努力工作：成为顶尖公司的核心原则
If you want to be the best company in the world, I think you have to work the hardest in the world. It's like anything else: if you want to be the best athlete or the best musician, you're practicing non-stop.
如果你想成为世界上最好的公司，我认为你就必须是世界上工作最努力的公司。这就像其他任何事情一样：如果你想成为最优秀的运动员或最优秀的音乐家，你都会不停地练习。
Work in a tech startup (科技创业公司: 专注于技术创新和快速成长的初创企业) is exactly the same thing. When you don't have a lot of money, that's not something you can fall back on; you have to do everything yourself.
在科技创业公司工作也是如此。当你没有太多资金时，你不能依靠它；你必须亲力亲为。
You should talk to all of your customers, handle all of your customer success and support tickets. You should do sales yourself. That helps you really focus on exactly what your customers are asking for and what they're willing to pay for.
你应该与所有客户沟通，处理所有客户成功和支持工单。你应该亲自负责销售。这有助于你真正专注于客户的需求以及他们愿意为此支付的费用。
When we launched our product with our first national customer, we were just two people at the time—just me and Tony, my co-founder. It was a 24-hour service. That meant he stayed up until 4:00 a.m. and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and watched it. That was probably the most physically draining time, but we were able to survive.
当我们与第一家全国性客户推出产品时，当时我们只有两个人——我和我的联合创始人托尼。那是一项24小时服务。这意味着他会熬夜到凌晨4点，而我则在凌晨4点醒来继续盯着。那可能是我身体上最疲惫的时期，但我们挺过来了。
Yes, it was a really exhausting time, of course, but it doesn't really matter. You have problems. You have customers that need things. It's just about every single day doing everything you can to prevent your company from dying.
是的，那当然是一段非常累人的时期，但这真的不重要。你面临着问题，你有需要帮助的客户。关键在于每天竭尽所能，防止你的公司走向消亡。
And even when you're exhausted, I think that's pretty motivating. It's a stressful thing to start a company; it's a stressful thing to work at a growing startup. You have to take one step in front of the other just to solve problems over time, being a cockroach (蟑螂精神: 指创业公司在资源有限、面临巨大压力时，展现出的极强韧性、适应能力和生存意志) where you can't let anything kill you ever.
即使你精疲力尽，我认为那也是一种相当大的动力。创办公司是一件充满压力的事情；在一家成长中的初创公司工作也是如此。你必须一步一个脚印地解决问题，秉持“蟑螂精神”，绝不能让任何事情击垮你。
EliseAI：驱动住房与医疗保健领域的AI影响力
My name is Minna Song, and I'm the co-founder and CEO of EliseAI. EliseAI is a tech company that uses AI (人工智能: 模拟人类智能，使机器能够感知、理解、推理和学习的技术) to drive real-world impact, and we are starting with two of the most critical industries that make up over 40% of the US GDP: the housing industry and the healthcare industry.
我叫Minna Song，我是EliseAI的联合创始人兼首席执行官。EliseAI是一家利用人工智能驱动实际影响的科技公司，我们正从构成美国GDP 40%以上最重要的两个行业入手：住房业和医疗保健业。
EliseAI is used by over 10% of US apartments today, and over two-thirds of the largest property management companies use our software.
如今，EliseAI已被美国超过10%的公寓使用，并且超过三分之二的大型物业管理公司都在使用我们的软件。
We raised a $250 million Series E round (E轮融资: 创业公司发展到相对成熟阶段的后期融资，通常用于扩张市场或为上市做准备), which was led by Andreessen Horowitz and participated in by Bessemer Venture Partners, as well as previous investors Sapphire Ventures and Navitas Capital.
我们完成了2.5亿美元的E轮融资，由Andreessen Horowitz领投，Bessemer Venture Partners以及此前的投资者Sapphire Ventures和Navitas Capital也参与其中。
Our company has been doubling consistently year-over-year for the last four years, and we passed $100 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) (年度经常性收入: 企业通过订阅、服务合同等方式，每年稳定获得的收入) earlier this year.
