How We Solve the Hardest Problem in the Car Industry | Partly
发布时间 2023-04-27 13:09:28 来源
摘要
Today's story is about Partly, one of the fastest-growing startups in New Zealand. Partly is a startup that helps people easily buy auto parts from all over the world. Co-founders Levi and Nathan grew up as long-time friends through homeschooling. Levi loved making things, while Nathan broadened his own world by gaining experience abroad. When Nathan returned from China, he realized that the e-commerce market in New Zealand was lagging behind, prompting him and Levi, along with two other co-founders, to start the startup. However, the limitations of the market size and problems gradually tilted the company. Meanwhile, they discovered an interesting problem in their startup. Levi and Nathan had to make a significant decision. Let's meet the story of those who are challenging global problems in a small country with a population of five million! #Partly #entrepreneurship
00:00 Intro
01:00 Chapter 1: No.8 Wire Mentality
05:18 Chapter 2: Starting Over
08:31 Chapter 3: Never Give Up
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Subtitles for this video were created using XL8.ai machine translation.
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中英文字稿 
When they think of automotive or when they think of parts, they think, oh wow, that's a niche problem. But I think having a second thought about that, they realise this is an industry where everyone in their lifetime is buying parts multiple times.
当人们想起汽车或零配件时，他们可能会认为这只是一个小众问题。但我认为再思考一下，他们会意识到这是一个每个人生命中都要多次购买零配件的行业。
For us, we came extremely close to running out of money. I think at the time we thought maybe there's like a 10% chance of solving. We worked ridiculously hard, seven days a week, 16 hours a day, and we just solved each problem as it came. There was no alternative. The alternative was to stop.
对于我们来说，我们差点用完了所有的钱。我认为当时我们认为可能只有10%的机会能解决问题。我们非常努力地工作，每周七天，一天16个小时，每次解决一个问题。没有别的选择。否则的话，就只能停止了。
Yeah, so I'm Levi Forset and I'm the CEO of Partly. Partly a solving one problem. And that is we need to make it really easy for buyers to find the right parts online. Partly have grown incredibly quickly over the last three years. Our customers power around 40% of all parts orders done online today. We've taken investment from some really incredible people. Dylan Field, from Figma, Akshay, from Notion. These are all people that have actually helped us really just understand what great looks like. What exceptional looks like.
嗨，我的名字是Levi Forset，我是Partly的CEO。Partly是解决一个问题的。我们需要让买家很容易地在线找到合适的零件。Partly在过去三年里快速发展。我们的客户占据了今天所有在线零件订单的40%。我们还从一些真正了不起的人那里获得了投资，比如来自Figma的Dylan Field和来自Notion的Akshay。这些人实际上帮助我们了解了伟大的外观和卓越的外观。
New Zealand is a relatively small country population of just on 5 million people. As a culture, we have a term called number 8 wire mentality that essentially means New Zealand is a very good at just figuring out how to solve problems. They just find ways to get things done with very little.
新西兰是一个人口相对较少的国家，只有500万人。作为一种文化，我们有一个称为“八号铁丝精神”的术语，这意味着新西兰非常擅长解决问题。他们只是找到了一种用极少量的资源来完成任务的方法。
I had a very unusual upbringing. I was homeschooled most of my life. From very young, five or six, I was fixing things. I fixed cars, tractors, motorbikes. I loved solving hard problems. I loved understanding exactly how things worked. I would break things down and really think things through from first principles. And that was just how I learned.
我在成长过程中经历了非常不同寻常的经历。我大部分时间在家里上自学，从我很小的时候，五六岁的时候，我就开始修理东西了。我修理过汽车、拖拉机、摩托车等。我喜欢解决困难的问题。我也很喜欢了解事物究竟如何运作。我会把事物分解并从基本原理开始深入思考。这正是我学习的方式。
Levi and myself have known each other for a very, very long time. I think probably around five or six years old. We were both homeschooled in a rural community. My family moved overseas. We moved to Indonesia. I lived there for a majority of my teenage years from around 13 to 18 years old. You know, when you experience a different culture, you experience a different country, society, the way of doing things is totally different. And all of a sudden, you see problems and you see opportunities everywhere around you.
