每日170303-04

p.s 这是每日练习，错误百出，期待进步

Startup = Growth

启动（开办）等价于成长（增长）

By Paul Graham

A startup is a company designed to grow fast.

一家公司旨在快速增长才是一个开始。

一家旨在快速增长的公司才是一家创业公司。

Being newly founded does not in itself make a company a startup.

被“新建”并不在“让一家公司启动”这件事中。

被“新成立”并不会让一家公司在本质上称为一家创业公司。

Nor is it necessary for a startup to work on technology, or take venture funding, or have some sort of "exit."

并不是说启动就必须在技术上下功夫，或者得到风险投资，或者存在某种“退出”机制。

The only essential thing is growth.

唯一本质的事情就是增长。

Everything else we associate with startups follows from growth.

（？？？）

If you want to start one it's important to understand that.

如果你想创业那么明白这些很重要。

Startups are so hard that you can't be pointed off to the side and hope to succeed.

创业非常之艰难，你不能指望得到支持（？？？）并且期望成功。

You have to know that growth is what you're after.

你必须明了增长是你所追求的。

The good news is, if you get growth, everything else tends to fall into place.

好消息是，如果你实现了增长，那么其它的问题便会迎刃而解。

Which means you can use growth like a compass to make almost every decision you face.

这意味着你可以像指南针一样去“使用”增长去做出（指导）你需要面对的大多数决定。

Let's start with a distinction that should be obvious but is often overlooked: not every newly founded company is a startup.

让我们先从一个显而易见但常被忽略的区别开始：不是每一个新建立的公司都是创业公司。

Millions of companies are started every year in the US.

每年有数百万的公司在美国被创办。

Only a tiny fraction are startups.

只有一小部分是创业公司。

Most are service businesses—restaurants, barbershops, plumbers, and so on.

它们大多数是服务类的生意 -- 饭店、理发店、水管工等等

These are not startups, except in a few unusual cases.

除了一些例外的情况，这些都不是创业公司。

A barbershop isn't designed to grow fast.

一家理发店不是为了快速增长而开设。

Whereas a search engine, for example, is.

然而，比如一家搜索引擎公司，则是。

When I say startups are designed to grow fast, I mean it in two senses.

当我说创业公司旨在快速增长，有两层含义。

Partly I mean designed in the sense of intended, because most startups fail.

一方面我的意思是从准备阶段既要有计划（？？？），因为大多数创业公司失败了。

But I also mean startups are different by nature, in the same way a redwood seedling has a different destiny from a bean sprout.

但我同时认为创业在本质上是困难的，（好比）同样的一棵红杉树苗从种子中发芽就有不同的命运。

That difference is why there's a distinct word, "startup," for companies designed to grow fast.

这种不同就在于为何这有一个不同的词语“创业公司”，因为企业旨在快速增长。

If all companies were essentially similar, but some through luck or the efforts of their founders ended up growing very fast, we wouldn't need a separate word.

如果所有的公司本质上是相似的，但是其中一些更幸运或是创始人非常努力导致迅速增长，那我们将不需要一个词来区分它们。

We could just talk about super-successful companies and less successful ones.

我们就只需要谈论那些超级成功的和不那么成功的公司。

But in fact startups do have a different sort of DNA from other businesses.

但实际上创业公司确与其他公司有不同种类的"DNA"。

Google is not just a barbershop whose founders were unusually lucky and hard-working.

谷歌的创立不仅仅像一家理发店那样一路顺风且起早贪黑。

Google was different from the beginning.

谷歌从一开始就不一样。

To grow rapidly, you need to make something you can sell to a big market.

迅速地成长，你需要生产能够在庞大的市场上出售的商品。

That's the difference between Google and a barbershop.

这就是谷歌和理发店之间的不同。

A barbershop doesn't scale.

一家理发店无法规模化。