20VC: Why You Should Not Always Listen To Your Investors, The Pros and Cons of Strategic Investors & How To Approach Operational Efficiency with Scaling with Florian Leibert, Founder & CEO @ Mesosphere

大家好，欢迎收听二十分钟VC和创始人星期五，我是主持人哈里·斯蒂宾斯，我的Snapchat账号是h Stebbings，两个b哦。

Hello, welcome to the twenty minute VC and Founders Friday with me, your host, Harry Stebbings at h Stebbings with two b's on Snapchat.

今天咱们聊正题，这位特邀创始人。如果你上周一听过我们和领英的艾米丽·蔡的对话，那你知道我们是从大公司角度谈战略投资的。

But to the show today and our featured founder of the day, if you listen to our show on Monday with Emily Choi at LinkedIn, we discuss strategic investments from the incumbent side.

而今天，我们换个角度，从创始人的视角来聊这个话题。

And today, we're embracing that from the founder side.

我很高兴今天请到一位真正改变行业的公司创始人——弗洛里安·莱伯特，Mesosphere的创始人兼CEO。这家公司专注于为容器化、数据密集型应用提供最灵活的基础设施， Yelp、Yammer、Verizon这些行业巨头都在用他们的产品，而且已经从a16z、Kleiner Perkins、Khosla、Data Collective，以及微软、惠普这样的巨头那里融到了超过1.2亿美元。

And I'm thrilled to welcome a truly transformative company today in the infrastructure space with Florian Leibert, founder and CEO at Mesosphere, the most flexible for containerized data intensive applications, and they're trusted by some of the world's leading companies from Yelp to Yammer to Verizon and have raised over a $120,000,000 in funding from the likes of a16z, Kleiner Perkins, Khosla, Data Collective, and then incumbents such as Microsoft and Hewlett Packard.

在创办Mesosphere之前，弗洛里安曾先后在Twitter和Airbnb担任技术负责人。

Prior to founding Mesosphere, Florian spent time with Twitter and Airbnb, both as a tech lead.

这还不算完，他还是个顶级天使投资人，投资过Away行李箱、之前来过节目的Cockroach Labs、Drift、Buoyant这些公司，光是列举几个就挺吓人了。

And if that wasn't enough, Florian has this incredible angel portfolio, including the likes of suitcase company Away, prior guest Cockroach Labs, Drift, and Buoyant, just to name a few.

今天也要特别感谢GFC的Ludwig和Stella为我们牵线搭桥，引荐了弗洛里安。

I also want to say a big thank you to Ludwig and Stella at GFC for the intro to Florian today.

我真的非常感激。

I really do so appreciate that.

不过在见今天的嘉宾之前，新年到了，大家都在关注健康和饮食。

However, before we meet today's guest, it's the new year, and everyone is thinking of health and diet.

所以这个月的合作伙伴关系也会围绕这个主题展开。

And so this month's partnerships will be aligned to that.

你知道吗？办公室零食是员工最想要的福利之一，排名第三，有83%的人认为这是一项非常重要的福利。

And did you know that office snacks are the third most requested perk by employees, with 83% suggesting it to be a huge perk?

这时候，Nature Box就派上用场了。

Well, that's where Nature Box comes in.

Nature Box是首个面向各种规模办公室的无限量零食供应服务。

Nature Box is the first ever unlimited snacking program for offices of all sizes.

每人每月只需12美元起，你可以根据团队需求选择合适的方案，再也不用担心零食断货。

Starting with just $12 per month per employee, you can choose the plan that fits your team and ensure you never run out of snacks again.

如果你觉得身体是殿堂，而我显然不是——毕竟喝了那么多莫吉托——那也不用担心，Nature Box都能搞定。

And if your body is a temple like mine clearly is not with all those mojitos, then have no fear with Nature Box.

配料简单真实，不含人工色素和甜味剂，还提供免费安装、配送，以及专属客户经理。

Real simple ingredients, no artificial colors or sweeteners, and free setup shipping and a dedicated account manager.

现在注册还能享受首月八折优惠，输入优惠码 VC20，访问 www.naturebox.com/VC20 即可。

What's stopping you getting set up today with 20% off your first month using the offer code v c 20 at www.naturebox.com forward slash v c 20?

这真的非常值得。

That really is a must.

保持健康可不只是靠 Nature Box 的健康零食，还包括优质睡眠。接下来要介绍的是 Lisa，它堪称床垫界的 Warby Parker 或 Tom Shoes。

And good health is not just about healthy snacking with Nature Box, but good sleep with Lisa, the Warby Parker or Tom shoes of the mattress industry.

Lisa 彻底改变了传统床垫店糟糕的购物体验，他们推出了这款高端豪华泡沫床垫，完全在线订购，并且免费送货上门。

Lisa have done away with a terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating this luxury premium foam mattress that's ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep.

这款10英寸的床垫有多种尺寸可选，采用了三层独特泡沫结构，能提供通用的自适应睡感。其中包含两英寸的记忆棉，以及两英寸名为Avena的凉感乳胶泡沫，专门设计用来帮你保持凉爽。

And the 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with three unique foam layers for universal adaptive feel, including two inches of memory foam and two inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, which is designed to keep you cool.

所有Lisa品牌的床垫都是在美国或英国100%制造的。

And all Lisa mattresses are a 100% US or UK made.

他们每卖出10张床垫，就会捐赠一张给收容所。

And for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter.

