide was this other company that had started making Facebook apps, and it was venture-funded, run by this guy, Max Levchin, and this guy, Keith Rabois.

所以我也安排了和他们的会面。

So I'd set up a meeting with those guys, too.

我过去见了他们，他们开始问我问题，我很快就意识到，哦，这其实是一场面试，他们在看我是否愿意加入Slide团队做工程师或产品经理。

I go over there, meet them, and they start asking me questions, and I very quickly realize that, oh, okay, this is actually an interview where they're trying to see if I want to be an engineer or a product manager at the Slide team.

刚离开微软，我心里想：“哦，我真的不太想做这个。”

And having just left Microsoft, I'm like, "Oh, I don't really want to do that."

我记得那一刻，基思说：“好吧，我们真的很喜欢你做的东西，”但他打开我们所在房间的门，然后说：“你听到那个声音了吗？

And I remember this moment where Keith says, "Okay, well, we really like what you've built," but he opens the door to the room we're in, and he's like, "Do you hear that?

那是我在Slide工作的所有工程师。

That's all the engineers that I have working at Slide.

他们大概需要30分钟就能把你做的东西全部复制过来，然后整合到Top Friends里——那是他们最大的Facebook应用，我觉得当时也是全球最大的Facebook应用——“然后你就完蛋了。”

And it's going to take them about 30 minutes to copy everything that you've done and integrate it with Top Friends," their biggest Facebook app, and I think the biggest Facebook app in the world at the time, "And then you're going to be toast."

我当时就想：“哇，真的假的。”

And I was like, "Oh, wow."

“你对我还真是够狠的。”

"That's some hard love that you're giving me here."

但对我来说，当时我只是花了几周时间做这个东西，它对我来说没什么大不了的。

But for me, at the time, I just worked on it for a couple of weeks, and it didn't mean anything to me.

所以我就说：“如果你想要，这个应用你直接拿去好了，没什么大不了的。

So I was like, "If you want it, you can just have this app, and it's not a big deal.

但你拿不走的是我的时间。”

But what you can't have is my time.

我不会来为你或Slide工作，尽管我非常尊重你们在做的事情，你们真的很聪明。

I'm not going to come work for you or for Slide, even though I really respect what you guys are doing, and you guys are really brilliant."

旧金山的会议大概就是这样。

That's kind of how the meetings in San Francisco went.

我回到佛罗里达，心里想：“哇，原来如此。”

I went back to Florida, and I was like, "Oh, wow.

这其实才是我真正在做的事情。

This is actually what I'm working on."

我之前一直觉得这只是一个无聊、琐碎的Facebook小应用，但现在我明白了，它不是那样的。

I'd seen it as kind of this silly, trivial Facebook app, and I was like, "Oh, that's not what this is.

这其实是一门生意。

This is actually a business.

外面那些人尊重我所做的事情，而且他们对未来有远见，认为人们会在Facebook上买机票，商业活动也会在Facebook上发生。

These people out there respect what I'm doing, and they've got a vision for the future where people are going to be buying airline tickets on Facebook, and commerce is going to be happening on Facebook."

所以，让我开始相信这个愿景，看看我们能做出什么来。

So let me start buying into that vision and seeing what we can build.

所以我搬到了亚特兰大，那是我读本科的地方，也是贾马尔所在的地方。

So I moved to Atlanta, where I'd gone to undergrad, and where Jamal was.

我们开始在我姐姐的公寓里工作。

We started working out of my sister's apartment.

她有一套两居室的公寓。

She had a two-bedroom apartment.

我占了一间卧室，把客厅的家具都卖了，把客厅改成了办公室。

I took one of the bedrooms, took all the living room furniture, sold it, and turned it into an office.

我们在Superlatives上投放广告，这些广告开始产生收入。

We put ads up on Superlatives, and those ads started generating revenue.

我们用这些收入雇了几个佐治亚理工的员工，佐治亚理工的毕业生，或者佐治亚理工的实习生。

We used that revenue to hire a couple of Georgia Tech employees, Georgia Tech grads, or Georgia Tech interns.

我们就是开始把Superlatives做得更好。

And we just start making Superlatives better.

我们开始做更多的应用。

We start making more apps.

Superlative 的用户量慢慢增长到了大约一千万。

Superlative grows to about 10 million users over time.

我们还做了其他应用，最后也有几百万人使用。

We make other apps that end up also getting millions of people using them.

所以有几个月，我们觉得：“哇，我们真的很擅长这个。”

And so for a couple of months, we think, "Wow, we're really good at this."

“看看我们。

"Look at us.

我们根本不需要那些人的钱。”

We didn't need the money from those guys."

“我们雇了这么多人。

"We hired all these people.

他们都为我们工作。

They work for us.

我们是他们的老板。”

We're their boss."

我们不断想出很棒的点子来开发产品，一推出就成功了。

We keep coming up with great ideas for what to build, and we launch it, and it ends up being successful.

所以那时候我们真的自我感觉特别好。

So we just felt really good about ourselves at this point.

你当时真是点石成金啊。

You had the Midas touch at the time.

而且那正是Facebook的鼎盛时期。

And this was the Facebook heyday.

你说的那些人，包括Naval，他算是硅谷的知名人物。

So the people you're talking about are from Naval, who's kind of like a luminary in Silicon Valley.

Keith和Max是前PayPal的成员，从Slide开始就做出了很多了不起的事情。

Keith and Max are the ex-PayPal guys who have done amazing things from Slide onward, really.

而你呢，当时在乔治亚州你姐姐的公寓里，一切进展顺利。

And here you are sitting in Georgia in your sister's apartment, and things are going well.

那时候你做什么都对。

You can do no wrong at this point.

对，感觉确实是这样。

Yeah, that's certainly how it feels.

但很快我们就意识到，哎呀，我们其实什么都不懂，而且犯了不少错误。

But we very quickly realized that, oh, wow, we don't know what we're doing, and we've made a lot of mistakes here.

所以我们发现招来的人其实没那么厉害，有些情况下我们都不知道该怎么办。

So we realized the people that we hired actually weren't that good, and we didn't know what to do about that in some cases.

我们的运作方式是这样的：我早上醒来，冒出个点子，然后对这个点子着迷，接着说：‘好了，大家先停下手里的事。'”

The way our strategy would work is I would wake up in the morning and come up with an idea and fall in love with the idea and say, "Okay, everybody, stop what you're doing.

咱们就着手搞这个点子吧。

Let's work on this idea."

这个点子是个特别有吸引力的病毒式社交玩法，就像 Superlatives 那样，你把它发给朋友，朋友登录之后又发给你，再转发给他们各自的十个朋友。

And the idea would be a compelling sort of viral social thing, like Superlatives was, where you send it to your friends, and then your friends log in, and they send it to you and then 10 of their friends.

所以突然间，用户量就开始呈指数级增长，而我们既没花钱做拉新，也没做任何市场推广。

So all of a sudden, it starts growing sort of exponentially without us spending any money doing user acquisition or trying to market the product in any way.

我们确实很擅长想出这类点子，但当时我们对哪些指标有价值、以及我们真正创造了什么价值，其实没什么概念。

So we're really good at coming up with things like that, but we didn't really have a sense of what metrics were valuable or what was the value that we were actually creating.

比如说，现在很多社交应用都会关注月活跃用户和日活跃用户这些指标。

So for example, today, a lot of social apps will track things like monthly active users and daily active users.

我们当时根本没跟踪这些数据。

We didn't track those things.

我们只看了有多少人用过我们的应用。

We just tracked how many people had ever used our app.

所以从根本上说，我们优化的方向就是错的。

So we were optimizing for fundamentally the wrong thing.

你应该优化的，是做出一个人们会长期、频繁使用的东西。

What you want to optimize for is building something that people are going to use constantly for a long period of time, frequently, ideally.

