姐弟创业传奇

阿琳和埃里克•戴维奇姐弟都是音乐学院的学生，一个专攻声乐，一个梦想成为职业的音乐人。然而，机缘巧合，两人最终都踏上了创业的道路。姐姐成了低收入人群的理财导师，弟弟则用另外一种方式成就了自己的音乐梦想。

《财富》杂志撰稿人贝丝•科维特忙里偷闲，为鲍登学院的校友刊物《鲍登杂志》( Bowdoin Magazine)撰写了一篇人物特写，主人公是一对同在纽约创业的姐弟。与阿琳和埃里克•戴维奇姐弟一样，作者也毕业于这家位于缅因州布伦瑞克市的文理学院。本文源自2013年秋季号的《鲍登杂志》，未作任何删改。     同样毕业于鲍登学院的《财富》杂志总编辑苏安迪为同一期杂志撰写了一篇关于旧金山市长李孟贤的报道。     对于戴维奇姐弟来说，创业实属偶然。在鲍登学院(Bowdoin)，两人学的都是音乐专业，从来没有上过经济类课程。然而，尽管他们在各自公司的创建历程中都遵循同一条路径，最终却抵达了迥然不同的目标。     由于家中有两位创业者，戴维奇一家人的家庭聚会有时候更像是商务会议。今年母亲节那天，吃过早午餐后，埃里克在一旁演练即将给他的父母和姐姐阿琳展示的产品介绍。最近一次冬季滑雪之旅期间，一家人在科罗拉多州住宅的餐桌周围搭建起了一个临时办公室，其实就是一堆杂乱无章的笔记本电脑、iPhone手机和iPad。     决定创业那一瞬间，这种全天候工作状况就成了阿琳和埃里克主动选择的生活方式。阿琳在曼哈顿创办了PayPerks公司。这是一家培养中低收入消费者理财能力、同时给予他们奖励的平台。阿琳亲自出任CEO。在东河对岸的皇后区长岛市，埃里克在他参与创建的Songza公司担任首席内容官，提供经过策划的流媒体音乐服务。     两人是在新泽西州兰多夫市长大的，白手起家的父母早早就鼓励孩子们要敢于开创一番事业。“他们给我们灌输了一种观点，就是说，变化是不可避免的，”阿琳说。“所以说，那些最灵活的人往往能够收获最大的成功。”爸爸开了一家牙科诊所，妈妈帮助他打理经营事务，同时不断地引进最先进的设备。在他们居住的那个社区内，他们一直是最精通电脑的家长。     然而，戴维奇姐弟走上创业之路实属偶然。在鲍登学院，两人学的都是音乐专业，从来都没有上过经济类课程。然而，尽管他们在各自公司的创建历程中遵循同样一条路径，最终却迈向了迥然不同的目标。于埃里克而言，Songza是一种不必经历潦倒的音乐人生活，也是一个能影响音乐界的途径。另一方面，通过创办自己的公司，阿琳发现她有能力创造一种新事物，同时自己做自己职业生涯的主人。姐弟俩的行业或许没有重叠，但他们身处同一个创业世界。正是这样一种巧合，促使他们不断比较、分享各自跌宕起伏的创业感悟。     早在14岁时，埃里克•戴维奇就展现出了正处于萌芽状态的创业潜质。他拥有一个雄心勃勃的职业理想——他要成为一位摇滚明星。所以，他死缠烂打地恳求父母给他购买了一套录音设备。他随后制作了一张光盘，还成功地在学校餐厅把它卖了出去。     埃里克把这种商业头脑带到了鲍登学院。他在这所大学攻读音乐专业期间竭尽全力，尽可能多地吸收行业相关知识。“我一直在努力学习音乐产业的方方面面，因为我当时真的认为我能够建立一个音乐王国，”他说。正是在这种理想的驱使下，他先后在《公告牌》杂志(Billboard )和大西洋唱片公司( Atlantic Records)当实习生，还在大四那年参与了一个被他视为首次创业经历的毕业生荣誉项目——为一个40人的乐团作曲，同时负责料理制作这个曲目的后勤工作。

Beth Kowitt took a break from her day job as a writer at Fortune to profile Arlyn and Eric Davich, siblings who both work in the New York City startup scene, for Bowdoin Magazine, Bowdoin College's alumni publication. The Davich siblings and Kowitt are all graduates of the Brunswick, Maine-based liberal arts school. The following is the entirety of the story from Bowdoin Magazine's Fall 2013 issue.     Fortune managing editor (and fellow Bowdoin graduate) Andy Serwer wrote about San Francisco mayor Ed Lee for the same issue.     At Bowdoin, Arlyn Davich and her brother Eric were music majors who never took an economics course. Yet, in founding their own companies, they've followed a common route to take them toward very different goals.     With two entrepreneurs in the family, get-togethers at the Davich household can sometimes resemble business meetings. Mother's Day this year involved a post-brunch session of Eric rehearsing an upcoming presentation in front of his parents and sister, Arlyn. During a recent winter ski trip, the family set up an ad-hoc office around the kitchen table of their Colorado home -- a mishmash of dueling laptops, iPhones, and iPads.     