【獨家】矽谷創業公司在中國常跌的五個坑｜禾賽科技CEO李一帆柏林亞太周主題演講

李一帆

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演講者：李一帆

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Yifan Li, Ph.D., CEO of Hesai Technologies

2016/5/26 Keynote at Berlin Asia-Pacific Week

李一帆博士，禾賽科技CEO

2016/5/26 柏林亞太周上的主題演講

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以下為演講全文：

Two years ago, I decided to move my company from Silicon Valley to China, after studying and working in the US for about 8 years. When I arrived at Shanghai airport, I was told that my credit cards were not accepted. I was extremely surprised, as well as frustrated, by how far China was still behind the world.

兩年前，我決定把公司從矽谷搬回國。8年旅美，剛回到上海有很多不適應，然而最不適應的，是我發現我的信用卡不能用了。我又驚訝、又心塞：難道中國還落後世界這麽多嗎？

So I asked my friend, ‘when will China ever get credit cards?’. His answer was more surprising, he said, ‘how about NEVER’. I asked, what do you mean ‘never’? He said, we have something better instead, it is called, the ‘scan payments’.

我問朋友：“到底什麽時候中國才能普及信用卡呢？”

他的回答讓我更吃驚了：“或許永遠不。”

“什麽叫‘永遠不’？”

“我們有更好的替代品了——‘掃碼’。”

You can pay anybody by scanning your phone, it takes less than a second, it is extremely safe, and there is no fee. Even though credit cards were considered a vivid symbol of western civilization, it turns out, China never needed it. We’ve skipped the credit card system altogether, and we directly took it to the next level.

你可以用手機向任何人掃碼付款：快，安全，沒有手續費。縱然信用卡往往被認為是西方文明的一面旗幟，在中國，他完全沒找到市場——我們跳過了信用卡，直接到了下一個更高的段位。

All of a sudden, I realized something: all this time, we’ve been sticking to this idea, of calculating how many years China is behind the world. But now, the question itself, is no longer valid.

我突然想通了一件事：一直以來，我們都陷入了一個誤區，我們總試圖計算中國落後世界多少年——可現在，這個問題本身已經不存在了。

China is no longer chasing, mimicking, copying the world, we are creating a new one.

中國，已不再追趕、模仿、復制舊世界；我們正在造一個新的世界。

Three important factors have enabled this creation. They’re the market, money and talent. I know German people love numbers, so I brought a few to give you some perspectives.

這種創造，來自三個重要因素：市場、資本、人才。我知道德國人喜歡數字，所以咱們今天靠數字說話。

First of all, the market.

首先是市場。

Yes we have 1.3bn consumers, but more importantly, it is the fast growing purchasing power of this population that has made this market so massive and attractive.

在中國，我們有13億消費者，更重要的是，他們的購買能力在快速增長，讓這個市場變得如此龐大，如此誘惑。

Let’s look at smartphone users. This is unquestionably the most important indicator for mobile internet industry. You can see that, for all the three regions, we all started small in 2009 when smart phone emerged, and we all quickly reached almost half of the population by 2015.

我們看一下智能手機用戶。毫無疑問，這是移動互聯網產業最重要的指標。大家可以看到，2009年智能手機剛出現時，這個市場還很小，但到了2015年，幾乎一半中國人都擁有智能手機。

What’s worth mentioning is that, compared to Europe and the US, China has only about quarter of its GDP per capita, which means Chinese people are much much more willing to invest in the next generation of technology. This also explains why high tech startups can easily get tons of early adopters.

別忘了：與歐洲和美國相比，中國的人均 GDP只有他們的四分之一。這意味著什麽？中國人非常非常願意在下一代技術上進行投資，而這也是為什麽高科技創業公司能夠在中國快速獲得市場認可。

Let’s now talk auto sales. While Europe and the US’s car sales have long reached the plateau, China’s demand for cars is going through the roof. For the past 10 years, owning a car has become the standard for first tier city families, which created huge demand for new cars. Owning a German car has been a well-accepted indicator of premium lifestyle. And believe or not, we are not going for the cheap models.

