突发｜YC建议创业者“做好最坏的打算”

就在刚刚看到TechCrunch推送了一条标题为“YC advises founders to ‘plan for the worst’ amid market teardown（YC建议创业者在市场崩溃之际做好最坏的打算）”的文章，文中提到YC在这周给被投企业发了一封邮件，提醒他们在经过13年的大牛市后，全球经济可能面临急剧逆转的风险。YC在信中非常诚恳地给出了10点建议，提醒这些被投企业做好准备，度过危机。

导语

给大家简单介绍一下YC，全称Y Combinator，由Paul Graham成立于2005年，是全球知名的创业投资机构和孵化器，总部在硅谷。已经投资超过了2000家初创公司，其中就包括著名的Airbnb、Dropbox、Stripe、Reddit、Coinbase、DoorDash等公司。与其他传统投资机构不一样的点就在于YC不仅提供资金，同时还会有为期3个月的培训课程，来帮助这些被投企业快速成长。申请YC不需要提供BP，而是需要像申请美国大学一样填写申请表，经过多轮面试后，最终入选。因此YC也如大学一般打造了一个创业者的学校生态，在创业者群体中有着不错的口碑和声望。国内著名孵化器奇绩创坛的前身就是YC中国。

也正因为如此，YC在此时给被投企业的提醒也显得尤为重要，所以特别在第一时间跟大家分享这一信息，希望能够给正在奋斗的创业者们一些启发，一起度过即将到来的严冬。

01.

原文

Greetings YC Founders,

During this week we’ve done office hours with a large number of YC companies.  They reached out to ask whether they should change their plans around spending, runway, hiring, and funding rounds based on the current state of public markets. What we’ve told them is that economic downturns often become huge opportunities for the founders who quickly change their mindset, plan ahead, and make sure their company survives.

Here are some thoughts to consider when making your plans:

1. No one cannot predict how bad the economy will get, but things don’t look good. 

2. The safe move is to plan for the worst. If the current situation is as bad as the last two economic downturns, the best way to prepare is to cut costs and extend your runway within the next 30 days. Your goal should be to get to Default Alive. 

3. If you don’t have the runway to reach default alive and your existing investors or new investors are willing to give you more money right now (even on the same terms as your last round) you should strongly consider taking it. 

4. Regardless of your ability to fundraise, it’s your responsibility to ensure your company will survive if you cannot raise money for the next 24 months. 

5. Understand that the poor public market performance of tech companies significantly impacts VC investing. VCs will have a much harder time raising money and their LPs will expect more investment discipline. As a result, during economic downturns even the top tier VC funds with a lot of money slow down their deployment of capital (lesser funds often stop investing or die). This causes less competition between funds for deals which results in lower valuations, lower round sizes, and many fewer deals completed. In these situations, investors also reserve more capital to backstop their best performing companies, which further reduces the number of new financings.This slow down will have a disproportionate impact on international companies, asset heavy companies, low margin companies, hardtech, and other companies with high burn long time to revenue.Note that the numbers of meetings investors take don’t decrease in proportion to the reduction in total investment. It’s easy to be fooled into thinking a fund is actively investing when it is not. 

6. For those of you who have started your company within the last 5 years, question what you believe to be the normal fundraising environment. Your fundraising experience was most likely not normal and future fundraises will be much more difficult. 

7. If you are post Series A and pre-product market fit, don’t expect another round to happen at all until you have obviously hit product market fit. The Series A Milestones we publish here might even turn out to be a bit too low. 

8. If your plan is to raise money in the next 6-12 months, you might be raising at the peak of the downturn. Remember that your chances of success are extremely low even if your company is doing well. We recommend you change your plan. 

9. Remember, that many of your competitors will not plan well, maintain high burn, and only figure out they are screwed when they try to raise their next round. You can often pick up significant market share in an economic downturn by just staying alive. 

10. For more thoughts watch this video we’ve created: Save Your Startup during an Economic Downturn

02.

翻译

YC创业者们大家好，

这周我们和大量的YC被投企业都做了交流。他们都主动提出基于目前的市场环境，是否需要改变公司在支出、运营、招聘和融资方面的计划。我们告诉他们：对于那些能够快速改变思维模式、提前规划和确保公司生存下来的创始人来说，经济衰退往往是一个巨大的机会。

接下去是一些有助于你决策的建议：

1. 没有人可以预测经济会变得多糟糕，但是事情目前看起来不是很妙。

2. 最安全的行动就是做好最坏的打算。如果现在的形势会跟前两次经济衰退一样糟的话，最好的准备就是在未来30天内做到减少开支，从而延长你公司的存活时间。你的目标应该做到默默地活下去。

3. 如果你的资金不足以支撑默默地活下去，但是有投资人愿意在目前阶段给你更多的钱（即使估值跟上一轮一样），你应该强烈考虑接受这笔钱。

4. 无论你的融资能力怎样，你有责任确保你的公司可以在没有新一轮融资的情况下，活过未来的24个月。

5. 你要明白科技公司糟糕的二级市场表现会影响VC的投资。VC自己本身也会更难从LP那募到资金，同时LP也会期待更谨慎的投资。因此，在经济衰退时期，即使是最顶级有钱的VC也会放缓投资的步伐（有些小基金甚至会停止投资甚至直接倒闭）。这样就减少了不同基金之间的竞争，从而导致更低的估值，更低的融资规模和更少的deal。在这种情况下，投资人也会储备更多的资金来支持表现最好的公司，这将进一步减少新投资公司的数量。这种放缓将对跨国公司、资产密集型公司、低利润率公司、硬科技公司以及其他收入增长时间较长的公司产生巨大的影响。提醒：投资人参加会议的次数并不会随着投资总数地减少而减少，不要被这个假象所迷惑，认为市场还很火热。

6. 对于那些在过去五年内创办公司的创业者来说，可以问一问自己，你觉得正常的融资环境应该怎么样？你目前经历过的融资绝大多数是不正常的，未来的融资会变得更加困难。

7. 如果你已经过了A轮，但产品还没有达到PMF（Product-market fit）。在你没有很清晰地完成PMF前，不要再期待会有新一轮的融资了。我们这里提的A轮里程碑要求可能都有点低了。

8. 如果你的计划是在未来6～12个月融资，这可能是在经济衰退最顶峰的时期。请牢记你的成功机会会非常低，即使你的公司做得很好。我们建议你改变计划。

9. 记住，很多你的竞争对手不会好好计划，可能会继续维持烧钱的打法，直到他们尝试下一轮融资的时候，才会发现自己完蛋了。这时候，你只需要保持活着，通常就能够拿到巨大的市场份额。

10. 更多建议，欢迎看YC在Youtube上的这个视频：https://youtu.be/0OVSTWozvfY （没办法打开的朋友，可以后台回复“YC”，获取视频下载链接）

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参考材料

[1]https://techcrunch.com/2022/05/19/yc-advises-founders-to-plan-for-the-worst/

结尾

总结来说，资本寒冬是真的要来了，但是危机，既是危险，也是机会。相信这也是YC发给被投企业这封邮件的初衷，让这些企业提前做好准备，把危险转变为机会。很多成功的公司都经历过经济衰退的时期，并在这个时期顺利实现了飞跃！最后也祝愿每一位创业者：青松寒不落，碧海阔愈澄。

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