2年工作經驗進初創公司

by Niki Agrawal

通過尼基·阿格勞瓦爾(Niki Agrawal)

溝通是關鍵：通過兩家初創公司獲得的成長經驗教訓+找工作 (Communication is key: growth lessons learned through two startups + a job hunt)

It’s been a crazy two years. I founded two startups and went through a job search. And wow, do I have some stories to tell! And more importantly, some lessons to share that I picked up along the way.

瘋狂的兩年了。我創辦了兩家初創公司，并進行了求職。哇，我有一些故事要講！更重要的是，我在此過程中分享了一些經驗教訓。

聽80％，說20％ (Listen 80%, talk 20%)

啟動1：Doornox (Startup 1: Doornox)

Six months into the startup journey, I was struggling to find clients. My large, personally-made Excel system that tracked all the potential customers I had cold-emailed and called was crashing my computer nearly every time I opened it.

在啟動旅程的六個月中，我一直在努力尋找客戶。我的大型個人制作的Excel系統跟蹤我冷郵件發送給我的所有潛在客戶的情況，幾乎在每次打開計算機時都使我的計算機崩潰。

I dialed a potential customer for the third time as a follow-up to our earlier, somewhat-hopeful conversation. As usual, when I pitched Doornox and asked if they’d be interested, I got the response that they would “think about it.” Doornox would solve some of their recruitment problems, but would still not help them fully hire new candidates.

我第三次撥打了潛在客戶的電話，作為對我們較早希望的對話的后續。像往常一樣，當我向Doornox推銷并詢問他們是否有興趣時，我得到的答復是他們會“考慮一下”。 Doornox可以解決他們的一些招聘問題，但仍無法幫助他們充分聘用新候選人。

At this point, I would typically launch into a deeply well-thought-out plan of exactly how Doornox would indeed solve all their issues. But perhaps because I was tired and disheartened or perhaps because I was people-watching through the window of the Starbucks I was sitting at, I simply didn’t respond.

在這一點上，我通常會提出一個深思熟慮的計劃，以準確地了解Doornox將如何解決所有問題。但是，也許是因為我感到疲倦和沮喪，或者是因為我正在人們坐在我正坐在的星巴克窗戶旁注視，我只是沒有回應。

Awkward silence for three seconds. And then something interesting happened.

尷尬的沉默了三秒鐘。然后有趣的事情發生了。

The potential customer went on to talk about EXACTLY what she needed. She launched into her own pre-formulated monologue about every recruitment problem she faced. She even told me, specifically, what she would pay if we offered the solutions.

潛在的客戶繼續談論她到底需要什么。她對自己遇到的每一個招聘問題發表了自己的預先設定的獨白。她甚至告訴我，如果我們提供解決方案，她將支付多少。

In 15 mins, I learned more about recruitment than I had all week. Though we didn’t offer the one thing she wanted most, we were a small nimble startup. I decided on the spot that we did offer that service, and told her the great news of “our recent pivot.” She excitedly said she would loop her other team member in and asked about next steps.

在15分鐘內，我比整個星期都學到了更多有關招聘的知識。盡管我們沒有提供她最想要的一件事，但我們是一家小型敏捷創業公司。我當場決定我們確實提供該服務，并告訴她“我們最近的發展方向”的好消息。她興奮地表示，她將邀請其他團隊成員加入，并詢問下一步的工作。

Doornox was one step closer to finding product market fit, and the secret to pivoting well was listening. With every future call, I mostly shut up. And counterintuitively, more sales happened! When I finally did talk after listening to customers for the majority of the call, I was able to customize the Doornox pitch to customers’ exact needs. In a moment they understood the value add and gave a quick yes or no (yes, you still get a lot of “no”s).

