The research on technology, technology and other aspects can sometimes be fed back to daily product design. For example, in this article, the author summarized some of his thoughts in the field of product technology, including product innovation, business models and other aspects

2025/06/1708:05:27 hotcomm 1360

's research on technology, technology and other aspects can sometimes be fed back to daily product design. For example, in this article, the author summarized some of his thoughts in the field of product technology, including product innovation, business models and other aspects. Let's take a look.

The research on technology, technology and other aspects can sometimes be fed back to daily product design. For example, in this article, the author summarized some of his thoughts in the field of product technology, including product innovation, business models and other aspects - DayDayNews

The following summarizes my thought notes in the field of product technology (about 30,000 words). Welcome to leave messages, exchanges and discussions! Many of the inspiration for thinking came from Paul's "Hackers and Painters", Lu Qi and other technology giants, and some investors in Silicon Valley .

enjoy!

1. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

through the front-end capabilities of the technology front-end (such as positioning, camera and other capabilities, which belong to front-end capabilities).

I wonder what products your first reaction is? Here we can list a few: Didi : a taxi travel platform based on positioning capabilities, various map platforms (such as Baidu Map , Tencent map, Gaode Map , etc.); Meitu Xiuxiu : a picture editing community based on camera + filter...

adapts the novel core front-end capabilities released by these manufacturers to certain scenarios, which may produce a unique product experience and even a business model.

1. From gyroscope to "Shake Undo"

front-end capability of gyroscope based on shaking: Apple has added the "Shake Undo" function. The scenario is: When the user enters a piece of text and wants to undo it, he can undo it by shaking the phone without having to work hard to delete the text one by one. This improves the efficiency of text management. After the front-end capability + scenario adaptation of

can improve the user's document usage experience.

2. From "TrueDepth" to eye protection mode

Tencent Video app provides the "eye protection mode" function when playing videos. When the user's eyes are within 40 cm of the screen, the system detects and pops up a pop-up prompt. This provides a good solution for children to protect their eyes when watching videos. This product solution has won the German Red Dot Award and IF Award.

In fact, monitoring the distance between the user and the screen through the camera, which is actually developed using the TrueDepth API depth sensor component provided by Apple , which can capture the relative distance between the user's face and the phone. This front-end capability + scenario adaptation helps users reduce the probability of myopia. A small optimization can make the product experience level and solve a specific social common problem. Why not do it?

3. From "GPS and base station positioning " to fast taxi-hailing

, the two front-end capabilities of the mobile phone's GPS and base station positioning, users use their mobile phones to accurately locate the call and taxi-hailing needs, which has become a new travel model.

4. From "sensing camera" to 3D imaging (game, medical, etc. applications...)

Sony Xperia XZ1 phone provides the ability to scan 3D and uses Motion Eye technology. According to the demonstration video, the user's environment was restored through 3D to obtain a three-dimensional perspective experience. Stereo imaging can be applied to games, entertainment, medical and other scenarios. In addition, Apple iPhone X phones also use depth sensing cameras for 3D scanning and imaging.

As the front-end capabilities become stronger and stronger, the better the experience users get, and new products and business models are established.

should pay attention to the emergence of new front-end capabilities, and new products and business models based on de-design.

needs to continue to think about these front-end capabilities. includes: What are the applications of front-end capabilities? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the new front-end capabilities of manufacturers currently? What new capabilities will mobile phone manufacturers add in the next 1 to 3 years? In addition to mobile phones and other IoT machines and equipment, if sensors are added, what opportunities will be born? Now, what kind of front-end capabilities have you discovered that can be integrated into product design, operation and other work?

provides a thought experiment: If you have a privilege to install a front-end component (such as a gyroscope or something you think is worth it), what would you do based on this capability?

2. The way to improve efficiency

From the development history of steam engine , gas engine and gasoline diesel power engine, I got some inspiration:

1. Improved innovation: the balance of efficiency, cost and direction

When the steam engine first appeared, Volkswagen showed interest, kicking off the industrial revolution . However, with the advancement of technology, the power efficiency of steam engines is still limited. Through small technological improvements and small innovations, users' satisfaction is getting lower and lower, and they gradually develop a strong interest in other new things. Once such products or companies appear, users will immediately give up their previous plans (this involves replacement costs or migration costs. If the migration costs are less than the satisfaction brought by innovation, it is easy to cause transfer).

The steam engine at that time was constantly improved, and many engineers improved it, but the efficiency of improvement was limited, which was an innovation of improved nature. This will waste R&D costs. So, the engineer changed direction, studied the gas steam engine and fuel steam engine and made breakthroughs. This also tells us that the process of discovering that technological product innovation is not a straight line but a curve. When the initial plan cannot be carried out, changing the path may be a new world.

When incremental innovation brings fewer and fewer changes, it is a good time to enter. In this process, alternative technology applications will emerge. The new four-stroke gas machine made of Otto is an improvement in cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Use less gas to provide more power. With the improvement of this core indicator alone, Otto and the Lancet Company produced 30,000 gas machines in the past 10 years.

2. Reverse push innovation: Define core indicators + get rid of limitations

Think in turn, what should we do if we want to improve a technological innovation that is recognized by the market and produces competitiveness? Based on the development path from steam engine to gas engine, a simple deduction was made: the goal of

is to improve the product, and a set of core indicators based on technological progress should be defined. finds corresponding solutions through core indicators. Combining solutions to obtain innovative technical product solutions.

is based on, for example, the following two indicators: fuel efficiency and power efficiency. In the process of index innovation, we get rid of the limitations of the original product (steam engine), conduct experiments from a wider perspective, question basic power raw materials, power generation mechanism, etc., and finally we get innovative technology products (gas engines). Similar examples have also been explained in the previous article, such as small-sized hard disks.

This is a backward push-up technology innovation.

The logic of restoring the facts: It turns out that the fuel waste of gas engine technology is serious. Once the gas efficiency is improved, the power will be greater, so it can adapt to more usage scenarios and match more technical applications (such as various motor power equipment: cranes, printing machines, small power stations, etc.). This four-rush gas engine has become a powerful supplement to the steam engine, directly promoting the development of gasoline engines and diesel engines .

3. One of the driving forces of technological innovation: high cost performance

In short, the reason why it can make it popular is: it spends less money and has many benefits. This is cost-effective. Making bulky, inefficient and troublesome equipment and software applications lighter, faster, thinner, easier to carry, smaller in size, lower in price... High cost performance activates the demand side, promotes the development of the supply side, passes market inspection and drives the development of innovation. This is one of the core logics that produce technological innovation.The process of

is accompanied by the improvement of technology, the development of software and hardware equipment, the changes in customer groups, and the promotion of events (the previous articles have been analyzed and discussed). From this perspective, the pursuit of high cost-effectiveness (the emergence of similar technological innovations) may be an accident at a point in time rather than an inevitability of subjective pursuit. But the rationality lies in that after building effective tools and strategies, we can achieve this goal more efficiently.

4. Thinking about the VR technology application boom that broke out in the market in the past few years (such as VR a few years ago), if you want to define several sets of technical indicators that can generate greater promotion and user use, what are these indicators?

Another example: According to the latest trend in 2022 disclosed by Baidu Research Institute, it talks about the application of AI in medicine and scientific research. If you want to apply it on a large scale, what core technical indicators need to be formulated? What technical indicators can be achieved by using AI to solve medical problems? I think these are topics worth thinking about. Hopefully, further discussion of this will be discussed in the future.

3. From complex to popular

Think from the perspective of others, concepts and empathy, and viewing problems from the perspective of others can generally be understood as the same meaning. Regarding the perspective of others, Paul proposed several key points:

can explain complex concepts in popular words. The software functions themselves can explain themselves (that is, they can meet the user's usage habits, and do not try to let them learn the instructions). The technical products designed should be assumed that the user originally knew nothing. This corresponds to the designer's perspective. The designers themselves know the logic of their design, but they assume that the user knows it too. This makes the software difficult to use.

This is the user-centric design.

It is easy to think from the perspective of others, but it is not easy to maintain such a habit. For example: Explaining what a database is, if it is explained directly based on the official definition, it is tantamount to those who do not have any technical knowledge and is difficult to make sense. Therefore, we should go from their perspective to interpret, for example, after understanding their various characteristics (age, gender, preferences, learning level, etc.), we should express them based on their understanding and cognitive level.

Excellent product: It itself explains everything

makes the function explanatory. This is a great mindset. The design of the function itself can tell the user how to do it without additional explanation. Thinking advocates efficiency.

Think about it in turn: If a product is not explanatory, let’s take a look at what problems are: Since the product itself is not explanatory, external explanation is needed:

  • provides too many instructions for guiding bullet windows when entering the product.
  • provides a complete and in-depth instruction manual for the management backend.
  • constantly weighs the hierarchical relationship of product functions. Users find it difficult to find the functions they need in a short period of time, and can only explore the location of the functions by tossing a coin.
  • makes the product visible is not what you gain. For example, by adding an asynchronous process, the same function can be satisfied separately.
  • When users use products, they can constantly communicate with customer service, product, and continue to ask questions to master the usage method and logic of the product.
  • has certain non-essential or non-core functions in unsuitable scenarios. For example, can we provide a conspicuous electronic invoice reimbursement portal during Didi calling a private car? electronic invoice is interpretable in this scenario?
  • provides logic or functionality of a wrong or misleading nature. Let the explanation itself have problems.

By sorting out these unexplained products, I found many problems. In the actual product definition and design process, these issues need to be clarified. The

function is interpretable, allowing users to understand how to use it without reading the instruction manual. The function itself provides a guiding role! Good products and functions do not need explanation at all, but are integrated into the user's own habitual nature. A simple example of

is: when playing Youku video horizontally when holding a mobile phone, the video automatically prompts the user that the direction has been locked.Therefore, the locking function does not need to be "explained" again, and users do not need to click the "Unlock/Unlock" icon to use and understand directly.

Another example: "lack" products on the homepage guidance first take precedence over meeting the core needs of users, and will not let users lose their original desire to be satisfied through various pop-up windows and guidance! Functionality is explanatory and is itself part of the efficiency upgrade. The reason why

can achieve this is that it has already seen the places where efficiency is wasted, the human habits of using it, and the use of empathy . The function itself is explanatory and is not limited to Internet products, but includes various software and hardware products, smart products, etc. Because its underlying logic is empathy.

is designed based on empathy and can consider user needs and meet them more possibilities. This is something that cannot be escaped. Migrate this principle to the products and features you design, and if it is really excellent, what is the explanatory nature of it?

4. Decision-making mode: guided by problem difficulty

From the perspective of syntax structure, it can be compared with "problem-guided". Its core meaning is to export solutions through the discovered problems and continuously meet users' needs through the solution of problems. "Guide with problems", the core word is "problem". "Guide by the difficulty of the problem", the core word is "difficulty of the problem", that is, by overcoming the nature of people and organizations and actively solving difficult problems, we can achieve certain goals. Here we focus on "pursuing difficulty".

Through the thoughts disclosed by "Hackers and Painters", I roughly understand the core meaning of the author's words (the author Paul was originally the founder of a startup company, and his company was later acquired by Yahoo. This is a narrative background based on the difficulty of problems). The benefits of

's choice of a decision-making model that is oriented towards the difficulty of the problem are mainly reflected in the following 4 aspects:

  1. The more difficult the problem, the higher the threshold, and it is difficult for other companies to enter, let alone compete. The more difficult the problem of
  2. , the more resources it requires, it will easily drag down competitors. Conversely, in the end, you will be the winner. The harder the
  3. problem, the more innovative and valuable the solution may be (for example, the McDonald's chain follows strict regulations through the copying process, just like software, which spreads its retail stores all over the world). The more difficult the problem, the fewer people explore it, it means that the more unique and difficult the solution to the problem is, it is irreplaceable, and has a commercial moat.

This requires a slight transformation of the mindset.

is a difficult problem for us and is also a difficult problem for others. If the resources cannot be competed, you will naturally be unable to enter the market or have weak competitiveness if you enter the market. Once we are weakening the state behind the problem, it may mean that we are unintentionally choosing aspects that are powerful to our nature.

So I found various excuses to satisfy our decisions. For example: "This matter is too difficult, it can be put into the next issue." "It seems that it cannot be done to match the current resources." "This solution cannot generate much value."... The more you give

the more you give yourself the more comfort you give yourself, and therefore you think your decision is correct. This is the flaw of thinking and the gap left to non-consensus.

For example: It is also a shared bicycle. In the red ocean of the market, if the initial investment can only be played in a small place, a shared bicycle company is inferior to the speed of market seizing, advertising dissemination, and subsidy distribution, and the final outcome is a crushing defeat. The difficulty of financing has become the guide to this "problem". Guided by the difficulty of the problem, it requires sufficiently strong resource allocation, technical accumulation and even organizational capabilities.

Whether for individuals or organizations, they have natural choices to "avoid the important and ignore the important things". But choices that are against human nature may often mean correctness and are a path that few people explore.

5. Thoughts brought to me by the history of arc lamp technology development

Arc lamp was originally used as the coastal lighthouse.

's research on technology, technology and other aspects can sometimes be fed back to daily product design. For example, in this article, the author summarized some of his thoughts in the field of product technology, including product innovation, business models and other aspects. Let's take a look.

The research on technology, technology and other aspects can sometimes be fed back to daily product design. For example, in this article, the author summarized some of his thoughts in the field of product technology, including product innovation, business models and other aspects - DayDayNews

The following summarizes my thought notes in the field of product technology (about 30,000 words). Welcome to leave messages, exchanges and discussions! Many of the inspiration for thinking came from Paul's "Hackers and Painters", Lu Qi and other technology giants, and some investors in Silicon Valley .

enjoy!

1. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

through the front-end capabilities of the technology front-end (such as positioning, camera and other capabilities, which belong to front-end capabilities).

I wonder what products your first reaction is? Here we can list a few: Didi : a taxi travel platform based on positioning capabilities, various map platforms (such as Baidu Map , Tencent map, Gaode Map , etc.); Meitu Xiuxiu : a picture editing community based on camera + filter...

adapts the novel core front-end capabilities released by these manufacturers to certain scenarios, which may produce a unique product experience and even a business model.

1. From gyroscope to "Shake Undo"

front-end capability of gyroscope based on shaking: Apple has added the "Shake Undo" function. The scenario is: When the user enters a piece of text and wants to undo it, he can undo it by shaking the phone without having to work hard to delete the text one by one. This improves the efficiency of text management. After the front-end capability + scenario adaptation of

can improve the user's document usage experience.

2. From "TrueDepth" to eye protection mode

Tencent Video app provides the "eye protection mode" function when playing videos. When the user's eyes are within 40 cm of the screen, the system detects and pops up a pop-up prompt. This provides a good solution for children to protect their eyes when watching videos. This product solution has won the German Red Dot Award and IF Award.

In fact, monitoring the distance between the user and the screen through the camera, which is actually developed using the TrueDepth API depth sensor component provided by Apple , which can capture the relative distance between the user's face and the phone. This front-end capability + scenario adaptation helps users reduce the probability of myopia. A small optimization can make the product experience level and solve a specific social common problem. Why not do it?

3. From "GPS and base station positioning " to fast taxi-hailing

, the two front-end capabilities of the mobile phone's GPS and base station positioning, users use their mobile phones to accurately locate the call and taxi-hailing needs, which has become a new travel model.

4. From "sensing camera" to 3D imaging (game, medical, etc. applications...)

Sony Xperia XZ1 phone provides the ability to scan 3D and uses Motion Eye technology. According to the demonstration video, the user's environment was restored through 3D to obtain a three-dimensional perspective experience. Stereo imaging can be applied to games, entertainment, medical and other scenarios. In addition, Apple iPhone X phones also use depth sensing cameras for 3D scanning and imaging.

As the front-end capabilities become stronger and stronger, the better the experience users get, and new products and business models are established.

should pay attention to the emergence of new front-end capabilities, and new products and business models based on de-design.

needs to continue to think about these front-end capabilities. includes: What are the applications of front-end capabilities? What are the advantages and disadvantages? What are the new front-end capabilities of manufacturers currently? What new capabilities will mobile phone manufacturers add in the next 1 to 3 years? In addition to mobile phones and other IoT machines and equipment, if sensors are added, what opportunities will be born? Now, what kind of front-end capabilities have you discovered that can be integrated into product design, operation and other work?

provides a thought experiment: If you have a privilege to install a front-end component (such as a gyroscope or something you think is worth it), what would you do based on this capability?

2. The way to improve efficiency

From the development history of steam engine , gas engine and gasoline diesel power engine, I got some inspiration:

1. Improved innovation: the balance of efficiency, cost and direction

When the steam engine first appeared, Volkswagen showed interest, kicking off the industrial revolution . However, with the advancement of technology, the power efficiency of steam engines is still limited. Through small technological improvements and small innovations, users' satisfaction is getting lower and lower, and they gradually develop a strong interest in other new things. Once such products or companies appear, users will immediately give up their previous plans (this involves replacement costs or migration costs. If the migration costs are less than the satisfaction brought by innovation, it is easy to cause transfer).

The steam engine at that time was constantly improved, and many engineers improved it, but the efficiency of improvement was limited, which was an innovation of improved nature. This will waste R&D costs. So, the engineer changed direction, studied the gas steam engine and fuel steam engine and made breakthroughs. This also tells us that the process of discovering that technological product innovation is not a straight line but a curve. When the initial plan cannot be carried out, changing the path may be a new world.

