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如果你想做逆向工程，你的商业模式必须能实现规模经济，让人均产出达到30万到40万美元，否则你的模式就不成立。
If you want to reverse engineer things, you have to have a model with economies of scale that gets you to $300,000 to $400,000 per employee, or your model is not real.
这种模式不具备可扩展性。
It is not scalable.
老兄，最近怎么样？
What's going on, man?
你还好吗？
How are you?
我特别兴奋能来到这里，跟大家聊聊我赚到第一个几百万的经历，还有亏掉的那些钱，分享一些关于规模扩张的心得，以及你想聊的任何话题，Sam。
I'm so excited to be here and talk about all my first millions, talk about the millions I lost, a few learnings on scaling and whatever you want, Sam.
很高兴能来这儿。
It's great to be here.
我爱你有很多理由。
I love you for many reasons.
其中一个原因是你特别有感染力，而且非常擅长总结重要的内容，还能用特别简单易懂的方式把它讲清楚。
One of them is you're so catchy and you're so good at summarizing important things, but explaining it in very simple-to-understand ways.
但在我们深入之前，我得先介绍一下背景，因为对于老牌软件圈的人来说，你就是那个标杆。
But before we get into that, I need to talk about background because we have, to the OG software guys, you are the guy.
所以如果我们跟HubSpot的创始人或者管理几十亿、上百亿美元公司的那些人聊，他们会说：‘想学软件，找Jason就对了。’
So if we talk to the founders of HubSpot or guys who run multi or tens of billions of dollars companies, they say, "If you want to learn about software, Jason's the guy."
但我们听众里也有一些可能才20岁的年轻人，我想——
But we have a bunch of sometimes 20-year-old kids listening to this, and I want to-
对
Yep
……稍微介绍一下背景。
... give a little background.
所以我不想在这上面花太多时间，但基本上我对你的了解是，你创办了几家软件公司，包括EchoSign，你把它卖了——
And so I don't want to spend too much time on this, but basically what I know about you is you started a few software companies, including EchoSign, which you sold-
是的
Yes
……卖了九位数。
... for nine figures.
我不知道具体数字，但你说过是九位数。
I don't know the exact amount, but you've said nine figures.
然后从2013年开始，你作为风险投资人投资初创公司，我记得你说过你的基金翻了十倍左右。
Then you've been investing in startups as a VC since 2013, which I think you said you 10Xed your fund or something like that.
是的。
Yes.
对吗？
Is that right?
差不多是这样。
That is about right.
那在EchoSign之前，你还做过什么？
And then what else did you do besides EchoSign, before that?
在那之前，我创办了一家初创公司，赚到了我的第一个一百万。
Before that, I had a startup where I made my first million.
在互联网暂时低迷的那段时间，我其实创办了一家做纳米材料植入式电池的初创公司，虽然我对这个领域一窍不通，挺有意思的，结果12个半月后我们以5000万美元的价格卖掉了它。
Between when the internet died for a while, I actually founded a startup making implantable batteries from nanomaterials, which I knew nothing about, which is interesting, and we sold it for $50 million after 12 and a half months.
这有点像——
It is kind of-
干得漂亮。
Nice job
……一个MFM的故事，我从中学到了很多。
... an MFM story, and I learned a lot from it.
那家公司叫什么名字？
What was that company called?
叫Nanogram Devices，我们做了一件被认为不可能的事。
It was called Nanogram Devices, and we did something that was thought to be impossible.
然后我们被竞争对手收购了。
Then we got bought by our competitor.
那是一次经典的收购，发生在12个半月后，当时我们抢走了他们最大的客户之一。
It was a classic buyout after 12 and a half months when we took away one of their largest customers.
你融资了吗？
Did you raise funding?
是的，我们融了，但过程很艰难。
We did, and it was hard.
我这是在暴露年龄啊。
I'm dating myself.
那是最糟糕的时期之一。
This was one of the crummiest points.
我们在种子轮融了900万美元，但第一轮就卖掉了公司70%的股份。
We raised $9 million in our seed round and sold 70% of the company in our first round.
而且这就是最终的条件。
And that was the deal.
就是这样的条件。
That was the deal.
没有别的选择。
There was no choice.
没有谈判的余地。
There was no negotiation.
那时候情况不一样。
It was a different time.
那意味着你和创始人，你和你的其他合伙人——我不知道你有几个——在五千万退出后，剩下的一千五百万要分。
And that meant what you and the founder, you and your other partners, I don't know how many you had, had $15 million left over to share after the $50 million exit.
我觉得更像是大约一千万，甚至可能八百万要分。
I'd say it was more like about $10 million or maybe even $8 million to share.
所以够用了。
So it was enough.
有意思的是，第一个一百万刚好够不用给别人打工。
Interesting for the first million, it was just enough to not work for the man.
我工作得更努力。
I have worked harder.
我在下一个创业项目上更努力，就是EchoSign，后来被Adobe收购了。
I worked even harder on the next startup, on EchoSign, which Adobe bought.
所以EchoSign，基本上就是现在的DocuSign吗？
So EchoSign, was that basically what DocuSign is now?
你们就是卖得早了点？
You guys just sold earlier?
对，学到了很多。
Yeah, a lot of learnings.
说到DocuSign，我真是暴露年龄了。
DocuSign, I'm really dating myself.
我们刚开始做DocuSign的时候，它基本上就是个打印机驱动公司。
DocuSign was basically a printer driver company when we started.
我们是第一个做网页解决方案的。
We were the first web solution.
所有东西都是我自己用PowerPoint和粗糙的线框图写的，然后我们就把它做出来了。
I wrote it all myself in PowerPoint and crappy wireframes, and we built it.
我们做到了每月一百万美元的收入，但烧了四百万。
And we got to a million dollars a month burning $4 million.
所以我们的年经常性收入达到了一千二百万美元，以100%的速度增长，收入留存率110%，而且现金流是正的。
So we got to $12 million ARR, growing 100% with 110% revenue retention, and cashflow positive.
我们在2011年把它卖了，2011年无论是互联网时间还是现实时间，都已经是很久以前的事了。
And we sold it in 2011, and 2011 was a long time ago, in internet time and in real time.
那是在我们真正理解订阅制商业模式的那些指标之前。
It was just before we understood the metrics around recurring revenue businesses.
所以就连我的董事会和投资人，他们都不确定我们是不是一门好生意。
And so even my board, my investors, they weren't sure we had a good business.
如果今天我跟你说，'山姆，我有一个生意，每月赚一百万，增长100%，收入留存110%，而且盈利'，你肯定会说，'这就是王牌。'
If I said to you today, "Sam, I've got a business doing a million bucks a month, growing 100% with 110% revenue retention and profitable," you would say, "That's the ticket.
'这就是王牌。'
That's the ticket."
其实DocuSign当时规模更大。
Now, DocuSign was bigger.
我们大概占了36%的市场份额。
We had about 36% market share.
但我们现金流为正，而且还在以100%的速度增长。
But we were cashflow positive and growing 100%.
所以我们只融了四百万美元，所以当你卖掉公司去赚第二个一百万的时候，有时候第二个一百万，这里面有一定的逻辑，而这个逻辑本身其实也有压力，对吧？
So, we only raised $4 million, so when you sell your company to make your second millions, sometimes the second one, there's a certain logic in it, and the logic actually in its own way can be stressful, right?
确实会有压力。
It can be stressful.
那是一个非常复杂的决定，因为从纸面上看是合理的，考虑到团队里有一部分人想这么做，而且我们融的钱那么少，对吧？
That was a very complicated decision because it made sense on paper given part of the team wanted to do it, and given how little we'd raised, right?
但是，在我心里，情感上我知道这是错误的选择。
But, in my gut, emotionally I knew it was the wrong thing to do.
斯科特·加洛韦之前做过一个演讲，我没机会跟他聊这个，但他那个演讲特别棒。
Scott Galloway came out a while ago, and I didn't get to talk to him about this, but he had this awesome presentation.
你和斯科特很像，你们都很会说话。
You and Scott are similar in that you have beautiful language.
我就是这么形容这类人的。
That's what I describe these types of people.
他们用词非常讲究。
They pick their words beautifully.
斯科特有他的一套。
Scott has this thing.
斯科特卖掉了L2，我不知道具体多少钱，大概一亿到两亿美元吧。
So Scott sold L2, I don't know how much, I think $100 to $200 million.
具体数字我忘了，但退出得很漂亮。
I forget the exact amount, but nice exit.
他说：“我想要一个九位数的退出，而且我想在数据这个行业里做到，因为那是我熟悉的领域。”
And he was like, "Well, I wanted to have a nine-figure exit, and I wanted to do it in this data business because that's what I knew.
所以我就倒推，算是逆向工程吧。”
And so I worked backwards, and I sort of reverse engineer it."
他还说了类似这样的话：“我知道我需要有国际业务。”
And he said something like, he was like, "I knew I needed to have an international presence.
我知道我的服务每年至少要收五万美元。”
I knew I needed to charge at least $50,000 a year for a service."
然后他列出了一系列条件——
And then he lists-
对
Yep
……所有这些事情，然后他花了八年或者更长时间去构建它，我很喜欢这一点，因为我喜欢逆向工程。
... all these things, and then he spent eight years, or however long, building it, and I love that because I love reverse engineering.
这也是我经常跟很多人说的。
And it's what I tell a lot of people.
他们想创造一些很棒的东西，我就说：“对，那很酷，有时候确实能成，但你其实可以逆向工程很多东西，搞清楚我需要遵守的游戏规则是什么”，然后你为这些规则去优化。
They want to create this amazing stuff, and I'm like, "Yeah, that's cool, and sometimes that works, but you can actually kind of reverse engineer a bunch of stuff to figure out what's the rules of the game that I need to play," and then you optimize for the rules.
我想请你来，基本上就是逆向工程一下，要怎样才能达到一亿美元的收入，甚至是一亿美元的成果，因为我真的觉得这些规则其实是一样的。
And I wanted to have you on to basically reverse engineer what it takes to get either $100 million in revenue or even $100 million in outcome, because I actually think those rules are actually the same.
我当时就说：“Jason，我想聊聊这个逆向工程的事”，然后你一口气列出了五点或者八点。
I was like, "Jason, I want to talk about this reverse engineering thing," and you banged out this five or eight-point thing.