Levi和我认识彼此已经很久，可能是从五六岁时开始。我们俩都在一个乡村社区接受家庭教育。然而，我的家庭搬到海外去了，我们搬到了印度尼西亚。我在那里度过了我十几岁的大部分时光，从13岁到18岁。当你体验到不同的文化、不同的国度和社会时，一切做事方式都是完全不同的。突然之间，你会看到问题和机会无处不在。
And so that's true when going into the culture, but also when you come back to your home country. And that was really motivational to me. Was that there seemed like there was so much obvious problems to solve. When we first co-founded that original company, we'd always be talking about different business ideas, different solutions to different problems.
所以当你进入一个文化时是真实的，但当你回到你的故乡时也是如此。这对我来说真的很有动力。因为似乎有很多明显的问题需要解决。当我们最初共同创立公司时，我们总是在谈论不同的商业想法，不同问题的解决方案。
I'd experienced living in China and experiencing how advanced the e-commerce landscape, how integrated technology was with society. And people's day to day life coming back were having that experience of when New Zealand was out in that landscape, but felt like a step 10 years back into the past. So it was sort of a glaringly obvious problem that someone needed to solve.
我曾经在中国生活并体验过电子商务领域的先进程度，了解了科技与社会的紧密结合。回到新西兰后，人们的日常生活感觉回到了10年前的过去。因此，这个问题变得异常突出，需要有人来解决。
At the time, you know, Levi had actually constructed a caravan. I had renovated the garage, and I'd been living in there, and then Levi parked his caravan in the driveway. And so we had this makeshift, a very odd group of people all living in this one property. And that kind of comes down to what we call a New Zealand Number 8 Y mentality. It was not a good office at all. Every day, we would have to fold up the bed. We would take out all of the different bits and pieces from inside. We would carry in discs into the caravan and then work around 12 hours coding away, writing away. We did that for six months, just non-stop, all together in this one space. And that was the environment with the melting pot of ingenuity, innovation, and entrepreneurship that the business was birthed out of.
当时，Levi实际上建造了一辆房车。我装修了车库，然后就住在里面，然后Levi把他的房车停在车道上。所以我们有了这个临时的、非常奇怪的一群人，都住在这个房产里。这就是我们所谓的新西兰8号Y精神。这个地方本不是个好办公室。每天，我们都要折起床，拿出里面的各种东西，搬进房车里，然后花大约12个小时进行编码、写作。我们这样做了六个月，非常不停地在这一个空间里。这就是一个聚集了独创精神、创新和企业家精神的烹饪锅式的环境，而这个公司就是在这个环境中孕育而生的。
All goods was designed to help SMBs, help small-to-been-earn businesses sell online. We built quite a good business around it, growing to just over 1,000 business customers, 400,000 monthly users on the platform. But it was extremely low margin. It was clear that the business was never going to be wildly successful. We ended up competing with a local marketplace. Competing with marketplaces is fundamentally a terrible idea. Marketplaces have these deep network effects, and so it just doesn't make sense to compete.
所有商品都是为了帮助中小型企业，在线销售。我们围绕它建立了一个相当不错的业务，客户数量达到了1,000多个，平台每月有400,000个用户。但是利润率极低。很明显，这个业务永远不会非常成功。最终我们与一个本地市场竞争。与市场竞争根本不是一个好主意。市场具有这些深入的网络效应，因此竞争是没有意义的。
It was a long journey. We built this company from nothing. Just a few guys coding away or writing away inside this dark caravan. It was a great deep dive into how do you get your first customers? How do you do any marketing? It was just a wild experience for a young group of 20-year-olds to have this taste of, wow, we could actually do something impactful in the world.
这是一段漫长的旅程。我们是从零开始建立这个公司的。只有一些人在这个黑暗的房车里编写或写作。这是一个深刻的探索，如何获得第一批客户？如何进行市场营销？这对一群年轻的20岁人来说是一次狂野的经历，他们有了“哇，我们实际上可以在世界上产生影响”的味道。
On top of that, there were all of these weird dynamics. About 20% of our customers sold parts online. So they were always telling us, hey, can you make it easier? Every other category most orders were coming from within New Zealand. Parts, 85% were coming from outside of New Zealand. And so the more we looked into this, and then we tied this back to my previous experience, building things, became a lot more clear, real global problem wasn't helping small-to-meaning businesses.