在过去四年里，我们公司每年都保持着持续翻倍的增长，并且在今年早些时候，我们的年度经常性收入突破了1亿美元。
深入行业，理解真实问题
I met my co-founder in college. While I went to MIT, I actually met him studying abroad at the University of Cambridge in the UK. We both come from software engineering backgrounds and felt that we should apply technology to doing something good in the world.
我在大学时认识了我的联合创始人。我在麻省理工学院读书，而他则是在英国剑桥大学留学时认识的。我们都拥有软件工程背景，并且认为应该将技术应用于为世界做一些有益的事情。
I think it's pretty obvious that tech is the fastest way to bring massive-scale impact in the world, so it was pretty clear that we were going to start a technology company someday.
我认为科技是为世界带来大规模影响最快的方式，这一点显而易见，所以我们迟早会创办一家科技公司。
When we started Elise, we actually wanted to start understanding the industry we were operating in. We really knew nothing about the housing industry, except that we wanted to do something really, really big in it.
当我们创立Elise时，我们实际上是想开始了解我们所涉足的行业。我们对住房行业一无所知，只知道我们想在这个领域做一些非常非常大的事情。
So when I got started, I started working at a real estate firm here in New York City, and that gave me a great opportunity to meet a lot of people.
所以当我开始创业时，我首先在纽约市的一家房地产公司工作，这给了我一个很好的机会去认识很多人。
So I took a front desk job where I greeted everyone who came through the door. I picked up all the phone calls, and that's how we got the experience and understanding of the industry that helped us decide what we wanted to build.
我做了一份前台工作，迎接每一位进门的客人，接听所有电话，这就是我们获得行业经验和理解的方式，这帮助我们决定了要开发什么。
I actually don't think it's extreme at all. I think it's quite insane when people don't try to spend time really understanding a problem before they try to solve it, and then they waste years and years building technology that never finds product-market fit (产品市场契合: 指产品能够满足市场需求，并被目标客户广泛接受和购买的状态).
我其实根本不觉得这有什么极端。我认为，如果人们在尝试解决问题之前不花时间真正理解问题，然后浪费数年时间开发出永远找不到产品市场契合度的技术，那才是相当疯狂的。
So, I think this was maybe one of the most obvious and rational decisions we've ever made, which is simply to learn about the people you're building for. Learn about the problems.
所以，我认为这也许是我们做过的最明显、最理性的决定之一，那就是去了解你正在为之构建产品的人群，了解他们面临的问题。
Especially because we didn't come from a background in housing at all. It's really important, especially in industries like housing and healthcare, where so much happens in person. It doesn't all happen in the digital world.
尤其因为我们完全没有住房行业的背景。这非常重要，特别是在住房和医疗保健这类行业，很多事情都是线下发生的，并非全部发生在数字世界中。
So, you can't just look at metrics. You can't look at users and how they interact with your online products. You have to be there to understand how they're interacting with the real world.
所以，你不能只看数据指标。你不能只看用户以及他们如何与你的在线产品互动。你必须亲身到场，去了解他们是如何与现实世界互动的。
识别问题与把握时机
The problem was pretty obvious. I would say that it wasn't something where we had an "aha moment"; it was just something people were constantly complaining about. We just kept tackling those one by one.
问题相当明显。我可以说，这并不是我们突然“恍然大悟”的时刻；它只是人们不断抱怨的事情。我们只是一个接一个地解决这些问题。
Their frustrations: they couldn't reach a building, no one was answering their phone calls, no one was answering their emails.
他们的沮丧在于：他们联系不上建筑物，没有人接听他们的电话，没有人回复他们的电子邮件。
And so that's the exact problem we tried to solve. It wasn't really a question about what the problem was; it was really a question of whether the technology was the right technology to solve the problem, and was it the right time in 2017?
所以，这正是我们试图解决的问题。这并非真正关于问题本身是什么，而在于技术是否是解决问题的正确技术，以及2017年是否是合适的时机？
A lot of people didn't know what AI was. A lot of people didn't believe that AI could answer their emails. A lot of people didn't believe that AI would do things better than humans in any capacity.
