好生意：只有一个标准

（原标题：好生意：只有一个标准）

译者戴汨，愉悦资本创始合伙人（midai@joycapital.com.cn, 微信 midai2008）。

虽然评估生意的标准有很多，但是说定价能力是最重要的标准不能为过，持久的定价能力不仅体现了创业公司创造的价值而且体现了其面对竞争的防御能力。

The single most important business decision in evaluating a business is pricing power. And if you need a prayer session before raising price, then you ve got a terrible business. Warren Buffett

评估一门生意，单个最重要的商业决策是定价能力。如果在提价前，你需要开一个祈祷会，那么你可能拥有一个糟糕的的生意。- 沃伦.巴菲特

I read this quote in Confessions of the Pricing Man: How Price Affects Everything, written by Hermann Simon. Simon is a former academic, an ex-professor at INSEAD Stanford, Harvard, and London business schools, who extensively researched and taught pricing theory. As Simon writes in the book, he left academia in 1985 to found Simon-Kucher & Partners, the preeminent pricing consultancy that generates several hundred million dollars a year in revenue and employs more than 300 people.

我是在赫尔曼西蒙写的 “ 定价人的自白：价格如何影响一切” 这本书中读到这段话的。西蒙以前做学术研究，是 INSEAD、斯坦福大学、哈佛大学和伦敦商学院的教授，广泛研究和讲授定价理论。西蒙在书中写道，他 1985年 离开学术界创立了西蒙&库彻合伙公司，这个著名的定价咨询机构拥有 300 名员工， 每年产生几亿美元的收入。

Pricing power, or market power, is the ability of a startup to raise prices over time. As Simon writes later in his book, “People have asked me thousands of times to name the most important aspect of pricing. I answer with one word: value.” A startup gains pricing power when it creates tremendous value for its users and defend its products from the threat of substitutes and new entrants. The second component is equally critical to sustaining pricing power as the first.

定价能力，或者说市场力量，是指一个创业公司不断提高价格的能力。就像后来西蒙在他的书中写道：“人们无数次的问我：定价最重要的一个因素是什么？我的回答是一个词：价值。” 当一个创业公司为用户带来巨大的价值，并能保护他的产品不受替代品和新进入者的威胁，它就拥有了定价能力。对于维持定价能力而言，第二个要素和第一个同等重要。

In Zero to One, Peter Thiel professes the same concept: founders should aim to create monopolies. Monopolistic companies have ultimate pricing power.

在 “从零到一” 这本书中，彼得.泰尔宣扬了同一个概念：创始人的目标应该是建立垄断。垄断企业有最终定价能力。

Simon-Kucher Partners surveyed companies across 50 countries for their Global Pricing Study. Only 1 3 of respondents believed their companies had a high level of pricing power. Does your business?

西蒙&库彻公司为了他们的全球定价研究，在 50 个国家调查了不同公司。只有 1/3 的受访者认为他们的公司拥有有较高水平的定价能力。你的公司呢？

All of these concepts of pricing, pricing power, value, and defensibility contribute to finding product/market fit. True product market fit should be lasting and enduring product market fit. That means creating disproportionate value for users and buyers of software over time. So the startup can charge more and more for its product as the product improves, broadens and is used by increasingly notable customers.

所有这些概念，定价、定价权、价值和防御，有助于找到产品 / 市场的契合。真正的产品和市场契合应该是持久和经得起考验的。这意味着，为用户和软件的购买者创造不对称的价值。这样，创业公司随着产品的改进和拓宽以及越来越多的客户使用，就可以收越来越多的钱。

Transient product market fit, often can manifest as first-mover advantage. The first company to create a category, define a new product, bring a new technology to a market, or exploit a novel distribution strategy does have short-term pricing power. But without a strong defense, it may be the last mover that wins the race. Quoting Thiel again, “Microsoft was the last operating system, and Google was the last search engine.” Startups need the 1-2 punch of first mover and a competitive defense.

短暂的产品市场契合，往往可表现为先发者优势。第一个公司创建了一个新类别，定义了一个新产品，带来了一项新技术，或利用一种新的销售策略确实有短期的定价能力。但是，如果没有强大的防御，有可能是后发者赢得比赛。再次引用彼得.泰尔，“微软是最后的操作系统，而谷歌是最后的搜索引擎。” 创业同时需要先发者的连续两记重拳，同时还要具备有竞争力的防御。

Pricing evolves as the market changes with the entry of substitutes and threats. Pricing evolves as a startup s product matures, its brand solidifies and its team coheres. Because of all these conflating factors, pricing discovery is a challenging, ongoing process. The optimal price to charge is a function of the value the product creates and the leverage the business has within the ecosystem.

定价随着市场变化 (替代者和威胁的进入引起的) 而演变。定价随着创业公司产品日趋成熟、品牌和团队不断强化而演变。由于所有这些因素在一起，价格发现是一个具有挑战性的持续的过程。最优的价格是一个函数，受产品创造的价值和企业在生态系统中的杠杆作用共同决定（译者注：其实就是竞争关系）。

When experimenting with price, two questions matter. First, the relative pricing question: how much are you willing to pay relative to a comparable product? Second, what do our customers reactions to our pricing changes imply about our business defensibility and pricing power? Consequently, what are the implications for our startup s strategy?

当进行价格试验的时候，两个问题最为重要。首先，相对价格的问题：相对于可比的产品，你愿意付多少钱？第二，客户对价格变化的反应，对我们业务的 “防守和定价能力 “意味着什么？从而，我们创业公司的战略有什么影响？

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