我们当时优化的，是那种人们碰一下，拉十个朋友来用，但自己再也不回来的东西。

We were optimizing for something that people would touch, get 10 of their friends to use, but never come back to.

所以我们意识到，我们做出来的这个东西其实挺有价值的。

So we realized that, okay, this thing that we've built is kind of valuable.

那接下来该怎么办呢？

What should we do next?

所以我来到硅谷，见了另外几个人。

So I came out to Silicon Valley and met with a couple other people.

像Naval、Keith和Max Levchin这些人，他们现在都是硅谷的知名人物，当时也是。

And folks like Naval, Keith, and Max Levchin, those guys are all our Silicon Valley luminaries today, and they were Silicon Valley luminaries then.

但我觉得自从我认识他们以来，他们在个人定位和喜欢做的工作方面，已经进步了百倍。

But I feel like they've sort of 100x'd from the time that I met them in terms of the clarity of who they are as individuals and the work that they like to do as individuals.

而Naval，我认为他是我们这个时代最杰出的思想家之一，就像过去人们看待卢梭、康德或其他哲学家一样。

And Naval, I think of as one of the preeminent philosophers of our time in the same way that people thought about Rousseau or Kant or other philosophers in previous ages.

我们很快意识到了我们正在构建的东西的不足之处。

We were quickly realizing the shortcomings of what we were building.

我们来到硅谷是为了筹集资金。

We came out to Silicon Valley to raise money.

我们遇到了一些人，他们说：“是的，我喜欢你们在做的事情。

We got a couple people who were like, "Yeah, I like what you guys are doing.

我喜欢你们这些人。”

I like you guys.

想投资。

Want to invest."

但我们意识到，其实我们不太清楚接下来该做什么。

But we realized that we didn't really have a sense for what we should build next.

然后我们就说，好吧，那咱们试着把这东西卖掉吧。

And we then just said, "Okay, let's try to sell this thing instead."

我们其实不太懂怎么卖公司，所以就想，最好的办法就是去找这个领域的人聊聊，参加这个领域所有的活动和会议，看看能不能通过这种方式促成某种化学反应或者被收购。

So we didn't really know how to go about selling a business, so we thought, okay, the best thing we need to do is talk to people who are in this space, go to every event and conference that's in this space, and see if we can sort of catalyze a chemical reaction or an acquisition in that way.

所以我们去了一个叫“Graphing Social Patterns”的活动，在圣地亚哥。

So we went to this event called Graphing Social Patterns in San Diego.

我们到了那儿。

We get there.

那里的人都是在Facebook平台上开发应用，成功程度各不相同。

It's all people who are building apps on the Facebook platform of lots of different varying levels of success.

我们算是中等水平吧。

We've got sort of a middle level of success.

当时有个网站，按公司统计有多少人用过你的Facebook应用，我们排在前十。

At the time, there was a website that tracked how many people had ever used one of your Facebook apps by company, and we were in the top 10 companies there.

于是我们就去了那个活动。

So we go to this event.

我们遇到了一个叫Shervin Pishevar的人，他说：“我很欣赏你们在做的事情。

We meet this guy, Shervin Pishevar, and he says, "I love what you guys are doing.

想收购你们。

Want to buy you guys.

咱们去吃个午饭，边吃边聊吧。”

So let's go to lunch and talk about it."

我们去吃了午饭。

We go to lunch.

非常——

Super-

任务完成。

Mission accomplished.

你刚遇到一个想收购公司的人。

You just met a guy who wanted to buy the company.

太疯狂了。

It's crazy.

这故事真够疯狂的。

It's a crazy story.

我们见到这个人，他跟我们吃午饭，又像Naval那样考验我们，问我们是不是技术出身。

So we meet this guy, goes to lunch with us, sort of, again, tests us in the same way Naval did of are you technical?

有没有创业精神？

Are you entrepreneurial?

野心有多大？

What's your level of ambition?

然后他说：“好，我想做这笔交易。”

And says, "Okay, I want to do this deal."

他写了一个数字。

He writes a number.

谢尔文特别有戏剧天赋，而且是那种最好的方式。

Shervin has a real flair for the dramatic in the best kind of way.

所以他在餐巾纸上写了个数字，翻过来，推给我们。

So he writes a number on a napkin, turns it over, slides it to us.

我们看了一眼，马上就说：“好，这交易我们做了。”

We look at it, and we immediately say, "Okay, let's do this deal."

所以餐巾纸上写的是两百万美元，而我们公司才成立大概九个月。

So it was a $2 million number on the napkin, and we'd started the company sort of nine months ago.

他到底在餐巾纸上写了什么数字，你们才会答应？

What could he have written on that napkin that you would've said yes to?

那是你们的最低要求吗？如果他写的是二十万，你们是不是也会说“行，成交”？

Was that your minimum there, or had he written 200,000, would you have also said, "Sure, take it"?

说实话，不管他写多少，我们可能都会答应。

We would've probably said yes to any number, frankly.

当时我在微软工作，年薪七万六千美元。

So at the time when I was at Microsoft, I was making $76,000 a year.

所以他给我们两百万美元，买我们九个月的劳动成果，而且那九个月里，我们觉得自己犯了一堆第一次创业的人会犯的错误。

So he offered us $2 million for nine months' worth of work, and really nine months' worth of work where we felt like we just made a ton of first-time entrepreneur mistakes.

所以我们觉得两百万这个数字真的很不错。

So we felt really good about the two.

我们简直高兴坏了，兴奋得不得了。

We felt overjoyed, over the moon about the $2 million number.

我觉得就算数字是二十万，我们大概也会有同样的感觉。

I think we would've probably had the exact same feeling if the number was 200,000.

好，那他把餐巾纸推过来的时候，你会看一眼贾马尔吗？还是你们俩连商量都不用商量就直接答应了？

Okay, so he slides over the napkin Do you even look at Jamal or you both just say yes without even having to consult each other?

奇怪的是，我们大概互相看了一眼，然后立刻就答应了。

That's the weird thing, is I think we probably looked at each other for a second and immediately said yes.

所以我们完全没有讨价还价，对，就是马上答应了。

So we didn't negotiate in any way, and yeah, we just said yes immediately.

我记得你第一次跟我讲这个故事的时候，没讲这么细，但好像有个附带条件，就是他不仅仅是买下Goob，他还在整合几家公司。

And I remember when you first told me the story, not in so much detail, but there was sort of a string attached of it wasn't just buying Goob, he was rolling up a couple companies.

所以你在这次会议上还有更多的工作要做。

So you had a little bit more work to do at this conference.

对吗？

Is that correct?

谢尔文当时采用的策略叫做“整合收购”。

So what Shervin was doing was a strategy that's called roll-up.

就是找人来支持你，给你一大笔钱。

So you get somebody to back you and give you a big check.

这次，他让一个风险投资人给了他1500万美元。

In this case, he'd gotten a venture capitalist to give him $15 million.

他打算用这1500万美元收购这个领域的前五名玩家，把它们合并起来，目标是花1000万，但创造5000万或1亿的价值。

He was going to use that $15 million to buy up the top five players in the space, combine them all together with a goal of that costs $10 million, but creates $50 million or $100 million of value.

这就是他的目标。

And that's what his goal was.

所以他在那次会议上还收购了其他几家公司。

And so he went on at that conference and bought a couple other companies as well.

明白了。

Got you.

你现在已经有了一次成功的经历。

You've now got a win under your belt.

你不需要去那里工作，还是你也在那家公司待过一段时间？

You don't have to go work there, or did you spend a little bit of time at that company as well?

我们把整个团队搬到了帕洛阿尔托，那家公司叫SGN，总部就在那里。

So, we moved the whole team out to Palo Alto, which is where the company, was called SGN, is based.