你说现在很多初创公司，因为在零利率环境下融资，所以每个员工大概要创造十万美元的收入。
You said that a lot of startups right now, because they raise money in a zero-interest environment, it's like 100 grand in revenue per employee.
然后你说：“不。
And you said, "No.
新的最低标准得是三十万到四十万美元。
The new minimum needs to be $300,000 to $400,000."
对吧？
Is that right?
没错。
It is.
如果你想逆向分析你的商业模式是否合理，这是一个可以逆向分析的方面。
If you're trying to reverse engineer whether your business model makes sense, this is one thing to reverse engineer.
有些商业模式有规模经济效应，有些没有。
Certain business models have economies of scale, and some don't.
如果你想做得特别大，你需要一个有规模经济效应的业务。
And if you want to go really big, you want a business with economies of scale.
退一步看，在软件行业的旧时代，像Adobe、微软、Intuit这些公司，每个员工能带来一百万美元的收入。一百万美元。
And if you step back, in the old days of software, the old Adobes, Microsofts, Intuits made a million dollars in revenue per employee A million dollars.
明白吗？
Okay?
你会有一大堆工程师。
You'd have a bunch of engineers.
他们各自回到自己的办公室。
They'd go off in their offices.
以前每个人都有自己的独立办公室来写代码。
Everyone used to have a private office to code.
你会花两年时间，用一个小团队来开发一个软件。
You'd spend two years building a piece of software, a small team.
然后把它放到成本五毛钱的DVD或CD光盘上，再包装好。
You'd put it on a DVD-ROM or CD-ROM that cost 50 cents, and then you'd package it up.
那个包装成本五毛钱，卖一块钱。
That costs 50 cents, for a dollar.
然后有人帮你卖，价格在五十到四百美元之间。
And then someone would sell it for you between $50 and $400.
这真是一门好生意。
This was a really good business.
那时候利润率高达90%。
There were 90% margins.
像Adobe、微软、Intuit这些经典公司，每赚一块钱就有五毛直接变成现金流。
And the classic Adobe, Microsoft, Intuit, 50 cents of every dollar went straight to cash flow.
五毛钱。
50 cents.
现在上市的公司里再也看不到这种情况了。
We don't see this anymore in companies that go public.
那真是太赚钱了。
It was so profitable.
所以那会儿是一百万。
So that was a million.
然后事情就变了，零利率政策什么的，随便你怎么叫吧，变得疯狂起来，到2021年，这些独角兽公司的人均营收跌到了十万。
And then things just, the zirp or whatever you want to call it, it got crazy, and we reached a low in 2021 of 100,000 in revenue per employee for all these unicorns.
十万。
100,000.
所以我们现在的效率只有以前的十分之一。
So we only were 10% as efficient as we used to be.
现在钟摆又摆回来了，历史上我们人均收入是一百万。
Now the pendulum swung back, so historically we're at a million per employee.
最低点是人均十万。
The low point was 100,000 per employee.
在湾区，每个员工可能花你25万美元，包括保险、福利、各种杂七杂八的费用。
When employees in the Bay Area probably cost you $250,000, fully burdened with insurance, benefits, this and that.
所以每人要亏15万。
So you're losing 150,000 per employee.
现在，所有上市公司，至少是上市的SaaS软件公司，人均收入都在30到40万。
Now, every public company, at least public SaaS software company, is at 300 to 400,000.
HubSpot是31万，我们之前聊过。
HubSpot's at 310, which we talked about.
Cloudflare是40万。
Cloudflare's at 400.
这是你必须达到的水平。
That's where you have to be.
所以——
And so-
但什么时候？
But when?
你什么时候必须达到那个水平？
When do you have to be there?
所以一种思考方式是，如果你幸运或不幸运，取决于你怎么看，能筹到资金，天使投资、风险投资什么的，它能帮你填补这个差距。
So one way to think of it, if you're lucky enough or unlucky enough, depending on how you look at it, to raise capital, angel money, venture capital, whatever, it bridges the gap.
它帮你填补差距，让你达到每位员工30到40万美元的水平。
It bridges the gap to get you to 3 to $400,000 per employee.
但你最终必须达到那个水平。
But you're going to have to get there.
如果你的产品不够盈利，毛利率太低，或者不合理，那就做些改变。
And if your product isn't profitable enough, if your gross margins are too low, if it doesn't make sense, make some changes.
你得有一个模式。
You have to have a model.
如果你想逆向工程，你得有一个具备规模经济的模式，能让每位员工创造30到40万美元的产值，否则你的模式就不成立。
If you want to reverse engineer things, you have to have a model with economies of scale that gets you to 3 to $400,000 per employee, or your model is not real.
那就不具备可扩展性。
It is not scalable.
然后你这里还有一点。
And then you have another point here.
你说“走向多产品”。
You say, "Going multi-product."
对。
Yes.
你说“如何、何时、何地决定走向多产品，这是一个大问题。”
And you say, "It's a huge issue of how, when, and where to figure out when to go to multi-product."
但你说过在收入达到1000万时你想走向——你对于走向多产品是怎么说的？
But did you say at 10 million in revenue you want to go-- What did you say for going multi-product?
等你客户数涨到一万的时候，你最好已经有第二款产品了。这点不太直观，但第二款产品的规模甚至能超过第一款。
By the time you get to 10,000 customers, you better have a second product that, and this is the non-obvious thing, that can be bigger than the first.
这个观点我琢磨了好一阵子才想明白。
This one took me a while to figure out.
就是第二款产品得比第一款更庞大。
To be bigger than the first.
对 HubSpot 来说，两年后 CRM 的体量会超过营销自动化，而在此之前，HubSpot 一直被视为一家营销公司。
For HubSpot, CRM in two years will be bigger than marketing automation, and HubSpot for years was a marketing company.
两年后，CRM的销售产品规模会超过它的营销产品。
In two years, CRM, its sales product, will be bigger than its marketing product.
这是必然的。
It has to be.
而且你希望在客户数达到一万时就实现这一点。
And you want to be there by 10,000 customers.
电商企业也是同样的道理。
This is the same for e-com businesses too.
他们卖几个单品，然后达到某种临界规模，然后就像，"好吧。
They sell a handful of SKUs, and then they reach some type of critical mass, and then like, "All right.
我们需要创造更多的东西。"
We need to create more stuff."
比如我们做了除臭剂。
So like we made deodorant.
现在我们需要做牙膏或洗发水之类的。
Now we need to make toothpaste or shampoo or something like that.
但第二个产品必须更大。
But the second one has to be bigger.
这是创始人常犯的错误。
This is the mistake founders make.
山姆，最容易的是增加产品线延伸。
What's easiest, Sam, is to add a product extension.
好吧，我们在电商上卖洗发水。
Okay, we sell shampoo in e-commerce.
好，那我们卖洗发水和护发素吧。
Okay, let's sell shampoo and conditioner.
这是最简单的，因为客户已经认识我们了。
That's the easiest thing because our customers already know us.
如果他们买了洗发水，他们也会买洗发水和护发素。
If they bought shampoo, they'll buy shampoo and conditioner.
但问题是，如果第二个产品没有第一个大，而第一个还在增长，你就永远追不上。
But the problem is, if the second product isn't bigger than the first and the first one's still growing, you never catch up.
永远不够，对吧？
It's never enough, right?
如果你洗发水卖了五千万，每年增长20%，那你每年就增加一千万，对吧？
If you're selling 50 million of shampoo and you're growing 20% a year, you're adding 10 million a year, right?
然后你推出洗发水和护发素，第一年卖了一百万，这很好，但它永远也追不上。
And you launch shampoo and conditioner and it does a million its first year, it's great, but it'll never get there.
第二个必须比第一个大。
The second one has to be bigger than the first.
我们总是倾向于选择容易的第二个产品，但实际上你必须做更难的那个。
We all default to the easy second product, and you actually have to do the harder one.
这很有意思。
That's interesting.
所以在“The Hustle”的时候，我们有，我不记得了，大概一百五十万订阅者。
So at "The Hustle," so we had, I don't remember, a million and a half subscribers.
我记得我们每月收入大概是一百万。
I think we were doing a million a month in revenue.
媒体公司基本上就是先建立受众，然后针对这些受众推出多个业务。
And a media company is basically you build an audience, and then you launch multiple businesses to that audience.
无论是广告、会议、软件，还是其他什么。
So whether it's advertising, conferences, software, whatever.
通常就是这样——媒体公司挺特别的。
That's kind of typically how-- Media companies are weird.
它通常是一堆小生意或者不同的业务组合在一起。
It's usually a collection of small businesses or different businesses.
我记得我们当时每个月大概有一百万的收入。
And I think we were at a million a month.
我记不清了。
I forget.
我一直在想这件事。
I think about that.
我当时想做一个叫 Trends 的订阅服务，就像我们……天哪，我把它搞砸了，因为我定价每年 300 美元，这太蠢了。
And I wanted to create a subscription service called Trends, and it was like we like-- And dude, I fucked it up so bad because I charged $300 a year, which is so stupid.
本来应该定价每年 3 万美元的。
It should've been $30,000 a year.
应该贵得多才对。
It should've been way more expensive.
我记得第一个月，具体数字我记不清了，但第一个月我们几乎做到了一百万的销售额，然后后面就挺麻烦的——但到最后，我记得大概十个月后卖掉的时候，这个业务每年能带来五百万的销售额。
I think in the first month we did, I don't remember exactly, but in the first month, we did almost a million in sales, and then it was a pain in the ass to-- But by the end, I think when we sold, I think maybe 10 months later, we were at 5 million a year in sales with it.
但当时只有四五个人在运营，所以是盈利的。
But it only had like four or five people running it, so it was profitable.
但我犯的错误是，没有把它做得比第一个更大。
But the mistake I made was the thing of not making it bigger than the first thing.
我对这个错误深有体会，这真的很难，因为我会想："嗯，这明显是个延伸。"
And I so intimately know that mistake, and it's really hard because I'm like, "Well, this is a clear extension.
先做这个，再做那个。"
Just do this, then this."
但这也是一个心理问题：为什么要关注这个东西？
But because it's also a psychological thing of why pay attention to this thing?
把钱投回主业就行了。
Just put money back into the main thing.