讓我們看一下汽車銷售。在歐洲和美國，汽車銷量早已達停滯期，但是中國對汽車的需求正在節節攀升。過去十年，擁有一輛汽車成了是上層城市家庭的標配，市場對新車需求巨大，而擁有一輛德國車，已被普遍認為是高品質生活的標準——而且，信不信由你，中國人買車可是真的肯下血本 。

China’s e-commerce is also a sensational phenomenon. On last year’s Single’s day, the equivalent of Xmas sale, China’s leading online retailer Alibaba set a historical record of $14bn dollars in sales. This one day’s sales from one Chinese website, was more than 7 months of all Berlin’s retail store sales combined.

中國的電商發展更令人瞠目結舌。在去年雙十一，類似於歐美的聖誕購物季，中國電商的領軍企業阿裏巴巴創下了140億美元的銷售紀錄。這麽說，一個中國網站一天的銷售數字，這比柏林所有零售商7個月的銷售總和還要多。

Now let’s look at the money side.

下面我們看一下資本市場。

The Venture Capitalists did not hesitate to pour money into China. In 2013, the total investment in Chinese company was only 6% of global sum. In 2 years, the share has grown to an astonishing 27%.

風險投資家們從來都毫不猶豫地把錢砸向中國。2013年，在中國公司的資本投入只占全球投資總額的6%，短短兩年之後，這個數字飆到了27%。

If you thought VCs were generous in investing in Chinese companies, you are wrong again. The Chinese central government has taken a much bigger stake in this game. In the past 5 years, the government has put in hundreds of billions of dollars into boosting the Chinese companies. With back from one of the strongest governments in the world, Chinese companies are more confident than ever.

如果你認為風投們在投資中國公司時非常慷慨，那你又錯了。中國中央政府才是這波浪潮裏最大的投入者。過去5年裏，政府投入了上千億的美元來促進中國企業發展。有著世界上最強大政府之一的支持，中國企業可以放心大膽地向前沖。

All the creations cannot be made without the abundant and extraordinary talent from the new generation of Chinese entrepreneurs. Domestically, more and more college graduates are choosing to start their own business. Last year alone, China has more than quarter million graduates decide to take their ideas into real world.

所有的創造，都與不斷湧現出的才華橫溢的中國新一代創業者密不可分。在國內，越來越多的大學畢業生選擇自主創業。僅去年一年，中國就有超過25萬的畢業生決定把校園裏的想法付諸實踐。

Starting a new company has also been the first choice for lots of oversea Chinese students. The return rate for them is gradually increasing, and more than half of them decided to get involved in entrepreneurship. 創業，也成了許多留學海外的中國學生的首選，雖然每年出國的人數穩步提升，他們中海歸的比例也在不斷增高，而且超過一半以上的人都決定去創業。

Today, unprecedented students returned to China not because they can’t find a job, but because after careful comparison, China is still their best place to start a career.

如今，前所未有的中國留學生正在回歸，不是因為他們在外面找不到工作，而是因為經過認真對比後，中國仍然是他們事業起步的最好地方。

So, with the best market in the world, sufficient funding from VC and great talents China has, startups are making unprecedented progresses.

所以，坐擁全球最好市場、足夠的風險資本、足夠的人才，中國創業公司正以史無前例的速度，大刀闊斧地向前。

This is also exactly why, we decided to leave Silicon Valley, and move back to China.

而這些，正是我們為何決定離開矽谷、回到中國的原因。

First, let me try to explain our company’s history and products. In 2013, two of my co-founders were students at Stanford university. We invented this new laser technology that could be used on lots of measurement applications, such as analyzing air, and measuring distance. So we founded our company using the name ‘Hesai’, because ‘San Jose’ was where we built our first machine.

我先來介紹一下我們公司的歷史和產品。2013年，我的另外兩位聯合創始人在斯坦福讀書。我們發明了一種新的激光技術，可以用在很多場景，包括分析空氣成分，檢測天然氣管道泄漏，和幫助無人駕駛的汽車避開障礙物。我們的公司取名“禾賽”，因為我們的第一臺機器是在聖何塞造出來的。

We’ve developed wide range of sensor applications and optical sensors based on our laser technology, including drone-mounted oil and gas leak inspection solution, laser scanner for autonomous driving and driving assistance systems, as well as air quality monitoring system, explosives remote detector, etc.