我们在那里待了几个月，然后我搬到了纽约，因为我一直想住在纽约，而且我想创办一家新公司，搬到全国各地是离开SGN的好办法。

We stayed there for a couple of months, and I moved to New York City because I've always wanted to live in New York City, and I just wanted to start a new company, and it was a great way to sort of leave SGN by moving across the country.

明白了。

Got you.

所以，用棒球来比喻的话，那算是安打，接下来就是全垒打了。

And so that was maybe, baseball analogy, that was the single, and then here come the home runs.

你不喜欢炫耀，但我来帮你吹嘘一下。

And so you don't like to brag about it, but I'll brag for you a little bit.

所以，先剧透一下。

So here's the spoiler.

接下来的几章，对你来说都是巨大的成功。

The next couple chapters, for you were huge hits.

你创办了一家公司，得到了马克·安德森的投资，也就是安德森·霍洛维茨基金，全球顶级的风投之一。

You built a company that got backed by Marc Andreessen, in Andreessen Horowitz, one of the top firms in the world.

我记得马克当时在你的董事会里。

Marc was on your board, I think.

你后来把这家公司卖了，卖了很大一笔钱，比第一家公司多得多。

You took that company, you ended up selling it for, let's say, many buckets of money, many more than the first company.

然后你和你哥哥一起创办了Native，如果你在找除臭剂，世界上没有比Native更好的了，后来你把它卖给了宝洁。

And then with your brother, you built a company called Native, which for anybody out there who's looking for deodorant, no better deodorant in the world than Native, which you sold to Procter & Gamble.

后面还有很多大成功等着呢。

And so many big hits were to come.

那我们就快速过一下，你是怎么把第一个小胜利，变成更大的胜利的。

So let's jump through those real quick about how you took that first win, the small win, and parlayed it into bigger wins.

所以那次成功让我感觉特别好，而且当时确实立刻就觉得是个胜利，我就说，"好，这不错，但我们要把第一次学到的所有经验都用上，试着打造一个价值高10倍甚至100倍的公司。"

So I felt really good about the win, and it definitely immediately felt like a win, and I said, "Okay, this is good, but let's take all of the lessons that I learned the first time and apply them and try and build a company that's 10X more valuable or 100X more valuable."

然后我马上就有点上瘾了，那种创业的劲头就来了，我说，"好，我这辈子就要干这个了。"

And I immediately sort of got the entrepreneurial bug and said, "Okay, I'm going to do this for the rest of my life."

顺便问一下，你爸当时怎么说？

And by the way, what was your dad saying?

你爸不是一直说，"嘿，你得离开微软。

Your dad who was like, "Hey, you got to get out of Microsoft.

你得去创业。"

You need to go start a business."

到了这个时候，你爸在第一个Facebook应用之后，看到那些超级成功的成绩，他说了什么？

At this point, what was Dad saying kind of after the first Facebook app, the superlatives?

他有没有把那当成一门生意，还是他觉得，"你在这上面浪费时间，搞什么'我的哪个朋友会穿兔子装'这种游戏？"

Did he even see that as a business, or was he like, "You're wasting your time with this which of my friends are going to wear a bunny suit game?"

我爸妈真的特别有意思。

So my parents are really funny.

他们不管我和我兄弟做什么生意，一开始都特别不看好，总说‘这不算什么正经生意’，直到我们把公司卖了。

They, no matter what business me or my brothers start, are really dismissive about it, and they say, "Oh, this isn't a real business," until we sell the business.

等公司一卖掉，他们又说‘哦，我早就知道你们能成’。

And then when the business is sold, they're like, "Oh, I knew the whole time that you were going to win with this business."

‘我一直都很看好这个生意。’

"I loved this business the whole time."

所以我觉得，当公司卖掉的时候，我父母就是‘哇’那种反应。

So I think for my parents, when the company sold, they were like, "Oh, wow."

我妈就说‘我现在又有新故事可以讲你了，你是个创业者。’

Mom was like, "I can now have a new story to tell about you, which is you're an entrepreneur.

‘你创办了一家公司，还把它卖了。’

You started and sold a company."

所以她当时挺高兴的。

So she was feeling pretty good.

我爸呢，我觉得他大概在想‘好了，我儿子现在开始走我的老路了，自己创业，自己创造价值。’

And I think my dad was like, "Okay, my son is now following in my footsteps of starting companies and trying to create value on his own as an entrepreneur."

所以我觉得他也很骄傲。

So I think he was also proud.

明白了。

Got you.

好的。

Okay.

所以你想开始一个新的生意。

So you wanted to start a new business.

你决定留在Facebook平台上。

You decided to stay on the Facebook platform.

是这样吗？

Is that right?

是因为那里机会最多，还是有什么别的考虑？

That's where all the action was, or what was the thought process there?

其实，我在纽约市和我高中时的朋友Ian Spivey见了面。

So actually, I got together with a friend of mine from high school named Ian Spivey in New York City.

我们开始在纽约的咖啡馆里一起头脑风暴，就是想找点事情做。

We started jamming together at cafes and in New York City, just trying to come up with ideas for what to work on.

然后我们就开始合作，花了大概12个月的时间，搞了一堆特别不靠谱的点子。

So we go start working together and spend about 12 months working on a bunch of really bad ideas.

什么样的不靠谱点子？

What sort of bad ideas?

有一家公司叫Daily Candy，是给女性发邮件的，康卡斯特花了4亿美元把它买下来了。

There's a company called Daily Candy, which was a newsletter for women that Comcast bought for $400 million.

我们当时就想，哎呀，邮件订阅这个生意不错。

So we were like, "Oh, the newsletter business.

我们得做邮件订阅。

We've got to be in this newsletter business."

我们还觉得绿色能源是个大趋势，所以想着怎么也得沾点边。

We thought that green energy was a big deal, so we thought we got to be in the green energy business in some way.

所以你们就搞了个绿色能源的邮件订阅？

So you launched a green energy newsletter?

我们确实就是这么做的。

That's exactly what we did.

哦，真的吗？

Oh, really?

我们推出了一个绿色能源通讯，但很快我们就意识到，'哦，我们对通讯业务一窍不通。'

We launched a green energy newsletter, and very quickly we realized, "Oh, we don't know anything about the newsletter business.

我们应该彻底停止做这个。

We should stop doing this altogether."

我们另一个想法是为大学打造一个类似Twitter的平台。

One of the other ideas we had was building Twitter for colleges.

我们觉得在大学里，你会和各种各样的人交谈、见面，与其用Twitter这种通用平台，不如建一个本地化的Twitter，告诉你校园里的派对、活动和其他正在发生的事情。

So we felt like college, you're talking to and meeting all kinds of new people, and instead of using Twitter, which is this generic platform, we could build sort of a local Twitter, which tells you about parties and events and things that are happening on the college campus.

我们大约做了三个月，然后放弃了，说：'哦，你知道吗？'

We worked on that for about three months before we kind of gave up and said, "Oh, you know what?

为大学做的Twitter其实就是Twitter本身。

Twitter for colleges is just Twitter."

其实，最后发现那就是Facebook。

Or actually, it ended up being just Facebook.

所以我们就不再做那个想法了。

So we kind of stopped working on that idea.

然后我们又回到了Facebook平台，因为我们已经失败了很多次，想要做一些更有可能成功的事情。

And then we kind of came back to the Facebook platform because we felt like we had had enough failures where we wanted something that we felt like was more likely to succeed.

那这个时候你的信心怎么样？

And where was your confidence at, at this time?

你是不是有点受挫了？

Were you sort of humbled?

“好吧，最近几个想法都没有像我希望的那样火起来。”

"Okay, the last few ideas are not taking off like I hoped."

你的信心水平怎么样？

Where was your confidence levels at?

因为我觉得这总是很有意思，对吧？

Because I think that's always interesting, right?

作为创业者，有些人天生就有那种不可动摇的自信，从来不会动摇。

Like as an entrepreneur, some people are blessed with this confidence that's unshakable, and it just never wavers.

