我的创业点子能改变世界，但风投却对我不理不睬

 海珠人网站：源自网络    2018-04-16 腾讯科技编译组 腾讯创业

如果你有一个想法，可以用成熟的技术来解决众所周知的问题，那就比较容易获得融资。但如果你要开发一种有望真正改变世界的新技术，那就很难获得风险投资的支持。

文 / 腾讯科技编译组

来源 / 腾讯科技（ID:qqtech）

硅谷创业者 Etosha Cave 有一个非常厉害的创业点子，它能改变世界。

然而，风险投资人却对她不理不睬。

而最终肯为这位创业者拨款的，不是非盈利组织，就是政府基金。

今天我们分享的这篇文章，用 Etosha Cave 寻找融资的艰难历程，说明“硅谷模式”的弊端与不足。Enjoy：

1在硅谷，没有投资人

会为“改变世界”买单

2014年，从斯坦福毕业后，Etosha Cave 和两个朋友共同走向创业。他们在实验室发现了一种新的技术方式，它可以将碳排放转化为更有用的产品。

这项技术绝对厉害，Etosha Cave 也相信它具有巨大的商业价值。

他们需要100万～200万美元启动资金，于是，他们向云集硅谷的风投机构求助，但经过短暂的交流后，这些风投机构纷纷选择放弃。

有的投资人直言，“如果你们想开发一款智能手机应用，肯定会受备受关注，但你们要做的这种硬技术基本会无人问津。”

Etosha Cave 和她的团队尝试各种方法，希望利用硅谷的生态系统资源，提供资金，启动创业项目，但得到的回复都是：风险投资人希望看到实打实的产品。

My entrepreneurial ideas can change the world, but the VC is not ignoring me.

 Haizhuren website: from the network 2018-04-16 Tencent Technology Compilation Group Tencent Entrepreneurship

If you have an idea that can use mature technology to solve well-known problems, it is easier to get financing. But if you want to develop a new technology that is expected to truly change the world, it is difficult to get support from venture capital.

Text / Tencent Technology Compilation Group

Source / Tencent Technology (ID: qqtech)

Silicon Valley entrepreneur Etosha Cave has a very strong entrepreneurial idea that can change the world.

However, venture capitalists ignored her.

The ultimate willingness to fund this entrepreneur is not a non-profit organization, or a government fund.

Today, we share this article, using Etosha Cave to find the difficult course of financing, explaining the shortcomings and shortcomings of the "Silicon Valley model." Enjoy:

1 In Silicon Valley, no investors

Will pay for "changing the world"

In 2014, after graduating from Stanford, Etosha Cave and two friends went together to start a business. They found a new way of technology in the lab that converts carbon emissions into more useful products.

This technology is absolutely powerful, and Etosha Cave believes it has great commercial value.

They need $1 million to $2 million to start funding, so they turned to VC-listed VCs for help, but after a brief exchange, these VCs chose to give up.

Some investors bluntly said, "If you want to develop a smart phone application, you will definitely get attention, but the hard technology you have to do is basically unattended."

Etosha Cave and her team tried various methods, hoping to use Silicon Valley's ecosystem resources, provide funding, and start a startup project, but the response was: Venture capitalists want to see real products.

而 Etosha Cave 和她的团队只有几篇化学论文、一些科研数据，以及改变世界的想法。

一位专门投资硬科技的风险投资家 Errol Arkilic 说道，

“如果主要投资风险是财务风险，风险投资模式的效果就很好，因为创业团队会努力做大他们的商业模式。但如果同时存在技术风险和市场风险，这种模式就效果欠佳。其中存在很多未知，需要采用不同的方式。”

Cyclotron Road是一个与劳伦斯-伯克利国家实验室合作部署的高等技术孵化项目，其创始总监伊恩·古尔（Ilan Gur）也指出，工业化技术面临的销售环境更为复杂：

“与消费市场相比，工业化技术需要考虑更多因素，然后才能从单纯的兴趣发展成真正的市场机会。

对于更加深奥的技术来说，不可能总是按照风险投资的节奏创新——这种节奏要求企业在短时间内迅速扩大规模。”

2如果再有一次机会

我会多花时间撰写拨款申请

迟迟找不到融资，Etosha Cave 很焦虑、失望，但她清楚自己一定会坚持下去。

2014年夏天，Etosha Cave 终于看到希望。

Etosha Cave 参加了汤姆凯特可持续能源中心（ TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy）举办的一场清洁科技活动上。该中心主任布莱恩·巴索罗梅兹（Brian Bartholomeusz）告诉我，他正在努力让类似的技术走出实验室，在他的鼓励下，我申请了一笔拨款。

And Etosha Cave and her team have only a few chemistry papers, some research data, and ideas to change the world.