除此之外，还有一些奇怪的关系。我们大约有20%的客户在线销售配件。因此，他们总是告诉我们，嘿，你能不能让它更容易些？其他类别中，大多数订单来自新西兰本地。但是，配件中85%来自新西兰以外。因此，我们越来越深入地研究这个问题，然后将其与我之前的经验联系起来，就更加清晰了，真正的全球性问题并没有帮助小型到中等企业。
We thought about it for a long time. We didn't change the business for about two months because all goods wasn't failing. It was just not wildly successful, right? And we felt like every week we were doing something that was going to bring us to the next level or cross the line. It took us two weeks before we finally said, look, we're going to shut down all goods.
我们思考了很久，因为所有的商品并没有遭受失败。只是我们的生意没有非常成功，对吧？我们感觉每周我们都在做一些能够带领我们进入下一个层次或跨越界限的事情。最终，经过两个星期，我们才决定关闭所有商品。
From day one, we exist in New Zealand, but we're not in New Zealand-focused company. A lot of people, when they think of automotive, when they think of parts, they think, oh, wow, that's a niche problem. But I think having a second thought about that, they realize this is an industry where everyone in their lifetime is buying parts multiple times. The latest numbers that we have on this is there's around about $1.9 trillion spent on parts.
从一开始，我们就存在于新西兰，但我们不是一家以新西兰为重心的公司。很多人一想到汽车，就会想到零件，认为这是一个小众的问题。但是我认为再想一想，大家就会意识到这是一个每个人一生中需要多次买零件的行业。最新的数据显示，全球花费在零件上的金额约为1.9万亿美元。
When I go and look for parts, I go door handle for my 2015 Toyota Corolla. There's actually 300 different variants of Toyota Corolla. Each one of those cars is a different door handle. The core thesis there was because there are so many parts and they've hit so many different vehicles, because the data are so complicated, as a buyer, I want to put in my exact vehicle. And then I want to see all of the exact parts of it. That's incredibly difficult problem. It's painful for me as a buyer, but the question was, can it actually be solved technically at scale?
当我去找零件的时候，我要找适合我2015年的丰田卡罗拉车门把手。实际上，有300多种不同的丰田卡罗拉车型。每一种车都有不同的车门把手。核心论点是由于有如此多的零件，并且它们适用于如此众多的车辆，因为数据非常复杂，作为买家，我想输入我的确切车型。然后我想看到所有它的确切零件。这是一个非常困难的问题。作为买家，这让我很痛苦，但问题是，在规模上，它能被技术上解决吗？
The way we went about proving that was talking to customers. We talked and have continued to talk to hundreds of customers all the time. It's not statistical, it's a bit more anecdotal, but really understanding the business helps a lot. The second thing we did was go talk to buyers, where they were, how they thought the types of problems they face. And so I think that's what we did. We tried to really understand based on these conversations and based on information we could find on forums and other.
我们证明这一点的方式是与客户交谈。我们一直在与数百个客户交谈，这不是统计学上的，更多是讲故事，但真正理解业务对我们帮助很大。我们做的第二件事是去与购买者交谈，了解他们的想法和遇到的问题类型。所以我认为这就是我们做的事情：根据这些对话和我们在论坛和其他信息中找到的信息，尽力理解。
One of the most challenging things I think we've faced for us, we came extremely close to running out of money. This was during COVID actually. Those times were particularly hard because the enormity of the problem just felt overwhelming. I think at the time we thought maybe there's a 10% chance of solving it. That period was one of the hardest. The problem just looked so large and overwhelming that it didn't seem possible for a few people to solve it. There just seemed like there was no path forward.
