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Entrepreneurs set themselves apart from the rest of us by seeing the opportunity rather than just the problem, as Israel-based IDC Herzliya graduate Itay Eral proved when he created Zeek, an online gift voucher marketplace.
创业家与其他人的区别在于，他们在看到问题的同时，还能看出机遇。以色列赫兹利亚跨学科研究中心(IDC Herzliya)毕业生Itay Eral创建在线礼品券交易市场Zeek的经历，就证明了这一点。
Unwanted present
多余的礼物
Mr Eral admits to causing “quite an issue”, shortly after his wedding in 2013, when he misplaced an unwanted gift voucher he had received as a present. But after explaining his mistake to his wife, Mr Eral guessed that many others could have suffered similarly and wondered whether he could find a solution.
Eral承认，2013年结婚后不久，他把作为礼物收到的一张不想要的礼品券放错了地方，那件事引起了“相当大的一个问题”。但在向妻子解释了错误之后，Eral猜想很多人可能会遭遇类似经历，并揣测能否找到一个解决方案。
After a bit of research, Mr Eral discovered that his hunch was right. About 30 per cent of vouchers worldwide are never cashed in, and not just because the owners lose them.
经过一番研究，Eral发现他的直觉是正确的。全球约有30%的礼品券从未被兑现，而原因不只是所有者把它们弄丢了。
“That amounts to about £65bn, which ends up in the bin,” he notes. “I decided to find a solution, and created a marketplace for gift vouchers.”
“这相当于约£650亿英镑最终被丢入了垃圾箱，”他指出。“我决定寻找一个解决方案，于是创建了一个礼券交易市场。”
Team building
团队建设
Mr Eral discussed his idea with Daniel Zelkind, whom he met on the MBA course at IDC Herzliya. They then wrote a business plan for Zeek, where customers can sell unwanted vouchers and buy them at a discount, and pitched it to Uri Levine, an Israeli entrepreneur who had sold his tech start-up Waze to Google for $1.3bn. He agreed to back the venture with some of his own money and became their chairman.
Eral与Daniel Zelkind探讨了自己的创意，两人在IDC Herzliya的MBA课上结识。之后，他俩为Zeek写一份商业计划，在该网站上，顾客可以出售自己不想要的礼品券，并以折扣价购买所需的礼品券。他们将这份商业计划介绍给以色列创业家尤里•莱文(Uri Levine)，后者曾以13亿美元将自己的科技初创企业Waze卖给了谷歌(Google)。莱文同意拿出一部分资金支持这个项目，并出任董事长。
“Zeek was a perfect match for me,” Mr Levine says, adding that it has similarities with businesses he has previously been involved with. “It deals with a big problem [and] it is doing good for consumers. It is part of the innovative sharing economy that I love and it is simply making the world a better place.”
莱文说：“Zeek对我是一个完美的契合，”他补充说，它与他之前参与过的商业项目有相似之处。“它解决的是一个大问题，（而且）它为消费者带来好处。它是我热爱的创新型共享经济的一部分，它简简单单地让世界变得更美好。”
Three months after Mr Levine came on board, following an intensive period of software development, the team had an app and Zeek started trading.
莱文加盟三个月后，经过一段时间的密集软件开发，该团队拥有了一款应用，Zeek开始交易。
Skills and values
技能和价值观
Business schools played a key role in the company’s creation, Mr Eral claims. If he had not studied at IDC Herzliya for his MBA, he would never have met Mr Zelkind, now Zeek’s chief executive.
Eral称，商学院对于该公司的创建发挥了关键作用。如果他没有在IDC Herzliya攻读MBA，他就不可能遇到Zelkind，后者如今担任Zeek的首席执行官。
“If we hadn’t met each other I’m not sure whether Zeek would have been born,” he says, adding that the course also taught them a lot.
“如果我们没有相遇，我不确定Zeek还会不会诞生，”他说。MBA课程也教会了他们很多，他补充道。
“The MBA was a formative experience as we needed to build the right team and it allowed us to tap into like-minded, aspirational people who were willing to volunteer their ideas, support and resources to make Zeek a success.”
“MBA是一段确立基本观念的重要经历，因为我们需要建立合适的团队，它让我们找到志趣相投、有抱负的人们，大家愿意贡献自己的想法、支持和资源，集思广益，让Zeek获得成功。”
Growth potential
增长潜力
Zeek, initially set up in Israel, launched its business in the UK in 2014 where it seeks to tap into a gift card and voucher industry that is worth a potential £5bn. About 47 per cent of adults receive more than one gift card a year and more than half of those are never redeemed.
2014年，最初成立于以色列的Zeek在英国推出了自己的业务，试图开发这里潜在价值达50亿英镑的礼品卡和礼品券产业。大约47%的成年人每年收到超过一张礼品卡，而超过一半的礼品卡从未被兑现。
Retailers benefit from Zeek’s service just as much as those with the vouchers, according to Mr Eral, who claims that people tend to spend about 40 per cent more than the face value of their gift cards when they redeem them in store.
Eral认为，零售商与持有礼品券的人一样，也能获益于Zeek的服务。他宣称，当人们在商店兑现这些礼品券时，他们的消费往往会超过礼品卡面值约40%。
Zeek’s app has more than 80,000 users, a number that has been doubling every month, says Mr Eral. The business aims to increase this as well as the transaction size for each user.
Eral介绍说，Zeek的应用拥有超过8万用户，这一数字正在以每月翻一倍的速度增长。该企业目标不仅是增加用户数量，还要扩大每名用户的交易规模。
“We have thousands of transactions a month and the average transaction is approximately £30,” Mr Eral explains.
“我们每个月有上万笔交易，平均每笔交易约为30英镑，”Eral解释说。
He says that the company is on track to be profitable by the beginning of 2016. “We want to become a big player in the UK market and we plan to open four additional offices over the course of 2015 in European countries which are comparable to the UK and likewise highly digitised.”
他说，该公司有望在2016年初实现盈利。“我们要成为英国市场的主要竞争者，而且我们计划在2015年期间在与英国相仿、而且同样高度数字化的欧洲国家新增四家办事处。”