Doornox距離找到適合產品的市場僅一步之遙，而進行良好調整的秘訣是傾聽。以后每打一次電話，我都會閉嘴。與直覺相反，發生了更多的銷售！當我在聽完大部分客戶的電話后終于開始交談時，我能夠根據客戶的確切需求自定義Doornox間距。片刻之后，他們就知道了增值并給出了快速的是或否(是的，您仍然會得到很多“否”)。

Founders are often aware that they should be listening to their customers in user interviews, but I found that listening is just as important on sales calls. Sales calls are like a big game of Minesweeper. You need to map out exactly what all the selling points are for each unique client. If you just click around and name all the features of your product, you will most definitely run into a bomb that explodes the whole game. But if you listen to the clues and build the relationship upon the information you slowly acquire, you’ll finally map out all the sweet spots and win the game.

創始人經常意識到，他們應該在用戶訪談中傾聽客戶的聲音，但是我發現傾聽對于銷售電話同樣重要。銷售電話就像一場掃雷游戲。您需要準確地列出每個唯一客戶的所有賣點。如果您只是單擊一下并命名產品的所有功能，那么您肯定會碰上炸彈，從而炸毀整個游戲。但是，如果您聽取線索并根據您逐漸獲得的信息建立關系，那么您最終將確定所有的優勢并贏得比賽。

It’s amazing what people will say and how much you’ll learn if you stay quiet just three seconds longer. Silence is uncomfortable. Embrace that discomfort. Make it your secret weapon.

人們會說些什么，如果您再三秒鐘保持安靜，就會學到多少東西，這真是令人驚訝。沉默不舒服。擁抱這種不適。使它成為您的秘密武器。

“運氣偏愛有準備的人。” -Louis Pasteur(＆Inc.的Edna) (“Luck favors the prepared.” — Louis Pasteur (& Edna from The Incredibles))

創業公司2：Proof Inc (Startup 2: Proof Inc)

The “listen 80%, talk 20%” strategy helped with many strategic pivots that brought Doornox closer and closer to product market fit. But the hard truth was that startups take a really, really long time (something many wise entrepreneurs had told me long before I started the startup journey). Doornox was going to take three times longer than we expected to become profitable. It was time to abandon the idea for my side hustle that was already impactful and generating revenue.

“聽80％，說話20％”策略有助于許多戰略重點，使Doornox越來越接近產品市場。但是硬道理是，創業公司要花很長時間，這是真的(很多聰明的企業家早在我開始創業之前就告訴過我)。 Doornox所需的時間將比我們預期的要多三倍。現在是時候放棄已經讓我產生影響并創造收入的我的忙碌想法了。

Proof Inc helps high school students navigate the college admissions process. What started out as my one-on-one tutoring side-gig turned into a trove of knowledge from years of experience. Clients (and their referrals!) wanted more and more access to this knowledge.

Proof Inc幫助高中生導航大學錄取過程。最初是我一對一的輔導技巧，后來變成了多年經驗積累而成的知識寶庫。客戶(和他們的推薦人！)希望越來越多地獲得這種知識。

The one thing that made client relationships most successful was the detailed preparation I would conduct before every meeting. With my quick excel tracking system, I documented when every call took place and what exactly was discussed. Whether it was the student’s concerns about their personal statement or the parents’ comment that the family would be vacationing in Mexico for two weeks, I wrote down the information.

使客戶關系最成功的一件事是我在每次會議之前都要進行的詳細準備。借助我的快速excel跟蹤系統，我記錄了每個呼叫的發生時間以及確切討論的內容。無論是學生對個人陳述的擔憂，還是父母對全家將在墨西哥度假兩個星期的評論，我都寫下了信息。

And before every meeting, I would spend a few mins skimming the notes from the past few meetings. My call might start with, “Hey, how was Mexico?” Later I’d ask, “So where are we with that concern about your personal statement?’” Small and large insights like this made the most of our time together, and clients knew they were receiving a customized service. They knew I cared.

在每次會議之前，我都會花幾分鐘時間瀏覽過去幾次會議的筆記。我的電話可能會以“嘿，墨西哥怎么樣？”開頭。稍后我會問：“那么，關于您的個人聲明的關注點在哪里？”這樣的小見解和大見解充分利用了我們的大部分時間，客戶知道他們正在接受定制服務。他們知道我在乎。

People love being prioritized, and a few minutes of preparation generated loyalty. Over 95% of future business came through referrals, and the most frequent praise I received was that I really cared. A few minutes is all it took to create customization.

