初創科技公司的獲得和給予大綱

Startups are known for their lavish and often ridiculous perks, from acupuncture to personal chefs, “rock rooms” to ball pits, even assistants who wait for the cable guy on your behalf. At one point, the New York e-commerce startup held weekly raffles to give employees $500 in cash. Evernote, the productivity software startup in Redwood City, Calif., pays employees $1,000 just to use their allotted vacation days.

初創公司因那些慷慨得不可思議的福利而出名，從鍼灸到私人廚師，從搖滾音樂廳到健身球辦公椅，應有盡有，甚至還有幫你在家裏等待有線電視安裝工的私人助理。曾有一度，紐約電子商務初創公司每週都有抽獎活動，給員工發放500美元現金。位於加利福尼亞州雷德伍德城的軟件初創公司Evernote會給假期被工作佔用的員工1,000美元的補償。

It’s all in the name of employee recruitment—and, once they’re hired, employee retention. Startups know that they compete for talent with the big, public technology companies that can offer even sweeter benefits packages, including liquid stock options. This week, Apple AAPL 1.46% and Facebook FB 4.57% announced that they would pay for female employees to freeze their eggs.

這些做法都是爲了招聘並留住人才。初創公司清楚，他們要與大型的上市科技公司爭奪人才，而後者甚至可以提供更優厚的福利，比如可流通的股票期權。最近，蘋果（Apple）和Facebook宣佈，他們將爲女員工支付冷凍卵子的費用。

But startup companies are also the beneficiaries of perks, often in the form of discounts from service providers, larger technology companies—even other startups. HubSpot, a marketing software company in Cambridge, Mass., offers 90% off its very expensive software for one year to early-stage startups with less than $1 million in funding and revenue. Participants in the 500 Startups accelerator have access to 250 different perks, including a year of free email distribution from SendGrid, a free business credit report consultation from Dun and Bradstreet, and cheaper snacks for the office.

但與此同時，初創公司自身也是福利政策的受益者，服務供應商、大型科技公司、甚至其他初創公司以折扣價的方式提供了這些福利。位於馬塞諸塞州坎布里奇的營銷軟件公司HubSpot，就對運營資本和收入低於100萬美元的早期初創公司提供一年的優惠，使它們能以一折的價格使用HubSpot非常昂貴的軟件。參與創業加速器500 Startups訓練的公司則能享受250種優惠，包括免費使用羣發電子郵件服務SendGrid一年，獲得信用管理公司鄧白氏（Dun and Bradstreet）的免費商業信用報告諮詢，以及價格更便宜的辦公室零食。

Unlike regular businesses, startups are geared for hyper-growth. A tiny client without Money to spend on services can quickly turn into a massive one that is flush with cash. (Consider Uber, which reportedly brought in $1 billion in car service bookings after just three years in business.)

與一般公司不同，初創公司發展速度極快。一個不需要在服務上花錢的微型公司，可以迅速成長爲一個擁有許多現金的大型公司。（比如，有報道稱，成立3年後，Uber就通過其打車服務獲得了10億美元的收入。）

Beyond snagging high-growth clients, the service providers are betting that if startups use their services, they will trickle up to larger companies. “It’s about being able to say, ‘We’re a company that serves startups,’” says Elli Sharef, co-founder of HireArt, a recruiting services platform. “They have cachet, as in, whatever the newest startups are using, it must be good.”

除了抓住這些增長很快的客戶之外，服務供應商還相信，如果這些初創公司使用他們的服務，影響會漸漸滲透到更大的公司。招聘服務平臺HireArt的共同創始人艾莉o沙里夫表示：“這就像是在說‘我們是一家爲初創公司服務的企業’。這些初創公司聲譽良好，它們在用的服務總是很棒的。”

HireArt, itself a startup, has benefitted from many perks, including credits for cloud hosting from Amazon Web Services, $50,000 of free cloud services time through Heroku, and a steep discount from the law firm Wilmer Hale, effective until the company raises a Series A round of funding.

HireArt本身也是一家初創公司，享受了很多福利，包括亞馬遜網絡服務（Amazon Web Services）的雲託管信用額度，Heroku給予的5萬美元免費雲服務時間，以及法律公司Wilmer Hale提供的大幅折扣，這些優惠都持續到公司完成首輪融資爲止。

Now, HireArt is offering its own perks to startups. The company’s recruitment platform costs $995 per month per position or more, which is too pricey for a seed-stage startup. “Most five-person startups are scrambling to recruit with D.I.Y. solutions like posting on AngelList and CraigsList,” she says. But many of HireArt’s job candidates want to work at early stage startups, so Sharef decided to offer free services to startups with less than $2 million in funding that have graduated from a startup accelerator. (The accelerators serve as a vetting mechanism.)

如今，HireArt也爲初創公司提供福利。該公司的招聘平臺每個月要對每個職位收費995美元以上，對還處於萌芽階段的初創公司而言，這筆費用過於昂貴。艾莉表示：“大多數只有5個人的初創公司都是自己去招聘，比如在AngelList社區和廣告網站CraigsList上發佈信息。”但在HireArt，有許多求職者都希望就職於早期初創公司，所以艾莉決定對資金不足200萬美元、由創業加速器培養的新公司提供免費服務。（創業加速器在此可以作爲一種審查機構。）

It’s amusing to see one venture-backed startup giving its services away to other venture-backed startups, but that’s part of what makes a startup ecosystem tick. Sharef notes HireArt couldn’t afford such an up-front marketing expense if it weren’t backed by $2.4 million in venture funding.

一家由風投支持的初創公司爲另一家由風投支持的初創公司提供服務，是一個非常有趣的現象，但這是讓初創公司的生態系統運轉起來的要素之一。沙里夫表示，如果不是由風投基金給HireArt提供了240萬美元的資助，公司也無法承擔預支的營銷費用。

“It’s like this big pile of VC money moves from one company to another,” she says. Since launching in 2012, HireArt has accumulated about 500 clients, most of which are venture-funded. Around 15% have 100 to 200 employees. With any luck (and maybe recruitment fees), some of those clients will turn into 500- to 1,000-person companies and some of its new seed-stage clients will turn into large, venture-backed, paying clients. And if not? Then the whole startup ecosystem might find itself in trouble.

她表示：“這就像是風投公司的一大筆錢從一家公司挪到了另一家公司。”自2012年成立以來，HireArt已經積累了大約500名客戶，大部分都是由風投支持的。其中15%左右的公司擁有100至200名員工。幸運的話（也許還有招聘費），其中一部分客戶將會變成擁有500至1000名員工的公司，一些萌芽階段的客戶也會成長爲有風投支持的大型付費客戶。如果情況並非如此呢？那整個初創公司的生態系統可能就會有麻煩了。