Where do great ideas come from?
灵感源自何处？
At the heart of any successful business is a great idea. Some seem so simple we wonder why nobody thought of them before. Others are so revolutionary we wonder how anybody couldn't thought of them at all.
任何成功的企业都是以伟大创意为核心的。有些创意似乎很简单，我们不禁想问为何之前没人想到过。有些创意又太具突破性，我们会为创业者竟能有这等奇思妙想而啧啧称奇。
But those great ideas don't come on command. And that leaves lots of would-be entrepreneurs asking the same question: How did everybody else get inspiration to strike─and how can we work the same magic?
但这些伟大的创意并非召之即来。因此，许多想要创业的人都在问同样的问题：其他创业者是怎样让灵感迸发出来的──我们怎样才能创造同样的奇迹呢？
To find out, we turned to the experts─the start-up mentors who discuss launching businesses at our Accelerators blog, as well as other investors, advisers and professors who have seen and heard countless success stories, and entrepreneurs who have written success stories of their own. They saw inspiration coming from all sorts of sources─everyday puzzles, driving passions and the subconscious mind.
为了找到答案，我们征询了专家们的意见──这其中有在我们的博客Accelerators上讨论如何创建企业的创业导师，有其他见过、听过无数成功故事的投资者、顾问和教授，还有亲手书写成功故事的企业家。他们谈到各种各样的灵感源泉──日常生活中的难题、强烈的激情，还有潜意识。
Here's what they had to say.
以下是他们的心得体会。
Look at What's Bugging You
设法解决纠缠你的问题
Ideas for startups often begin with a problem that needs to be solved. And they don't usually come while you're sitting around sipping coffee and contemplating life. They tend to reveal themselves while you're hard at work on something else.
创业灵感的产生没有什么神奇秘诀，也并非无章可循。本图简述了九位著名企业家各自的创业灵感是如何得来的。初创公司的创意通常始于一个需要解决的问题。这些创意一般不是在你坐在那儿啜饮咖啡和思考生命时迸发出来的。它们往往会在你努力解决其他问题的时候浮现出来。
For instance, one company of mine, earFeeder, came about because I wanted news on music I loved and found it hard to get. So I created a service that checks your computer for the music you have stored there, then feeds you news from the Internet about those bands, along with ticket deals and other things.
比方说，当初建立earFeeder这家公司是因为我想了解与我喜爱的音乐相关的消息，却发现这类消息很难找。于是我创立了一项服务，它能在你的电脑里查找你存的音乐，然后向你提供来自互联网的消息，有与乐队相关的消息，还有折扣票和其他信息。
You're Never Too Old
创业永远都不晚
Mark Zuckerberg with Facebook, Paul Allen and Bill Gates with Microsoft, Steve Wozniak and Steve Jobs with Apple AAPL +1.42%─those success stories lead some people to think that coming up with big ideas is a young person's game. But the tech entrepreneurs who rose to early fame and fortune are just the outliers. The typical entrepreneur is a middle-aged professional who learns about a market need and starts a company with his own savings.
Facebook的马克·扎克伯格(Mark Zuckerberg)，微软(Microsoft)的保罗·艾伦(Paul Allen)和比尔·盖茨(Bill Gates)，还有苹果公司(Apple)的史蒂夫·沃兹尼亚克(Steve Wozniak)和史蒂夫·乔布斯(Steve Jobs)──这些成功故事让一些人认为伟大的创意是年轻人的专利。但科技行业年纪轻轻便功成名就的创业者仅仅是少数。典型的创业者是中年专业人士，他们会了解市场需求，并用自己的积蓄创办公司。
Research that my team completed in 2009 determined that the average age of a successful entrepreneur in high-growth industries such as computers, health care and aerospace is 40. Twice as many successful entrepreneurs are aged over 50 as under 25, and twice as many over 60 as under 20.
我的团队2009年完成的研究发现，在电脑、医疗和航天等高成长行业，成功的创业者平均年龄为40岁。50岁以上的创业成功者人数为25岁以下创业成功者的两倍，60岁以上创业成功者的人数为20岁以下者的两倍。
Vivek Wadhwa
维韦克·瓦德瓦(Vivek Wadhwa)
Vice president of academics and innovation, Singularity University
奇点大学(Singularity University)学术和创新副校长
Be Present in Life
专注于当下
Start your brainstorming with problems that you are personally invested in. Building a business is hard as hell and takes the kind of relentless dedication that comes from personal passion.
从你个人关注的问题入手，展开头脑风暴。创业是极为艰辛的，需要在个人激情的推动下不懈努力。
The next big question is 'How?' Great ideas and innovations come from executing on your idea in a different way than everybody else is attacking it, if they're attacking it at all. A great way to do this is to look outside of your industry to see how others are solving problems. Approaches that they think are routine might be out of the ordinary for you─and inspire great ideas.