举个例子，聘请销售副总裁就有这个好处。
This is an advantage to hiring a VP of sales, for example.
创始人通常会把产品定价定低了。
Founders underprice their products, usually.
他们总是定得太低。
They underprice them.
因为我们知道，让产品上线并拥有100个客户，比优化定价更重要，对吧？
Because we know is it more important to get the product off the ground and get 100 customers than to optimize pricing?
作为创始人，我们总是考虑中期或长期目标，对吧？
As founders, we're always going medium or long, right?
所以我们几乎总是把钱留在桌上，以便让人们满意并让他们继续前进。
So we almost always leave money on the table so that we can make people happy and get them going.
兄弟，我定价太低了。
Dude, I've underpriced.
我做的所有事情，定价都太低了。
Everything I've done, I've underpriced.
我也是，80%的创始人都是这样。
And so have I, and so have 80% of founders.
不是所有人，但这是一个——我讨厌这个说法——但这是一个特性，不是缺陷。
Not all, but it's a, I hate this term, but it's a feature, not a bug.
因为尽管这很痛苦，但定价以后可以调整，至少对新客户来说是这样。
Because as painful as it is, you can fix pricing later, at least for new customers.
对于老客户来说，调整价格就更难了，对吧？
It's harder to fix it for grandfathered customers, right?
但对于新客户，直接翻倍到600，然后1200，再1800。
But for new customers, then just double it to 600, then 1,200, then 1,800.
这确实很难。
It's hard.
我觉得这源于一种冒名顶替综合征，就像‘我不确定这东西够不够好’。
I think it's rooted in imposter syndrome of like, "I don't know if this is good enough."
但如果你跟一个优秀的销售聊，你会说，‘哥们，我可以在后面加个零。’
But if you talk to a good salesperson, you're like, "Dude, I could just put a zero behind that.
‘我就能卖出去。’
I'll sell it."
你懂我的意思吗？
You know what I mean?
如果你跟一个优秀的销售聊，他们就能搞定。
If you talk to a good salesperson can get it done.
好的销售不会坑人，但好的销售能帮你把产品卖到应有的价值，这一点作为创始人你几乎做不到。
A good one will not rip people off, but a good one will get the full value for your product in a way, as a founder, you almost never can.
你几乎做不到，对吧？
You almost never can, right?
这就是为什么很多经典的SaaStr内容都在讲招聘销售副总裁，因为这就是为什么在第一个季度，也就是头90天，你应该能看到一个好的销售副总裁带来的提升，至少他们能用同样的线索、同样的客户、同样的动态，为Trends或其他产品执行这套打法。
That's why a lot of the classic Saastr content's about hiring a VP of sales because that's why in the first quarter, the first 90 days, you should see a lift from a good VP of sales, at least because they can run this playbook with the same leads, the same customers, the same dynamics for Trends or something else.
一个有信心为Trends开价3万的人，知道这比Gartner或Forrester便宜，如果他们够好，他们就能帮你搞定这件事，你会看到收入提升30%到100%，如果那个人很出色的话。
Someone with the confidence to ask 30,000 for Trends, knowing it's cheap compared to Gartner or Forrester or whatever, they'll take that off your plate if they're good, and you'll see a 30 to 100% revenue lift from someone that's great.
平庸的人会坑你的客户，永远不懂你的产品，还会拼错Trends，从不读它，也不知道它是什么。
Someone that's mediocre will rip your customers off and never understand your product and misspell Trends and never read it and not know what it is.
平庸的销售实际上会让你从创始人主导的销售中看到收入下滑，但好的销售能解决这个问题，对吧？
A mediocre one will actually see a revenue decline from founder-led sales, but a good one will solve that piece, right?
所以，我觉得另一件事是，你也没有给它足够的时间。
So, I think the other thing, you just didn't give it enough time either.
我在四年半的时候把公司卖了。
I sold the company at four and a half years.
但那时候也还好。
But that was okay.
我一点都不后悔，因为我想获得一些财务自由，而且我当时身无分文。
I don't regret that at all because I wanted to get some financial freedom, and I was broke.
我记得头两年，我给自己开的工资是两万美元。
I think I paid myself, the first two years, my salary was 20 grand.
第三年，可能十万，第四年，我给自己开了几十万美元。
The third year, maybe 100, and then the fourth year, I think I paid myself a few hundred thousand dollars.
但我当时穷得要命。
But I was fucking poor.
所以我很着急，你一直说的，最糟糕的就是一个疲惫的CEO，而我基本上就是穷怕了，那是一个——
And so I was impatient, and what you talk about all the time, the worst thing is a tired CEO, and I was tired of being poor, basically, and that was a-
这让你——
It gets you
……顺便说一句，那是个巨大的错误。
... huge mistake, by the way.
如果可以的话，多给自己发点工资，这是我学到的。
Pay yourself way more, if you can, is what I've learned.
一旦你负担得起，就按市场价给自己发工资，这是学到的经验。
As soon as you can afford it, pay yourself market is the learning.
对。
Yes.
一旦你负担得起。
As soon as you can afford it.
你这里还提到了另一件事。
And you had this other thing on here.
你说过你希望收入的30%来自北美以外。
You talked about you want 30% of your revenue to be outside of North America.
对。
Yes.
这很吓人。
That's very intimidating.
这可能是这里最让人望而生畏的事情，就是走向全球，至少在我看来是这样。
That's probably the most intimidating thing here is going global, at least in my opinion.
我觉得这是一件非常让人望而生畏的事情。
I think it's a very intimidating thing.
显然，有些业务这样做并不太可行，对吧？
Obviously, some businesses, this doesn't really work, right?
比如，如果你受到高度监管，可能需要很长时间，对吧，如果你非常特定的话。
If you're highly regulated, it can take a long time, for example, right, if you're very specific.
但在规模上，平均的上市软件公司大约有三分之一的收入来自美国以外。
But at scale, the average public software leader gets about a third of their revenue outside of the US.
HubSpot现在大部分收入来自海外。
HubSpot's now a majority.
HubSpot的大多数客户，也就是小企业，都在北美以外，大多数。
The majority of HubSpot's customers, small businesses, are outside of North America, the majority.
所以让我们退一步，从逆向工程的角度来看，对吧？
So let's step back in terms of reverse engineering, right?
有几件事如果你不重视，你的收入就会比本应达到的少。
There's a couple things if you don't lean into them, you're going to have less revenue than you otherwise would.
国际市场和合作伙伴就是其中两个。
International and partners are two of them.
如果只靠直销，也会有问题。
If you try to only sell direct is an issue, too.
那该怎么做呢？
And so how do you do this?
怎么学会在法国、德国、米兰、伦敦销售？
How do you learn how to sell in France, right, in Germany, in Milan, in London?
其实没有听起来那么复杂。
It's not as complicated as it sounds.
你要做的就是建立你的业务和品牌，对吧？
What you do is build your business, build your brand, right?
找到一个你排在前两三名的细分领域。
Find a niche where you're one of the top two or three folks.
你不需要在各个方面都打败HubSpot，但找一个你更擅长的小领域或小方向，然后看看谁想买你的东西。
You don't have to beat HubSpot everywhere, but find a little segment where you're better or a little area and watch who wants to buy you.
如果你是做软件的，那么澳大利亚、新西兰、英国、法国部分地区等，这些地方的人很习惯从美国公司购买。
And if you're in software, what will happen is Australia, New Zealand, UK, some parts of France, and others are very used to buying from US companies.
如果你是最好的供应商，他们会找到你。
They will find you if you are the best vendor.
他们会找到你的。
They will find you.
你其实不需要主动去找他们。
You don't actually have to find them.
不过，传统行业的人不会主动来找你，对吧？
Now, traditional industries won't find you, right?
来找你的会是那些科技导向的人。
It's going to be tech-focused folks.
会是那些早期采用者。
It's going to be early adopters.
会是那些走在前沿的人。
It's going to be cool kids.
但他们会找到你，一旦你在某个地区的收入占比达到5%，就加大投入。
But they will find you, and as soon as you cross 5% of your revenue in an area, then invest in it.
只管投进去。
Just invest in it.
一旦发现英国、新西兰，或者像智利、巴西这种你没预料到的地方出现客户集群，就要提供支持。
As soon as you see a cluster in England or New Zealand or somewhere you didn't expect, Chile or Brazil, support it.
然后就是那个‘作弊码’，这听起来挺显而易见的，对吧？
And then the cheat code, this sounds obvious, okay?
第一点就是做好支持工作，让你的产品保持开放，明白吧？
The one one is just support it, make your product open, right?
第二点需要花点功夫，那就是尽早把你的产品本地化。
The one that takes work is also localize your product earlier.
而且你们大部分工程师都不愿意做这件事。
And most of your engineers don't want to do this.
他们不想把产品本地化成西班牙语——
They don't want to localize the product into Spanish-
那是什么意思？
What's that mean?
……和葡萄牙语。
... and Portuguese.
翻译成30种语言。
Turn it into 30 languages.
这不是特别复杂的工程任务，但95%的工程师出于各种原因就是不想做。
Not super complicated engineering task, but 95% of engineers just don't want to do it for a variety of reasons.
所以，你可以在英语国家和欧洲地区起步，对吧？
So, you can get going in the English-ish countries and even in Europe, right?
但如果你不真正本地化你的产品，你就无法渗透到某些地区。
But you're not going to penetrate certain areas if you don't actually localize your product.
但那是第二个作弊码。
But that's the second cheat code.
第一个秘诀就是欢迎它。
The first one is just be welcome to it.
如果你在日本一个客户都没有，你就不必去那里找客户。
You don't have to go hunt customers in Japan if you have zero.
作为创始人，你没有时间。
You don't have time as founders.
去日本是最糟糕的选择，因为文化差异太大了。
Going to Japan is the worst place ever to go because the culture is so different.
对。
Yes.
而且有很多日本公司想进入美国市场，美国公司想进入日本市场，但都失败了，因为文化差异巨大。
And there's been so many failures of Japanese companies wanting to come to America and America to Japanese because the culture is wildly different.
因为我确实研究过……
Because I actually looked at...
我研究有趣公司创意的方法之一，就是喜欢看日本的上市公司。
One of the ways that I researched cool company ideas is I like to look at Japanese publicly traded companies.