我们经常听到这样的故事。

And we hear about that a lot.

但我觉得实际上，大多数人的自信是起伏不定的，有时候取决于项目的进展，有时候甚至取决于一些很小的事情，比如某个投资人对你的信心，或者你的导师跟你说的一句话。

But I think in reality, most people have confidence of sort of ebbs and flows, sometimes dependent on the traction, sometimes dependent on really small things like one specific investor's confidence in you or something your mentor tells you.

所以，跟我讲讲你当时的心态吧。

And so yeah, give me a sense of your psychology at that time.

你在想什么？

What were you thinking?

你感觉怎么样？

How were you feeling?

是的，我觉得我一直有一种奇怪的自信，就是无论我做什么，我都会努力让它成功。

Yeah, I would say I always have this weird level of confidence that whatever I'm going to work on, I'm going to will to success.

所以这是一种无处不在的自信，适用于我做的任何事情。

So that's sort of this confidence that is this sort of omnipresent confidence that applies to anything that I work on.

确实有过一些时候，我意识到，哦，我正在做的事情并不是个好主意，我浪费了自己和同事们六个月的时光。

There have definitely been times where I realize, oh, what I'm working on is not a good idea, and I just wasted six months of my life and the life of my colleagues.

然后我意识到，也许我并不擅长创业，或者打造公司，或者打造产品。

And then I sort of realized that maybe I'm not actually very good at entrepreneurship or building companies or building products.

所以我觉得，这确实有起有伏，当我开始一个新想法时，我充满信心和兴奋。

So I would say there's definitely this ebb and flow based on when I start a new idea, I have a lot of confidence and excitement for it.

随着我不断构建，这种信心也在逐渐增强。

As I build it, that confidence sort of builds.

当我推出产品时，通常推出新东西都会遇到阻力。

As I launch it, generally when you launch something, you're met with resistance.

所以我预料到会有一些阻力，而这种阻力会大大降低我的信心。

So I expect some amount of resistance, and that resistance dramatically decreases my level of confidence.

然后随着时间的推移，我最终会坚持下去，坚持不懈，专注于让它成功，最终带来成长和成功。

And then over time, I just end up sticking with something and persevering and focusing on willing it to success, and that ends up leading to growth and success over time.

随着这一切发生，我的信心也会逐渐回升。

And as that happens, my confidence sort of increases.

明白了。

Got you.

所以，好吧，你决定回到Facebook平台，那先聊聊TinyCo是什么吧。

And so, okay, so you decide to go back into the Facebook platform, and so just talk a little bit about what was TinyCo.

这里面其实还有个小故事，就是TinyCo是什么，然后发生了什么。

There's a story within the story there of, there was what was TinyCo, and then what happened.

我想先讲到发生了什么，但咱们先铺垫一下背景。

And so I want to get to the what happened, but first let's set the stage.

TinyCo是什么？它又是怎么变成TinyCo的？

What was TinyCo, and how did it even become TinyCo?

我和Ian创办了一家叫TinyCo的公司。

Ian and I started a company called TinyCo.

我们开始在Facebook平台上做游戏。

We started making games on the Facebook platform.

iPhone在2008年发布，然后2009年，他们推出了带应用内购买的App Store。

The iPhone launched in 2008, and then in 2009, they launched the App Store with in-app purchases.

所以我们说，哇，这其实是个很棒的平台。

So we said, "Oh, wow, this is actually an amazing platform.

而且还没人在上面做。

Nobody else is on it."

于是我们创办了一家叫TinyCo的公司，专门做iPhone手机游戏。

And we started a company called TinyCo that made mobile games for iPhones.

对了，为什么叫TinyCo呢？

And so why was it called TinyCo, by the way?

我们当时在找便宜又有趣的域名，TinyCo是我们花700美元买下来的。

We were looking for domain names that were really cheap and fun, and TinyCo we bought for $700.

其他我们想到的域名和点子都太贵了。

All the other domain names and ideas that we had were very expensive.

所以最后就定了TinyCo这个名字。

So that's how we arrived at the name TinyCo.

这个名字是我们一个叫Boshi的工程师想出来的。

One of our engineers, Boshi, came up with the name.

明白了。

Got you.

好的。

Okay.

然后我这儿好像有句引用。

And then I have a quote somewhere here.

这句引语出自本·霍洛维茨，我想应该是他说的。

So this is the quote from, I think it's Ben Horowitz.

他在安德森·霍洛维茨的官方博客上写了一篇关于 TinyCo 的文章。

He's writing on the Andreessen Horowitz blog about TinyCo.

博客标题是《TinyCo 的巨大机遇》。

So the blog title was, "A Big Opportunity for TinyCo."

他描述了这家公司，并在最后写道："尽管在看似巨大的市场中取得了出色的早期进展，但在我们确信背后的创业者具备足够的技能、决心和才华，能够组建一支赢得市场的团队之前，我们现在投资这类公司还为时过早。"

And he describes the company, and at the end he says, "Despite terrific early traction in what appears to be a massive market, it would be too early for us to invest in this type of company unless we believe that the entrepreneur behind it was so skilled, determined, and talented that he would build the team that wins the market."

说得挺有道理的。

That's pretty good.

是的，太棒了。

Yeah, that's amazing.

那感觉怎么样？

How does that feel?

感觉很好。

Feels good.

好好品味一下吧。

Drink that one in.

所以——

So-

我要把它打印出来，贴在我的房间里。

I'm going to print that out and put it in my room.

每次我和女朋友吵架的时候，我就把这个给她看。

And every time I argue with my girlfriend, I'm going to give this to her.

我差点就把它打印出来了。

I almost printed that out.

那边他们谈论的是我朋友。

That's my friend that they're talking about over there.

所以，你拿到了这笔投资，进入了一个大家都觉得有前景的市场。那时候，有远见的人可能在想：“嘿，移动端会火起来。”

So okay, so you get this backing, and you're in this market that everyone thinks is, maybe at this time, the sort of forward-looking people are thinking, "Hey, mobile's going to be big.

“手机游戏可能会火。”

Mobile games could be big."

而你正好在这个领域，那接下来会发生什么？

And you're in that space, and so what happens?

是像第一个想法那样立刻起飞，还是遇到了很多阻力？

Does it take off right away like the first idea, or were you met with a lot of resistance?

我们第一款手机游戏一上线就获得了很大的关注。

We get immediate traction when we launch our first mobile game.

第一款游戏叫《Tap Resort》。

So the first game was called Tap Resort.

我们把它发布了。

We launch it.

我们和我一个微软的朋友李·林登做了个营销合作。

We do a marketing partnership with a friend of mine from Microsoft named Lee Linden.

他创办了一家叫Tapjoy的公司。

He'd started a company called Tapjoy.

那是一个移动广告网络，Tapjoy推广我们的游戏Tap Resort，通过推广，把它推到了iPhone应用商店免费应用的前五名。

That's a mobile ad network wherein Tapjoy promotes our game, Tap Resort, and by promoting it, they push it in the top five free apps on the iPhone App Store.

所以我们立刻获得了数十万的下载量，而这些下载转化成了收入。

So we get hundreds of thousands of downloads immediately, and those downloads are turning into revenue.

所以上线第一个月，我们就产生了50万到60万美元的收入。

So in the first month of launch, we generate $500,000, $600,000 of revenue.

不错嘛。

Not bad.

所以我们立刻觉得，哇，这很成功，很有效。

So we immediately are like, "Oh, wow, this is successful and working."

我们当时还有其他几个副业项目或者秘密项目在做，但我们说，赶紧停掉那些，专注做手机游戏，因为我们认为这是我们能赢的地方。

We had a couple other side projects or skunkworks projects that we were working on, and we say, "Let's immediately stop working on those and focus on making mobile games because we think this is a place where we can win."

