The Venture Capital Aptitude Test （翻译）

全文见： http://blog.guykawasaki.com/2006/11/the_venture_cap.html
文章主要是针对越来越多的年轻人涉及vc领域提的一些观点和建议。可以给我们带来很多的思考，不仅仅是vc，在各个领域，你都需要很多相关的知识去使你成功，这些相关背景知识如果你缺乏很可能是你失败的因素。GuyKawasaki的风格我非常喜欢，简洁、幽默、搞笑，而且意义深刻。 推荐大家读都他的the start of art。

有些直译不好理解，所以自己边看边写，有自己的体会。再次论证做成功一件事需要积累，无需太急。

2006-11-30    From GuyKawasaki

Venture capital is something to do at the end of your career, not the beginning. It should be your last job, not your first.

My theory is that when you’re young, you should work eighty hours a week to create a product or service that changes the world.

Entrepreneurs should view any young person who opted for venture capital over “real world” experience with contempt.

Financial models are almost totally irrelevant because there’s no financial wizardry involved in making a good product and selling the heck out of it.

Engineering is useful because it helps you understand the technology that you’re investing in—for example, is the entrepreneur trying to defy the laws of physics?

Part I: Work Background

What is your background?

• Engineering (add 5 points)
• Sales (add 5 points)
• Management consulting (subtract 5 points)
• Investment banking (subtract 5 points)
• Accounting (subtract 5 points)
• MBA (subtract 5 points)

The ideal venture capitalist has an engineering or a sales background. Engineering is useful because it helps you understand the technology that you’re investing in—for example, is the entrepreneur trying to defy the laws of physics? Sales is useful because every entrepreneur has to introduce a product and sell it. For the third time in this blog, let me say, “Sales fixes everything.”  

加五分：工科背景可以帮助你很好地理解你的产品；销售背景，每一个企业主不得不去介绍一个产品并将其卖出。

The three worst backgrounds for a venture capitalist are management consulting, investment banking, and accounting. Management consulting is bad because it leads you to believe that implementation is easy and insights are hard when the opposite is true in startups. Investment banking is bad because it leads you to believe that everything can be reduced to cells on a spreadsheet and that companies should be built for Wall Street, not customers. Moreover, investment bankers are oriented towards doing deals, not building companies. Accounting is bad because it leads you to believe that history not only repeats itself, it predicts the future.

减五分：咨询管理会让你觉得实现起来会比较容易而且会考虑很周到。而实际上在起初启动的时候恰恰相反；银行背景会让专注于电子表格和上市，而忽视消费者真正的需求。此外，有银行背景更善于去经营而非创业。会计背景会让你过多关注历史而忽视现在正在上演的和将来的前景。

Finally, there is the issue of the pertinence of an MBA to venture capital. The upside is that such a degree can provide additional tools and knowledge (such as calculating that 25% of $1.6 billion is $400 million) to help you make investment decisions and to assist entrepreneurs. The downside is that earning this degree (and I have one) causes most people to develop the hollow arrogance of someone who’s never been tested. All told, the downside of an MBA outweighs the upside.

作者的意思是说：MBA能够很好地去进行投资决策和帮助企业主，但是负面的就是MBA会对那些没有真正实践的人有傲慢慢情绪，总之负面>正面（说真的我没明白作者意思）

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Part II: First-Hand Experiences

You may have been in the right places, but you also need the right experiences in those places. Specifically, have you gone through these?

