????時(shí)隔不久，布萊德?奧尼爾又回來(lái)了。

????那是在2007年末，幾個(gè)月前StumbleUpon（熱門的內(nèi)容發(fā)現(xiàn)網(wǎng)站，也是當(dāng)時(shí)他最受關(guān)注的一項(xiàng)投資）剛剛被eBay (EBAY)以7,500萬(wàn)美元現(xiàn)金收購(gòu)。StumbleUpon的天使投資人奧尼爾本可就此收手，坐享這筆豐厚的投資回報(bào)，有位記者將此稱為典型的互聯(lián)網(wǎng)灰姑娘故事。但是，他轉(zhuǎn)而創(chuàng)立了另一家公司。

????“我和蓋瑞特?坎普、杰夫?史密斯將StumbleUpon賣給eBay不久，就開(kāi)始考慮一個(gè)新的、要解決的問(wèn)題，”奧尼爾說(shuō)。“我在和懂技術(shù)的共同合伙人史蒂夫?諾埃爾談。他是一位行業(yè)分析師，總是為必須要寫的東西忙得暈頭轉(zhuǎn)向。我們討論的是內(nèi)容自動(dòng)化正在如何變得越來(lái)越有可能。當(dāng)時(shí)我在英屬維爾京群島度假，結(jié)果卻變成了與諾埃爾在Skype上聊天并醞釀后來(lái)成為TechValidate的種種設(shè)想?！?/p>

????奧尼爾將TechValidate的同名產(chǎn)品描述為“B2B公司軟件即服務(wù)的內(nèi)容自動(dòng)化平臺(tái)”。奧尼爾表示，自設(shè)內(nèi)容已成為受歡迎的營(yíng)銷手段，但企業(yè)團(tuán)隊(duì)很忙，難以提供足夠的定向內(nèi)容來(lái)保證有效性。TechValidate的工具可以從資料庫(kù)中導(dǎo)入它認(rèn)為對(duì)于B2B公司認(rèn)證用戶重要的內(nèi)容。營(yíng)銷人員審核后可在不同平臺(tái)上發(fā)布，包括營(yíng)銷自動(dòng)平臺(tái)、客戶關(guān)系管理工具、社交媒體渠道、網(wǎng)頁(yè)等等。

????“我們開(kāi)創(chuàng)了這個(gè)市場(chǎng)空間。我們出現(xiàn)之前沒(méi)有人做過(guò)這件事，”他說(shuō)?！拔覀兇蛟炝艘粋€(gè)內(nèi)容機(jī)器人，簡(jiǎn)化了營(yíng)銷團(tuán)隊(duì)的工作，以前他們總是為打造定向內(nèi)容而忙得暈頭轉(zhuǎn)向——工具實(shí)現(xiàn)的定向性是人類難以企及的?！?/p>

????TechValidate于2008年年中推出了產(chǎn)品，如今通用電氣(GE, GE)、惠普(Hewlett Packard, HP)、IBM、戴爾(Dell)、日立(Hitachi)、CA Technologies (CA)、SAP (SAP)和英特爾(Intel, INTC)都已經(jīng)是它的客戶。據(jù)奧尼爾稱，這家不接受外部投資的公司2013年實(shí)現(xiàn)營(yíng)收500萬(wàn)美元，今年有望達(dá)到1200萬(wàn)美元，實(shí)現(xiàn)盈利。

????“諾埃爾和我做出了一個(gè)非常清醒的決定，這家公司我們不打算尋求風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資，”奧尼爾說(shuō)?！拔覀兛偸菍⒆约号c在線調(diào)查網(wǎng)站SurveyMonkey相比，后者也有這樣的正反饋回路。如果我們收取的價(jià)格合理，我們不需要風(fēng)險(xiǎn)投資。我們第一年就實(shí)現(xiàn)了盈利，目前仍是如此?！?/p>

????First Round Capital的約什?考普曼曾經(jīng)投資StumbleUpon。他說(shuō)，奧尼爾和諾埃爾的做法是對(duì)的。“我認(rèn)為，很少有團(tuán)隊(duì)能像奧尼爾那樣不借助外部投資就取得這樣的成就。我們很少看到創(chuàng)業(yè)公司能在企業(yè)軟件領(lǐng)域達(dá)到規(guī)?；＿@是一條可行的道路，但不常見(jiàn)?！?/p>

????周二，這家公司宣布與甲骨文(Oracle, ORCL)合作，把自己的服務(wù)與甲骨文的營(yíng)銷自動(dòng)軟件Eloqua相整合。奧尼爾表示，TechValidate有35%的客戶同時(shí)使用Eloqua和TechValidate，整合能簡(jiǎn)化他們的工作，也能讓TechValidate通過(guò)EloquaAppCloud軟件樞紐到達(dá)更多受眾。

