初创团队最重要的是什么

by Yan Cui

崔燕

我从一家出色的初创公司工作中学到的最重要的教训 (The most important lessons I learned from working at an amazing startup)

I recently left Space Ape Games after a won­der­ful year. I learnt a lot, and worked on some chal­leng­ing tech­ni­cal prob­lems.

美好的一年之后，我最近离开了Space Ape Games 。 我学到了很多东西，并从事一些具有挑战性的技术问题 。

Here are seven lessons that I learned from one of the most well-run companies I have encountered in my 13 year career.

这是我从13年职业生涯中遇到的最运营良好的公司之一中学到的七个教训。

定义您想要的文化，并组织自己进行优化以实现该文化 (Define what culture you want, and organize yourself to optimize towards achieving that culture)

Lots of com­pa­nies talk about how great their cul­ture is, but few talk about what their cul­ture actually is. Worse yet, I sus­pect most end up with a cul­ture they don’t want, because the cul­ture grew organ­i­cal­ly and with­out guid­ance.

许多公司都在谈论他们的文化多么伟大，但很少有人谈论他们的文化实际上是什么 。 更糟糕的是，我怀疑大多数人最终会拥有他们不想要的文化，因为这种文化是有机增长的，没有指导。

To this day, the Net­flix cul­ture deck from 2009 is still the one of the best things you can read about cul­ture.

时至今日，2009年以来的Netflix文化平台仍然是您可以阅读的有关文化的最佳内容之一。

Real com­pa­ny val­ues are the behav­iors and skills that we par­tic­u­lar­ly val­ue in fel­low employ­ees.

真正的公司价值是我们特别重视员工的行为和技能。

— Reed Hast­ings

—里德·黑斯廷斯

Be clear about the culture you want to build from the start. These are the characteristics and skills that we value in each other at Space Ape:

从一开始就明确要建立的文化。 这些是我们在Space Ape中彼此珍视的特征和技能：

Pas­sion­ate: you have a pas­sion for games, and you want to build games that are fun and engag­ing.

激情 ：你对游戏的热情，并且要构建游戏的乐趣和吸引力。

Cre­ative: you are not afraid to stray off the beat­en path and try some­thing new. You accept the risks that come with cre­ativ­i­ty. You won’t let fail­ures stop you from suc­ceed­ing.

创意：您不怕迷路，尝试新事物。 您接受创造力带来的风险。 您不会让失败阻止您成功。

Judge­ment: you make smart bets. You bal­ance the risks of cre­ativ­i­ty with method­i­cal analy­sis of the poten­tial rewards to make smart bets.

判断：您下注明智。 您可以通过对可能进行的明智奖励进行有条不紊的分析来平衡创造风险。

Depend­able: you are depend­able and trust­wor­thy. We believe in small, autonomous teams. For this to work, we need to be able to depend on every indi­vid­ual in the team.

值得信赖：您值得信赖。 我们相信小型自治团队。 为此，我们需要能够依赖团队中的每个人。

Focus: when required, you can put aside per­son­al projects and focus on delivering the best game pos­si­ble.

专注 ：在需要时，您可以搁置个人项目，专注于提供最佳游戏。

Mas­tery: you are a mas­ter of your craft. You want to become the best ver­sion of your­self and are always look­ing for ways to improve.

­ ：您是手艺高超的人 您想成为自己最好的人，并且一直在寻找改善的方法。

Col­lab­o­ra­tive: you work well with oth­ers. You are will­ing to make sac­ri­fices and com­pro­mis­es for the greater good of the com­pa­ny. Game mak­ing is an inher­ent­ly cre­ative and col­lab­o­ra­tive process. We need peo­ple that can thrive in a col­lab­o­ra­tive envi­ron­ment.

合作 ：你与他人相处融洽。 您愿意为公司的更大利益做出牺牲和妥协。 游戏制作是一个固有的创新和协作过程。 我们需要能够在协作环境中蓬勃发展的人员。

Inclu­sive: you wel­come oth­ers for who they are. You treat oth­ers equal­ly and fair­ly, the same way that you expect to be treat­ed.

包容性：您欢迎其他人的身份。 您将平等，公平地对待他人，就像您期望得到的对待一样。

Reit­er­ate this vision regularly. We find that if it is not reiterated at least once every couple of months, then it starts to slip through the collective consciousness.

