致力于清洁又环保的产品

公司名称：MMJ Labs

地点：佐治亚州，亚特兰大

年收益：约80万美元

    儿科医师艾米•巴克斯特当初想到这个点子的时候就知道有戏。她的产品名字叫Buzzy。它拥有小巧的蜜蜂状外形，可震动，此外还附有一个冰袋，能够缓解人们在医疗注射后的疼痛感。她发现在市场上并没有类似产品与其竞争。她本可以听取那些在她看来“很专横的建议”，那就是与股权投资者合作从而大幅提高产量。但她并未这样做，而是选择从美国国立卫生研究院（National Institutes of Health）获取授权，从而得以坚持自己的理念，那就是生产一种绿色包装、可重复使用并且在美国本土制造的产品。对投资者而言，这些举措或许并不能让他们达成利润最大化的目标。

    但巴克斯特并无遗憾。她于2009年成立了自己的公司。那些已经试用过Buzzy的医院都提升了产品的信誉。现在个人用户也开始购买这种产品，公司的销售额开始迅速增长。她说：“公司成立两年来，我们一直是赢利的，但其实我们还没开始做市场营销呢。”

Keeping the company clean and green

Company: MMJ Labs

Location: Atlanta, Ga.

Revenues: About $800,000

    Pediatrician Amy Baxter knew she was onto something when she came up with Buzzy, a cute, vibrating bee-shaped device with an ice pack that provides natural relief from the pain of medical injections. Realizing there was nothing like it on the market, she could have ramped up quickly by responding to what she calls "overbearing suggestions" to meet with equity investors. But instead, she opted to go after a grant from the National Institutes of Health, which she won. That gave her the freedom to stick with her vision for a reusable product that used green packaging -- and was made in the U.S. -- moves that would not necessarily deliver the highest profits to investors.

    Baxter has no regrets. She launched her startup in 2009. Hospitals that tried Buzzy helped give the product credibility, and now individuals have begun to purchase it, sparking sales growth at the startup. "We've been profitable the last two years -- and haven't started marketing yet," she says.

集中化商业模式

公司名称：搜索引擎优化管理公司Conductor

地点：纽约州，纽约市

年收益：销售额1000万美元

    搜索引擎优化科技公司Conductor成立于2007年，以咨询业务起家。公司拥有风险投资支持，目前销售额增长势头迅猛，已增至约2,000万美元。公司开发了Searchlight软件，帮助联邦快递（FedEx）、西门子（Siemens）和史泰博（Staples）等用户来对其搜索引擎进行优化管理。Searchlight于2010年推出后获得了巨大成功。首席执行官、创始人赛斯•贝斯莫特尼克称：“我当时已经意识到这就是公司的未来，出售公司的服务业务是很艰难的抉择。”

    公司投资者也支持该公司的全局发展目标，但公司总收益却因此几乎在一夜之间骤降至每年约100万美元。但销售额并未触底很久。公司向企业客户收取的年费从35,000美元到数十万美元不等，预计今年销售额将有望超过1,000万美元。

A business model pivot

Company: Conductor

Location: New York, N.Y.

Revenues: $10 million run rate

    Founded in 2007, search engine optimization (SEO) technology firm Conductor started out as a consultancy, growing rapidly to about $20 million in sales. Along the way, the venture-capital backed company built Searchlight, software that helps clients -- which include FedEx, Siemens and Staples -- manage their SEO. After Searchlight launched in 2010, it took off like gangbusters. "I felt that was the future of the company," said CEO and founder Seth Besmertnik. "I made a very hard choice to sell the services business."

    That focus on the big picture, supported by the company's investors, reduced its revenues dramatically to about $1 million annually, almost overnight. But sales didn't stay at rock bottom for long. The company -- which charges enterprise clients from $35,000 a year to hundreds of thousands -- expects sales north of $10 million this year.

特许经营模式：先建设，再出售

公司名称：ShelfGenie

地点：佐治亚州，玛丽埃塔

年销售额：640万美元

    ShelfGenie公司成立于2000年，从事橱柜滑出式货架系统的设计、制造和安装。公司现有51家特许加盟商，但它本来可以吸引到更多的特许加盟商。公司首席执行官和共同创始人阿兰•杨是一位有条不紊的陆军老兵。他认为帮助每一个特许加盟商发展壮大更为重要，因为他希望创建的是一家可持续发展的公司。他说：“我的经验是，特许经营商，尤其是年轻的初创企业，要么必须特别善于出售特许经营权，要么必须特别长于为特许加盟商提供支持。我们必须在这两者之间做出选择。”

    杨和公司总裁、共同创始人巴瑞•法尔科为加盟商提供进入定制式客户关系管理系统和商业支持中心的权限，帮助他们应对管理问题。同时，公司还将特许经营销售业务外包给Franchise Dynamics公司，寻找潜在的特许加盟商，同时确保特许加盟商的责任心和匹配度。ShelfGenie公司要求各地区的特许加盟商每月至少在广告宣传方面投入5,000美元。杨说：“就算我们的特许加盟费可以达到100万美元，让那些没有能力的人参与进来也没有意义。”

Building franchises ahead of selling them

Company: ShelfGenie

Location: Marietta, Ga.