人們喜歡被優先考慮，幾分鐘的準備就產生了忠誠度。超過95％的未來業務來自轉介，而我最常得到的好評是我真的很在意。創建定制只需要幾分鐘。

It’s not possible to remember every detail that clients tell you. But it’s possible, with a little effort, to show that you care down to the smallest detail. And if you do miss something, people are very forgiving, and things still work in your favor. Being prepared is the best way to be lucky.

不可能記住客戶告訴您的每個細節。但是有可能通過一點努力就表明您關心最小的細節。而且，如果您確實錯過了某些事情，那么人們會非常寬容，而事情仍然會對您有利。做好準備是幸運的最佳方式。

全職工作稱為求職 (The full-time job called job hunting)

At the end of the day, I didn’t want to create a consulting business, and that’s more or less what Proof was turning into. I wanted to work on software that impacts thousands of people with a mission I cared about. My mentors and family suggested working at a startup.

歸根結底，我不想創建一家咨詢業務，這或多或少就是Proof變成的東西。我想從事對我成千上萬的任務有影響的軟件，該軟件可以影響成千上萬的人。我的導師和家人建議在一家初創公司工作。

Thus began the brutal journey of finding a Product Management job. Ironically, this was what my first start-up Doornox was trying to solve.

于是開始了尋找產品管理工作的殘酷旅程。具有諷刺意味的是，這就是我的第一個初創公司Doornox試圖解決的問題。

Here are some quick lessons from those six-plus months.

這是六個多月以來的一些快速課程。

時間殺死交易 (Time kills deals)

A designer once told me that when she’s getting feedback from customers on new prototypes, she purposely shows them crappy, unpolished versions. These take very little time to produce and are known as “low-fidelity mocks.” When I asked why, she said that people are more likely to give honest feedback this way. People are generally too hesitant to alter mocks that look highly polished and well-thought-out.

一位設計師曾經告訴我，當她從客戶那里獲得有關新原型的反饋時，她特意向他們展示了粗糙，粗糙的版本。這些制作時間非常短，被稱為“低保真模擬”。當我問為什么時，她說人們更可能以這種方式給出誠實的反饋。人們通常不愿更改看起來很精致且經過深思熟慮的模擬。

The same low-fidelity concept is largely true in the job hunt. If a recruiter emailed me at 2pm asking a few basic questions, a response from me at 3pm would be read with lower expectations than a response 24-hours later.

相同的低保真概念在求職中大體上是正確的。如果某位招聘人員在下午2點給我發電子郵件詢問一些基本問題，那么比起24小時后的答復，我在下午3點收到的答復的期望值要低。

Low-fidelity responses make the job search process move much faster. You start winning out over other candidates who take longer to respond. The more time you take to respond to something, the higher you’re stacking the expectations against yourself. And the higher the chances are that you’re killing that deal.

低保真度的響應使求職過程移動得更快。您開始擊敗需要更長時間響應的其他候選人。您對某事做出回應的時間越多，您對自己的期望就越高。而且，您殺死這筆交易的機會就更高。

This doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t respond well. But I’ve found that responding quickly with perhaps a small tradeoff in quality separates a candidate from the pack. You become known for your reliability in communication, and when you do need more time to respond, people let you have it.

這并不意味著您不應做出很好的React。但是我發現，快速做出響應，也許會在質量上進行少量折衷，從而使候選人與眾不同。您以溝通的可靠性而著稱，當您確實需要更多時間做出回應時，人們就會喜歡它。

Value time as much as quality. As they say in product management, “ship fast.”

珍惜時間和質量。正如他們在產品管理中所說的那樣，“快速發貨”。

跟進 (Follow Up)

Another thing that <5% of people do is follow up. Following up might take the form of a two-line thank you note after an informational interview. It might be a reminder email after a hiring manager doesn’t respond for a week. Something along the lines of “Hey, I wanted to circle back on my last note and see if you had any thoughts?” can go a long way in advancing career prospects. There were countless times when, after several follow-up reminders in a row, someone would get back to me thanking me for following up and then moving me on to the next steps.