所以你们就开始做像Tap Resort这样的手机游戏了，我想请你讲讲，因为后面有个转折。

And so you start building mobile games like Tap Resort, and I guess take me through, because there's a but that comes up.

事情进展顺利，但后来发生了什么？

So things are going well, but what happens?

事情进展得很顺利。

So things are going well.

我们推出了Tap Resort，第一个月就赚了50万，之后几个月也差不多。

We launched Tap Resort, generates 500,000 in revenue the first month, and sort of keeps doing that in subsequent months.

我们又推出了一款游戏，现在那款游戏每个月能带来40万到50万的收入。

We launch another game and now are generating another $400,000 or $500,000 a month in revenue from that game.

所以我们的年收入达到了1000万到1100万的水平。

So we're at a 10, 11 million revenue run rate per year.

很多风投注意到了我们，说：“我们很欣赏你们在做的事情，想见见你们。”

A bunch of VCs notice us and say, "Love what you guys are doing, want to meet with you."

我们参加了其中一次会面，他们说：“我们想投资你们的公司。”

We take one of the meetings, and they say, "We want to invest in your company.

我们真的很看好手游这个领域，想成为这个领域的投资者。

We really believe in the mobile game space, and we want to be investors in this space."

所以我们参加了那次会议，一开始我们其实没打算融资。

So we take the meeting, and our intent initially is not to raise venture capital.

我们喜欢自己拥有公司，没有拿过外部投资的感觉。

We like the fact that we own the company and that we haven't raised any outside capital.

但那些风投公司问的问题让我们意识到，哇，这些人真的很懂行，他们问的问题能引导我们走向我们自己无法引导的方向。

But the venture capital firms start asking us questions that make us realize, wow, these guys know what they're doing and are asking questions that are going to guide us in a way that we're not going to be able to guide ourselves.

所以我们决定，好吧，我们确实想拿风投的钱。

So we decide, okay, we do want to raise venture capital money.

然后他们给了我们一份投资意向书。

So they give us a term sheet.

我们拿着这份意向书，在沙丘路上来回跑，向其他很多风投公司推销。

We then take that term sheet and go up and down Sand Hill Road and pitch to a bunch of other VC firms.

最后我们拿到了好几份投资意向书。

So end up getting a handful of term sheets.

我们最喜欢的是安德森·霍洛维茨。

The one that we like the most is Andreessen Horowitz.

安德森·霍洛维茨，他们的投资评估流程和其他大多数公司真的很不一样。

Andreessen Horowitz, just their process is really different for evaluating an investment than most of the other firms.

他们问了我们一堆针对我们业务的具体问题，我们跟他们聊的时候，你能感觉到他们在动脑筋，把各个点连起来，意识到TinyCo的潜力有多大。

They ask us a bunch of questions that are specific to our business, and as we talk to them, you can sort of see the gears turning, where they're connecting the dots and realizing how big an opportunity TinyCo could be.

所以我们最后拿了安德森·霍洛维茨的钱，1800万美元，这是公司拿到的第一笔投资。

So we end up taking money from Andreessen Horowitz, $18 million, first money into the company.

马克·安德森加入了董事会，我们说：“太好了，我们要把这笔钱用起来。”

Marc Andreessen joins the board, and we say, "Great, we're going to take this money and put it to work."

于是我们就开始行动了。

So we start doing that.

我们招了更多的人。

We hire a bunch more people.

团队扩大到了大约80人。

We grow the team to about 80 people.

我们又做了好多款游戏。

We make a bunch more games.

我们拿着那笔钱开始做用户获取，效果很不错，而且进展非常顺利。

We take that money and start spending it to do customer acquisition, and that's all working, and working really well.

所以第一年我们收入做到了两千万，第二年做到了四千万，差不多收支平衡了。

So, we end up growing revenue to 20 million in the first year, and then 40 million in the second year, and we're at about break even.

那时候我们又觉得自己挺牛的，但后面还有更打脸的事等着我们。

Again, we're feeling really good about where we're at, and the humbling events are yet to come.

然后很多公司来找我们，说：“我们特别欣赏你们在做的事情。

And a bunch of companies are coming to us and say, "We love what you guys are doing.

我们想收购你们。”

We want to acquire you."

我们就说：“好吧，我们还没准备好被收购。

And we say, "Okay, we're not ready for an acquisition.

我们觉得未来一片光明。”

We see the future to be bright and rosy."

结果我们撞上了一堵巨大的墙，而我们愚蠢地没有预见到它的到来。

What ends up happening is we run into this giant brick wall that we foolishly didn't see coming.

我们大约花一美元获取一个客户，而从这个客户身上能产生大约2.5美元的净收入。

We would spend about a dollar acquiring a customer, and we'd generate about $2.50 in net revenue from that customer.

很多日本手游公司在日本赚得盆满钵满，但那个市场已经饱和，对他们来说没有更多增长空间了。

A bunch of Japanese mobile gaming companies were making so much money in Japan, but kind of saturating that market, and there was no more growth left there for them.

所以他们转向美国，在旧金山开设办公室，说：‘好，我们要成为美国手游市场的主导者。’

So they were moving to the United States, opening up offices in San Francisco and saying, "Okay, we're going to become dominant mobile game companies in the United States."

他们把获取客户的成本从一美元推高到四美元，再到六美元，最后在六个月内，我们做的游戏获取客户的成本涨到了九美元。

And they drove the cost of customer acquisition up from a dollar to $4, and then to $6, and eventually to $9 for the games that we were making in a matter of six months.

这彻底颠覆了我们的单位经济模型。

So that took our unit economics and turned them upside down.

这意味着每次我们花钱获取客户，实际上是在亏更多的钱，而不是赚钱。

That meant that every time we were spending money acquiring a customer, we were actually losing more money instead of making money.

所以这最终成了我们的大麻烦。

So that ended up being a giant problem for us.

然后——

And-

我能想象。

I can imagine.

我们出去找新的融资，每次你进行新一轮融资，我觉得下一轮融资的难度会翻十倍到五十倍。

We went out to go raise new money, and every time you raise a new round of funding, I would say it becomes 10 times to 50 times harder to raise the next round of funding.

你需要更好的产品市场契合度，更好的单位经济模型，更清楚如何把公司规模扩大十倍以上。

You need better product market fit, better unit economics, more clarity on how you're going to grow the company 10 times bigger than wherever you're at at the moment.

所以那些B轮投资者来见我们，说：“好吧，我们真的很喜欢你们。

And so the guys were meeting us, the Series B investors, and saying, "Okay, we really like you guys.

我们喜欢你们建立的业务，但看起来单位经济模型有点崩了，所以我们不想投资。”

We like the business you've built, but it looks like the unit economics are kind of falling apart, so we don't want to invest."

这成了我们真正的问题，因为我们一直没有盈利，我们不是靠利润来运营公司的。

So that becomes this real problem for us, because we haven't been profitable, we haven't been running the company on profit.

因为那些日本移动游戏公司在获客上花那么多钱，我们每个月都开始亏损。

Because of these Japanese mobile gaming companies spending so much money on customer acquisition, we start losing money every month.

所以，我们不但没做到收支平衡，反而一开始每个月亏20万美元，后来每个月亏50万美元。

So instead of being break even, first we're losing $200,000 a month, then $500,000 a month.

而且随着时间推移，这些数字很快就变得相当可观了。

And those numbers become pretty significant pretty quickly as the months go by.

所以，我觉得作为创业者，你必须做到的一件事就是永远不要对自己撒谎，要正视现实。

So, I think that one of the things you need to do as an entrepreneur is never lie to yourself about reality.

创业者很容易对自己撒谎，尤其是面对投资者的时候，总想说些好听的或者得体的话；面对员工的时候，也总想让他们对公司和未来充满热情。

It's very easy for an entrepreneur to lie to themselves about reality, especially when they've got investors that they always want to say the nice thing to or the right thing to, especially when you've got employees and you always want your employees to be excited about your business and where you're going.

