三名MBA的创业历程 TubeMogul成功上市

Earlier this year TubeMogul signalled its intention to join that elite group of new technology companies that have done well enough to float shares on a stock exchange. The video advertising software company is aiming to raise $75m in its initial public offering.

新科技公司中的佼佼者往往选择在证券交易所上市，TubeMogul如今也加入了这个精英行列。TubeMogul是一家视频广告软件公司，从首次公开发行(IPO)中筹到了7500万美元资金。

Things have certainly come a long way for the three MBA alumni from Haas School of Business at Berkeley, who formed the company in 2007 with a small amount of money they won in a Haas business plan competition. But their journey to their current success has not been straightforward.

2007年，加州大学伯克利分校哈斯商学院(Haas school at Berkeley)的三名MBA学生，用在哈斯商业计划竞赛中赢得的微薄奖金开创了这家公司。他们如今已经取得了很大的成功，但他们的成功之路并非一帆风顺。

“One day you think you’re going to take over the world and the next you think you’re going to go out of business,” says John Hughes, co-founder and president of products. He and co-founder and chief executive Brett Wilson agree, however, that they could not have done it without their business school.

联合创始人兼产品总裁约翰•休斯(John Hughes)说：“今天你觉得自己要统治世界了，明天你又觉得自己要破产了。”不过，他和另一位联合创始人、首席执行官布雷特•威尔逊(Brett Wilson)都觉得，没有哈斯商学院，就没有他们的今天。

“There would definitely have been no TubeMogul if it had not been for Haas,” says Mr Wilson.

威尔逊说：“要不是哈斯商学院，TubeMogul肯定不会诞生。”

The three men were in the same cohort at Haas. “We identified each other fairly early on as people who wanted to do something really great after we graduated,” says Mr Wilson. Mr Hughes and Mr Wilson were in an entrepreneurship class together and started talking about business ideas with another student, Mark Rotblat, who was also to become one of TubeMogul’s co-founders.

在哈斯商学院，这三人是志同道合的同学。威尔逊说：“我们很早就发现彼此是同一类人，我们都希望在毕业后做一番大事。”休斯和威尔逊上了同一门创业课，后来他们又开始跟另一个同学——马克•罗特布拉特(Mark Rotblat)讨论创业想法。罗特布拉特也成为了TubeMogul的联合创始人。

Mr Hughes and Mr Wilson entered their initial idea into a business plan competition in their first year, but it did not win. The pair went on to do summer internships in Silicon Valley. Mr Hughes had a role with Adobe and Mr Wilson was with Yahoo.

第一学年时，休斯和威尔逊带着初步构想参加了一个商业计划竞赛，但没有获奖。到了暑期，两人就去硅谷实习了。休斯在Adobe实习，威尔逊在雅虎(Yahoo)。

“We used to get the train down together to these great companies and get the train home again after work,” says Mr Wilson. They used that travelling time to bounce ideas off one another.

威尔逊说：“那时我们总是一块儿乘火车去那些了不起的公司里实习，下班后再一块儿乘火车回家。”他们利用上下班路上的时间来讨论创业想法。

In their second year their business idea gelled around the first incarnation of TubeMogul, which was originally conceived as an analytics platform for YouTube. They started to build the site and enlisted Keith Eadie, a first-year student friend, in January 2007, persuading him to write their new business plan.

第二学年的时候，他们的创业想法逐渐成型——为YouTube建一个分析平台。那是TubeMogul的第一个前身。他们开始着手创建这个网站，2007年1月，他们把一个一年级的朋友——基思•伊迪(Keith Eadie)——拉入了伙，说服后者为他们撰写新的商业计划。

“We were literally building it while we were at school. Every single class was an incubator,” says Mr Hughes. They found software tech interns from Berkeley and paid them out of their own pockets.

休斯说：“我们还在学校的时候就着手创建网站了。每一门课都像是孵化器。”他们从加州大学伯克利分校找了一些软件技术实习生，自掏腰包付实习生工资。

Mr Rotblat started working with them in earnest in February 2007 in a customer development role. Customers were signing up for free access to the data analytics, he says. “I would figure out who the customers were and what exactly they cared about. I’d take their pain points and share that feedback with the team.”

2007年2月，罗特布拉特正式入伙，负责客户开发。他说，当时客户开始注册，然后可以免费试用数据分析平台。“我的工作是找出这些客户是谁，他们真正在乎的是什么。我会找出他们的‘痛点’，将反馈信息分享给团队的其他成员。”

“We were able to do a lot with a little,” says Mr Wilson. Their efforts paid off and they were able to provide a software demo of a functioning entity in the business plan competition. The plan won, and Mr Hughes, Mr Wilson and Mr Rotblat found themselves with $20,000 from Berkeley and the use of a “grungy basement” in the Haas start-up incubator.

