原文是原Benchmark的合伙人、现Wealthfront的创始人Andy的文章。作为知名VC、大学讲师和成功创业者，他对颠覆性的思考很深入。颠覆有两种路径：1）新市场颠覆； 2）低端颠覆。但其核心都是让现有的行业玩家从收入和成本结构上无法做出反应。

Entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley love to talk about disruption, though few know what it really means. They mistake better products for disruptive ones. Silicon Valley was built on a culture of designing products that are “better, cheaper, faster,” but that does not mean they are disruptive.

硅谷的创业者喜欢谈论颠覆，但是很少有人知道它的真正含义。他们经常把好产品误认为是颠覆性的产品。硅谷的文化是是设计“更好，更便宜，更快”的产品，但是，这并不意味着他们是颠覆性的。

I mistook better, cheaper, faster for disruptive when I became an entrepreneur. This was after I had spent years thinking about disruption as a venture capitalist, and even structured a Stanford Graduate School of Business class around Clay Christensen’s book, The Innovator’s Dilemma.

我自己成为创业者以后，也把“更好，更便宜，更快”等同于颠覆性。这还是我作为一名风险投资家花了多年的时间思考什么是颠覆性，甚至我还在斯坦福商学院，围绕Christensen的书—创新者的困境，开了一门课。

DISRUPTION’S BEGINNNING 颠覆一词的来源

Christensen, a Harvard Business School professor, defined “disruption” in The Innovator’s Dilemma. In short, a disruptive product addresses a market that previously couldn’t be served — a new-market disruption — or it offers a simpler, cheaper or more convenient alternative to an existing product — a low-end disruption.

Christensen是哈佛商学院教授，在“创新者的困境”一书中定义了颠覆一词。简单讲，一个颠覆性的产品就是：1）要么去满足一个以前无法被服务的市场，即所谓一个新市场的颠覆；2）或者相对于现有产品提供了一个更简单、更便宜或更方便的选择，即低端颠覆。

An incumbent in the market finds it almost impossible to respond to a disruptive product. In a new-market disruption, the unserved customers are unserved precisely because serving them would be unprofitable given the incumbent’s business model. In a low-end disruption, the customers lost typically are unprofitable for the incumbents, so the big companies are happy to lose them.

市场上的现有玩家几乎不可能对一种颠覆性的产品做出回应。在一个新市场的颠覆中，客户之所有没有被现有的公司服务到，是因为他们的商业模式如果去服务这些用户将无利可图。在低端颠覆中， 失去的用户通常是对现有公司不能带来利润的用户， 所有大公司很高兴地失去他们。

Thus, the innovator’s dilemma. Incumbents appropriately ignore the new product because it is uneconomic to respond, but the incumbents’ quiescence can lead to their later downfall.

因此，就有了创新者的困境。现有公司很自然的会忽视新产品，因为回应它是不经济的，但是他们的沉默将导致他们后来的垮台。

CASE STUDIES IN DISRUPTION 颠覆的案例研究

Google: Disrupting online advertising. Most people correctly refer to Google as disruptive but don’t understand why. Google’s search algorithm wasn’t disruptive. It was AdWords, its advertising service. In contrast with Yahoo, which required advertisers to spend at least $5,000 to create a compelling banner ad and $10,000 for a minimum ad purchase, Google offered a self-service ad product for as little as $1.

谷歌：颠覆在线广告。大多数人都说的对，谷歌是颠覆性的，但是不明白为什么。谷歌的搜索算法不是颠覆性的。真正颠覆性的是AdWords，它的广告服务。与雅虎相比，雅虎要求广告主至少花5000美金创建一个引人注目的横幅广告，最少的广告采购为1万美金，而谷歌提供的自助服务广告产品最低只需要1美金。

The initial AdWords customers were startups that couldn’t afford to advertise on Yahoo. A five-word text ad offered inferior fidelity compared with a display ad, but Google enabled a whole new audience to advertise online. A classic new-market disruption. Most have forgotten that Google added significant capability to its advertising service over time and then used its much-lower-cost business model (enabled by self-service) to pursue classic Internet advertisers. Thus it evolved into a low-end disruption.