有一家公司叫Userbase。
There's this one called Userbase.
你听说过Userbase吗？
Have you heard of Userbase?
Userbase是日本的一家媒体公司。
So Userbase is a media company in Japan.
他们旗下有三个产品。
They own three products.
其中一个有点像CB Insights，年收入大概在三千万到五千万美元。
One of them was sort of like CB Insights, and it was doing 30 or 50 million in revenue.
第二个是一个新闻应用，叫NewsPicks。
The second one was a news app called NewsPicks.
那个也带来了三千万美元的收入。
That was doing another 30 million.
然后我记得他们还有一个产品。
And then I think they had one more thing.
我记得我去试着下载他们的应用，结果全是日文，我根本搞不明白。
And I remember going and trying to download their app, and it was all in Japanese, and I couldn't really figure it out.
但后来我翻译了一下，心想：“我要在美国做这个应用，而且要在The Hustle做。”
But I eventually translated it, and I was like, "I'm going to make this app in America, and I'm going to do it at The Hustle."
于是我把整个东西都搭建起来了，准备上线什么的。
And so I built out this whole thing, and I was going to launch it and everything.
他们想做的那个文化，需要用户在新闻上留下反馈和意见，这在咱们这儿不太常见。
And the culture of what they were trying to do, it required users to leave feedback and opinions on news, which is not so common here.
我记得当时就想：“靠，为什么这个日本点子行不通？”
And I remember like, "Fuck, why is this Japanese idea not working?"
然后我意识到，我就是在读维基百科什么的，发现有一个专门的词来形容美国公司试图打入日本市场却失败的情况，因为——
And then I realized, I was just reading Wikipedia or whatever, and there's this whole term to describe the failure of American companies trying to break into Japan because-
……文化差异太大了。
... the culture is so different.
这让我对涉及亚洲文化的事情怕得要命，因为我们的文化差异太大了。
And it scared me like hell to do anything involving Asian cultures because our cultures are so different.
我当时就想，这根本搞不定。
I'm like, "I can't ever crack that."
但德国、法国那边情况就差不多。
Whereas Germany, France, it's mostly similar.
对，日本那套文化真的让我挺发怵的。
But yeah, the whole Japanese thing freaks me out.
我举两个例子吧，Salesforce早期在日本的收入占比就有10%。
I'll give you two examples, but Salesforce had 10% of their revenue in Japan in the early days.
百分之十。
10%.
你可以去搜一下，看看马克·贝尼奥夫是怎么说的。
Now, you can Google it, you can see what Marc Benioff said.
他们本来没打算这么做。
They didn't plan it.
是被硬拽进日本市场的，有些是通过合作，还有些其他方式。
They got dragged into Japan, and some of it was through partnerships and others.
但我的意思是，这并不在他们最初的计划里，明白吗？
But my point is, that wasn't on their day zero plan, okay?
但在那里却发展起来了。
But it took off there.
我刚和霍华德·勒曼聊过，他创立了一家叫Roam的新公司，但他之前创立了Yext，并把它做到了十亿美元的规模。
I was just talking with Howard Lerman, he's got a new company called Roam, but he founded Yext and took it up to a billion.
他们在日本做得很大，我们当时在聊他下次怎么进军日本市场。
And they were huge in Japan, and we were talking about how he's going to do Japan the next time.
但他们是因为小企业才被拉进日本市场的。
But they got dragged into Japan for small businesses.
他们是被拖进去的。
They got dragged in.
所以我的意思是，不要在没有一点进展的情况下就去日本，还要求人家带你逛城市。
So my point is, don't show up to Japan with no traction, asking for a tour of the city.
但如果你的前100个或前500个客户中有五个来自日本，别忽视他们。
But if somehow in your first 100 customers, first 500, you've got five in Japan, don't dismiss them.
别像有些人那样阴阳怪气的。
Don't be snarky like some folks are.
别说这不重要。
Don't say it doesn't matter.
相反，应该说：“天哪，我们在日本已经有五个客户了，而且我们的产品甚至还没有日文版。”
In fact, say, "Oh my God, we got five customers for Japan, and our product's not even in Japanese.
这说明我们这里有点东西。
We've got something good here.
让我们暂停一下，搞清楚这到底是怎么回事，就像Salesforce那样，然后让我们的收入有10%来自日本。”
Let's take a pause and let's figure out what the heck is going on," like Salesforce did, "and get 10% of our revenue from Japan."
这才是正确的做法。
That's how you do it.
收费有没有一个最佳点？
Is there a sweet spot for how much you charge?
我觉得很多人刚开始的时候，就像我当初那样。
I think with a lot of people starting out, like what I did.
嗯，我的生意是两条腿走路的，一边是用户，一边是广告主。
Well, my business was two-prong in that we had users and then we had advertisers.
我们的广告主每年花费六位数，但我得搞定四百万订阅用户才能撑起来，这真的很难。
Our advertisers were spending six figures a year, but I had to acquire fucking four million subscribers in order to make it work, and it was really hard.
大规模收购。
Massive acquisitions.
那么，有没有一个价格点，你希望你的平均客户每年支付五万？
And so is there a price point where you want your average customer to be paying 50,000 a year?
我觉得定价被讨论得太多了，我来告诉你为什么。
I think that pricing is over-discussed, and I'll tell you why.
我们现在都买了200个，至少大多数企业都买了超过200个SaaS应用，对吧？
We have all now bought 200, at least most businesses have bought over 200 SaaS apps, okay?
那是200个商业软件。
It's 200 pieces of business software.
而且我们大概都知道东西应该值多少钱。
And we all kind of know what stuff should cost.
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我们知道Notion应该多少钱，也知道HubSpot应该多少钱。
We know what Notion should cost, we know what HubSpot should cost.
我们现在用的是Riverside。
We're on Riverside.
我不知道Riverside是什么。
I don't know what Riverside is.
你们一个月付多少钱，300美元左右，对吧？
What do you guys pay, 300 bucks a month, okay?
好，假设你一个月付300或400美元。
Okay, let's say you pay 300 bucks, 400 bucks a month.
现在，如果别人有一个更好的Riverside版本，要价每月5万美元，你肯定会犹豫，对吧？
Now, if someone else has a better version of Riverside and they want 50,000 a month, you're going to kind of balk, right?
但如果有人有比Riverside更好的东西，每月只要30美元，那看起来就太便宜了。
But what if someone had something that was better than Riverside, it was $30 a month, it would seem too cheap.
看起来太便宜了。
It would seem too cheap.
所以我的意思是，价格有自然的定位点，你要做的就是围绕这些点来定价。
So my point is, there are organic price points, and what you want to do is anchor around them.
去找出市场上和你最相似的那几个产品，然后按照同样的方式收费，要么价格一样，要么如果你心里没底，就稍微低一点，低10%或20%。
Go figure out the couple of products out there that are most similar to yours, and charge the exact same way, and either charge the same pricing, or if you're nervous, charge a smidge lower, 10% lower, 20% lower.
如果你定价低太多，那就等于告诉市场，你没有Riverside那么有价值，对吧？
If you charge too much lower, you're telling the market you're not as valuable as Riverside, right?
或者你没有HubSpot那么有价值，而且如果你太便宜，客户反而会避开你。
Or you're not as valuable as HubSpot, and customers will bounce off you if you're too cheap.
如果你太便宜，他们会感到困惑。
If you're too cheap, they will get confused.
所以，要围绕同类产品来定价。
So anchor around the comps.
如果你真的比Riverside有价值10倍，而且Riverside确实很好，我们正在用它来录制这期节目。
If you're truly 10 times more valuable than Riverside, okay, and Riverside's very good, we're using it to record the session.
如果你真的有价值10倍，那也许可以收两倍的价格，因为你在告诉市场：“我们比行业老大有价值10倍。”
If you're 10 times more valuable, maybe charge twice as much because you're telling the market, "We're 10 times more valuable than the leader."
“我们的价值是他们的十倍。”
"We're 10 times more valuable."
但不管怎样，那些说“没有人和我们一样，没有可比对象”的创始人，你们得再努力想想。
But whatever you do, founders that say, "There's no one like us, there's no comp," try harder.
再努力想想。
Try harder.
不一定要和你完全一样，只要感觉差不多就行。
It doesn't have to be the same as you, just it feels the same.
感觉价值差不多，使用方式也类似。
It feels a similar amount of value, a similar type of utilization.
我是不是每天用八小时？
Do I use it eight hours a day?
我是不是一个月用一次？
Do I use it once a month?
我是不是把它当作API来用？
Do I use it as an API?
是按用量计费的吗？
Is it metered?
是按座位收费的吗？
Is it per seat?
像你这样的应用有成百上千个，如果你把价格定得和类似价值的应用差不多，就能减少摩擦。
There's hundreds of apps like you, and if you price similar-to-similar value apps, you remove friction.
你减少了销售过程中的摩擦。
You remove friction from the sales process.
在你真正做大之前，这就是你应该做的。
And that's what you want to do until you're really big.
这也是为什么我们作为创始人也会定价偏低，因为你想减少摩擦。
And this is why we also underprice as founders, because you want to remove friction.
在早期，我们希望每一笔交易都能成交，对吧？
We want every deal to close in the early days, don't we?
我们希望每一笔交易都能成交。
We want every deal to close.
所以作为创始人，你的工作，如果你想扩大规模，如果你想逆向工程，你的工作，因为公司里没人会做这件事，你的工作就是每天不懈地消除客户获取过程中的摩擦。
And so your job as a founder, if you want to scale, if you want to reverse engineer things, your job, because no one else in your company will do this, your job is every day to relentlessly remove friction from your customer acquisition process.
消除摩擦。
Remove friction.
而人们在扩大规模时会增加摩擦。
And people add it at scale.
最典型的就是“联系我们”。
The classic one is contact me.
你上网站，兴奋地想自己买，结果还得跟销售代表谈？
You go to a website, you're all excited to buy on your own, and I got to talk to a rep?
对，我讨厌那样。
Yeah, I hate that.
对，有几个原因。
Yeah, there's a couple reasons.
一个原因是他们已经做到数亿美元的收入，实际上他们想在销售过程中增加摩擦，对吧？
One reason is they've gotten to hundreds of millions in revenue, and they actually want to add friction to the sales process, right?
