如果你是一个有野心，有事业心的人，那么你便会有创业的想法。但是在冒着很大风险的情况下你准备怎么去做呢？

想创业？三大问题先理清

How To Tell If You're Really Ready To Start Your Own Business

最近，我在霍特商学院做了一个演讲。在提问环节，有人问：“怎么知道自己是否做好创业的准备了呢？”事实上，当你把一切都各就各位，把自尊心、安全感、你的事业和财政状况都放到一个对你不一定有利的形势中，这个切身的问题应该由你自己来答。这个问题也只有你自己才能够回答。

During the Q&A part of a recent presentation I delivered at the Hult School of Business, someone asked, “How do I know if I’m really ready to take the leap to start my own business?”  Actually, when you’re about to put just about everything about you on the line, including your ego, security, career, and financial success, in a situation where the odds are stacked against you, it’s a very relevant question to ask yourself.  Perhaps it’s even the most relevant question to ask yourself.

我自己是一个创业者，在过去二十多年的创业道路上，我也结识了很多的创业者。如果你问他们其中的任何一个，我相信，即便是最成功的那拨人，他们也会告诉你，第一次创业，绝不可能完全准备好。出去创立自己的公司，这对任何人来说都是大胆的、个人的、耗时耗力的举动。这种冒险不可能被简化成一张写着成功关键因素的清单。

As an entrepreneur myself for the past 20+ years, I’ve come to know many other entrepreneurs.  If you asked any of them this question, I believe even the most successful ones will tell you that you’re never really going to be ready to be an entrepreneur for the first time.  Stepping out on the edge to start your own business is just such a bold, personal, consuming move for anyone to make.  It’s a venture that’s not possible to narrow down to a simple checklist of key success factors. 

除此之外，一位创业者能够脱颖而出，靠的不仅仅是商业理念、策略或规划。在大多数情况下，还关乎到无形的品质，比如你能否机智灵活地作出调整，是否有丰富的资源来解决问题，能不能提出解决方案，是否具备成功的意志力和坚持。经验丰富的风投或项目工程投资商和懂行的商人会告诉你，好点子容易有，而能让‘想法’变成‘现实’却绝非易事。

In addition, what allows some to succeed as entrepreneurs over most others are not only related to your business idea, strategy, or plan. In most cases, it’s the intangible qualities about you, like your nimbleness and flexibility to make adjustments, resourcefulness to solve problems, ability to come up with solutions, and just sheer will and persistence not to fail.  Experienced VC/PE investors and savvy business people will tell you that bright ideas are easy to come by.  It’s your ability to execute your idea that separates who succeeds from who doesn’t.

说了这些，考虑到我见过的这么多创业者，我重点给出以下三个问题。如果想知道自己是否准备好创立一家成功的企业时，你要问自己： 

Having said all this, based on the many people I’ve seen start their own business, I’ll highlight three good questions to ask yourself that indicate whether you’re more ready than not to start and build a successful business.  These are:

1) 你是否有很多“Build Something Out Of Nothing”的经验和成果？——比如，即便是在公司上班，你也参与过重点项目，为此你必须要组建团队，开发产品、服务，制定流程、系统，打造品牌，开辟市场。或者在大学的时候，你创立、领导了一个从未有过的学生俱乐部或者组织，广受欢迎。又或者你利用业余时间在天猫开了一家相当成功的网店。这些事情都表明你非常熟悉“从零开始创造出一些东西”，而这恰恰是你自己创业时一直要做的事情。

1) What’s your level of experience and achievement “building something out of nothing?” – For instance, even though you work in a company, you’ve worked on a key project before where you had to build a team, product or service, process or system,  or brand or market.  Or as a university student, you founded and led a popular student club or organization that didn’t existed before.  Or you’ve built a fairly successful online store of some kind on Tmall in your spare time.  All of these show that you’re familiar with what it takes to build something from nothing, which is essentially what you’re constantly doing when you run your own company.

2) 你是否有很多独立工作的经验和成果？——作为一个创业者，即便你有合作伙伴，很多事情也需要你独自完成。在自己的公司，没有人领导你，或是告诉你需要做什么。你是那个推动事情发生的人，是那个制定关键决策、分清轻重缓急的人。因此，你最好能积极勇敢，能放心依赖自己的能力，促进事情的完成。

2) What’s your level of experience and achievement working independently? –As an entrepreneur, you pretty much go it alone, even if you have a partner(s).  In your own company, there’s nobody else leading the way or telling you what you need to do.  You’re the one who has to drive things and make them happen.  You’re the one making the key decisions and figuring out what the top priorities should be.  So you better be someone who is bold, proactive, and comfortable relying on your own capabilities and drive to get things done.

3) 你是否有很多应对艰难险阻的经验和成果？——相信我，作为一名创业者，很多努力做的事情结果并不会如你所愿。你很快就能学到，事情比你想象中要困难两倍，时间也要多耗一倍。因此，如果你曾面临并克服过高压环境、难以克服的障碍甚至是失败，这对你来说大有帮助，因为这是你一开始创业就要经历的东西。

3) What’s your level of experience and achievement facing big challenges and setbacks? – Trust me, as an entrepreneur, many things that you try aren’t going to turn out nearly as well as you think they will.  What you quickly learn is that things are twice as difficult and take twice as long as you imagined.  So it really helps if you’ve faced and overcome pressure situations, big obstacles, and even failure before, because these are what you’ll be experiencing once you start your own company.

如果这些问题你的回答是“不多”、“很少”，我建议你退一步想想自己是否真的做好了创业的准备。这话说得不准确。创业很简单，什么人都能做。真正的问题是你是否做好了创立一家成功企业的准备。

If your answers these questions are “not much” or “very little”, then take a step back to consider if you’re someone who is fundamentally prepared to start and build your own business.  Actually, I’ll modify that.  Starting your own business is easy.  Anyone can do it.  The real question is if you’re ready to start and build a successful business.