威尔逊说：“当时我们能用很少的资源做很多事。”他们的努力获得了回报——带着一个实际运行平台的软件模型，他们参加了商业计划竞赛并获奖，然后休斯、威尔逊和罗特布拉特发现，他们有了加州大学伯克利分校提供的2万美元奖金，还可以使用哈斯商学院创业孵化器的一个“简陋的地下室”。

Mr Eadie, who ought to have been one of the co-founders, had another year of MBA study and, on graduation, went to Boston Consulting Group. However, three years later he joined TubeMogul. “He now runs marketing for us. He would have had a lot more equity had he joined back then,” jokes Mr Wilson.

伊迪原本也可以成为联合创始人，但他当时MBA还差一年没有毕业，毕业后他又去了波士顿咨询集团(Boston Consulting Group)。不过，3年后，他还是加入了TubeMogul。“他现在负责市场营销这一块儿。他要是当初就加入了我们，拿的股份就远不止现在这么多了，”威尔逊开玩笑道。

In fact, the grubby basement was not an easy decision for any of them to make. “It’s difficult starting a company and working for free when you have just invested quite a lot in an MBA education and then find yourself jumping off a cliff into the unknown,” says Mr Wilson. Both he and Mr Hughes remember turning down a number of attractive job offers.

事实上，选择“简陋的地下室”对他们中的任何一个人都不是个容易的决定。威尔逊说：“选择创立一家企业、无偿工作，不是件容易的事情，特别是你刚刚为念MBA投资了一大笔钱，然后发现自己跳下了悬崖，不知道未来会有什么结果。”

But the basement won out and they set about trying to raise more money for the business. One of the first investors was a classmate from Haas, but they also managed to persuade friends and family to put money in. These angel investors between them contributed $750,000, enough to get TubeMogul off the ground.

但“地下室”成功了，他们开始尝试为自己的公司筹集更多资金。早期的一笔投资来自哈斯商学院的一个同学，他们还说服了一些亲友投钱。这些天使投资人总共投资了75万美元，足以让TubeMogul启动了。

The Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at Haas was integral to their early progress, says Mr Wilson. It provided a forum for them to talk to investors and build a “map” of the company. They practised their pitch on other students and received valuable feedback. The centre also hosted events that attracted angel investors and venture capitalists.

威尔逊说，哈斯商学院莱斯特创业中心(Lester Center for Entrepreneurship)对TubeMogul早期的发展功不可没。利用中心的一个论坛，他们能够游说投资人、设计公司的发展“蓝图”。他们在其他学生身上练习推销策略，收到了有用的反馈。中心还举办了一些活动，吸引了天使投资人和风投资本家参加。

“Our first board member came from one of those meetings,” says Mr Wilson.

威尔逊说：“我们的第一位董事就是参加了其中的一个会议和我们遇上的。”

The business plan competition was also integral to their later success. Their pitch on the winning day eventually yielded their first venture capital funding. Someone in the audience on that day made a personal commitment to follow their progress.

商业计划竞赛对他们后来的成功同样必不可少。他们在获奖那天的宣讲后来为他们带来了第一笔风投。那天的观众中有人以个人身份承诺会关注他们的进展。

“We had some street cred because he had watched us do exactly what we said we were going to do,” says Mr Wilson.

威尔逊说：“我们的实际表现为我们赢得了一些信誉，因为他看到我们所做的跟我们那天宣称要做的完全吻合。”

Listening to their initial outline would have given a clue to what was to happen a few years down the line, when the company changed tack. Mr Wilson and Mr Hughes had said they wanted to create an industry giant.

如果听过他们最初的宣讲，你或许可以猜到几年后会发生的事情——公司转变了发展方向。威尔逊和休斯说过，他们想打造一个行业巨头。

“We did not see the analytics as a major disruptive business and we wanted to build something really big,” says Mr Wilson.

威尔逊说：“我们觉得分析平台不是一项很大的颠覆性业务，而我们希望开创一项真正了不起的事业。”

“It’s part of the evolution. Customers were saying to us: ‘It’s great that you’re tracking my video but I really want people to watch it’,” explains Mr Hughes.

休斯解释说：“那是发展的一个阶段。当时，客户对我们说，‘你们能追踪我的视频当然很棒，但我其实想要的是人们会打开我的视频观看’。”

As a result, in 2010 they convinced their board and made the “pivot” into being a brand advertising sales platform for video, mobile and even television. They then sold the original business.

因此，在2010年，他们说服董事会，开始转型做一个面向视频、移动设备甚至电视等媒介的品牌广告销售平台。随后他们卖掉了原先的业务。

“A lot of credit to Brett for making the bold move,” says Mr Hughes.

休斯：“我们能勇敢迈出这一步，布雷特立了大功。”他说的是担任CEO的布雷特•威尔逊。

“It’s nice of John to give me the credit but it’s been a great partnership over the years. We all argue like spouses,” says Mr Wilson.

威尔逊说：“谢谢约翰把功劳计到我头上，这些年来我们合作得很好。就像夫妻一样，我们也会争吵。”