揭露關於女性創業的誤解大綱

Cynthia Breazeal has never considered herself a woman entrepreneur. An entrepreneur? Yes. A leader? Certainly. But gender really has never come into play as she expanded her company Jibo, the maker of the world’s first family robot.
辛西婭o佈雷西亞從來不認爲自己是女創業家。創業家？是的。領導者？當然。但她在帶領公司Jibo蓬勃發展的時候，從來沒有受到性別問題的影響。Jibo是世界第一款家用機器人的製造商。

Still, today is Women’s Entrepreneur Day, a global movement to celebrate and support female founders and shed light on some of their challenges. So Fortune interviewed Breazeal, as well as Susan Coelius Keplinger, the co-founder of online ad platform Triggit, about their experiences building their respective companies from scratch. Both women are part of Fortune’s 2014 class of Most Promising Entrepreneurs.
今天是女性創業日，作爲一項全球性活動，“女性創業日”的目的是鼓勵和支持女性創業者，瞭解她們遇到的挑戰。因此，《財富》雜誌（Fortune）採訪了佈雷西亞和在線廣告平臺Triggit的聯合創始人克利烏斯o凱普林格，瞭解她們白手起家進行創業的經歷。兩人均被評爲《財富》2014年“最有前途的創業家”（Most Promising Entrepreneurs）。

“The world would certainly be a better place if we had more women entrepreneurs,” said Breazeal. “Women are going to bring a different angle to startups. The stereotype is that it is all young geeky guys and that is not true. It is critical for women to become entrepreneurs because of their unique perspective.”
佈雷西亞說道：“如果有更多女性投身創業，我們的世界將變得更好。女性將從不同的角度來詮釋創業。人們總是認爲，進行創業的都是年輕的書呆子們，這是錯誤的。女性參與創業的關鍵就在於她們的獨特視角。”

Edited excerpts:
以下是經過編輯的採訪內容摘錄：

Fortune: Give me a little background on your company.
《財富》：簡單介紹一下你的公司吧。

Susan Coelius Keplinger: We started the company in 2005, and we started doing similar things with ads that we are doing now. It didn’t make sense to us why an advertisement on Yahoo’s homepage would sell for hundreds of dollars, but an ad on a blog shown to the same person would be some for 40 cents. If it is really about the person and the audience, it shouldn’t matter what page that person it on. We are trying to build products and get access to an audience regardless of the site itself.
蘇珊o克利烏斯o凱普林格：我們在2005年成立了這家公司，最初的業務與現在類似，都與廣告有關。當時我們不明白爲什麼雅虎（Yahoo）主頁上的一則廣告可以賣到數百美元，而出現在博客上的廣告卻只有40美分，即便可能是同樣的人在看這些廣告。如果說廣告的關鍵是受衆，那與受衆瀏覽的頁面又有什麼關係？我們正努力開發一些產品，向受衆展示廣告，而不必考慮網站本身的差異。

Cynthia Breazeal: Jibo is building the world’s first family robot. It’s like R2D2 and an iPad had a baby. It’s the world’s first social robot. I founded the company in 2012 and now is the time to bring it to the world.
辛西婭o佈雷西亞：Jibo正在生產全球第一款家用機器人。這款機器人是R2D2和iPad的結合體。這是全世界第一款社交機器人。我在2012年成立了這家公司，現在正在努力將它推向全世界。

How would you describe the stage that your company is at right now?
你如何描述公司目前所處的階段？

SK: It’s the rise of native advertising [advertorials, essentially], but less so from a deceptive standpoint. We have fallen into this really cool space. It used to be that people thought online advertising would never work.because it wasn’t good for the user experience. Now we are evolving toward an experience where advertising doesn’t stand in opposition with the content. If the ads are good, you’ll engage with them.
SK：目前公司處在原生廣告[實質上是社論式廣告]增長的階段，但並非從欺騙性的角度。我們現在已經進入了這一很酷的階段。以前人們認爲在線廣告不會成功，因爲在線廣告的用戶體驗較差。而現在我們正在開發一種全新的體驗，使廣告不會與內容衝突。只要是好廣告，就一定能吸引受衆。

CB: Now we are going from the prototype to the actual manufacturer. Making that switch is the main focus right now, as well as finishing the software and getting the hardware manufactured. We are also looking to develop our developer community. We are busy. It is a lot of engineering, but we are cranking through it all.
CB：現在我們正在從原型設計轉向實際生產。這是我們目前的重中之重，其他工作還包括完成軟件開發，進行硬件生產等。此外，我們計劃培養自己的開發者社區。我們非常忙碌。有大量的工程設計工作要做，我們將全力以赴。What were some of your initial challenges raising your first round of funding?
進行第一輪融資時遇到了哪些挑戰？