Being "on" 24/7 is part of the life that Arlyn and Eric signed up for when they decided to build their careers in startups. Arlyn is founder and CEO of Manhattan-based PayPerks, a financial capability and rewards platform for low- and middle-income consumers. Across the East River in Long Island City, Queens, Eric works as chief content officer for Songza, a company he co-founded that offers a streaming music service of curated playlists.     The two grew up in Randolph, New Jersey, with parents who were themselves entrepreneurial and encouraged the same spirit in their kids. "They instilled in us this idea that change is inevitable," Arlyn says, "so the people who are the most flexible are the people who are going to be the most successful." Their mom runs the business side of their dad's dental practice, which has consistently had the most up-to-date equipment. They were always the most computer-savvy parents on the block.     But entrepreneurship was accidental for the Davich siblings. At Bowdoin they were music majors, who never took an economics course. Yet, in founding their own companies, they've followed a common route to take them toward very different goals. For Eric, Songza was a way to impact the music industry without living the life of a struggling artist. By starting her own company, Arlyn discovered she could create something and take control of her own career. Their industries may not overlap, but they share that same startup world -- a coincidence that keeps them comparing notes on a professional existence that can be punctuated with extreme highs and extreme lows.     Even at age fourteen, Eric Davich exhibited the early signs of a budding entrepreneur. He had ambitious career aspirations -- he wanted to be a rock star -- so he finagled his parents into buying him recording equipment, made a CD, and sold it in the school cafeteria.     Eric carried that business savvy to Bowdoin where as a music major he absorbed as much as he could about the industry. "I was always trying to learn every part of the business because I really thought I could make my own music empire," he says. That meant internships at Billboardmagazine and Atlantic Records, along with a senior year honors project that he views as his first startup -- writing a composition for a forty-person ensemble and handling the logistics of producing it.

