到新人训练营学习创业

It’s a Saturday afternoon in late August and a group of business students is out on a roof terrace at Microsoft’s New England Research Development Center alongside Boston’s Charles River.

8月下旬一个周六的午后，一群商学院学生坐在波士顿查尔斯河畔微软(Microsoft)新英格兰研发中心的屋顶露台上。

The entrepreneurs, a mix of individuals funded by the National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, a not-for-profit organisation that encourages entrepreneurship, and winners of business plan competitions, are holed up for Venture Lab, an intensive five-day boot camp. Each of the 21 teams is from an existing early-stage business that has a technological innovation, funding and a market, and is attending the workshop to help turn a good idea into a better commercial proposition.

由鼓励创业精神的非营利组织National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance资助的这群企业家、商业计划竞赛的获胜者，正在参加5日强化新人训练营Venture Lab。21个小组都来自草创阶段的企业，具备技术创新、资金和市场，他们参加这个研修班，是为了把优秀创意转化为更好的商业提议。

Venture Lab is part of a wave of entrepreneurial boot camps that aim to provide founders with a way to step back from the daily grind and assess their business. These workshops are often focused on tech start-ups that may benefit from strong product innovation but have a weak business model.

Venture Lab是一波创业新人训练营之一，旨在让创始人暂且告别日常繁琐事务，转而评估自己的业务。这些研修班往往关注那些可能受益于强有力产品创新、但商业模式较弱的初创科技企业。

The format can range from multiway intensive programmes to more compact one-day courses. Multiday boot camps allow participants to benefit from a fuller immersion in their business idea. Those attracting the most interest include: the 3 Day Start-up, an event that began at the University of Texas and has now spread around the world, putting 45 students, from undergraduates to PhDs, together to create a real tech business in three days; Startup Weekend, which brings people together for 54 hours to create new businesses; and Lean Startup Machine, a three-day workshop aimed at social enterprises, teaching a methodology devised by Eric Ries, the Silicon Valley entrepreneur.

研修班的形式可能是多日强化课程，也可能是比较紧凑的一日课程。多日新人训练营可以让参与者获益于更彻底地投入自己的商业创意。其中最吸引人的课程包括：为期3日的Start-up，该活动始于德克萨斯大学(University of Texas)，如今已遍及全球，45名学生（从本科生到博士生）聚在一起在3天内创建一家真实的科技企业；Startup Weekend，把人们聚集在一起，在54小时内创建新业务；Lean Startup Machine，一个为期3天、针对社会企业的研修班，讲授硅谷企业家埃里克·莱斯(Eric Ries)发明的一种方法论。

Extending the boot camp concept into a longer-form programme, the Unreasonable Institute unites 25 entrepreneurs for six weeks in Boulder, Colorado to receive training from 50 mentors, from Google executives to social entrepreneurs.

Unreasonable Institute将这种新人训练营概念扩大到更长形式的课程，组织25名企业家花6周时间在科罗拉多州博尔德接受50名导师的培训，这些导师包括谷歌(Google)高管和社会企业家。

This particular Venture Lab is focused on social entrepreneurs, whose ideas range from a business making digital tools to help coffee farmers in Latin America to another helping farmers make fertiliser in Ethiopia.

上述Venture Lab关注于社会企业家，他们的商业创意包括：开发数字工具以帮助拉美咖啡农户，以及帮助埃塞俄比亚农民制造肥料。

A core theme is to challenge existing assumptions about the customer – to rethink the business offering through customers’ eyes. Ariel Chait, the founder of Acopio, a technology company providing business management tools to agricultural co-operatives, says: “The programme has forced us to leave our own point of view and look at our business from the perspective of those who make it work – customers, investors, stakeholders.

一个核心主题是挑战有关客户的现有假设，透过客户的眼睛来反思业务。为农业合作社提供商业管理工具的科技公司Acopio创始人艾瑞尔·查特(Ariel Chait)表示：“该课程迫使我们脱离自己的观点，从真正起作用的人们的视角来看待我们的业务：客户、投资者、利益相关者。

As director of the International Development Initiative at the nearby Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Laura Sampath selects student teams to put through Venture Lab as part of their business education. She says the programme complements MIT’s own entrepreneurial ecosystem.

作为麻省理工学院(MIT)全球发展计划(International Development Initiative)的负责人，劳拉·萨姆帕斯(Laura Sampath)负责挑选学生小组参加Venture Lab，作为商学院教育的一部分。她表示，该计划已成为麻省理工自身创业生态系统的一个补充。

“The timing of the programme usually means student teams have just returned from some time in the field and can focus – in a real way, not merely hypothesising – about their customers, their end users, their short- and long-term needs, she explains. “This is messy stuff that no one knows exactly how to do well, and every venture will follow a different path. This is a really important message for early-stage entrepreneurs to hear.

