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This is a series of articles published by Kai Fu Lee. I did the translation after graduation from university in summer to learn more about the technology trend and practise my translation skill.

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Translation of Kaifu Lee’s post on LinkedIn - Top Reasons why Start-ups Fail

李开复LinkedIn文章翻译之四 – 创业公司失败的几个原因

1. Lack of focus – Smart people want to try many new ideas, but a resource-constrained start-up does not have the luxury to try all cool things.

   1. 专注缺失 – 聪明人想要尝试很多新点子，但一个资源受限的初创公司无法奢望尝试所有酷炫的东西。

2. Too ambitious – Start-ups should be targeted on one user need just tackle one market, one user segment, with one compelling feature that solves a real user need. After proving a concept with a small group of users, you can then expand to more users. Then, you will be well placed to discover more user needs to expand your product iteratively. This is the lean start-up methodology.

   2. 野心太大 – 初创公司应该瞄准一个用户需求-只用一个解决真实用户需求的强大特性，抓住一个市场，一个用户组。在给一小组用户证明了某个概念之后，你随后就能扩展到更多的用户。然后，你就有条件发现更多的用户需求来迭代扩展你的产品。这就是精益创业的方法论。

3. Entrepreneur doesn’t scale – Starting a 3-person company is very different from managing a 100-person company. To scale up requires either an experienced entrepreneur or one who is able to scale up quickly.

   3. 创业者不会扩张 – 创立一个三人公司和管理一个一百人的公司非常不同。扩张需要一个有经验的企业家或一个有能力迅速扩张的人。

4. Team trust issues – VCs generally prefer team members who have known each other for a long time. Teams lacking trust will be severely challenged by both failure (how to downsize and what to cut) and success (how to divide responsibilities and financial upside).

   4. 团队信任问题 – 风投们总体上更喜欢成员之间彼此已认识很久（的团队）。缺乏信任的团队将会受到来自失败（如何裁员和精简事务）和成功（如何划分责任和财务的增长）两者的严酷挑战。

5. Poor execution – In the lean start-up environment, a good start may be copied easily by others. So you must be able to execute dependably and quickly your product needs to be updated on a weekly if not daily basis. Your leadership is maintained not by brand or by IP, but by your continual ability to execute and lead the pack.

   5. 执行力低下 – 在精益创业的环境里，一个好的开局很容易被其他人抄袭。所以你必须有能力可靠、快速地执行 – 你的产品就算不是每天更新也得每周更新。你的领先地位不是靠品牌也不是靠知识产权来维持，而是靠你持续不断的执行并领先的能力。

6. Technology looking for solution – rather than a solution for a user pain looking for proven technology. A good entrepreneur realizes that what matters is not the cool technology, but the value to users. VCs would prefer the innovation to be in spotting the solution, rather than trying an untested (but new) technology.

   6. 技术寻找解决方案 – 而不是用一个适合用户痛点的解决方案寻找已经证实的技术。一个好企业家会认识到重要的不是很炫的技术，而是给用户带来的价值。风投们会更喜欢创新定位到解决方案上，而不是尝试一个未经检验的（但是新的）技术。