快去lisa.com网站，用更好的睡眠开启新的一年吧。

Head over to lisa.com to start the new year with a better night's sleep.

不过现在咱们正式进入节目，我很高兴邀请到Mesosphere的创始人兼首席执行官弗洛里安·莱伯特。

But it's now time to dive into the show, and I'm thrilled to welcome Florian Leibert, founder and CEO at Mesosphere.

您已到达目的地。

You have now arrived at your destination.

弗洛里安，今天能请到你来做客，真的非常荣幸。

Florian, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today.

特别感谢Jen、Away和Cockroach的Spencer引荐，也衷心感谢你今天抽空参加，弗洛里安。

Huge thanks to Jen and Away and Spencer at Cockroach for the intro, but thank you so much for joining me today, Florian.

非常感谢你邀请我。

Thank you so much for having me.

不用客气，我想先聊聊你个人的经历，你是怎么走上创业之路，最终创办了Mesosphere的？

Not at all, but I'd love to get the ball rolling today by discussing a little bit about you and how you made your way into the world of startups with the founding of Mesosphere.

是的。

Yeah.

当然。

Sure.

我最初在德国完成了计算机科学的学业。

So I started out finishing my degree in Germany in computer science.

毕业后，我去了美国。

And after doing so, I actually went to The US.

我一开始在广告科技行业工作。

I first worked in ad tech.

在广告科技领域，我大量使用Hadoop，那是一个大规模的数据处理系统。

And in ad tech, I worked very much with Hadoop, so a large scale data processing system.

凭借这段经验，我后来被推特录用。

And with that experience, I was actually hired into Twitter.

在推特，我参与了早期‘关注推荐’功能的开发。

And at Twitter, then I I worked on some of the early who to follow.

就是通过图算法来优化社交关系网络，给用户更精准的推荐。

So the graph algorithms tried to densify the graph and give users better recommendations.

之后两年里，我做了不少这类项目，还有其他一些工作。

And from there on, after about two years of doing that and there were many other projects there.

比如我做过用户搜索项目，还参与了把用户搜索系统部署到Mesos的初期工作。

For example, I worked on user search, and I worked on some of the initial deployments for Mesos, for deploying user search to Mesos.

之后我跳槽去了Airbnb，是因为那里有个好朋友在负责工程团队，我就加入了。

From there on, I actually switched over to Airbnb and joined a good friend of mine there who who was running engineering.

在Airbnb，我又继续做了一些早期的搜索算法相关的工作。

And at Airbnb, I worked again on some of this early search algorithms.

我还负责搭建基础设施，组建数据工程团队。

I worked on some of the infrastructure and to build up the data engineering team.

在Airbnb干完这两轮解决互联网公司扩展性问题的项目后，我就觉得，其实每家公司都应该能轻松用上这些现成的技术。

After Airbnb, after working on solving two times these scalability problems for consumer Internet companies, I thought that every company should be able to take advantage of a lot of the technology that's out there.

这些技术虽然都开源了，但要把它们拼起来用起来，还是特别难。

It's being released into open source, but that's still really hard to assemble.

正是这时候，我们创办了Mesosphere。

And that's when we started Mesosphere.

我们的目标就是让构建和扩展改变世界的技术变得简单到不可思议。

We wanted to really make it insanely easy to build and scale world changing technology.

和Mesosphere一起走过的这段路，真是不容易啊。

And and what a journey it's been with Mesosphere.

不过今天我想先聊聊你以前说过的一句话。

But I wanna start today with something that you've said before.

当然，我自己并不主张当风投，但你之前说过，有时候该忽略投资人的意见。

Now, obviously, I don't advocate this being a VC myself, but you said before that sometimes you should ignore your investors.

我想听听你这么说的初衷和背后的思考。

So I'd love to start with this and the thesis and reasoning behind this statement for you.

首先，我们的投资人确实给了很多非常有价值的建议，要没有这些，我们也不可能走到今天。

So first of all, of course, a lot of our investors have a ton of really useful advice, and, I don't think we would be where we are today without this advice.

你说得对。

But you're right.

在种子轮的时候，有一位早期投资人，每次看到我们想做的产品，都一直劝我们走SaaS模式。

One of our early investors during our seed round was always when he saw the product that we wanted to build, was always pushing us towards going for a SaaS model.

如果你了解Mesosphere是做什么的，就知道我们其实是在打造一个面向数据中心和云的操作系统。

Now if you know what Mesosphere does, right, we basically are building a operating system for data centers and clouds.

我们通过提供消息队列，让数据传输变得简单得多，同时还通过运营分布式数据库，让数据存储变得非常容易。

We make it much easier to transport data by providing message queues and and and to make it really easy to store data by providing and operationalizing distributed databases.

我一开始觉得，我们的投资者，至少有些投资者，并没有意识到，这种模式其实不太适合做SaaS，至少不适合我们最初瞄准的市场。

And what I think our investors didn't get initially or some of the investors didn't get initially was that this doesn't really lend itself to a SaaS business, at least not for the market that we were aiming for initially.

我们当时的目标是全球2000强企业，现在则是全球8000强公司。

So we wanted to really target the global 2,000 and now really the global 8,000 companies out there.

这些公司不可能像普通用户那样，刷个信用卡，就在网站上下单买50万美元的产品。

And those companies won't be just putting in a credit card and ordering $500,000 worth of a product on our website.

