I talk about this so often in coaching that I sometimes forget whether I ever wrote it down. I don’t think I have, so here goes…我在辅导中太常提到这一点，以至于有时我都不确定自己是否写下来过。我想我应该没写过，所以现在写下来……
The 18-Month Rule18个月法则
Yesterday I asked a founder whether we had covered the enterprise cycle and the small business problem. He said no. So, I did.昨天我问一位创始人，我们是否讨论过企业周期和小企业难题。他说没有。于是，我就讲了。
The 18-month rule: enterprises do not adopt new things on a clock shorter than about 18 months. Pilots, reviews, analysis, and politics stretch the path from “interesting” to “they pay what you think the thing is worth.”18个月法则：企业采用新事物的周期不会短于18个月左右。试点、评估、分析和内部政治，拉长了从“感兴趣”到“他们愿意支付你认为该产品价值的金额”之间的路径。
It seems this is a lesson founders have to learn themselves. I’ve lost count of the startups I’ve advised who make enterprise their primary market, ignoring this, and then come back and tell me they should’ve listened to me.这似乎是创始人必须亲身经历才能学到的教训。我指导过数不清的初创公司，他们无视这一点，将企业市场作为主要市场，最后又回来告诉我，当初应该听我的。
How do you counter it?如何应对这一法则？
If bigger businesses really are the sweet spot, the best bet is what the PC did: It snuck in under people’s desks without IT knowing. 如果大企业确实是你的最佳切入点，最好的策略是效仿个人电脑（PC）的做法：在IT部门不知情的情况下，悄悄进入员工的办公桌下。
For example, if you are building hiring software, you are not selling to HR as a department. You are talking to hiring managers who have budget and freedom. The catch is fragmentation. How do they find you? How do you find them? How do you price under their project budget and still run a business? Doable. Hard.例如，如果你正在开发招聘软件，你销售的对象不是人力资源部门，而是拥有预算和决策自由的招聘经理。难点在于碎片化。他们如何找到你？你如何找到他们？你如何在他们的项目预算内定价，同时还能维持业务运营？这可行，但很难。
A champion inside a giant bureaucracy is gold. Better still if they can pay from a project budget instead of waiting on an enterprise subscription motion. A pilot that “will turn into a subscription soon” is a lot like engineering based on hope; it rarely turns out well. Be intentional about what the engagement is for: Is it revenue now, or proof that the pain is real and your product makes it go away? Those are different goals and require very different motions.在庞大的官僚机构中找到一位支持者是无价之宝。如果他们能动用项目预算来支付，而不是等待企业级订阅流程，那就更好了。一个“很快就会转为订阅”的试点项目，就像是基于希望的工程，通常结果并不好。要明确合作的目的：是为了眼前的收入，还是为了证明痛点真实存在且你的产品能解决它？这是两个不同的目标，需要完全不同的运作方式。
The Small Business Problem小企业难题
I first really understood the small business problem while building Windows Home Server, with Small Business Server as the sister product. It has only gotten clearer since.我第一次真正理解“小企业难题”是在开发Windows Home Server时，当时它的姊妹产品是Small Business Server。从那以后，这一点变得愈发清晰。
You can pick a vertical, say local machine shops or engineering shops, do the math, and prove that tens of thousands of them spend billions a year on hiring software. The slide looks great. What early-stage companies fail to recognize is the problem I call The Small Business Problem.你可以选择一个垂直领域，比如本地机械加工店或工程店，算一算账，证明成千上万家这样的公司每年在招聘软件上花费数十亿美元。演示幻灯片看起来很棒。但早期公司未能意识到的是我所说的“小企业难题”。
The Small Business Problem is fragmentation of reach. Unless you are Microsoft, Intuit with QuickBooks, or Verizon, you cannot get in front of all 10,000 shops in that vertical.小企业难题在于触达的碎片化。除非你是微软、拥有QuickBooks的Intuit或Verizon，否则你无法触及该垂直领域中全部一万家店铺。
Small Business is a lot like Consumer, where the things you can control are friction and awareness. The product has to be easy to discover, easy to start, easy to get value from, and easy to keep using. Latency is friction. Awareness and satisfaction (NPS and the like) matter more than almost anything else.小企业市场很像消费市场，你能控制的是摩擦力和认知度。产品必须易于发现、易于上手、易于获得价值，并且易于持续使用。延迟就是摩擦。认知度和满意度（如NPS等指标）比几乎任何其他因素都重要。
I do not think most early-stage businesses have the resources to chase both. Pick one.我认为大多数早期企业没有足够的资源同时追求这两者。选一个吧。
If you pick enterprise, design for champions, and “getting under the department’s desks”. Or, have the funding to last for more than 18-months. 如果你选择企业市场，那就为支持者设计，并设法“进入部门的办公桌下”。或者，确保你有能支撑超过18个月的资金。
If you pick small business, design for reach and near-zero friction, and stop pretending a “Book a demo” button is onboarding.如果你选择小企业市场，那就为触达和近乎零摩擦而设计，别再假装一个“预约演示”按钮就是入职引导了。