When incremental innovation brings fewer and fewer changes, it is a good time to enter. In this process, alternative technology applications will emerge. The new four-stroke gas machine made of Otto is an improvement in cost reduction and efficiency improvement. Use less gas to provide more power. With the improvement of this core indicator alone, Otto and the Lancet Company produced 30,000 gas machines in the past 10 years.

2. Reverse push innovation: Define core indicators + get rid of limitations

Think in turn, what should we do if we want to improve a technological innovation that is recognized by the market and produces competitiveness? Based on the development path from steam engine to gas engine, a simple deduction was made: the goal of

is to improve the product, and a set of core indicators based on technological progress should be defined. finds corresponding solutions through core indicators. Combining solutions to obtain innovative technical product solutions.

is based on, for example, the following two indicators: fuel efficiency and power efficiency. In the process of index innovation, we get rid of the limitations of the original product (steam engine), conduct experiments from a wider perspective, question basic power raw materials, power generation mechanism, etc., and finally we get innovative technology products (gas engines). Similar examples have also been explained in the previous article, such as small-sized hard disks.

This is a backward push-up technology innovation.

The logic of restoring the facts: It turns out that the fuel waste of gas engine technology is serious. Once the gas efficiency is improved, the power will be greater, so it can adapt to more usage scenarios and match more technical applications (such as various motor power equipment: cranes, printing machines, small power stations, etc.). This four-rush gas engine has become a powerful supplement to the steam engine, directly promoting the development of gasoline engines and diesel engines .

3. One of the driving forces of technological innovation: high cost performance

In short, the reason why it can make it popular is: it spends less money and has many benefits. This is cost-effective. Making bulky, inefficient and troublesome equipment and software applications lighter, faster, thinner, easier to carry, smaller in size, lower in price... High cost performance activates the demand side, promotes the development of the supply side, passes market inspection and drives the development of innovation. This is one of the core logics that produce technological innovation.The process of

is accompanied by the improvement of technology, the development of software and hardware equipment, the changes in customer groups, and the promotion of events (the previous articles have been analyzed and discussed). From this perspective, the pursuit of high cost-effectiveness (the emergence of similar technological innovations) may be an accident at a point in time rather than an inevitability of subjective pursuit. But the rationality lies in that after building effective tools and strategies, we can achieve this goal more efficiently.

4. Thinking about the VR technology application boom that broke out in the market in the past few years (such as VR a few years ago), if you want to define several sets of technical indicators that can generate greater promotion and user use, what are these indicators?

Another example: According to the latest trend in 2022 disclosed by Baidu Research Institute, it talks about the application of AI in medicine and scientific research. If you want to apply it on a large scale, what core technical indicators need to be formulated? What technical indicators can be achieved by using AI to solve medical problems? I think these are topics worth thinking about. Hopefully, further discussion of this will be discussed in the future.

3. From complex to popular

Think from the perspective of others, concepts and empathy, and viewing problems from the perspective of others can generally be understood as the same meaning. Regarding the perspective of others, Paul proposed several key points:

can explain complex concepts in popular words. The software functions themselves can explain themselves (that is, they can meet the user's usage habits, and do not try to let them learn the instructions). The technical products designed should be assumed that the user originally knew nothing. This corresponds to the designer's perspective. The designers themselves know the logic of their design, but they assume that the user knows it too. This makes the software difficult to use.

This is the user-centric design.

It is easy to think from the perspective of others, but it is not easy to maintain such a habit. For example: Explaining what a database is, if it is explained directly based on the official definition, it is tantamount to those who do not have any technical knowledge and is difficult to make sense. Therefore, we should go from their perspective to interpret, for example, after understanding their various characteristics (age, gender, preferences, learning level, etc.), we should express them based on their understanding and cognitive level.

Excellent product: It itself explains everything

makes the function explanatory. This is a great mindset. The design of the function itself can tell the user how to do it without additional explanation. Thinking advocates efficiency.

Think about it in turn: If a product is not explanatory, let’s take a look at what problems are: Since the product itself is not explanatory, external explanation is needed:

  • provides too many instructions for guiding bullet windows when entering the product.
  • provides a complete and in-depth instruction manual for the management backend.
  • constantly weighs the hierarchical relationship of product functions. Users find it difficult to find the functions they need in a short period of time, and can only explore the location of the functions by tossing a coin.
  • makes the product visible is not what you gain. For example, by adding an asynchronous process, the same function can be satisfied separately.
  • When users use products, they can constantly communicate with customer service, product, and continue to ask questions to master the usage method and logic of the product.
  • has certain non-essential or non-core functions in unsuitable scenarios. For example, can we provide a conspicuous electronic invoice reimbursement portal during Didi calling a private car? electronic invoice is interpretable in this scenario?
  • provides logic or functionality of a wrong or misleading nature. Let the explanation itself have problems.

By sorting out these unexplained products, I found many problems. In the actual product definition and design process, these issues need to be clarified. The

function is interpretable, allowing users to understand how to use it without reading the instruction manual. The function itself provides a guiding role! Good products and functions do not need explanation at all, but are integrated into the user's own habitual nature. A simple example of

is: when playing Youku video horizontally when holding a mobile phone, the video automatically prompts the user that the direction has been locked.Therefore, the locking function does not need to be "explained" again, and users do not need to click the "Unlock/Unlock" icon to use and understand directly.

Another example: "lack" products on the homepage guidance first take precedence over meeting the core needs of users, and will not let users lose their original desire to be satisfied through various pop-up windows and guidance! Functionality is explanatory and is itself part of the efficiency upgrade. The reason why

can achieve this is that it has already seen the places where efficiency is wasted, the human habits of using it, and the use of empathy . The function itself is explanatory and is not limited to Internet products, but includes various software and hardware products, smart products, etc. Because its underlying logic is empathy.

is designed based on empathy and can consider user needs and meet them more possibilities. This is something that cannot be escaped. Migrate this principle to the products and features you design, and if it is really excellent, what is the explanatory nature of it?

4. Decision-making mode: guided by problem difficulty

From the perspective of syntax structure, it can be compared with "problem-guided". Its core meaning is to export solutions through the discovered problems and continuously meet users' needs through the solution of problems. "Guide with problems", the core word is "problem". "Guide by the difficulty of the problem", the core word is "difficulty of the problem", that is, by overcoming the nature of people and organizations and actively solving difficult problems, we can achieve certain goals. Here we focus on "pursuing difficulty".

Through the thoughts disclosed by "Hackers and Painters", I roughly understand the core meaning of the author's words (the author Paul was originally the founder of a startup company, and his company was later acquired by Yahoo. This is a narrative background based on the difficulty of problems). The benefits of

's choice of a decision-making model that is oriented towards the difficulty of the problem are mainly reflected in the following 4 aspects:

  1. The more difficult the problem, the higher the threshold, and it is difficult for other companies to enter, let alone compete. The more difficult the problem of
  2. , the more resources it requires, it will easily drag down competitors. Conversely, in the end, you will be the winner. The harder the
  3. problem, the more innovative and valuable the solution may be (for example, the McDonald's chain follows strict regulations through the copying process, just like software, which spreads its retail stores all over the world). The more difficult the problem, the fewer people explore it, it means that the more unique and difficult the solution to the problem is, it is irreplaceable, and has a commercial moat.

This requires a slight transformation of the mindset.

is a difficult problem for us and is also a difficult problem for others. If the resources cannot be competed, you will naturally be unable to enter the market or have weak competitiveness if you enter the market. Once we are weakening the state behind the problem, it may mean that we are unintentionally choosing aspects that are powerful to our nature.

So I found various excuses to satisfy our decisions. For example: "This matter is too difficult, it can be put into the next issue." "It seems that it cannot be done to match the current resources." "This solution cannot generate much value."... The more you give

the more you give yourself the more comfort you give yourself, and therefore you think your decision is correct. This is the flaw of thinking and the gap left to non-consensus.

For example: It is also a shared bicycle. In the red ocean of the market, if the initial investment can only be played in a small place, a shared bicycle company is inferior to the speed of market seizing, advertising dissemination, and subsidy distribution, and the final outcome is a crushing defeat. The difficulty of financing has become the guide to this "problem". Guided by the difficulty of the problem, it requires sufficiently strong resource allocation, technical accumulation and even organizational capabilities.

Whether for individuals or organizations, they have natural choices to "avoid the important and ignore the important things". But choices that are against human nature may often mean correctness and are a path that few people explore.

5. Thoughts brought to me by the history of arc lamp technology development

Arc lamp was originally used as the coastal lighthouse.In short, before breakthrough technologies became popular, they occupied only a narrow enough and segmented market. Once the public becomes interested in it for some reasons, and the product itself is constantly iterating, making the cost greatly reduced and the experience better, and quickly promote it through capital such as financing, the product will be widely used.

is somewhat similar to what Lu Qi discussed, that is, first make big fish in a small fish pond, find the last narrow and segmented market, and occupy it. Through rapid iterative optimization, it is possible to become a big fish and gain widespread popularity (vs. The view of finding opportunities in a big fish pond is two different dependencies). This is the correspondence between technological innovation and the market. The author has studied this chapter and gained a further understanding of the development of technology. The main conclusions include the following 6 aspects, for reference only~

Conclusion 1: When innovative technologies first began to emerge, many people were not optimistic. The first users are technology enthusiasts or try new users.

Conclusion 2: Due to the fact that early innovative technologies have not yet been improved, their advantages and disadvantages are too extreme (that is, their advantages and disadvantages are also very prominent), it is easy to lead to great distrust of the first impression, but this has nothing to do with the facts. Due to the obvious shortcomings, such as the cost is not generally high, and the poor user experience in some aspects leads to users who want to give up directly... In short, the groups they come into contact with are likely to feel that they are helpless, and at this time the innovative product is directly ignored by the public.

, and a small number of customers who try out were the first to use it, and are willing to "pay" for their shortcomings. For example, the initial use of arc lights is a seaside lighthouse (the seaside lighthouse requires that the lights be bright enough, which is the outstanding strength of arc lights). The main disadvantages of

arc lamps are: they consume a lot of power and have large volume; at the same time, under the technical conditions of the 19th century, battery charging and power supply is more troublesome.

But after decades of technological development, DC was invented, making stable current supply a reality. Later, it was found that alternating current can avoid uneven electrode corrosion caused by arc, and replace DC power, and arc lamps will be further improved. The arc lamp was finally replaced by the incandescent lamp , and the incandescent lamp is now replaced by more energy-saving and longer service life LEDs, and various green lamp sources. This is a later story.

Conclusion 3: Even if innovative technology looks beautiful, it can solve huge problems. But it may take a long time to stimulate the user's needs in one go ( carbon arc lamp was invented by British scientist David in 1821, and it was not until 1870 that it entered the practical stage due to the development of DC power). This process requires the development of technical supporting facilities. Through continuous polishing and iteration, the technology meets the popular foundation of innovative technologies and prepares for widespread use.

Conclusion 4: Innovative technology was suddenly applied on a large scale, which may be based on the promotion of a certain event (such as the epidemic in 2020, which led to the promotion and development of live conference broadcasts in the cloud. The market of some companies deserves great improvement, such as zoom).

Conclusion 5: Technology is actually progressing through continuous iteration. Secondly, many of the foundations of progress and iteration are innovations based on the predecessors. That is, what drives the progress of lighting technology is on the shoulders of giants (such as the invention of DC and AC and related current electrical accessories), rather than from 0 to 1.

Conclusion 6: Here I can get another iterative idea: that is, the tone of iteration is not just the iteration of on the product end and the demand end, but from the aspects of peripheral technical progress, technical configuration, etc.

Example: After the product design and development is completed, we will obtain the effect of the front-line user group based on user data, user feedback, market reactions, sales, etc. But such ideas will actually be very limited. For example, if a certain indicator drops, the product needs to be adjusted; new needs can be discovered to meet users through feedback. This dependency prerequisite is that the user has recognized the product and needs to be gradually run-in and optimized. If

is based on technical configuration and build an initial solution to meet the needs from a technical level, different solutions may be obtained, and the value generated will also be different.

, for example, Nut TNT workstation , can allow users to perform various human-computer interactions through voice (such as copying, table entry, etc.). The efficiency of recognizing speech in noisy places is affected. If you think in combination with technical configuration + requirements: voice input can get rid of the operation of control buttons (including mouse) and achieve goals by recognizing the interactive process between people and machines (whether it is voice, gestures, or body language).

This process is mainly based on speech recognition and other technologies. But if we find corresponding new technologies (such as brain-computer interfaces), can we solve this problem? Brain-computer interface is a technical configuration that solves the needs of users' deep interaction.

6. Learn to question planning until it succeeded

In "The Embarrassment of Innovators", there is a paragraph described as follows:

explores a different method of formulating strategies and planning... This method recognizes the rule that the correct market and the correct strategy for developing this market are unpredictable. The rule of

, known as "discovery-based planning", suggests that managers assume that predictions are wrong, not right, and that the strategy they choose to adopt may also be wrong. Investing and managing based on this assumption will force managers to plan and learn what they need to know, and this is a more effective way to successfully deal with disruptive technologies.

This is separated from our common sense: how can the plans, designs, and strategies made based on sufficient research and analysis be wrong at the beginning? Isn’t that a slap yourself in the face?

However, if you think about it the other way around, you can get a different answer: Assuming that 50% of the companies in the market have conducted sufficient research and market opportunity analysis from the beginning and adopted the correct strategy, the number of companies that can be created in the end should be many (pure assumption).

, but the actual situation is not optimistic. The following data can illustrate: About 1 million companies in China go bankrupt every year, and an average of 2 companies go bankrupt every minute! For more than 80 million small and medium-sized enterprises, the average life cycle of is only 2.9 years, less than 7% of them survived for more than 5 years, and less than 2% of them lived for more than 10 years! In other words, more than 98% of small and medium-sized enterprises in China will die within ten years of their establishment. ——Excerpt from World Agrochemical Network

Can we infer this way: the correct market strategies formulated by many companies are basically the only one who can achieve in the end. In other words, what the corporate decision-makers believe is correct market analysis, insight, and strategy formulated is finally proven to be wrong. When facing the market, you think is right, but it is highly likely that it is wrong. What if the initial planning was wrong at the beginning?

No matter how correct the previous planning, planning and research are, we must deny it from the beginning and assume that it is wrong (how can we attribute all efforts to error? It is difficult to accept on the human level, and no one is born to be denied), then we must design investment, business plans, organization, systems, and product development mechanisms in advance, and reflect on the strategies that are assumed to be wrong.

What we need to do is think the opposite, and the total number is the opposite. From the beginning, all assumptions were negative. If they were transformed, the final lead to the Tamura Avenue.

7. The best in the industry is not the best, the best one is the one that suits it is the best

In "Hacker and Painter", there is a paragraph that describes the following content:

In a large organization, there is a special term to describe this practice of following the choices of most people, called "industry best practices". The reason why this word appears is actually to allow your manager to shirk responsibility. Since I chose "industry best practices", if I fail and the project fails, then you can't blame me, because it is not me who made the choice, but the entire "industry". ..As Erane Garnett said, the so-called "industry best practices" of programming languages ​​will not actually make you the best, it will only make you very common.

Paul (introduced in the previous article) has a different attitude towards industry best practices. It was originally based on the "experience" derived from practical induction, but in some cases it will fail.Paul's specific logic is: it is generally a traditional profession (such as accounting, etc.), and only by pursuing stability can best practices be used. Because accounting cannot make mistakes, it must also maintain a high level in the industry. The essence of technology is high-end and requires meeting real user needs. Mediocre products will not be welcomed by the market.

Paul mentioned this point at that time, in fact, based on the selection of technical languages. At that time, their senior manager planned to ask technical members to choose java as the technical development language (java was more popular at the time), which was denied by the author Paul. Because the manager did not understand the technical logic at all, and did not deeply analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each technical language and how adaptable it is to the startup company. The view of

is not very novel, but it is a trap that is easy to fall. Let's get a general look at the definition of "best practice":

Wikipedia's explanation: A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things.

Baidu Encyclopedia Explanation: Best practice is a management concept that believes that there is a certain technology, method, process, activity or mechanism that can optimize the results of production or management practices and reduce the possibility of errors.

In short, best practice is a recognized better method or technique. For example, selecting a development language, using a certain organizational mechanism, and choosing a certain logic and idea.

Note that best practice represents "best", and the meaning itself is correct, that is, in some cases, the use of "best practice" can indeed improve efficiency. But what I fear most is to apply certain macro concepts to a single body or organization, ignoring adaptability, environment and initial purpose. The author takes an observed practical battle as an example:

A certain development team leader believes that Git is the best practice in the industry and is forcibly promoted, while ignoring that most of the others in the team master svn. The final result is that the leader no longer mentions Git to a group of programmers who only know svn in the team group. The "best practice" in the case of

is a technical selection. The reason for the unsatisfactory results is that it ignores the current situation of team members' technical mastery and makes blind promotions. Best practices should take into account adaptability. No matter what kind of "best" is, the core is to meet user needs. And if you simply adopt so-called best practices and ignore the status quo, it is an excuse to evade responsibility.

