大学生死党上演现实版“中国合伙人”

爱思英语编者按：在最近大热的影片《中国合伙人》中，作为“铁三角”之一的王阳曾表示千万不要和死党一起创业。而今天要介绍的这对80后大学生用事实证明了死党创业也可以越走越好。

Best friends’ idea finally takes off
大学生死党上演现实版“中国合伙人”

Have pillow fights with your friends, camp on the roof of a villa, dress up like a pirate and hunt treasures, or put on clown face paint to fight against Batman. Sounds interesting, doesn’t it?
和朋友来场“枕头大战”、露宿别墅屋顶、扮成海盗去寻宝，或是扮“小丑”大战蝙蝠侠。这些听上去是不是很有意思？

In a blunt challenge to the warning in American Dreams in China, which says “never start a business with your best friends”, Ouyang Sidi, a graduate from Zhongkai University of Agriculture and Engineering, and Wang Jingsheng, a graduate from South China Normal University, who are best friends, are offering these fun activities through their company. According to them, they’re “on the right track”.
为了向《中国合伙人》中王阳的那句“千万不要和你的死党创业”，仲恺农业工程学院毕业生欧阳斯迪（音译）和华南师范大学的毕业生王京生（音译）这对好友合伙开了家公司，专门提供以上这些有趣的活动。在他们眼中，这条路算是走对了。

The pair met while working for a local department store in Guangzhou after graduating in 2008. They were bored with the daily routine of their work.
2008年毕业后，二人在广州一家百货商场工作时相识。日复一日的日常工作令他们感到厌烦。

“There aren’t many interactive activities in China for adults,” says Ouyang. “So we thought, why not set up a company ourselves to offer more interactive events? It could be a good idea for a startup.”
“国内还没有多少家专门为成年人提供互动活动的公司，”欧阳斯迪说。“所以我们想，为何不自己开家公司，来提供更多的互动活动呢？这或许是个创立的好点子。”

So they set up a company that offers young professionals a platform to socialize and have fun. They make money by organizing the activities and getting sponsored. They figured that young professionals are an attractive target for advertising companies.
于是他们创立了一家公司，专门为年轻白领们提供一个交友和娱乐的平台。他们的公司通过组织活动和拉赞助来盈利。他们发现，对于广告公司而言，年轻的专业人士是一个极具吸引力的目标群体。

But ideas are always a step away from reality. After founding the company in 2009, Ouyang had many ideas that he thought were interesting, but no clients picked up on them.
但理想与现实间总是有一步之遥。自2009年公司成立以来，欧阳想出了许多他自认为很有趣的点子，但没有客户愿意采纳。

For his pillow fight idea, Ouyang’s calculation was as follows: Inviting 300 people and charging them 200 yuan each equals 60,000 yuan in income.
关于“枕头大战”这个想法，欧阳斯迪的预估是这样的：邀请300人前来参加、每人收取200元，这样就能赚到6万元。

That’s a lot of money, but it didn’t turn out as expected. “Only 30 people signed up, so we reduced the price several times,” says Ouyang. “Finally it was a free event.”
尽管这是笔不小的数目，但结果却差强人意。“只有30人报名参加，所以我们不得不多次降价，”欧阳斯迪表示。“最后成了一次免费活动。”

They discussed the problem of not having enough publicity for their company and the activities they offered. So they set up event pages on Douban.com to attract young people, handed out flyers on university campuses, and recruited student volunteers to help organize and promote the events.
针对公司及活动宣传力度不足的问题，他们展开一番讨论。之后，他们便在豆瓣网上开设活动网页来吸引年轻人关注、在大学校园里发传单并招募学生志愿者来帮忙进行活动组织和推广工作。

Ouyang and Wang found that the passionate and energetic student volunteers were full of inspiration and made a good team. So they invested more money in training them and communicating with students.
欧阳斯迪和王京生发现这群充满热情与活力的学生志愿者灵感迸发，善于团队协作。所以他们在培训志愿者和与学生交流这两个方面投入了更多的资金。

But creativity doesn’t guarantee commercial success.
但是创造力无法保证商业上的成功。

In the first two years, the company didn’t win any sponsors and lost money on nearly every event.
刚开始的两年，公司没有拉到任何赞助，几乎每个活动都亏本。

“The sky was gray for us. We couldn’t find a way out. It was very frustrating,” says Ouyang.
欧阳斯迪说：“我们眼中的天是灰色的，找不到任何出路，十分沮丧。”

But after constantly trying, an idea for throwing a Halloween party finally paid off. They got a call from Coca-Cola Co, who agreed to sponsor the event, and for the first time they made money.
但是在一次次的尝试过后，举办万圣节派对的提案终于大获成功。可口可乐公司打来电话表示愿意对此次活动提供赞助，他们第一次尝到了赚钱的滋味。

“I almost cried. From then on, everything became better,” says Ouyang.
欧阳斯迪说：“我几乎快哭出来了。从那以后，一切都变得越来越好。”

More and more companies started asking them to organize activities, including Pearl River Beer, Ricoh and Star Cruises.
越来越多想要组织活动的公司找上门来，其中包括珠江啤酒、日本理光以及丽星邮轮。

Last week the two best friends bought a BMW sedan and they think it’s now time to expand the business.
上周，这对死党买了辆宝马汽车，因为他们觉得是时候要扩大业务了。

“Others have begun copying our business model and we’re about to launch some new projects,” says Ouyang.
欧阳斯迪说：“其他人开始效仿我们的经营模式，而我们也将推出一些新项目。”

Fingers crossed.
祝他们好运！