職場雙語:創業靈感源自何處(1)

Where do great ideas come from?

靈感源自何處？

At the heart of any successful business is a great idea. Some seem so simple we wonder why nobody thought of them before. Others are so revolutionary we wonder how anybody couldn't thought of them at all.

任何成功的企業都是以偉大創意爲核心的。有些創意似乎很簡單，我們不禁想問爲何之前沒人想到過。有些創意又太具突破性，我們會爲創業者竟能有這等奇思妙想而嘖嘖稱奇。

But those great ideas don't come on command. And that leaves lots of would-be entrepreneurs asking the same question: How did everybody else get inspiration to strike─and how can we work the same magic?

但這些偉大的創意並非召之即來。因此，許多想要創業的人都在問同樣的問題：其他創業者是怎樣讓靈感迸發出來的──我們怎樣才能創造同樣的奇蹟呢？

To find out, we turned to the experts─the start-up mentors who discuss launching businesses at our Accelerators blog, as well as other investors, advisers and professors who have seen and heard countless success stories, and entrepreneurs who have written success stories of their own. They saw inspiration coming from all sorts of sources─everyday puzzles, driving passions and the subconscious mind.

爲了找到答案，我們徵詢了專家們的意見──這其中有在我們的博客Accelerators上討論如何創建企業的創業導師，有其他見過、聽過無數成功故事的投資者、顧問和教授，還有親手書寫成功故事的企業家。他們談到各種各樣的靈感源泉──日常生活中的難題、強烈的激情，還有潛意識。

Here's what they had to say.

以下是他們的心得體會。

Look at What's Bugging You

設法解決糾纏你的問題

Ideas for startups often begin with a problem that needs to be solved. And they don't usually come while you're sitting around sipping coffee and contemplating life. They tend to reveal themselves while you're hard at work on something else.

創業靈感的產生沒有什麼神奇祕訣，也並非無章可循。本圖簡述了九位著名企業家各自的創業靈感是如何得來的。初創公司的創意通常始於一個需要解決的問題。這些創意一般不是在你坐在那兒啜飲咖啡和思考生命時迸發出來的。它們往往會在你努力解決其他問題的時候浮現出來。

For instance, one company of mine, earFeeder, came about because I wanted news on music I loved and found it hard to get. So I created a service that checks your computer for the music you have stored there, then feeds you news from the Internet about those bands, along with ticket deals and other things.

比方說，當初建立earFeeder這家公司是因爲我想了解與我喜愛的音樂相關的消息，卻發現這類消息很難找。於是我創立了一項服務，它能在你的電腦裏查找你存的音樂，然後向你提供來自互聯網的消息，有與樂隊相關的消息，還有折扣票和其他信息。

You're Never Too Old

創業永遠都不晚

Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple AAPL +1.42%─those success stories lead some people to think that coming up with big ideas is a young person's game. But the tech entrepreneurs who rose to early fame and fortune are just the outliers. The typical entrepreneur is a middle-aged professional who learns about a market need and starts a company with his own savings.

Facebook的馬克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，微軟(Microsoft)的保羅·艾倫(Paul Allen)和比爾·蓋茨(Bill Gates)，還有蘋果公司(Apple)的史蒂夫·沃茲尼亞克(Steve Wozniak)和史蒂夫·喬布斯(Steve Jobs)──這些成功故事讓一些人認爲偉大的創意是年輕人的專利。但科技行業年紀輕輕便功成名就的創業者僅僅是少數。典型的創業者是中年專業人士，他們會了解市場需求，並用自己的積蓄創辦公司。

Research that my team completed in 2009 determined that the average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are aged over 50 as under 25, and twice as many over 60 as under 20.

我的團隊2009年完成的研究發現，在電腦、醫療和航天等高成長行業，成功的創業者平均年齡爲40歲。50歲以上的創業成功者人數爲25歲以下創業成功者的兩倍，60歲以上創業成功者的人數爲20歲以下者的兩倍。

Vivek Wadhwa

維韋克·瓦德瓦(Vivek Wadhwa)

Vice president of academics and innovation, Singularity University

奇點大學(Singularity University)學術和創新副校長

Be Present in Life

專注於當下

Start your brainstorming with problems that you are personally invested in. Building a business is hard as hell and takes the kind of relentless dedication that comes from personal passion.

從你個人關注的問題入手，展開頭腦風暴。創業是極爲艱辛的，需要在個人激情的推動下不懈努力。

The next big question is 'How?' Great ideas and innovations come from executing on your idea in a different way than everybody else is attacking it, if they're attacking it at all. A great way to do this is to look outside of your industry to see how others are solving problems. Approaches that they think are routine might be out of the ordinary for you─and inspire great ideas.