In short, for some cases, the best practice seems to be running naked in the snow with a quilt covered in the eyes. In addition to technology, is it correct to choose the "best practice" solution for the product design process? It may be right or wrong, I think it depends on the specific situation. With different positioning, environment, and products, industry best practice has become a rifle that cannot aim at 10 rings (it may aim at 5 rings and 6 rings, but the opponent may look in the opposite direction and aim at 10 rings). Industry best practices are just reference books, not compass!

is illustrated by my own case. When designing a product, I also emphasized to the development engineer that "this logic or design is a better practice for mature products in the industry/market." When it comes to product design with innovative nature, best practices are likely to fail, so we need to change our thinking.

Therefore, we must refuse to define the direction of our products or technologies only by seeking some authoritative products, mature methods, etc. The methods, mechanisms, processes and solutions that replace business best practices must be closely related to the underlying needs of users and the current company's current situation. Even the proposed plan may go against the "industry best practices".

The best in the industry may not be the best. The one that suits is the best!

8. Innovation is an exception and special

Benchmark Venture Capital Partner Scott Bells believes that

"find a model".As an entrepreneur and investor, I am surrounded by people who try to classify and profile the elements of a company’s success…Most of them forget that innovation (and investing in innovation) is precisely a job about exceptions. I force myself not to pay too much attention to past experiences.

1. Finding Patterns: The Victory of the Induction Rule

The author believes that "finding Patterns" adopts the induction rule. The obtained product cannot break through this model. Therefore, it is a very poor suggestion to divide product types based on "finding patterns" and define new product designs.

The so-called business model, we can understand it as the structure of all product internal and external value interactions.

For example, the "content + e-commerce" model, "tool + content" model, social e-commerce model, value-added service model, free model, membership model, subscription model, etc. we often hear about.

If we judge and determine the value of an innovative product based on a model framework, we will use existing and certain definitions to define unknown and uncertainty, and use the past to define the future. If the future is an extension line of the past, Kodak will not go bankrupt, BB machines will not disappear, and greedy snakes will not go to the cloud... The induction rule is a favorable side, and you must be careful to see only the risks of white swans because of this.

Supplement: Induction, and speciality are the opposite. The particularity continues to come from the discovery of practice, and in turn updates the inductive things. The flaw of induction lies in the conflict between the development attributes of things and the static.

2. Management of innovation: Learn to abandon historical innovation experience

Innovation is an exception, the essence is that innovation cannot be defined within the scope of existing concepts. The mouse is an innovation, and as a revolutionary human-computer interaction device, it greatly improves the efficiency of operating computers. Before the "mouse", there will be no "tiger mark" and "rabbit mark" there. "Mouse" is an innovation, it is an exception, inconsistent with historical experience, but it represents the future at that time.

The first mouse in history (Dr. Engrebet, Ph.D., of the Stanford Institute in the United States, December 9, 1968), and proposed the idea of ​​graphical user interface.

3. Innovation is an exception.

Its essence is to create products or models that do not exist at present, rather than products of continuity (the improvement or creation mentioned here actually depends on the specific premise. For example, the author once designed an educational product learning situation analysis function, which is essentially an improved innovation, because learning situation analysis is not a new thing. However, the learning situation analysis designed by the author is indeed different from other products in some aspects, and is more efficient. If it is based on similar types, you think it is innovation and it is OK).

But experience always grows old (including the innovative experience at that time). Yesterday’s experience, opinions and wisdom always come out of date. Once it is out of date, it must be abandoned to give way to more effective innovative experiences. This is the "addition, deletion, modification and investigation of innovative experience", and innovative experience needs to be managed.

, especially at a time when technological innovation is faster, experience from a few years ago may no longer apply to current competition (a clear example is the evolution of programming languages). Force yourself not to value past experiences, but give up experiences, so that new experiences can be generated more easily. This is a technology that abandons innovative experience.

can ask the following questions: "What experiences that were once considered innovation have been abandoned or not applied now, and you are required to break such experience?" For example: based on free model and member subscription model, imitation innovation and innovation based on underlying principles... It has to be said that foreign investors, especially Silicon Valley and some American investors, have a great understanding of this aspect and innovative concepts. Knowing the product model well, the same is true for innovative concepts. They have sufficient cognitive level of awareness of innovation and value. This has continuously improved my thinking.

Innovation should be an exception and a special feature derived from continuous practice (Q: Are new things obtained from combination forms innovative? Answer: Combination is also a kind of special feature). In turn, it is applied to universality.

9. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

Tim Ferris' "Giant Tools - Intuitive Investment" mentioned by Kevin (who once invested in Twitter and other companies):

For me, only after a more focused thinking process that focuses on using emotional intelligence can I decide whether to invest in a startup company... Next, I will do some traditional rigorous evaluation... When evaluating a new product, I will extract some new features (not all characteristics) of this product and list in detail how this product may affect the emotions of its target consumers. After that, I will consider how these product features may develop over time.

Simply put, it is to evaluate whether the product is worth investing in based on the user's first intuition or first feeling (my understanding is that the author prefers C-end users).

has many positive first feelings, such as: making users feel comfortable, feeling efficient and convenient, fast, good experience, comfortable, very personalized, cost-effective, unexpected... For example, I observed advertisements from a certain bank on the subway. It allows users to make large transfers through mobile phones (Note: does not constitute any investment or guidance advice!). This was beyond my expectations and made me want to understand immediately (comparing with existing mobile app transfer methods such as WeChat/Alipay).

According to the book, Kevin invested in many projects and achieved success. Therefore, his intuitive investment model has also attracted much attention (in fact, after Kevin draws his first intuition, he also needs to conduct a rigorous rational analysis process). Is it feasible to judge whether a product can be accepted by users and whether it has the potential for investment in this way?

Of course, maybe you can think this is hindsight. However, studying the user's emotions towards the product is originally part of user feedback. Product managers or designers can observe users’ first reactions or feedback on usage based on usability testing. The above are the same.

Here are a few cases. In his investment notes, Kevin explained his emotional reaction to Twitter at that time: 140 words are faster and simpler than creating a blog; he explained that the platform allows users to pay attention to strangers, which can create a "two-way friendship"; his disgust of the bulky and tedious equipment required for virtual reality, and his shock to the sci-fi sense of Tesla's acceleration sound when driving at that time...

, such a first intuitive feeling, gave Kevin many product inspirations.

gains the understanding of the product based on emotional reactions, and under a certain environmental context, it becomes a "substantiable opinion". In fact, there are many factors that determine the future or potential of a product, and it cannot be obtained by simply feeling. But it is obvious that it can greatly affect whether investors invest in this project or product. How can we understand how users respond to emotions? I have a few summary here:

  1. get rid of the professional perspective and look at the problem from the user perspective.
  2. should capture feelings, emotions, expressions and states as soon as possible. Including facial features. For example: Feeling (the thoughts that appear in the brain at the first time): Shocking, good, very good, how to do it, something to do... The opposite feeling: What is the purpose? Except...it has no effect...eyes: eyes are in abrupt, serious use of products and other reactions. Mouth: talk, analyze and other reactions. Brain: Reactions such as thinking, serious commitment.
  3. observe as many samples and products as possible, understand your emotions about similar products, and compare them.
  4. compares related competitors to observe your own feelings.
  5. vs. people’s possible feelings or reactions in the same environment.

Compared with the macro-technical thinking system used by Lu Qi to evaluate products and projects (top-down). This product comes from emotional reaction evaluation, which is actually bottom-up. The two can actually be combined: from the combination of historical and technical logic analysis + user experience feedback, it provides a more three-dimensional evaluation of the product. This is also a way of thinking training.

10. The popularization of professional models

Qiji Chuangtan Cao Xuwen believes:

"To give a few examples, such as the emerging Devsume in the entrepreneurship field, simply put it as a popularization of engineers' tools, including some cutting-edge applications of Al. Or RPA (Robotic Process Automation), it is simply to put it as a simple way to put it as a scientific and technological worker programming engineer, which can allow white-collar workers to do such things, so it can bring a particularly large efficiency improvement to the company."

popularizes the tools used by professional engineers (professions). This is a great idea. Professional tools represent professional technology. Popularization means the release of tool effectiveness to the public, which is to allow unprofessional people to do professional things and eventually gain the same value.

Since tools in professional fields require professional skills, how can civilians (novice) also be used? After roughly sorting out, I will explain it from two aspects: ease of use and value.

  1. Ease of use: To reduce the difficulty of using professional tools: from high difficulty and complex operation to fool-style operation, simple to get started, visualization, etc., let the product itself be the manual. For example, Photoshop vs Meitu Xiuxiu, Photo Studio Professional Design Album vs System actively generates photo albums (Huawei mobile phone album "moment"), creates videos vs shoots Douyin, writes 800-word essays vs automatic essay generation by the machine starting with one sentence.
  2. value: Changes in output efficiency and effect: From taking a long time to output content in a very short time, the output content can be comparable to professional level and meet the actual needs of users.

In fact, photo studio design albums are something professionals do, and now a mobile phone can solve the problem of custom albums; shooting professional entertainment videos (including various transitions, special effects use, dubbing, etc.) is also something professional photographers or editors do. Now, short video platforms such as Douyin Kuaishou Video Account will produce tools extremely fool-like, allowing ordinary users to create a short video at will. There are many other examples of this. Unprofessional people gradually replace professional people's tools and do professional people's work.

Why should professional tools be popularized? My understanding is that professional production tools must eventually be implemented on the demand side. For various reasons, the demand side itself is separate from the production side. As producers and consumers are more likely to combine in the information age, production, sales and use are easier to integrate. In the information age, we are not only the target audience of products and services, but also the creator and designer of such services. I will explain the needs of the consumer and production sides:

  • consumer side needs: growth, entertainment, entertainment, self-improvement, etc.
  • Demands on the production side: Desire: interaction, participation, achievement, sharing, empathy, social...
  • Benefits: money, honor, fame...
  • Personality: personalization, release, self-expression...

In the information age, consumption demand and production demand can be the same group/individual. For example, many people are the creators of articles and consumers of articles.

For me, you can get consultation by inline. If I have the opportunity, I will be happy to provide consultation and sharing (production side). This shows that the boundaries between production and consumption are becoming increasingly blurred. The popularization of tools will inevitably lead to the foolishness, ease of use and de-specialization of tools. At the same time, the effectiveness of the tool will be released to ordinary users, resulting in more supply, more people willing to consume, more transactions, and a new market will be formed. The popularization of the

professional model will drive a new round of innovation and market development.

11. Understand the relationship between competitors and differentiation

YC Co-founder Paul Graham believes that the average annual growth of

large companies is about 10%. So, if you are in charge of a large company, as long as everything is done to the average level of a large company, you can get the average result of a large company, that is, growth is about 10% per year. The problem is that the average result of a small company means closing down. The survival rate of startups is much lower than 50%. So, if you are in charge of a startup, it is better to do something unique, otherwise there will be trouble.

I don’t know if this sentence from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Paul has had any impact on you. For me, it still provides a newer perspective on the problem. The central idea of ​​the above paragraph is: reference and reference to competitors is fatal to startups. Only by developing unique and sufficiently differentiated strategies can breakthrough innovations be achieved. Why?

1. Start-up companies’ requirements for growth

Paul’s logic is: for large companies, due to their large size and sufficient stable returns, they need to preserve a certain rate of growth every year. Therefore, large companies refer to the solutions of mature competitors and can be in the same frequency as the market, absorb the other party’s excellent design and improve it. This way, there is no problem. For emerging startups, they take precedence over the speed of development. If you learn from the solutions of mature products of other large companies, you will at most generate the same growth rate and cannot make breakthroughs. It's like wearing a tight hoop.

If the startup does not achieve a growth rate that exceeds the average expected growth rate, the result may be mediocre and even unable to obtain the market (in the same solution, users prefer to choose products with good brand, reputation and mature reputation, and only a small number of technology-sensitive people pursue new technology experiences, but due to the reference of startups, this group of people may also be abandoned). The conclusion is: Don’t copy startups, and you can’t even learn from them. My understanding is that the core products and models of startups must have sufficiently differentiated value from mature products in the market, and solve certain pain points of users.

Back to the old business, as a product manager, competitive product analysis and "borrowing" are the routine tasks of many product people, including me. But now, this common sense is questioned.

Of course, we need to look at its dependency conditions, its background, the stage of the proposer, and even this abnormal knowledge reflects the required decision-making courage and the requirements for whether the product manager himself can put forward unique and differentiated value. Referring to competitors and analyzing competitors is originally a "correct" and "reasonable" way. Why can the author be questioned and seem reasonable (from this we can infer that the author Paul's logical and abnormal knowledge ability are very strong)?

is because of "non-consensus".

2. How does non-consensus come about?

Refer to the author’s previous article: How to generate non-consensus like pipelines? The reason is that the "environment and logic" have changed: the growth environment and the requirements for development of startups and large companies are in different backgrounds (it is emphasized here that startups cannot learn from competitors).

Paul illustrates the example of his creation of viaweb (Paul Graham claims that Viaweb is the first online store application service provider, which was later acquired by Yahoo to become a Yahoo store). Thinking that we should do something that satisfies our current company's work, we chose the Lisp language (rather than the popular java or python at the time). Lisp is the ability to develop products quickly, deliver quickly (short development cycle), low software requirements, and does not require a large amount of maintenance and development costs. Finally, widen the competition gap and win.

3. 1 small problem

Even if you do not refer to competitors, or based on the needs of business as the core thinking model, the product designed will be similar to the product of large companies and has no uniqueness. How to crack it? In Paul's view, the characteristics of differentiation may not be obvious. We can check step by step from thinking path to design method, find out those conventional factors and make improvements.

4. Conclusion

The conclusion of the notes in this article: The strategy of doing something unique to a startup company is a lower risk. On the contrary, new products obtained by simulated competitors are often very risky. This is a non-consensus for reference to competitors. If you follow the rules and follow the rules, there will be no difference in the value you get, so naturally few people will recognize it. In product design, you must also take a unique approach and explore its unique value.

We need to deeply understand the purpose of competitive product analysis, why we need to do competitive product analysis, and what the company's differentiation is.

12. Understand the relationship between purpose and means

Technical entrepreneurs are easily trapped in the situation where they ignore the real needs of users simply to solve a certain technical problem.Iridium’s plan, after calculation, requires 650,000 users to recover, and finally only obtains 55,000 users. This has led to the failure of innovative projects. The technology is cool, but it may be useless. If you don’t understand the connotation and relationship between the purpose and means, it may not be worth the loss in the end.

1. How to judge the application of technology: Let the bullets fly for a while

What should I do if entrepreneurs sometimes really don’t understand user needs and have the recognition that the technology has prospects? How to determine the future use of this technology?

For example: This technology can indeed improve certain types of efficiency, but it is not a common need (such as some ergonomic recliners).

Or, this technology can only become a part of a certain application or system, and is a subordinate relationship, and cannot be directly invested to C-end users (such as a certain type of algorithm or a formula that can improve search accuracy).

Or, it may take decades to see how this technology is worth in the future (such as in the electric vehicle field and battery technology 30 years ago). How to judge at this time?

In the short term, technology is to meet the user needs of the current or future period (such as within 3-5 years). More underlying technology research requires decades of research and exploration by some large-scale companies. For example, 5G technology, aerospace technology, etc.

2. Is the metaverse the future trend?

The current meta universe is a hot topic of discussion. Does it represent future trends?

Professor Shi Zhan of the School of Diplomacy analyzed his views on the metaverse in the live broadcast of Tencent Lecture Hall. When we look at it from the perspectives of "entertainment" and "virtual reality", he thought of a new solution: the metaverse can provide a solution of "production is consumption". The deduction logic is:

  • Agriculture era: 95% of people produce and 5% consume.
  • Industrial Era: half each; but due to the development of smart devices and automation technology, more and more people have been replaced, which is an irreversible trend.
  • Future: 5% of people may produce and 95% of people consume.

Because in the digital information age, it has been observed that people consume more and more through digitalization; the metaverse itself is a further enhancement of digitalization. If the future is likely to be that there are few people producing and many people consuming, then what are the remaining people who do not produce?

Therefore, when people interact with each other through the metaverse, the data generated is itself a part of consumption. This will solve the problem of imbalance in production and consumption. From this discussion alone, behind it is the discussion of the social labor wave. Of course this is off-topic. From this perspective, is this technology worth studying, should entrepreneurs enter the market, and is the future promising? There is still a lot of uncertainty. This is worth further thinking.

3. Discussion on user needs: The correct posture for analyzing the requirements

But overall, the technical problems ultimately come down to the user's needs.

  • From the perspective of the product, user needs are divided into B-end and C-end: C-end focuses on human desires, and B-end focuses on organizational needs.
  • From the perspective of the level, which levels are divided by KANO in Maslow, is it a basic type, expectation type or excitement type demand?
  • in terms of the degree of demand and business matching, is it a core requirement, a secondary requirement or an irrelevant requirement. From the perspective of demand type, what should be solved is the efficiency level, experience level, performance level or other levels?
  • From the perspective of human nature, we must satisfy vanity, show off, joy, happiness, stress relief, comparison, exploration... which type?

user needs still have many categories. What types of users should your technical application meet?