接著，借助著斯坦福大學先進的技術，我們開發了很多前所未有的應用，包括無人機上的全自動油氣泄漏檢測方案、用於自動駕駛和駕駛輔助的激光雷達，智慧城市的空氣質量檢測系統等。

For the past 2 years, our company has been in a very unique position, in the sense that we invented our technology in the Silicon Valley; our founders were educated in the US; but we chose to focus on the Chinese market. That means we have to work with the Chinese clients, and adapt to the Chinese rules. They could be implicit, sometimes even against your intuition. So to be perfectly honest, this journey has not been without difficulties, but we learnt our lessons along the bumpy road.

過去兩年，我們公司的處境和經歷很有意思：技術發明於矽谷、幾個創始人都在美國受的教育，但我們選擇專註於中國市場。這意味著我們必須和中國客戶打交道，並且適應中國規則——這些規則很多時候並不是那麽明顯，那麽直觀。所以，坦誠地說，這條路並不一帆風順，但我們學會了摸著石頭過河，在風浪中不斷學習。

Today, I am going to share a few stories about some crucial mistakes we have or almost have made, and also how we turned it around, to give you some insights about what’s like to run a business in China.

今天，為了讓大家直觀地體會在中國做一家科技型企業的酸甜苦辣，我打算分享幾個創業路上的小故事。有的是我們踩過的坑，有些是差點犯的錯誤，但我們最終都成功把困難拋在身後。

Mistake 1: think China is all about clonings

誤區1: 在中國做事全靠抄

Yes there have been successful clones of good ideas from abroad. But now, if you try to clone a business idea to China, it is not gonna fly. The reason is simple: there are already too many copies on any good or bad ideas.

沒錯，把國外的好點子復制到中國，顯然已經有了不少成功案例。但如今你要還這麽想，肯定完蛋。理由很簡單：不管好的壞的想法，都有一大波人比你更早地復制了。

Anything that is copyable, has been copied.

所有能復制的東西，基本都被復制過了。

Also, although lot of people think cloning an idea to China is like using a copy machine, there is much more to its success. Think about it, why are the copied versions more successful even compared to the original model they learned from? It is Chinese entrepreneurs’ unique understanding of Chinese demand, combined with their great ability to innovate on the original form of the idea, made their products much more successful!

當然，很多人認為把想法復制到中國來就跟使用復印機一樣方便，可若想成功，要做的絕不止是復制。想想看，為什麽那些復制版本往往比原版更在中國吃得開？中國企業家們對於中國市場需求的獨到見解，和在原來想法上的創新，共同促成了偉大的企業和產品。

I picked three bigtime Chinese startups, to show you why innovation is important to Chinese companies.

今天，我選了三個一流的中國創業公司，讓大家體會一下為什麽創新對於中國公司來說如此重要。

First. WeChat. It is truly THE mobile app of our time. Some people believed this instant messaging app is the only reason they have cellphones at all. 570m DAU, 55% users open more than 10 times a day, more than 200m CC attached to WeChat. I honestly don’t know if there is anything else you could ask for, for a mobile app.

先看微信：這絕對是我們這個時代獨一無二的移動互聯網產品。好多人甚至覺得，這個實時通訊工具是他們用手機的唯一理由。看看這些數字：5.7億日活躍用戶、55%的用戶每天打開至少10次以上、有超過2億的信用卡綁定在微信上——說句良心話，對於一個移動應用，我不知道我還能要求它什麽……

Didi is a car service provider that had 1.4bn rides last year. It is more than twice of all the car services combined in US. In BJ alone, Didi provides rides more than 7 times of NYC combined. Ironically, Apple decided to ditch its California neighbor UBER, and invested $1bn in its biggest rival Didi.

再看滴滴：它是一個出行服務提供商。就在去年，滴滴的乘車數總計為14億次，比美國所有汽車服務總和的兩倍還要多。光在北京，滴滴的乘車數就比紐約所有乘車數的7倍還多。更諷刺的是，前不久，蘋果公司決定拋棄它在加州的鄰居Uber, 而轉向給它最大的競爭對手滴滴投了10億美金。

DJI is the world’s largest consumer drone maker. It has an unbelievable market share of 70%, 1 billion dollars in sales. And more interestingly, DJI did so by focusing on the global market. More than 65% of its sales were from overseas. That means DJI didn’t become a giant by only making money from the Chinese market.

