本文原作者：Sam Altman
翻译：梅晨斐、任宁
A GREAT PRODUCT产品
Here is the secret to success: have a great product. This is the only thing all great companies have in common.
关于成功的一个小秘密：拥有一款伟大的产品。这是所有伟大的公司唯一的共性。
If you do not build a product users love you will eventually fail. Yet founders always look for some other trick. Startups are the point in your life when tricks stop working.
如果用户们并不热爱你的产品，那你最终不会成功。虽然创始人们总会想办法耍一些花招。但是在创业的过程中，小花招往往都不起作用。
A great product is the only way to grow long-term. Eventually your company will get so big that all growth hacks stop working and you have to grow by people wanting to use your product. This is the most important thing to understand about super-successful companies. There is no other way. Think about all of the really successful technology companies—they all do this.**
伟大的产品是保持长期增长的唯一方法。**随着公司的发展总有一天，当所有“黑客式增长”的方法都不再奏效，你必须寄希望于由于人们真正热爱使用你的产品所带来的自然增长。这是理解超级成功的公司必备的一条。没有其他的捷径。回想一下所有真正成功的技术公司吧，他们必然如此。
You want to build a “product improvement engine” in your company. You should talk to your users and watch them use your product, figure out what parts are sub-par, and then make your product better. Then do it again. This cycle should be the number one focus of the company, and it should drive everything else. If you improve your product 5% every week, it will really compound.
你需要在公司内部制造一个“产品改进引擎”。你需要和用户交流，观察他们如何使用你的产品，弄清楚产品的哪个部分是次要环节，然后优化产品。然后不断重复迭代。这个过程应该是公司首要关注的环节，它将会拉动公司其它的部门。如果你每周能够以5%的速度持续改进产品，你的产品质量将会呈现指数级的改变。
The faster the repeat rate of this cycle, the better the company usually turns out. During YC, we tell founders they should be building product and talking to users, and not much else besides eating, sleeping, exercising, and spending time with their loved ones.
以上闭循环的迭代速度越快，公司的整体情况往往越好。在YC内部，我们告诉所有创始人他们应该打磨产品并且和用户沟通，然后将剩余时间分配在吃饭、睡觉、锻炼以及和亲人爱人在一起。
To do this cycle right, you have to get very close to your users. Literally watch them use your product. Sit in their office if you can. Value both what they tell you and what they actually do. You should not put anyone between the founders and the users for as long as possible—that means the founders need to do sales, customer support, etc.
为了能够完善这个闭循环，你必须非常靠近你的用户。看他们如何使用你的产品。如果可以的话你应该跑到他们的办公室里面去看。评估他们嘴上说的和他们实际做的。创始人和用户之间尽可能不要有中间人，这意味着创始人需要亲自负责销售和客户支持之类的事情。
Understand your users as well as you possibly can. Really figure out what they need, where to find them, and what makes them tick.
尽可能地了解你的用户。明白他们想要什么，哪里能找到他们，以及如何打动他们。
“Do things that don’t scale” has rightfully become a mantra for startups. You usually need to recruit initial users one at a time (Ben Silbermann used to approach strangers in coffee shops in Palo Alto and ask them to try Pinterest) and then build things they ask for. Many founders hate this part, and just want to announce their product in the press. But that almost never works. Recruit users manually, and make the product so good the users you recruit tell their friends.
“做无法规模化的事情”已经逐渐变成创业公司的理念。你需要经常一个个地拉拢用户（Ben Silbermann曾经在Palo Alto的咖啡馆内和陌生人搭讪，询问他们是否愿意使用Pinterest），根据用户提出的需求进行开发。许多创始人不喜欢这么做，他们更喜欢仅仅在媒体上发布他们的产品。但是这么做几乎不起作用。亲自挖掘早期用户，不断打磨产品满足这些用户的需求，让这些早期用户热爱你的产品以至于他们会主动推荐给身边的朋友。
You also need to break things into very small pieces, and iterate and adapt as you go. Don’t try to plan too far out, and definitely don’t batch everything into one big public release. You want to start with something very simple—as little surface area as possible—and launch it sooner than you’d think. In fact, simplicity is always good, and you should always keep your product and company as simple as possible.
你同样需要将任务不断切碎，根据你自己的节奏迭代和改进。不要尝试做太长远的计划，并且绝对不要将所有需求都挤到一个公开版本里去发布。你需要从非常简单的需求开始，越小越好，然后以越快的速度发布迭代。事实上，保持简洁永远是好的。你需要尽可能永远保持产品和公司的简洁。
Some common questions we ask startups having problems: Are users using your product more than once? Are your users fanatical about your product? Would your users be truly bummed if your company went away? Are your users recommending you to other people without you asking them to do it? If you’re a B2B company, do you have at least 10 paying customers?
对于那些遇到问题的创业公司，我们经常会问：用户是否会重复使用产品？用户对产品是否狂热？如果你的公司倒闭了用户是否会感到沮丧？用户是否会自发地推荐产品给其他朋友？如果你是一款面向企业的产品，你是否拥有至少10个付费用户？
If not, then that’s often the underlying problem, and we tell companies to make their product better. I am skeptical about most excuses for why a company isn’t growing—very often the real reason is that the product just isn’t good enough.
以上的一些问题，如果有些回答是否定的，那就需要提高警惕。并且我们告诉创始人提升产品的质量。我对于大部分有关为什么公司发展不好的解释都持怀疑态度，大部分的实际原因都是产品并没有足够好。
When startups aren’t sure what to do next with their product, or if their product isn’t good enough, we send them to go talk to their users. This doesn’t work in every case—it’s definitely true that people would have asked Ford for faster horses—but it works surprisingly often. In fact, more generally, when there’s a disagreement about anything in the company, talk to your users.
当创始人不清楚产品下一步的发展方向，或他们的产品没有足够好的时候，我们提醒他们去和用户交流。这招并不适用于任何情况，例如没见过汽车的人们会要求福特生产出速度更快的马，但很多时候这么做都很有效。事实上，更多情况下，当公司内部发生一些分歧的时候，与用户交流是最好的解决方案。
The best founders seem to care a little bit too much about product quality, even for seemingly unimportant details. But it seems to work. By the way, “product” includes all interactions a user has with the company. You need to offer great support, great sales interactions, etc.
最好的创始人对于产品质量有超乎寻常的要求，即使在一些看上去并不重要的细节。但它实际上真的有用。顺便提一句， “产品”不仅仅是“产品”，还包含从公司到用户之间的所有环节。你必须提供最好的客服支持和销售互动等等。
Remember, if you haven’t made a great product, nothing else will save you.
记住，如果你还没有做出一款伟大的产品，没有任何其他事情可以救你。