Therefore, before pure technical performance pk, you must confirm that the proud problem you solved with technology is really what users want? The most important thing is to understand user needs when technology is applied. How to find out? In addition to common demand research methods to determine the authenticity of demand, the author summarizes some alternative methods to determine whether the technology application is required by users.The following are 4 points:

  1. Don’t do research, but observe the actual situation of users using: their expressions, attitudes, and choices. Whether they express dissatisfaction, desire, fun, etc. and record it.
  2. After they use your demo or product, do they have the next action? For example, make an appointment to purchase, share with friends, talk to others, be curious and want to research, continue to pay attention, collect, subscribe, forward, participate...
  3. observes the use of similar technology applications, traffic, user usage, and general feedback on the appstore. (For example, the author has observed that some products have feedback on the appstore, and complained that the charging model is unreasonable. The minimum charge is at least 3 months or more. Many users have feedback that a charging model of 1 month or a day is required. At this time, you can grasp this requirement).
  4. see the growth rate. How will the trial version grow naturally after it is launched? The higher the specific value, the better, but it still needs to be combined with the industry (Lu Qi believes that we should pay attention to new products with a growth rate of more than 30-50%. In fact, this value represents the strong growth of technology companies in the future and also represents the actual needs of users).

Of course, there are many ways to verify whether the requirements are real or not, for reference only~

So, does your technical application solve the problem or the problem that users are concerned about?

is the goal to meet user needs, and the technology used is a means. Whoever reverses this problem will have problems.

13. Looking at the future from history: a simulated practical battle of an electric vehicle project

"The Innovator's Dilemma" mentioned a case. In the early 20th century, if you were the project leader of a mature automobile company and led a new electric vehicle project, what would you do? The author shares his thinking logic and simulation practice using the principle of breakthrough innovation. First, give the background of the simulation practice at that time:

  • Background 1: In the 1990s, California, the United States required automobile manufacturers to sell electric vehicles to account for 2% of California's cars.
  • Background 2: Electric vehicles are not as good as mature oil-powered cars. For example, acceleration time, battery life, etc.

As the simulated "Electric Vehicle Project Leader", the author has several steps to implement the strategy:

Step 1:

Step 1: Determine whether electric vehicles can become emerging breakthrough and innovative technological applications. The method does not come from traditional research methods such as research visits, consulting interviews, but obtains these judgment information by observing the actual use of customers. The author observed the following results:

  • Observation 1: The electric vehicle's endurance is 50-80 miles (compared with traditional oil power at the time: 125-150 miles of endurance).
  • Observation 2: When you get to a highway intersection, it takes 20 seconds for most electric cars to accelerate to 60 miles (it takes only 10 seconds for fuel vehicles).
  • Observation result 3: Mainstream car customers hope to get more car models, but electric vehicles are currently relatively single.

If it is you, through the above observations, can you draw the following conclusion: Electric vehicles are not a breakthrough technology application. However, the author did not stop at the judgment obtained by preliminary observations, and did not look at these current situations, but went to the next step of in-depth exploration.

Step 2:

draws a relationship between the improvement of electric technology and the current mature market standards. Simply put, this picture is about understanding how long it takes for electric vehicles to catch up with the average performance level of fuel vehicles at that time through improved technology. Find the intersection time point that meets the standards. Observing the relationship diagram, it seems that the reason cannot be found.

The author also received feedback from many experts: the performance of electric vehicles is difficult to break through unless the battery technology is greatly improved. Experts have spoken, can we speculate that electric vehicles were not a breakthrough technology application at that time? It will not be able to break the market monopoly of fuel vehicles, right? Although the author recognizes the dilemma of reality, he does not stop there, but further explores it.

Step 3:

The author starts by finding new customer groups, that is, he can accept potential customers of electric vehicles at that time.By exploring the scenarios and needs, the author really found it in simulation. The scenarios include parents picking up and dropping off their children in primary and secondary schools, commuting in cities in backward areas, etc. The battery life of electric vehicles can meet their needs, and the requirements for acceleration performance are not high.

(But you can imagine that this positioning is indeed the case? Although the scenario exists, why wouldn’t consumers choose fuel vehicles with better performance? It cannot convince me. Because such scenarios do not give consumers the necessary or tendency choices, this is off-topic...)

Assuming that the demand in these scenarios is true, it must be put into production, verification and feedback. If the customer group verification fails, make adjustments. Of course, in addition to the above specific execution steps, as the "project leader", the author asked to establish the following strategy from the beginning:

  1. independent of the electric department into the company's independent department, including finance, sales and other aspects.
  2. will divest sales without strict sales indicators.
  3. establishes an independent innovation culture for the department, encourages teams to innovate, and creates new product development models.
  4. set up an independent distribution interest network for new markets...

Innovate product R&D models, independent department teams, interest divestiture, establish a distribution network, find new niche customer markets and demand scenarios, personally visit the front line to observe the actual market, etc. What is the difference between the incubation model in many large factories nowadays... What I see from the series of execution strategies of the author of

, what I see is how he saves this "traditional fuel vehicle" company, trying to prevent the competitive situation from being first developed by emerging startups from outside the world through incubation and development. Is it really effective to try to save

? But as the author emphasized, because independent department teams, independent sales accounting methods, etc. are actually decided by the company's senior management.

The senior management decides such a thing itself is part of the operating system of a mature company. There is no advantage of being flexible and daring to make decisions, which is also a common disease for some large companies.

The final result If the senior leaders fail to pass and judge that there is no market or the market is small, they may lose the opportunity to obtain breakthrough technological innovation in development. Once senior management realizes it, it is often the case that the company is facing a crisis, and the customer base is constantly lost or unable to grow. Intentionally to open up the second growth curve. But the time window is not very big at this time. For example: From the rise of long videos to short videos, it took less than 5 years to get started. Users' attention on long video platforms such as iQiyi and Youku are constantly being occupied by Douyin and Kuaishou.

At this time, the former launched short videos in the application, and the opportunity was no longer great (user mind, market share, and positioning were not enough). It is not necessarily because everyone cannot see it, but because mature enterprises are in a prime position to lead the interests and user scale. Faced with the general rise of small and micro projects and products, it is difficult to pay too much attention to it under the factors of human nature, and do not want to independently open a department to do it. All this is related to cognition and the network system of interests considered by the author.

Here, although this book explains breakthrough innovation, the author's strategy in the final simulation strategy actually returns to the model of operating products: find the right customer market, lay out sales channels, do a good job in teams and product innovation construction. Even if you don’t face electric vehicles, as an independent organization, you will have a lot of creative innovations in the future, just like emerging startups.

In short, when facing breakthrough innovation and product impact, the best way to break the situation is not to remedy afterwards, but to make sufficient risk assessment and corresponding investment in advance. The most important thing is that the decision-maker has the courage to face the challenges of the changed market, new technology applications and new customer groups, and be able to formulate practical and effective reform strategies.

: To eat the fruit, the best situation is to plant a seed now. makes forward-looking judgments and insights, realizes that the corresponding possible potential becomes innovative technology and conducts all in. The final result may be to use the resources of mature enterprises to support it through continuous high-frequency and high-speed experiments.

But at this time, let’s change the perspective. What if the abundant resources provided by mature enterprises are for independent innovation development, what if it becomes a burden of cost expenditure?

Creativity and innovation may often come from difficulties (such as the development of airbnb to get up early to rent inflatable beds and breakfast to make money). This is another crux of the problem.

At the same time, as a mature enterprise, will invest a lot of money in innovative application research and development dilute the focus of the business?

Therefore, for products that are oriented towards destructive innovation, facing strategies itself is a systematic operating system. Through investment and acquisition, it is another way of playing.

14. Thinking about the technical ideological architecture

One of the core of Lu Qi’s venture capital theory system is to extract the core element of technology from the macroscope of human history. This is the most powerful, but it is compatible with part of its ideological system. To sum up, it is the development of people's civilization brought about by the development of technology in several different civilization eras.

  • Stone Age: It is not much different from animals, but there are some basic hunting tools, such as stones, bows and arrows;
  • Agricultural Age: The development of smelting technology has produced various agricultural plow tools and produced food surplus. By bringing prosperity of material and trade and growth of wealth through transactions. This is one of the evolutions brought about by the development of tools in the agricultural era;
  • Industrial era: the emergence of steam engines and the emergence of power systems. The factory makes mass production possible through the application of mechanical equipment, which has brought great improvements to production efficiency. Through the improvement of management model (division of labor, scientific management, etc.), factory owners can operate commercial bodies more efficiently. Wealth is becoming more and more likely to concentrate.

The concentration of wealth is often the forefront of the production and tool level of the times. The development of technology driven by various basic scientific developments means the universalization of tools brought by technology. It is easier to be used by others. This brings about improvement in production efficiency and creation of wealth; the information age: knowledge and information become the "oil" of the current era. At the same time, basic science is developing and continuing to advance the boundaries of human capabilities.

summarizes several conclusions:

  1. The concentration of wealth often means the boundary of the development of general capabilities. The widespread use of
  2. technology tools is one of the core judging indicators in the history of human development. The easier it is to share and use tools by others, the easier it is to acquire wealth. The generalization of
  3. technology lies in implementation.

This theory of thought runs through most of Lu Qi's core speeches and is of extraordinary significance. This ideological system is compatible with most technologically innovative companies in the world. And technological innovation means wealth. This is the wonderful thing about it.

As the idea of ​​technology-driven innovation is constantly spreading, more and more people will join such discussions and practices in the future, and drive innovation through technology. But we must also be vigilant about technology theory. For example, some advanced technology applications lead to a mess, which is a negative example.

Therefore, the efficiency added by Lu Qi here has added a market matching mechanism. It's about getting results from the market. This is the essence of technology-driven innovation. Otherwise, it is the concept of pure technology. "It is already difficult to implement the technology transfer enterprise in universities," which indirectly confirms this truth. Therefore, entrepreneurship and innovation are added here and autonomy is stimulated. This is the engine of this ideological system. In summary, Lu Qi's ideological system: comparing this ideological system to smart cars, it may be like this:

  • automotive CPU: technology-driven innovation;
  • battery raw materials: market matching mechanism (users, income...);
  • engine: entrepreneur's autonomy;
  • accelerator: rapid iterative thinking.

15. Learn to withdraw from the perspective of

If you are planning a product or business, how to analyze its business value? From the analysis method of Lu Qi summarizing the commercial value, I compared the product manager's perspective and found that there are obvious differences between the two.The specific explanation is as follows:

1. The difference between 2 perspectives

Product manager perspective: Pay more attention to demand, efficiency, experience, process, etc., and is stronger than analyzing the value of the product itself. For example: whether the product truly meets user pain points and needs, whether it can bring about improvements in efficiency, which specific problems should be solved, and whether it brings about optimization of experience; it is weaker than the analysis of commercialization (channel, gross profit, cost, market size, growth rate and other factors that are closely related to corporate development).

Investor's perspective: Taking the measurement of interests and value as the core, this project is fundamentally worthwhile whether it makes money or releases. It is mainly reflected in:

) How big is the ceiling (total value) of this project. That is, the value of each user * the user scale. User value cannot be measured directly, but relative. Relative to competitors, relative efficiency improvement points, and relative benefits brought by relative and without.

) How large is the overall scale of the track where this project is (i.e. how big the cake is) and how fast it is to grow. In other words, be optimistic about its potential. Lu Qi believes that paying attention to this number is above 30%, preferably an annual growth rate of 50%.

Example: The number of digital RMB app downloads has soared these days, and it has been seen in various news information. On January 4, the number of downloads in Huawei App Store was less than 10,000. By January 9, the number of downloads had exceeded 5 million, with a daily increase of more than 100,000. We need to pay special attention to this growth rate. It is currently a pilot model and has regional restrictions, so the author cannot experience it for the time being. However, by watching the shared videos and pictures on the Internet, you can also understand the usage process and logic of the digital RMB and the value behind it, and pay attention to the products of the digital RMB. This is a later story.

    ) Analyze the "gain value" that the project can bring Lu Qi divides the value into to create value and obtain value. This is an important foundation for marketization and sustainable development. means that the acquisition of value depends on whether the cost of channel, sales, etc. is lower than gross profit, otherwise it is not a good business model. Lu Qi emphasized the importance of channels, which means customer groups and revenue channels.

    2. What are the problems with single-dimensional value analysis?

    Further comparison, analyzing its value from the product perspective alone has certain limitations:

    1. The correct track: Is the product or business in the growth track? Or the sunset industry? Is there any influence of policies, technology, economics and other factors? What is the size and growth rate of the track? For example: doing tracks such as smart agriculture, autonomous driving, digital privacy assets, etc. The track is large but the growth rate is low? Or is it that no one cares about the track belonging to an emerging industry but the growth rate reaches more than 30-50%? Does
    2. satisfy users' pain points: how painful it is, is itchy or not? Or is it just a little bit cool? User needs may exist, but it is difficult to form a large-scale market.
    3. brings efficiency improvement: bring. The question is, compared with other products, how efficient is the product and business improved, 1% or 5% or more? ! How big advantages does value bring through comparison? How much is the cost of user replacement? …

    3. Inspiration: Extract from the multi-view mode

    to transform identity and perspective, and you can obtain updated angles and ways to think about problems. But don't stop there. Get a new perspective and look at the value of this perspective itself. Does it conflict with the current thinking model and is it better? If so, you must carry out specific actions and improve your original thinking. Continuously transforming the identity perspective, compatible with each identity thinking perspective, and obtaining different thinking models. Using these models to re-treat similar problems can improve thinking efficiency.

    16. The pipeline generates non-consensus

    Here discusses the issue of "non-consensus".

    1. Common sense/consensus: Related to "environment and logic"

    First of all, the two concepts of common sense and consensus are actually very close. According to Baidu Encyclopedia's explanation:

    • Common sense: the common daily consensus of the same thing.
    • Consensus: Common understanding (a concept that everyone can accept).

    The conceptual sense of "anti-common sense" and "non-consensus" are also relatively close, so I will reorganize the notes here.What are the opinions you think are correct but most people don’t agree with? It tests our ability to develop independent perspectives. And it is the right path and few people take. And behind this may represent a huge, undiscovered mindset. Paradigm thinking will limit us. In other words, common sense recognized by the public may mislead us.

    logic is correct under certain conditions and scenarios, and common sense is the same. common sense is not correct in any environment. Just change the environment and logic, and common sense may be wrong.

    (for example, playing table tennis and playing with family in formal competitions. The former focuses on winning or losing, while the latter pays more attention to family relationships. Losing is not that important. If you perform at home like a formal competition, you will come to a conclusion: in an environment of great knowledge, use existing common sense to do paradigm thinking, make corresponding inferences and get corresponding results. This is actually a flaw in thinking.

    2. Case: Video clips can also build a knowledge system

    I use an observed example to illustrate: Cool Rendering Technology systematically integrates the knowledge of video cutting. Cool Render Technology’s business is to provide products and services empowered by vocational education. They developed a system that processes video segments, labels, puts it in different directories, establishes a complete knowledge point system, and combines intelligent recommendations to become a very powerful learning system (excerpted from the official website of Cool Rendering Technology).

    This is another micro-innovation model. The novelty of this innovation is that it is difficult to imagine that video + knowledge system can be combined. Our inherent common sense is that videos are actually the only storage (knowledge point) units, indivisible, either whole or individual clips, and it is impossible to separate them into flexible units and match them independently. The reason why Cool Render can do it is that it combines technology to identify video content + AI recommendations. This completes a "non-consensus" work. The core of an "non-consensus" environment like

    is determined by insight into business and needs, which is the "environment and logic".

    Note that behind the "non-consensus" is that we realize that doing so is impossible. The reason why the above cases can be realized is not that they cannot be realized in technology, but that they are invested in costs, outputs, and construction of product models.

    3. Dig deep into common sense: Is it really like this?

    You see, "doubt all doubtful thinking blind spots" and "thinking is not allowed to take it for granted". The original common sense is: video is video, which is difficult to divide. But the non-consensus is: videos can be divided. If it is to be established, what should we do? This involves technical preparations (this is the details). What is the purpose of

    videos being split and what needs to be solved? Split-can be small fragments. Small clips are worthless. What should I do? (Through deductive thinking) Put them in the knowledge system catalog and package them into a finished product! This finished product is what users rely on in their learning behavior: knowledge system! But the content supported is video clips!

    4. Combination of value: Behind the abnormal knowledge and non-consensus, we still need to return to the value of

    video clips. What is the value of the video clip? There are n videos to read a knowledge point. Do users need to learn all of them?

    does not. Through intelligent recommendation, when the system detects certain user's knowledge weaknesses, it pushes corresponding video clips to the user, completing the knowledge imparting work. The video clips present the knowledge points in detail, and the ready-to-have mechanism improves learning efficiency, which is "value". It is at the right time to provide the appropriate knowledge solution.

    5. How to generate non-consensus like pipelines

    leads to a method of creating non-consensus value:

    1. Looking for common sense and consensus in places that are generally considered unavailable, or difficult to do, or have no value.
    2. questioned these consensuses and thought about it in turn. If it is established, what technical conditions should be provided to achieve it;
    3. enhances the value. Raise these established non-consensus products to the level of value and user needs, and provide the right value at the right time.

