关于创业的英语美文阅读.doc
关于创业的英语美文阅读创业,年少者敢博,年长者善算,常胜者爱拼。一个成功的创业者,三个因素,目光、胸怀和实力。WTT分享关于创业的英语美文,希望可以帮助大家!关于创业的英语美文:创业离不开朋友,家人和傻瓜Most entrepreneurs have learned that it's almost always quicker and easier to get cash fromsomeone you know, rather than angel investors or professional venture capitalists.In fact,most investors “require” that you already have some investment from friends and family beforethey will even step up to the plate.大多数创业者都明白,比起获得天使投资人或专业风险资本家的投资,从熟人那里获得资金几乎总要更快更容易一些。事实上,大多数投资者都“要求”在他们着手研究相关工程之前,创业者已经从他的亲朋好友那里获得了一些投资资金。You see, investors invest in people, before they invest in ideas or products.Since they don'tknow you (yet), their first integrity check on you as a person is whether your friends andfamily believe in you strongly enough to give you seed money for your new idea.If they won'tdo it, they why would I as stranger invest in you?众所周知,投资者首先投资的是人,接下来才是创意或产品。因为投资者还不理解创业者,所以他们首先要对创业者的人品审查一番,看看他的亲朋好友是否对他有足够的信任,愿意给他启动新创意的种子资金。假如连亲朋好友都不愿意掏钱,对创业者一无所知的投资者凭什么要向其投资呢?Friends and family will likely not e_pect the same level of sophistication on the business modeland financials as a professional investor, but they do e_pect to see certain things.Here is asummary of some key items to think about as an entrepreneur before approaching friends,family, or even fools:朋友和家人可能不会像专业投资者那样,要求创业者出具复杂的商业形式和财务信息,但他们确实希望看到确凿的东西。以下是创业者在求助于朋友、家人,甚或是钱多人傻的笨蛋之前需要认真考虑的关键环节:1.Don't be afraid to ask, carefully.If you set around quietly waiting for someone you know tooffer you money to fund a startup, you will probably have a long wait.On the other hand, if youopen every conversation with “I need money,” you won't have any friends or any money.Practice your “elevator pitch,” and end it by asking for the order.1.不要怕开口,言辞需慎重。假如一位创业者安安稳稳地等待某位熟人为他提供初创企业的启动资金,他或许得熬上相当长一段时间。另一方面,假设创业者逢人就说:“我需要钱,”他恐怕连一个朋友都交不上,更别说筹措到资金了。创业者需要好好练习一下“电梯间演讲”,把要钱的话放到最后来说。2.Be upbeat and respectful.Nothing kills everyone's optimism and desire to help quicker thana negative or arrogant attitude.If they are going to put cash into your pany, chances arethat they will e_pect to spend a fair amount of time together, either helping you or certainlydiscussing progress.Nobody likes a downer.2.生气勃勃,毕恭毕敬。没有什么比消极傲慢的态度更能扼杀大伙的信心和提携的意愿。假如大伙打算把钱投入创业者的公司,他们很可能期望跟创业者呆上足够长的时间,要么为他出谋划策,要么讨论公司的进展。没有人喜欢垂头丧气的家伙。3.Be passionate about the idea.Friends and family will quickly detect your level of sincerityand thought behind the idea.You need to convince them that you have been working on thisvision for a long time, and have done the “due diligence” on all the potential knockoffs.Daydreams and “the idea of the moment” won't get much respect.3.对创业点子充满激情。朋友和家人很快就能发觉创业者对于创意的真挚程度和考虑深度。创业者需要让他们相信自己致力于这个愿景已经有相当长的一段时间,并且对于所有潜在的风险都进展了“尽职调查”。白日梦和“灵光一现”不会得到太大的尊重。4.Demonstrate progress and your own “skin in the game.” Saying that you need money tostart is not nearly as convincing as saying that you have built a prototype on your own dime,but need more to roll it out.We all know people who can talk a good game, but never getaround to building anything.4.展示进步和创业者“自身的资金投入”。与其说自己需要启动资金,不如说自己已经自筹资金建立了一个样板,但还需要资金将其推向市场,后者更有说服力。我们都见过这样的人,他们说得天花乱坠,但从未付诸于行动。5.Ask for the minimum rather than the ma_imum.We would all love to have a million dollars offunding to “do it right” and build the pany of our dreams.But your chances are minimal offinding someone who will give you that much to start.Set some milestones for three or fourmonths out, and show what you can do, then ask for more.5.融资按部就班,不求一蹴而就。我们都想获得一百万美元的融资,“一步到位”地建造自己梦想的公司。但创业者几乎不可能找到一位愿意出这么多钱作为启动资金的人。以三四个月为期设置一些里程碑,展示获得的成果,然后再要求进一步的投资。