接下来的一大问题是“该怎样做”。要实现伟大的创意和创新，就要用与众不同的方式执行你的构想（假设别人也在执行他们的构想）。有一种很棒的方法是观察你所在行业之外的情况，看看其他人是怎样解决问题的。别人认为老套的方法对你来说也许不同寻常──而且能激发伟大的创意。
Also, most business people tend to ignore our creative side until we really need it. Making sure that your life has a balance of the arts is a great way to stay engaged creatively.
此外，大多数创业者往往会忽视自身创造性的那一面，直到真正需要时才会重视起来。要想富有创造力地进行创业，确保多方面均衡涉猎是个好办法。
This last tip will seem insanely obvious. However, in the world we live in, it's easier said than done: Simply be present in life.
最后这一点小建议似乎毫无新意，但在我们生活的这个世界可谓是说起来容易做起来难：活在当下。
I'm sure you can relate to how over-connected we all are. Something as simple as having a cup of coffee becomes a juggling act of replying to emails and managing schedules. It's easy to miss a potential piece to your innovation puzzle when it's right under your nose if you aren't there.
我敢肯定，你对当今世界的过度互联也深有体会。喝杯咖啡这么简单的事情也变得像玩抛球杂耍一样复杂，你会一边喝咖啡，一边回电子邮件和管理日程表。如果你不专注于当下，有助于解决创新难题的潜在线索就会很容易从你的鼻尖底下溜走。
Angela Benton
安吉拉·本顿(Angela Benton)
Founder and CEO, NewME Accelerator
NewME Accelerator创始人兼首席执行长
Ideas Are Abundant; Drive Isn't
动力比创意更重要
Perhaps the greatest factor that determines whether or not an entrepreneur will be successful isn't the business idea itself, but rather the entrepreneur's willingness to try (and keep trying) to turn the idea into reality. Great ideas are abundant, but it's what we decide to do with them that counts.
决定一名创业者能否成功的最重要因素也许并不是商业创意本身，而是创业者通过努力（以及不懈努力）将创意变为现实的意愿。好的创意很多，但关键在于我们决定如何将这些创意付诸实践。
Samer Kurdi
萨默尔·库尔迪(Samer Kurdi)
Chairman of the global board, Entrepreneurs' Organization
创业者组织(Entrepreneurs' Organization)全球理事会主席
Let Your Subconscious Do the Work
发挥潜意识的作用
When the mind is occupied with a monotonous task, it can stimulate the subconscious into a eureka moment. That's what happened to me. The business model for my company, ClearFit, which provides an easy way for companies to find employees and predict job fit, hatched in the back of my mind while I was driving 80 miles an hour, not thinking about work at all.
当思维被单一的任务占据时，你的潜意识会受到刺激，使灵感迸发出来。我的情况就是这样。我的公司ClearFit（为企业提供招聘员工及预测职位吻合程度的简单途径）的商业模式就是在我以80英里时速开车、完全不考虑工作时从潜意识里破壳而出的。
The subconscious mind runs in the background, silently affecting the outcome of many thoughts. So, take a break and smell the flowers, because while you're out doing that, your mind may very well solve the problem that you are trying to solve or spark a solution to a problem you hadn't considered before.
潜意识是在后台运行的，悄然影响着我们对许多问题的思考结果。因此，不妨让自己停下来，放松一下，因为在你这么做的时候，你的头脑很可能会解决掉你正在尝试解决的问题，或者让你想出一个之前从未考虑过的解决方案。
Ben Baldwin
本·鲍德温(Ben Baldwin)
Co-founder and CEO, ClearFit
ClearFit联合创始人兼首席执行长
Attack Practical Problems
积极解决实际问题
Make a note whenever you encounter a service or a customer experience that frustrates you, or wish you had a product that met your needs that you can't find anywhere. Then ask yourself, is this a problem I could solve? And how much time and money would it take to test my idea?
当你碰到让你失望的服务或顾客体验，或者在哪里也找不到满足你需求的产品时，请把它们记下来。然后问自己，这个问题我能不能解决？检验我的设想要花费多少时间和金钱？
That last point is crucial. As my sage Stanford professor Andy Rachleff encouraged me, 'Make sure you can fail fast and cheaply.' In business school, I had a couple of big ideas. One was improving domestic airline service─which would have cost millions and taken years. I decided to pursue another opportunity that was a lot cheaper and would show results faster─a clothing line called Bonobos.
这最后一点很关键。我尊崇的智者──斯坦福大学(Stanford)教授安迪·拉切列夫(Andy Rachleff)曾鼓励我说：“要确保你能快速失败，失败的代价要小。”在商学院时，我有几个大的创业构想。其中一个是改进国内航班的服务──这要耗资数以百万计的金钱，要花很多年时间。于是我决定寻求另一个成本低得多、见效也更快的机会──我创立了一个名为Bonobos的服装品牌。
In the end, it took me just nine months and $15,000 of startup funds to get a little traction and market feedback.
最终，我只用了九个月的时间和15,000美元的创业基金就取得了一些成绩，并获得了一定的市场反响。