    This is the benefit of non-consensus. How can we come up with a point that most people don’t agree with but you think is right? Based on the above conclusions and logic, I have sorted out a framework:

    1. first find common sense (or general cognition) of business model/phenomenon.
    2. analyzes the value behind this common sense.
    3. replaces the common sense environment and makes it unrealized/established.
    4. makes abnormal knowledge reasonable by matching resources, business, business models, etc.
    5. forms an idea that you think is correct but most people don't agree with. Combined with business, value, process, etc., further analysis is made.

    until the last non-consensus is extracted.

    17. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

    Main cases of this article’s talent culture of corporate organizations. One of the cultural characteristics of Netflix is ​​its emphasis on talents, especially talent density.

    1. Establish a system of talent density

    From Netflix's practice, it is indeed proved to be a great practice mechanism. Different from the traditional sayings of "survival of the fittest" and "last-level optimization", "talent density" is used as the logic of the enterprise's talent organizational structure, and thus extends a series of action mechanisms.

    Simply put, understand talents as flowing particles, remove coarseness and extract essence. Leave good talents behind and abandon talents that do not conform to corporate culture. Note: The principle of abandonment is to provide high-value resignation compensation mechanisms and benefits. (This actually becomes a benefit) This will form a reverse pressure mechanism: the density of talents is getting higher and higher.

    The selection and breeding of talents must be eliminated. This is a complete talent transfer mechanism . High talent density and dependence are on innovative positions, such as technology, products, operations, etc., rather than traditional human resources positions , which is very important. Because innovative positions require more ability to innovate and create and innovate, rather than follow the steps. Only in this way can we adapt to such changing market and user needs. The improved welfare and talent atmosphere can motivate talents to produce a 1+1 effect.

    2. Logic behind talent density

    The logic of "talent density" lies in: talents encourage and influence each other, and can produce advance progress (i.e. upward curve). If it is mixed with rabbit-type or some unpromising employees, it will also lead to waste of resources and efficiency, and the ability to continuously innovate is not possible.

    In the long run, enterprises lack continuous good functions, good products and good services. Therefore, the underlying logic of talent density lies in believing that excellent people should gather together to produce 1+1 efficiency.

    in one sentence summary: Enterprises should create an environment and atmosphere that allows outstanding people to be in the same frequency. Some large companies only recruit prestigious universities, rather than ordinary universities, second-tier or third-tier students. It's not just that the screening cost is high. Instead, it is: the same frequency of talents is very important, and it is a talent strategy for enterprises to shape high-value products and services.

    3. How do small businesses/individuals break the deadlock

    How do companies that do not meet these conditions break the deadlock? For example: to compete with the right products and a good employee atmosphere, thereby creating competitiveness? Discover more breakthrough points in non-consensus cognition? Deeply invest in a market that small but refined giants cannot covet?

    Compared to individuals, how to gather outstanding talents around you? You can learn the above-mentioned process of breeding and retention of talent density. Choose: Get in touch with some circles and make friends. Yu: Observe people, look at people. Stay: Continuous contact, create value exchange with each other, and establish a circulation mechanism for high-quality friend talents.

    18. Customer needs to product needs are not necessarily straight

    Christensen's "Innovators' Dilemma" believes that

    listens carefully to customer opinions, but the problems they seem to be unable to solve are problems of downward vision on the orbit chart and flow to the downstream market. ..These leading companies seem to be tied to their customers, thus giving off offensive emerging companies the opportunity to disrupt their leadership when disruptive technologies emerge.

    Listen to customer opinions and continuously develop products that meet user needs may actually be the beginning of a company from success to loss.They followed the inertial thinking of successful experience, and ignored the insight into fresh and keen opportunities when they expanded their territory, and ignored the insight into emerging markets, emerging customer groups, and the application of emerging technologies.

    For example: try to observe products and business models that are growing rapidly due to emerging technologies. Pay attention to adapting to technology (rather than so-called hot products), what can you find? ..

    The growth of emerging enterprises into mature enterprises is also achieved through some breakthroughs. Then, the decline of mature enterprises lies in path dependence: simply put, when it becomes a successful place, it will rely on it to continue to achieve success later. The case of the

    hard disk industry shows that at that time, large-capacity and large-size hard disks that met large computer manufacturers could not match hard disks that were several inches long. Behind path dependencies are stakeholder networks.

    Why is the boss subverted by his younger brother? Because of the emergence of new technologies, the rapid development of personal computers (small computers), thus leading to the emergence of small, portable and adaptable hard disks.

    Behind the small computer, it represents the rise of new customer groups.

    Note: This part of the customer base is completely different from that of the customer base that meets large manufacturers. From this we can find that in fact, the traditional hard drive industry giants have lost the market because they ignore the emerging applications and corresponding customer groups brought by emerging technologies. I didn't notice it at first, but it was too late when I noticed it. The case of

    seems to tell us an abnormal knowledge: Is it really important to listen to the customer base? We basically understand that the functions come from demand. The demand generally comes from users. User feedback, screening and analyzing, obtain real demand. So it was put into development.

    Is this really correct? This reminds me of a product story: in the early 20th century, you asked a person what kind of carriage you wanted, and the other party replied that you wanted a faster carriage. So, the demand behind it is speed. Not a carriage. But this analysis, in this way, is not in-depth. Because, faster speeds must be combined with the new applications brought by the technology at that time, that is, the development of mechanization, making automobile manufacturing a reality. Otherwise, it is also possible to produce faster horses in the end.

    Conclusion: Do not simply discuss and analyze the needs, but combine technology, the applications brought by technology, possible emerging potential customer groups, and combine such essential needs to obtain new solutions. This is one way to innovate. The distance between between customer needs and actual needs is not necessarily a simple straight line, but rather, it may be curved or reverse.

    19. Observe human nature

    to determine whether a product can be liked by users, you can start with user examples. That is: to understand what kind of people this type of user are, by constructing user models, you can predict whether they are fun (interested) in the product or function they are designed.

    In other words, the user model formed by a large number of user cases essentially represents a group with a certain unique attribute. These attributes are common needs. (For example, the pursuit of convenience, cost-effectiveness, and vanity) Analyze a large number of similar or different products to summarize the underlying human nature. I have understood the different human natures represented by different products, and have a broad knowledge and natural understanding of the human nature that may be satisfied by the products I designed. Quantitative change produces qualitative change, which becomes our insight.

    This is also why young people from some large factories have come out to start businesses, designed high-quality services and products and achieved sustainable development. They have a deep understanding of the humanity represented by the product and how to design the product to satisfy humanity.

    think about the human nature of different products and how to design to satisfy these human natures. quantifies the common needs of human nature and thinks about what functions it designs to improve data. From the iteration, how does the function satisfy human nature, and what will be the next action? (What is human nature? How does a product match human nature?) It is actually a clever way to build a user model through a large number of cases (user stories), iterative data, and data analysis, and then predict or plan whether subsequent products are valuable.

    On the one hand, by predicting (i.e. building a model), and on the other hand, through actual user feedback data, the accuracy of the scope is adjusted, which is called verification. This will make more accurate judgments. Users are the protagonists of the business. By understanding the user and the interests between users, you can understand the business. To predict whether the product functions you designed are favored by users, you can judge from similar functions of competitors, or through some existing user data. Whether to obtain products designed that do not exist in the market may be welcomed.

    But note that the answers obtained from competitors and user feedback are not the best solution. For certain mature products and businesses, listening to customers is not the best solution. Even the suggestions and demands provided by users may run contrary to the new growth points. For example, the hard disk industry. (This involves the difference between continuity innovation and breakthrough innovation. But breakthrough innovation is not necessarily based on technology, but may be achieved through combined innovation)

    20. Link from idea end to delivery end

    has a project, and a high-speed iteration lasts for 3 months. How to do it in 3 months? Many people are prone to making mistakes, paying too much attention to form (ppt...) and failing to figure out the core issues. How to implement from ideas to delivery? How to find the real user needs and deliver the right products? Lu Qi's guidance suggests that a 3-month high-speed iteration will be carried out. The specific strategy is:

    The first point: within 3 months, get feedback on core indicators (such as orders, sales, recognition payment volume, number of users, etc.). Other feedback indicators are basically process indicators, and the most core result indicators (linked to commercial revenue and core value).

    Second point: After setting the indicator target, you must start to dismantle the iteration strategy once every 2 weeks. Disassemble tasks and action steps and develop detailed plans. In addition, the idea of ​​high-speed and fast iteration is emphasized.

    Note the high-intensity method here. Pre-emptively implementing such a fast customer acquisition and verification method to improve the efficiency of verifying whether the PMF is successful and can also improve the efficiency of the team in a short period of time. This design method is worth referring to. You must understand the data indicators of the product.

    Make a simple thought experiment: Investors ask you, how many people use your product and how long it takes? User retention rate? What is the growth rate? If you were them, how did you do it? So what do you want to do. Such thought experiments are actually a plan of action obtained by changing perspectives and simulating the other party’s experience and perspectives, and projecting them onto oneself. Become a mirror of yourself.

    can summarize the core idea: determine the goals of a certain time node - determine the core indicators - establish the degree to which each stage should be achieved (tempo) - decompose the core indicators into actions and subtasks, and each achievement. Disassembly becomes a weekly iteration. execution. This is the right idea. Whether in product development, other operations or project management, you can learn from this idea. Why iterate at high speed? One is to get results quickly, and the other is to reduce the consequences caused by mistakes. Correct the results in the early stage.

    I summarized Lu Qi's idea as: from idea to order, the core is to implement the product, and there is only one implementation standard. Only by focusing this chain and formulating product performance around needs can we be recognized by the market.

    's idea of ​​orders as the core is actually to test the market. Among them, we need to observe the acceptance of orders, possible growth rates, etc. Adjust quickly at any time. Within 3 months, having a certain quantity (not 1) order is one of the guarantees to confirm the success of products and services. The founder should personally understand the user and communicate with the user, and do a good job in research and development in the process to ensure that the user needs can be met in the end and thus orders are generated.

    21. The difference between technological innovation and model innovation

    Lu Qi mentioned wealth creation and corresponding magnitude, where the horizontal axis represents the evolution of time, and the vertical axis represents the growth of wealth. The growth rate of wealth is getting steeper and steeper. After careful observation, technology plays an important role in it.

    • Agriculture era: a wealth creation system based on fields;
    • Industrial era: a wealth creation system based on mechanization; Information era: a wealth creation system based on knowledge. The growth of wealth is closely related to technology.

    Lu Qi also mentioned the supply and demand issues of technology. That is: there are fewer and fewer technologies that can be commercialized, but more and more entrepreneurs will inevitably lead to unbalanced supply and demand, which is an obvious trend. However, the investment in technology is relatively small at the current stage, especially the investment in underlying science and technology. Therefore, we must increase technological investment and scientific research, which is the driving force for future wealth growth.

    Among them, commercial innovations include: one is based on model innovation; the other is based on technological innovation. Model innovation: shared bicycles, shared car models: Based on front-end positioning technology, idle vehicles are redistributed through the use rights to form innovation. But it is not based on innovation based on technology as the core. But combination innovation.

    technology innovation cases, such as genetic modification, human brain interface, chips, 5G and other cutting-edge technologies, which are technological innovations. Overall, the business model has been fully developed, but technological innovation is a blue ocean. This is a commercial gap created by the supply of underlying technology, which is also a difference between short-sighted and long-term perspectives.

    22. Be concise

    introduces the core selling point in one sentence, the essence is sales value and resonance with the audience. Behind this is insight into market demand. To introduce products, we need to combine these two points based on sales and demand insights. If your product cannot express the core in one sentence, it is not a good product. Sales: what to sell, what value to create, and why the other party wants it. Requirements: Whether it can resonate with users, whether it has in-depth insights and thinking. This is also the power of simplicity. The simpler it is, the deeper it is, the easier it is to understand it.

    Concise means courage. Not everything needs to be raised to develop, everything is included in the business, with a large and comprehensive scenario.

    This also conflicts with the concept of "big fish in a small fish pond". Why? Do anything, nothing can be done well. For business, concise results are similar to "deletion" in addition, deletion, modification and search. It takes courage to choose. In the initial stage of the project product, we must find the most core leverage points and focus points, find such core scenarios and businesses, and all in, plus rapid iteration. Why is

    concise? Customers’ cognitive minds about products are within the scope of one sentence. Apple is synonymous with smartphones. Is there anything else in the biggest consensus? Airbnb is synonymous with shared accommodation... Behind the simplicity, there is a profound insight into user needs.

    combined with our thoughts above: cannot make products that exceed the human capacity system, but the closer we get to the boundaries, the more valuable product innovation is.

    The more likely the product you get to gain from deep insights needs. Simplicity means innovation. The concise consideration lies in the value system, rather than a simple perspective effect and a product structure that lacks functionality. This user needs are closely related.

    23. Understand the relationship between supply and demand

    Lu Qi believes:

    ... Because new supply appears, new demand will be stimulated. Therefore, we cannot only look at the size of the surface stock market, but whether the solution output by this product can provide a higher efficiency and lower cost solution for a certain universal underlying demand.

    Before the personal computer was released, you asked how many people in this world would need a personal computer. Obviously you were stupid. What you should pay more attention to is the underlying needs of personal computers in the general sense that provide more efficient and lower-cost solutions. The answer is information processing, so business people, students, colleges and even housewives are potential target customers of personal computers.

    The emergence of personal computers has stimulated new demands? Not so. The need for faster contact and communication has not changed. However, the changes in the supply mechanism caused by the development of new technologies are the impact of the supply mechanism. From the perspective of supply mechanism, extend new opportunities to think about products.The founder of

    Vipkid observed that the number of foreign teachers per capita in China was seriously lacking, and introduced North American foreign teachers. By building a business model, it had an impact on the supply mechanism and broke the scarcity state of the market. appears to be that supply has increased, but behind it is that the supply mechanism has changed. Changes in the supply mechanism can be driven by business models. Behind is still the innovation mechanism, which has an impact on the market and forms a new supply mechanism. The

    path can be sorted out as follows: Innovation - (generating) - supply mechanism changes - awakens the original demand technology. The closer the boundaries of the capacity system, the greater the impact on the supply mechanism. Demand will not generate new demands, but existing ones.

    24. Learn to create (define) the problem first.

    Richard Feynman (a physicist at California Polytechnic) thinks: "what I cannot create, I do not understand."

    The method of dismantling big questions or difficult-to-answer questions into sub-problems. If the sub-question is answered, then this big question can be solved easily. This method is actually a problem of construction and disassembly. On the other hand, if you regard this as a way of thinking, ask a question (whether it is macro or micro), then disassemble it into a sub-problem and defeat it one by one. If you think about this method of

    carefully, you can solve many problems. Some difficult questions can be cleverly resolved through disassembly.

    further extends: to find the leads of this question, and gradually find the real question and answer through the leads. This reminds me of the attitude of Zhang Wuchang’s economist towards problems: ask questions with clarity and shallowness.

    Asking questions is sometimes more important than answering. For some questions, asking methods and inspiration are more important than answers. Even some questions do not have a definite answer. In order to "make it difficult" myself, is there a question that I can't answer? Finally, I found this question: "What current knowledge or experience is separated from the boundaries of my knowledge experience system and I cannot answer it now?" It is another matter to build this question itself and how to disassemble it.

    25. Understand the logic of technology creating wealth

    Why does technology create wealth? Why are knowledge and innovation the driving force of today’s greatest wealth? Why is technology mainly not others (such as management model) able to make wealth grow rapidly? Lu Qi provides an explanation.

    First of all, technology has been available from ancient times to the present. According to observations, starting from the industrial age, technological innovation has allowed social wealth to grow rapidly. The characteristics of technology bringing human progress are more obvious. For example: The development of mechanized industrial production, energy technology and other aspects has greatly improved productivity. The capacity of the consumer side (demand side) is released, and the production capacity and circulation capacity of market goods are strengthened.

    Wealth originally comes from surplus value and transactions. Once the transaction efficiency improves, wealth will naturally increase rapidly. Lu Qi summarized this logic as "the technology is more versatile." The knowledge and information industry can reorganize social resources and become more versatile. This is the logic of the rapid increase in wealth brought by technology.

    The so-called technological universality, my understanding is: First of all, technology is the birthplace of technology, whether inspired by nature or produced from laboratories or research. This is not known to the majority of users at this time, let alone use it.

    Step 1: The technology is initially discovered, there are few scenarios to be applied, and the benefits are low. Therefore, the "universal" ability to use technology to ordinary users is not high, so it is weak in versatility.

    Step 2: The foundation of technology is gradually accumulating, and the benefits brought by technology commercialization are gradually being paid attention to and seen by more people. Therefore, technology is constantly being explored, its application scenarios have increased significantly, and the number of people being covered has increased accordingly, and at this time, the versatility is gradually becoming stronger.

    Step 3: Recognizing the technology's capabilities and the resulting increase in benefits have become a consensus among the public. Technology brings more and more new creations based on the former, and transaction efficiency, management level, user habits, market acceptance, etc. are constantly developing, and the impact of technology is becoming increasingly greater.I have summarized several dimensions of the versatility of

    technology: the degree of inclusiveness of the business results or benefits brought by technology, user usage or coverage, market recognition, etc.

    Note: The second picture mentions the definition of wealth. Lu Qi believes that the definition of wealth is also broad, and it is created through information industries such as knowledge and can meet people's needs and desires and is called wealth. For example: Develop a lesson to teach others a certain type of skills, which is a kind of wealth; based on historical behavioral data, insight into consumers and provide corresponding guidance, which is also a kind of business wealth.

