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成立 15 个月的互联网公司戴娜与詹姆斯的股票尚未上 市,不过到目前为止,它已经确定了经营主旨(网上结婚 礼品)、投资者克莱纳?珀金斯和雇员队伍(半年内雇用 15 至 70 人),并且制造了一定的宣传效应(硅谷的每 一个人都知道了戴娜与詹姆斯公司)。这两个抱负不凡的 女人根本等不及从斯坦福大学毕业。她们不是只懂科研却 不懂社交的怪人,而是各方面都游刃有余的已婚妇女。 The boom in e-commerce-and the relative unimportance of engineering expertise, where men have ruled-has produced many young entrepreneurs like Della & James' founders, Jessica DiLullo Herrin and Jenny Lefcourt: business-savvy women running Internet companies that cater mainly to women, peddling everything from wedding gifts to cosmetics to knitting. Says Herrin, "[Women] want the shopping experience on the Web. And if you're going to sell to women, you're got to understand women-and there's no better way than to be one." 电子商务的蓬勃发展──相对而言,由男人垄断的工程技 术领域已变得不重要──导致出现了许多像戴娜与詹姆斯 的创始人杰西卡?迪卢洛?赫林和詹尼?莱科特这样的企业 家:她们是一群具有商业头脑的女人,经营的互联网网络 公司主要针对女性消费者,出售结婚礼物、化妆品和针织 品等五花八门的商品。赫林说:"(女人)希望获得网上 购物的经验。如果你想把商品卖给女人,你就得了解她们 ──最好的办法莫过于你本人就是女人。" Della & James has become an object of both envy and contempt among other start-ups. Herrin, 26, had an outline for her wedding-registry business even before she entered Stanford in the fall of 1997. "I wanted to do something entrepreneurial," she says. he MBA wasn't the end goal." She soon met Lefcourt, 30, who confided that she was exasperated with the nuisance of buying wedding gifts. "I said, 'Oh-my-god, I have a business plan for that,'" Herrin says. "That was our love-at-first-sight moment." 戴娜与詹姆斯公司招来了其它新兴企业的嫉妒和鄙视。26 岁的赫林在 1997 年秋天进入斯坦福大学之前,便已经产 生了开办网上结婚礼品店的初步想法。"我想创办事 业,"她说。"读工商管理硕士并不是最终的目标。"不 久她遇到了 30 岁的莱科特,莱科特告诉她,购买结婚礼 物这样的事弄得她很烦。"我说:｀天哪!我正有计划做 这种生意,＇"赫林说。"那一刻我俩一拍即合。" In May 1998 they secured VC funding. The next month, they quit Stanford. "It wasn't a hard decision," says Lefcourt. "The things I was trying to get out of business school I'm getting right here."1998 年 5 月,她们找到了投资者。6 月,她们从斯坦福 大学退学。"做这样的决定并不困难,"莱科特说。"这 里有我想从商学院学到的一切。" Lefcourt and Herrin are poster girls for the Valley's new emphasis on business creativity. I've never been conscious of being a woman in doing this," says Herrin. But there are still moments when it confronts them. When she walked into a meeting with Kleiner Perkins, Lefcourt "looked around and thought, 'This room is huge and filled with men.' It occurred to me then that I must be a woman." And yet their pitch was convincing precisely because they could explain the nuances of wedding registries to highly credulous men. "We had an instinctive understanding of something they didn't really get," Lefcourt says. 硅谷新近提倡创造性的经营,赫林和莱科特便是这方面的 女性楷模。"我从未意识到自己是个做这种事情的女 人,"赫林说。不过,她们有时仍会遇到这个问题。有一 次,莱科特赶去与克莱纳?珀金斯会面的时候,她"环顾 四周,心说:｀这间屋子很宽敞,坐的都是男人。＇那一 刻我意识到自己是个女人。"但正是由于她们能把网上结 婚礼品店的微妙之处向轻信的男人解释清楚,她们的推销 才有说服力。"我们凭直觉就能懂得一些他们无法理解的 事情,"莱科特说。 
选择苹果电脑公司的前任管理者丽贝卡?帕顿作首席执行 官,业务方面的决策便有了着落。但是当务之急是找到一 个经验丰富的总经理管理公司。"掌管公司对我们来说根 本不重要。一些人说这是女人的特点,"赫林说,仿佛她 对这些说法一无所知。 | |