最初的AdWords客户是那些无力在雅虎做广告的初创公司。和雅虎的展示广告相比，5个单词的的文字广告显得低劣，但谷歌让一个全新的用户群可以在网上做广告。这是一个典型的新市场颠覆。大多数人都忘记了，随着时间的推移，谷歌显著的强化了其广告服务的能力，然后利用其更低成本的商业模式（依靠自助服务）追求传统的的互联网广告客户。因此演变成一个低端颠覆。

Salesforce: Disrupting CRM. Salesforce started as a new-market disruption and evolved into a low-end disruption. Its initial product had fewer features than Siebel Systems’ software, but Salesforce made it possible for companies that couldn’t afford a multi-million dollar license fee to employ sales force management software. Once it built a critical mass and further developed its product, Salesforce disrupted Siebel and other CRM companies from below.

Salesforce：颠覆CRM。 Salesforce开始的时候也是新市场颠覆，然后逐渐演变成一个低端颠覆。其最初的产品比Siebel公司的软件功能少很多，但Salesforce让那些付不起动辄几百万美金许可费的公司也可以采用销售管理软件。一旦它积累的用户到达一定的临界点，并且进一步完善了其产品，Salesforce就从下面开始颠覆Siebel和其他CRM公司。

It is far more common for a product to be only a new-market disruption or only a low-end disruption. eBay brought auctions to the non-Sotheby’s crowd. Amazon’s amazing business is simpler, cheaper and more convenient than shopping at a store.

更加常见的是产品只有一种颠覆性，要么是新市场颠覆，要么是低端颠覆。 eBay把拍卖引入了非苏富比的人群。亚马逊令人惊叹的业务相比线下商店购物，更简单，更便宜而且更方便。

DEMYSTIFYING DISRUPTION 解密颠覆

Disruptive products don’t have to be cheaper. A low-end disruption doesn’t have to be lower priced than existing products. Christensen says a low-end disruption must be simpler, cheaper or more convenient. Uber is a great example of a disruptive service that is more convenient, but more expensive than its taxi alternative.

颠覆性的产品不一定要更便宜。低端颠覆不一定就是要比现有产品的价格低。Chistensen说低端颠覆一定要更简单，更便宜或更方便。Uber是一个颠覆性服务的典型代表，它更加方便，但比起其替代的出租车而言价格更贵。

Low-end disruptions are usually inferior. It is also possible to offer a low-end disruption through an inferior product. In fact, almost all disruptions start out with products that are inferior to those of the incumbents. This is possible when current customers are “over served” by existing products.

低端颠覆通常产品低一等。通过低一等的产品来进行低端颠覆是可能的。事实上，几乎所有的颠覆都是从那些和现有产品比起来显得低一等的产品开始的。特别是，如果目前的客户被现有的产品“过度服务”的话。

Ubiquiti, a supplier of Wi-Fi equipment that went public about a year ago, is an example of this kind of disruption. It sells dirt-cheap access points that are designed, manufactured and distributed by third parties. Ubiquiti’s products are dirt cheap because they offer far fewer features that appeal to the most cost-sensitive audience and because the company employs very few people. Not surprisingly, Ubiquiti is taking major market share from the incumbents.

Ubiquiti是一家提供Wi-Fi设备的供应商， 一年前上市。它是低端颠覆的一个典型例子。它销售第三方设计、制造和分销的极其便宜的接入点。 Ubiquiti产品都非常便宜，因为它的功能很少，而且对那些成本最敏感的用户很有吸引力，同时还因为公司的员工人很少。毫不奇怪，Ubiquiti公司从现有行业玩家手上获取了很大的市场份额。

A better product isn’t necessarily disruptive. Tesla has built new cars that I think are tremendous, but the company is not disruptive. It doesn’t address consumers who can’t solve their current problems with existing cars, and its cars are not far less expensive than the incumbents’ cars.

