Shea Tate-Di Donna knows what entrepreneurs need. In Silicon Valley, she's best known as one of the founding partners at True Ventures, a venture capital fund focused on early-stage companies. She was also the architect behind True University, a two-day conference that brings together companies in the True portfolio to share ideas and collaborate.
希雅·泰迪·唐纳对于企业家的需求了如指掌。在硅谷，她作为True Ventures的联合创始人而广为人知。这家公司是一支风投基金，专注于处于发展初期的企业。她也是True University的幕后策划人。True University是一个为期两天的会议，它将True Ventures公司旗下资产组合公司召集在一起，分享理念，开展合作。
If that sounds a little kumbaya, Tate-Di Donna's latest project has similar idealistic aims. Zana is a virtual incubator that will, in her words, "democratize entrepreneurship."
尽管这似乎带点空想主义色彩，但唐纳最新的项目也拥有类似的理想化目标。Zana是一个虚拟孵化器，而且用她的话来说，它可以“将创业民主化。”
It's easy to see how Zana (pronounced zah-nah) was born out of one of True's core values: Encouraging CEOs to turn to one another for help and advice. It's a rare strategy among venture firms, and one that's served True well. Those values, and more than a decade's worth of conversations with founders, led Tate-Di Donna to create a peer education-focused incubator available to anyone with an Internet connection. "Zana is a platform versus a content delivery vehicle," Tate-Di Donna tells Fortune. "The real magic happens when entrepreneurs talk to each other."
Zana（发音zah-nah）的诞生并不出人意料，因为它源于True的一条核心价值：鼓励首席执行官们相互帮助、相互提供建议。这是其他风投公司很少使用的策略，但却让True如鱼得水。基于这些价值理念，以及十多年与企业创始人的交往经验，唐纳创建了一个专注于同行教育的孵化器。只要有网络连接，任何人都可以参与其中。唐纳告诉《财富》杂志：“Zana是一个平台，不是内容交付载体。只有企业家们在相互交流时才能迸射出真正的火花。”
A free and open-to-the-public incubator shouldn't seem revolutionary, but it will likely be in hot demand among would-be founders. This latest tech bubble and shows like HBO's Silicon Valley have bolstered the idea that starting a company simply requires drive and determination. The best accelerators and incubators are bombarded with applications and at maximum capacity. Y Combinator, for example, reportedly receives one application per minute, with an acceptance rate hovering just above one percent.
一个免费对公众开放的孵化器似乎并不是什么革命性的举措，但在潜在创业者中可能会很受欢迎。最近的技术泡沫和HBO的电视剧《硅谷》（Silicon Valley）推广了这样一个观点：创业只需要动力和决心。那些一流的加速器和孵化器都收到了大量的申请，而且正在满负荷运转当中。例如，Y Combinator据称每分钟就会收到一个申请，而通过率仅在1%左右。
There also tends to be a self-selecting group that applies for early-stage funding and mentorship. In March, YC founding partner Jessica Livingston told Slate that while she thinks 2014 will be a tipping point year for women in tech, only 84 of the 633 startups YC funded over the years had at least one woman founder. "In the mid-2000s, we were lucky to get one female per batch," she said.
而且往往会有一个自选团体，他们会申请初创资助和指导。3月份，Y Combinator创始人杰西卡o莱文斯通对《Slate》杂志说，尽管她认为2014年将是技术行业女性创业的转折点，但在过去几年YC所资助的633家初创公司中，只有84家拥有至少一名女性创始成员。她还说：“2005年前后，每一批企业里面哪怕有一名女性创始人就不错了。”
That's changed, of course. But the numbers of non-white, non-male accelerator applicants still lag far behind. In venture capital, the gender imbalance is even worse; women comprise just four percent of all VCs. "When I was at True Ventures," Tate-Di Donna says, "I was the only woman for the first five years. And I was the only woman on the investment team for seven years."
当然，这一点已经发生了变化，但是非白人、非男性加速器申请人的数量仍远远落后。在风投世界中，性别比例失衡这个问题更严重；女性仅占所有风投人员的4%。唐纳说：“在头5年里，我是唯一的女性。7年来，我是公司投资团队中唯一的一位女性成员。”
She also saw an obvious gap in the current swath of entrepreneur-centric opportunities. "There's not a trusted, gold standard, de facto place that will help move a business forward through its life cycle as a company," she says. "YC good for early-stage. There are incubators and accelerators focused on periods of time or specific skill development. But peer-led education support—that's where we see the enormous opportunity." (Also, a note about the name: Zana was a goddess in Romanian mythology known for giving life and generously bestowing gifts.)
在眼下一系列以企业家为中心的机遇中，她也注意到了这个明显的差距。她说：“现实中并没有备受信赖的金科玉律，也不存在一个既定的场所，能够帮助某项业务渡过生命周期成为一家公司。YC有利于早期发展。有些孵化器和加速器专注于不同的时期或具体的技能发展。但是我们发现，以同行为主导的教育支持存在巨大的机遇。”（此外，在此对名称做一下解释：Zana是罗马尼亚神话中的一位女神，因赋予生命和慷慨地赐予礼物而富于盛名。）
With Zana, there aren't any real barriers to entry, as it's free and available on demand. (The revenue structure is a basic freemium model with a premium option available to companies. There will also eventually be a certification program enabling employers to test employees on various modules.) It also promises to unite entrepreneurs from various industries and from all around the world.