所以，我现在投资公司的时候，确实看到很多创业者会对自己所处的市场现实视而不见，结果就栽了跟头。

So I definitely see, as I've invested in companies now, that entrepreneurs will lie to themselves about the reality of the market that they're in, and kind of fumble the ball as a result of that.

所以，我觉得我们团队当时的优势之一就是我们意识到，我们现在的处境和12个月之前已经完全不同了。

So I'd say one of the strengths of our team at the time was that we realized that, okay, the reality that we're living in is not the same reality we were living in 12 months ago.

如果我们不做出彻底的改变，而且立刻全力以赴去做，12个月后我们就不会存在了。

So we're not going to exist 12 months from now unless we do something dramatically different, and we do it immediately with reckless abandon.

你之前跟我提过这个，我当时印象很深，从那以后，我投资其他公司时，也总会问自己这个问题。

And you've told me this before, and it stood out to me, and ever since, I've asked myself this question, other companies that I'm investing in.

我想搞清楚，创始人是在直面现实，还是现实就在眼前，他们却视而不见？

I try to get a sense of, is the founder looking reality in the face, or is reality in the room and they're just looking around, they're looking away from it?

奇怪的是，这种情况甚至发生在非常聪明、非常有才华的人身上。

And the weird thing is that this even happens to really smart people, really talented people.

智力和天赋，跟直面现实的能力，似乎完全没有关系。

There's sort of no correlation between just sort of intelligence and talent, and this ability to look reality in the face.

能详细说说吗？我觉得这一点非常非常重要，如果做错了，可能会毁掉多年的努力。

Go more into detail on that, because I think this is super, super important and this can tank years of effort if you do this wrong.

所以这似乎值得深入探讨一下。

And so it seems like something worth double-clicking into.

我觉得人很容易自我陶醉。

I think it's really easy to get high on your own supply.

看数据的时候，很容易只盯着那些有进展、有证据表明事情在起作用的地方。

It's really easy to look at the numbers and just look for the places where you've got traction and evidence that things are working.

你想成功。

You want to succeed.

你当然想找到成功的证据。

You want to find evidence of that success.

而且当你跟朋友、父母、投资人、员工聊天的时候，你也希望自己是成功的。

And as you're talking to your friends, your parents, your investors, your employees, you also want to be successful.

所以很容易就自我催眠，觉得一切都在正轨上，其实并没有。

So it's very easy to sort of seduce yourself into thinking that things are working when they're not.

而且有太多外部因素会让人误以为自己很成功，哪怕生意其实在走下坡路。

And there's so many outside external factors that help people think they're successful even when a business is failing.

比如融到了新一轮资金，投资人对你未来12个月的计划充满信心；媒体对你公司大加赞赏；跟朋友见面时，只讲那些顺利的事情。

So raising a new round of funding and those investors now believing in your planning on doing over the next 12 months, getting press, and press talking about your company in this fantastic way, meeting with friends and only telling them about the things that are going right.

这些都会让你很容易就脱离现实。

Those are all the things that make it really easy to lose sight of reality.

那你有没有什么制衡的方法？

So, do you have some checks and balances?

有没有什么自问的问题，或者什么策略，能帮你避免这种情况？

Do you have a question you ask yourself or a tactic that sort of prevents you from doing that?

因为这看起来是很自然的方式。

Because that seems like the natural way.

这种情况会自然而然地发生，所以你需要对抗这种默认趋势。

That'll happen by default, so you need to fight the default.

你有没有什么具体的做法，还是说这纯粹是你天生的？

Do you have something you do, or is it just sort of inherent to you?

我一直保持高度警惕，努力寻找那些能证明业务不顺利、业务在走下坡路，或者单位经济在恶化的指标。

I'm just constantly paranoid, and I try to look for metrics that prove that the business is not working, or that the business is degrading, or the unit economics are degrading.

我会思考所有可能像陨石一样摧毁我们业务的因素，然后主动去面对这些，对自己说："好，我要主动识别并解决这些问题。"

I think about what are all of the things that could be a meteor that take our business out, and I sort of lean into those things and say, "Okay, I'm going to proactively identify and try to resolve those problems."

我记得基思·拉博伊斯说过，当你创办一家公司时，你应该考虑所有可能不成功的原因，所有可能导致失败的因素，然后从这份清单开始，按优先级排序，并努力证明这些因素不会导致公司失败。

One thing I heard Keith Rabois say once is, when you start a company, you should think about all of the reasons that it's not going to work and all of the reasons that it's going to fail, and you should Start with that list, make a prioritized list, and try to prove that these aren't things that are going to make your company fail.

你应该把这件事放在首位。

And you want to do that as the first thing.

而我觉得很多人容易把这件事放在最后，他们一开始就拉上联合创始人和朋友一起干。

Whereas I think it's very easy for people to do that as the last thing, where they start by getting their co-founders and their friends to start working with them.

他们开始做产品，发布产品，然后才开始问自己这些问题。

They start working on the product, they launch the product, and only then do they start asking themselves those questions.

你应该在写第一行代码之前就开始问自己这些问题。

You want to start asking yourself those questions upfront before you've written a line of code.

我觉得非常值得做一份演示文稿或备忘录，描述你的业务是什么，为什么它会成功，为什么它不会成功，然后试着去推翻所有它不会成功的理由。

I think it's really worthwhile to make a deck or a memo that describes what your business is, why it's going to work, why it's not going to work, and try to disprove all of the reasons why it's not going to work.

有道理。

Makes sense.

所以你现在在TinyCo开那个会，和你几个信任的人，对吧。

And so you're having that meeting now at TinyCo, you and a handful of trusted folks, I guess.

你大概已经看出苗头了，嘿，如果我们不扭转局面，这家公司12个月后就不存在了。

You sort of see the writing on the wall that, hey, if we don't turn this around, this company's not going to exist in 12 months.

他们投给我们的那1800万美元，就打了水漂。

And that 18 million bucks they put into us, down the drain.

这不会好看的。

This is not going to be pretty.

那接下来发生了什么？

And so what happens?

公司里那段日子真的很难熬，因为我意识到问题已经出现了，但我觉得团队里其他人都还没完全察觉到。

It's a really hard time at the company because I realize this is happening, and I think nobody else on the team has quite realized it.

我觉得他们半年后才反应过来。

I think they realize it six months later.

所以我立刻开始思考，我们要怎么改变我们的业务？

And so I immediately start thinking about what do we do to change our business?

然后我找到了安德鲁·格林，他是我们的业务发展主管，我向他吐露了心声，我说：“好，咱们俩一起想办法，把这家公司扭转过来。”

And I get this guy, Andrew Green, who's our head of business development, and I confide in him, and I say, "Okay, together, you and I are going to figure out how to turn this business around."

我们列了一大堆想法，然后我们说：“好，这个行不通。”

And we come up with a long list of ideas, and then we say, "Okay, that's not going to work.

这个也不行。

That's not going to work.

这个也不行。

That's not going to work."

我们想到的一个主意是，从大型媒体公司那里授权品牌，然后用这些品牌来做游戏。

One of the ideas that we come up with is licensing brands from giant media companies and making games using those brands.

我们面临的最大问题，也是最根本的问题，就是找不到办法让四千万人下载我们的游戏，除非花六千万或一亿美元去吸引他们下载。

The number one problem we have, the existential problem we have is we can't find a way to get 40 million people to download our game without spending $60 million or $100 million to get 40 million people to go download it.

所以这就是我们想解决的问题。

And so that's the problem we want to solve.

我们不想依赖付费买量来吸引玩家进入我们的游戏。

We want to not have to rely on paid user acquisition to get customers into our games.