再看看大疆 ：世界最大的消費型無人機制造商。不可思議的是，它有高達70%的市場占有率，10億美金的銷售額。更有趣的是，大疆著眼於全球市場。它的銷售額中，65%以上來自於海外，也就是說，大疆的發家史靠的是掙外國人的錢，這才是真的牛。

Mistake 2: Marry the Government

誤區2: 過度依賴政府

As Chinese tycoon Jack Ma once famously said, ‘be in love with the government, never marry them’. Doing business with Chinese government could be lucrative, but also risky in the long run. When we first entered China, there were high demands from the government to monitor the air quality. So we developed the monitoring system specifically for the government. However, as we were further involved in the process, I realized something dangerous: in general, having a concentrated client base is bad for business, especially when this client is the government. In this slow and lengthy cycle, as a technology provider, we start to lose our independence and credibility, because there are always too many strings attached. Something times you can’t do the right thing if it is against the government.

馬雲曾說過一句著名的話：“要愛政府，但不要嫁給他們。”與政府做生意會有很好的利潤，但長遠看也存在風險。我們剛回國時，正好是政府迫切需要空氣質量監控的時候，所以我們專門為政府開發出了一套智慧城市空氣質量檢測系統。然而，隨著合作慢慢深入，我也漸漸看到了這個商業模式存在的弊病：通常，客戶群體過於集中就是很糟糕的事情，尤其當這個群體是政府的時候，作為一家小公司的議價能力和保持獨立性的能力就會大打折扣，甚至很多時候，我們想做的事情會被政府和法律所限制。終於有一塔，我們狠下心來，決定去開辟新的市場，一個讓我們可以只專註於產品的市場。現在，我睡覺比以前更安穩了，因為我們只有不到10%的銷售是來自政府，而我也更愛我的政府了。

So one day, I decided to pull the plug and pivot to a new product, in which we can truly focus on the product itself, not the relationship. Now, I am glad to say, we have less than 10% of sales directly from the government, and I love my government more than ever.

所以有一天我決定換個新產品，讓我們可以真正完全花心思在產品上而不是關系上。現在，我可以很開心地說，我們只有不到10%的銷售是來自政府，而我也更愛我的政府了。

Mistake 3: Pick the wrong arena

誤區3: 選擇錯誤的賽道

When I say ‘picking the arena’, I meant the ability to correctly identify our competitive edge and use it to win the war. Picking the right arena as a startup is one of the most difficult tasks.

當我說“選擇賽道”的意思，就是找到一個最適合自己產品和公司特長的領域，並把它做大，做深，做強。選對賽道對於全世界的創業公司都是很不容易的事情。

However, in China, sometimes it is quite challenging to discover the right area, because what you see might not be what it is. One of our products we developed in the early stage of our company was the safety alarms for coal mine. Our alarms can greatly reduce the chance of explosion. It outperforms every competitor, and it is only 1/3 of their price. In a textbook setup, this would be a perfect product.

尤其是在中國，很多時候更不容易看清楚，有的時候你以為的和實際恰恰相反。我們一個早期研發產品是煤礦安全報警裝置。我們的警報系統可大大降低爆炸的可能性，完勝其他競爭對手的同時價格僅是他們的1/3，看似是個教科書式的好產品。

But no, after struggling for months, I finally understood what the owners of the mines want: they want to not have to buy new ones. They just don’t have incentives. So performance and price don’t matter at all. As a tech startup, we picked the totally wrong arena.

但掙紮了幾個月後，我終於弄明白客戶的真實想法：他們根本沒有動力去買新的產品，性能和價格都不重要，他們最需要的是永遠不需要換安全設備！所以我們根本就沒有商機，作為一家創業公司，我們徹底選錯了賽道。

Mistake 4: Fall for the Fineprint

誤區4: 不仔細讀陷阱條款

Remember when you see ads like “buy one get one free”, only to find the tiny fine print at the bottom, telling you that if you bought the TV, you get the remote for free? Over promise and tricky statements like this are very common and deceptive in China. Don’t get too excited on titles like ‘win one million dollars’ award if you enter’ and ignore the fact that there are one million conditions you have to qualify for.