2006年从鲍登学院毕业的当天，埃里克就收拾行囊，去纽约市追寻自己的专业音乐人梦想。尔后的经历一点也不浪漫。他的乐队“小澳大利亚”(Little Australia)很难获得登台演出的机会——埃里克能够演奏多种乐器，但主要担任吉他手。为了更深入地了解一支乐队如何才能获得签约机会，他最终在一家唱片公司找了一份差事。但这份工作带给他最大的感悟是，原来音乐人和唱片公司的前景竟然如此不堪！“在那家公司，所有员工每天都是一副惶惶不可终日的样子，因为他们随时都有可能丢掉饭碗。”正是姐姐的一个问题帮助他理清了思路。阿琳问，他为什么打算进入一个日渐萎缩的行业，而不是进入一家蒸蒸日上的企业、成为它的一份子呢？     演出间歇期似乎一眼望不到尽头的“小澳大利亚”乐队一直向一家名为艾米街( Amie Street)的动态定价网站上传自己的音乐。所谓动态定价意指，越受欢迎的歌曲定价越高。埃里克向这家网站的创始人发送了一封主题为“我想为你工作”的电子邮件。他的大胆终于获得了回报：2007年，他得到了一份工作。“我认为这是一个涉足网络音乐，获取经验的机会，”他说。“我还能赚点钱，也就不必担心成为一位落魄的音乐人。”一如他此前的经历，在这家初创公司，他几乎什么都干。     2008年，艾米街收购了Songza。按照埃里克的描述，Songza这家网站最初提供一种类似于谷歌(Google)的音乐搜索服务——输入一首歌曲的名称，互联网帮你找到它，寻找的渠道通常是YouTube。透过Songza，埃里克和他的合作伙伴发现了流媒体音乐的发展潜力：它让用户马上就能聆听到音乐，而不必把歌曲下载至硬盘里。这支团队决定把艾米街出售给亚马逊公司(Amazon)，这样他们就能够全身心地经营Songza。很快，Songza就演变为一些经过深度编辑策划、以20首歌曲为一组的播放列表，每组播放列表都有一个主题。比如，《90年代一曲成名传奇》(90s One-hit Wonders)或者《熟男催泪金曲》(Grown Men Making Grown Men Cry)。     通过客户调查，埃里克和其他创始人意识到，这年头，没有人认为音乐是一种产品。埃里克说：“人们听音乐是为了放松心情，以便更好地完成手头的工作，”让音乐陪伴他们渡过乏味的工作时间。这支团队决定把Songza定位为一种帮助用户增加生活情趣的服务，而不是一个音乐发现产品。感到焦虑不安？请打开《60年代原型朋克劲爆歌曲集》('60s Proto-Punk Blastoff)。正在户外烧烤？何不试试《与天王一起野炊》(Cookout with the King)的感觉（对于那些试图进入你的轿车或健身房的广告客户来说，融入这种背景也是颇具吸引力的）。这种看似简单的思维转换引发了一些严肃的讨论，以及投资者的关注。Songza的iPad和iPhone应用于2012年6月进入苹果应用商店，之后，它在10天内就增加了100多万名客户。     埃里克目前主要从事营销和业务拓展工作。名义上，他是首席内容官，但在这家拥有28位员工，正在迅速发展的公司中，他的职责经常变化。尽管他现在并不是以一位全职吉他手的身份维持生活，但在某些方面，他其实已经实现了当一个音乐人的人生目标。“我在鲍登学院做毕业生荣誉项目时，我的目标是展示我学到的所有音乐流派知识，”他解释说。“如今，我采用一种使用起来非常方便，而且契合生活背景的方式，向人们展示所有不同类型的音乐。”现在，他谋求音乐事业有成的途径不再是做音乐，而是创造性地生产更多音乐。他说：“说来也怪，我也正是在这个时候，开始走向更大的成功。”     在鲍登学院上大三那年，阿琳•戴维奇曾经遵照老师的要求，设想20年后的自己将身处何方。阿琳的专业是声乐，但她并不认为自己具备上好的音乐天赋。所以她回答说，她打算创办一家唱片公司。她认为，拥有自己的企业可以让她经历一段具有创造性的职业生涯。“这是创业最吸引我的地方，”她说。“也正是这种梦想最初驱使我进入鲍登学院学音乐，但我其实并不具备实现这种创造力的才华。”     毕业后，经鲍登学院的一位好友引荐，阿琳找到了一份公关工作。工作期间，她发现自己其实最喜欢跟小企业打交道，甚至有可能亲自创办一家小企业。2007年，她如愿进入哥伦比亚大学( Columbia University)商学院，进一步学习创业所需的定量分析技能。     在哥大求学期间，阿琳决定创办一家企业，但她缺乏一个基本要素——一个好的创业点子。在一位教授的头脑风暴讨论课上，阿琳提到了自己在公关公司的工作经历，说自己非常喜欢与一家为人们的薪金支票提供优惠券的公司合作。这位教授的反应是，“哦，现在还有人领取纸质的薪金支票吗？”阿琳回忆说，“正是这个问题，引导我从事这门生意。”这次面谈刚一结束，她就着手研究“没有享受金融服务的人群”，即那些没有银行账户的人。这个市场的庞大程度让她万分震惊。

The day Eric graduated from Bowdoin in 2006, he packed up and moved to New York City to pursue his dreams of becoming a professional musician. It was by no means glamorous. He struggled to break into the scene with his band, Little Australia. (He plays multiple instruments but is primarily a guitarist.) He got a job at a record label to better understand how bands get signed, but more than anything it helped him gauge how tough the prospects were for artists and record labels. "Everyone that worked there, they were just scared all the time," he says. "Any day they could lose their jobs." It was his sister that helped clarify his thinking: Why was he considering a shrinking industry, Arlyn asked, rather than joining a part of the business that was growing?     Little Australia, which is on an indefinite hiatus, had been uploading its music to Amie Street, a dynamically priced music site -- the more popular the song, the more expensive to buy it. Eric sent the founders an e-mail with the subject line "I want to work for you." His audacity paid off with a job in 2007. "I saw an opportunity to get my foot in the door and get some experience," he says, "and have some cash to work with so I didn't have to worry about becoming a deadbeat broke musician." Typical of life at a startup, Eric did a little bit of everything.     