網路小狐的家

Evan Williams的原文 http://evhead.com/2005/11/ten-rules-for-web-startups.asp

以下為中文摘錄評註:洪波的偏見
http://blog.donews.com/keso/archive/2005/11/28/641152.aspx


web創業的十個原則

請注意，下文並不是原文的翻譯。


Evan Williams是Blogger的創始人，也是podcast服務網站Odeo的創始人和CEO。他根據
自己的體會，列出了Web創業應該遵循的10條戒律（Ten Rules for Web Startups），摘
錄並評注如下：

1. 收縮：專注於一個盡可能小的可能存在的難題，而你又能夠解決這個難題。不要
想著什麼都做，貪多嚼不爛，搞不好就成了模仿者。小可以變大，船小好調頭，小可以帶
給你很多優勢，縫隙市場可以變成一個大市場。不要試圖把1億上網用戶都當成你的用戶
，沒用，能真正解決一部分用戶的一部分需求，就足夠你玩兒的。

2. 差異：要記住很多人都在做著跟你一樣的事情，而其中一個是Google。在這個市
場上，專才比通才有用。不一定要做多麼領先的事情，尋常的事情你同樣可以做得跟別人
不一樣，比如Google。起名字也不要用那些通用辭彙，比如像博客網、中國博客網、亞洲
博客網、世界博客網之類的，太多了沒人分得清誰是誰。

3. 隨意：隨意的網路要大於刻意的網路，因為人們還要生活。創建一種服務讓它適
應並對人們每天的生活有所助益，而不要要求太多的承諾或改變他們的身份。放輕鬆，很
多時候，偶然的需要讓你的服務更有價值，就像Skype上偶然發生的對話。既然生活本身
就是隨意的、偶然的，不要總是試圖限制用戶。

4. 挑剔：這一點適用於很多方面：服務的特性、員工、投資者、合作夥伴、記者採
訪等等。如果感覺某樣東西不太對勁，就放一放。Google最強大的力量之一，就是他們樂
於對機會、快錢、可能的雇員以及交易說不。但很多人太心切，太怕錯過這村沒這店，所
以往往來者不拒，最終將會後悔。

5. 以用戶為中心：用戶體驗就是一切。你的整個公司都必須建立在這上面，如果你
不懂什麼叫以用戶為中心的設計，趕快學，雇用懂的人。把對的特性做對，遠超過添加一
百個特性。Ajax是為了讓網站更互動，而不是因為它很性感。API是為了讓開發者更容易
為用戶增加價值，而不是為了去取悅geek們。

6. 自我本位：偉大的產品從來都是來自一個人自身的渴求。創造你自己需要的產品
，成為你自己產品的用戶，雇用你的產品的用戶，按你自己的願望改善它。另一方面，避
免在費用、用戶、或者有可能妨礙你改善產品等方面，跟大公司做交易。因為你小他們大
，你很難說不。

7. 饑渴：有選擇永遠好過沒選擇，最好的辦法就是有收入。要為你的產品設計出收
費模式並在6個月內開始有進項，這樣你才會有市場費用。而且，有收入也會讓你在融資
或收購談判中，處於更有利的位置。不過在中國可能沒這麼簡單，為了賺錢而讓服務變形
的事總是在發生著。

8. 苗條：保持低成本是一種Web創業智慧。能使用互聯網上現有的服務，就不要花
錢買。如果你希望被大公司收購，就更不能讓自己顯得很龐雜，小公司更容易被收購。
TimO'Reilly說過，如果你看到一家公司在市場活動上花很多錢，你可以肯定地知道，這不是
一家Web 2.0公司。充分利用互聯網現成的資源，也是一種能力。

9. 靈活：要學會改變計畫。Pyra最初要做的是一個專案管理程式，而不是Blogger。
Flickr最初要做的是遊戲。Ebay最初也只是想銷售拍賣軟體。最初的設想幾乎永遠都是錯
的。一開始就認定自己是對的，很可能撞上南牆。要把創業過程，變成一個BETA過程，不
斷debug，不斷調整，不斷改進。

10. 平衡：初創公司是什麼樣？目光迷離、睡眠不足、垃圾食品充饑、咖啡提神……
還有呢？要知道，自然要求健康的平衡，當平衡成為你的公司的一部分，你就擁有了一樣秘密
武器。需要玩兒命，也需要玩兒。一個充滿活力的平衡的團隊，也會給人更多的信任和期
待。

11. 謹慎（這個是額外的獎勵）：不要拿上面的戒律當成金科玉律，凡事總有例外。



Evan Williams的原文

#1: Be Narrow
Focus on the smallest possible problem you could solve that would potentially be useful. Most companies start out trying to do too many things, which makes life difficult and turns you into a me-too. Focusing on a small niche has so many advantages: With much less work, you can be the best at what you do. Small things, like a microscopic world, almost always turn out to be bigger than you think when you zoom in. You can much more easily position and market yourself when more focused. And when it comes to partnering, or being acquired, there's less chance for conflict. This is all so logical and, yet, there's a resistance to focusing. I think it comes from a fear of being trivial. Just remember: If you get to be #1 in your category, but your category is too small, then you can broaden your scope—and you can do so with leverage.