Errol Arkilic, a venture capitalist who specializes in hard technology, says

“If the main investment risk is financial risk, the risk investment model works well because the startup team will work hard to expand their business model. But if there are both technical and market risks, this model will not work well. A lot of unknowns need to be done differently."

Cyclotron Road, a high-tech incubator project deployed in collaboration with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, and its founding director, Ian Gur, also pointed out that the sales environment for industrial technology is more complex:

“Compared with the consumer market, industrial technology needs to consider more factors before it can develop from a pure interest into a real market opportunity.

For more esoteric technologies, it is impossible to always innovate at the pace of venture capital – a rhythm that requires companies to scale quickly in a short period of time. ”

2 If there is another chance

I will spend more time writing funding applications.

Etosha Cave was very anxious and disappointed, but she knew she would stick to it.

In the summer of 2014, Etosha Cave finally saw hope.

Etosha Cave participated in a clean technology event at the TomKat Center for Sustainable Energy. The director of the center, Brian Bartholomeusz, told me that he was trying to get similar technology out of the lab, and with his encouragement, I applied for a grant.

很快，Etosha Cave 和她的创业伙伴就获得了来自Cyclotron Road的拨款，随后又获得了Breakout Labs的进一步支持（这是一家由Thiel Foundation支持的非盈利基金），后来还获得了美国国家科学基金会的SBIR拨款。

获得这些非传统投资者的支持后，Etosha Cave  和她的创业伙伴才得以成立自己的公司，他们决定把它叫做 Opus 12。

从某种意义上讲，他们非常幸运。在2009年之前，这些机构都没有出现，它们的创立正是为了应对创业系统中逐渐被人意识到的一个深坑。

如果你有一个想法，可以用成熟的技术来解决众所周知的问题，那就比较容易获得融资。但如果你要开发一种有望真正改变世界的新技术，那就很难获得风险投资的支持。

Etosha Cave 说：“如果再来一次，我会少花些精力学习如何撰写商业计划，多花些时间学习如何撰写拨款申请。我们早期的融资来源不是非营利组织，就是政府资源。”

3拨款后，还需要寻找

可行的市场和商业模式

早期的拨款以及 Cyclotron Road 提供的劳伦斯-伯克利的设施，让 Opus 12 得以开发出可以向投资者和客户展示的原型产品，但仍然需要找到一个可行的市场和商业模式。所以，Opus 12申请了 I-Corps 项目。

I-Corps 创立于2011年，它秉承着史蒂夫·布兰克（Steve Blank）的精益创业原则，其设立目的是帮助企业填平发现和商业化之间的鸿沟，也就是通常所谓的“死亡谷”。

Soon, Etosha Cave and her startup partners received grants from Cyclotron Road, followed by further support from Breakout Labs (a non-profit fund backed by the Thiel Foundation) and later received the National Science Foundation. The SBIR grant will be.

With the support of these non-traditional investors, Etosha Cave and her entrepreneurial partners were able to set up their own company and they decided to call it Opus 12.

In a sense, they are very lucky. These institutions did not appear before 2009, and they were created in response to a deep pit of the entrepreneurial system.

If you have an idea that can use mature technology to solve well-known problems, it is easier to get financing. But if you want to develop a new technology that is expected to truly change the world, it is difficult to get support from venture capital.

Etosha Cave said: “If you come again, I will spend less time learning how to write a business plan and spend more time learning how to write a grant application. Our early sources of financing were not non-profit organizations, but government resources.”

3 after the grant, you still need to find

Feasible market and business model

Early grants and the Lawrence Berkeley facility at Cyclotron Road allowed Opus 12 to develop prototypes that could be shown to investors and customers, but still needed to find a viable market and business model. Therefore, Opus 12 applied for the I-Corps project.

Founded in 2011, I-Corps adheres to Steve Blank's Lean Startup Principles, which are designed to help companies bridge the gap between discovery and commercialization, which is commonly referred to as “the so-called “ Death Valley".