他们的采购流程非常长，要经过漫长的谈判。

So these are contracts that go through long negotiation cycles.

还得走正式的采购流程。

They go into procurement.

我们刚起步的时候，经常有人建议我们：干脆做个SaaS产品吧。

And we we get this advice in the beginning many times, go build a SaaS product.

但最后发现，这真的不适合做SaaS。

And in the end, just wasn't a good fit for a SaaS product.

好的。

Okay.

所以这建议未必好，也跟咱们正在做的产品不太搭，但怎么跟投资人传达这个决定，确实挺难的。

So not potentially great advice and not kind of aligned to the product that you were building, but a tough kind of subsequent subsequent action in terms of how to communicate that.

我想听听你是怎么坚持自己的方向，同时又不让投资人觉得你忽视了他们的建议，而是选择走自己的路的。

So I'd love to hear how you then kind of pursue your own plans and communicate to the investor that you're going to not ignore their advice, but go your own way, so to speak.

我们当时是这么跟他们沟通的：当然，一开始我们就讨论过，要不要做SaaS业务。

So the way that we communicated this was I mean, we of, of course had the conversation initially, like, hey, should we build a SaaS business?

SaaS模式在很多方面确实有它的优势。

A SaaS business has its advantages in in many ways.

但正如我提到的，也有不少缺点。

But also, of course, as I mentioned, some disadvantages.

最后我们直接跟他们说：这建议非常好，我们非常重视。

And what we ended up doing is we ended up just saying, look, this is this is great advice.

让我们再想想，回头再跟您汇报。

Let us get back to you.

几个月后，我们就跟他们说：我们决定不走这条路了。

And in a couple of months later, we're like, look, this is not the route we decided to go down.

我们现在有了一个真正有市场潜力的产品，而且特别幸运的是，我们早期就拿下了一个大型科技客户，他们在我们这个阶段签了不小的单子。

And we have now a product that we think we can really sell, and it really helped us that we actually had a early a big technology customer that that actually did a fairly large deal for our stage with.

我觉得这给了我们足够的底气，继续坚持自己的方向。

And I think that gave us the ammunition we needed to just continue down our path.

所以你们是先礼貌地认可，再用早期的实际成果来证明自己的判断。

So elegantly acknowledge it and then prove them wrong with early test cases.

这个做法太棒了。

I love that.

我想问一下，如果你是创业者，希望别人用什么样的方式给你这种建议呢？

I I would love to ask, how would you like advice like that to be positive to you?

是那种多位董事围坐一桌的董事会会议吗？

Is it kind of the board meeting with with multiple board members around the table?

还是一对一的沟通？

Is it the one on one communication?

作为一位投资人，你希望VC们怎么把这些建议落实到你身上？

For a VC myself, how would you like VCs to to kind of put that advice to you?

我觉得这要看阶段，但我个人特别喜欢一对一的建议，因为这样能更坦诚地聊所有问题。

I think it depends on the stage, but I think usually I'm a big fan of one on one advice because then you can have a much more honest conversation about about everything.

要是房间里有十来个人，真要深入讨论一些棘手的问题，其实挺难的。

It's it's kind of hard when you're in a room with 10 people or so to really dive in and discuss some really hard issues.

我觉得在小范围，甚至是一对一的环境下，效果要好得多。

I think that's much better in a smaller group or even a one on one setting.

继续说投资人的事，你的投资人里有不少大型传统企业，比如微软、戴尔、HPE。

Staying on the theme of the investor base, within yours, you've got some very large traditional strategics from Microsoft to Dell to HPE.

我想深入聊聊这些合作的优势、风险，以及需要注意的地方。

So I wanna dive on the pros, cons, and and what one should be wary of.

先说好处吧，你觉得相比传统风投，战略投资者最大的优势是什么？

So if we start on the plus side, what do you think strategics can have in terms of kind of significant pros when compared to maybe more traditional VCs?

战略投资者最大的好处是，尤其是在我们这个领域，他们能帮你引荐客户。

So the great thing about strategics is that, especially in our space, they can really help you with introductions to customers.

以HPE和微软为例，它们的资源网络非常庞大。

They usually have a I mean, in the case of HPE and Microsoft, they have a massive amount of connections.

它们有几十万客户，几乎每个企业里都有认识的人。

They have hundreds of thousands of customers, and they pretty much know a lot of people in every organization.

所以它们能帮你牵线搭桥，引荐客户。

So so they can really help you with introductions.

当然，战略投资者的另一个期望是，直接把你的产品纳入他们的销售渠道，帮你代销。

And, of course, the hope also with with strategic is often that they actually pluck your product into their channel so that they actually resell your product.

这其实能大幅降低销售成本，毕竟在销售环节，最大的开销就是销售团队。

And that is actually a way to really lower the cost of your sales because, mean, in sales, the most expensive thing is really the Salesforce.

我想问一下，既然你们的产品会通过它们的平台代销，会不会担心排他性问题？

Can I ask, with such kind of a plug in in terms of that reselling through their platform, is there ever a fear of exclusivity?

其他大公司可能会因为这个战略投资，就不愿意跟你们合作了。

The other large players in the space won't want to because of that and this strategic investment.

我并不是说

I I don't

倒不一定，虽然我们跟慧与合作，但跟戴尔EMC的关系也非常好。

think necessarily because we deal with HPE, but we also actually we also have a really good relationship with Dell EMC.