<5％的人要做的另一件事是跟進。在進行信息面試后，可以采取兩行感謝形式進行跟進。招聘經理一周未回復后，可能是一封提醒電子郵件。類似于“嘿，我想回想一下我的最后一個音符，看看你有什么想法嗎？” 可以大大提升職業前景。在無數次連續提醒您之后，有人會回覆我，感謝我的跟進，然后繼續進行下一步。

People are human. We may concoct internal hypotheses of how recruiters are plotting against us. But they often just forget to respond. Following up in a polite, quick manner is not annoying — it actually shows that you’re organized and reliable.

人是人。我們可能會捏造關于招聘者如何陰謀反對我們的內部假設。但是他們常常忘了回應。禮貌，快速地跟進并不令人討厭-它實際上表明您有組織且可靠。

知道你的故事 (Know Your Story)

Communicating your journey is critical to the job search. Almost every employer starts with “tell me about yourself.” At first, I would only talk about the highlight reel of my professional journey. But I found much more success when I authentically laid out the startup struggle, the lessons learned, and how that’s shaped me into a product manager today. Good stories are personal AND professional, and they discuss both the good times AND the conflicts. Talking about my startup journey in just highlights was extremely boring for people.

溝通您的旅程對求職至關重要。幾乎每個雇主都從“告訴我自己”開始。首先，我只會談論我職業生涯中的精彩片段。但是，當我真誠地開展創業斗爭，汲取的教訓以及如今如何將我塑造成產品經理時，我發現了更多的成功。好故事是個人和專業的，他們討論好時光和沖突。僅僅以亮點談論我的創業之旅對人們來說非常無聊。

Communicating your story makes a ten-fold difference in making job hunt progress. Big shout out to entrepreneur and podcast-creator Ruben Harris who helped me break into startups with story crafting!

交流您的故事在求職過程中產生了十倍的差異。向企業家和播客創建者魯本·哈里斯 ( Ruben Harris )大喊大叫，他們通過故事制作幫助我闖入了創業公司！

Along the same lines, don’t stress about the precise things you should do or say when communicating your value. It’s what you make people feel that is most important. Don’t micro-manage your speech in real-time — this will free you up to communicate yourself in a way that engenders trust and a genuine awe of you in other people.

同樣，不要在傳達自己的價值時強調您應該做或要說的確切事情。這就是讓人們感到最重要的事情。不要實時管理您的語音-這將使您解放出來，以引起信任和對他人真正敬畏的方式進行交流。

“The true spirit of conversation consists more in bringing out the cleverness of others than in showing a great deal of it yourself; he who goes away pleased with himself and his own wit is also greatly pleased with you.” -Jean de La Bruyere

“對話的真正精神更多在于展現他人的智慧，而不是自己展現出很多智慧；走開的人對自己和自己的智慧感到滿意，對你也很滿意。” -讓·德拉·布魯耶爾(Jean de La Bruyere)

沒有新聞就是新聞 (No News Is Still News)

Sometimes you make a promise to respond by a deadline, but for external reasons, you can’t keep that promise anymore. For example, I once told a friend who was pulling a favor referring me into her company that I would send her my resume by Thursday afternoon. Thursday afternoon rolled around, and a resume-guru whom I had asked for advice still hadn’t provided his feedback on mine. I didn’t yet feel comfortable sending the resume to my friend.

有時您承諾在截止日期前做出回應，但由于外部原因，您無法再履行該承諾。例如，我曾經告訴一個朋友，這個朋友正在幫我一個忙，將我介紹到她的公司，我會在周四下午之前寄給我我的簡歷。周四下午到處轉悠，我向他征求意見的履歷大師仍未提供他對我的反饋。我還不滿意將簡歷發送給我的朋友。

I received an awkward text from my friend later that week, asking if I still wanted a referral. Of course I did! Here was this person, who was going out of her way to help me in my job search, thinking that I didn’t care. She was following up with me! This unreliability wasn’t the impression I wanted to give. And thinking about it from her perspective, I would have done much less for a person who wasn’t reliable enough to follow-up with me.