還記得各種“揮淚贈送”，“註冊有獎”的笑話騙局麽？還記得“買一送一”是買電視送遙控器麽？在中國，很多時候你看起來很好的各種誘惑條件，都是有很多你無法想象的附加條款在後面的，作為外人往往很容易被表面的“100萬資助”，“XXX優惠”所吸引，卻忽略了你真正得到這些獎勵所要付出的精力和機會成本。

In the beginning, we were really into the ‘free money’ game and spent lots of time on attending those events. In the end, we did receive very limited funding from it, but wasted unproportioned amount of time to get it. After all, I realized that free lunch was never free.

我們在創業初期也覺得能省就省，能拿到的獎勵一定拿，到最後發現，一旦上了賊船，要花更多的時間去斡旋這些事情，慢慢地，覺得自己已經違背了當初想做這件事情的初衷，那又何必呢？畢竟，世界上沒有免費的午餐。

Mistake 5: the BAT Curse

誤區5: BAT詛咒

Now that you’ve picked the innovative idea, picked the right arena, managed to love but not marry the government, and successfully avoided the all fine print traps. By now, you should have a booming business. But don’t celebrate just yet. You need to survive this final challenge – the BAT curse.

所以，你發明了絕妙的想法，選擇了最適合自己的賽道，避開了陷阱條款，並且和政府保持著良好的關系，不出意外的話，你的企業已經有模有樣了，不過別高興太早，還有最後一關大BOSS等著你，叫做 - BAT詛咒。

BAT stands for the three most influential internet companies in China, the search engine Baidu, the e-commerce platform Alibaba, and the social media Tencent. In the US, when a startup grows into a legit threat of a big company, they try to buy you out, to make peace with. But in China, if you stepped into BAT’s territory, they go into war with you. They are totally ruthless, and they would do anything to destroy and eliminate you, even it is stealing your whole team by tripling their salaries, driving you out of business using suicidal low price, or even working with the policy makers to guarantee their monopoly.

BAT指最有影響力的三個中國互聯網公司：搜索引擎百度、電商阿裏巴巴、社交媒體騰訊。在美國，如果一個初創企業對大公司構成了威脅的話，大公司會想辦法把你買下來，皆大歡喜。但在中國，如果你踏入BAT版圖半步，他們就會對你宣戰。他們很強勢，會用各種方法幹死你：高薪挖團隊，低價搶占市場，甚至通過政府關系把你的企業徹底搞成不合法，來確保他們的壟斷地位。

So that’s why you see lots of people identify themselves as ‘serial entrepreneur’ in Silicon Valley, but not too many in China. Because it is so damn hard! Even for the successful entrepreneurs, they stick to whatever they are good at, but wouldn’t try new ideas, because for them, it is not a victory they can to repeat, but rather a nightmare they don’t want to relive.

這就是為什麽我在矽谷認識很多連續創業者，而中國往往一個企業家只做成功過最多一個企業，因為太TMD難了！ 即使是功成名就的企業家，也更願意堅守自己的一畝三分地而不是嘗試新的領域，因為對他們來說，這個不是一個可以復制的成功，而是他們不願再重溫的噩夢。

So now I have told you both sides of the story. I’ll leave it to you for your own conclusion. As great Chinese philosophers, Mencius once said, it takes three things, timing, place, and talent. In China, I believe we everything ready. So if you ever considered going to China, I challenge you with these two questions:

說到這裏，我已經把故事的兩面都告訴你們了。結論呢？留給大家去想。中國的大哲學家孟子曾經說過，做事講究天時地利人和。現在的中國，萬事俱備。所以如果你動任何一點過來中國的念頭，我想留給你兩個問題：

If not now, when?

If now us, then whom?

如果不是此刻，更待何時？

如果不是我們，誰主沈浮？

轉自：http://www.xtecher.com/Xfeature/view?aid=1037

【獨家】矽谷創業公司在中國常跌的五個坑｜禾賽科技CEO李一帆柏林亞太周主題演講