你看慧与，他们明明知道VMware主要被戴尔EMC收购了，却还是在卖VMware的产品。

And I think if you if you look at HPE, for example, they also resell VMware even though VMware is mostly owned by Dell EMC.

所以我觉得，在这个领域，大公司必须保持一定的中立性。

So I think in this space, the larger players have to be somewhat neutral.

没错。

No.

这说得通。

That makes sense.

通过这种合作，引荐、接入和分销的优势确实非常大。

So incredible pros there in terms of intros, plug ins, reseller wise.

我想听听，跟这些行业巨头合作，有没有什么潜在的弊端或缺点？

I'd love to hear about maybe the potential downsides, and what some drawbacks are to partnering with with large strategic incumbents?

跟那种员工数量远少于高管人数的大公司合作，往往特别耗时间。

So I think when you when you deal with a really large company that has probably more SVPs and VPs than you have employees, it can be a huge time sink.

对吧？

Right?

你可能会花很多时间去追某些项目。

You can spend a lot of time chasing certain projects.

尤其是刚加入的时候，你会成为他们眼中的新宠。

And especially at the beginning when you pulled in, you're the new shiny object for that company.

很多人都想跟你打交道，但并不是所有时间都花得值得。

So a lot of people want to spend time with you, but not all time, I guess, is spent wisely.

所以你得清楚自己想通过这段合作关系达成什么目标。

So you have to have some really clear goals of you what you want to accomplish with this relationship.

而且这些目标也应该决定你该和谁合作，谁才配做你的战略投资方。

And I think those goals should really also dictate who you're going to partner with and who should be your strategic investor.

你有没有担心过，这些大公司内部的推动者一旦离职，转投 VMware 或者其他初创公司或大厂，会带来风险？

Do you ever worry about kind of internal champions within these organizations whereby you work very closely with one, and then there's the potential for one to leave and join VMware or name your startup or or large incumbent?

你有没有担心过，过度依赖某个内部推动者会带来问题？

Do you ever get concerned about that kind of reliance on an internal champion?

是的。

Yes.

在建立这类合作关系时，你必须尽快行动。

I think you have to very quickly when you form one of these partnerships.

大多数情况下，这都是因为有一位核心推动者。

And, of course, most of the time that happens because of one champion.

你得主动去和其他部门建立联系，让他们也能真正帮上你。

You have to really start building relationships with other parts of the company that we can really help you.

你不能把所有希望都押在一个人身上，因为正如你所说，情况会变，人会走，你不想让合作因此受损。

And I think you can't have a single point of failure in in an organization because as you mentioned, like, things change, people leave, and then you don't want the partnership to suffer.

如果我是一名即将进入谈判的初创创始人，你有什么建议吗？在初期会面时，有哪些关键点能让我判断对方未来会不会是个好合作伙伴？

Can I ask if if I was, say, a potential founder entering negotiations with a strategic, are there any advice or kind of core elements you'd tell me to look out for in initial meetings that might kind of determine how good or bad they are to work within the future?

你能很快看出对方有多投入，这能让你预判他们最终会是怎样的合作伙伴。

I think you will realize how strongly they're leaning in, and that will give you an indication of how good of a partner they will be in the end.

就我们的情况而言，HPE和微软的管理团队确实非常重视与我们的合作，这一点非常有利。

I think in our case, for example, it it was really good because we we saw that really the leadership team at HPE and Microsoft wanted to strongly partner with us.

我们之所以能看出来，是因为在谈条款的时候，很多问题都很快解决了。

And we we saw this because when it came to negotiation around the terms, it was many of the issues were resolved very quickly.

他们真的很想把这笔交易敲定。

So they really wanted to get the deal done.

不会。

No.

这说得通。

It makes sense.

我之前请了时代华纳的艾莉森·戈德堡来聊过。

So I had Alison Goldberg on from, Time Warner.

她是时代华纳负责并购的负责人，她说战略合作伙伴确实只适合在B轮及以后的融资阶段考虑。

She's head of m and a at Time Warner, and she said that really strategics also only make sense for kind of b and beyond growth rounds.

你怎么看这个说法？战略伙伴到底什么时候介入最合适？

What's your take on that and maybe the right insertion point for strategics?

是的。

Yeah.

对我们来说，战略投资者是在C轮融资时进入的。

So for us, the strategics came in during our series c financing.

我甚至觉得，那时候正是最合适的时间。

And I would even say, I think it was just the right time.

那时候我们已经足够大，有能力投入资源，比如组建专门的商务拓展团队，帮我们对接惠普和微软这样的大公司。

So we were big enough where we could actually spend resources, meaning headcount, and and have a BD team that could actually help us get plugged into HP and Microsoft.

如果公司太年轻、太小，可能根本没法雇人专门去维护这种关系，也没法帮你跟大公司周旋。

And if you're too young of a company, if you're too small, you might not be able to actually hire someone to really own the relationship and help you navigate this a very large company.

我之前也请过Yelp的并购负责人查德·理查德做客节目，他说战略投资就是慢动作的并购。

I also had Chad Richard, who's head of m and a at Yelp on the show, and he said that strategic investment is slow motion m and a.

我想听听你的看法，作为创始人，你对这种说法怎么看？你认同吗？

I'd love to hear with your multiple strategics, maybe how you feel about this as a founder and whether it's something that you agree with.

我们并不觉得这是慢动作的并购。

So we don't necessarily see that that's slow motion m and a.