定期重新 确立这一 愿景。 我们发现，如果没有每隔几个月至少重申一次，那么它就会开始漏掉集体意识。

Make sure new employ­ees are imbued with your vision. And remind employees of their duty to main­tain your culture.

确保新员工充满您的远见。 并提醒员工他们有责任维护您的文化。

文化由您雇用和解雇的人生死 (Culture lives and dies by the people you hire and fire)

This shared under­stand­ing of cul­ture needs to filter through to every hir­ing deci­sion.

对文化的这种共同理解需要过滤到每个招聘决定中。

“Cul­ture fit” is often used to enforce exist­ing bias­es, especially when said culture is nev­er defined up front to begin with. Fortunately, this has nev­er been the case in any of the hir­ing com­mit­tees I have sat on. When­ev­er “cul­ture fit” is raised as a con­cern, you must give clear exam­ples from your inter­ac­tion with the inter­vie­wee.

“ 文化契合度”通常用于加强现有的偏见，尤其是在从未从头开始定义所述文化时。 幸运的是，在我任职的任何一个招聘委员会中，从来没有这样的情况。 每当提出“文化适应性”问题时，您必须从与受访者的互动中给出清晰的例子。

At the same time, you shouldn’t hire some­one who might be detri­men­tal to your cul­ture — not even when you are des­per­ate for anoth­er pair of hands on deck!

同时，您不应该雇用可能对您的文化有害的人-即使当您迫切需要另一副手时也不要！

The cost of a bad hire to your cul­ture is too great.

对您的文化而言，糟糕的聘用成本太高了。

The founders also act as the van­guards for your cul­ture. They watch from afar, but they’re nev­er afraid to step in when they see the dan­ger signs. If a long time employ­ee starts to show signs of self-enti­tle­ment, then expect a gen­tle reminder about the company’s com­mit­ment to inclu­sion and fairness.

创始人还充当您文化的先锋。 他们从远处注视，但是当他们看到危险信号时，他们从不害怕介入。 如果长期工作的员工开始表现出应享的权利，那么请期待有关公司对包容性和公平性承诺的温柔提醒。

Even when you have built a great culture, you can’t afford to take it for granted. It’s the duty of everyone involved to keep that culture strong.

即使您已经建立了良好的文化，您也无法将其视为理所当然。 维护这种文化根深蒂固是每个参与者的责任 。

人是您最重要的产品 (People are your most important product)

This is true for most com­pa­nies, which is why it should be a no-brain­er to invest in the peo­ple and help them grow.

对于大多数公司而言，这都是正确的，这就是为什么对人才进行投资并帮助他们成长应该是不费吹灰之力的原因。

Offer train­ing bud­gets to every­one, and pro­vide man­agers with man­age­ment coach­es. The results will be well worth it.

向所有人提供培训预算，并为经理提供管理教练。 结果将是值得的。

创始人需要公开，清晰且经常地传达公司愿景 (Founders need to communicate the vision of the company openly, clearly, and frequently)

Avoid impres­sive-sound­ing but vague mis­sion state­ments. Vague goals that do not define clear, action­able tar­gets are hard to fol­low and apply. Collaboration suf­fers when peo­ple do not have a shared under­stand­ing of the com­pa­ny vision.

避免听起来令人印象深刻但含糊其词的任务陈述。 无法定义和制定可行目标的模糊目标很难遵循和应用。 协作患有当人们没有公司愿景的共识 。

Our founders reit­er­ate the com­pa­ny mis­sion at every quar­ter­ly com­pa­ny meet­ing. The rep­e­ti­tion has been impor­tant in rein­forc­ing the shared under­stand­ing of the goal. I recent­ly also saw Ryan Cald­beck, the CEO of Cir­cle­Up, say the same thing on Twit­ter.

我们的创始人在每个季度的公司会议上重申公司使命。 重复已经在增强目标的共同 理解很重要。 我最近也看到了瑞恩Caldbeck，CircleUp的CEO，说在Twitter上同样的事情。

Our mis­sion state­ment is “to build a top gross­ing mobile game by own­ing a genre.” Sim­ple, unglam­orous, but easy to under­stand.

我们的使命宣言是“通过拥有一种流派来打造最畅销的手机游戏。” 简单，简单，但易于理解。

对利益冲突诚实 (Be honest about conflict of interest)

Man­agers usu­al­ly have the best inten­tions when they set out per­son­al objectives for their charges. Every­one gets a set of objec­tives that align with the company’s goal. Where is the con­flict of inter­est?