In 2008 Amie Street bought Songza, a service that in its original incarnation was what Eric describes as Google for music. Type in a song, and the Internet would find it, usually via YouTube. Through Songza, Eric and his partners saw the potential in streaming music: It gave users instant access to songs without having to download them to their hard drives. The team decided to sell Amie Street to Amazon so they could focus on Songza, which they evolved into hyper-editorialized twelve-song playlists, each with a theme (think "'90s One-hit Wonders" or "Grown Men Making Grown Men Cry").     Through customer research, Eric and his cofounders realized that nobody thinks of music as a product. "People listen to music to make what they're doing better," Eric says, to get through their run or day at work. The team decided to position Songza as a lifestyle enhancer rather than a music discovery product. Feeling angsty? Check out the "'60s Proto-Punk Blastoff" playlist. Barbecuing? Check out the songs in "Cookout with the King." (Having that context is also attractive to advertisers who want to reach you when you're in your car or at the gym.) That seemingly simple shift in thinking led to some serious buzz and investor attention. After Apple's App Store featured Songza's iPad and iPhone apps on the same day in June 2012, the company added more than a million new users in ten days.     These days Eric works mostly on marketing and business development. He's technically chief content officer, but at a fast-growing company with a staff of twenty-eight, his responsibilities change regularly. Despite the fact that he's not making a living playing his guitar full time, in some ways he's fulfilled his purpose as a musician. "When I did my honors project at Bowdoin, my goal was to showcase my knowledge of all of the genres of music I've learned about in school," he explains. "[Today] I get to expose people to all those different kinds of music in a way that's really easy and contextually relevant." Now that he's no longer trying to make a career out of making music, he's more productive creatively. "Oddly enough," he says, "that's when I started to become more successful."     During her junior year at Bowdoin, Arlyn Davich was given an assignment to envision where she saw herself in twenty years. She was a music major (she sings) but claims not to be the best musical talent, so she answered by saying she was going to start a record label. She thought that having her own business would allow her to have a career where she could create something. "That's what appeals to me about being an entrepreneur," she says. "It's what initially attracted me to music at Bowdoin, but I didn't have the talent to realize that creativity."     After graduating, Arlyn got a job in public relations through a Bowdoin connection. It helped her discover she liked working best with small businesses and could even start one herself. In 2007 she enrolled at Columbia University's business school to get the quantitative skills she needed to launch her own enterprise.     Arlyn was determined to start a business while at Columbia, but she was missing an essential ingredient -- a good idea. In brainstorming with a professor, she mentioned how much she liked working with a company during her PR days that put coupons in people's paychecks. The professor's reaction was, "People still get printed paychecks?" "It was the question that led me to this business," Arlyn says. After that meeting she started researching the "underbanked" -- people without bank accounts, and was shocked by how big a market it was.