但你要到收入几千万的时候才需要那么做。
But you don't want to do that until you're at tens of millions of revenue.
你每天上班，如果公司里其他事都做不了，那就去减少摩擦。
You want to every day come into work, and if you can't do anything else on your company, remove friction.
怎么让注册更简单？
How can I make signup easier?
怎么加上单点登录？
How can I add single sign-on?
怎么让电商结账更顺畅？
How can I make it easier to do checkout for my e-commerce thing?
怎么让套餐更简单？
How can I make the bundle easier?
怎么让客服更好？
How can I make support better?
减少摩擦。
Remove friction.
如果支持服务能几秒钟内自动搞定，而不是在那个笨拙的聊天框里等五分钟，那不就减少了摩擦吗？
Having support that happens automatically in seconds rather than waiting five minutes on the dumb bubble, that removes friction, doesn't it?
不管怎样，都要减少摩擦。
Whatever it takes, remove friction.
你最后提到的这一点是最有挑战性的。
The last point you have is the most challenging.
那就是实现100%的净收入留存率。
It's getting to net revenue retention of 100%.
对。
Yes.
我不知道你会怎么形容自己。
I don't know how you would describe yourself.
我觉得你是个CEO创始人类型的人，但你在销售和运营方面也有优势。
I think of you as you're a CEO founder type, but I think that you have an edge on sales and operations.
关于客户流失这部分，我觉得——这可能有点天真——那主要是产品的问题。
The churn part, I think, and this is maybe naive, I think that's mostly product.
这可能跟你卖给谁以及怎么定位有关，但归根结底是产品的问题。
Maybe it relates to who you sell to and how you position it, but it's product.
最难的部分就是搞清楚，怎么做出一个能融入别人工作流程的东西？
And it's the hardest part is figuring out, how do I make something that integrates in someone's workflow?
或者怎么做出一个对某人生活如此重要的东西，以至于他们不仅不想放弃它，还会告诉同事，同事也不得不用起来。
Or how do I make something that's so essential to someone's life that not only do they not want to get rid of it, they're going to tell their coworkers, and their coworkers are also going to have to start using it.
这真的太难了，我觉得一半靠艺术，一半靠科学。
It's so freaking hard, and I think it's part art, part science.
但你说过，你必须达到100%的净收入留存率。
But you said that you have to have 100% net revenue retention.
好消息是，很多大公司一开始也做得一塌糊涂。
The good news is that a lot of the big boys sucked at first.
我记得布莱恩·哈利根，他跟我说过，他们有一段时间每月流失率大概是5%到10%，甚至可能更高。
I think Brian Halligan, I think he told me that they were churning out something like, at one point, 5 to 10%, or maybe even more per month.
他说：“那太糟糕了，我们花了四五年才搞清楚。”
And he was like, "It was horrible, and it took us four or five years to figure it out."
那关于客户流失和留存，你有什么看法？
But what do you have to say about churn and retention?
怎么才能做好呢？
How do you make it good?
如果你想逆向工程，就像你说的，你确实需要在产品层面有一条清晰的路径，这样才能最终达到100%的留存率，对吧？
If you want to reverse engineer things, to your point, you need to really honestly have a path at a product level so that you can eventually get to that 100%, right?
而且你可以分阶段来实现。
And you can stage it.
所以我不确定HubSpot早期是不是真的有5%或更高的流失率。
So I don't know if HubSpot really was churning 5% or more in the early days.
假设它一开始的收入留存率大概只有50%，可以吗？
Let's say its revenue retention was more like 50% in the beginning, okay?
我记得他跟我说过，有一两个季度糟糕到简直是生存危机。
I think he told me there was a quarter or two where it was existential crisis bad.
差不多就是那样。
It was something like that.
我觉得他们是在第四年，那时候感觉如果不解决这个问题，这事儿就干不下去了。
I think they were year four, where it was like This is not going to work if we don't figure this out.
嗯，我跟他聊过，从他那会儿到三千万美元营收，大概是75%的增长率，这其实已经算晚了。
Well, I know from when I talked to him, it was 75% from him to like 30 million in revenue, which is kind of late.
他们直到推出多产品线，并且开始往中型SMB市场走，才真正把这事儿弄明白。
They still hadn't totally figured out until they went multi-product and a bit into the mid-size of SMB.
但关键是，一方面，他们的投资人确实很挑剔，各种抱怨什么的。
But the point is, on the one hand, yeah, their VCs were critical, blah, blah, blah, blah.
但他们确实有个计划来实现这个目标。
But they did have a plan to get there.
他们有个计划来实现这个目标。
They had a plan to get there.
他们稍微往高端市场走了一点，就一点点，不是很多，就是往更大的小企业那边靠，同时提供不止一个产品来增加价值。
They were going a little bit up market, a little bit up market, not a lot, just a little bit into bigger small businesses, and to have more than one product to add value.
而且有意思的是，HubSpot名义上提了价，但现在客户平均支付11000美元。
And in fact, it's interesting, HubSpot nominally has raised prices, but the average customer today pays 11,000.
两年前，客户平均支付11000美元，四年前平均支付10000美元。
The average customer two years ago paid 11,000, and the average customer four years ago paid 10,000.
对吧？
Okay?
所以HubSpot做的事情，很多人没做到，他们搞错了，这也是HubSpot如此成功的原因之一，就是同样的钱，他们提供更多价值。
So what HubSpot has done, which a lot of folks don't do, they get it wrong, and this is why HubSpot is one of the reasons it's so successful, is they're adding more value for the same dollar.
每年同样的钱，他们提供更多价值。
They're adding more value each year for the same dollar.
软件本应是服务，SaaS，软件即服务。
Software is supposed to be a service, SaaS, software as a service.
我们忘了这一点。
We forgot about it.
在2023年和2022年末，SaaS变成了软件即宰客。
In 2023 and late 2022, SaaS became software as a rip-off.
每个人都遭遇大幅涨价，却没有任何好处，对吧？
Everyone got massive price increases for no benefit, right?
有些人会对HubSpot有些抱怨。
Some folks will grumble about HubSpot.
它确实涨过价。
It has raised prices.
但总的来说，价格没涨多少，而现在他们的软件量是原来的五倍，功能强大了五十倍，对吧？
But overall, the prices haven't gone up much, and now they have five times the amount of software that's 50 times more powerful, right?
这比Brian刚开始时好了大概250倍，这就是作为创始人你应该追求的目标。
It's like 250 times better than when Brian started, and that's what you've got to aspire to as a founder.
反过来看，如果你的业务客户流失率高，HubSpot一开始也是这样。
The flip side is, if you have a high churn business, and HubSpot started there.
很多人都是从高流失率的业务起步的。
A lot of folks start in high churn business.
要诚实，做个电子表格算算。
Be honest, build a spreadsheet.
我知道我们早年在The Hustle的时候聊过这个，因为你的媒体业务客户流失率也很高。
I know you and I talked a little bit about this in The Hustle in the early days because you had high churn as a media business.
这是媒体的固有特性。
It's inherent to a media.
你的订阅用户流失率很高，对吧？
You had high subscriber churn, okay?
你当时为此压力很大。
You were stressed about this.
我其实错误地劝你别那么紧张，因为我觉得你是个很棒的创始人，会自己想办法解决的。
I actually wrongly challenged you to be less stressed because I thought you were a great founder and would figure it out.
但你必须把它放进表格里，然后说，看，如果你的月流失率超过3%，3%、4%、5%，这对某些模式来说是固有的，看看当你达到千万级别、1000万、1500万、2000万时，重力会对你产生什么影响。
But you've got to put it in a spreadsheet and say, look, if you have churn north of 3% a month, three, four, five, and that is endemic to certain models, look what gravity does to you around when you get to double-digit millions, when you get to 10 million, 15 million, 20 million.
通常，重力会把你往下拖，因为你每个月失去太多客户，几乎不可能填补那个漏水的桶。
Usually, gravity weighs you down because you're losing so many customers each month, it almost becomes impossible to replace that leaky bucket.
所以，The Hustle是一份每日通讯。
So, The Hustle was a daily newsletter.
我们每周发六天邮件。
We sent an email six days a week.
我在努力回忆。
I'm trying to remember.
我们有170万订阅用户。
We are at 1.7 million subscribers.
我们每个月流失5万订阅用户，或者不对，可能是4万。
We lost 50,000 subscribers, or no, maybe it was 40,000 subscribers per month.
而我们每天大概增加4000个订阅用户。
And we were adding 4,000 a day or something like that.
这太疯狂了。
It was insane.
你能想象吗？
Can you imagine that?
每个月流失4万人，我们当时就在想："这该怎么解决？"
Losing 40,000 people, and we were like, "How are we going to fix this?"
最后我们确实解决了，但我知道有些公司，比如The Hustle现在的情况，我就不太清楚了。
And eventually we did, but I know that companies like, I don't know what The Hustle's at now.
我觉得他们差不多有三百万订阅了，而且流失率真的很低。
I think they're close to three million subscribers, and the churn is really low.
Morning Brew 已经有四百五十万订阅了。
Morning Brew's at four and a half million subscribers.
你想知道那些新闻通讯都在做什么大家不常提的事吗？
And you want to know what all the newsletters do that people don't talk about?
我们一开始是自然增长到十万订阅的。
So we grew organically to 100,000 subscribers.
我想很多也是这样。
I imagine many do, too.
然后你通过付费营销做到几百万。
Then you do paid marketing to get to many millions.
对。
Yep.
然后四五年后你有了名气，就停止广告投放，或者花很少的钱，然后你就想，‘我们就保持在三百五十万、三百万订阅吧——’
And then you get a name after four or five years, and then you quit advertising, or you spend very little, and you're just like, "We're just going to stay at 3.5 million, 3 million subscribers-
明白了。
I got it
……然后我们还会推出更多的新闻通讯。
... and we're going to launch more newsletters."
这就是那份新闻通讯的名字。
That's the name of the newsletter.
这就是新闻通讯做到一亿美元营收的方法。
That's how you get to 100 million in revenue for newsletters.
这和软件行业完全一样，就是做多产品线。
It's the exact same thing as software, which is you go multi-product.
但和软件不同的是，新闻通讯的用户流失率高得离谱。
But except unlike software, the churn is outrageous.