经理制定收费目标时通常会有最好的意图。 每个人都有一套符合公司目标的目标。 利益冲突在哪里？

Things seldom work out as you expect, though. What usually hap­pens is that some projects will go more smooth­ly than oth­ers. At the same time, some projects deliv­er more val­ue to the com­pa­ny than oth­ers.

但是，很少有事情能像您期望的那样进行。 通常发生的情况是，某些项目会比其他项目更顺利。 同时，某些项目为公司带来了比其他项目更多的价值。

Nod if this sce­nario sounds famil­iar.

如果这种情况听起来很熟悉，则点点头。

You’re work­ing on project X, and your end of year pay raise, bonus, and promotion hopes are all rid­ing on the suc­cess of project X.

您正在进行X项目，而您的年终加薪，奖金和晋升希望都取决于X项目的成功。

A col­league is work­ing on project Y, and he needs you to work on some­thing to unblock his project. Project Y is more valu­able to the com­pa­ny, but help­ing this col­league means los­ing progress on project X.

一位同事正在进行项目Y，他需要您进行一些工作才能解除他的项目。 项目Y对公司来说更有价值，但是帮助这位同事意味着项目X上的进度会损失。

What do you do?

你是做什么？

Do you do the right thing by the com­pa­ny and help this col­league? In the process you might lose the pay raise, bonus, and pro­mo­tion that you have worked so hard for.

您在公司做正确的事，并帮助这位同事吗？ 在此过程中，您可能会失去为之努力的加薪，奖金和晋升。

Or do you put his request in the back­log and focus on project X?

还是您将他的请求放在积压中，并专注于项目X？

Hel­lo, con­flict of inter­est.

您好， 利益冲突。

If you think this only hap­pens in poor­ly-run com­pa­nies, then you’re wrong. Even Google is not immune to this con­flict of inter­est, as is evi­dent in Michael Lynch’s arti­cle on why he quit Google.

如果您认为这仅在经营不善的公司中发生，那您就错了。 迈克尔·林奇(Michael Lynch)关于他为何辞职谷歌的文章中也清楚地表明，即使是谷歌也不能幸免于这种利益冲突。

Team­work requires will­ing sac­ri­fice.

团队协作需要愿意牺牲。

In foot­ball, a “team play­er” car­ries the con­no­ta­tion of being will­ing to sac­ri­fice themselves for the team. Be it risk­ing injury in a 50–50 chal­lenge, or pass­ing to a team­mate who’s more like­ly to score.

在足球比赛中，“团队球员”的涵义是愿意为球队牺牲自己。 是在50–50的挑战中冒受伤的危险，还是传给更有可能得分的队友。

How do you trans­late this to the work place? How do you encour­age peo­ple to make will­ing sac­ri­fices for the good of the com­pa­ny?

您如何将其翻译到工作场所？ 您如何鼓励人们为公司的利益做出自愿的牺牲？

You have to start by being hon­est about this con­flict of inter­est.

您必须首先诚实对待这种利益冲突。

Your employ­ees are not saints, they are flesh and blood with real world problems. What if they need the pay raise to start a fam­i­ly? And what’s wrong with want­i­ng career pro­gres­sion?

您的员工不是圣人，而是有现实世界问题的骨肉。 如果他们需要加薪来组建家庭怎么办？ 想要职业发展怎么了？

Employ­ees have every right to act in their best inter­est. It is your job as employ­er to cre­ate an envi­ron­ment where employ­ees are not penalized for mak­ing self-sac­ri­fice.

员工有权为自己的最大利益行事。 作为雇主，您的工作是创造一个环境，使员工不因自立而受到惩罚。

You can do this in sev­er­al ways.

你可以做 这有几种方式。

The biggest, most effective way is to sep­a­rate per­son­al objec­tives and 360 reviews from performance and salary reviews.

最大的，最有效的方法是分离 的个人目标和绩效与薪酬的评论360条评论 。

Per­son­al objec­tives are for your per­son­al devel­op­ment only. Your man­ag­er can help you decide what areas to improve on, but the final deci­sion is yours. You’re encour­aged, but not required, to set per­son­al objec­tives.

个人目标只是为了您的个人发展。 您的经理可以帮助您确定需要改进的地方，但是最终的决定权是您自己决定的。 我们鼓励但不要求您设定个人目标。

360 reviews are also for you and you alone. You choose from whom you want feedback, and how to pro­ceed with the feed­back you receive.