当时，预付借记卡还是一个新事物，并没有被那些本可以从中获取最大收益的人群充分利用。“营销任何一种产品的途径，就是以一种颇具吸引力的方式，教育人民懂得使用它的好处，”她说。“我当时想，‘如果要为这个消费群体创造一种令人愉悦的受教育体验，会是什么样子呢？’这就是我试图通过PayPerks解决的问题。”她的解决方案是一个建立在抽奖基础上的奖励计划，具体来说就是，通过激励消费者学习金融产品的好处，促使他们使用这些产品。     阿琳决定带着这个创意去参加哥大的创业计划竞赛。清晨一起跑步时，阿琳给弟弟试讲了一遍她的PayPerks故事。阿琳很善于展示；对她来说，这跟在鲍登学院时常进行的演出排练没什么两样。埃里克使用姐弟俩都心有灵犀的音乐术语，提了几点反馈建议——强化节奏，开始时气息最好更柔和些。阿琳最终成为大赛的赢家，哥伦比亚大学随即成为她的首位投资者。“那时，除了自己以外，我所拥有的就是一个PPT文档，和一个梦想，”她开玩笑说。她邀请一位拥有更多技术经验的伙伴一起创业，还在创业的第一年就成功说服万事达卡(MasterCard)成了公司的签约客户。     让我们一起看看它与美国财政部的合作方式，以了解PayPerks的运营方式。财政部每年拨付数十亿美元的社会保障支出，其中很大一部分发放给了没有银行账户的人群，这些人大多通过财政部自己的预付费卡——万事达直通借记卡(Direct Express Debit MasterCard)——接受这笔补助。阿琳说，持卡人经常径直去自动取款机，一股脑地取出所有钱，根本就没有利用这张卡的种种优势。4月1日，PayPerks推出一项针对直通借记卡的奖励计划。用户收到一个内置激活码的刮刮乐拼图。依据这个激活码，用户可以选择加入这个奖赏计划。之后，用户可以遵循一个教育课程，了解使用这张卡的种种好处，同时可赢得积分。很快，他们也可以获得另一种赢取积分的方式——以有助于他们省钱的方式使用这张卡，比如避免取款手续费，选择低结余警示等等。每一个积分都是一次赢取现金奖励的机会。奖金将自动存入借记卡，以激励用户继续参加这项计划。     至今年年底，PayPerks的用户人数预期将从现在的10万增长至25万。鉴于全球一半以上的人口没有银行账户，阿琳认为PayPerks具备迈向全球市场的潜质。“我们期待成为一家面向全球中低收入消费者的顶级金融服务提供商，”她说。这种商业模式显然具有推动“公共利益”的一面，尽管阿琳表示这并非有意为之。她最初并不是打算创造一家全然致力于社会事业的公司，但在市场调研的过程中，她产生了一个想法，打算创建一家价值观共担的公司。在这样一家公司中，社会使命强化了利润使命。“这并不是妥协的产物，”她说。“它其实是各种意愿的重叠。”     阿琳和埃里克这些年来为彼此提供的非正式指导正在促使他们重返鲍登学院。埃里克的合作伙伴也是在布朗大学(Brown University)的课堂上构想出了他们最初的商业创意。戴维奇姐弟真希望他们在本科阶段就能够浸淫在类似的创业文化之中。他们经常听闻有过创业经历的其他校友表达过类似的情绪。     今年秋天，阿琳和埃里克正式启动了“鲍登创业系列讲座”(Bowdoin Startup Series)，进而让在校生有机会亲耳聆听杰出校友以不同方式成为企业家的创业历程。几位客座讲师每周五将莅临这个只需要申请就能参与的讲座。目前已有20位校友同意重返母校，讲述自己的创业故事。同时，这个讲座也有助于学生们建立宽广的人脉网络。     虽然埃里克和阿琳不愿透露他们有无一起创业的打算，但他们正计划一起投资其他的初创公司。姐弟俩的主要标准是，创业者必须具备非凡的个人素质。阿琳说：“一个最基本的信念是，为了成为一位成功的企业家，你必须具备饥渴感和灵活性，还需要坚持不懈，百折不挠。”这种素质是你在纸面上看不到的。而这对姐弟的经历，恰恰是这种信念最为生动的写照。（财富中文网）     译者：叶寒

At the time, prepaid debit cards were a new phenomenon and underutilized by the people who could gain from them the most. "The way you market anything is by educating people on the benefits in an engaging way," she says. "I thought, 'What would it look like to create an engaging and educational experience for this segment of consumers?' That was the problem that I aimed to solve with PayPerks." The solution? A sweepstakes-based rewards program that incentivizes learning about the benefits of financial products and, in turn, helps consumers capitalize off of them.     Arlyn decided to take her idea to Columbia's business plan competition. During early-morning running sessions with her brother, Arlyn practiced telling the PayPerks story to prepare. Arlyn was good at presenting; it was like rehearsing for a performance back at Bowdoin. Eric would give her feedback using the musical terms they both innately understood -- increase your tempo, start softer. Arlyn went on to win, gaining Columbia as her first investor. "It was just me at that point -- just me, a Powerpoint, and a dream," she jokes. She brought in a co-founder who had more experience on the technology side and spent the first year convincing MasterCard to sign on as a customer.     