家族企業是非多，風險投資繞著走
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????最近，我接觸了一家十分有前景的新公司，由一對夫妻創建。這并不是一次正式的投資者定調見面會。我和這對夫妻檔中的丈夫已認識多年，于是答應和他們見個面，聊聊如何加快公司的發展。 ????說實話，我很少碰到這種帶有親情性質的公司，常見的帶有私人關系性質的公司往往由大學同學，同事和老朋友組建而成，相比起來，親情來得更為緊密。每年，在獲得風投公司注資的新建公司中，這些由已婚夫婦或家族成員共同新建的公司幾乎是鳳毛麟角。考慮到美國商界現在和歷史上都不乏夫妻檔式的公司，這一現象十分奇怪。有鑒于此，得到風投公司注資的家族式創業公司少之又少，這一現象十分耐人尋味。 ????誠然，家族創業公司拿到風投公司投資并獲得成功的先例并不是沒有。企業軟件開發商WebMethods就是這樣一家公司。但是，長期以來，基于一些令人不安的事實，傳統風投公司對家族式創業一直存在偏見。 ????1．由夫妻或家族成員領導的團隊存在特定風險。不言而喻，投資年輕、資歷尚淺的企業需承擔很大的風險。為確保成功，風投家必須老練地權衡這一風險。這包括選擇和權衡在風投過程中哪些風險可以容忍和接受，而哪些不能。風投公司之所以對家族創業敬而遠之，原因在于家族公司的風險與其本身的性質息息相關。因此，這些風險是特定的，而那些基于同事、大學室友和朋友等普通關系所組建的公司卻不存在這樣的問題。 ????其中風險之一就是夫妻離婚或家族成員之間的嚴重不和。這兩者將使管理的有效性陷入癱瘓。彈劾投資組合公司聯合創始人的程序十分復雜，而且這一舉動也會在公司引起混亂，凡是有過相關經歷的風投公司必定深有體會。我們經常會看到公司的創始人之一圖謀趕走另一位聯合創始人，然而，離任的聯合創始人有可能和另一個創始人是夫妻關系，一旦如此，事情就將變得極其錯綜復雜。兒子炒父親魷魚或兄弟之間同室操戈同樣也會為公司和投資者帶來莫大的痛楚。由此引發的情緒崩潰足以導致公司癱瘓。 ????2. 人事雇用方面的問題。任何新興成長型公司的發展壯大都需要一支頂尖的團隊來出謀劃策。然而，面對家族企業，即便是那些極具眼光的高端管理人才也會望而卻步，因為公司有關招聘、晉升或補償的決定都會被抹上濃重的家庭或裙帶關系色彩。不管準確與否，人們普遍認為在家族公司最高領導職位的競選中，有才干的經理往往會輸給家族成員。除此之外，對氛圍緊張的感恩節晚餐有過切身體會的人大都不會喜歡成天陷入家庭內部或夫妻間的口水戰。 ????3. 角色界定不明確。最后，我們來討論一下商業和家庭/婚姻中角色界定的重要性這一較為敏感的話題。夫妻/家族成員經常會驚愕地發現合伙經商這種模式竟然會損害夫妻關系和親緣關系。為了保持公司交流渠道的通暢，坦誠而務實的批評意見不可或缺，但這些批評也會造成情感上的摩擦并為家庭關系蒙上陰影，有時候甚至是永久性的創傷。角色界定變得模糊不清。由于工作上的需要，夫妻和兄妹原有的身份定義蕩然無存，他們發現雙方除了工作之外再也找不到任何話題。 ????任何一本管理學教科書都會告訴我們，高效的管理團隊要求擁有清晰的領導構架，客觀的決策，較為合理的“職業劃分”和明確的角色及責任界定。在家族公司中，職業身份和家庭角色模糊不清，創始人/經理在辦公室里與某些“同事”是一種關系，回到家里又是另外一種關系，事實上，正是這種模糊導致的不安讓風投公司望而卻步。 ????喬納森?陶爾是國際性私人募股和風投資本公司Citron Capital的執行董事，主要負責消費網絡、軟件、電子媒體以及網絡服務的投資。他的博客地址是Adventure Capitalist。 |
????I recently met with a promising start-up led by a husband-and-wife founding team. This was not a standard investor pitch meeting. I had known the husband for several years and agreed to meet informally to be brought up to speed on the company's progress. ????Admittedly, it is not often that I meet with a founding team that is connected via bonds any deeper than college, a previous work experience or a long-standing friendship. Start-ups founded by married couples or other familial bonds amount to a tiny fraction of the companies that successfully raise venture funding each year. On the one hand, might appear odd given how many "mom and pop" businesses factor into America's current economy and economic history. The dearth of family-founded venture-backed start-ups, therefore, is intriguing. ????To be sure, there have been family-founded start-ups that have raised venture money and gone on to be quite successful. WebMethods is one such company. However, the bias in traditional venture circles against investing in such startups is long-standing and rooted in some uncomfortable realities. ????1. Idiosyncratic risks in a husband-wife or family-dominated team. It's axiomatic that investing in young, unproven companies involves a great deal of risk. To be successful, a venture investor must adroitly balance that risk. That involves making choices and tradeoffs over which risks are tolerable and acceptable as part of the venture process, and which risks are not. What differentiates family-run startups to a venture investor is that they introduce risks that are unique by their very nature. Hence, these risks are idiosyncratic and not