对于和 Etosha Cave 一样的科研创业者来说，这里相当于一种新兵训练营。

他们强调称，“一旦与客户接触，所有的商业计划都会失效”，这就需要参与者“走出大楼”，跟几十个潜在客户展开沟通，寻找可持续的商业模式。

起初，Opus 12瞄准了他们所能找到的最大的市场：乙醇，一种汽油添加剂。由于2016年的销售额达到640亿美元，这似乎是个巨大的机会。

可惜的是，由于相关企业的规模都很大，所以，没有背景的小公司根本无法进入该市场。

创业公司想要取得进展，需要的不是规模庞大的市场，而是一个亟待解决的用例。

Opus 12 在特殊气体领域发现了商机，这些气体在很多工业化流程中都很有用，但分配的难度和成本却很高。由于Opus 12能够当场制作这些气体，所以可以大幅降低成本，提升可靠的供应。

如今，在创业4年之后，Opus 12 终于开始吸引传统投资者的关注。

他们有望在未来一年内获得第一份订单，然后扩大规模。“我们的第一个产品大概跟洗碗机尺寸差不多，之后的尺寸会达到冰箱那么大，然后是集装箱，最后是一座工厂那么大”， Etosha Cave 说道。

4什么是硅谷模式？

从  Etosha Cave 的融资历程来看，风靡创投圈的“硅谷模式”并不是万能的。

关于“硅谷模式”的由来，有一段故事。

1968年，在投资人亚瑟·洛克（Arthur Rock）的支持下，一群从仙童半导体离职的高管创办了一家新的公司，

也就是后来的英特尔。

For the same scientific entrepreneurs as Etosha Cave, this is equivalent to a boot camp.

They stressed that “once contact with customers, all business plans will be ineffective”, which requires participants to “go out of the building” and communicate with dozens of potential customers to find sustainable business models.

At first, Opus 12 aimed at the biggest market they could find: ethanol, a gasoline additive. With 2016 sales reaching $64 billion, this seems like a huge opportunity.

Unfortunately, because the scale of the related companies is very large, small companies without background can not enter the market.

What a startup wants to make progress is not a large-scale market, but a use case that needs to be resolved.

Opus 12 has found opportunities in special gas fields that are useful in many industrial processes, but are difficult and costly to dispense. Since the Opus 12 is able to produce these gases on the spot, it can significantly reduce costs and increase reliable supply.

Today, four years after starting a business, Opus 12 has finally begun to attract the attention of traditional investors.

They are expected to get their first order in the next year and then scale up. “Our first product is about the size of a dishwasher, and the size will be as big as a refrigerator, then a container, and finally a factory,” says Etosha Cave.

4 What is the Silicon Valley model?

Judging from the financing history of Etosha Cave, the “Silicon Valley Model” of the popular venture capital circle is not a panacea.

There is a story about the origin of the "Silicon Valley Model."

In 1968, with the support of investor Arthur Rock, a group of executives who had resigned from Fairchild Semiconductor founded a new company.

It was later Intel.

正如安娜丽·萨克森尼（AnnaLee Saxenian）在她那篇关于湾区计算机行业崛起的文章《区域优势》（AnnaLee Saxenian）中所说，

这笔交易在很大程度上为硅谷的商业模式奠定了基调。

那时候，东部的老牌企业还在与大银行合作组建新的公司。

而在湾区，则是由资金量不大的风险投资家负责投资创业公司，他们中的很多人之前都曾是工程师。斯坦福工程学院院长弗雷德里克·特曼（Frederick Terman）以及惠普等既有公司，

也在投入大量资源拓宽和加强创业生态系统。

然而，萨克森尼后来表示，之所以出现这种情况，是很多力量共同作用的结果。

由于北加州地区工业匮乏，所以科技创业者往往比较团结。类似地，当时也没有多少大企业可以跟斯坦福合作，所以他们才会寻找创业者。

正是这些特点促成了当时与众不同的硅谷模式。

这种模式在早期取得的成功使之实现了自我延续。工程师成了创业者，并因此发家致富。

他们随后又转型为投资人，支持新的创业公司，进而为当地吸引更多工程师，而其中的很多人也都投入创业大军。到1980年代，硅谷已经超过波士顿的128号公路，成为美国的科技中心。

5硅谷模式不适合硬科技创业公司

过去几十年，硅谷已经成为科技行业创业精神的强劲引擎。在很多人眼中，它甚至成了万灵药。

As AnnaLee Saxenian said in her article on the rise of the computer industry in the Bay Area, AnnaLee Saxenian,

The deal largely set the tone for Silicon Valley's business model.

