Man: But I was convinced the business would grow fast. I even entered the European Awards Scheme for ideas for business start-ups.
男：但我确信业务会快速增长。我甚至因为这家创业的想法进入了欧洲奖励计划。
It had a first prize of one hundred thousand euros' worth of software from Croner Consulting.
头等奖可以获得Croner咨询公司价值十万欧元的软件。
The awards were sponsored by Alliance Business Bank—and because I made the final shortlist,
这些奖项由联合商业银行赞助—而且因为我进入了最后的候选人名单，
I was offered a two-percent interest loan from them if I needed it. They organised a dinner for everyone on the shortlist,
我在他们银行贷款可以享受2%的利息。他们为所有候选人组织了一次晚餐，
and I happened to get chatting to their senior business consultant, who gave me some invaluable financial advice. It really helped get me started.
我恰好和他们的高级商业咨询顾问聊上了，他给了我一些很宝贵的财务建议。对我的起步很有帮助。
Woman: Did you do any trial production of the maps?
女：你有生产这些地图的试用产品么？
Man: Yes. I knew what they should look like—a strong cover and small enough to flick through quickly. But trials took six months.
男：是的，我知道它们应该什么样的—牢固的表皮，体积很小以便快速翻阅。但是试验品花了六个月。
The difficulty was we had to use a really tough kind of plastic for the cover, and this had to be fed into the printer sheet by sheet
我们面临的困境是我们必须用一种非常牢固的塑料做封面，并且需要被送入打印机里，一层一层进行覆盖。
—fine for a small output, but absolutely no good for large-scale production.
——小产量还行，但大规模生产的话就不行了。
Woman: Did you have any trouble persuading a printing company to make Rainaway?
女：在说服打印公司制作Rainaway时有遇到什么困难么？
Man: I thought I would—it wasn't really in a printer's interest to make a long-lasting product. The real difficulty, though, was my lack of a track record.
男：我认为，打印公司对制作耐用产品并不感兴趣。真正的困难是我没有业绩记录。
They thought I was just planning a one-off print run or a very small-scale operation, which wouldn't be very profitable for them.
他们认为我只是计划打印这一次或是小规模的运营，这对他们而言无利可图。
Once I'd persuaded the boss of one firm that wasn't the case, he seemed willing to take a chance.
有一次我说服了一家公司的老板，他似乎愿意尝试一下。
Woman: Do you use someone else's maps to make Rainaway from?
女：在制作Rainaway时，你有借鉴其他人的地图么？