“该课程的时间安排通常意味着，学生小组刚刚实习一段时间归来，能够以一种真切（而非假想）的方式，聚焦于客户、他们的最终用户，他们的短期和长期需求，她解释称，“这种事情很复杂，没有人确切知道如何做得出色，每个项目都将走上不同的道路。这是初创企业家需要聆听的真正重要的信息。

Back in the classroom some of the unconventional techniques being used by facilitator James Barlow, the director of entrepreneurial leadership at Tufts University, set boot camps apart from traditional business education. Mr Barlow gets the teams playing poker to understand dealing with risk; he sets them the task of assembling jigsaw puzzles to appreciate problem solving; and he asks them to map the path from idea to market with Post-it notes; and the room reverberates to the music of the Foo Fighters as the teams embark on a group exercise.

回到教室，塔夫斯大学(Tufts University)创业领导能力负责人、协调人詹姆斯·巴洛(James Barlow)正在使用的非传统教学方法，让新人训练营不同于传统的商学院教育。巴洛让各小组通过玩扑克理解如何处理风险；他给他们制定一个组合拼图的任务，以认识到如何解决问题；他要求他们用“报事贴便签绘制从创意到市场的路线图；在各小组投入集思广益的活动时，教室里回响着摇滚乐队喷火战机(Foo Fighters)的音乐。

Mr Barlow explains that using Post-it notes is designed to take a similar approach to launching a start-up as is used for creating a product. “When we design a physical product, we sketch it out, make a rough prototype with whatever is lying about and we do this in a quick and dirty fashion because we know it will be wrong, he says. “With businesses we then to try and go straight to the perfect end-product. Strategy mapping enables ventures to articulate visually the working hypothesis of their venture and evolve it as a system.

巴洛解释称，利用“报事贴旨在采用与创造一种产品类似的方法，来发起一家初创企业。“当我们设计一种有形产品时，我们会画出草图，用手头的任何原料做出一件粗略的样品，我们以很快和很脏的方式做这个，因为我们知道会出错，他表示，“对于企业，我们接着会尝试直接走向完美的最终产品。战略映射能够让企业清楚地表达其运作假说，并将其发展成一个体系。

Jennifer Keller Jackson, grant manager at the NCIIA, says the boot camp concept delivers results. “The luxury of being away from campus or the field and being able to immerse yourself in this thinking for five days nonstop with your team members is a rarity, she explains. “The network of other teams in the room?.?.?.?is a huge benefit. All kinds of connections are shared and it’s a safe environment for getting good feedback.

National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance的拨款经理詹妮弗·凯勒·杰克逊(Jennifer Keller Jackson)表示，新人训练营的理念是有成效的。“离开校园或实习场所、并让自己与小组成员连续5天沉浸于这种思考的机会是难得的，她解释称，“房间里其他团队构成的网络……是一项巨大优势。各种关系得到分享，这是获得良好反馈的一个安全环境。

Dan Jansen is co-founder of Earth2Block, a social venture that manufactures bespoke presses that can turn earth into building bricks and are sold in Thailand. Having never taken a business course before, he believes the Venture Lab experience took him out of his comfort zone, forcing him and his team to rethink and develop their business model. “As we worked through our economic model, we identified offering workshops as a new money generating opportunity that also increased the value of our product, he says.

丹·詹森(Dan Jansen)是社会企业Earth2Block的联合创始人，该公司生产定制压砖机，以泥土为原料生产建筑用砖，在泰国销售。他以前从未学习过商学院课程，他认为，在Venture Lab的经历让他走出了自己的舒适区，迫使他和他的团队反思并发展自己的业务模式。他表示：“在我们思考我们的经济模式时，我们发现推出研修班是一个新的创收机会，这还会提高我们产品的价值。

E lla Peinovich runs Sasa Africa, a Nairobi ecommerce platform for the developing world, and says Venture Lab filled an information gap between a “lab project and a functioning business, validating the lessons she has learnt on the ground as well as helping to structure her understanding of the business model. “The boot camp forced us to challenge our assumptions. I now have a well detailed road map of necessary steps to launching our business, she explains.

埃拉·佩恩威奇(Ella Peinovich)在内罗毕经营着一个针对发展中国家的电子商务平台Sasa Africa，他表示，Venture Lab弥补了“实验室项目和一家投入运营的企业之间的信息缺口，能够验证她在第一线得到的收获，并帮助形成她对业务模式架构的理解。她解释称：“新人训练营迫使我们挑战自己的假设。对于创建我们的业务的必要步骤，我现在有了一个非常具体的路线图。

While most of these entrepreneurial boot camps are clearly focused on early-stage businesses, there are also lessons for more established executives and entrepreneurs.

尽管多数创业新人训练营显然专注于初创企业，但也有一课程些针对已在商场站稳脚跟的高管和企业家。

Out on the roof terrace, over a slice of pizza, Mr Chait says: “Starting a business can consume you. It takes up most of your energy every day. For five days we stepped out of our idea and into the shoes of customers, stakeholders and even mentors to our own business. Fresh eyes can be hard to come by, and this programme handed us a new set for us to use ourselves.

在那个楼顶的露台上，查特边吃着一块比萨饼边说：“创建一家企业可能会迫使你全身心投入。它每天都会消耗你大部分的精力。在5天时间里，我们跳出我们的构想，站在了客户、利益相关者甚至为我们的企业出谋划策的导师的立场上。崭新的视角可能很难得，而这个课程让我们获得了新的视角为自己所用。