在我们这个行业，战略投资者真的能帮我们卖更多产品。

We we really believe that in our line of business, the strategics can really help us selling more of our product.

所以，我认为这才是我们的核心重点。

So that's, I think, the primary focus.

不过在其他行业，情况可能略有不同。

Now I think in other industries, that might be slightly different.

但对我们来说，绝对不是因为觉得这些战略投资者将来一定会收购我们，才选他们的。

But for us, that's, it's certainly not the case that we picked our strategic investors because those were the companies we thought are necessarily going to acquire us.

现在我想把今天的内容收个尾。

Now I do wanna finish this day.

在进入快速问答环节之前，我想从一个更宏观的角度聊聊你这段非凡的成长历程，其中你特别提到的一个关键因素就是人脉。

And before we dive into the quick fire, with maybe a more meta perspective across incredible scaling journey for you and one element that you've attributed a lot to is the element of network.

我接触过的很多创始人认为，人脉应该是次要的，重点应该全放在产品上。

Many founders I speak to suggest it should be secondary, and it's all heads down on products.

那你如何看待人脉？它带来了哪些优势？你是怎么有意识地去建立并有效利用它的？

So how do you think about network and and the advantages and how you've really looked to kind of not only build it, but use it effectively?

真正有效地利用。

Effectively.

对。

Yeah.

所以我觉得保持人脉联系、通过引荐认识人特别重要。

So I think it's super important to be connected and to to get introductions.

我觉得尤其在面向企业的销售里，你不可能光靠网站就把东西卖出去。

I think especially in enterprise sales, you don't sell things over a website.

所以你得在目标公司里有人脉，这非常关键。

So it's super important that you have the right ins at the companies you're you're dealing with.

然后，当然，你需要建立一段关系。

And then, of course, you want to establish a relationship.

涉及到非常大的交易时，供应商和客户之间的关系需要投入大量精力，你得花不少时间跟客户待在一起。

A vendor customer relationship is when it comes to very large deals, requires a lot of work, and you need to spend a significant amount of your time with your customers.

不过我觉得，这其实也有助于把从客户那里得到的反馈反哺到产品里。

But I think that's actually also useful to then plug the learnings that you get back into the product.

因为如果你花很多时间跟客户打交道，你就能摸清他们到底想要什么，以及他们愿意多掏钱买什么。

Because if you spend a lot of time with your customers, you'll figure out what they want and what they would pay probably more money for.

我们有三位联合创始人。

So we have three cofounders.

本和托比是我的另外两位联合创始人，我们花大量时间一起打磨产品。

So Ben and Toby are my other cofounders, and we spend an enormous amount of on product together.

目前托比和我更多在外面跑客户，本则主要在内部推动流程、主导工程工作，把产品和工程团队更好地整合起来。

Toby and I right now are more in the field, and Ben is really internally driving process and driving engineering and and integrating the product and engineering organizations.

但我们三个人还是会花很多时间，把从客户网络里收集到的反馈重新融入到产品里。

But the three of us still spend a lot of time taking the customer feedback from our network that we have and put it back into the product.

我能问个问题吗？

Can I ask?

前几天我请了Intercom的德斯·特雷纳做节目，他说在把客户反馈融入产品路线图时，一个常见问题是太针对个别需求了。

I had Des Trainer from Intercom on the show the other day, and he said with regards to kind of combining customer feedback with product road map that a common issue is that you solve their specific needs.

这让我很感兴趣。

And I'm intrigued.

你们是怎么在吸收客户反馈、融入产品时，避免做得太具体化的？

How do you think about kind of listening and adopting customer feedback with the integration into product without maybe doing it too specifically?

我觉得这是一场数字游戏。

I think it's a numbers game.

你得跟很多客户聊，然后才能看出他们共同关注的是什么。

I think you have to talk to a lot of customers, and then you see what they all converge on.

真正的痛点在哪里？

What are the real pain points?

我们的产品非常非常复杂。

And our product is very, very complex.

所以当然会有一些特定的使用场景。

So there are, of course, certain use cases.

我觉得这更像是一门艺术，而不是科学——要把这些场景归类，找出它们的共性。

And I think this is really more of an art than a science as to cluster these use cases together and identify what are the commonalities.

没有两个使用场景是完全一样的，但其中不少确实很相似。

No two use cases are exactly alike, but we see a lot of similarities in some of them.

我觉得在动手开发之前，你得先见过足够多的情况。

And I think you need to have seen a certain amount before you go in and build something.

如果你只跟两三个客户聊，很可能最后做出来的东西根本不对路。

I think if you just talk to two or three customers, you're probably going to end up building the wrong things.

但如果你看一百个客户，就会发现里面其实就十来个主要使用场景，把这些场景归类后，再分析每个场景的订单规模，就能做出更明智的决定——比如，如果我重点投入这个方向，我的平均销售额就能提上去。

But if you if you look at a 100 customers and you'll find, oh, there's there's, like, 10 main use cases in those, and you can group those together, and then you can do analysis and figure out, like, what's the deal size in in each of these use cases, you can make really much more informed decisions figure out if I double down here, I'm going to increase my average sales price.

而如果我专注另一个使用场景，可能反而能覆盖更广的客户群体。

And maybe if I double down in this in this other use case, I get a much broader customer base.

所以当然不能只听几个人的意见，但你确实得经常跟客户交流。

So it is, of course, important to not just listen to a couple of people, but I think you should definitely talk to your customers.