所以你们是想利用现有的品牌，就像金·卡戴珊把自己的名字放在游戏上那样。

So you wanted to leverage the existing brands out there, like the way that Kim Kardashian puts her name on a game.

那个游戏一下子就火了，因为她的名字自带流量。

That game gets a pop and markets itself because her name carries that weight.

你们就是想这么做。

You wanted to do that.

对，就是这样。

Yeah, exactly.

你是看到过别人这么做，还是这纯粹是灵光一现的想法？

You saw this working, or this was just a brilliant idea out of nowhere?

你是看到别人在做，还是怎么想到这个主意的，为什么你觉得它会成功？

You saw somebody else doing it, or how did you get this idea, and why did you think it would work?

这在手机游戏领域还是新鲜事。

So this was new in the mobile game space.

很多主机游戏一直这么做，我小时候玩的很多游戏，好几代都是这么干的。

A lot of console games do this all the time, and a lot of the games I played as a kid growing up had been doing this for generations.

我觉得我们只是意识到，哦，我们可以把这套方法用到手机游戏上。

I think we just realized that, oh, we can apply that playbook to the mobile game world.

现在还没人这么做。

People aren't already doing that.

这对我们来说是个巨大的、完全开放的机会。

It's a huge, wide-open opportunity for us to go do it.

苹果肯定会很兴奋。

Apple will be really excited.

我们的消费者会非常兴奋。

Our consumers will be really excited.

我们的员工也会非常兴奋。

Our employees will be really excited.

这一定会成功的。

This is going to work.

太棒了。

Love it.

那你们是怎么做的呢？

And so how do you do it?

我们列了一个品牌清单，我们认为这些品牌非常强大，仅凭在App Store里有这个品牌，就能吸引4000万人下载游戏。

So we make a list of brands where we think this brand is so powerful, we're going to be able to get 40 million people to download the game just based on the fact that I have this brand in the App Store.

我们想到的一个品牌就是《恶搞之家》。

One of the brands that we come up with is "Family Guy."

当时已经有一款《辛普森一家》的游戏上线了，而且开始表现不错，我们就说，'好吧，还有什么像《辛普森一家》这样的？'

So there had been a "Simpsons" game launched, and "The Simpsons" game was beginning to do well, and we said, "Okay, what's like 'The Simpsons?'

《恶搞之家》。

'Family Guy.'

那我们就去争取《恶搞之家》的授权，用这个品牌做一款游戏吧。

Let's go try to get the 'Family Guy' license and make a game using that brand."

于是我们费了九牛二虎之力，终于见到了福克斯团队。巧合的是，他们当时正好在考虑要不要授权《恶搞之家》，以及授权给谁。

So we go through these Herculean efforts to get in front of the Fox team, who is actually coincidentally right now in the process of deciding to license "Family Guy" and whom to license it to.

所以我们意识到，哇，这还真有可能成。

So we realized, wow, this could actually work.

安德鲁和我几乎是孤注一掷，一定要把这笔交易谈成。

Andrew and I kind of bet the farm on making this deal happen.

所以安德鲁和我放下了手头的其他游戏。

So Andrew and I stop working on the other games.

我们把80%的时间都花在搞定《恶搞之家》这笔交易上。

We just spend 80% of our time trying to close this "Family Guy" deal.

我们做了一份演示文稿，里面是我们对这款游戏的构想。

We make a pitch deck that is our concept for the game.

我们去了洛杉矶，向他们做了展示。

We go down to LA, we pitch it to them.

他们非常喜欢我们提出的概念。

They love the concept that we come up with.

这正是所有喜欢《恶搞之家》电视剧的人想看到的手机游戏。

It's the exact game that everybody who loves the TV show "Family Guy" wants to see as a "Family Guy" mobile game.

福克斯那边接待我们的人意识到，哇，这些人对《恶搞之家》真的很有热情，他们对游戏应该怎么做有正确的想法。

The guys that meet us at Fox realize, wow, these guys are really passionate about "Family Guy," they have the right idea for what the game should be.

我们该不该押注这些人？

Should we bet on these guys?

所以我们直接和EA竞争。

And so we're competing directly with EA.

福克斯刚和EA就《辛普森一家》达成了合作，而且已经开始显示出成功的迹象。

Fox had just done a deal with EA on "The Simpsons," and that's beginning to show that it's going to be successful.

所以他们算是老牌玩家，也是福克斯本来就倾向于合作的公司。

So they're kind of the incumbent and the team and company that Fox is leaning towards going with already.

Zynga也出现了，也想拿到《恶搞之家》游戏的授权。

Zynga shows up and also wants to license a "Family Guy" game.

所以在这三家竞争的公司里，我们算是最小的，但我们是最需要这个机会的，而且我们对做成这件事有着近乎贪婪的渴望。

So we're kind of the smallest company of the three that's competing for it, but we're the ones that need it the most, and we're insatiable about making this happen.

于是我们把方案向他们做了推介。

So we pitch the idea to them.

他们非常喜欢这个点子。

They love it.

然后我们回到旧金山，说：'好吧，这合同怎么拿下来？'

We then go back to San Francisco, and we say, "Okay, how do we get this deal?"

我们列出所有理由，说明EA并不是制作《恶搞之家》游戏的合适合作伙伴。

We come up with all of the reasons for why EA is not the right partner for making the "Family Guy" game.

我们把这份材料发给他们。

We send that to them.

接着我们提议：'咱们开个电话会议吧。'

And we say, "Let's do a call.

我们想跟你们谈谈，为什么我们才是合适的合作伙伴，而EA不是。

We want to talk to you about why we're the right partner and EA's not."

他们看了之后，开始琢磨，哇，这些人说得对。

They read it, and they start thinking, okay, wow, these guys are right.

如果选择EA作为合作公司，确实存在一些问题。

There are some problems with EA being the company that we go with.

然后我们说，好的，这不错。

We then say, "Okay, that's good.

我们进展不错，但这还不够。

We're doing great, but that's not enough.

我们还没敲定这笔交易。

We didn't close the deal.

我们得再加把劲。

Let's do more."

所以每天，我都会去找安德鲁，问他，我们今天还能做些什么来促成这笔交易？

So every day, I would go to Andrew and say, "What more can we do to get the deal done today?"

他说：“没有了。”

And he was like, "There's no more."

我什么都没有了。

I have nothing.

我们想不出别的办法了。”

There's nothing we can come up with."

我说：“不行，我们得再想点别的办法。”

And I was like, "No, we need to come up with something more."

马克·安德森是我们的董事会成员，所以我们打电话给他，说：“嘿，我们需要你的帮助。”

Marc Andreessen is on our board, so we call him up and say, "Hey, we need your help.

我们怎么才能把这笔交易搞定？”

How do we get this deal done?"

他说：“哦，真巧，我跟汤姆·罗斯曼是朋友，他以前在福克斯工作。”

And he says, "Oh, coincidentally, I'm friends with this guy, Tom Rothman, who used to work at Fox.

给他打个电话吧。”

Call him up."

我们给汤姆·罗斯曼打了电话。

We call Tom Rothman up.

汤姆·罗斯曼是位了不起的好莱坞人物，几十年来一直在拍电影。

Tom Rothman is this amazing Hollywood guy who's been making films for decades.

他说：“好巧，做这个决定的人是我在福克斯时的门徒，我来给他打个电话，告诉他应该选你们。”

He's like, "Okay, coincidentally, the guy who is making this decision was my protege at Fox, so let me call him and tell him that they should go with you.

我还会打电话给……”

I'm also going to call..."

我们问汤姆·罗斯曼：“你能加入我们的董事会，然后给那个人打个电话吗？”

We asked Tom Rothman, "Can you join our board and call this guy?"

汤姆·罗斯曼是个非常了不起的人，他直接说：“听着，我很乐意加入你们的董事会，但让我先给那个人打个电话，看看有没有用。”

Tom Rothman is an incredible human being where he just says, "Look, I'm happy to join your board, but let me call this guy first and see if it's going to make a difference."

