難道不是所有公司都應(yīng)該致力于盈利嗎,？

????不一定。

????不妨看看下邊這兩家軟件公司,，它們的毛利潤率都是66%,。

Shouldn't All Companies Want to Be Profitable?

????Not necessarily.

????Let's consider the following two software companies, both of which have 66% gross margins.

????第一年兩家公司看起來完全一樣，都籌得了150萬美元的天使/種子基金來維持這一年的運營,，都虧損了100萬美元,。

????66%的毛利潤率還算不錯（它們通過一家抽取33%傭金的經(jīng)銷商銷售產(chǎn)品），但銷售規(guī)模還不足以支付IT開發(fā)團(tuán)隊,、管理,、營銷和辦公費用等成本。很多互聯(lián)網(wǎng)初創(chuàng)公司80%運營成本都是人員費用,。

????那么,，哪家公司的經(jīng)營狀況更好一些？

????答案根本無從知曉,。一個沒有經(jīng)驗的記者或許會遺憾公司B沒有“盈利”,，或者作為一家典型的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)初創(chuàng)企業(yè)，完全沒有成本意識,。畢竟,，它在還沒有盈利的情況下就將運營成本翻了一番。

????它到底用這筆錢做了些什么呢？它融到了500萬美元風(fēng)投資金用于發(fā)展業(yè)務(wù),。公司用這些錢擴充了技術(shù)團(tuán)隊,，以便能推出第二條產(chǎn)品線。公司聘用了營銷團(tuán)隊來進(jìn)行更廣泛的產(chǎn)品推廣,。公司聘用了業(yè)務(wù)開發(fā)團(tuán)隊,，尋找將產(chǎn)品嵌入他人產(chǎn)品的機會，以此擴大客戶需求,。此外,， 公司還租賃了更寬敞的辦公室，改善了員工的辦公環(huán)境,，以便更好地留住員工,。

????如果它們的產(chǎn)品市場需求強勁，這些投資可能會帶來不錯的回報,。

????Both companies look the exact same after one year. They both raised angel / seed money of $1.5 million to fund operations in their first year of operations. Both companies lost $1 million in their first year.

????Gross margins at 66% is fine (they're selling through a reseller who takes a 33% margin) but their sales aren't yet large enough to cover the costs of their IT development team + management + marketing + office costs, etc. In many Internet startups 80% of the operating costs will be people.

????So which company is better run?

????The answer is that you have no way of knowing. A naive journalist might lament the fact that Company B is "not profitable" or is being a typical Internet startup and not worried about costs. After all, it doubled their operating costs when it wasn't even profitable.

????What did it actually do? It raised $5 million in venture capital to fund growth. It used the money to hire a bigger tech team so it could roll out its second product line. It hired a marketing team to promote its products more broadly. It hired a biz dev team to work on deals where its product could be embedded in other people's products as a way to increase customer demand. It got a bigger office space so its employees would feel comfortable and it could improve employee retention.

????If there was strong market demand for their product then this investment might pay off handsomely.