说到那些有经验、能给你建议的人，我之前跟AppDynamics的Jyoti Ban Sal聊过，他提到，像你现在所处的阶段，甚至正在进入的这个阶段，最关键的是要把两件事做对。

Speaking of those people that that can give advice and have maybe been there before, I had a Jyoti Ban Sal at AppDynamics on, and he suggested that at the stage that you're in and and maybe entering as we speak, it's crucial to get two things right.

第一件事，是销售执行。

First being sales execution.

那你对这一点怎么看？

So how do you think about this?

你在实现这一点的过程中，有哪些经验教训？遇到过什么核心困难吗？

And what's been the the lessons in your achieving this and any core struggles?

我们早期在销售团队搭建时遇到的主要困难是，招进来的一些人背景不对，跟我们的行业不太匹配。

The struggles that we've had early on in our sales in our sales organization was we brought some people in with the wrong DNA that were really not familiar with our space, and they had a different background.

我觉得做销售，关键是要找到适合做客户经理的人选。

And I think we I think for sales, you really need to find the right prototype for an account executive.

对我们来说，这类人通常跟大企业里有很多人脉关系，而且往往只服务过少数几家大客户。

And for us, those are people that have a lot of relationships into very large organizations, and they've oftentimes worked just with a handful of very large customers.

所以这部分是我们得慢慢摸索出来的经验。

So that was one part that we had to learn.

另外一点是，当然，我们不想在没有一个销售完全上手的情况下就招五个销售人员，意思是这个人还没有完成全部的销售指标。

And the other part is, of course, we don't wanna hire five sales people when you don't have a single one fully ramped, meaning that person hasn't achieved the entire quota yet.

你应该慢慢建立你的销售团队，而不是在你还没弄清楚销售模式的时候，就一下子塞进去一堆销售主管。

You want to really build out your sales organization slowly and not just drop a bunch of sales executives in there when you haven't really figured out what your sales motion is.

我觉得很多公司，特别是当你融到很多钱的时候，很容易就想把销售团队迅速扩大。

I think a lot of companies, especially when you raise a lot of money for a lot of companies, when you raise a lot of money, it's enticing to just scale up the sales organization.

但我认为销售效率真的很关键，因为在最初的六个月左右，他们通常什么都卖不出去。

But I think sales efficiency is really key because in the first six months or so, they oftentimes don't sell anything.

对吧？

Right?

他们还在适应阶段。

They're still ramping up.

这意味着整个销售团队的成本非常高。

And that means that it's a very expensive organization.

你看那些大型上市的软件基础设施公司，销售费用通常占总支出的40%左右。

I mean, if you look at the large public software infrastructure companies, sales oftentimes makes up 40% or so of their expense.

所以这确实是个高成本的部门，你得特别谨慎地规划如何组建和扩张它。

So it's a very expensive organization, and you just want to be really mindful about how you build and scale it.

我对其中一点很感兴趣。

I'm intrigued on on one element.

你多次提到你们主打高ACV企业客户的销售模式。

You've said multiple times about your kind of model in terms of selling high ACV enterprise clients.

我最近跟很多初创公司聊过，他们经常跟我说：有大公司主动提出要试用三个月，而且不要钱。

I speak to many startups today, and they often say to me, oh, you know, we've been offered pilots for three months, nonpaid by large incumbents.

你觉得在非常早期的时候，企业愿意参与这种免费试用吗？

What's your take on the kind of willingness to engage in these nonpaid pilots in the very, very early days?

你对试用模式本身怎么看？你会怎么建议别人处理这个问题？

What was your take on the pilot model itself, and and how do you advise on that?

我们早期确实做过几个免费试用，从中收获了很多。

So we did early on a couple of nonpaid pilots, and I think we learned a lot from them.

那时候我们还没有庞大的客户群。

That was when we didn't have a large customer base.

所以我们就借这些试用来打磨产品。

So we took these pilots to really refine our product.

从这个角度看，我们确实得到了回报。

So in that way, we gained something.

但我觉得，不管是付费还是免费试用，最关键的是要提前明确成功标准。

But I think it's super important when you go into a pilot, paid or or unpaid, actually, actually, to identify the success criteria.

只要这一点做对了，试用结束时基本就能顺利成交。

And if you do that right, you basically can then make a sale upon completion of the pilot.

我们最早做的那个试点项目，根本没明确成功标准，或者我们以为自己定了，但客户其实有自己的标准，两者根本对不上。

I think that our very first pilot we went into, we didn't identify success criteria, or at least we thought we had our success criteria, but the customer actually had her own success criteria, and they just didn't overlap.

结果这成了大问题，因为后来这笔生意根本没谈成。

So that was a big problem in the end because that sale actually never happened afterwards.

两边都花了大量时间，结果全白费了。

So it was a lot of time spent on both sides that was essentially wasted.

现在我们的做法是，坐下来好好谈。

And now what we do is, like, we sit down.

我们的销售工程和解决方案团队会和客户一起，共同确定一组目标，然后围绕这些目标来推进。

Our sales engineering and solutions team, they sit down with the customers, and we and the customer agree on a set of common goals, and then we execute to those goals.

没错。

No.

完全正确。

Absolutely.

我同意。

I agree.

这还避免了先做试点、再签正式合同的双重销售流程。

It also removes the kind of double sales process of first pilot and then actual contracts afterwards.

乔西提到的第二点是，在这个阶段实现运营效率并成为核心。

The second element that I do wanna touch on from Jossi was he said about achieving operational efficiency and being core at this stage.

