Great entrepreneurs don’t write great books. In fact, they don’t write many books at all.
伟大的企业家并未写出伟大的著作。事实上，他们根本没有写过很多书。
Neither fact is surprising. Successful entrepreneurs are typically too busy innovating to write down much of anything. And on those rare occasions when they attempt to create a book, it’s filled with what they did, and not what led to their idea in the first place. As a rule, they are not particularly introspective.
无论哪种事实都不会令人感到惊讶。成功的企业家通常太过忙于创新，没时间写下很多东西。当他们难得试图去创作一本书时，书中满是他们做过些什么，压根不是起初给予他们灵感的东西。
So if we want to know what makes them successful—in order to improve our own companies
因此，如果我们想要了解是什么促使他们成功——以便提高我们自己的公司，无论我们是服务于一家大型公司还是我们自己的初创企业——我们有必要对他们进行研究。而这正是我过去三十年来所一直从事的。
whether we work for a huge one or our own start up—we need to study them. And that is exactly what I have been doing professionally for the last 30 years.
以下便是我的研究结果。
1. Look at How They Think, Not at What They Do. If you just observed the actions entrepreneurs take, you would conclude there isn’t that much to be gained from studying them. Each entrepreneur’s behavior is as idiosyncratic as they are. You would have to be Larry Page and Sergey Brin to start Google; Oprah Winfrey to found Harpo Productions.
1.着眼于他们是如何想的，而非其所作所为。 如果你只是观察企业家们所采取的行动，你会得出这样的结论：研究他们没有多少收获。每个企业家的行为和他们自身一样独具特色。创立谷歌（Google）的必须是拉里?佩奇（Larry Page）和谢尔盖?布林（Sergey Brin）；成立哈普娱乐集团（Harpo Productions）一定要是奥普拉?温弗里(Oprah Winfrey)。
But—and it is a huge but—if you look at how they reason, you see remarkable similarities. The process just about all of them follows in creating their companies looks like this. They:
但是如果关注他们是如何思考的（这是一项庞大的工程），你就会看到明显的相似之处。他们在创立自己公司时所遵循的思考过程就像下面所示：
A. Figure out what they really want to do.
A． 弄清楚他们真正想做什么。
B. Take a small step toward that goal.
B． 向那个目标迈出一小步
C. Pause after taking that small step to see what they have learned.
C． 迈出一小步之后稍停片刻看看学到了什么
D. Build off that learning and take another small step.
D． 积累经验，再前进一小步
E. Pause after taking that step.
E． 之后再停下来
F. Build off what they learned in step two. And then take another small step…
F． 积累第二步中的经验。然后继续前进……

If we were to reduce it to a formula, it would be Act. Learn. Build Repeat.
如果我们要把它提炼一下的话，那就是行动、学习、积累重复。
Put simply, in the face of an unknown future, entrepreneurs act. They deal with uncertainty not by trying to analyze it, or planning for every contingency, or predicting what the outcomes will be. Instead, they act, learn from what they find, and act again.
简言之，在面对一个未知数时，企业家们采取了行动。他们应对不确定性时，没有试着去分析它、为每一个偶然性制定规划，或者预测结果。相反，他们采取了行动，从他们的发现中吸取教训，然后再采取行动。
2. They Start with a Market Need. Ideas are easy—I bet you can come up with 10 new product or service ideas within five minutes right now, if you had to. And because new ideas are plentiful, they are not worth very much. As with anything else, if there is a glut—of ideas, in this case—the value goes down.
2.他们从市场需求入手。 想法唾手可得——我敢打赌，如果赶鸭子上架的话，你能够在五分钟内提出关于产品或者服务的十个新点子。而且因为从来不缺，这些新想法没什么价值。和任何其他东西一样，如果供过于求，其价值会下降，在这里指的是点子。
Besides, there is no guarantee anyone will buy the great idea you have come up with. If you start with the idea, you need to go in search of customers. If you begin with the need, you already have a market—the people who need what you have.