6.municate the risks, and write down the agreement.Be honest with naive familymembers and friends about the inherent risks of a startup - at least 70% fail in the first fiveyears.Don't take money from family or friends who can't afford to lose it.Think hard about theconsequences of a possible startup failure and the loss of their funding.6.告知风险,立字为据。一定要向天真的亲朋好友们坦率的说明创业的固有风险-至少有70%的初创企业可能会在开张前5年倒闭!不要从无力承受损失的家人或朋友那里拿钱。务必要仔细想想创业一旦失败,资金投入损失殆尽的后果。7.Show some incremental value along the way.Look for ways to get some traction with aminimal product, while you are still developing the main event.In high technology, this is called“release early and iterate,” which allows you to make corrections as you go, as well as adjustfor the market changes.It also shows progress to early backers.7.一步一步地显示递增的价值。创业者仍然在开发核心产品的时候,需要设法用外围产品获得市场的某种认同。在高科技领域,这叫做“尽早推出,查漏补缺(release early and iterate)”,这种方式可以让创业者一边开发产品,一边根据市场变化对其进展修正,这样做还可以让早期的支持者看到企业的进步。8.work to build investor relationships before you ask for money.Having a real project,rather than just an idea, is a strong positive when working for angels or VCs.Now you reallyhave something to discuss, and real credibility as an entrepreneur.Build the friendship first,ask for advice on a real project, then maybe money later.8.融资未动,人脉先行。结交天使投资人或风险资本家,建立人脉的时候,掌握一个实实在在的工程(而不仅仅是一个想法)可以带来非常积极的效果。因为,这样才能实在拥有可资讨论的东西,也才能算得上是名符其实的创业者。先跟投资人建立友谊,就手头真是的工程想他们征求意见,接下来或许就可以开口要钱了。Overall, don't think of friends and family funding only as a last resort.There are massiveadvantages, like sharing profits with friends and family, as well as the strategic credibility thancan be gained from funding from someone you know, rather than from a professionalinvestor.总体而言,不要仅仅只把家人和朋友仅仅视为最后的资金渠道。从熟人(而不是一位职业投资者)那里获得创业资金可以带来宏大的好处。它不仅可以让亲朋好友分享利润,还能为创业者积累起具有战略性意义的信誉度。I hope all of these points seem like mon sense to you, and you wouldn't think of handling itany other way.Yet, I'm continually amazed at how often I am approached as a professionalinvestor by strangers asking for a million dollars to fund an idea, without hitting even one ofthe above points.我希望以上这些对有志创业的人来说都已经是常识,除此之外,别无他法。然而,作为一位专业投资人,我经常碰到一些生疏人,上述几点他们连一项都没有做到,就来向我申请高达100万美元的创业资金。这种事总是让我惊讶不已。We can all recount horror stories of families and friendships torn apart by money lost onsomeone else's speculative dream.In these cases both the entrepreneur and the fundingpartner are the fools.Don't be one.我们都听说过这样的悲剧,一些人因为别人的发财梦而蒙受经济损失,最终撕裂了亲情和友谊。在这些故事中,充当傻瓜的不仅是创业者,还包括他们的融资伙伴。但愿你不是!关于创业的英语美文:衰退与创业 Downturn, Start upDownturn, start up -The effects of recessions on entrepreneurs and managers run deep衰退与创业 -经济衰退对企业家和经理人的影响在加剧THE list of famous panies founded during economic downturns is long and varied.It includes General Motors, AT-T, Disney and MTV, all founded during recessions.A 2022 study found that over half of Fortune 500 panies got their start during a downturn or a bear market.A recession, it seems, may not be an entirely bad time to start a pany.Indeed, busts (and booms) cast a longer shadow on the business landscape than is monly realised, because they influence both the rate of business formation and how e_isting firms are run.在经济衰退期间创办的知名企业数量很多,且各式各样的行业都有。通用汽车(General Motors)、美国 电报公司(AT-T)、迪士尼(Disney)和音乐电视(MTV,全球两大音乐台之一)等都是在经济衰退时创立的。2022年有研究发现,超过一半的财富500强公司都是在衰退或熊市期间创设的。经济衰退时期,看起来并非完全不合适创设新公司。事实上,萧条(或繁荣)对经济的商业环境的影响远比一般人意识到的要深远,因为它们既影响新企业的设立速度又影响现有企业的运营状况。Some argue that recessions speed up the process of productive economic churn-what Joseph Schumpeter called “creative destruction”.The destruction part is easy to see: downturns kill businesses, leaving boarded-up windows on the high street as their gravestones.But recessions may also spur the creation of new businesses.有些人认为,经济衰退可以加快经济构造的调整进程-约瑟夫熊彼特称这为“创造性破坏”。破坏那局部很容易理解:经济衰让步企业倒闭,大街上剩下的那些用木板钉牢的窗户就如同他们的墓碑。然而,经济衰退也可能刺激新行业(企业)的诞生。