「金融时报·双语」ofo给投资者的教训
Ofo's blowout offers lesson to investors
ofo给投资者的教训
Financial Times
金融时报
People who have survived road accidents often say time seems to slow down in the moment. But the car crash that is Chinese bike-sharing start-up ofo has been anything but slow-motion. The company has gone from a standing start to one of the world’s fastest-growing start-ups and back again in a hyper-accelerated three years.
那些在交通事故中幸存下来的人常说，时间似乎在那一刻变慢了。但中国共享单车初创企业ofo的“翻车”却一点都不慢。该公司从静止姿态起步，一度成为全球发展最快的初创企业，在超速发展三年后又回到原点。
Wednesday’s admission by ofo founder Dai Wei that it is under “immense cash flow pressure” and skirting bankruptcy was surprising only for its upfront honesty.
周三，ofo创始人戴威承认该公司面临“巨大的现金流压力”并处于破产边缘——他承认的事情并不令人惊讶，令人惊讶的只是他毫无保留的坦率。
In the rear-view mirror, ofo’s blowout may seem inevitable, as cities across China, Europe and the US have witnessed its distinctive yellow bikes vandalised, stolen — or, just as bad for the company, simply underused.
回过头来看，ofo的溃败似乎不可避免，因为中国、欧洲及美国的城市均目睹了其显眼的黄色单车遭到破坏、盗窃、或闲置——这对ofo来说同样糟糕。
But ofo’s imminent demise should provide a timely sanity check for investors now ploughing hundreds of millions of dollars into the latest transportation fad: electric scooter sharing companies.
但ofo即将倒闭应该令当下一些投资者及时、冷静地审视一下他们的投资：将数亿美元投资于最新潮的共享出行方式——共享电动滑板车企业。
Like scooters, the original pitch of bike-sharing was an alluring new spin on the broader trend of on-demand transport. Just as Uber could summon a car in a few minutes, these apps could unlock a bike on every corner, without the responsibility for maintenance or security that comes with ownership.
与滑板车一样，共享单车最初的卖点是按需运输大趋势下的一个诱人新玩法。就像优步(Uber)能在几分钟内召唤一辆车一样，这些应用程序可以在任意角落解锁一辆自行车，而不需承担拥有一辆自行车所附带的维护或安全责任。
Ofo quickly raised more than $2.2bn. Racing to get ahead of multiplying copycats, it expanded to dozens of cities around China and then exported its bikes to the US and Europe. Scale was its only differentiator.
ofo迅速筹集到超过22亿美元的资金。面对不断涌现的模仿者，ofo为了保持先发优势扩张到中国各地的几十个城市，随后又将自行车铺设到美国与欧洲。规模是将它与其他共享单车运营商区分开的唯一特点。
This breakneck expansion masked the fact that ofo never figured out whether its original idea was commercially viable. “A lot of the mistakes occurred because they had so much capital,” says Horace Dediu, a technology industry analyst studying so-called “micro mobility”. “The money was buying growth. It was a land grab. As a result they didn’t stop to learn.”
这种突飞猛进的扩张掩盖了这样一个事实，即ofo从未弄清其最初的想法在商业上是否可行。“许多错误的发生就是因为他们有那么多的资本。”一名研究所谓“微观移动性”的科技行业分析师霍勒斯•德迪乌(Horace Dediu)表示，“这些钱是用来购买增长的。即攻城略地。因此，他们没有停下来学习。”
The “unit economics” of bikeshare seemed appealing at first. The bikes are cheap to make and, with no docking stations to own or manage, they were cheap to deploy. Ofo’s original error was that its pricing was also too cheap.
起初共享单车的“单位经济效应”似乎很吸引人。这些自行车制造成本低廉，而且由于没有停车点需要管理，它们的铺设成本也很低。ofo一开始就错在定价太低。
“One renminbi per ride is not a sustainable business model,” said Chen Lin, assistant professor of marketing at China-Europe International Business School in Shanghai.
“骑一次一块钱人民币不是一种可持续的商业模式。”上海中欧国际工商学院(China-Europe International Business School)市场营销学助理教授林宸表示。
Scooter start-ups such as California-based Bird and Lime say they have absorbed many of these lessons, even if the same challenges of vandalism, safety and regulation are now re-emerging on the streets of San Francisco, Los Angeles and beyond.
加州的Bird和Lime等滑板车初创公司表示，他们已从中吸取了许多教训，即使现在旧金山、洛杉矶等地的街道上再次出现了破坏、安全和监管方面的同样挑战。
Ofo’s deeper flaw is embedded in Silicon Valley’s start-up model. Raising too much money too quickly railroads entrepreneurs into expansion that they do not discover they cannot afford until it is too late. Many so-called unicorns have the same flaws buried in their business models — but with many of their backers impatient for them to go public next year, it is now too late to apply the brakes.
ofo更深层的缺陷隐藏在硅谷的创业模式中。过于迅速地筹集到太多资金迫使创业者仓促开始扩张，直到为时已晚，才发现自己负担不起。许多所谓的“独角兽”在其商业模式中也存在同样缺陷——但他们的众多投资者迫不及待地盼望着他们明年上市，现在踩刹车已经来不及了。
译者/何黎