独家硅谷创业公司在中国常跌的五个坑｜禾赛科技CEO李一帆柏林亚太周主题演讲

Posted 2020-09-18

【独家】硅谷创业公司在中国常跌的五个坑｜禾赛科技CEO李一帆柏林亚太周主题演讲

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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，禾赛科技CEO

2016/5/26 柏林亚太周上的主题演讲

 

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以下为演讲全文：

 

 

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.

两年前，我决定把公司从硅谷搬回国。8年旅美，刚回到上海有很多不适应，然而最不适应的，是我发现我的信用卡不能用了。我又惊讶、又心塞：难道中国还落后世界这么多吗？

 

 

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’.

我问朋友：“到底什么时候中国才能普及信用卡呢？”

他的回答让我更吃惊了：“或许永远不。”

“什么叫‘永远不’？”

“我们有更好的替代品了——‘扫码’。”

 

 

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.

你可以用手机向任何人扫码付款：快，安全，没有手续费。纵然信用卡往往被认为是西方文明的一面旗帜，在中国，他完全没找到市场——我们跳过了信用卡，直接到了下一个更高的段位。

 

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 But now, the question itself, is no longer valid.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：一直以来，我们都陷入了一个误区，我们总试图计算中国落后世界多少年——可现在，这个问题本身已经不存在了。

 

 

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

中国，已不再追赶、模仿、复制旧世界；我们正在造一个新的世界。

 

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. 

这种创造，来自三个重要因素：市场、资本、人才。我知道德国人喜欢数字，所以咱们今天靠数字说话。

 

 

First of all, the market. 

首先是市场。

 

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.

在中国，我们有13亿消费者，更重要的是，他们的购买能力在快速增长，让这个市场变得如此庞大，如此诱惑。

 

 

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. 

我们看一下智能手机用户。毫无疑问，这是移动互联网产业最重要的指标。大家可以看到，2009年智能手机刚出现时，这个市场还很小，但到了2015年，几乎一半中国人都拥有智能手机。

 

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.

别忘了：与欧洲和美国相比，中国的人均 GDP只有他们的四分之一。这意味着什么？中国人非常非常愿意在下一代技术上进行投资，而这也是为什么高科技创业公司能够在中国快速获得市场认可。

 

 

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. 

让我们看一下汽车销售。在欧洲和美国，汽车销量早已达停滞期，但是中国对汽车的需求正在节节攀升。过去十年，拥有一辆汽车成了是上层城市家庭的标配，市场对新车需求巨大，而拥有一辆德国车，已被普遍认为是高品质生活的标准——而且，信不信由你，中国人买车可是真的肯下血本 。

 

 

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. 

中国的电商发展更令人瞠目结舌。在去年双十一，类似于欧美的圣诞购物季，中国电商的领军企业阿里巴巴创下了140亿美元的销售纪录。这么说，一个中国网站一天的销售数字，这比柏林所有零售商7个月的销售总和还要多。

 

 

Now let’s look at the money side. 

下面我们看一下资本市场。

 

 

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%. 

风险投资家们从来都毫不犹豫地把钱砸向中国。2013年，在中国公司的资本投入只占全球投资总额的6%，短短两年之后，这个数字飙到了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. 

如果你认为风投们在投资中国公司时非常慷慨，那你又错了。中国中央政府才是这波浪潮里最大的投入者。过去5年里，政府投入了上千亿的美元来促进中国企业发展。有着世界上最强大政府之一的支持，中国企业可以放心大胆地向前冲。

 

 

 

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. 

所有的创造，都与不断涌现出的才华横溢的中国新一代创业者密不可分。在国内，越来越多的大学毕业生选择自主创业。仅去年一年，中国就有超过25万的毕业生决定把校园里的想法付诸实践。

 

 

 

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. 创业，也成了许多留学海外的中国学生的首选，虽然每年出国的人数稳步提升，他们中海归的比例也在不断增高，而且超过一半以上的人都决定去创业。

 

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，前所未有的中国留学生正在回归，不是因为他们在外面找不到工作，而是因为经过认真对比后，中国仍然是他们事业起步的最好地方。

 

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

所以，坐拥全球最好市场、足够的风险资本、足够的人才，中国创业公司正以史无前例的速度，大刀阔斧地向前。

 

 

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

而这些，正是我们为何决定离开硅谷、回到中国的原因。

 

 

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. 