那周晚些時候，我從朋友那里收到了一封尷尬的短信，問我是否仍然希望轉診。我當然做了！這個人正竭盡全力幫助我尋找工作，以為我不在乎。她正在跟著我！這種不可靠性不是我想要給的印象。從她的角度考慮，對于一個不夠可靠不能跟我跟進的人，我要做的事少得多。

I quickly gave her an update and realized the lesson. No news is still news. At the time of the deadline, a simple text saying that there wasn’t an update actually increased the other person’s trust in me. It hardly mattered that I was pushing back the deadline (other than the fact that time kills deals, but in that case I was gaining much more quality).

我很快給了她一個更新，并意識到了這一課。沒有新聞仍然是新聞。在截止日期時，一條簡單的文字說沒有更新實際上增加了對方對我的信任。不必推遲截止日期(時間會扼殺交易，但在那種情況下，我可以獲得更高的質量)。

People largely understand that things take time, and they are much more forgiving about a delay that is communicated than a delay that isn’t.

人們在很大程度上理解事情是需要時間的，他們對溝通的延遲比沒有的要寬容得多。

簡單電子郵件>復雜電子郵件 (Simple Emails > Complex Emails)

Yep.

是的

與自己溝通 (Communicate with yourself)

The job-hunt journey can be long, and sometimes amidst all the external communication, it can be easy to forget to communicate with yourself. Journalling and guided meditation (like the app Headspace) go a long way in making communication with other people better. It enables an internal dialogue with yourself.

找工作的過程可能很漫長，有時在所有外部溝通中，很容易忘記與自己溝通。日記和引導式冥想(例如應用程序Headspace)在改善與其他人的交流方面大有幫助。它可以與您自己進行內部對話。

I highly recommend this game-changer, as it helped me center myself after every rejection and resume black hole (and there were hundreds…). Meditation is that eagle-eyed view that helps you remember that your current struggle is temporary.

我強烈推薦這個改變游戲規則的人，因為它可以幫助我在每次被拒絕后將自己置中并恢復黑洞(有數百個…)。冥想是一種鷹眼的觀點，可以幫助您記住您當前的斗爭是暫時的。

最后的想法 (Final Thoughts)

Working on my communication has enabled me to make some really fantastic relationships. Their value ironically cannot be communicated because the serendipity is too random. Be it an intro, a resource, a knowledge drop, interview-practice time, career advice, or mental support along the way, I have a village of people to thank. So thank you!! You know who you are, and I could not have done it without you.

通過交流，我建立了一些非常棒的關系。具有諷刺意味的是，它們的價值無法傳達，因為偶然性太隨機了。無論是介紹，資源，知識的缺失，面試時間，職業建議還是一生中的心理支持，我都有很多人要感謝。所以謝謝！！你知道你是誰，沒有你我做不到。

My last big piece of news is that I will be a Product Manager at the meal-kit-delivery startup, HelloFresh, and that I will have the exciting opportunity to work with a talented team at headquarters in Berlin, Germany!

我最近的一大新聞是，我將成為送餐包交付初創公司HelloFresh的產品經理，并且我將有激動人心的機會與德國柏林總部的才華橫溢的團隊合作！

If you’d like to be in touch about entrepreneurship, or talk about product, or teach me German, I’d be happy to help how I can. Please feel free to reach out. And if you just want to say hi, that’s great too.

如果您想與企業家保持聯系，談論產品或教我德語，我很樂意為您提供幫助。請隨時與我們聯系。如果您只想打個招呼，那就太好了。

Best way to contact me is to slide into my DMs: Twitter (@nikiagra), and Fb Messenger (@nikiagra).

與我聯系的最佳方法是進入我的DM：Twitter(@nikiagra)和Fb Messenger(@nikiagra)。