他给那个人打电话说：“我很喜欢TinyCo团队。”

He calls this guy and says, "I love the TinyCo team.

我为他们担保。”

I vouch for them.

我希望你们跟他们合作。

I want you to go with them.

这些人是做《恶搞之家》手游的最佳人选。

These guys are the best guys to make a 'Family Guy' mobile game."

哇。

Wow.

真是个好机会。

What a break.

他这么做真是太棒了。

Amazing moment that he does that.

那真是太棒了。

So that's amazing.

但我记得你第一次跟我讲这个故事的大致情节时，我印象最深的是他每天都来办公室，问：“我们怎么才能拿下这笔交易？”

But then I remember when you first told me the rough outline of this story, the thing I took from it was he came into the office every day and was like, "How do we get this deal?"

你永远不想把全部希望押在一个不太可能成功的合作上，但当时的情况迫不得已，你确实没有别的选择。

You don't ever want to bet the farm on one partnership that's unlikely to come through, but the situation called for it, where you really didn't have another choice.

而且我觉得，如果你不是每天都坚持问那个问题，而且问得那么执着、那么烦人，甚至有点疯狂，你根本不可能得到那个答案。

And I think that asking that question every day, you would've never got to that answer had you not just persistently, annoyingly, and almost maniacally asked that question every day.

对吧？

Is that right?

对，绝对是这样。

Yeah, absolutely.

我们做了很多事，我觉得换成别人处在我们的位置，根本不会去做。

We did all these things that nobody else in our position, I think, would've done.

实际上，当我们和福克斯达成协议时，他们说：“我们不得不把协议给你们，因为如果我们不跟你们合作，我们真怕还会有谁打电话来。”

And in fact, when we got the deal done with Fox, they said, "We had to give the deal to you because we were afraid of who else was going to call us if we didn't do the deal with you guys.

他们说：“如果我们不给你们这个协议，我们真怕你们下一步还会做出什么事来。”

We were afraid of what else you might do next if we didn't give you the deal."

明白了。

Got you.

好，所以最后你是通过汤姆的推动才拿到这个协议的。

Okay, so you end up getting the deal through Tom's nudge.

但这里并不是一切都那么美好顺利。

But this isn't all rainbows and dolphins and sunshine here.

在这之后，你遇到了一个问题。

You had a problem that came up after this.

讲讲那个问题的故事吧，因为这是我最喜欢的部分。

Tell the story about that problem, because this is my favorite part.

我安排这期播客的时候，就是因为这个故事。

When I scheduled this podcast, it was because of this story.

我觉得这是一个非常了不起的时刻，它激励了我，我相信也会激励很多其他人。

I think this is an incredible moment that has inspired me, and I think would inspire many other people.

但激励人心的时刻往往是在你真正跌入谷底的时候才会出现。

But inspirational moments only come when you're really at rock bottom.

那么，在拿到这笔交易之后，接下来发生了什么？

And so what happens after this, after you get the deal?

我们拿到这笔交易时真的非常兴奋。

So we're really excited that we get the deal.

公司还是在亏损。

The company's still failing.

还是没有一条明确的路能让公司真正成功。

There's still no clear path to actually succeeding as a company.

我们和福克斯签约的时候，合同上写的是我们要付给他们1000万美元的授权费，而且要在30天内付清。

When we sign the deal with Fox, we sign a deal that says that we're going to pay them $10 million for the license, and that we're going to pay them $10 million within 30 days.

我们银行账户里只有200万美元。

We have $2 million in our bank account.

所以我们要做的第一件事，就是去找人借钱来付给福克斯。

So the first thing we need to do is go convince somebody to give us the money to pay Fox.

我们去找硅谷银行，跟他们说：“嘿，我们正在做这个游戏。

We go to Silicon Valley Bank and say, "Hey, we're making this game.

我们还有其他的游戏，都在带来不少收入。

We have all of these other games that are generating all of this revenue.

你们能给我们贷款吗？”

Will you give us a loan?"

经过我们和Marc Andreessen在Andreessen Horowitz的不断劝说，Marc真的在促成《Family Guy》这笔交易上出了大力，他也真的让SVB站出来给我们贷款。

And through tremendous amounts of cajoling by us and by Marc Andreessen at Andreessen Horowitz, again, Marc really comes through in making the "Family Guy" deal happen, and he really comes through in getting SVB to step up and give us a loan.

所以他们给了我们大约一千万美元的贷款。

So they give us a loan of about $10 million.

我们把一千万美元给了Fox，还剩几百万美元用来做游戏。

We give $10 million to Fox, and we've got a couple million dollars left to go make the game.

所以那是我们签下《Family Guy》游戏后遇到的第一个重大生存危机。

So that was our first major existential problem after signing the "Family Guy" game.

当时公司大约有一百六十人，我们意识到对于公司目前的业务状况来说，人太多了。

At the time, have about 160 people at the company, and we realize that that's too many people for where our business is at.

我们意识到如果不缩减团队规模、降低烧钱速度，我们就会资金耗尽。

We realize that we're going to run out of money unless we sort of decrease the size of the team and decrease our burn rate.

我们意识到，在我们做《Family Guy》交易、努力促成这笔交易的时候。

We realize that while we're doing the "Family Guy" deal, while we're trying to get that deal done.

我们还意识到，在努力促成《Family Guy》交易的过程中，我们想裁掉公司很大一部分人，但必须等到Fox签完协议之后才能这么做。

And we also realize while we're trying to get the "Family Guy" deal done, that we want to lay off a significant portion of the company, but we can't do that until after the deal is signed by Fox.

所以合同签下来了。

So the deal gets signed.

我们付给他们一千万美元。

We pay them $10 million.

然后我们就说，好吧，得把团队从大概一百五六十人裁到九十人左右。

Then we say, "Okay, we need to take the team," which is about 150, 160 people, "and trim that to about 90 people."

于是有一天我站在全体公司面前说，各位，今天我们要裁员七八十个人。

So I get up in front of the whole company one day and say, "Hey, guys, today we're going to lay off about 80, 70 people."

然后我们进行了这一系列流程，整整花了一天的时间。

And then we go through that process, and it takes us the whole day.

我们把要裁掉的员工一个一个叫来谈话，告诉他们：'嘿，你要被裁员了。

We take each person that we're going to lay off one at a time and talk to them and say, "Hey, you're being laid off.

具体情况是这样的。

Here's what's happening.

对此我们真的非常抱歉。'

We're really sorry about this."

那真的是一次非常不愉快的经历。

That's a really unpleasant experience.

直到今天，每次我在旧金山走路，都会碰到那天被我裁掉的人，那个人会假装没看见我，或者干脆过马路避开我，我完全理解。

To this day, whenever I'm walking around San Francisco, I'll see somebody that I laid off on that day, and that person will pretend they don't see me or cross the street and not walk by me, and I totally understand that.

我觉得走到这一步，肯定是我自己的失误，所以某种程度上，我每天都得面对这个现实。

I think it's definitely a failing of mine to have gotten us to this point, and so it's a reality that I sort of live with every day in a way.

总之，那天我们裁了大概七八十个人。

So anyway, we lay off about 80 people that day, 70, 80 people.

第二天早上我们回来，说："好了，各位，昨天确实很糟糕，但今天是TinyCo新时代的开始。"

Then we come back the next morning and say, "Okay, guys, yesterday really sucked, but today is the beginning of a new era at TinyCo.

我们要做这款游戏。

We're going to build this game.

这款游戏会因为有《恶搞之家》的品牌，获得四千万次下载。

This game is going to get 40 million downloads because of the 'Family Guy' brand.

这是我们所有的免费营销点子，它们会帮我们达到四千万次下载。

Here's all of the marketing ideas that we have that are free and that are going to get us to 40 million downloads.