很多人不知道人工智能是什么。很多人不相信人工智能能回复他们的邮件。很多人不相信人工智能在任何方面都能比人类做得更好。
A lot of people thought this market was small because companies that had been built in the industry before never grew to be that large. But I can see that other people over the years have not seen real estate as a "sexy" industry.
很多人认为这个市场很小，因为以前在这个行业建立的公司从未发展到那么大。但我可以看到，多年来其他人并没有把房地产看作一个“性感”的行业。
But I think housing was always "sexy" to us because it's a fundamental human need. It's an incredibly important part of society and our lives. So why wouldn't that be "sexy"?
但我认为住房对我们来说一直都很“性感”，因为它是一种基本的人类需求。它是社会和我们生活中极其重要的一部分。那么，为什么它不“性感”呢？
早期客户获取与建立信任
The first 10 customers were really brutal. We were cold calling. We were knocking on doors all across New York City.
最初的10个客户非常难搞。我们不停地打电话推销，在纽约市挨家挨户敲门。
We got lucky with a few customers who signed on, and then we started selling to national property management companies. It was pretty crazy that we ended up signing the first and second largest apartment owners at the time onto our platform for their entire portfolio.
我们很幸运地争取到了一些客户签约，然后我们开始向全国性的物业管理公司销售。令人难以置信的是，我们最终与当时第一大和第二大的公寓业主签约，将他们的整个投资组合纳入我们的平台。
And we were just two people at the time—just me and Tony, my co-founder. So, we had these large customers buying into a product that two people had built, which was meant to run their entire real estate portfolio.
当时我们只有两个人——我和我的联合创始人托尼。所以，我们让这些大客户购买了一个由两个人开发的产品，而这个产品却要管理他们整个房地产投资组合。
说服大客户与产品共建
How we convinced these large customers to work with us: I remember I went to a meeting. It was me and 12 executives, so essentially all of their C-level team, sitting in a room with just me.
我们是如何说服这些大客户与我们合作的：我记得我参加了一个会议。房间里只有我一个人，以及12位高管，基本上是他们所有的C级团队成员。
I was in my young 20s. It was three hours of them asking me a ton of questions: "Can your product do this? Can your product do X? Can your product do Y?"
我当时二十出头。他们花了三个小时问了我一大堆问题：“你的产品能做这个吗？你的产品能做X吗？你的产品能做Y吗？”
And honestly, I think for three hours straight, I just kept saying, "No, it doesn't do that."
老实说，我记得整整三个小时，我一直都在说：“不，它做不到。”
I walked out of that meeting, called my co-founder, and said, "This was the worst meeting of our lives. Just forget it. That deal is dead."
我走出会议室，给我的联合创始人打电话说：“这是我们人生中最糟糕的一次会议。算了吧，那笔交易黄了。”
Then the next day, they called me back. The COO (首席运营官: 负责公司日常运营管理的高级管理人员) called me and said, "We're going to do this together. We're going to help you build the product."
结果第二天，他们给我回电话了。首席运营官给我打电话说：“我们要一起做这件事。我们会帮助你开发产品。”
They knew we were early. We were not hiding the fact that we were a tiny startup, but they believed in us because they believed they had a big problem and that they could work with honest founders to actually solve it.
他们知道我们处于早期阶段。我们没有隐瞒我们是一家小型初创公司的事实，但他们相信我们，因为他们相信自己有一个大问题，并且可以与诚实的创始人合作来真正解决它。
I think when you're working with your first few customers, you have to build a lot of things they ask for. A lot of people are really afraid of building too much or overfitting (过度拟合: 在机器学习中，指模型在训练数据上表现良好，但在新数据上表现差的情况；此处引申为产品过度定制化，失去通用性) for certain customers, but the reality is that fear will paralyze you.
我认为，当你与最初的几个客户合作时，你必须根据他们的需求开发很多东西。很多人非常害怕开发过多或为特定客户过度定制，但现实是这种恐惧会让你寸步难行。
You really just need to build what they ask for, and then as you get customers two, three, and four, it'll give you a lot more data points.
