壓力之下保持激情的3個訣竅

Slidejoy剛剛創建的時候，我們的團隊只有五名成員，而且五個人分散在紐約、費城、舊金山和首爾等地。Slidejoy可以說是后發制人，當時它的競爭對手都擁有比它更大的團隊和更多的資金。雖然當時機遇之神似乎并不青睞我們，但我們深信（現在也仍然相信），我們一定會把鎖屏廣告帶到這個世界上。

經歷了一系列波折，我們仍然能保持激情，主要歸功于以下幾點：

1、好隊友

我愛我的團隊，這不僅僅是因為他們的業務能力超強，還因為我知道不管在什么情況下，他們都是值得信賴的。去年夏天，為了節省成本，我們團隊里的三個人一起住在紐約字母城的一套兩室的小公寓里。當時我們的公司還有很大的不確定性，我們甚至不知道公司能否存活下去，所以我們夜以繼日地工作，以確保Slidejoy項目的進展。我也因此樹立了對我的團隊的信心，它直至今日仍在繼續激勵我。

2、小成就

過去兩年里，我們在創業過程中幸運地獲得了一些小小的成就，這些小成就也激勵著我們繼續前行。第一個小成就是招募到了幾名優秀的創始人，其中有沃頓商學院的MBA畢業生，有斯坦福大學計算機科學專業的碩士，還有曾創下幾億次下載記錄的應用開發者。

幾個月后，我們成功地談下了第一個客戶——梅西百貨，它也是美國最大的零售商之一。不久之后，我們又在谷歌的Google Play正式上線，并獲得了主流刊物的報道，甚至還上了《今日秀》。我們還贏得了沃頓商業計劃競賽大獎。今年年初，我們又拉到了120萬美元的種子融資。自從本輪融資后，我們的用戶群和營收入都增長了五倍以上。

運營一家企業是很艱難的，但是這些小的成就能讓你在艱苦的工作中保持熱情，因為它們使你知道，你正在朝著正確的方向前進。

3、大愿景

這些小成就雖然很不錯，但一個個小成就所鋪成的道路，必然要指向一個大的愿景。Slidejoy的愿景就是使手機、應用和服務免費。在獲得一個個小的成就的間隙，我經常會反思，自己為什么要這樣努力地去做Slidejoy。我會思考我們是如何將超過100萬美元的現金分發給我們的用戶的，而它又是如何提高了他們的生活品質（和經濟狀況）。我會思考在不遠的將來，我們如何能讓人們只需下載Slidejoy就能免費購買到手機。

雖然我們還有很長的路要走，但我們共同的愿景卻激勵著我不斷前行。

在你運營一家公司的過程中，有很多種方法讓你自己保持激情。對我來說，這個方法就是與優秀的人共事、在創業過程中幸運地獲得一些小的成就，并且擁有一個我甘愿為之奮斗的大愿景。（財富中文網）

本文作者羅伯特?徐是Slidejoy公司的聯合創始人兼CEO。Slidejoy是一款手機應用，可以將你的鎖屏壁紙換成新聞動態和廣告，而且該應用還能向你付錢。羅伯特?徐是一名沃頓商學院的MBA畢業生，也是一名鐵人三項運動員，他曾在美國海軍陸戰隊服役，還是一名金融家。

譯者：樸成奎

When Slidejoy started out, we were a team of five with members scattered in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, and Seoul. Slidejoy was a second-mover, facing competitors with bigger teams and more money. The odds weren’t stacked in our favor, but we believed (and still do) that we were going to bring lock-screen advertising to the world. Here’s how we’ve stayed inspired through the crazy ups and downs:

Great teammates

I love my team, not just because they’re great at what they do professionally, but because I know they will be there through thick and thin. To save on costs last summer, three of us lived and worked out of a small, two-bedroom apartment in New York City’s Alphabet City. At the time, there was a lot of uncertainty around our business and we didn’t know if we would survive. So we came together by working day and night to keep Slidejoy going, and I gained confidence in my team that inspires me even today.

Small wins

Over the last two years, we’ve been lucky to achieve small wins along the way that inspire us to keep going. The first win was recruiting amazing founders. We’re talking about guys with Wharton MBAs, Masters in Computer Science from Stanford, and developers of apps with hundreds of millions of downloads. A couple of months later, we closed our first client, Macy’s M -0.02% , one of the largest retailers in the U.S. Shortly thereafter, we launched officially on Google Play, received press coverage in major publications, and were even featured on The Today Show. We won the Wharton Business Plan Competition Grand Prize, and earlier this year, we raised a $1.2 million seed round. Since closing the round, we’ve grown over five times in both users and revenues.

Running a business is tough, but small wins keep you inspired through the grind because they let you know you’re headed in the right direction.

Big vision

While small wins are great, there has to be a big vision that the small wins are building toward. Slidejoy’s vision is to make mobile phones, apps, and service free. In between the small wins, there are times when I take a step back and think about why I work so hard on Slidejoy. I think about how we’ve distributed over $1 million to our users and how it’s improved their lives (and the economy). I think about how in the not-too-distant future, we will enable people to pay for their phones simply by having Slidejoy on it.

Although we still have a ways to go, our shared vision inspires me to keep going.

There are multiple ways to stay inspired as you run a company. For me, it’s about having great people to work with, being lucky enough to have small wins along the way, and a big vision to work toward.

The author，Robert Seo，is cofounder and CEO of Slidejoy, the app that replaces your lockscreen with trending news and ads and actually pays you for it. He’s a Wharton MBA alumnus, Ironman Triathlete, US Marine and a reformed financier.