• Been kicked in the groin by a major, long-lasting economic downturn, so that you know how powerless you are. (add 1 point)

走过低迷期

• Worked at a successful startup, so that you can speak first-hand about the ecstasy of entrepreneurship. (add 1 point)

有在成功创业的公司工作的经验，有这种自豪的情绪

• Worked at a failed startup, so that you understand three things: first, how hard it is to achieve success; second, that the world doesn’t owe you a thing; and third, what it’s like to be fired or laid off. (add 3 points)

有创业失败的经历，这使你明白三件事：第一，取得成功是非常困难的；第二，这个世界不欠你什么；第三，你有可能被解雇或者失业

• Worked at a public company, so that you know what the end goal looks like, warts and all. (add 1 point)

在一家上市公司工作，因此你能不加任何修饰地明白最后的目标是什么

• Held a CEO position, so that you have this fantasy experience out of your system and will not try to run the startup from a board position. (add 2 points)

担任过CEO职位，使得明白：不能脱离实际，而且启动不应该在董事会上而应该在真正地做调研

• Been an angel investor with your own money, so that you understand the fiduciary responsibility of investing other people’s money. (add 2 points)

明白 vc给你的钱不是你的钱，要更好地利用这笔钱为你自己为vc努力

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Part III: Necessary Knowledge

Finally, can you answer these questions for entrepreneurs? Because this is the kind of advice that entrepreneurs need. (Don’t worry: many current venture capitalists would fail this part.)

• How do I introduce a product with no budget? (add 2 points)
• How do I determine whether there’s really a market demand for my product? (add 1 point)
• What do I do if customers hate our first product? (add 1 point)
• How do I get Walt Mossberg to return my call? (add 2 points)
• How do I get to the folks who run Demo? (add 1 point)
• How do I get a plug in TechCrunch? (add 1 point)
• How do I get the folks at Fox Interactive to return my call? (add 1 point)
• How do I dominate a segment when there are five other companies doing essentially the same thing? (add 2 points)
• How much time, energy, and money should I spend on patent protection? (add 1 point)
• We bet on the wrong architecture for our product; what do I do now? (add 2 points)
• What kind of people should I hire: young, old, unproven, proven, cheap, expensive, local, remote? (add 1 point)
• How do I get them to leave their current jobs without throwing a lot of money at them? (add 2 points)
• How do I tell my best friend that he can’t be chief technical officer just because he was a cofounder? (add 2 points)
• How do I get to the buyer at BestBuy to return my call? (add 1 point)
• How do I handle a customer who wants to send back his purchase for a full refund? (add 1 point)
• How do I fire people? (add 2 points)
• How do I lay people off? (add 2 points)

1、怎样介绍一个没有经过预算的产品

2、我的产品真正的市场在哪？

3、用户对我的第一个产品不感冒，怎么办？

4、怎么样让别人试用我的demo产品

5、怎么让你及时收到反馈

6、怎么样让自己同行中占优势

7、在专利保护上所化时间，精力，金钱的多少

8、我将租哪一类的人才：公司在不同时期招聘人才类型的不同，以及不同时期人才的分工

   A类招A++的，B类招C类人才呵呵，有一天发现自己被Z类人才包围，公司倒闭

9、考虑如何去吸引该领域的人才而不仅仅靠金钱

10、怎么样跟董事会的人交流，以及董事会是怎么样的一个规模(马云四人组)

11、卖者买者的sale技能和劝诱， 不要为难你的用户

12、怎样解雇员工

13、如何让公司在运作一段时间之后，能够停下来思考下一步前进的步伐，让参与创业的人重新思考和定位，可以在全身心放松的情况之后再考虑

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Results

Here’s how to assess your readiness to become a venture capitalist:

• 40 or more points: Call CalPERS and tell them you’re raising a new fund.
• 35 to 39 points: Call Sequoia and Kleiner, Perkins and tell them that you’re available.
• 25 to 34 points: Send your resume to 2,000 venture capitalists and pray.
• 24 points or less: Work until you can score higher and keep flying on Southwest Airlines.

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Here’s the bottom line: You should become a venture capitalist after you’ve had the shiitake kicked out of you. This will yield at least two positive results: First, you’ll stand out from the full-of-shiitake artists who entered the business when they were young. Second, you’ll really be able to help your portfolio companies—which is what venture capital should be all about. See you in ten or twenty years.