金闲评
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Growing pains that afflict corporate adolescents
By Richard Evans
Tuesday, August 15, 2007, FT
Entrepreneurs have been responsible for much of the job creation in the US in the past 25 years. Yet nine out of 10 start-ups there fail in the first three years, says Doug Tatum, founder and chairman of Tatum LLC, a US financial and technology consultancy.
So why do so many start-ups fail? And how can entrepreneurs survive the years when a company is growing quickly but does not yet have the resources to make the leap to become abig, established brand?
Tatum focuses on three core failings of many small growth companies: a lack of cash, inappropriate management and an inflexible business model.
The author draws on personal experience and a variety of obscure case studies of US start-ups in sectors as diverse as technology, food service and musical instrument retailing. He points to recurring failings when entrepreneurs seek to move their companies through an "adolescent" phase - in which they earn $10m-$50m in annual sales. Most of these companies don't make it beyond adolescence. They either stall, fail or are sold to larger firms.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to growth is inability to raise capital. In their early days, start-ups are typically funded by an entrepreneur's own money, contributions from family and friends, credit card debt and bank lending tied to assets such as homes and land. Steering a start-up successfully through adolescence, however, requires a step change in financing. Infrastructure must be beefed up, external managers hired, and new products and services developed.
"At a certain point, the business needs more capital than the entrepreneur can repay," Tatum writes. "Unfortunately, most banks and private equity firms make it very difficult to provide capital to these firms."
The author cites the case of DocuSource, a Californian start- up providing computer-based document-management systems to businesses. After nine years, the company had grown to more than 100 employees and $21m in sales by 2001. Then it hit the wall. In spite of its impressive growth and record of stealing customers from larger competitors, DocuSource could not find a bank to back its expansion plans. Instead of being able to meet growing customer demand, it was forced to cut its salesforce. Revenues stalled.
"We were in a cash stranglehold with [our] current lender," says Les Walker, chief executive of DocuSource. "The banks tightened up their lending criteria." After failed attempts to raise $1m in subordinated debt, Mr Walker was left reluctantly considering selling the company.
The best way to attract capital, of course, is to reduce the risks that frighten banks and private equity firms. To do this entrepreneurs need to hand off functions such as operations and finance to professionals, even if it means demoting or firing colleagues who have been on board since the start.
Tatum says growth companies that cross that no man's land to become $1bn-a-year sales behemoths do so with a mixture of entrepreneurial vision and sound management. What is needed, at a bare minimum, is a "mess up" guy with great sales skills and an innate sense of customer needs, and a "clean up" person who knows how to control costs and prioritise. The founder is almost always the "mess up" guy; the "clean up" person is hired from outside.
Also vital to success is the ability of a growth company to shed its original business model once it has outgrown it. Almost all start-ups initially thrive on a "high performance/cheap labour" business model. The entrepreneur and team work absurdly long hours, pay themselves virtually nothing and yet offer superior products and services. Eventually, though, the business grows to a point where that model becomes untenable.
"Ultimately, you can't build an organisation on superhuman effort," Tatum says. "Sustainable profits must be built on normal people doing normal things for normal compensation." This requires standardised business procedures that can be easily taught to new arrivals. Above all, the business model must be "scalable" - adaptable to larger volumes, wider product ranges and greater geographical scope.
No Man's Land offers some useful rules to aspiring entrepreneurs, and benefits from Tatum's insights. But its folksy style - with jokes about raccoon hunting - may bemuse international readers. The last chapter contains a critique of US local and national government policy regarding growth companies that some could find provincial.
Not all the book's case studies are entirely convincing. They are let down by the author's tendency to jump from story to story without providing enough focus or detail. Perhaps theseare the inevitable traits of the serial entrepreneur.
Tuesday, August 15, 2007, FT
Entrepreneurs have been responsible for much of the job creation in the US in the past 25 years. Yet nine out of 10 start-ups there fail in the first three years, says Doug Tatum, founder and chairman of Tatum LLC, a US financial and technology consultancy.
So why do so many start-ups fail? And how can entrepreneurs survive the years when a company is growing quickly but does not yet have the resources to make the leap to become abig, established brand?