As an example of how PayPerks works, take a look at its partnership with the U.S. Treasury. Every year the Treasury pays billions in social security disbursement. A large portion goes to people without bank accounts, with most receiving benefits through the Treasury's own prepaid card called the Direct Express Debit MasterCard. Cardholders often go right to the ATM, Arlyn says, to take all their money out, negating the card's advantages. On April 1, PayPerks launched its rewards program for the Direct Express card. Users received a scratch-off game piece, which comes with an activation code. After registering the code to opt into the rewards program, users win points by following an educational curriculum on the benefits of the card. Soon they'll also be able to earn points by using the card in ways that help them save money -- avoiding ATM fees, enrolling in low balance alerts. Every point is a chance to win a cash prize with the winnings going back onto the card to drive ongoing engagement with the program.     PayPerks has 100,000 users and is targeting 250,000 by the end of the year. With more than half of the world's population living without a bank account, Arlyn thinks PayPerks has global applications. "We're looking to be the leading financial service marketplace for low- and middle-income consumers globally," she says. The business model clearly has a Common Good aspect to it, which Arlyn says wasn't by design. She didn't start out exclusively looking to launch a social venture, but in doing research she came across the idea of a shared-value company -- one in which the social mission reinforces the profit mission. "It's not a compromise," she says. "It's truly an alignment of intentions."     The informal guidance Arlyn and Eric have provided one another over the years is something they're now taking back to Bowdoin. Eric's partners had come up with the idea of their original business during a class at Brown, and the Davich siblings wished they had similar exposure to a startup culture during their time as undergrads. It was a sentiment they regularly heard echoed by other Bowdoin alumni who had started their own businesses.     This fall Arlyn and Eric are launching the Bowdoin Startup Series, a chance for current students to see firsthand examples of alumni who have been successful in different ways as entrepreneurs. Several guest lecturers will visit the application-only course each Friday. Already, twenty alumni have agreed to come back to tell their stories, which will also help students build a broad network.     While Eric and Arlyn shrug off the idea of starting a business together, they're looking at investing in other startups together. Their primary criterion is that the founders have exceptional personal qualities: "The underlying belief is in order to be a successful entrepreneur you have to be hungry, flexible, and relentlessly persistent," Arlyn says. It's something that you can't see on paper. In their case, it takes one to know one.