你真正需要做的就是构建他们要求的东西，然后当你有了第二、第三、第四个客户时，它会给你提供更多的数据点。
And maybe you've built something that's not sustainable in the long run, but quite honestly, I believe that your first customers, you will have to service them forever.
也许你构建了一些从长远来看不可持续的东西，但老实说，我相信你的第一批客户，你将不得不永远为他们服务。
That's a really common attribute of early adopters (早期采纳者: 指在产品生命周期早期就愿意尝试和使用新产品或服务的用户); they want a lot of control. That's why they picked to work with an early-stage startup in the first place.
这是早期采纳者一个非常普遍的特点：他们想要很多控制权。这就是他们最初选择与早期初创公司合作的原因。
But they do want a lot of control, and usually they want to dictate what your roadmap looks like. I'd say don't be afraid. I think you will make mistakes, but that's a normal process in building a massive company.
但他们确实想要很多控制权，通常他们想决定你的产品路线图是什么样子。我想说，不要害怕。我认为你会犯错误，但在建立一家大型公司的过程中，这是一个正常的过程。
融资挑战与现金流约束下的优先级管理
In our first round of funding, we had literally over 100 rejections. A lot of the rejections were the same: "We're not interested in this market. We only look at horizontal SaaS (横向SaaS: 提供适用于多个行业通用功能的软件服务，如CRM、HR管理系统) or we only look at enterprise SaaS (企业级SaaS: 针对大型企业提供复杂、高度定制化软件服务) and things in the housing industry were not really interesting to them."
在我们的第一轮融资中，我们收到了超过100次拒绝。很多拒绝理由都一样：“我们对这个市场不感兴趣。我们只关注横向SaaS或企业级SaaS，而住房行业的事情对他们来说没什么兴趣。”
When we didn't have a lot of funding, we really just relied on ourselves and our ability to build features that our customers were asking for.
当我们没有太多资金时，我们真的只能依靠自己和我们为客户开发他们所需功能的能力。
I think we were cash-constrained, so we didn't have a huge engineering team to build lots of features in parallel.
我认为我们当时资金紧张，所以我们没有庞大的工程团队来并行开发大量功能。
But I think that prioritization helped us build the things that were absolutely the most critical, that had the highest amount of value, not ancillary features or features that were just providing optics for customers to think that they were feature-rich products.
但我认为，这种优先排序帮助我们构建了那些绝对最关键、价值最高的功能，而不是那些辅助功能，或者只是为了让客户觉得产品功能丰富而提供的表面功能。
So I think money doesn't actually solve a lot of problems. I think when people raise a lot of funding early on, they think that they're successful and they throw a lot of money at problems, thinking those problems are solved.
所以我认为金钱并不能真正解决很多问题。我认为当人们在早期获得大量融资时，他们会觉得自己成功了，然后他们会把大量的钱投入到问题中，以为这些问题就解决了。
But really what happens is those problems end up festering and growing, and they're still there. When you don't have a lot of money, that's not something you can fall back on.
但实际上发生的是，这些问题最终会滋生并扩大，它们仍然存在。当你没有很多钱时，你就没有可以依赖的东西。
Your problems are very obvious, and you know if you've solved them or not. Eventually, as we started building a track record of showing real growth in the company, investors started to see what was possible.
你的问题非常明显，你知道自己是否已经解决了它们。最终，随着我们公司开始展现出真实的增长记录，投资者也开始看到了可能性。
Yes, it was a really exhausting time, of course, but it doesn't really matter. You have problems. You have customers that need things. You have to take one step in front of the other just to solve problems over time, being a "cockroach" where you can't let anything kill you ever.
是的，那当然是一段非常累人的时期，但这真的不重要。你面临着问题，你有需要帮助的客户。你必须一步一个脚印地解决问题，秉持“蟑螂精神”，绝不能让任何事情击垮你。
秘密武器：产品迭代速度与精英招聘
What's our secret sauce? I think a lot of our growth has come from building a lot of products. No matter what customer we're pitching to in the housing industry, we have a product that solves the problem they are thinking about today.