Annual sales: $6.4 million

    Founded in 2000, ShelfGenie -- which designs, builds and installs slide-out shelving systems for cabinets -- could probably have attracted more than its current 51 franchisees by now. But CEO and co-founder Allan Young -- a methodical Army veteran -- thinks it's more important to help each individual franchise grow and thrive so he can build a sustainable company. "My experience was that franchisors, especially young startups, are either really good at selling franchises or supporting franchisees," says Young. "We had to make a choice of what we do well."

    Young and co-founder Barry Falcon, ShelfGenie's president, offer franchisees access to a custom-built customer relationship management system and business support center to tackle administrative tasks. Meanwhile, the chain outsources franchise sales to Franchise Dynamics, which vets prospective franchisees to make sure they're committed and a good fit. ShelfGenie requires them to spend a minimum of $5,000 a month on advertising for each territory. "Even if our franchise fee was $1 million, it would not be worth bringing on someone who was not going to do well," says Young.

面对贪得无厌的投资者

公司名称：“我的婚礼工作簿”公司

地点：科罗拉多州，丹佛

年销售额：“六位数出头”

    2011年4月，当地一位天使投资人表示有兴趣为基于网络的项目管理软件Planning Pod提供资金支持，商业合伙人杰夫•基尔和共同创始人史蒂芬•费恩格茨非常激动。当时他们正在与Basecamp等等已经形成气候的竞争者进行较量，真好用得上外部投资。但他们后来发现，这些投资者其实只愿意投资20,000美元，但却希望获得公司20%的股权，外加年收益的20%。此外，这些投资者还想拥有4次额外的机会，每次以5,000美元换取5%的股权。这两位合伙人的直觉告诉他们，不能接受这个交易。基尔说：“它肯定会搞垮我们。”

    这两位企业家将他们的首个成功产品“我的婚礼工作簿”所获得的收益投入到了新产品的开发当中。他说：“我还是宁愿利用自身力量，用我们已经获得的收益来继续发展。”他们也是这么做的，为其技术承包商提供股权，而不是支付开发费用。基尔说：“我们的开发商现在已经跟公司坐在一条船上，因此他们非常积极主动。”此外，这家四人小企业已经将一部分资金预留出来以作市场营销之用。

When investors get greedy

Company: My Wedding Workbook

Location: Denver, Colo.

Annual sales: "Low six figures."

    When a local angel investor expressed interest in funding the development of their web-based project management software called Planning Pod in April 2011, business partners Jeff Kear and his co-founder Steven Feingertz got excited. They were taking on well-established competitors like Basecamp and could have used the money. But it turned out that the investors, who were going to pony up $20,000, wanted a 20% the company in exchange, plus 20% of annual revenues; the investor would have four additional opportunities to buy 5% of the firm for about $5,000. Their instincts told them to back away. "It would really cripple us," says Kear.

    The two entrepreneurs had been investing revenues from their first successful product, My Wedding Workbook, into building the new one. "I would rather bootstrap it and use the revenue we're already bringing in to bump it along," he says. And that's what they did, offering their tech contractors equity instead of paying development fees. "Our developers now have a vested interest in the success of the company and have shown great initiative," says Kear. Plus, the four-employee firm has freed up cash for marketing.

面对掌控欲强的投资者

公司名称：SLI Systems

地点：加利福尼亚州，圣荷西

年收益：销售额超过1,000万美元

    公司首席执行官、共同创始人肖恩•瑞恩表示，风险投资家和私募股权机构几乎每周都会与他这家私营公司接触。“他们总在寻找交易目标。”但迄今为止，瑞恩对此并不感兴趣。这家规模50人左右的公司为网站提供托管网站搜索和导航解决方案。他说：“实际上我们并不需要注资。”

    瑞恩和他的同事于2001年创办了这家名为SLI Systems的公司。他们认识到，公司的生存发展需要源源不断的收入来维持，并且公司要围绕该软件建立服务模式。这笔收入使得他们得以缓慢但却步伐扎实地发展业务，从而避免股权投资可能带来的一些缺陷。瑞恩称：“我曾经见过，一些创业者在接受投资后就身不由己了，甚至被逼到失控的边缘。通常，风险投资家会寻求在特定的时间范围内退出。他们通常会催促企业家作出决策，就是有的时候从公司自身或者市场时机来看并不是最佳时机。”

    对瑞恩来说，他更喜欢担任公司掌舵人的角色，并在自己认为适当的时候做出决策。他说：“这样就可以自主选择最佳时机。”

    译者：李玫晓/汪皓

When investors get needy

Company: SLI Systems

Location: San Jose, Calif. and Christchurch, New Zealand

Revenues: Over $10 million in sales

    Venture capitalists and private equity firms approach this 50-person, privately held tech firm almost weekly, says CEO and co-founder Shaun Ryan. "They're out there, looking for deals," he says. But so far, Ryan hasn't been interested in making one for the firm, a provider of hosted site search and navigation solutions for websites. "We don't really need the capital," he says.

    When Ryan and his colleagues launched the firm that they eventually named SLI Systems in 2001, they realized they needed recurring revenues to survive and built the company around the software as service (SAS) model. That stream of incoming cash has allowed them to grow the business slowly but steadily by bootstrapping it, avoiding some of the pitfalls of taking an equity investment. "I've seen other founders get pushed to the side and lose control," says Ryan. "Often venture capitalists will have a certain time frame for which they're looking to get an exit. They can often drive an entrepreneur to make decisions or push things to happen that aren't necessarily optimal times for the company and what's happening in the market."

    As for Ryan, he'd rather stay in the driver's seat and make those decisions when they feel right: "You can choose the optimal time yourself," he says.