接下來的一大問題是“該怎樣做”。要實現偉大的創意和創新，就要用與衆不同的方式執行你的構想（假設別人也在執行他們的構想）。有一種很棒的方法是觀察你所在行業之外的情況，看看其他人是怎樣解決問題的。別人認爲老套的方法對你來說也許不同尋常──而且能激發偉大的創意。

Also, most business people tend to ignore our creative side until we really need it. Making sure that your life has a balance of the arts is a great way to stay engaged creatively.

此外，大多數創業者往往會忽視自身創造性的那一面，直到真正需要時纔會重視起來。要想富有創造力地進行創業，確保多方面均衡涉獵是個好辦法。

This last tip will seem insanely obvious. However, in the world we live in, it's easier said than done: Simply be present in life.

最後這一點小建議似乎毫無新意，但在我們生活的這個世界可謂是說起來容易做起來難：活在當下。

I'm sure you can relate to how over-connected we all are. Something as simple as having a cup of coffee becomes a juggling act of replying to emails and managing schedules. It's easy to miss a potential piece to your innovation puzzle when it's right under your nose if you aren't there.

我敢肯定，你對當今世界的過度互聯也深有體會。喝杯咖啡這麼簡單的事情也變得像玩拋球雜耍一樣複雜，你會一邊喝咖啡，一邊回電子郵件和管理日程表。如果你不專注於當下，有助於解決創新難題的潛在線索就會很容易從你的鼻尖底下溜走。

Angela Benton

安吉拉·本頓(Angela Benton)

Founder and CEO, NewME Accelerator

NewME Accelerator創始人兼首席執行長

Ideas Are Abundant; Drive Isn't

動力比創意更重要

Perhaps the greatest factor that determines whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful isn't the business idea itself, but rather the entrepreneur's willingness to try (and keep trying) to turn the idea into reality. Great ideas are abundant, but it's what we decide to do with them that counts.

決定一名創業者能否成功的最重要因素也許並不是商業創意本身，而是創業者通過努力（以及不懈努力）將創意變爲現實的意願。好的創意很多，但關鍵在於我們決定如何將這些創意付諸實踐。

Samer Kurdi

薩默爾·庫爾迪(Samer Kurdi)

Chairman of the global board, Entrepreneurs' Organization

創業者組織(Entrepreneurs' Organization)全球理事會主席

Let Your Subconscious Do the Work

發揮潛意識的作用

When the mind is occupied with a monotonous task, it can stimulate the subconscious into a eureka moment. That's what happened to me. The business model for my company, ClearFit, which provides an easy way for companies to find employees and predict job fit, hatched in the back of my mind while I was driving 80 miles an hour, not thinking about work at all.

當思維被單一的任務佔據時，你的潛意識會受到刺激，使靈感迸發出來。我的情況就是這樣。我的公司ClearFit（爲企業提供招聘員工及預測職位吻合程度的簡單途徑）的商業模式就是在我以80英里時速開車、完全不考慮工作時從潛意識裏破殼而出的。

The subconscious mind runs in the background, silently affecting the outcome of many thoughts. So, take a break and smell the flowers, because while you're out doing that, your mind may very well solve the problem that you are trying to solve or spark a solution to a problem you hadn't considered before.

潛意識是在後臺運行的，悄然影響着我們對許多問題的思考結果。因此，不妨讓自己停下來，放鬆一下，因爲在你這麼做的時候，你的頭腦很可能會解決掉你正在嘗試解決的問題，或者讓你想出一個之前從未考慮過的解決方案。

Ben Baldwin

本·鮑德溫(Ben Baldwin)

Co-founder and CEO, ClearFit

ClearFit聯合創始人兼首席執行長

Attack Practical Problems

積極解決實際問題

Make a note whenever you encounter a service or a customer experience that frustrates you, or wish you had a product that met your needs that you can't find anywhere. Then ask yourself, is this a problem I could solve? And how much time and money would it take to test my idea?

當你碰到讓你失望的服務或顧客體驗，或者在哪裏也找不到滿足你需求的產品時，請把它們記下來。然後問自己，這個問題我能不能解決？檢驗我的設想要花費多少時間和金錢？

That last point is crucial. As my sage Stanford professor Andy Rachleff encouraged me, 'Make sure you can fail fast and cheaply.' In business school, I had a couple of big ideas. One was improving domestic airline service─which would have cost millions and taken years. I decided to pursue another opportunity that was a lot cheaper and would show results faster─a clothing line called Bonobos.

這最後一點很關鍵。我尊崇的智者──斯坦福大學(Stanford)教授安迪·拉切列夫(Andy Rachleff)曾鼓勵我說：“要確保你能快速失敗，失敗的代價要小。”在商學院時，我有幾個大的創業構想。其中一個是改進國內航班的服務──這要耗資數以百萬計的金錢，要花很多年時間。於是我決定尋求另一個成本低得多、見效也更快的機會──我創立了一個名爲Bonobos的服裝品牌。

In the end, it took me just nine months and $15,000 of startup funds to get a little traction and market feedback.

最終，我只用了九個月的時間和15,000美元的創業基金就取得了一些成績，並獲得了一定的市場反響。