Tatum focuses on three core failings of many small growth companies: a lack of cash, inappropriate management and an inflexible business model.
The author draws on personal experience and a variety of obscure case studies of US start-ups in sectors as diverse as technology, food service and musical instrument retailing. He points to recurring failings when entrepreneurs seek to move their companies through an "adolescent" phase - in which they earn $10m-$50m in annual sales. Most of these companies don't make it beyond adolescence. They either stall, fail or are sold to larger firms.
Perhaps the biggest barrier to growth is inability to raise capital. In their early days, start-ups are typically funded by an entrepreneur's own money, contributions from family and friends, credit card debt and bank lending tied to assets such as homes and land. Steering a start-up successfully through adolescence, however, requires a step change in financing. Infrastructure must be beefed up, external managers hired, and new products and services developed.
"At a certain point, the business needs more capital than the entrepreneur can repay," Tatum writes. "Unfortunately, most banks and private equity firms make it very difficult to provide capital to these firms."
The author cites the case of DocuSource, a Californian start- up providing computer-based document-management systems to businesses. After nine years, the company had grown to more than 100 employees and $21m in sales by 2001. Then it hit the wall. In spite of its impressive growth and record of stealing customers from larger competitors, DocuSource could not find a bank to back its expansion plans. Instead of being able to meet growing customer demand, it was forced to cut its salesforce. Revenues stalled.
"We were in a cash stranglehold with [our] current lender," says Les Walker, chief executive of DocuSource. "The banks tightened up their lending criteria." After failed attempts to raise $1m in subordinated debt, Mr Walker was left reluctantly considering selling the company.
The best way to attract capital, of course, is to reduce the risks that frighten banks and private equity firms. To do this entrepreneurs need to hand off functions such as operations and finance to professionals, even if it means demoting or firing colleagues who have been on board since the start.
Tatum says growth companies that cross that no man's land to become $1bn-a-year sales behemoths do so with a mixture of entrepreneurial vision and sound management. What is needed, at a bare minimum, is a "mess up" guy with great sales skills and an innate sense of customer needs, and a "clean up" person who knows how to control costs and prioritise. The founder is almost always the "mess up" guy; the "clean up" person is hired from outside.
Also vital to success is the ability of a growth company to shed its original business model once it has outgrown it. Almost all start-ups initially thrive on a "high performance/cheap labour" business model. The entrepreneur and team work absurdly long hours, pay themselves virtually nothing and yet offer superior products and services. Eventually, though, the business grows to a point where that model becomes untenable.
"Ultimately, you can't build an organisation on superhuman effort," Tatum says. "Sustainable profits must be built on normal people doing normal things for normal compensation." This requires standardised business procedures that can be easily taught to new arrivals. Above all, the business model must be "scalable" - adaptable to larger volumes, wider product ranges and greater geographical scope.
No Man's Land offers some useful rules to aspiring entrepreneurs, and benefits from Tatum's insights. But its folksy style - with jokes about raccoon hunting - may bemuse international readers. The last chapter contains a critique of US local and national government policy regarding growth companies that some could find provincial.
Not all the book's case studies are entirely convincing. They are let down by the author's tendency to jump from story to story without providing enough focus or detail. Perhaps theseare the inevitable traits of the serial entrepreneur.