我先来介绍一下我们公司的历史和产品。2013年，我的另外两位联合创始人在斯坦福读书。我们发明了一种新的激光技术，可以用在很多场景，包括分析空气成分，检测天然气管道泄漏，和帮助无人驾驶的汽车避开障碍物。我们的公司取名“禾赛”，因为我们的第一台机器是在圣何塞造出来的。

 

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. 

接着，借助着斯坦福大学先进的技术，我们开发了很多前所未有的应用，包括无人机上的全自动油气泄漏检测方案、用于自动驾驶和驾驶辅助的激光雷达，智慧城市的空气质量检测系统等。

 

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. 

过去两年，我们公司的处境和经历很有意思：技术发明于硅谷、几个创始人都在美国受的教育，但我们选择专注于中国市场。这意味着我们必须和中国客户打交道，并且适应中国规则——这些规则很多时候并不是那么明显，那么直观。所以，坦诚地说，这条路并不一帆风顺，但我们学会了摸着石头过河，在风浪中不断学习。

 

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，为了让大家直观地体会在中国做一家科技型企业的酸甜苦辣，我打算分享几个创业路上的小故事。有的是我们踩过的坑，有些是差点犯的错误，但我们最终都成功把困难抛在身后。

 

Mistake 1: think China is all about clonings

误区1: 在中国做事全靠抄

 

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.

没错，把国外的好点子复制到中国，显然已经有了不少成功案例。但如今你要还这么想，肯定完蛋。理由很简单：不管好的坏的想法，都有一大波人比你更早地复制了。

 

Anything that is copyable, has been copied.

所有能复制的东西，基本都被复制过了。

 

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! 

 

当然，很多人认为把想法复制到中国来就跟使用复印机一样方便，可若想成功，要做的绝不止是复制。想想看，为什么那些复制版本往往比原版更在中国吃得开？中国企业家们对于中国市场需求的独到见解，和在原来想法上的创新，共同促成了伟大的企业和产品。

 

 

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

今天，我选了三个一流的中国创业公司，让大家体会一下为什么创新对于中国公司来说如此重要。

 

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：这绝对是我们这个时代独一无二的移动互联网产品。好多人甚至觉得，这个实时通讯工具是他们用手机的唯一理由。看看这些数字：5.7亿日活跃用户、55%的用户每天打开至少10次以上、有超过2亿的信用卡绑定在微信上——说句良心话，对于一个移动应用，我不知道我还能要求它什么……

 

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：它是一个出行服务提供商。就在去年，滴滴的乘车数总计为14亿次，比美国所有汽车服务总和的两倍还要多。光在北京，滴滴的乘车数就比纽约所有乘车数的7倍还多。更讽刺的是，前不久，苹果公司决定抛弃它在加州的邻居Uber, 而转向给它最大的竞争对手滴滴投了10亿美金。

 

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 ：世界最大的消费型无人机制造商。不可思议的是，它有高达70%的市场占有率，10亿美金的销售额。更有趣的是，大疆着眼于全球市场。它的销售额中，65%以上来自于海外，也就是说，大疆的发家史靠的是挣外国人的钱，这才是真的牛。

 

Mistake 2: Marry the Government

误区2: 过度依赖政府

 

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.