我认为我们面临的最具挑战性的事情之一是，我们几乎因为新冠疫情而耗尽了资金。那段时间特别困难，因为问题的巨大规模让我们感到劫数难逃。当时，我们觉得也许只有10%的机会可以解决它。那段时间是最艰难的时期之一。问题看起来如此巨大和压倒性，以至于几个人似乎无法解决它。似乎没有前进的道路。
What was really difficult was not so much the lack of money or worried about running out of money. It was more the pressure to turn what we'd been spending the past three years on, to turn what we'd been building. The relationships with customers that were formed over all of that time, trying to turn that into something bigger. For me, I'd been living without a salary for three years at that point.
真正困难的，并不是缺乏金钱或者担心用尽金钱，而是被转化我们过去三年所花费的时间及所建立的东西所给予的压力。我们要将与顾客建立的关系，尝试将其发展成为更大的事业。对于我个人而言，那时我已经三年没有收入。
I think we're all very ambitious. I think we wanted to do something very impactful with our lives. It was a moment of taking a step back and really having to think, OK, what are we going to have to do here? What are we going to have to do to really achieve our ambitions to really make the impact on the world that we want to make? We worked ridiculously hard seven days a week, 16 hours a day, and we just solved each problem as it came. There was no alternative, right? The alternative was to stop, and then we probably never would solve the problem. We would have found those natural optimizations. So I think it was just that. Just work incredibly hard, didn't give up, and get it in front of customers well before it was ready.
我认为我们都非常有抱负。我们想要用我们的生命做出有重要影响的事情。这是一个退后一步并真正思考的时刻，好的，我们需要做些什么？我们需要做些什么来实现我们的抱负，真正地对世界产生影响？我们一周七天，每天16小时地努力工作，我们只是解决每一个问题。没有其他选择，对吧？另一种选择是停下来，那么我们可能永远无法解决问题。我们会找到那些自然的优化方法。所以我觉得就是这样。只要非常努力地工作，不放弃，在完全准备好之前就让它面对客户。
I think one of the biggest aha moments, actually, I think it was probably when we launched with eBay Australia. They were one of our earliest marketplace customers. Within a few months of launching with them, we could see we were increasing their conversion rates enormously. That was really the aha moment for us, because suddenly that was clear the value we were providing. And it was clear that it made a much better buyer experience, which was our number one goal.
我认为最大的“咦”的时刻之一，实际上可能是我们与eBay澳大利亚合作推出时。他们是我们最早的市场客户之一。在与他们合作推出几个月后，我们发现我们极大地提高了他们的转化率。这真的是我们的“咦”时刻，因为突然之间我们清楚了我们提供的价值。很明显，这让购买者的体验更好，这是我们的首要目标。
So I guess earlier on in the Partly Story, we're working with smaller businesses. And we discovered that the problem was far more fundamental. It was a case of asking why five times to actually get to the root cause. So it really was this layer and layer until we finally reached this fundamental problem.
我想在Partly Story早期，我们与规模较小的企业合作。我们发现问题根源更为基本。这是一个一问为什么问五次的案例，直到我们最终到达了这个基本问题。因此，这是一层一层的问题，直到我们最终到达了这个根本问题。
I think the biggest lesson I've learned is who you spend time with and who, what people use to round yourself with. The people you spend time with are the people that you become more like, and I think that that's proven to be incredibly true. Those are the people that influence each other. So that's probably being the biggest reinforcement of a lesson that I think many people have been taught since they were a child.
我认为我学到的最重要的教训是与谁一起度过时间，以及用什么人来包围自己。你和谁度过时间，就会变得更像谁，我认为这一点被证明是非常正确的。这些人互相影响。所以，这可能是我认为许多人从小时候就学到的最重要的教训得到的最大强化。
I would say the number one most important thing is actually to never give up. The thing that separates successful founders or successful companies, I really do think is just never giving up. The second most important thing is to be brutally honest about the business. Are you really solving a painful customer problem? Make sure that your business can actually make sense and be really honest about it, right? If your plan is to start a company and it'll be free until you figure out how to make money, that is a terrible plan. Finally to tile that together in terms of pivoting, I would say you can very clearly see that those fundamentals are not strong. Still don't give up, but be very willing to really fundamentally shift the focus of the business and don't be afraid to solve the global problem.