360条评论也适合您和您一个人。 您可以选择要向谁反馈，以及如何进行收到的反馈。

The feed­back is anonymous, and only the man­ag­er of the review­er knows who delivered that feedback. This is main­ly to mit­i­gate any unnec­es­sary ten­sion from ill-considered feed­back.

反馈是匿名的，只有审阅者的经理知道谁提供了该反馈。 这主要是为了减轻由于考虑不周到的反馈而引起的任何不必要的紧张。

Your man­ag­er and the founders are also there to help you process the feedback if you need their help.

如果您需要他们的帮助，您的经理和创始人也会在这里帮助您处理反馈。

Per­for­mance and salary reviews are based on what you actu­al­ly con­tributed, not some arbi­trary tar­gets that were set months ago.

绩效和薪水评估基于您的实际贡献，而不是几个月前设定的一些任意目标。

For us, this unusu­al way of work­ing start­ed with a frank dis­cus­sion about this conflict of inter­est. It has been iter­at­ed upon over time and will con­tin­ue to evolve. It’s been such a fresh breath of air for me to work for a com­pa­ny that not only rec­og­nizes the prob­lem but active­ly seeks to tack­le it.

对于我们来说，这种不寻常的工作方式始于对这种利益冲突的坦率讨论。 随着时间的流逝，它会不断迭代，并将继续发展。 在一家不仅认识到问题而且积极寻求解决问题的公司工作的过程中，我感到非常新鲜。

将创造力与所有权相结合 (Marry creativity with ownership)

Cul­ti­vate cre­ativ­i­ty from the whole com­pa­ny using game jams and hackathons. But remember that cre­ativ­i­ty needs to be guid­ed, and hypotheses need to be test­ed.

使用游戏果酱和黑客松来培养整个公司的创造力。 但是请记住， 创造力需要得到指导，假设需要进行检验。

We use a creative funnel to guide ideas from hypothesis to production.

我们使用一个创意漏斗来指导想法从假设到生产。

The game jams gen­er­ate ideas to feed the top of the funnel. Every­one can come up with ideas for new games. You have the own­er­ship and responsibility to pol­ish your idea and pitch it to the rest of the com­pa­ny.

游戏卡纸会产生想法，以吸引渠道的顶部。 每个人都可以提出新游戏的想法。 你有所有权和责任擦亮你的想法，并将其推销给公司的其他部门。

Teams form organ­i­cal­ly around ideas that they’re excit­ed about and believe can be top-gross­ing. This is NOT a top-down deci­sion.

团队围绕他们兴奋的想法并相信可能是最赚钱的想法有机地组成。 这不是自上而下的决定。

The founders are there to offer guid­ance and help with per­son­nel move­ment. Whilst your idea might be great, the founders can guide you on shap­ing the idea to fit your mis­sion.

创始人在那里为人员流动提供指导和帮助。 尽管您的想法可能很棒，但是创始人可以指导您塑造想法以适合您的使命。

Is it eco­nom­i­cal­ly fea­si­ble to build?

建造在经济上可行吗？

What is the mar­ket com­pe­ti­tion like? Is the genre sat­u­rat­ed with high qual­i­ty offer­ings already? Does this genre have top gross­ing poten­tial?

市场竞争如何？ 该类型是否已经充满了高质量的产品？ 这种流派是否有最赚钱的潜力？

Do we have the tech­ni­cal exper­tise to build it? If not, how dif­fi­cult is it to hire someone with that exper­tise?

我们是否具备构建它的技术专长？ 如果没有，那么雇用具有这种专业知识的人有多困难？

The teams that form around an idea focus on pro­to­typ­ing and iter­at­ing on the idea. The idea becomes a playable game, and the rest of the com­pa­ny then plays and pro­vides feed­back.

围绕一个想法形成的团队专注于原型设计和迭代该想法。 这个想法变成了一种可玩的游戏，然后公司的其他成员参与其中并提供反馈。

The team owns the idea, and is trust­ed with mak­ing the deci­sions to keep going or kill it if they no longer believe in it. Again, this is NOT a top-down deci­sion — the deci­sion is made within the team.

团队拥有这个想法，并且如果他们不再相信它，则可以做出决定继续下去或杀死它。 同样， 这不是自上而下的决定，而是在团队内部做出的决定。

Which brings us to the next point.

这将我们带到了下一点。

认识到创造力需要错误 (Recognize that creativity requires mistakes)

Cre­ativ­i­ty needs fail­ures to suc­ceed.