你如何看待规模化之后的情况？

How do you think about this at scale?

过去遇到过哪些核心挑战？你认为现在还有哪些？

And what have been and do you perceive to be maybe some core challenges?

是的。

Yeah.

随着公司规模扩大，流程的重要性会越来越凸显。

So I think as you scale a company, process becomes much more important.

我觉得这在所有组织里都一样，不只是销售部门。

And I think that happens across all organizations, not just sales.

流程、产品和工程团队的配合真的特别关键。

It's really important to have process and product and engineering.

我记得刚起步的时候，就我们几个创始人和几个工程师，那时候连产品管理都还没有。

I remember when we were first just the founders and a couple of engineers, and we didn't even have really product management initially.

我们有个想法，就直接开始做了。

We would come up with an idea, and then we would start implementing it.

这种做法在早期确实挺好，也很有效。

Now that's great, and that's great in the early phases.

但到了后面，你真正需要做的，是把所有用户需求都写下来。

But I think later on, what you really need to do is you need to write all of your user stories down.

然后得弄清楚，这些需求怎么转化成Jira里的任务条目。

You need to then actually figure out, like, how does this translate into Jira tickets?

怎么把大的任务拆成小的，一个个完成？

How how can we break these big tasks down into smaller tasks and get them done?

所以流程变得特别关键，这其实就是从初创阶段到成熟阶段的巨大转变。

So process becomes super important, and I think it's just a big transformation from early stage to later stage.

而流程的核心，就是提高效率。

And process is all about being efficient.

不对。

No.

我完全同意你的看法。

I couldn't agree with you more.

不过我想进入我最喜欢的一个访谈环节——快速问答环节。

But I do wanna move into my favorite element there of any interview, being a quick fire round.

我会说一句简短的话，然后你马上分享你的第一反应，每条大约六十秒。

So I say a short statement, and then you give me your immediate thoughts in about sixty seconds per one.

你觉得怎么样，弗洛里安？

How does that sound, Florian?

好的。

Sure.

听起来不错。

That sounds great.

你最喜欢的一本书是什么？为什么？如果流落荒岛，你会带哪本书？

So your favorite book and why, Desert Island, what are you taking with you?

我会带《牧羊少年奇幻之旅》这本书，作者是保罗·柯艾略。

I'm taking The Alchemist by Paulo Coelho.

这是一本特别棒的书，我是在刚开始做Mesosphere之前刚读完的。

Was It an awesome book that I actually read right before starting Mesosphere.

我觉得这本书讲得很清楚：人生路上总会遇到各种挫折，但你也会在路上学到很多宝贵的东西。

And I think this book really outlines that on your journey, lot of things go wrong, but you'll learn a lot of great things on the way.

只要你坚持站起来，继续走下去，一切都会好起来的。

And as long as you continue to get up and continue on your journey, everything's gonna be fine.

云计算的时代结束了，对还是错？

The end of cloud computing, true or false?

我没法说对还是错，但眼下边缘计算确实正在兴起。

Well, I I can't say it's true or false, but I think there's certainly something happening right now at the edge.

现在有很多公司来找我们，说：你看。

So we we're seeing a lot of companies coming to us and saying, like, look.

他们觉得计算资源正在大量向云端迁移，但同时也有大量计算必须发生在边缘，因为产生的数据量实在太庞大了。

We believe that there's a lot of compute that's moving to the cloud, but also a lot of computing has to happen at the edge because the amount of data that's being generated is just exploding.

这些数据每年以40%的复合速度增长，你根本不可能把所有这些数据都塞进一个中心化的系统里。

So that data is growing at 40% compounded annually, and you just won't be able to just put all of this data into a centralized system.

我们在联网汽车上就看到了这种情况。

So so we see this with connected cars.

就连游轮上也是如此。

We see this with even cruise ships.

现在，我们每艘游轮上都部署了边缘云。

So today, we have actually cloud, an edge cloud on each of the cruise ships.

这虽然还是云，但不是集中式的云。

So while it's still a cloud, it's not a centralized cloud.

这想法太棒了。

Love that.

你在Airbnb和Twitter的经历中，最大的收获是什么？

What about the big learnings from your time with Airbnb and Twitter?

我觉得很多人太纠结于Tidal了。

Think I a lot of people obsess too much about Tidal.

谢丽尔·桑德伯格说得最到位。

Sheryl Sandberg said this best.

有人请你上火箭，你不会问坐哪儿。

When you're offered a seat on a rocket ship, you don't ask which seat.

在高速增长的公司里，你能学到的东西太多了，机会也多得是，所以真没必要纠结坐哪儿。

And I think you learn so much at companies that go through this hyperscale mode, and you get so many opportunities to contribute that, yeah, you shouldn't be focused on Tidal.

旧金山今天下雨了。

It's a rainy day in San Francisco.

你平时最爱看哪个博客或者通讯？

What's the favorite blog or newsletter for you?

我喜欢Seeking Alpha，因为它跟我日常工作关系不大，正好能让我学点金融知识。

I love Seeking Alpha because it doesn't really have that much to do with my day job, so I love to learn about finance.

这个不错。

That's a great one.

倒数第二个问题，这几年里，你有没有改变过什么以前深信不疑的看法？

Penultimate one, what did you believe that you've maybe changed your mind on over the last few years?