更好的产品并不一定是颠覆性的。特斯拉建造出新的汽车，我认为是了不起的事情。但是这家公司并不是颠覆性的。它面对的客户，并没有说利用现在的汽车有什么无法解决的问题。而且，它的汽车和现有的公司的汽车相比，售价也不低。

Kayak went public a few months ago and is thought by many to be disruptive. While it’s a better service than alternative travel sites, it is not disruptive by the Christensen definition, because it is not uneconomic for the incumbents to respond (and many have).

Kayak几个月前刚上市，被许多人认为是颠覆性的。虽然它比其他旅游网站提供了更好的服务，这也不是Christensen定义的颠覆性，因为对现有的公司来讲，回应它并没有什么不经济（很多公司已经开始做了）。

Business models, not products, are disruptive. People sometimes say a technology is disruptive. It’s more appropriate to call the business model disruptive. In order for a company to disrupt, the revenue and cost structure of the incumbents that the company faces must keep them from responding. It’s easy for other companies to add Kayak-like technology to existing products. The business model, not the technology, usually determines whether it is uneconomic for the incumbent to pursue the disruptor.

商业模式，而不是产品，才是颠覆性的。人们有时说技术是颠覆性的。更恰当应该说商业模式才是颠覆性的。为了使公司能够颠覆，该公司所面对的对手，那些现有的玩家，它们的收入和成本结构必须阻碍它们做出应对的措施。对于Kayak而言，其他公司很容易添加类似的技术到现有的产品。商业模式，而不是技术，通常决定了对现有玩家而言，效仿颠覆者是否经济上有利可图。

If you apply this model of disruption to past fads, you can predict with incredible reliability which products turn into long-term successful businesses and which ones don’t.

如果你把颠覆的这个模型应用到过去的潮流，你可以难以置信的准确预测到，哪些产品会成为长期成功的企业，而其余则不行。

FROM VC TO ENTREPRENEUR 从VC到创业者

You would think a guy who has witnessed many disruptions over a 25-year venture capital career and teaches disruption would find designing a disruptive strategy easy. I thought I’d found the formula with Wealthfront’s initial service, which was meant to be disruptive to mutual funds. In hindsight, we built a better product than the alternatives, but it wasn’t disruptive.

你可能认为，对一个做了25年VC见证过许多颠覆的人并且还在在大学教颠覆的人，设计一个颠覆性战略很容易。我以为Wealthfront的初始产品已经找到了秘方，有望颠覆共同基金行业。事后看来，我们只是创建了比替代品更好的产品，但它不是颠覆性的。

Contrary to conventional wisdom, startups with better products seldom succeed unless they are also disruptive. We hadn’t been growing as fast as we had wanted to, and then I happened to reread a Christensen chapter on competition to prepare for a class I was about to teach. It immediately hit me that our initial service had no chance.

与传统观念相反，更好的产品很少能获得成功，除非他们同时也是颠覆性的。我们的增长没有原来预想的那么快，然后我在准备一节课程的时候，偶然重读了Christensen关于竞争的一个章节。它立刻打动了我，让我意识到我们的初始产品没有机会。

We began to find success when we transitioned into a software-based financial advisor attempting a new-market disruption by serving young people who can’t afford the high minimums associated with traditional financial advisors (financial advisors can’t afford to lower their minimums to compete with us).

我们把业务转成基于软件的理财顾问服务，尝试新市场颠覆，目标是那些无力满足传统财务顾问所要求的入门资金门槛的年轻人。（财务顾问无法降低他们的门槛要求来和我们竞争，因为那样对他们不经济）

Understanding disruption is hard. Disrupting is even harder.

理解颠覆是很难的。而颠覆本身，则是难上加难。