不过好在，市场规模大概有三千万人。
But thankfully, the market size is like 30 million people.
但新闻通讯的流失率真的高得吓人。
But it's crazy high, the churn for newsletters.
但这跟要对自己非常清醒这一点是相关的，对吧？
But that ties to the point of being very self-aware about this, right?
而且那个流失率，你每个月流失的，我算得不太对，但我觉得你每个月大约流失了你增长量的30%，对吧？
And that churn, so you churned out, I'm getting that math wrong, but I think you were churning out about 30% of your growth each month, right?
在那个阶段，对吧？
In that phase, right?
所以如果我们给一百万人发邮件，如果一个月有一百万订阅者，我们每周发六次，乘以四周，就是一个月发24次，我们大概会失去那一百万人中的4.5%。
So if we sent an email to a million people, and if we had a million subscribers in one month and we sent six times a week times four, that's 24 times a month, we would lose roughly 4.5% of the million.
所以大约是四万人。
So about 40,000.
对，这就是我们之前说的3%到5%的流失率，对吧？
Yeah, that's that 3 to 5% churn we talked about, right?
而且在上升期，这还算可以，因为The Hustle在爆发式增长，有病毒式传播的因素，一切都很好，但最终会有重力效应，你必须诚实地面对重力，并想出一个应对策略，对吧？
And on the way up, it's sort of okay because The Hustle's exploding and there's viral elements and it's great, but eventually gravity, you've got to be honest about gravity and come up with a strategy to address it, right?
对于小企业来说。
For small businesses.
这个数学问题，我想你也会认同，大概在1000万美元收入的时候，你需要非常多的增长才能抵消这个流失，对吧？
That math, and I think you would echo this, around 10 million in revenue, you need so much growth to overcome that churn, right?
你需要的是史诗级的增长。
You need epic.
这甚至不是你作为创始人的直觉能判断的。
It's not even what your gut says as a founder.
你需要每月两位数的增长。
You need double-digit growth per month.
这就是关键所在。
Here's the insight.
你需要每月两位数的增长，才能在大规模下抵消这个流失，对吧？
You need double-digit growth per month to overcome that churn at scale, right?
你需要两位数。
You need double-digit.
而这变得很难。
And that gets hard.
对，而且你得搞清楚你做的到底是什么生意。
Well, and you need to understand which business you're in.
所以你现在做的是会议生意。
So you're in the conference business now.
我以前也算做过会议生意。
I was in the conference business, sort of.
我觉得我那几年会议生意做得还行，大概做了三百万美元的收入。
I think my conference business was doing, over the handful of years, I think we probably did three million in revenue.
你一年就要做到三千万。
You're going to do 30 million in one year.
所以我们完全不是一个量级的。
So we're not in the same ballpark.
但我在做会议生意时学到的是，这行真的很糟糕。
But what I learned with the conference business is it sucks.
非常糟糕。
It sucks hard.
而且不知道为什么，我还是很喜欢它。
And for some reason, I still love it.
媒体行业也一样。
And same with media.
我超级喜欢，但我觉得它难多了。
I freaking love it, but it's way harder, I think.
那你既然懂这么多软件方面的好东西，为什么还要做会议生意呢？
And why are you in the conference business if you're supposed to know all of this great stuff about software?
因为做软件的话，大家每周的工作时间好像都差不多。
Because software seems like we all work the same amount of hours per week.
感觉直接开个软件公司就行了。
It just seems like just start a software company.
为什么要做会议生意，搞得自己像是在逆水行舟一样？
Why start a conference business where you're in kind of an uphill battle?
问得好。
It's a good question.
你们在3000万上能盈利吗？
Do you guys make a profit on 30 million?
是的，我们能盈利，但我们必须——所以Saastr Annual是我们的旗舰大会，我们在湾区有12000人参加。
Yeah, we do, but we've got to-- So Saastr Annual is our big flagship event, and so we get 12,000 people in the Bay Area.
现在是在每年九月。
Now it's every September.
光是开灯就要花1000万美元。
It costs $10 million to turn the lights on.
那是个压力点。
That's a stressor.
开灯就要花1000万美元，明白吗？
It costs $10 million to turn the lights on, okay?
在你赚到一分钱之前，明白吗？
Before you make a dollar, okay?
所以每位参会者的成本是1000美元。
So $1,000 an attendee is your cost.
对，差不多每位参会者一千美元，这是实打实、全算上的成本，大概一千。
Yeah, about $1,000 per attendee is the honest, fully burdened cost, about 1,000.
我们六月份在欧洲办一场，规模是三千五百人。
We do one in Europe in June for 3,500.
那个便宜多了。
That's much cheaper.
那个大概每位参会者三百美元，但算下来还是要一百五十万到两百万美元才能把活动办起来，明白吧？
That'll be about $300 to turn the lights-- Well, $300 per attendee, but it's still like a million and a half to $2 million to turn the lights on, okay?
两百万到一千万。
Two million and a half and 10 million.
那另一个积极方面是什么？
What's the other positive thing?
所以你得先过了这一关，然后还得付员工工资，对吧？
So you've got to get over that, and then you've got to pay people, right?
然后还有其他各种开销。
And then you've got other expenses.
所以在你跨过那个门槛之前，说实话，这真是个糟糕的生意。
So until you cross, it's funny, it is a terrible business.
我们之前聊过这个。
We was talking about this.
前几天真的有个风投，管理着五亿美元的收入，光靠手续费一年就赚几百万，业绩也不错，打电话跟我说想办会议业务，因为投资太难了。
I literally had a VC managing $500 million in revenue, making millions and millions a year just in fees with a good track record, call me the other day saying they wanted to build a conference business because investing's so hard.
不会吧。
Nah.
就是说，哥们，就算发生自然灾害或者下暴雨，你照样有钱拿。
It's like, dude, you still get paid if there's a natural disaster or a rainstorm.
我一直这么想的。
That was my whole thing.
我就说，哥们，我为这破会议拼死拼活，结果一下雨，出席率就掉。
I'm like, "Dude, I'm working so hard for this freaking conference, and if it rains, attendance is down."
太糟心了。
It just sucks.
一两天恶劣天气或者别的什么就能改变一切。
One or two days of some crazy weather or something can change things.
太糟糕了。
Terrible.
我们做这个其实是偶然的。
The reason we did it was on accident.
我们围绕内容建了这个社区，对吧？
We built this community around content, right?
所以我们做了内容，然后就成了社区，对，我们还有了新闻通讯和播客。
So we built content, and then it's a community, and yeah, we got some newsletters and some podcasts.
虽然规模没你那么大，但也有一定规模了。
They're not quite at your scale, but they have some scale.
然后我们就办了线下聚会，一开始来的人特别多。
And then we just did meetups, and just so many people came to the meetups in the beginning.
你也办过。
You've done them.
而且那是很久以前的事了。
And this is a long time ago.
现在听起来可能不算什么，但我们在2013年的第一次聚会，来了800人，而且这些人都是很棒的——
This sounds small today, but our first meetup in 2013, we had 800 people come, and these were great-
那可真不少。
That's a lot
……CEO们。
... COs.
很棒的CEO，对吧？
Great COs, right?
这些CEO现在有的已经上市了，有的拥有九位数的生意，他们都来了。
COs that now have gone public or have nine-figure businesses, and they all came.
我当时不知道这会成为一门生意，但我知道我们找到了产品市场契合点。
And I didn't know it would be a business, but I knew we had product market fit.
所以我想去建设。
So I wanted to build.
然后我又办了一次聚会，那次来了1000人，我们不得不把一些人拒之门外。
Then I did another meetup, and the other meetup had 1,000, and we had to turn people away.
然后我们办了一个为期一天的活动，就为了试试看。
And then we did a one-day event just to do it.
那并不是一门生意。
It wasn't a business.
前两年我是外包出去的。
I outsourced the first two years.
我甚至都没看过财务报表。
I never even looked at a financial statement.
前两年我有一个合伙人，所有的利润或收入都归他。
The first two years I had a partner, he kept all the profit or the revenue.
我只负责推动参与度和内容。
I just drove the engagement, right, and the content.
所以到了第二年，我们已经有3000人了。
And so by the second year, we had 3,000 people.
而且确实有需求。
And there was demand.
所以，山姆，我真正进入这个行业的原因，并不是因为我想要，而是因为第二年之后，他退出了。
So the real reason I got into the business, Sam, wasn't because I wanted to, because after the second year, he quit.
我的合伙人退出了，不想再干了，因为工作量太大了。
My partner quit and didn't want to do it anymore because it was too much work.
所以我也退出了。
So I quit.
我根本没有能力做这个。
I had no ability to do this.
我没有团队。
I had no team.
我没有蓝图。
I had no blueprint.
我不知道收入或财务是怎么运作的，第三年我不得不从零开始学。
I didn't know how the revenue or the finances worked, and I had to learn for the third year from scratch.
所以这不是故意的。
And so it wasn't intentional.
我觉得是社区需要这个，有需求，自然的需求。
I felt like a community wanted this, that there was demand, organic demand.
不过说实话，这真是个糟糕的生意。
But yeah, it is a terrible business.
现在你可以心算一下，对吧？
Now you can do the math in your head, right?
一旦收入超过1500万，才真正开始盈利，对吧？
Once it got over 15 million in revenue, it finally generated actual profits, right?
但那要花很多年。
But that's a lot of years.
不是假的1500万，不是假装你到了1500万，不是虚报收入，而是你真的要超过1500万才能回本。
Not fake 15, not pretending you're at 15, not claiming revenue that's not real, but you've got to really just get over 15 to clear the nut.
所以很多展会生意，在高端市场，可以卖到15倍的收益。
So a lot of trade show businesses, on the high end, can sell for 15 times earnings.
但很多如果是B2B展会的话，可能只能卖到八倍或十倍。
But a lot of them can go for eight or 10 if it's like a B2B trade show.
有一堆公司——
There's a bunch of companies-
或者更高。
Or more.
少数几家。
A handful
……对，或者更高。
... Yeah, or more.
少数几家。
A handful.
最好的那些能卖到二十倍——
The best ones can go for 20 times-
但只有最好的才行。
But only the best
……如果它已经存在了40年，而且是一项稳定的收入来源——
... if it's been around for 40 years, and it's an annuity-
只有最好的才行。
Only the best
……到那个时候。
... at that point.