创新需要失败才能成功。

Being cre­ative and exper­i­ment­ing with new ideas means tak­ing on risks. If you don’t risk, you will not win big — at least not with­out the mar­ket­ing bud­get and brand that goes with estab­lished franchises.

富有创造力和尝试新想法意味着要承担风险。 如果您不冒险，那么您将不会赢大钱-至少要有没有与既定特许经营相匹配的营销预算和品牌。

To let teams take on risk, and to trust them to make the right deci­sion on the company’s behalf and kill a pro­to­type, is hard.

让团队承担风险，并信任他们代表公司做出正确的决定并杀死原型是很难的。

For this to hap­pen, you need an envi­ron­ment where employ­ees are not penalized for mak­ing sacrifices.

为此，您需要一个不因牺牲员工而受到惩罚的环境 。

We do this by cre­at­ing a safe­ty net for jobs.

为此，我们建立了工作安全网 。

Your job is not tied to the pro­to­type. If a team decides to kill its idea, then the team mem­bers move into oth­er game teams, or they’ll stay togeth­er and pro­to­type anoth­er game idea.

您的工作与原型无关。 如果某个团队决定终止其想法，则该团队成员将转入其他游戏团队，否则他们将团结在一起，制作另一个游戏想法的原型。

To prove this approach works beyond our scale, con­sid­er Super­cell and Clash Royale. The team behind Clash Royale was work­ing on anoth­er idea before they came up with that one. The idea test­ed well in beta, it had good reten­tion and mon­e­ti­za­tion stats. But it was not great, cer­tain­ly not on par with Clash of Clans.

为了证明这种方法的作品超出了我们的规模，考虑超级单体 ， 冲突皇家 。 Clash Royale背后的团队在想出另一个主意之前正在研究另一个主意。 这个想法在Beta版中测试良好，具有良好的保留率和获利统计数据。 但这并不好，当然不能与《部落冲突》相提并论。

The team made the deci­sion to kill the idea because they believed they could do bet­ter. So they took the learn­ings from the previous game, iter­at­ed on the ideas fur­ther, and they cre­at­ed Clash Royale.

该团队决定终止这个主意，因为他们认为自己可以做得更好。 因此，他们借鉴了先前游戏的经验，进一步迭代了这些想法，并创建了Clash Royale 。

Rec­og­nize that peo­ple and their tal­ents are your great­est assets. Hire and keep great peo­ple rather than hiring for and keeping certain roles.

认识到人和他们的才华是您最大的财富。 聘用和留住优秀的人 ，而不是雇佣并保持一定的作用。

结论 (Conclusions)

So there you have it. Seven things that I learned from my time at Space Ape Games.

所以你有它。 我在太空猿人游戏中学到的七件事。

What stood out most for me is that a company needs to have a clear identity — it needs to know who it wants to be, and it needs to orga­nize itself to become that com­pa­ny.

对我来说，最突出的是，一家公司需要有明确的身份-它需要知道自己想成为谁，并且需要组织自己成为该公司。

And while I love the ethos on small autonomous teams, and the flat hierarchy structure, it also has a downside: at this stage of my career, I am accus­tomed to hav­ing a wide range of respon­si­bil­i­ties, and I crave it.

而且，尽管我喜欢小型自治团队的风气和扁平的层次结构，但它也有一个缺点：在我职业生涯的这一阶段，我习惯于承担各种各样的责任，并且我渴望这样做。

As time went by, I felt that itch for more respon­si­bil­i­ty creep­ing back. When my old friend Bruno Tavares pitched me the idea of join­ing DAZN to work on all the great things they’re doing, it was hard to say no.

随着时间的流逝，我感到渴望更多责任的渴望逐渐消失。 当我的老朋友布鲁诺·塔瓦雷斯 ( Bruno Tavares)向我提出要加入DAZN从事他们正在做的所有伟大工作的想法时，很难拒绝。

With a heavy heart, this is my farewell let­ter to Space Ape Games and the great peo­ple with­in. You guys are awesome! And I hope the lessons I’ve learned there help others as well.

怀着沉重的心情，这是我给太空猿游戏公司和其中的伟人的告别信。 你们真棒！ 我希望我从那里学到的教训也能对其他人有所帮助。

翻译自: https://www.freecodecamp.org/news/the-most-important-lessons-i-learned-from-working-at-an-amazing-startup-3a95279eea04/

初创团队最重要的是什么