我们的秘密武器是什么？我认为我们很多增长都来自于开发大量产品。无论我们在住房行业向哪个客户推销，我们都有一个产品能够解决他们当下正在思考的问题。
So whether that's something about their leasing process or their maintenance process, we have a solution for them, and that's really just come from having really high product velocity (产品迭代速度: 公司快速开发、测试和发布新产品或功能的能力) as a company.
所以无论是关于他们的租赁流程还是维护流程，我们都有解决方案，这实际上是源于我们公司拥有极高的产品迭代速度。
Another big reason is that we've just hired really, really well. I've spent most of my time focused on getting the best and most talented people I can possibly get.
另一个重要原因是，我们招聘得非常好。我大部分时间都专注于招募到我所能找到的最优秀、最有才华的人。
I personally interviewed the first 400 hires we made. It's been incredibly important to have really strong people because when you're moving so fast and you have so many different products, it turns out that a lot of people have to make decisions themselves.
我亲自面试了我们公司最初的400名员工。拥有真正强大的人才至关重要，因为当你发展如此迅速，并且拥有如此多不同产品时，结果就是很多人必须自己做决定。
And you need to have really smart and really hardworking people that are going to move the company forward. Because if you're moving quickly, the CEO cannot make all the decisions for you; the CTO cannot make all of the tech decisions for you.
你需要真正聪明、真正努力工作的人来推动公司前进。因为如果你发展迅速，首席执行官不可能为你做出所有决策；首席技术官也不可能为你做出所有技术决策。
You need everyone to have really strong business acumen (商业敏锐度: 快速理解商业环境、识别机会和挑战，并做出有效决策的能力).
你需要每个人都具备非常强的商业敏锐度。
One of the most painful hiring mistakes I made was probably around 2021 when we were raising our first big round of funding, our Series B.
我犯过最痛苦的招聘错误之一大概是在2021年，当时我们正在进行第一轮大规模融资，也就是B轮融资。
And I hired a ton of people who were really good at specialist roles (专业化岗位: 专注于某一特定领域或技能的工作职位). The challenge I was trying to solve was that everything was so chaotic.
我招聘了大量非常擅长专业化岗位的人。我试图解决的挑战是，当时一切都非常混乱。
Every early-stage employee was working on five different things, and the constant complaint was, "I can't get anything done well because I keep switching context all the time," which is a very common early-stage company problem.
每个早期员工都在同时处理五件不同的事情，而他们不断的抱怨是：“我无法把任何事情做好，因为我总是在切换上下文。”这是一个非常常见的早期公司问题。
Then I decided to solve that by hiring people who were really good specialists. So if somebody was doing five things, now they could pick the one they really wanted to do, and then you'd hire four other people that were specialists.
然后我决定通过招聘非常优秀的专业人才来解决这个问题。所以，如果一个人在做五件事，现在他可以选择一件他真正想做的事，然后你会再招聘四位专业人才。
The problem is everyone started losing the context. So they'd be building really well but in five different directions, and the company was not moving forward. We were not building products that our customers cared about.
问题是每个人都开始失去整体背景。所以他们可能在某个方向上做得很好，但却是在五个不同的方向上各自为战，公司并没有向前发展。我们没有开发出客户关心的产品。
We were not selling products that our customers cared about, and it was just way too early to make those types of hiring decisions. So I went back to really valuing generalist hires (通才型员工: 具备广泛技能和适应能力，能够处理多领域任务的员工).
我们也没有销售客户关心的产品，而且做出这类招聘决策的时机也太早了。所以我又回到了真正重视通才型员工的招聘策略。
And I found that we could move a lot quicker if a lot of people were able to context-switch and have success across many different domains, whether that was sales or customer success.
我发现，如果很多人能够切换情境并在许多不同领域取得成功，无论是销售还是客户成功，我们就能更快地前进。
They could think technically at the same time as speaking with customers. And those ended up being some of our most valuable hires for a very long time.
他们可以在与客户沟通的同时进行技术思考。而这些人最终在很长一段时间内成为了我们最有价值的员工。
持续努力：7天工作制与加速增长
When we launched our product with our first national customer, we needed to keep the service running 24/7, and this was the most important deal of our lives. It had to go perfectly.