而且不知道为什么，总是英国公司。
And for some reason, it's always British companies.
很多英国公司会收购贸易展会。
A lot of British companies buy trade shows.
所以有英富曼，还有——
So there's Informa, there's-
对。
Yep
……欧洲货币。
... Euromoney.
这样的公司有一大堆。
There's a bunch of them.
还有Hive。
There's Hive.
你会考虑卖掉吗？——对，Hive，他们买了我朋友Ryan Deiss的公司，我记得是Traffic Summit。
Would you ever sell-- Yeah, Hive, they bought my friend Ryan Deiss' company, I believe, the Traffic Summit.
你觉得Saastr能卖多少钱，你会卖吗？
What could you sell Saastr for, and would you do it?
这些年确实有两家公司来找过我们，想收购Saastr。
We've had two folks that have approached us to buy Saastr over the years.
不过我们从来没收到过正式的收购意向书。
I wouldn't say we've ever had a term sheet to be on the table.
从这些接触中我们学到的是，定价主要还是看同类公司的估值。
The learning from that is it's really been based on comps.
我知道我们经常谈EBITDA什么的，但实际上还是看同类公司的估值，对吧？
I know we talk about EBITDA and blah, blah, blah, but it's really been based on comps, right?
而Shoptalk被以1.5亿美元收购，当时规模和我们差不多，可能还小一些。
And Shoptalk was bought for 150 million at about our size, probably under.
他们捡了个大便宜。
They got a good deal.
Money20/20也卖了个好价钱。
And Money20/20 sold for a good deal.
它被卖了1亿美元，当时营收才1000万。
It sold for 100 million when it was only doing 10 million in revenue.
但这两个都是标志性的。
But both were iconic.
兄弟，咱们聊聊这个。
Dude, let's talk about that.
创办那些公司的人就在汉普顿。
The guy who started those companies is in Hampton.
我得认识认识他。
I've got to know him.
那个人太厉害了。
That guy is amazing.
什么——
What-
简直超乎想象。
Off the charts.
然后他又把另一家公司卖了3000万。
And then he sold another company for 30 million.
但你知道吗，这些人一开始是做科技公司的，我记得好像是做支付相关的。
But listen, these guys started a tech company, I believe, like a payment company.
他们把公司以1亿美元卖给了谷歌。
They sold it to Google for $100 million.
然后他们又去创办了一个会议。
They went and started a conference.
那个会议做得非常成功。
It kicked ass.
他们大概卖了五千万到一个亿吧。
They sold it for something like 50 or 100.
第一个我记不清了。
I forget the first one.
他把Money20/20卖了一个亿，现在这个公司一年也赚一个亿。
He sold Money20/20 for 100 million, and now it's doing 100 million.
然后他们又搞了一次，搞了个Shoptalk——
Then they did it again with Shoptalk-
对，他们确实又搞了。
They did
——就是那种面向D2C的行业展会。
... which is like a trade show for D2C.
现在，我忘了。
Now, I forget.
另一个创始人叫什么名字来着？
What's the other founder's name?
一个白人，一个印度人。
It's a white guy and an Indian guy.
那个白人又搞了个新的。
The white guy has a new one.
叫HLTH。
It's called HLTH.
好。
Okay.
这个我倒不知道。
That I don't know.
我跟Anil有点熟。
I know Anil a little bit.
不过对。
But yeah.
H-L-T-H。
H-L-T-H.
你得看看这个，因为这些人就是这么干的。
You've got to look at this because here's what these guys do.
网站都一个样。
The website is all the same.
头像都一样，图形设计也差不多。
It's like the same avatars for, and it's like the same graphic design.
看起来就是——
And it just looks-
哦，确实。
Oh, it is.
看起来就像Shoptalk或者Money20/20。
It looks just like Shoptalk or Money20/20.
翻来覆去都是同一套，对吧？
It's the same thing again and again, right?
他们做的就是同一件事。
They do the same thing.
他已经这么干过四次了。
And he's done this like four times.
我觉得这是他们第四次搞新的贸易展了。
I think this is their fourth time that they've created a new trade show.
我现在看出来了。
I see it now.
我早该想到的。
I should've known it.
这是一个——
It's a-
我现在看出来了，对。
I see it now, yeah.
所以我觉得这个规模比Shoptalk和Money20/20大得多。
So I think this is significantly larger than Shoptalk and Money20.
HLTH就是那种，他们办这种贸易展，把所有人都聚到一起——很多人不知道，贸易展说白了就是一个持续三天的市场。
And so HLTH is like a, they do these trade shows where they get all-- What a trade show basically is, what a lot of people don't realize, it's basically a marketplace that lasts for three days.
所以你会看到买家和卖家聚在一起，希望促成某种交易。
And so you get a combination of buyers and sellers, and you hope that you create some type of transaction.
他的做法是收费的，你可以免费参加，但必须拿出30分钟的时间来听推销，我记得是这样，用来安排会议。
And what he does is he charges people, so you can go for free, but you have to offer up a 30 minutes of your time to be pitched, I believe, to set up a meeting.
或者你也可以花钱去安排会议，和某个——
Or you could pay money to set up a meeting with a-
在Shoptalk，现在10分钟的会议要800美元，所以我不知道HLTH那边是什么价格。
They're 800 bucks per 10-minute meeting now at Shoptalk, so I don't know what they are at HLTH.
一次快速会议就要800美元。
They're $800 for a quick meeting.
这些人会挑选各种细分市场，他们会说：“好，这个市场里有很多买家和卖家。”
And these guys pick a variety of niches where they're like, "All right, there's a bunch of buyers and sellers in this market."
他们把这些展会规模扩大的速度，是我见过最快的。
And they scale up these trade shows faster than anyone I've ever seen.
我觉得——
I think-
太厉害了。
It's epic
……而且很多人不知道，他们还经营着其他公司。
... and a lot of people don't know this, they run other companies.
我说的那个人，我回头查一下他的名字，他同时也在一家大型私募股权公司的董事会里。
The guy I'm referring to, I'll find out his name, he's also on the board of a large private equity firm.
这些人都是狠角色，而且不知为什么——
These guys are killers, and for some reason-
狠角色。
Killers
……他们偏偏把展会当作主业，这让所有人都摸不着头脑。
... they pick trade shows as their main thing, which it boggled everyone's mind.
大家就想：“一群搞技术的，明明有更轻松的方式赚钱，干嘛要去做展会这种苦差事？”
It was like, "Why would a bunch of tech guys who can make their money in significantly easier ways start a freaking trade show?"
他们做得非常成功。
They've knocked it out the park.
这个生意模式真是值得好好研究。
It's like a gem of a business to study.
他们确实是宝贝。
They are gems.
我得说，我对Anil了解不多，他是这几家公司的另一位联合创始人，包括Money 20/20和Shoptalk，但有趣的是，他也是偶然进入这个领域的，这算是趋同进化吧。
I will say, I only know Anil a little bit, the other co-founder of these multiple companies, Money 20/20 and Shoptalk, but it is interesting in terms of convergent evolution that he got into it by accident, too.
怎么说？
How so?
他们当初做Money 20/20是为了支持他们的金融科技公司。
They built Money 20/20 to support their fintech.
他们最初并不是想把Money 20/20做成一个独立的业务。
They didn't build Money 20/20 originally to be a standalone business.
他们做这个是为了支持自己的创业公司。
They built it to support their startup.
就像我们很多人办活动是为了支持自己的公司，对吧？
Like many of us do events to support our companies, right?
然后他们——
And they-
乔纳森·韦纳就是那个人。
Jonathan Weiner is the guy.
好吧，我不认识他。
Okay, I don't know him.
我认识另一位。
I know the other one.
然后它就火了。
And it took off.
Money 20/20 火了。
Money 20/20 took off.
后来他们做的 Shoptalk 就像一枚热追踪导弹，对吧？
Then Shoptalk that they did was a heat-seeking missile, right?
这完全是战术性的，他们甚至放弃了很多东西，只做这些付费会议，对吧？
This was totally tactical, and they even gave up on a lot of things and just did these paid meetings, right?
他们就是做了，回到刚才的话题，你是怎么进入某个领域的？
They just did it, and going back to the conversation, how do you get into something?
有时候你会在白板上规划好，但有时候，就像这些人做活动一样，是机会找上门来的。
Sometimes you plan it out on a whiteboard, and sometimes, though, like these guys for these event, it found them.
机会找上门，然后他们顺势而为，成了专家。
It found them, and then they leaned into it and became experts.
不过我不认识乔纳森，但阿尼尔我倒是有点了解。
But I don't know Jonathan, but I do know Anil a bit.
我记得上次见到他的时候，我们聊过，他说：“天哪，这行真难做。”
I remember talking with him the last time I saw him in person, and he's like, "Man, this is a hard business."
像我们或者像我，他做的是软件生意，确实不容易。
Like us or like me, he'd built a software business, and it is hard.
我也不太清楚。
I don't know.
我只是想提醒大家，不管做什么，进入一个领域都比看起来要难得多。
I would just caution folks, like anything, everything's harder than it looks to get into.
我想提醒大家，这行没什么捷径，你得——我相信HLTH办得非常成功，但你必须得……
I would just caution folks that there aren't a lot of shortcuts, and you need-- I'm sure the HLTH is wildly successful, but you've got to be...
这行就是这样，如果你不是前两名，你就一文不值。
It's like this is one of these businesses where if you're not in the top two, you're worthless.
一文不值。
You're worthless.
完全没有价值。
You have no value at all.
什么都没有。
Nothing.
因为它们是平台型的生意。
Because they are marketplaces.
你为什么要去参加一个行业里第四流的活动呢？
Why are you going to go to the fourth-tier event in an industry?
事实上，大多数这样的活动在2020年就消亡了。
And in fact, most of them died out in 2020.
大部分四流的活动都倒闭了。
Most of the fourth-tier stuff died.
我们在办公室和湾区一起工作时，它们还能勉强撑一撑，但大多数都没再回来。
It sort of stumbled around when we all worked together in the office and in the Bay Area, but most of them never came back.
封锁结束后，只有最好的那些真正回来了。
Only the best ones really came back after lockdown.
我再问你最后一个问题。
Let me ask you one last question.
你是个投资人。
You are an investor.