????“他們的挑戰(zhàn)是沒(méi)有這樣的內(nèi)容來(lái)填充頁(yè)面，”奧尼爾表示。“企業(yè)已經(jīng)做出了努力，花費(fèi)了數(shù)百萬(wàn)美元實(shí)施營(yíng)銷自動(dòng)化。他們意識(shí)到如果沒(méi)有內(nèi)容，這些努力并不能實(shí)現(xiàn)目標(biāo)。Eloqua的客戶要求以一種更簡(jiǎn)單的方式，將我們的內(nèi)容提取至他們的工作環(huán)境。現(xiàn)在，我們的任何共同客戶都能在Eloqua中建立、發(fā)布和集成我們的內(nèi)容——無(wú)需離開(kāi)Eloqua?！?/p>

????內(nèi)容自動(dòng)化蘊(yùn)藏著多大的商機(jī)？奧尼爾只是說(shuō)，他的公司處于“幾十億美元”的營(yíng)銷自動(dòng)化行業(yè)與440億美元內(nèi)容營(yíng)銷行業(yè)之間——“營(yíng)銷預(yù)算中最大的單一支出?！边@個(gè)領(lǐng)域真不賴。

????“因?yàn)槲覀兪瞧渲幸粋€(gè)，很難談?wù)摽偟目傻竭_(dá)市場(chǎng)，”他說(shuō)?！爱?dāng)你是獨(dú)角獸時(shí)，這是一件不言自明的事。但目前我們處于兩股令人激動(dòng)的趨勢(shì)之間，兩股趨勢(shì)都在快速增長(zhǎng)?！保ㄘ?cái)富中文網(wǎng)）

????譯者：早稻米

????It didn't take long for Brad O'Neill to get back in the game.

????It was late 2007, and StumbleUpon -- the popular content discovery service and his highest-profile investment at the time -- had just a few months earlier been scooped up by eBay (EBAY) for $75 million in cash. O'Neill, an angel investor for the company, could have easily sat back and enjoyed the return on what one reporter called "your typical dot-com Cinderella story." Instead, he started another company.

????"I had just sold StumbleUpon to eBay with Garrett Camp and Geoff Smith and was starting to think about a new problem to go solve," O'Neill says. "My technical co-founder Steve Norall and I were talking. He was working as an industry analyst and overwhelmed with all the writing he had to do. And we were talking about how content automation was becoming increasingly possible. I was in the British Virgin Islands on vacation and ruining it by Skyping with Steve and brainstorming what would become TechValidate."

????O'Neill describes TechValidate's namesake product as a "software-as-a-service content automation platform for B2B companies." Custom content has become a popular approach to marketing, but corporate teams are too busy to create content targeted enough to be effective, O'Neill says. TechValidate's tool imports content it deems relevant for verified customers of B2B companies from its library. Marketers then review it in private and publish it across platforms, whether in a marketing automation platform, in a customer relations management tool, on social media channels, or on the web.

????"We invented the space. Nobody was doing it before we showed up," he says."We built a content robot that is designed to make it simple for a marketing team that is already overstretched to build targeted content -- so targeted that a human couldn't do it."

????TechValidate introduced its product in the middle of 2008 and now counts GE (GE), Hewlett Packard (HP), IBM (IBM), Dell, Hitachi, CA Technologies (CA), SAP (SAP), and Intel (INTC) as customers. O'Neill says the company -- which did not accept outside investment -- made $5 million in revenue in 2013 and is on track to make $12 million, profitably, this year.

????"Steve and I had a very conscious decision that we weren't going to seek venture money for this," O'Neill says. "We kept comparing ourselves to SurveyMonkey, which also has these very positive feedback loops. If we're charging the right amount of money, we won't need venture money. We turned profitable in our first year and we still are."

????Josh Kopelman of First Round Capital, which invested in StumbleUpon, says O'Neill and Norall have the right approach. "I don't believe many teams could have accomplished what Brad has without outside investment. We just don't see too many bootstrapped businesses getting to scale in enterprise software. It's a viable path, but uncommon."

????On Tuesday, the company announced a partnership with Oracle (ORCL) to integrate its service into Eloqua, that company's marketing automation software. O'Neill describes the deal as a way to make it easier for the 35% of his customers who use Eloqua and TechValidate together, but the arrangement also exposes his company to a larger audience through its presence in the EloquaAppCloud software hub.

????"The challenge they have is that they don't have all this content to fill these pages," O'Neill says. "Companies have gone out and spent millions of dollars for marketing automation, and they realize that the deployment doesn't achieve its objectives without content. Eloqua customers were asking for a more streamlined way to pull our assets into that environment. So now any of our joint customers have the ability to build and distribute and syndicate our content in Eloqua -- they don't have to leave it."

????Just how big an opportunity is content automation? O'Neill would only say that his company sits in between the "multibillion-dollar" marketing automation industry and the $44 billion content marketing industry -- "the single largest line item in the marketing budget." It's not a bad place to be.

????"Because we're one of a kind, it's difficult to talk about a total addressable market," he says. "When you're a unicorn it's a self-serving thing. But we're sitting between two wonderful trends that are both increasing."