马云曾说过一句著名的话：“要爱政府，但不要嫁给他们。”与政府做生意会有很好的利润，但长远看也存在风险。我们刚回国时，正好是政府迫切需要空气质量监控的时候，所以我们专门为政府开发出了一套智慧城市空气质量检测系统。然而，随着合作慢慢深入，我也渐渐看到了这个商业模式存在的弊病：通常，客户群体过于集中就是很糟糕的事情，尤其当这个群体是政府的时候，作为一家小公司的议价能力和保持独立性的能力就会大打折扣，甚至很多时候，我们想做的事情会被政府和法律所限制。终于有一塔，我们狠下心来，决定去开辟新的市场，一个让我们可以只专注于产品的市场。现在，我睡觉比以前更安稳了，因为我们只有不到10%的销售是来自政府，而我也更爱我的政府了。

 

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.

所以有一天我决定换个新产品，让我们可以真正完全花心思在产品上而不是关系上。现在，我可以很开心地说，我们只有不到10%的销售是来自政府，而我也更爱我的政府了。

 

Mistake 3: Pick the wrong arena

误区3: 选择错误的赛道

 

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. 

当我说“选择赛道”的意思，就是找到一个最适合自己产品和公司特长的领域，并把它做大，做深，做强。选对赛道对于全世界的创业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.

尤其是在中国，很多时候更不容易看清楚，有的时候你以为的和实际恰恰相反。我们一个早期研发产品是煤矿安全报警装置。我们的警报系统可大大降低爆炸的可能性，完胜其他竞争对手的同时价格仅是他们的1/3，看似是个教科书式的好产品。

 

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.

但挣扎了几个月后，我终于弄明白客户的真实想法：他们根本没有动力去买新的产品，性能和价格都不重要，他们最需要的是永远不需要换安全设备！所以我们根本就没有商机，作为一家创业公司，我们彻底选错了赛道。

 

Mistake 4: Fall for the Fineprint

误区4: 不仔细读陷阱条款

 

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.

还记得各种“挥泪赠送”，“注册有奖”的笑话骗局么？还记得“买一送一”是买电视送遥控器么？在中国，很多时候你看起来很好的各种诱惑条件，都是有很多你无法想象的附加条款在后面的，作为外人往往很容易被表面的“100万资助”，“XXX优惠”所吸引，却忽略了你真正得到这些奖励所要付出的精力和机会成本。

 

 

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. 

我们在创业初期也觉得能省就省，能拿到的奖励一定拿，到最后发现，一旦上了贼船，要花更多的时间去斡旋这些事情，慢慢地，觉得自己已经违背了当初想做这件事情的初衷，那又何必呢？毕竟，世界上没有免费的午餐。

 

Mistake 5: the BAT Curse

误区5:  BAT诅咒 

 

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，你发明了绝妙的想法，选择了最适合自己的赛道，避开了陷阱条款，并且和政府保持着良好的关系，不出意外的话，你的企业已经有模有样了，不过别高兴太早，还有最后一关大BOSS等着你，叫做 - BAT诅咒。

 

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指最有影响力的三个中国互联网公司：搜索引擎百度、电商阿里巴巴、社交媒体腾讯。在美国，如果一个初创企业对大公司构成了威胁的话，大公司会想办法把你买下来，皆大欢喜。但在中国，如果你踏入BAT版图半步，他们就会对你宣战。他们很强势，会用各种方法干死你：高薪挖团队，低价抢占市场，甚至通过政府关系把你的企业彻底搞成不合法，来确保他们的垄断地位。

 

 

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. 

这就是为什么我在硅谷认识很多连续创业者，而中国往往一个企业家只做成功过最多一个企业，因为太TMD难了！ 即使是功成名就的企业家，也更愿意坚守自己的一亩三分地而不是尝试新的领域，因为对他们来说，这个不是一个可以复制的成功，而是他们不愿再重温的噩梦。

 

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:

说到这里，我已经把故事的两面都告诉你们了。结论呢？留给大家去想。中国的大哲学家孟子曾经说过，做事讲究天时地利人和。现在的中国，万事俱备。所以如果你动任何一点过来中国的念头，我想留给你两个问题：

 

 

If not now, when?

If now us, then whom?

 

如果不是此刻，更待何时？

如果不是我们，谁主沉浮？

 

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