    In other words, providing users with wealth is actually inseparable from the ability to meet user needs. Users who have been baptized by continuous digitalization have been awakened to a variety of desires and needs, which is an important factor in the explosion of wealth.

    26. Understand the difference between tool thinking and general ability thinking

    AI is a case. Humans are constantly developing tools, and these tools are becoming more and more advanced. The so-called advanced is reflected in: higher efficiency, more automatic and intelligent, less cost-effective, more efficient, easier to use, lower threshold... The tools developed can greatly solve various problems and improve our quality of life...

    But this is just tool thinking. Tool thinking and general ability thinking, one is purely technical thinking and the other is market thinking. The cognition brought is different. From this point of view, I have to admire the author's different understandings of different understandings of technology and tools. General ability is common. Commonalities may be reflected in general market demand. Compared with tools, it emphasizes the concept of empowerment and matching people's abilities.

    Further, due to technological development, human cognitive upgrades and changes in cultural habits, these general capabilities (such as AI) we are seeing now will become infrastructure. At that time, developing tools became the simplest thing. The sign of progress is no longer the category of creating more tools and general capabilities. Humans will develop more and more abilities that can adapt to their basic general abilities.

    The difference between humans and other species is that they know how to adapt their abilities to their abilities. AI is capability adaptation; industrialization and creating machines are extensions (achieves) under capability adaptation. That is: industrialization, various creative machines, and various achievements brought about by technological development are themselves part of human adaptation and an extension of human capabilities. They are just the result of the human ability to form a system, it is that simple.

    Therefore, various new technologies such as AI and intelligent interaction technology are actually to manifest the achievements of the capability system. The impact on the composition of human capacity is due to the comprehensive role of culture, current technology feeding back, intellectual level, technical achievements foundation, market (habits, demand, etc.), policies, ideology, etc. From this, it is inferred that humans can only do things within the scope of the system of capabilities in the current stage. It is impossible to break through this level.

    If the results of the capability composition system are certain, why not find them? Whether it is the so-called MPV or the demand. In fact, they are all completing the results of the ability composition system. If the needs are incorrect, it is not an extension of human capabilities.

    If we look at it from this perspective, all innovations and creations that are currently happening and potentially occur are looking for the right extension of capabilities. From this we are inspired, which value is more important? It is a product that finds the boundaries of human capabilities to form the system. The boundary means competitiveness. The so-called boundary of is not pure technology, but also includes needs, cultural innovation, habit changes, etc. further explores and finds that innovative products and results occur within the boundaries of capabilities. The closer you are to the boundary, the higher the value dimension, and the more you are valued by the times.

    27. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

    This article is some of my thoughts after reading Xiao Feng's "Philosophy of Information Technology". The topic is related to information technology. This article mainly explores the essence, development stage and characteristics of information technology, and also contains some of my views.

    The philosophical discussion of information technology is actually a discussion of abstract thinking.Information and technology are both summarizing things covering different types and forms. They are not simply a matter or element. In order to facilitate understanding and the explanation of this article, let’s first talk about the concept of “abstract”. Then discuss the relevant philosophy of information technology and finally draw some conclusions. This is a general framework explained in this article.

    1. What is abstract

    What is "abstract"? We often hear "abstract xx into xx", "xx is essentially xx". And so on. "Abstract" is a generalization, refinement and induction, which is to refine certain elements of a thing into higher-level things and possess the universal attributes of that thing.

    For example: abstract plants into creatures, abstract books into learning materials, and abstract computer into electronic devices... Such abstraction seems to be a kind of summary. The process of "refining" things into abstract can be to expand the scope of things, to become a major feature of abstract things, or to classify things.

    In plain words, there are many ways to "abstract", and abstract things are also different. For example: abstracting plants into organisms means tracing the source through classification, that is, organisms are divided into plants and animals. Animals can also be abstracted as creatures. For example: live broadcast dissemination of knowledge, abstraction is the teaching process, it can also be abstraction as interactive learning methods, or abstraction as information flow.

    The abstraction of information technology covers the carriers, methods and methods related to human emergence, development and information. For example: WeChat daily active users are 1 billion, and people interact and communicate through WeChat's means such as voice, video, and text. The carriers of these information are electronic devices such as mobile phones, IPads, computers, etc., and the technology includes information-related data technology, information circulation and transmission technology, information reception technology, information interaction and processing technology, etc.

    The problem is here. In ancient times, there was no network, no power generation, no information receiver, and no display technology..., so is there information technology? This is also a point we want to discuss.

    My understanding is that if we abstract the inherent scope determined by the word "technology" and expand its extension, then we will come to the conclusion that printing is a technology. The "oracle bone inscriptions" engraved on the turtle shell is also a technique.

    Similarly, in an era without words in history, "word of mouth" itself is also a technology. This technology still exists at present, but it is more primitive, that is, the circulation (influence) of information will be different through word of mouth. "Good things don't go out, bad things spread thousands of miles." From the perspective of information technology, the circulation and transmission of "negative information" can be greatly disseminated under the premise of "mouth" carrier.

    This is a transmission through the technology of "body information". The development of information technology will in turn continue to affect the attributes of information transmission, the carriers of information, etc. For example, the development form of Internet enterprise products called "word of mouth effect" is generated by accumulating user praise.

    The carriers of users' praise can be spread by word of mouth through "body technology", and can also be distributed by posting pictures, texts and videos in the form of friends, communities, and multimedia. Therefore, the scope of "information technology" discussed here is from ancient times to the present, and is not limited to the development of information technology brought about by the emergence of modern and modern electronic devices.

    The book "Philosophy of Information Technology" divides information technology into several stages. This article also uses this idea. And based on this idea, we will think and summarize the relationship between the core elements of information technology and other aspects.

    • stage 1: the era of word-of-mouth;
    • stage 2: the printing era;
    • stage 3: the era of electronic media;
    • stage 4: the postmodern era. The four stages above

    are also easy to understand. After observing several stages, we found that the difference lies in the differences in the technologies such as information production, dissemination, processing, and processing.

    For example: word-of-mouth era (this word is very general, which can be traced back to ancient times), at that time there was no text, and no advanced technical equipment.The production of information is processed by human thinking and is transmitted through the human body (mouth, hand, expression, etc.).

    In the printing era, words can be widely copied and disseminated. Human thoughts no longer become mythical through the body's information technology, fabrics, utensils, etc., but resonate with people thousands of miles away from home between the lines of printed paper. The cost of information production has been greatly reduced, which has also promoted the popularity of ideas. Information dissemination has grown due to technology. Information, civilization, and human cognition influence and restrict each other. As a result, during the rise and fall of the dynasty, the records of the Ming Dynasty's punishment were retained, recording various legal systems, torture measures at that time, and became a reference for later systems.

    The era of electronic media, that is, the era of production and development of transistors, broadcasters, TVs, light bulbs, etc. Light bulbs can of course become part of information technology, such as using the Morse code made by lamps to transmit information, guiding lighthouses in the sea, etc. With the emergence of TV, the way information is disseminated from two-dimensional viewing and listening to three-dimensional listening effects. Use eyes and ears at the same time.

    Don’t underestimate this transformation method. It is extremely difficult to start simply from the perspective of information display dimensions. This means that the production and processing of information are different due to the different information presentation. Pure text brings linear thinking, and the thinking brought by TV will be more three-dimensional.

    is visible, and information technology will also affect people's thinking and thinking cognition. The development of human thinking and cognition will bring about different forms of information (this sentence is a bit difficult to describe and can be understood as a reaction). "Philosophy of Information Technology" was written in 2016. Many of the discussions seemed distant myths at the beginning, but at present, some have been practiced (for example: the technology of implanting chips in the brain).

    The postmodern era can cover a large range, and this line is the era we are currently in. Electronic information devices are no longer one-way transmission, but interactive; they are no longer feedback set by the system, but artificial intelligence decisions, no longer limited carriers, and everything has gradually become the "application (distribution) center."

    2. 3 elements: human, machine, information

    I have refined the core elements of information technology into several parts: human, machine, information. We will use these 3 elements to discuss later on

    . The machines here no longer refer to the narrow "computer, large-scale processor, database, etc." technology, but cover carriers related to information technology from ancient times to the present. The relationship between people, machines and information also has different manifestations at different stages. Below are several parts summarized by the author, for reference only:

    Stage 1: Word of mouth. In the era of word-of-mouth, people act on other people through human body information technology and through voice transmission. Therefore, this is the simplest layer of information relationship. The author will not discuss the "form of function" here. This will be explained later. What does the effect of human beings on people have to do with? The "negative news" mentioned above is a kind of, and what other information has different forms of influence?

    Phase 2: Printing era. One of the characteristics of the printing era is that people no longer directly influence others, but influence more people through printing machines. More people will have mutual influence effects. For example: We can imagine that during the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, a group of literary enthusiasts would hold some "Song Ci Sects" or "Tang Poetry Seminars", and they would hold a book "Jiqi Xin Ci Song" to study. This is the mutual influence of people on information through the printed matter carrier.

    Stage 3: The era of electronic media. In the era of electronic media, there are machine 2.0, that is, electronic equipment such as televisions, broadcast equipment, telephones, and radios. Different machines lead to differences in information transmission methods, information production methods, etc.

    Stage 4: Postmodern era. Machine 3.0. The machine technology and equipment of information are updated, and information has a new form of processing and processing, making information more intelligent and humanized. Everything is gradually digitized, so that machines gradually become the master of the value chain.By collecting human behavior information and processing (AI), machines become more personalized to humans. With the increase in data volume, machines are more and more simulated like people and understand people better. The decision-making mechanism of humans has created a stratification phenomenon.

    Everything has become the "application center" as the data is improved, and the dimensions of information are richer. The power characteristics of information and its systemic impact on people will also vary. This will be discussed later.

    columnist

    product light years, WeChat official account: zinc products, everyone is a product manager columnist. He once served as the B-end product manager of a top knowledge payment platform in China, and was responsible for the product design of the platform of over 100 million users. I am more interested in system design, system thinking, etc.

    This article was originally published on Everyone is a product manager and reproduction is prohibited without permission.

    question picture is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.

    , for example, Nut TNT workstation , can allow users to perform various human-computer interactions through voice (such as copying, table entry, etc.). The efficiency of recognizing speech in noisy places is affected. If you think in combination with technical configuration + requirements: voice input can get rid of the operation of control buttons (including mouse) and achieve goals by recognizing the interaction process between people and machines (whether it is voice, gestures, or body language).

    This process is mainly based on speech recognition and other technologies. But if we find corresponding new technologies (such as brain-computer interfaces), can we solve this problem? Brain-computer interface is a technical configuration that solves the needs of users' deep interaction.

    6. Learn to question planning until it succeeded

    In "The Embarrassment of Innovators", there is a paragraph described as follows:

    explores a different method of formulating strategies and planning... This method recognizes the rule that the correct market and the correct strategy for developing this market are unpredictable. The rule of

    , known as "discovery-based planning", suggests that managers assume that predictions are wrong, not right, and that the strategy they choose to adopt may also be wrong. Investing and managing based on this assumption will force managers to plan and learn what they need to know, and this is a more effective way to successfully deal with disruptive technologies.

    This is separated from our common sense: how can the plans, designs, and strategies made based on sufficient research and analysis be wrong at the beginning? Isn’t that a slap yourself in the face?

    However, if you think about it the other way around, you can get a different answer: Assuming that 50% of the companies in the market have conducted sufficient research and market opportunity analysis from the beginning and adopted the correct strategy, the number of companies that can be created in the end should be many (pure assumption).

    , but the actual situation is not optimistic. The following data can illustrate: About 1 million companies in China go bankrupt every year, and an average of 2 companies go bankrupt every minute! For more than 80 million small and medium-sized enterprises, the average life cycle of is only 2.9 years, less than 7% of them survived for more than 5 years, and less than 2% of them lived for more than 10 years! In other words, more than 98% of small and medium-sized enterprises in China will die within ten years of their establishment. ——Excerpt from World Agrochemical Network

    Can we infer this way: the correct market strategies formulated by many companies are basically the only one who can achieve in the end. In other words, what the corporate decision-makers believe is correct market analysis, insight, and strategy formulated is finally proven to be wrong. When facing the market, you think is right, but it is highly likely that it is wrong. What if the initial planning was wrong at the beginning?

    No matter how correct the previous planning, planning and research are, we must deny it from the beginning and assume that it is wrong (how can we attribute all efforts to error? It is difficult to accept on the human level, and no one is born to be denied), then we must design investment, business plans, organization, systems, and product development mechanisms in advance, and reflect on the strategies that are assumed to be wrong.

    What we need to do is think the opposite, and the total number is the opposite. From the beginning, all assumptions were negative. If they were transformed, the final lead to the Tamura Avenue.

    7. The best in the industry is not the best, the best one is the one that suits it is the best

    In "Hacker and Painter", there is a paragraph that describes the following content:

    In a large organization, there is a special term to describe this practice of following the choices of most people, called "industry best practices". The reason why this word appears is actually to allow your manager to shirk responsibility. Since I chose "industry best practices", if I fail and the project fails, then you can't blame me, because it is not me who made the choice, but the entire "industry". ..As Erane Garnett said, the so-called "industry best practices" of programming languages ​​will not actually make you the best, it will only make you very common.

    Paul (introduced in the previous article) has a different attitude towards industry best practices. It was originally based on the "experience" derived from practical induction, but in some cases it will fail.Paul's specific logic is: it is generally a traditional profession (such as accounting, etc.), and only by pursuing stability can best practices be used. Because accounting cannot make mistakes, it must also maintain a high level in the industry. The essence of technology is high-end and requires meeting real user needs. Mediocre products will not be welcomed by the market.

    Paul mentioned this point at that time, in fact, based on the selection of technical languages. At that time, their senior manager planned to ask technical members to choose java as the technical development language (java was more popular at the time), which was denied by the author Paul. Because the manager did not understand the technical logic at all, and did not deeply analyze the advantages and disadvantages of each technical language and how adaptable it is to the startup company. The view of

    is not very novel, but it is a trap that is easy to fall. Let's get a general look at the definition of "best practice":

    Wikipedia's explanation: A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to any alternatives because it produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things.

    Baidu Encyclopedia Explanation: Best practice is a management concept that believes that there is a certain technology, method, process, activity or mechanism that can optimize the results of production or management practices and reduce the possibility of errors.

    In short, best practice is a recognized better method or technique. For example, selecting a development language, using a certain organizational mechanism, and choosing a certain logic and idea.

    Note that best practice represents "best", and the meaning itself is correct, that is, in some cases, the use of "best practice" can indeed improve efficiency. But what I fear most is to apply certain macro concepts to a single body or organization, ignoring adaptability, environment and initial purpose. The author takes an observed practical battle as an example:

    A certain development team leader believes that Git is the best practice in the industry and is forcibly promoted, while ignoring that most of the others in the team master svn. The final result is that the leader no longer mentions Git to a group of programmers who only know svn in the team group. The "best practice" in the case of

    is a technical selection. The reason for the unsatisfactory results is that it ignores the current situation of team members' technical mastery and makes blind promotions. Best practices should take into account adaptability. No matter what kind of "best" is, the core is to meet user needs. And if you simply adopt so-called best practices and ignore the status quo, it is an excuse to evade responsibility.

    In short, for some cases, the best practice seems to be running naked in the snow with a quilt covered in the eyes. In addition to technology, is it correct to choose the "best practice" solution for the product design process? It may be right or wrong, I think it depends on the specific situation. With different positioning, environment, and products, industry best practice has become a rifle that cannot aim at 10 rings (it may aim at 5 rings and 6 rings, but the opponent may look in the opposite direction and aim at 10 rings). Industry best practices are just reference books, not compass!

    is illustrated by my own case. When designing a product, I also emphasized to the development engineer that "this logic or design is a better practice for mature products in the industry/market." When it comes to product design with innovative nature, best practices are likely to fail, so we need to change our thinking.

    Therefore, we must refuse to define the direction of our products or technologies only by seeking some authoritative products, mature methods, etc. The methods, mechanisms, processes and solutions that replace business best practices must be closely related to the underlying needs of users and the current company's current situation. Even the proposed plan may go against the "industry best practices".

    The best in the industry may not be the best. The one that suits is the best!

    8. Innovation is an exception and special

    Benchmark Venture Capital Partner Scott Bells believes that

    "find a model".As an entrepreneur and investor, I am surrounded by people who try to classify and profile the elements of a company’s success…Most of them forget that innovation (and investing in innovation) is precisely a job about exceptions. I force myself not to pay too much attention to past experiences.

    1. Finding Patterns: The Victory of the Induction Rule

    The author believes that "finding Patterns" adopts the induction rule. The obtained product cannot break through this model. Therefore, it is a very poor suggestion to divide product types based on "finding patterns" and define new product designs.

    The so-called business model, we can understand it as the structure of all product internal and external value interactions.

    For example, the "content + e-commerce" model, "tool + content" model, social e-commerce model, value-added service model, free model, membership model, subscription model, etc. we often hear about.