Labels: SME
¶ 5:48 AM 0 comments
初创企业为何成活率低？
英国《金融时报》撰稿人理查德•埃文斯(Richard Evans)
2007年8月28日 星期二
过去25年间，美国新增就业机会中有很大一部分要归功于创业者。但美国金融与科技咨询公司Tatum LLC的创始人兼董事长道格•泰特姆(Doug Tatum)在他的新书《无人区》(No Man's Land)中指出，90％的初创企业在成立三年内就倒闭了。
那么，为什么这么多初创公司会倒闭呢？当一家企业正迅速成长，但尚不具备一跃成为大型知名企业所需的资源时，创业者应当如何度过这段时期？
泰特姆将重点放在导致许多小型成长企业倒闭的三个核心因素上：现金匮乏、管理不善，以及商业模式不够灵活。
作者结合了亲身经历，并列举了大量美国初创企业案例研究，涉及领域颇为广泛，涵盖科技、食品服务和乐器零售等行业。他指出，当创业者试图引领他们的企业度过 “青春期”——年销售额在1000万美元至5000万美元之间——时，企业往往容易倒闭。多数企业都无法度过“青春期”。它们要么停滞不前或倒闭，要么出售给规模更大的公司。
或许企业成长面临的最大障碍就是无法筹集到资金。在成立初期，初创企业的资金通常来自创业者自有资金、家人和朋友捐助的资金、信用卡债务，以及房屋和土地等银行抵押贷款。然而，初创企业要想成功度过青春期，需要在融资方面做出重大转变。企业必须加强基础设施，聘用外部经理人，并开发出新的产品和服务。
泰特姆在书中写道：“企业发展到一定程度后，企业需要的资金超过了创业者的偿还能力。不幸的是，多数银行和私人股本公司向这些公司提供资本的门槛非常高。”
泰特姆引用了DocuSource的例子，这是一家加利福尼亚州的初创企业，为企业提供基于电脑的文件管理系统。到2001年，该公司已经成立了9年，雇员增加到逾1000人，年销售额达到2100万美元。当时公司遇到了增长瓶颈。尽管增长速度惊人，并从较大竞争对手手中挖走了一些客户，但 DocuSource无法找到一家为其扩张计划提供资金的银行。企业无法满足日益增长的客户需求，反而被迫削减了销售团队。公司营业收入陷入停滞。
“我们遭遇了贷款银行的资金限制，”DocuSource的首席执行官莱斯•沃克(Les Walker)表示，“银行收紧了放贷标准。”在试图通过发行次级债融资100万美元的努力失败后，沃克无奈地考虑卖掉公司。
吸引资金的最佳途径，当然是降低令银行和私人股本公司感到害怕的风险。为了做到这一点，创业者需要将运营和财务等职能放权给专业人士，即便这意味着将一开始就加入公司的同事降职或解雇。
泰特姆表示，要想跨过无人区、成为年销售额达10亿美元的大型企业，成长企业需要结合创业者的远见和健全的管理。企业至少需要一个拥有出色销售技巧和天生能够洞察客户需求意识的“捣乱”家伙，以及一个知道如何控制成本并分清轻重缓急的“收拾烂摊子”的人。创始人几乎总是那个爱“捣乱”的家伙，而“收拾烂摊子”的人则需要从外部聘请。
企业成功的另一个关键因素是，成长企业能够在企业发展到一定阶段时，摆脱已不适合自己的原有商业模式。几乎所有初创企业最初都是依靠“高业绩/低劳动力成本”的商业模式迅速发展起来的。在这一阶段，创业者及其团队的工作时间长得离谱，几乎不给自己发工资，但还提供优质的产品和服务。而最终，当企业发展到一定阶段时，这种模式就不适用了。
“说到底，你无法打造一个建立在超人能力上的公司，”泰特姆写道，“可持续的利润必须建立在做正常事、获得正常报酬的正常人身上。”这需要企业制定标准化的流程，使新员工可以轻松学会。最重要的是，这种业务模式必须 “可升级”——能够适应更大的业务量、更广的业务范围和地域。
《无人区》为志向远大的创业者提供了一些有益的规则，让他们受益于泰特姆的洞见。但其不拘一格的风格——书中提到了捉浣熊的笑话——或许会令海外读者一头雾水。在最后一章中，泰特姆对美国地方和联邦政府的高成长企业政策进行了批评，一些人可能会觉得有失偏颇。
本书中的案例研究并非全部都令人信服。作者习惯于从一个故事跳到另一个故事，对细节没有足够的关注。或许这些就是这位连环创业者不可避免的特点。