另外，未必会有人买你想出来的这个好主意。如果你从创意着手，就必须去寻找顾客。而如果你从需求入手，你已经拥有了一个市场——那些人需要你的想法。
If you can discover a market need you can make a fortune. But intriguingly, that is not the primary motivation of the most successful entrepreneurs, and that brings us to the next point.
如果你能发现市场需求，你就能赚得大钱。但有趣的是，那并非最成功的企业家们的主要动力，于是我们就研究出了下一点。
3. Don’t Set Out to Be Rich. The best entrepreneurs don’t have making a fortune as their goal, as they start off. Wealth is just (an extremely pleasant) byproduct.
3.别一开始就想着赚钱。 创业初期，最优秀的企业家没有将财富作为他们的目标。财富只是这个过程中一种令人非常愉快的副产品。
Why not focus on gaining wealth? Well, if your primary objective is to get rich quick, you are bound to cut corners, short-change your customers, and fail to take the time to truly understand what the market needs. And that is true whether you are trying to get your company off the ground, or are introducing a new product or service in order to make this quarter’s numbers.
为什么不专注于获取财富？好吧，如果你的主要目标是快速致富，你势必会偷工减料，欺骗你的顾客，而不会花时间去真正了解这个市场的需求。的确如此，无论你是在努力推动公司起步，还是推出一款全新产品或者服务来完成这个季度的业绩。
Instead, they identify the market need we talked about in point 2, and get to work.
相反，他们能够识别我们在上述谈到的市场需求，开始工作。
4. Marketing. (Psst. Compete Differently) The conventional wisdom—find a niche; zig when others zag—is right, but not particularly helpful. It lacks, to be kind, specificity. Far better is to describe what the best entrepreneurs do and that is “compete differently.”
4.营销。 （嘿!以不同的方式竞争）像找到一个利基和随大流等传统经验固然没错，但并不特别有用。至少可以说，它缺少针对性。不如说，最优秀的企业家们所做的是“以不同的方式竞争。”
How do they do it? Here are some examples:
他们是如何做到的？以下有几个例子：
–Make small bets. Your resources are limited and starting anything new is risky. You don’t want to compound those risks by betting everything on one role of the dice.
——小试一把。你的资源有限，任何新尝试都要冒风险。你不希望孤注一掷而让风险大增。
–Make those small bets quickly. No, you don’t want to lose money. But, since you are not risking much, you can afford to fail. Get out in the marketplace fast and let potential customers tell you if you are onto something. Action trumps everything—especially planning.
——迅速押注。不，你不想赔钱。但既然押上的不多，你经受得起失败。迅速进出市场，让潜在的客户告诉你是否该做下去。行动胜过一切——尤其是规划。
–Where do you place those small bets? (I) Obviously, in areas where competitors don’t exist, or are weak. Not so obviously, in places where you feel strong. That confidence will help you overcome the inevitable hurdles you will face.
——押注哪个领域？(I)显然是那些没有竞争者，或者竞争力较弱的领域。此外，还应押注你感觉自己实力强大的领域，这也许没那么明显。这种自信会帮助你克服你将面对的不可避免的障碍。
–Where do you place those small bets? (II) No customer wants to be entirely dependent on just one supplier, no matter who it is. Ask yourself, what your competitor’s customers want. Better yet, ask those customers yourself.
——押注哪个领域？(II)没有哪一位顾客会完全依赖于一家供应商，无论是哪家供应商。问问自己，你的竞争对手的客户想要什么。然而更好的是，亲自去问问那些客户。
–Let the market define you. People will tell you what they like, and what they don’t, about your product. Incorporate their ideas with yours. Making the world’s best videocassette recorder does you no good, if what people really want are DVRs.
——让市场来定义你。人们会对你的产品给出反馈意见，告诉你他们喜欢什么和不喜欢什么。把他们的想法和你的结合起来。如果消费者其实需要DVR，那么生产世界上最棒的录影机对你毫无益处。