    If we judge and determine the value of an innovative product based on a model framework, we will use existing and certain definitions to define unknown and uncertainty, and use the past to define the future. If the future is an extension line of the past, Kodak will not go bankrupt, BB machines will not disappear, and greedy snakes will not go to the cloud... The induction rule is a favorable side, and you must be careful to see only the risks of white swans because of this.

    Supplement: Induction, and speciality are the opposite. The particularity continues to come from the discovery of practice, and in turn updates the inductive things. The flaw of induction lies in the conflict between the development attributes of things and the static.

    2. Management of innovation: Learn to abandon historical innovation experience

    Innovation is an exception, the essence is that innovation cannot be defined within the scope of existing concepts. The mouse is an innovation, and as a revolutionary human-computer interaction device, it greatly improves the efficiency of operating computers. Before the "mouse", there will be no "tiger mark" and "rabbit mark" there. "Mouse" is an innovation, it is an exception, inconsistent with historical experience, but it represents the future at that time.

    The first mouse in history (Dr. Engrebet, Ph.D., of the Stanford Institute in the United States, December 9, 1968), and proposed the idea of ​​graphical user interface.

    3. Innovation is an exception.

    Its essence is to create products or models that do not exist at present, rather than products of continuity (the improvement or creation mentioned here actually depends on the specific premise. For example, the author once designed an educational product learning situation analysis function, which is essentially an improved innovation, because learning situation analysis is not a new thing. However, the learning situation analysis designed by the author is indeed different from other products in some aspects, and is more efficient. If it is based on similar types, you think it is innovation and it is OK).

    But experience always grows old (including the innovative experience at that time). Yesterday’s experience, opinions and wisdom always come out of date. Once it is out of date, it must be abandoned to give way to more effective innovative experiences. This is the "addition, deletion, modification and investigation of innovative experience", and innovative experience needs to be managed.

    , especially at a time when technological innovation is faster, experience from a few years ago may no longer apply to current competition (a clear example is the evolution of programming languages). Force yourself not to value past experiences, but give up experiences, so that new experiences can be generated more easily. This is a technology that abandons innovative experience.

    can ask the following questions: "What experiences that were once considered innovation have been abandoned or not applied now, and you are required to break such experience?" For example: based on free model and member subscription model, imitation innovation and innovation based on underlying principles... It has to be said that foreign investors, especially Silicon Valley and some American investors, have a great understanding of this aspect and innovative concepts. Knowing the product model well, the same is true for innovative concepts. They have sufficient cognitive level of awareness of innovation and value. This has continuously improved my thinking.

    Innovation should be an exception and a special feature derived from continuous practice (Q: Are new things obtained from combination forms innovative? Answer: Combination is also a kind of special feature). In turn, it is applied to universality.

    9. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

    Tim Ferris' "Giant Tools - Intuitive Investment" mentioned by Kevin (who once invested in Twitter and other companies):

    For me, only after a more focused thinking process that focuses on using emotional intelligence can I decide whether to invest in a startup company... Next, I will do some traditional rigorous evaluation... When evaluating a new product, I will extract some new features (not all characteristics) of this product and list in detail how this product may affect the emotions of its target consumers. After that, I will consider how these product features may develop over time.

    Simply put, it is to evaluate whether the product is worth investing in based on the user's first intuition or first feeling (my understanding is that the author prefers C-end users).

    has many positive first feelings, such as: making users feel comfortable, feeling efficient and convenient, fast, good experience, comfortable, very personalized, cost-effective, unexpected... For example, I observed advertisements from a certain bank on the subway. It allows users to make large transfers through mobile phones (Note: does not constitute any investment or guidance advice!). This was beyond my expectations and made me want to understand immediately (comparing with existing mobile app transfer methods such as WeChat/Alipay).

    According to the book, Kevin invested in many projects and achieved success. Therefore, his intuitive investment model has also attracted much attention (in fact, after Kevin draws his first intuition, he also needs to conduct a rigorous rational analysis process). Is it feasible to judge whether a product can be accepted by users and whether it has the potential for investment in this way?

    Of course, maybe you can think this is hindsight. However, studying the user's emotions towards the product is originally part of user feedback. Product managers or designers can observe users’ first reactions or feedback on usage based on usability testing. The above are the same.

    Here are a few cases. In his investment notes, Kevin explained his emotional reaction to Twitter at that time: 140 words are faster and simpler than creating a blog; he explained that the platform allows users to pay attention to strangers, which can create a "two-way friendship"; his disgust of the bulky and tedious equipment required for virtual reality, and his shock to the sci-fi sense of Tesla's acceleration sound when driving at that time...

    , such a first intuitive feeling, gave Kevin many product inspirations.

    gains the understanding of the product based on emotional reactions, and under a certain environmental context, it becomes a "substantiable opinion". In fact, there are many factors that determine the future or potential of a product, and it cannot be obtained by simply feeling. But it is obvious that it can greatly affect whether investors invest in this project or product. How can we understand how users respond to emotions? I have a few summary here:

    1. get rid of the professional perspective and look at the problem from the user perspective.
    2. should capture feelings, emotions, expressions and states as soon as possible. Including facial features. For example: Feeling (the thoughts that appear in the brain at the first time): Shocking, good, very good, how to do it, something to do... The opposite feeling: What is the purpose? Except...it has no effect...eyes: eyes are in abrupt, serious use of products and other reactions. Mouth: talk, analyze and other reactions. Brain: Reactions such as thinking, serious commitment.
    3. observe as many samples and products as possible, understand your emotions about similar products, and compare them.
    4. compares related competitors to observe your own feelings.
    5. vs. people’s possible feelings or reactions in the same environment.

    Compared with the macro-technical thinking system used by Lu Qi to evaluate products and projects (top-down). This product comes from emotional reaction evaluation, which is actually bottom-up. The two can actually be combined: from the combination of historical and technical logic analysis + user experience feedback, it provides a more three-dimensional evaluation of the product. This is also a way of thinking training.

    10. The popularization of professional models

    Qiji Chuangtan Cao Xuwen believes:

    "To give a few examples, such as the emerging Devsume in the entrepreneurship field, simply put it as a popularization of engineers' tools, including some cutting-edge applications of Al. Or RPA (Robotic Process Automation), it is simply to put it as a simple way to put it as a scientific and technological worker programming engineer, which can allow white-collar workers to do such things, so it can bring a particularly large efficiency improvement to the company."

    popularizes the tools used by professional engineers (professions). This is a great idea. Professional tools represent professional technology. Popularization means the release of tool effectiveness to the public, which is to allow unprofessional people to do professional things and eventually gain the same value.

    Since tools in professional fields require professional skills, how can civilians (novice) also be used? After roughly sorting out, I will explain it from two aspects: ease of use and value.

    1. Ease of use: To reduce the difficulty of using professional tools: from high difficulty and complex operation to fool-style operation, simple to get started, visualization, etc., let the product itself be the manual. For example, Photoshop vs Meitu Xiuxiu, Photo Studio Professional Design Album vs System actively generates photo albums (Huawei mobile phone album "moment"), creates videos vs shoots Douyin, writes 800-word essays vs automatic essay generation by the machine starting with one sentence.
    2. value: Changes in output efficiency and effect: From taking a long time to output content in a very short time, the output content can be comparable to professional level and meet the actual needs of users.

    In fact, photo studio design albums are something professionals do, and now a mobile phone can solve the problem of custom albums; shooting professional entertainment videos (including various transitions, special effects use, dubbing, etc.) is also something professional photographers or editors do. Now, short video platforms such as Douyin Kuaishou Video Account will produce tools extremely fool-like, allowing ordinary users to create a short video at will. There are many other examples of this. Unprofessional people gradually replace professional people's tools and do professional people's work.

    Why should professional tools be popularized? My understanding is that professional production tools must eventually be implemented on the demand side. For various reasons, the demand side itself is separate from the production side. As producers and consumers are more likely to combine in the information age, production, sales and use are easier to integrate. In the information age, we are not only the target audience of products and services, but also the creator and designer of such services. I will explain the needs of the consumer and production sides:

    • consumer side needs: growth, entertainment, entertainment, self-improvement, etc.
    • Demands on the production side: Desire: interaction, participation, achievement, sharing, empathy, social...
    • Benefits: money, honor, fame...
    • Personality: personalization, release, self-expression...

    In the information age, consumption demand and production demand can be the same group/individual. For example, many people are the creators of articles and consumers of articles.

    For me, you can get consultation by inline. If I have the opportunity, I will be happy to provide consultation and sharing (production side). This shows that the boundaries between production and consumption are becoming increasingly blurred. The popularization of tools will inevitably lead to the foolishness, ease of use and de-specialization of tools. At the same time, the effectiveness of the tool will be released to ordinary users, resulting in more supply, more people willing to consume, more transactions, and a new market will be formed. The popularization of the

    professional model will drive a new round of innovation and market development.

    11. Understand the relationship between competitors and differentiation

    YC Co-founder Paul Graham believes that the average annual growth of

    large companies is about 10%. So, if you are in charge of a large company, as long as everything is done to the average level of a large company, you can get the average result of a large company, that is, growth is about 10% per year. The problem is that the average result of a small company means closing down. The survival rate of startups is much lower than 50%. So, if you are in charge of a startup, it is better to do something unique, otherwise there will be trouble.

    I don’t know if this sentence from Silicon Valley venture capitalist Paul has had any impact on you. For me, it still provides a newer perspective on the problem. The central idea of ​​the above paragraph is: reference and reference to competitors is fatal to startups. Only by developing unique and sufficiently differentiated strategies can breakthrough innovations be achieved. Why?

    1. Start-up companies’ requirements for growth

    Paul’s logic is: for large companies, due to their large size and sufficient stable returns, they need to preserve a certain rate of growth every year. Therefore, large companies refer to mature competitor solutions and can be in the same frequency as the market, absorb the other party’s excellent design and improve it. This way, there is no problem. For emerging startups, they take precedence over the speed of development. If you learn from the solutions of mature products of other large companies, you will at most generate the same growth rate and cannot make breakthroughs. It's like wearing a tight hoop.

    If the startup does not achieve a growth rate that exceeds the average expected growth rate, the result may be mediocre and even unable to obtain the market (in the same solution, users prefer to choose products with good brand, reputation and mature reputation, and only a small number of technology-sensitive people pursue new technology experiences, but due to the reference of startups, this group of people may also be abandoned). The conclusion is: Don’t copy startups, and you can’t even learn from them. My understanding is that the core products and models of startups must have sufficiently differentiated value from mature products in the market, and solve certain pain points of users.

    Back to the old business, as a product manager, competitive product analysis and "borrowing" are the routine tasks of many product people, including me. But now, this common sense is questioned.

    Of course, we need to look at its dependency conditions, its background, the stage of the proposer, and even this abnormal knowledge reflects the required decision-making courage and the requirements for whether the product manager himself can put forward unique and differentiated value. Referring to competitors and analyzing competitors is originally a "correct" and "reasonable" way. Why can the author be questioned and seem reasonable (from this we can infer that the author Paul's logical and abnormal knowledge ability are very strong)?

    is because of "non-consensus".

    2. How does non-consensus come about?

    Refer to the author’s previous article: How to generate non-consensus like pipelines? The reason is that the "environment and logic" have changed: the growth environment and the requirements for development of startups and large companies are in different backgrounds (it is emphasized here that startups cannot learn from competitors).

    Paul illustrates the example of his creation of viaweb (Paul Graham claims that Viaweb is the first online store application service provider, which was later acquired by Yahoo to become a Yahoo store). Thinking that we should do something that satisfies our current company's work, we chose the Lisp language (rather than the popular java or python at the time). Lisp is the ability to develop products quickly, deliver quickly (short development cycle), low software requirements, and does not require a large amount of maintenance and development costs. Finally, widen the competition gap and win.

    3. 1 small problem

    Even if you do not refer to competitors, or based on the needs of business as the core thinking model, the product designed will be similar to the product of large companies and has no uniqueness. How to crack it? In Paul's view, the characteristics of differentiation may not be obvious. We can check step by step from thinking path to design method, find out those conventional factors and make improvements.

    4. Conclusion

    The conclusion of the notes in this article: The strategy of doing something unique to a startup company is a lower risk. On the contrary, new products obtained by simulated competitors are often very risky. This is a non-consensus for reference to competitors. If you follow the rules and follow the rules, there will be no difference in the value you get, so naturally few people will recognize it. In product design, you must also take a unique approach and explore its unique value.

    We need to deeply understand the purpose of competitive product analysis, why we need to do competitive product analysis, and what the company's differentiation is.

    12. Understand the relationship between purpose and means

    Technical entrepreneurs are easily trapped in the situation where they ignore the real needs of users simply to solve a certain technical problem.Iridium’s plan, after calculation, requires 650,000 users to recover, and finally only obtains 55,000 users. This has led to the failure of innovative projects. The technology is cool, but it may be useless. If you don’t understand the connotation and relationship between the purpose and means, it may not be worth the loss in the end.

    1. How to judge the application of technology: Let the bullets fly for a while

    What should I do if entrepreneurs sometimes really don’t understand user needs and have the recognition that the technology has prospects? How to determine the future use of this technology?

    For example: This technology can indeed improve certain types of efficiency, but it is not a common need (such as some ergonomic recliners).

    Or, this technology can only become a part of a certain application or system, and is a subordinate relationship, and cannot be directly invested to C-end users (such as a certain type of algorithm or a formula that can improve search accuracy).

    Or, it may take decades to see how this technology is worth in the future (such as in the electric vehicle field and battery technology 30 years ago). How to judge at this time?

    In the short term, technology is to meet the user needs of the current or future period (such as within 3-5 years). More underlying technology research requires decades of research and exploration by some large-scale companies. For example, 5G technology, aerospace technology, etc.

    2. Is the metaverse the future trend?

    The current meta universe is a hot topic of discussion. Does it represent future trends?

    Professor Shi Zhan of the School of Diplomacy analyzed his views on the metaverse in the live broadcast of Tencent Lecture Hall. When we look at it from the perspectives of "entertainment" and "virtual reality", he thought of a new solution: the metaverse can provide a solution of "production is consumption". The deduction logic is:

    • Agriculture era: 95% of people produce and 5% consume.
    • Industrial Era: half each; but due to the development of smart devices and automation technology, more and more people have been replaced, which is an irreversible trend.
    • Future: 5% of people may produce and 95% of people consume.

    Because in the digital information age, it has been observed that people consume more and more through digitalization; the metaverse itself is a further enhancement of digitalization. If the future is likely to be that there are few people producing and many people consuming, then what are the remaining people who do not produce?

    Therefore, when people interact with each other through the metaverse, the data generated is itself a part of consumption. This will solve the problem of imbalance in production and consumption. From this discussion alone, behind it is the discussion of the social labor wave. Of course this is off-topic. From this perspective, is this technology worth studying, should entrepreneurs enter the market, and is the future promising? There is still a lot of uncertainty. This is worth further thinking.

    3. Discussion on user needs: The correct posture for analyzing the requirements

    But overall, the technical problems ultimately come down to the user's needs.

    • From the perspective of the product, user needs are divided into B-end and C-end: C-end focuses on human desires, and B-end focuses on organizational needs.
    • From the perspective of the level, which levels are divided by KANO in Maslow, is it a basic type, expectation type or excitement type demand?
    • in terms of the degree of demand and business matching, is it a core requirement, a secondary requirement or an irrelevant requirement. From the perspective of demand type, what should be solved is the efficiency level, experience level, performance level or other levels?
    • From the perspective of human nature, we must satisfy vanity, show off, joy, happiness, stress relief, comparison, exploration... which type?

    user needs still have many categories. What types of users should your technical application meet?

    Therefore, before pure technical performance pk, you must confirm that the proud problem you solved with technology is really what users want? The most important thing is to understand user needs when technology is applied. How to find out? In addition to common demand research methods to determine the authenticity of demand, the author summarizes some alternative methods to determine whether the technology application is required by users.The following are 4 points:

    1. Don’t do research, but observe the actual situation of users using: their expressions, attitudes, and choices. Whether they express dissatisfaction, desire, fun, etc. and record it.
    2. After they use your demo or product, do they have the next action? For example, make an appointment to purchase, share with friends, talk to others, be curious and want to research, continue to pay attention, collect, subscribe, forward, participate...
    3. observes the use of similar technology applications, traffic, user usage, and general feedback on the appstore. (For example, the author has observed that some products have feedback on the appstore, and complained that the charging model is unreasonable. The minimum charge is at least 3 months or more. Many users have feedback that a charging model of 1 month or a day is required. At this time, you can grasp this requirement).
    4. see the growth rate. How will the trial version grow naturally after it is launched? The higher the specific value, the better, but it still needs to be combined with the industry (Lu Qi believes that we should pay attention to new products with a growth rate of more than 30-50%. In fact, this value represents the strong growth of technology companies in the future and also represents the actual needs of users).

    Of course, there are many ways to verify whether the requirements are real or not, for reference only~

    So, does your technical application solve the problem or the problem that users are concerned about?

    is the goal to meet user needs, and the technology used is a means. Whoever reverses this problem will have problems.

    13. Looking at the future from history: a simulated practical battle of an electric vehicle project

    "The Innovator's Dilemma" mentioned a case. In the early 20th century, if you were the project leader of a mature automobile company and led a new electric vehicle project, what would you do? The author shares his thinking logic and simulation practice using the principle of breakthrough innovation. First, give the background of the simulation practice at that time:

    • Background 1: In the 1990s, California, the United States required automobile manufacturers to sell electric vehicles to account for 2% of California's cars.
    • Background 2: Electric vehicles are not as good as mature oil-powered cars. For example, acceleration time, battery life, etc.