我认为最重要的一件事就是永远不要放弃。我真的觉得成功的创始人或公司的区别在于永不放弃。第二个最重要的事情是对业务要非常诚实。你确实解决了一个痛苦的客户问题吗？一定要确保你的业务实际上是有商业价值的，并且要非常诚实，对吧？如果你的计划是开一家公司，直到你弄清如何赚钱才收费，那是一个糟糕的计划。最后，就拐点而言，我认为你可以清楚地看到这些基本原则不够强大。仍然不要放弃，但要非常愿意真正根本性地转移业务重心，不要害怕解决全球性问题。
People who had built clearly successful world-class businesses invested in partly. Dylan Field from Figma, Akshay from Notion, these are all people that have actually helped us along our journey. I say that's a lesson learned because this is something that Dylan told me that everyone has told me. Don't sack first of the quality of the team. It's much better to take long time to hire than it is to hire someone who lowers the bar of the team overall. And a great team with a very, very clear mission is pretty hard to beat.
那些成功建立了世界级企业的人部分投资。来自Figma的Dylan Field和来自Notion的Akshay都是实际上在我们的旅程中帮助我们的人。我认为这是一个总结的经验教训，因为每个人都告诉我：不要因为需要招人而降低团队的质量。花时间招聘比雇佣降低整个团队水平的人更好。而一个拥有明确任务的伟大团队是很难被击败的。
Now is when I feel the momentum as fast as it ever been. Like I think that the speed of growth has only ever gotten faster. So like with every day for me, it feels like we've gained more momentum. To me, I don't care much to be honest. You know, like it's a great title, the fastest growing, but the reality is it all comes down to how we execute. None of this will matter in five years, right? What will matter in five years is have we built solid business foundations?
现在我感到动力正在以前所未有的速度加速。就像我认为增长的速度只会变得更快一样。对我来说，每一天都感觉我们获得了更多的动力。坦率地说，我并不太在意这个。你知道，像最快增长这样的称号很不错，但实际上一切都取决于我们的执行力。在五年内，这一切都将不重要，对吧？五年后最重要的是我们是否建立了坚实的商业基础？
Today we have an office in London, we're powering eBay. Planning to scale, we will be spending a lot more of our time in Europe. The structure of the business already lets us scale fairly well. I don't think every entrepreneur needs to be solving a global problem. However, in my experience, solving the big, hair-yordacious problem is almost the same level of difficulty as a small localized problems. If I'm going to put all of my energy, all of my effort, all of my thought and time into solving a problem, I'm gonna put that into the big, global problem as opposed to a localized problem.
今天我们在伦敦有一个办事处，我们正在为eBay提供服务。计划扩大规模，我们将花费更多时间在欧洲。业务结构已经让我们能够相当好地扩展规模。我认为并不是每个企业家都需要解决全球性问题。然而，在我的经验中，解决一个大的、困难的问题与解决一个小的局部问题几乎同样困难。如果我要把我所有的精力、所有的努力、所有的思考和时间都投入到解决一个问题上，我将把这些投入到大型的全球性问题而不是局部问题。
The dream for Foupartly would be to achieve three things. Number one, it would be create value. This is not zero sum. This is to create value for everyone. To make things considerably easy for everyone in the industry. Number two, build a valuable business, right? Create commercial value for everyone in the business. And then number three, it would be to do a lot of good generally. As a company, we're extremely focused on impact. And so we'll use that in ways that drives the most impact. But yeah, I think that would be the dream. In the long run, doing those three things. To create value for everyone in the industry.
Foupartly的梦想是实现三个目标。首先，创造价值。这不是零和游戏，而是为每个人创造价值。让行业中的每个人都能够更轻松地进行工作。其次，建立有价值的业务，为行业中的每个人创造商业价值。第三，我们希望能够为社会做出更多的贡献。作为一家公司，我们非常关注社会影响力。因此，我们将利用这种方式来产生最大的影响。总之，我想这就是我们的梦想。从长远来看，实现这三点。为行业中的每个人创造价值。