译者/朱冠华
2007年8月28日 星期二
过去25年间，美国新增就业机会中有很大一部分要归功于创业者。但美国金融与科技咨询公司Tatum LLC的创始人兼董事长道格•泰特姆(Doug Tatum)在他的新书《无人区》(No Man's Land)中指出，90％的初创企业在成立三年内就倒闭了。
那么，为什么这么多初创公司会倒闭呢？当一家企业正迅速成长，但尚不具备一跃成为大型知名企业所需的资源时，创业者应当如何度过这段时期？
泰特姆将重点放在导致许多小型成长企业倒闭的三个核心因素上：现金匮乏、管理不善，以及商业模式不够灵活。
作者结合了亲身经历，并列举了大量美国初创企业案例研究，涉及领域颇为广泛，涵盖科技、食品服务和乐器零售等行业。他指出，当创业者试图引领他们的企业度过 “青春期”——年销售额在1000万美元至5000万美元之间——时，企业往往容易倒闭。多数企业都无法度过“青春期”。它们要么停滞不前或倒闭，要么出售给规模更大的公司。
或许企业成长面临的最大障碍就是无法筹集到资金。在成立初期，初创企业的资金通常来自创业者自有资金、家人和朋友捐助的资金、信用卡债务，以及房屋和土地等银行抵押贷款。然而，初创企业要想成功度过青春期，需要在融资方面做出重大转变。企业必须加强基础设施，聘用外部经理人，并开发出新的产品和服务。
泰特姆在书中写道：“企业发展到一定程度后，企业需要的资金超过了创业者的偿还能力。不幸的是，多数银行和私人股本公司向这些公司提供资本的门槛非常高。”
泰特姆引用了DocuSource的例子，这是一家加利福尼亚州的初创企业，为企业提供基于电脑的文件管理系统。到2001年，该公司已经成立了9年，雇员增加到逾1000人，年销售额达到2100万美元。当时公司遇到了增长瓶颈。尽管增长速度惊人，并从较大竞争对手手中挖走了一些客户，但 DocuSource无法找到一家为其扩张计划提供资金的银行。企业无法满足日益增长的客户需求，反而被迫削减了销售团队。公司营业收入陷入停滞。
“我们遭遇了贷款银行的资金限制，”DocuSource的首席执行官莱斯•沃克(Les Walker)表示，“银行收紧了放贷标准。”在试图通过发行次级债融资100万美元的努力失败后，沃克无奈地考虑卖掉公司。
吸引资金的最佳途径，当然是降低令银行和私人股本公司感到害怕的风险。为了做到这一点，创业者需要将运营和财务等职能放权给专业人士，即便这意味着将一开始就加入公司的同事降职或解雇。
泰特姆表示，要想跨过无人区、成为年销售额达10亿美元的大型企业，成长企业需要结合创业者的远见和健全的管理。企业至少需要一个拥有出色销售技巧和天生能够洞察客户需求意识的“捣乱”家伙，以及一个知道如何控制成本并分清轻重缓急的“收拾烂摊子”的人。创始人几乎总是那个爱“捣乱”的家伙，而“收拾烂摊子”的人则需要从外部聘请。
企业成功的另一个关键因素是，成长企业能够在企业发展到一定阶段时，摆脱已不适合自己的原有商业模式。几乎所有初创企业最初都是依靠“高业绩/低劳动力成本”的商业模式迅速发展起来的。在这一阶段，创业者及其团队的工作时间长得离谱，几乎不给自己发工资，但还提供优质的产品和服务。而最终，当企业发展到一定阶段时，这种模式就不适用了。
“说到底，你无法打造一个建立在超人能力上的公司，”泰特姆写道，“可持续的利润必须建立在做正常事、获得正常报酬的正常人身上。”这需要企业制定标准化的流程，使新员工可以轻松学会。最重要的是，这种业务模式必须 “可升级”——能够适应更大的业务量、更广的业务范围和地域。
《无人区》为志向远大的创业者提供了一些有益的规则，让他们受益于泰特姆的洞见。但其不拘一格的风格——书中提到了捉浣熊的笑话——或许会令海外读者一头雾水。在最后一章中，泰特姆对美国地方和联邦政府的高成长企业政策进行了批评，一些人可能会觉得有失偏颇。
本书中的案例研究并非全部都令人信服。作者习惯于从一个故事跳到另一个故事，对细节没有足够的关注。或许这些就是这位连环创业者不可避免的特点。
译者/朱冠华
Labels: SME
¶ 5:43 AM 0 comments