#2: Be Different
Ideas are in the air. There are lots of people thinking about—and probably working on—the same thing you are. And one of them is Google. Deal with it. How? First of all, realize that no sufficiently interesting space will be limited to one player. In a sense, competition actually is good—especially to legitimize new markets. Second, see #1—the specialist will almost always kick the generalist's ass. Third, consider doing something that's not so cutting edge. Many highly successful companies—the aforementioned big G being one—have thrived by taking on areas that everyone thought were done and redoing them right. Also? Get a good, non-generic name. Easier said than done, granted. But the most common mistake in naming is trying to be too descriptive, which leads to lots of hard-to-distinguish names. How many blogging companies have "blog" in their name, RSS companies "feed," or podcasting companies "pod" or "cast"? Rarely are they the ones that stand out.

#3: Be Casual
We're moving into what I call the era of the "Casual Web" (and casual content creation). This is much bigger than the hobbyist web or the professional web. Why? Because people have lives. And now, people with lives also have broadband. If you want to hit the really big home runs, create services that fit in with—and, indeed, help—people's everyday lives without requiring lots of commitment or identity change. Flickr enables personal publishing among millions of folks who would never consider themselves personal publishers—they're just sharing pictures with friends and family, a casual activity. Casual games are huge. Skype enables casual conversations.

#4: Be Picky
Another perennial business rule, and it applies to everything you do: features, employees, investors, partners, press opportunities. Startups are often too eager to accept people or ideas into their world. You can almost always afford to wait if something doesn't feel just right, and false negatives are usually better than false positives. One of Google's biggest strengths—and sources of frustration for outsiders—was their willingness to say no to opportunities, easy money, potential employees, and deals.

#5: Be User-Centric
User experience is everything. It always has been, but it's still undervalued and under-invested in. If you don't know user-centered design, study it. Hire people who know it. Obsess over it. Live and breathe it. Get your whole company on board. Better to iterate a hundred times to get the right feature right than to add a hundred more. The point of Ajax is that it can make a site more responsive, not that it's sexy. Tags can make things easier to find and classify, but maybe not in your application. The point of an API is so developers can add value for users, not to impress the geeks. Don't get sidetracked by technologies or the blog-worthiness of your next feature. Always focus on the user and all will be well.

#6: Be Self-Centered
Great products almost always come from someone scratching their own itch. Create something you want to exist in the world. Be a user of your own product. Hire people who are users of your product. Make it better based on your own desires. (But don't trick yourself into thinking you are your user, when it comes to usability.) Another aspect of this is to not get seduced into doing deals with big companies at the expense or your users or at the expense of making your product better. When you're small and they're big, it's hard to say no, but see #4.

#7: Be Greedy
It's always good to have options. One of the best ways to do that is to have income. While it's true that traffic is now again actually worth something, the give-everything-away-and-make-it-up-on-volume strategy stamps an expiration date on your company's ass. In other words, design something to charge for into your product and start taking money within 6 months (and do it with PayPal). Done right, charging money can actually accelerate growth, not impede it, because then you have something to fuel marketing costs with. More importantly, having money coming in the door puts you in a much more powerful position when it comes to your next round of funding or acquisition talks. In fact, consider whether you need to have a free version at all. The TypePad approach—taking the high-end position in the market—makes for a great business model in the right market. Less support. Less scalability concerns. Less abuse. And much higher margins.

#8: Be Tiny
It's standard web startup wisdom by now that with the substantially lower costs to starting something on the web, the difficulty of IPOs, and the willingness of the big guys to shell out for small teams doing innovative stuff, the most likely end game if you're successful is acquisition. Acquisitions are much easier if they're small. And small acquisitions are possible if valuations are kept low from the get go. And keeping valuations low is possible because it doesn't cost much to start something anymore (especially if you keep the scope narrow). Besides the obvious techniques, one way to do this is to use turnkey services to lower your overhead—Administaff, ServerBeach, web apps, maybe even Elance.

#9: Be Agile
You know that old saw about a plane flying from California to Hawaii being off course 99% of the time—but constantly correcting? The same is true of successful startups—except they may start out heading toward Alaska. Many dot-com bubble companies that died could have eventually been successful had they been able to adjust and change their plans instead of running as fast as they could until they burned out, based on their initial assumptions. Pyra was started to build a project-management app, not Blogger. Flickr's company was building a game. Ebay was going to sell auction software. Initial assumptions are almost always wrong. That's why the waterfall approach to building software is obsolete in favor agile techniques. The same philosophy should be applied to building a company.

#10: Be Balanced
What is a startup without bleary-eyed, junk-food-fueled, balls-to-the-wall days and sleepless, caffeine-fueled, relationship-stressing nights? Answer?: A lot more enjoyable place to work. Yes, high levels of commitment are crucial. And yes, crunch times come and sometimes require an inordinate, painful, apologies-to-the-SO amount of work. But it can't be all the time. Nature requires balance for health—as do the bodies and minds who work for you and, without which, your company will be worthless. There is no better way to maintain balance and lower your stress that I've found than David Allen's GTD process. Learn it. Live it. Make it a part of your company, and you'll have a secret weapon.

#11 (bonus!): Be Wary
Overgeneralized lists of business "rules" are not to be taken too literally. There are exceptions to everything.
posted by Ev. on Sunday, November 27, 2005 | permalink | links to this post