在Zana的帮助下，一切准入障碍都不复存在，因为这是一种按需分配的免费服务。（营收构架是一个基础的免费增值模式，为企业提供高级选项。最终还会有一个认证项目，让雇主按照不同的模块来测试雇员。）它的另一项任务就是联合全球各个行业的企业家。
Even Tate-Di Donna's team speaks volumes about her commitment to recruiting top talent with varied interests and expertise. Zana's lead developer Joel Burton is a skilled programmer and trainer who is also a sex educator with a degree in women's studies. (Only in San Francisco.) Respected technologist and Zana advisor Ian McFarland recommended Burton after Tate-Di Donna explained her need for a robust platform that will scale to accommodate the thousands of users she hopes to eventually attract.
甚至连唐纳的团队成员都充分显示了她在招聘拥有不同兴趣爱好和专长的顶级人才方面所做的努力。Zana的首席开发人员乔尔o伯顿是一名技能娴熟的编程人员和培训师，他还是一名性教育家，拥有女性研究学位（仅在旧金山）。唐纳解释说，她最终希望吸引几千名用户，因此，她需要一个强有力的平台，并按照自己的预期实现规模化，容纳这些用户。于是，备受尊敬的技术人员和Zana顾问伊万o麦克法兰德向她推荐了伯顿。
Even after you've been using Zana for a while, she explains, your company will have new needs. In a similar way that Amazon suggests products based on previous purchases, Burton's algorithm will introduce new, relevant resources as your business (and your needs as a founder) evolves.
她解释道，即便在使用Zana一段时间之后，你的公司仍会出现新的需求。伯顿的算法与亚马逊依据历史购买信息而推荐产品的方式类似，能够随着业务（以及创始人需求）的变化而引进相关的新资源。
With inclusivity as the backbone of the new resource, it's the Zana content that takes center stage. "With True University, it was great to have annual event," she says. "But entrepreneurship is a 24/7 business. At one True University conference, I recorded videos, and then put them up on private site. But most were 60 to 90 minutes long." Many Zana videos last just one minute; none are longer than five.
新资源的核心特质是包容性，因此，Zana内容就成了焦点。她说：“有了True University之后，我们每年会举办一次活动，这是件好事，然而创业是全天候不停歇的事业。有一次True University开会的时候，我录下了视频，然后放到了我的私人网站上。但大多数都是60-90分钟的视频。”很多Zana视频时长只有一分钟，没有超过5分钟的。
There are 10 Step Lessons applicable to a variety of early- and mid-stage businesses across all sectors. In her instructive series of videos about design research, Erika Hall, co-founder and director of strategy at Mule Design, reminds fledgling entrepreneurs to research adding value to the world, not just focus on creating something cool. "The very definition of design is solving a problem," she explains. "[Research] really is just asking questions to make sure that you're not basing your key business decisions on things you made up out of your head—or things you wish to be true. But if what you actually want to do is create a product that serves real needs and is gonna succeed in the marketplace, you need to understand how those needs are being met and the structure of that marketplace and where it's going." Hall, like many experts lending their voices to Zana's talent pool, offers sound advice at a time when founders are (sometimes rightly) mocked for waxing poetic about making the world a better place.
有一个10步课程适用于所有行业中处于早期和中期发展阶段的各类企业。Mule Design联席创始人和策略总监艾瑞卡o哈尔在她谈设计研究的系列教育视频中提醒初出茅庐的创业家们要研究如何为世界增添价值，而不仅仅是专注于创造一些新奇的东西。她解释说：“设计的定义就是解决问题。研究的真实意义在于询问探究，以确保自己的关键业务决策并不是基于自己的幻想和想象。如果你的确想创造一种产品，能够满足真实需求并有望在市场获得成功，那么你就需要了解如何去满足这些需求，以及市场的结构和发展动向。”创始人们因为高举“让世界更加美好”这面旗帜而遭人嘲笑的时候（有时候确实值得嘲笑），哈尔与其他很多声援Zana人才的专家一样，为他们提供了很好的建议。
Zana isn't the only newcomer to the incubator space. Fast Forward, an incubator exclusively for non-profits, launches this summer and has already accepted five companies (two of which were also in Y Combinator). But for now, Zana is the only incubator open to any founder with a laptop, anywhere in the world.
Zana并不是孵化器领域唯一的新秀。专门针对非营利性组织的孵化器Fast Forward将于今夏启动，而且已经投资了五家公司（其中两家同时也进入了Y Combinator）。但是目前而言，Zana是覆盖范围最广的孵化器，而且没有地域限制，创业人员只要有一台笔记本电脑就可以参与Zana。
"We're just here to connect people so they can talk," Tate-Di Donna says.
唐纳说：“我们只是为人们提供互相连接的机遇，让他们能够相互沟通交流。”