At that time, the old companies in the east were still working with big banks to form new companies.

In the Bay Area, venture capitalists with little capital are responsible for investing in startups, many of whom were engineers before. Stanford Engineering School Dean Frederick Terman and existing companies such as HP,

A lot of resources are also being invested to broaden and strengthen the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

However, Saxony later said that the reason for this is the result of many forces working together.

Because of the lack of industry in Northern California, technology entrepreneurs tend to be more united. Similarly, there were not many large companies that could work with Stanford at the time, so they would look for entrepreneurs.

It is these characteristics that led to the distinctive Silicon Valley model at the time.

The success of this model in the early days made it self-sustaining. Engineers became entrepreneurs and became wealthy.

They then transformed into investors, supported new startups, and then attracted more engineers to the local community, many of whom also invested in entrepreneurship. By the 1980s, Silicon Valley had surpassed Boston's Highway 128 and became the center of technology in the United States.

5 Silicon Valley mode is not suitable for hard technology startups

In the past few decades, Silicon Valley has become a powerful engine for entrepreneurship in the technology industry. In the eyes of many people, it has even become a panacea.

企业高管都希望在自己的文化中注入“硅谷基因”，政策制定者也认为风投支持的创业精神可以解决各种各样的问题。

这种想法非常危险。硅谷模式虽然很有魅力，但它却是在特定的时间，针对特定的行业，面向一组特定的技术发展起来的。

虽然可以为其他行业和问题提供有价值的参考，但这种模式却未必具有普适性。

由于多数风险投资公司的投资时限很多都是5年，所以硅谷模式很不适合硬科技创业公司，这种公司需要验证的不只是商业模式，还包括技术本身。

我们需要根据投资者、创业者和技术人员组成的新生态系统来设计一套新的模式。

很显然，这套生态系统的核心是那一系列帮助Opus 12成功起步的联邦政府项目和非盈利基金会组成的网络。

然而，同样明显的是，硬科技生态系统还必须得到更多的支持，才能真正复制IT和其他行业的成功。

各州及地方政府可能出手相助，他们已经表现出一定的意愿，希望利用奥巴马政府时期建立的制造中心来支持地方行业的发展。

底特律就有一处设施是由两个这样的中心负责管理的，一个专门开发复合材料，另一个专门生产轻质金属，目的都是为了给汽车行业提供支持。

另外一种可能则是企业风投，他们往往拥有足够的技术能力来评估硬技术投资的可行性。

这些机构可以发挥双重作用，既能为科研创业者提供支持，还能为老牌企业注入新颖的技术。

总之，必须要明白的是，硅谷模式并不适用于所有技术和所有行业。没有一种创新战略可以放之四海皆准，所以才应该不断扩充我们的工具箱。

Corporate executives want to inject “Silicon Valley Genes” into their culture, and policymakers believe that VC-backed entrepreneurship can solve a variety of problems.

This idea is very dangerous. Although the Silicon Valley model is very attractive, it is developed for a specific set of technologies for a specific industry at a specific time.

While it can provide valuable references for other industries and issues, this model may not be universal.

Since most venture capital firms have investment horizons of five years, the Silicon Valley model is not suitable for hard technology startups. This company needs to verify not only the business model, but also the technology itself.

We need to design a new model based on a new ecosystem of investors, entrepreneurs and technicians.

Clearly, the core of the ecosystem is a network of federal government projects and non-profit foundations that helped Opus 12 get off the ground.

However, it is also clear that the hard technology ecosystem must also receive more support to truly replicate the success of IT and other industries.

State and local governments may help, and they have shown a willingness to use the manufacturing centers established during the Obama administration to support the development of local industries.

One facility in Detroit is managed by two such centers, one dedicated to the development of composite materials and the other dedicated to the production of lightweight metals, all aimed at supporting the automotive industry.

Another possibility is corporate ventures, which often have sufficient technical capabilities to assess the feasibility of hard technology investments.

These institutions can play a dual role in supporting research entrepreneurs and injecting new technologies into established companies.

In short, it must be understood that the Silicon Valley model does not apply to all technologies and all industries. No innovation strategy can be universally applied, so we should continue to expand our toolbox.