When people suddenly have less money to spend, clever entrepreneurs may see an opportunity to set up businesses that give them what they want more cheaply or efficiently.Downturns may also swell the ranks of potential firm creators, because many who might otherwise have sought a stable salary will reinvent themselves as entrepreneurs.A recent study by Robert Fairlie of the University of California, Santa Cruz found that the proportion of Americans who start a new business each month is on average about half as high again in metropolitan areas where unemployment is in double digits as in those where it is under 2%.当人们的可支配的收入突然减少,敏锐的企业家可能抓住这个时机去兴办企业,消费他们需要的更廉价且更有效的商品。经济衰退也可能扩大潜在创业者的规模,因为很多本来要寻找一个稳定的工作的人,将会重塑自己为企业家。圣克鲁兹的加利福尼亚大学的罗伯特费尔利最近的一项研究发现,在失业率高达两位数的大城市,美国人的月均创业比率大约两倍于那些失业率在2%以下的地区。A recession is a difficult time to start a pany, of course.Credit is scarce.Would-be entrepreneurs are further handicapped by falling asset prices, since they might want to use their homes as collateral for a start-up loan.Whether downturns on balance help or hurt entrepreneurs depends therefore on the relative strength of these opposing sets of forces.当然,在经济衰退期间创业总是相当困难的。信誉稀缺,且不断下降的资产价格更成为将来的企业家们创业的进一步障碍,因此他们可能以房屋为抵押,从而获得启动资金。因此,资产负债表的恶化对企业家是有利还是有害,取决于他们的相对资本实力。Mr Fairlie finds evidence that the spur to enterprise during the most recent recession in America from a drying-up of other employment opportunities outweighed the drag on business formation from a collapsing housing market.That said, a shrinking economy also makes it hard for young firms to take root and grow.A study missioned by the Kaufmann Foundation, an organisation devoted to entrepreneurs, suggests that young panies, typically responsible for the bulk of US job creation, added only 2.3m jobs in 2022, down from about 3m a year earlier.费尔利在美国最近的经济衰退中发现的证据说明,其他就业时机的枯竭对创业的刺激超过了崩溃的房地产市场的阻碍。也就是说,经济萎缩也使得年轻企业难以扎根和成长。考夫曼基金会(一个致力于研究企业家的组织)资助的一项研究说明,美国大多数就业时机的增加要归功于新企业,在2022年仅增加了230万就业,而在去年这数字是300万左右。Tough times do not suddenly prompt everyone to start a business.The vast majority of people who reach working age during a downturn still look for a job.But research also suggests that recessions have lasting effects on how e_ecutives manage businesses.John Graham of Duke University and Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan of PIMCO, a bond manager, have found that chief e_ecutives who lived through the Depression tended to run panies with lower debt levels (leverage then went up when these Depression-era bosses retired).In a new study, Antoite Schoar and Luo Zuo of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology show that panies run many years later by people who cut their teeth during bleak times, when money was tight and customers harder to find, are systematically different from those run by managers whose formative e_periences date back to e_pansionary times, when credit and optimism were in le supply.困难的日子并非突然促使每个人去创业。在衰退时期,绝大多数处于工作年龄的人仍然会去寻找工作。但是有研究说明,衰退对管理层管理企业的方式有着持续的影响。杜克大学的约翰葛拉汉和太平洋投资管理公司(PIMCO)的债券经理Krishnamoorthy Narasimhan发现萧条期间的首席执行官倾向于以更低的债务程度运营公司(在大萧条时代的老板退休以后,公司的财务杠杆将会上升)。在一项新研究中,麻省理工学院(MIT)的安托瓦内特肖尔和佐罗( Luo Zuo)发现,那些曾在黑暗时期(银根紧缩,客户难寻)创业的企业家管理多年的公司,与仅经历扩张时期(信贷充足,且对将来持乐观态度)的企业家的公司有系统性的差异。By carefully dissecting the careers of over 5,700 bosses of panies that have been on the S-P 1500 list, Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo found that those who began their management careers during a bust were substantially more risk-averse, took on less debt and generally were more conservative managers than the rest of the sle, even many decades later.That will strike critics of the over-leveraged pany as thoroughly good news, but it is hard to say whether this effect is entirely benign.通过详细分析p 那些公司曾入标普1500(S-P1500)的公司的5700多名老板的职业生涯,肖尔女士和佐先生发现,那些在萧条时期开场管理生涯的人更不愿意冒险,公司的负债更少。