SK: As much as it wasn’t fun raising money in the middle of the recession, it is what enabled us to succeed. At the time there were not as many companies getting started. We raised $2 million in angel funds that helped us create and find a business. We used that as largely innovation money, so when we went to VCs for our first funding round we were ready to create a product and enter the market. It’s important to find people that want to invest in you and are willing to change our strategy a bunch and help you find a product that works. I think a lot of people write off that support. If you can find seed investors, angel investors who really believe you, there is not a better situation.
SK：雖然在經濟衰退的形勢下進行融資並不輕鬆，但這卻是我們成功的關鍵。當時創業公司沒有現在那麼多。我們從天使基金那裏獲得了200萬美元，這筆資金幫助我們創建了一家公司。我們將那筆投資大部分用作創新資金，所以，在首輪風投融資時，我們已經開發出一款產品，並準備將其推向市場。重要的是找到想要給你投資，並且願意改變我們的策略並協助找到一款有效產品的人。找到願意相信你的種子投資者，沒有比這更美好的事情了。

CB: The first round was a seed round. I was actually approached by a partner within a VC firm, and the partner felt that there was an opportunity around a new product category of robots in the home. We started talking because of my expertise in robotics, and I was at a point in my carer where I was interested in commercializing the work that I had done academically [Breazeal is an associate professor of media arts and sciences at MIT]. Things move really fast pace in the entrepreneur world and time is money. You are having to make the best decisions you can with incomplete information.
CB：第一輪是種子投資。當時有一家風險投資公司的合夥人找到我，他認爲一款新型家用機器人產品中蘊含着商機。因爲我擁有機器人科學的專業知識，並且我當時也很有興趣將學術上的成果商業化[佈雷西亞是麻省理工學院（MIT）媒體藝術與科學副教授]，因此我們開始交談。在創業領域，形勢瞬息萬變，時間就是金錢。你必須在信息不全面的情況下，做出最好的決定。

What are some of the biggest myths about being a ‘woman entrepreneur’?
作爲“女性創業家”，你遇到的最大的誤解是什麼？

SK: There are plenty of stories, and I have been in plenty of situations when I was younger, where male investors wanted to sleep with me and they didn’t want to do business with me. Yes, there are some bad eggs out there that are men, but there are some women who are equally as snotty. Sexism exists, especially if you are young and good looking, but those are not the type of people you want to be around anyway. I don’t know how to make an asexual society. We are in a time right now when a huge set of swell is coming. There are a bunch of waves that are terrible that you don’t want to ride, but there are also a bunch of awesome waves that seem crazy – but you be great if you got on top of them. If you go to raise money and you find a guy that is an ass, move on. You have to remember that even if you have a good idea, people could still say no 100 times.
SK：我遭遇過的誤解有很多。在我年輕的時候，經常遇到有些男性投資者只想跟我上牀，而不是跟我做生意。沒錯，有些男人非常無恥，但也有一些女性令人厭惡。對女性的性別歧視確實存在，尤其是對年輕貌美的女性，但你肯定不想圍着這類人轉悠。我不知道如何實現一個無性別歧視的社會。如今，我們就像站在一波洶涌襲來的巨浪前面一樣。有些海浪令人望而生畏，你不想捲入其中，而有一些海浪看起來很可怕，但如果你能乘風破浪站在浪尖，那將是很棒的感覺。如果你在融資的時候遇到一個卑鄙小人，這時你應該放下這件事，繼續前進。你必須要記住，即便你有很好的想法，還是會不斷遭到拒絕。

CB: I think I am lucky because I am trying to do something that has never been done before, so the focus is on that and not me and my gender. My credibility is not in question here. So the focus is on where it needs to be which is what we are trying to do. I have always been on the forefront of innovation, so the attention has always been on the robots I built rather than on me. I think being an entrepreneur is hard no matter what gender you are.
CB：我很幸運，因爲我在做的事情之前從未有人做過，因此人們更加關注這一點，而不是我本人或我的性別。我的信譽毋庸置疑。於是人們將注意力放到了應該關注的地方——我們在做的事情。我一直都在創新的最前沿，所以我開發的機器人比我本身更引人關注。我認爲，創業是一個艱難的過程，這與性別無關。

What advice do you have for female entrepreneurs just starting out?
你對剛剛起步的女性創業者有什麼建議？

SK: Learning how to be comfortable with risk and failure is really important. If you are not comfortable with failure, it can really be so scary. If you know that those small failures are Okay, then suddenly it does not become so scary. You want to be calculated about the risks that you take.
SK：學會坦然面對風險和失敗非常重要。如果你不能坦然面對失敗，你只會對它心懷恐懼。如果你知道這些小失敗沒什麼大不了，突然之間你會發現失敗變得不再可怕。你需要提前認真考慮自己要承擔的風險。

CB: The thing that fascinated me about women, is that women just make it work. We juggle a crazy amount of things and we make it work. So much of launching your own startup is dealing with all the things that come at your from all these angles and you have to make it work. Women already do that every day. I don’t think women should be intimated by it, I think they should think they are at an advantage.
CB：身爲女性，讓我自豪的是，我們總是能讓事情正常運行起來。我們要盡力應付各種各樣的事情，而且最終總能將其解決。而創業很大程度上就是處理從不同方面交到你手裏的事務，並且你必須將這些事情妥善解決。其實，女性每天都在這樣做。我認爲女性不應對此感到害怕，而是應該將其作爲自己的優勢。