当我们与第一家全国性客户推出产品时，我们需要确保服务24/7运行，这是我们生命中最重要的交易。它必须完美无缺。
So Tony and I were monitoring the system 24/7 because we knew this was our shot. He stayed up until 4:00 a.m., and I woke up at 4:00 a.m. and watched it.
所以托尼和我24小时不间断地监控系统，因为我们知道这是我们的机会。他熬夜到凌晨4点，而我则在凌晨4点醒来继续盯着。
And by the way, at the same time, we were building new features with this customer, trying to sell to new customers, and trying to support our existing customers and other portfolios that we had signed on.
顺便说一句，与此同时，我们还在与这位客户一起开发新功能，努力销售给新客户，并努力支持我们现有客户和我们已签约的其他业务组合。
So that was probably the most physically draining time. I still work 7 days a week. 90-100 hours is not really sustainable; that's when you're actually starting to eat into sleep and deteriorating over time.
所以那可能是我身体上最疲惫的时期。我仍然每周工作7天。90到100小时的工作量其实是不可持续的；那会导致你开始牺牲睡眠，并随着时间的推移而衰弱。
But 90 hours is sustainable. It just means you wake up, go to work, go home, go to sleep, get proper sleep, and then you just do it again tomorrow.
但90小时是可持续的。这意味着你起床，去工作，回家，睡觉，获得充足睡眠，然后明天再重复一遍。
And you do that every single day. And that is how problems get solved. I think my suggestion for founders is always that if they're not working 7 days a week, they're not growing their company as fast as they should.
你每天都这样做。问题就是这样解决的。我认为我对创始人的建议总是：如果他们不是每周工作7天，他们的公司就不会以应有的速度增长。
Their company is going to be beaten by another company whose founders are working 7 days a week. So that's just extra time and effort that will accelerate the growth of your company.
他们的公司将会被那些创始人每周工作7天的公司超越。所以，这额外的精力和时间将加速你公司的成长。
If you want to be the best company in the world, I think you have to work the hardest in the world. It's like anything else: if you want to be the best athlete or the best musician, you're practicing non-stop.
如果你想成为世界上最好的公司，我认为你就必须是世界上工作最努力的公司。这就像其他任何事情一样：如果你想成为最优秀的运动员或最优秀的音乐家，你都会不停地练习。
A tech startup is exactly the same thing. The culture here is filled with a lot of people who just really like solving hard problems. And you're surrounded by so many people that have this type of culture.
科技创业公司也是如此。这里的文化充满了许多真正喜欢解决难题的人。你被如此多拥有这种文化的人所包围。
There's this kind of intense gravity that when you bring in new people, they feel that energy and they really want to meet that bar.
这里有一种强大的引力，当你引入新人时，他们会感受到那种能量，并非常希望达到那个标准。
“不性感”行业的巨大潜力
I actually think that most of the next unicorns (独角兽公司: 估值达到10亿美元以上的未上市科技初创公司) will be products that are built in "unsexy" industries. I think a lot of the most important problems that are left to solve in the world are problems that are typically deemed "unsexy."
我实际上认为，下一批独角兽公司中的大部分，其产品将诞生于“不性感”的行业。我认为世界上许多尚未解决的最重要问题，通常都被认为是“不性感”的问题。
If they seem "sexy," that means people are already very excited about them and they're already trying to solve them.
如果它们看起来“性感”，那意味着人们已经对它们非常兴奋，并且正在努力解决它们。
So long term, everything we try to do in housing and healthcare is to make these industries much more financially stable and much more attractive, so that we can have more housing providers and more healthcare providers, and that serves all of us.
因此从长远来看，我们在住房和医疗保健领域所做的一切，都是为了使这些行业更加财务稳定，更具吸引力，这样我们就能拥有更多的住房提供者和医疗保健提供者，这符合我们所有人的利益。
And we want capital to be put into the most fundamental and important parts of society that serve us as humans.
我们希望资本能够投入到社会中最基础、最重要的部分，那些服务于我们人类需求的地方。