此外,即使几十年之后,相对于样本中的其他老板,他们亦更保守。这对于那些指责公司过度负债的批评家来说,应该是彻底的好消息。然而,很难判断这样的效应是否是完全良性的。Bosses whose careers began in a recession also tend to be so concerned about cost-effectiveness that the panies they go on to run spend less on research and development.They may thus be too conservative: firms with bosses whose professional baptism came in a weak economy have lower returns on assets than those run by other managers.那些在衰退时期开场管理者生涯的人,倾向于过多地关注企业的本钱效益,以致他们研发的投入较少。他们也可能因此变得过于保守:对于那些职业生涯受过经济低迷的严峻考验的老板,他们的企业的资产回报率相比其他老板的要低。Why should this be? One plausible e_planation is that recessions affect the way people take decisions.Management styles are surely in part the result of the kinds of problems a person has had to grapple with.Even a risk-lover may end up taking more conservative financial decisions in a weak economy.If these decisions serve him well in lean times, then he may conclude that fiscal prudence is a stance worth sticking with in years of plenty.这是为什么呢?一个合理的解释是经济衰退影响人们的决策方式。企业家的管理风格在一定程度上取决于他们过去所应对的各种难题。即使一个风险爱好者也可能在经济不景气的时候最终选择保守的融资决策。假如那些决策在拮据时期给他带来了好处,那么他可能得出这样的结论,即使在经济繁荣的时候,审慎的投融资仍是值得我们持续坚持的立场。Downturns also funnel people into different jobs from those they might otherwise have entered.A 2022 study by Paul Oyer of Stanford University found that Stanford MBAs disproportionately shunned Wall Street during a bear market.This may seem unsurprising-who wants a job in finance when the market is tanking? But there are reasons to believe that these choices make a difference well into the future.Those who begin their careers in a bust are less footloose than their boom-time equivalents.Ms Schoar and Mr Zuo find that the average recession-scarred chief e_ecutive is more likely to have risen through the ranks of a firm than the norm, and is less likely to have switched employers or jumped from one industry to another.假设不存在经济下滑,人们可能会选择不同的工作。2022年,斯坦福大学的保罗奥耶研究发现,斯坦福的工商管理硕士(MBA)在熊市时都或多或少地防止在华尔街就业。这看起来缺乏为奇-在股市大滑坡之际,又有谁愿意在金融领域工作呢?但是我们有理由相信,这些选择的影响将会涉及将来。相比那些在经济繁荣期间开场工作的同行,在萧条期间创始职业生涯的人显得更稳定。肖尔女士和 佐先生发现一般经历过经济衰退的首席执行官有更大的可能是从公司的底层一步步爬上来的,也不大可能跳槽或变换所从事的行业。The pool of candidates for top jobs in a particular industry reflects the choices that people make early on in their working lives.Yet these choices are the result not only of managers preferences and abilities, as you might e_pect, but also of the economic circumstances that prevailed at the time they began working.Whether they were set up during a boom or a bust, todays firms are deeply affected by the economic fluctuations of the past.某一特定行业最高职位可供选择的人才反映了他们在工作初期所做的选择。然而,这些选择不仅仅依赖经理的偏好和工作才能,正如你所意料的,也取决于他们开场工作时所处的经济环境。不管企业是在衰退又或者在繁荣时期创设的,如今的企业都深受过去经济波动的影响。关于创业的英语美文:你是否合适创业?Here are five questions to ask before you start your own business:在你考虑自立门户之前,不妨问问自己以下五个问题:1.Am I passionate about my product or service? 我对自己的产品或者效劳充满热情吗?Let's face it: the start-up phase is stressful.You will find yourself questioning whetheryou've made the right decision, especially when the hours are long and the initial profits (ifany) are lean.As the business owner, you're also chief salesperson for your pany.Yourenthusiasm for your product or service- whether it's hand-knit sweaters or top-notch ta_preparation- is often the difference that hooks customers, lands deals and attracts investors.It's unwise to start down the path of entrepreneurship unless you've got a zeal that will getyou through rough patches and keep you interested long after the initial enthusiasm hasfaded.让我们直面这样的事实:创业初期你会面临压力很大。你会发现自己在不断质疑是否做出了正确的决策,尤其是在工作时间很长、但最初的利润却很少的情况下。作为企业所有人,你还是企业的主要销售人员。你对于自己产品或者效劳无论它是手织毛衫还是一流的税务效劳的热情常常是抓住客户、获得合约以及吸引投资者的与众不同之处。除非你抱有可以帮助自己度过困难时日并且在最初的热情逐渐消退之后的很长时间里仍能保持浓重兴趣的热忱,否那么开场创业之路将是不明智的选择。2.What is my tolerance for risk? 我容忍风险的程度如何?Whether it's quitting your d