是的。
Yes.
你为自己的初创公司筹过钱，现在你最新的公司是自筹资金的，而且你也是投资人。
So you've raised money for your own startups, and now your latest one's bootstrapped and you're an investor.
你已经向公司投入了数千万甚至数亿美元。
You've deployed tens or hundreds of millions of dollars into companies.
对。
Yep.
我有个理论。
I have a theory.
我觉得，如果创业的首要目标是在五到十年内积累财富，而且这是你最重要的目标之一——
I think that if building wealth in a five or 10 period is your number one or number two priority for starting a company-
是的。
Yes
那你基本上就不该融资，或者只融一点点，而且不应该拿风险投资。
... you should basically raise no money or very little money, and you should not raise venture capital.
你同意还是不同意这个观点？
Do you agree or disagree with that?
如果你的目标是先赚到第一桶金，赚到第一个一百万？
If your goal is to get the first points on the board to make your first millions?
对，我觉得你经常用“钱”或者“小钱”这种词来形容它。
Yeah, I think what you call it, you use the word shekels a lot, or nickels.
如果你想赚点小钱的话。
If you want to get a few nickels.
不，你的第一个。
No, your first.
那已经很多了。
It's a lot.
如果你想要赚到钱，不用再给别人打工，就像我们一开始聊的那样，听我说，这些事情都比看起来要难。
If you want to get the money to not work for the man, where we started this conversation, listen, all this stuff's harder than it looks.
我们都知道，都不容易。
It's all hard, as we know.
但如果你想要以1000万到3000万，或者1000万到5000万的价格退出，这从统计上看还是比看起来难，对吧，但要是超过1000万，那你就只该融一小部分资金。
But if you want to have an exit for $10 to $30 million, $10 to $50 million, which is still harder than it looks statistically, right, but north of 10, then yeah, you want to raise only a fraction of that.
别融那么多。
Don't raise that much.
这里有个简单的思考方式。
Here's a simple way to think about it.
如果你融个几百万美元，这很难，但在网上看起来很容易。
If you raise a couple million dollars, which is hard, it looks easy on the internet.
这确实很难。
It's hard.
但如果你融了几百万美元，你并没有失去任何选择权。
But if you raise a couple million dollars, you've lost no optionality.
你唯一承受的就是一些股权稀释。
The only thing you've suffered is some dilution.
你唯一承受的就是一些股权稀释。
The only thing you've suffered is some dilution.
几百万之后，游戏规则就变了。
After a couple million, the game changes.
几百万之后，游戏规则就变了。
After a couple million, the game changes.
所以，是的，我觉得不融资也有它的道理，但大多数人之所以不融资，是因为他们根本融不到钱。
And so yeah, I think there's something to be said for raising nothing, but most people raise nothing because they can't raise anything.
我觉得如果你能做到只融一轮就结束，那更值得说。
I think there's even more to be said if you can of being one and done.
从五十万到两百万，不管你怎么凑，你用它不是为了给自己发工资。
Anywhere from half a million to two million, whatever you can kluge together, and you use it to not to pay yourself.
那是失败者干的事。
That's what losers do.
你用它来雇几个好人，去降低这个投资的风险，加速这个投资。
You use it to hire a few good people to de-risk this investment, to accelerate this investment.
你用它来雇几个好人，把项目推起来。
You use it to hire a few good people and get it off the ground.
我们大多数人需要一点帮助。
Most of us need a little help.
就像有些人真的可以自己搞定。
Like some folks just literally they can do it on their own.
他们是两个很棒的工程师。
They're two great engineers.
他们不需要任何帮助。
They don't need any help.
他们可以自己搞定。
They can go do it on their own.
我们大多数人不是那种人，尤其是做生意的，自己单干更难，对吧？
Most of us are not those people, especially if you're a business person, it's harder to do it on your own, right?
除非你用WordPress或工具搭个东西，否则自己很难搞定。
Unless you build something on WordPress or tools, it's hard to do on your own.
你需要一点资金。
You need a little bit of money.
但就到此为止。
But stop there.
这样你不仅能保持控制权，稀释也少，而且任何退出方式都行。
Not only do you maintain control and have less dilution, but then any exit works.
任何退出方式都行。
Then any exit works.
一旦你融资超过一千万美元，那可能值得，但如果超过一千万，而且这正好说到你的点子上，现在的人都不明白这一点。
Once you raise more than 10 million, it can be worth it, but if you raise more than 10 million, and this goes to your point, people don't get this in today's world.
如果你融资超过一千万，你就是在为十亿美元的退出做准备了。
If you raise more than 10 million, you're signing up for a billion-dollar exit.
而低于这个数就是让人失望的。
And anything less than that is a disappointment.
可能根本就行不通。
It just might not even work out.
就像有太多变数了。
Like there's so many variables.
你可能会把钱花光。
You may run out of money.
你可能得不到……人们一旦开始融资一千万，也会上瘾于烧更多的钱。
You might not get... People, once you start raising $10 million, you get addicted to burning more money, too.
那会引发很多问题。
There's lots of issues that creep out from that.
但你得下定决心奔着十亿去。
But you've got to commit to a billion.
如果你看不到十亿的潜力，如果你骨子里没这种感觉，那就别去融几千万。
If you don't see a billion dollar, if you don't feel it in your bones, then don't raise double-digit millions.
千万别这么做。
Just don't do it.
一般来说不值得。
It's generally not worth it.
想办法用更少的钱把事情做成，如果你只融几百万或者更少，然后随便卖个什么价，大家都会很淡定。
Find a way to do it with less, and everyone will be chill if you raise single-digit millions or less and sell for whatever.
大家都会很淡定。
Everyone will be chill.
大家都会很淡定。
Everyone will be chill.
一旦你融到几千万，大家就不淡定了。
They're not chill once you get to the double-digit millions.
不轻松的原因有一大堆。
It ain't chill for a long list of reasons.
人们开始期望很多，而且现在太多人觉得风险投资是免费的。
People start expecting a lot, and too many folks these days think that venture capital's free.
它没有成本。
It has no cost.
过去三年，投资者和创始人之间的社会契约已经破裂了。
The social contract between investors and founders has broken down the last three years.
它已经破裂了。
It has broken down.
我刚刚经历了有史以来最惨的一次投资亏损。
I literally just suffered my worst investing loss ever.
我一生投资回报是10倍。
I'm 10X lifetime.
我经历了有史以来最惨的一次投资亏损。
I suffered my worst investing loss ever.
你亏了多少？
How much did you lose?
史上最惨的一次亏损。
Worst loss ever.
五百万，不是全部本金，有一部分是我自己的钱。
Five million of, not all of my capital, some of it's mine.
两百万里亏了五百万，明白吗？
Five million out of 200, okay?
唉。
Ugh.
所以这不会改变我的节奏，但我从来没亏过这么多钱。
So it's not going to change the pace, but I've never lost this much money.
那感觉怎么样？
How does that feel?
你知道那个创始人说了什么吗？
And you know what the founder said?
我尽力了。
I tried hard.
我已经尽我所能了。
I tried my best.
“你担心什么？
"What do you care?
那又不是你的钱。”
It's not really your money."
哦。
Oh.
“你担心什么？那又不是你的钱。”
"What do you care it's not really your money?"
你对此怎么说？
What do you say to that?
你担心什么？
What do you care?
说实话，Sam，我不得不找个朋友来对付他。
Honestly, Sam, I had to bring in a friend to deal with him.
我实在没法再跟他说话了。
I couldn't talk to him again.
我花了好几年时间帮他。
I spent years of my life helping him.
我帮他筹集了所有的钱。
I helped him raise all his money.
我让他免费参加我们所有的SaaStr活动。
I put him in all of our SaaStr events for free.
我多年来一直不停地推广他，然后他说：“你管得着吗？”
I promoted him constantly for years, and then he says, "What do you care?
“又不是你的钱”？
It's not your money"?
我记得我拿了一点天使投资的时候，我就在想：“我就像是这笔钱的管家。”
I remember when I took a little bit of angel money, and I remember thinking like, "I am like a steward of this."
我当时就想，"我得拼了命才能把回报给人家。"
I was like, "I have to die to get a return."
不过我当时也是这种感觉。
That's how I felt, though.
但现在的年轻人可没这种感觉了。
But kids don't feel that way these days.
我当时就想，"这现在就是我的人生使命了。"
I was like, "It's my life's mission now."
因为拿了人家辛辛苦苦赚来的钱，我压力特别大。
Because to take someone's hard-earned money, I felt so much stress.
我压力真的很大。
I felt stress.
我记得我雇了一个有孩子的人，我当时就想，"哦，我现在有孩子了。"
I remember when I hired someone who had a kid, I was like, "Oh, I have a kid now."
然后我记得拿了别人钱的时候，那种压力感又来了。
And then I remember feeling the stress when I took someone's money.
我就想，"这个人刚信任我，给了我两万五千美元。"
I'm like, "This person just trusted me with $25,000.
我宁愿自己挨饿或者去死，也要给他们带来回报，因为如果有人把我的钱弄丢了，我肯定想揍他们一顿。"
I better go hungry or die in order to get a return from them because if someone loses my money, I'm going to want to beat them up."
你懂我的意思吧？
You know what I mean?
这可是件大事。
It's like a big deal.
这就像是我刚拿走了人家的房贷钱。
Like this is someone's mortgage that I just took from them.
我必须得给他们一个好的回报。
I better get a good return.
Jason，真的很感谢你这么做，兄弟。
Jason, I appreciate you doing this, man.
人们在哪里能找到你？
Where do people find you?
在推特上吗？
On Twitter?
你现在是推特用户了，而不是Quora，尽管你是在Quora上出名的。
You're a Twitter guy now instead of Quora, even though you got famous on Quora.
Quora过去五年很好，现在却不存在了。
So Quora was great for five years, and now it's nonexistent.
是的，你可以在推特上找到我，@JasonLK，或者说实话，如果你是商务人士，可以在LinkedIn上找到我。
But yeah, you can find me on Twitter @JasonLK, or honestly, if you're a business-y person, find me on LinkedIn.
兄弟，谢谢你做这个。
Dude, thanks for doing this.
你太棒了。
You're the man.
我很感激你。
I appreciate you.
这就是本期播客。
And that's the pod.
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