我从工程领域出来的时候，根本没意识到销售在公司里有多重要。

So I came out of engineering, and I never really understood how important sales in a company is.

我当初天真地以为，做企业销售只要产品够好，自然就会卖出去。

I guess my naive way of going into starting a company in enterprise sales was that if you build a great product, it's going to sell itself.

但销售真的特别关键。

But sales is super important.

它和打造好产品一样重要。

It's equally important to building a great product.

那我们最后再聊一下。

And then let's finish.

未来五年，对你和Mesosphere来说，有什么打算？

On the next five years, for you and for Mesosphere, what have we got in store?

我们最大的目标就是让打造和扩展改变世界的技术变得无比简单。

We really want to execute on our mission to make it insanely easy to build and scale world changing technology.

我们也希望帮助企业在数字化转型的道路上走得更远。

And we really want to help companies in their journey of digital transformation.

正如马克·安德森曾说过的，软件正在吞噬世界，每家公司都得变成一家软件公司。

As Mark Andreessen famously said, software is eating the world, and every company has to become a software company.

我们希望帮助每一家公司完成这场转型。

We want to help every company on this journey.

弗洛里安，就像我之前说的，我从很多人那里听到了对你的高度评价。

Florian, as I said, I heard so many great things from so many different people.

非常感谢你今天来参加我的节目，我真的很期待Mesosphere未来的路。

So huge, thank you for joining me today, and I can't wait to see the road ahead for Mesosphere.

谢谢你，哈里。

Thank you, Harry.

能来这儿真的很开心。

Great being here.

Mesosphere接下来的日子一定会非常精彩，再次衷心感谢弗洛里安今天抽出时间来做客。

Some truly very exciting times ahead for Mesosphere, and I wanna say a huge thank you again to Florian for giving up his time today to appear on the show.

如果你想了解更多他的动态，可以在Twitter上关注他，账号是Flo，f l o。

If you'd like to see more from him, you can find him on Twitter at Flo, f l o.

我们也非常欢迎你来了解一下我们‘20分钟VC’的幕后故事。

Likewise, we'd love to see you behind the scenes here at the twenty minute VC.

你可以在Snapchat上关注我们，账号是h Stebbings，两个b。

You can find us on Snapchat at h Stebbings with two b's.

期待在那儿见到你。

It'd be great to see you there.

不过在结束之前，新年到了，大家都开始关注健康和饮食，所以这个月的合作项目也会围绕这个主题展开。

But before we leave you today, it's the new year, and everyone is thinking of health and diet, and so this month's partnerships will be aligned to that.

你知道吗？办公室零食是员工最希望获得的第三大福利，高达83%的人都认为这是一项非常重要的福利。

And did you know that office snacks are the third most requested perk by employees with 83% suggesting it to be a huge perk?

这时候，Nature Box就派上用场了。

Well, that's where Nature Box comes in.

Nature Box是首个为各种规模办公室提供的无限量零食服务。

Nature Box is the first ever unlimited snacking program for offices of all sizes.

每人每月只需12美元起，你可以根据团队需求选择合适的方案，从此再也不用担心零食断货。

Starting with just $12 per month per employee, you can choose the plan that fits your team and ensure you never run out of snacks again.

如果你觉得身体是殿堂——当然，我这满是莫吉托的身体肯定不算——那也不用担心，Nature Box 都能搞定。

And if your body is a temple like mine clearly is not with all those mojitos, then have no fear with Naturebox.

成分简单真实，没有人工色素和甜味剂，免费安装配送，还配专属客户经理。

Real simple ingredients, no artificial colors or sweeteners, and free setup shipping and a dedicated account manager.

现在就去 www.naturebox.com/vc20 用优惠码 VC20 下单吧，首月八折，还有什么理由拖延呢？

What's stopping you getting set up today with 20% off your first month using the offer code v c 20 at www.naturebox.com forward slash v c 20.

这真的太值得了。

That really is a must.

健康生活不光靠 Nature Box 的健康零食，还得靠好睡眠——就像床垫界的 Warby Parker 或 Tom's，Lisa 就是这样的品牌。

And good health is not just about healthy snacking with Nature Box, but good sleep with Lisa, the Warby Parker or Tom shoes of the mattress industry.

Lisa 彻底改变了糟糕的床垫实体店购物体验，直接在线下单，送免费送货上门，给你一款高端记忆棉床垫。

Lisa have done away with a terrible mattress showroom buying experience by creating this luxury premium foam mattress that's ordered completely online and ships for free to your doorstep.

这款十英寸床垫有各种尺寸，采用三层独特泡沫设计，带来全人群适配的舒适感，包括两英寸的记忆棉和两英寸特别的 Avena 天然乳胶棉，能帮你保持凉爽。

And the 10 inch mattress comes in all sizes and is engineered with three unique foam layers for universal adaptive feel, including two inches of memory foam and two inches of a really cool latex foam called Avena, which is designed to keep you cool.

所有 Lisa 床垫都完全在美国或英国制造。

And all Lisa mattresses are a 100% US or UK made.

每卖出十张床垫，他们就会捐赠一张给收容所。

And for every 10 mattresses they sell, they donate one to a shelter.

去 lisa.com 网站，用更好的睡眠开启新的一年。

Head over to lisa.com to start the new year with a better night's sleep.

一如既往，非常感谢大家的支持，我们已经迫不及待想在下周的节目中与大家见面了。

As always we so appreciate all your support and cannot wait to bring you next week's episode.