in evidence at start-ups backed by the more common assemblage of former colleagues, college roommates, and friends. ????One such risk is that of divorce in a husband-wife team or a severe disruption in a familial relationship. Both can cripple management effectiveness. Any venture investor who has been involved in the removal of a founding member from a portfolio company can attest to how complicated and disruptive that process can be. Add to that the aspect that the co-founder being removed could be bound by marriage to another co-founder–with the common circumstance that one co-founder is engineering the removal of the other–and one can quickly see what a morass this situation can become. Sons firing fathers or brothers firing brothers play out no less dramatically and painfully for the companies and the investors involved. The emotional fallout in such disruptions can all but disable a company. ????2. Recruiting difficulties. For any emerging growth company to scale effectively, it must attract a world-class team. However, top management talent interested in advancement will typically avoid a family-dominated startup where decisions on hiring, promotions or compensation could be colored by family relations or other marginalia. Accurate or not, the perception will persist that a talented manager will be unable to ever take the top leadership post at a company where the competition for that post is likely a family member. Additionally, few people who ever sat through a tense Thanksgiving dinner of their own relish the idea of ever getting in the middle of a familial or matrimonial spat, much less on a daily basis. ????3. Lack of defined roles. Finally, there is the touchier discussion about the importance of clearly defined roles in both the business context and in the familial/marital one. Couples and family members that go into business together too often learn that this is a decision that can damage their underlying romantic or familial bonds in ways they never imagined. The bluntness and constructive criticisms that must occur in order for there to be efficient business communications can often fray emotional connections and strain relationships, sometimes permanently. Roles get convoluted. Spouses and siblings lose their identities in service to the needs of the business and find they have trouble talking about anything outside of work but work itself. ????As any management textbook will attest, the effective management of teams requires clear leadership, objectivity in decision-making, some reasonable approximation of "professional boundaries" and a clear demarcation of roles and responsibilities. The blurring of lines that comes from founders and/or managers having one role at the office with their "colleagues" and another role at home too often flies in the face of that reality for venture investors to ever become sufficiently comfortable in order to proceed with an investment. ????Jonathan Tower (@jonathan_tower) is a Managing Director at Citron Capital, a global private equity and venture capital firm, where he focuses primarily on Consumer Internet, Software, Digital Media, and Web Services investments. He blogs at Adventure Capitalist. |