    As the simulated "Electric Vehicle Project Leader", the author has several steps to implement the strategy:

    Step 1:

    Step 1: Determine whether electric vehicles can become emerging breakthrough and innovative technological applications. The method does not come from traditional research methods such as research visits, consulting interviews, but obtains these judgment information by observing the actual use of customers. The author observed the following results:

    • Observation 1: The electric vehicle's endurance is 50-80 miles (compared with traditional oil power at the time: 125-150 miles of endurance).
    • Observation 2: When you get to a highway intersection, it takes 20 seconds for most electric cars to accelerate to 60 miles (it takes only 10 seconds for fuel vehicles).
    • Observation result 3: Mainstream car customers hope to get more car models, but electric vehicles are currently relatively single.

    If it is you, through the above observations, can you draw the following conclusion: Electric vehicles are not a breakthrough technology application. However, the author did not stop at the judgment obtained by preliminary observations, and did not look at these current situations, but went to the next step of in-depth exploration.

    Step 2:

    draws a relationship between the improvement of electric technology and the current mature market standards. Simply put, this picture is about understanding how long it takes for electric vehicles to catch up with the average performance level of fuel vehicles at that time through improved technology. Find the intersection time point that meets the standards. Observing the relationship diagram, it seems that the reason cannot be found.

    The author also received feedback from many experts: the performance of electric vehicles is difficult to break through unless the battery technology is greatly improved. Experts have spoken, can we speculate that electric vehicles were not a breakthrough technology application at that time? It will not be able to break the market monopoly of fuel vehicles, right? Although the author recognizes the dilemma of reality, he does not stop there, but further explores it.

    Step 3:

    The author starts by finding new customer groups, that is, he can accept potential customers of electric vehicles at that time.By exploring the scenarios and needs, the author really found it in simulation. The scenarios include parents picking up and dropping off their children in primary and secondary schools, commuting in cities in backward areas, etc. The battery life of electric vehicles can meet their needs, and the requirements for acceleration performance are not high.

    (But you can imagine that this positioning is indeed the case? Although the scenario exists, why wouldn’t consumers choose fuel vehicles with better performance? It cannot convince me. Because such scenarios do not give consumers the necessary or tendency choices, this is off-topic...)

    Assuming that the demand in these scenarios is true, it must be put into production, verification and feedback. If the customer group verification fails, make adjustments. Of course, in addition to the above specific execution steps, as the "project leader", the author asked to establish the following strategy from the beginning:

    1. independent of the electric department into the company's independent department, including finance, sales and other aspects.
    2. will divest sales without strict sales indicators.
    3. establishes an independent innovation culture for the department, encourages teams to innovate, and creates new product development models.
    4. set up an independent distribution interest network for new markets...

    Innovate product R&D models, independent department teams, interest divestiture, establish a distribution network, find new niche customer markets and demand scenarios, personally visit the front line to observe the actual market, etc. What is the difference between the incubation model in many large factories nowadays... What I see from the series of execution strategies of the author of

    , what I see is how he saves this "traditional fuel vehicle" company, trying to prevent the competitive situation from being first developed by emerging startups from outside the world through incubation and development. Is it really effective to try to save

    ? But as the author emphasized, because independent department teams, independent sales accounting methods, etc. are actually decided by the company's senior management.

    The senior management decides such a thing itself is part of the operating system of a mature company. There is no advantage of being flexible and daring to make decisions, which is also a common disease for some large companies.

    The final result If the senior leaders fail to pass and judge that there is no market or the market is small, they may lose the opportunity to obtain breakthrough technological innovation in development. Once senior management realizes it, it is often the case that the company is facing a crisis, and the customer base is constantly lost or unable to grow. Intentionally to open up the second growth curve. But the time window is not very big at this time. For example: From the rise of long videos to short videos, it took less than 5 years to get started. Users' attention on long video platforms such as iQiyi and Youku are constantly being occupied by Douyin and Kuaishou.

    At this time, the former launched short videos in the application, and the opportunity was no longer great (user mind, market share, and positioning were not enough). It is not necessarily because everyone cannot see it, but because mature enterprises are in a prime position to lead the interests and user scale. Faced with the general rise of small and micro projects and products, it is difficult to pay too much attention to it under the factors of human nature, and do not want to independently open a department to do it. All this is related to cognition and the network system of interests considered by the author.

    Here, although this book explains breakthrough innovation, the author's strategy in the final simulation strategy actually returns to the model of operating products: find the right customer market, lay out sales channels, do a good job in teams and product innovation construction. Even if you don’t face electric vehicles, as an independent organization, you will have a lot of creative innovations in the future, just like emerging startups.

    In short, when facing breakthrough innovation and product impact, the best way to break the situation is not to remedy afterwards, but to make sufficient risk assessment and corresponding investment in advance. The most important thing is that the decision-maker has the courage to face the challenges of the changed market, new technology applications and new customer groups, and be able to formulate practical and effective reform strategies.

    : To eat the fruit, the best situation is to plant a seed now. makes forward-looking judgments and insights, realizes that the corresponding possible potential becomes innovative technology and conducts all in. The final result may be to use the resources of mature enterprises to support it through continuous high-frequency and high-speed experiments.

    But at this time, let’s change the perspective. What if the abundant resources provided by mature enterprises are for independent innovation development, what if it becomes a burden of cost expenditure?

    Creativity and innovation may often come from difficulties (such as the development of airbnb to get up early to rent inflatable beds and breakfast to make money). This is another crux of the problem.

    At the same time, as a mature enterprise, will invest a lot of money in innovative application research and development dilute the focus of the business?

    Therefore, for products that are oriented towards destructive innovation, facing strategies itself is a systematic operating system. Through investment and acquisition, it is another way of playing.

    14. Thinking about the technical ideological architecture

    One of the core of Lu Qi’s venture capital theory system is to extract the core element of technology from the macroscope of human history. This is the most powerful, but it is compatible with part of its ideological system. To sum up, it is the development of people's civilization brought about by the development of technology in several different civilization eras.

    • Stone Age: It is not much different from animals, but there are some basic hunting tools, such as stones, bows and arrows;
    • Agricultural Age: The development of smelting technology has produced various agricultural plow tools and produced food surplus. By bringing prosperity of material and trade and growth of wealth through transactions. This is one of the evolutions brought about by the development of tools in the agricultural era;
    • Industrial era: the emergence of steam engines and the emergence of power systems. The factory makes mass production possible through the application of mechanical equipment, which has brought great improvements to production efficiency. Through the improvement of management model (division of labor, scientific management, etc.), factory owners can operate commercial bodies more efficiently. Wealth is becoming more and more likely to concentrate.

    The concentration of wealth is often the forefront of the production and tool level of the times. The development of technology driven by various basic scientific developments means the universalization of tools brought by technology. It is easier to be used by others. This brings about improvement in production efficiency and creation of wealth; the information age: knowledge and information become the "oil" of the current era. At the same time, basic science is developing and continuing to advance the boundaries of human capabilities.

    summarizes several conclusions:

    1. The concentration of wealth often means the boundary of the development of general capabilities. The widespread use of
    2. technology tools is one of the core judging indicators in the history of human development. The easier it is to share and use tools by others, the easier it is to acquire wealth. The generalization of
    3. technology lies in implementation.

    This theory of thought runs through most of Lu Qi's core speeches and is of extraordinary significance. This ideological system is compatible with most technologically innovative companies in the world. And technological innovation means wealth. This is the wonderful thing about it.

    As the idea of ​​technology-driven innovation is constantly spreading, more and more people will join such discussions and practices in the future, and drive innovation through technology. But we must also be vigilant about technology theory. For example, some advanced technology applications lead to a mess, which is a negative example.

    Therefore, the efficiency added by Lu Qi here has added a market matching mechanism. It's about getting results from the market. This is the essence of technology-driven innovation. Otherwise, it is the concept of pure technology. "It is already difficult to implement the technology transfer enterprise in universities," which indirectly confirms this truth. Therefore, entrepreneurship and innovation are added here and autonomy is stimulated. This is the engine of this ideological system. In summary, Lu Qi's ideological system: comparing this ideological system to smart cars, it may be like this:

    • automotive CPU: technology-driven innovation;
    • battery raw materials: market matching mechanism (users, income...);
    • engine: entrepreneur's autonomy;
    • accelerator: rapid iterative thinking.

    15. Learn to withdraw from the perspective of

    If you are planning a product or business, how to analyze its business value? From the analysis method of Lu Qi summarizing the commercial value, I compared the product manager's perspective and found that there are obvious differences between the two.The specific explanation is as follows:

    1. The difference between 2 perspectives

    Product manager perspective: Pay more attention to demand, efficiency, experience, process, etc., and is stronger than analyzing the value of the product itself. For example: whether the product truly meets user pain points and needs, whether it can bring about improvements in efficiency, which specific problems should be solved, and whether it brings about optimization of experience; it is weaker than the analysis of commercialization (channel, gross profit, cost, market size, growth rate and other factors that are closely related to corporate development).

    Investor's perspective: Taking the measurement of interests and value as the core, this project is fundamentally worthwhile whether it makes money or releases. It is mainly reflected in:

    ) How big is the ceiling (total value) of this project. That is, the value of each user * the user scale. User value cannot be measured directly, but relative. Relative to competitors, relative efficiency improvement points, and relative benefits brought by relative and without.

    ) How large is the overall scale of the track where this project is (i.e. how big the cake is) and how fast it is to grow. In other words, be optimistic about its potential. Lu Qi believes that paying attention to this number is above 30%, preferably an annual growth rate of 50%.

    Example: The number of digital RMB app downloads has soared these days, and it has been seen in various news information. On January 4, the number of downloads in Huawei App Store was less than 10,000. By January 9, the number of downloads had exceeded 5 million, with a daily increase of more than 100,000. We need to pay special attention to this growth rate. It is currently a pilot model and has regional restrictions, so the author cannot experience it for the time being. However, by watching the shared videos and pictures on the Internet, you can also understand the usage process and logic of the digital RMB and the value behind it, and pay attention to the products of the digital RMB. This is a later story.

      ) Analyze the "gain value" that the project can bring Lu Qi divides the value into to create value and obtain value. This is an important foundation for marketization and sustainable development. means that the acquisition of value depends on whether the cost of channel, sales, etc. is lower than gross profit, otherwise it is not a good business model. Lu Qi emphasized the importance of channels, which means customer groups and revenue channels.

      2. What are the problems with single-dimensional value analysis?

      Further comparison, analyzing its value from the product perspective alone has certain limitations:

      1. The correct track: Is the product or business in the growth track? Or the sunset industry? Is there any influence of policies, technology, economics and other factors? What is the size and growth rate of the track? For example: doing tracks such as smart agriculture, autonomous driving, digital privacy assets, etc. The track is large but the growth rate is low? Or is it that no one cares about the track belonging to an emerging industry but the growth rate reaches more than 30-50%? Does
      2. satisfy users' pain points: how painful it is, is itchy or not? Or is it just a little bit cool? User needs may exist, but it is difficult to form a large-scale market.
      3. brings efficiency improvement: bring. The question is, compared with other products, how efficient is the product and business improved, 1% or 5% or more? ! How big advantages does value bring through comparison? How much is the cost of user replacement? …

      3. Inspiration: Extract from the multi-view mode

      to transform identity and perspective, and you can obtain updated angles and ways to think about problems. But don't stop there. Get a new perspective and look at the value of this perspective itself. Does it conflict with the current thinking model and is it better? If so, you must carry out specific actions and improve your original thinking. Continuously transforming the identity perspective, compatible with each identity thinking perspective, and obtaining different thinking models. Using these models to re-treat similar problems can improve thinking efficiency.

      16. The pipeline generates non-consensus

      Here discusses the issue of "non-consensus".

      1. Common sense/consensus: Related to "environment and logic"

      First of all, the two concepts of common sense and consensus are actually very close. According to Baidu Encyclopedia's explanation:

      • Common sense: the common daily consensus of the same thing.
      • Consensus: Common understanding (a concept that everyone can accept).

      The conceptual sense of "anti-common sense" and "non-consensus" are also relatively close, so I will reorganize the notes here.What are the opinions you think are correct but most people don’t agree with? It tests our ability to develop independent perspectives. And it is the right path and few people take. And behind this may represent a huge, undiscovered mindset. Paradigm thinking will limit us. In other words, common sense recognized by the public may mislead us.

      logic is correct under certain conditions and scenarios, and common sense is the same. common sense is not correct in any environment. Just change the environment and logic, and common sense may be wrong.

      (for example, playing table tennis and playing with family in formal competitions. The former focuses on winning or losing, while the latter pays more attention to family relationships. Losing is not that important. If you perform at home like a formal competition, you will come to a conclusion: in an environment of great knowledge, use existing common sense to do paradigm thinking, make corresponding inferences and get corresponding results. This is actually a flaw in thinking.

      2. Case: Video clips can also build a knowledge system

      I use an observed example to illustrate: Cool Rendering Technology systematically integrates the knowledge of video cutting. Cool Render Technology’s business is to provide products and services empowered by vocational education. They developed a system that processes video segments, labels, puts it in different directories, establishes a complete knowledge point system, and combines intelligent recommendations to become a very powerful learning system (excerpted from the official website of Cool Rendering Technology).

      This is another micro-innovation model. The novelty of this innovation is that it is difficult to imagine that video + knowledge system can be combined. Our inherent common sense is that videos are actually the only storage (knowledge point) units, indivisible, either whole or individual clips, and it is impossible to separate them into flexible units and match them independently. The reason why Cool Render can do it is that it combines technology to identify video content + AI recommendations. This completes a "non-consensus" work. The core of an "non-consensus" environment like

      is determined by insight into business and needs, which is the "environment and logic".

      Note that behind the "non-consensus" is that we realize that doing so is impossible. The reason why the above cases can be realized is not that they cannot be realized in technology, but that they are invested in costs, outputs, and construction of product models.

      3. Dig deep into common sense: Is it really like this?

      You see, "doubt all doubtful thinking blind spots" and "thinking is not allowed to take it for granted". The original common sense is: video is video, which is difficult to divide. But the non-consensus is: videos can be divided. If it is to be established, what should we do? This involves technical preparations (this is the details). What is the purpose of

      videos being split and what needs to be solved? Split-can be small fragments. Small clips are worthless. What should I do? (Through deductive thinking) Put them in the knowledge system catalog and package them into a finished product! This finished product is what users rely on in their learning behavior: knowledge system! But the content supported is video clips!

      4. Combination of value: Behind the abnormal knowledge and non-consensus, we still need to return to the value of

      video clips. What is the value of the video clip? There are n videos to read a knowledge point. Do users need to learn all of them?

      does not. Through intelligent recommendation, when the system detects certain user's knowledge weaknesses, it pushes corresponding video clips to the user, completing the knowledge imparting work. The video clips present the knowledge points in detail, and the ready-to-have mechanism improves learning efficiency, which is "value". It is at the right time to provide the appropriate knowledge solution.

      5. How to generate non-consensus like pipelines

      leads to a method of creating non-consensus value:

      1. Looking for common sense and consensus in places that are generally considered unavailable, or difficult to do, or have no value.
      2. questioned these consensuses and thought about it in turn. If it is established, what technical conditions should be provided to achieve it;
      3. enhances the value. Raise these established non-consensus products to the level of value and user needs, and provide the right value at the right time.

      This is the benefit of non-consensus. How can we come up with a point that most people don’t agree with but you think is right? Based on the above conclusions and logic, I have sorted out a framework:

      1. first find common sense (or general cognition) of business model/phenomenon.
      2. analyzes the value behind this common sense.
      3. replaces the common sense environment and makes it unrealized/established.
      4. makes abnormal knowledge reasonable by matching resources, business, business models, etc.
      5. forms an idea that you think is correct but most people don't agree with. Combined with business, value, process, etc., further analysis is made.

      until the last non-consensus is extracted.

      17. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

      Main cases of this article’s talent culture of corporate organizations. One of the cultural characteristics of Netflix is ​​its emphasis on talents, especially talent density.

      1. Establish a system of talent density

      From Netflix's practice, it is indeed proved to be a great practice mechanism. Different from the traditional sayings of "survival of the fittest" and "last-level optimization", "talent density" is used as the logic of the enterprise's talent organizational structure, and thus extends a series of action mechanisms.

      Simply put, understand talents as flowing particles, remove coarseness and extract essence. Leave good talents behind and abandon talents that do not conform to corporate culture. Note: The principle of abandonment is to provide high-value resignation compensation mechanisms and benefits. (This actually becomes a benefit) This will form a reverse pressure mechanism: the density of talents is getting higher and higher.

      The selection and breeding of talents must be eliminated. This is a complete talent transfer mechanism . High talent density and dependence are on innovative positions, such as technology, products, operations, etc., rather than traditional human resources positions , which is very important. Because innovative positions require more ability to innovate and create and innovate, rather than follow the steps. Only in this way can we adapt to such changing market and user needs. The improved welfare and talent atmosphere can motivate talents to produce a 1+1 effect.

      2. Logic behind talent density

      The logic of "talent density" lies in: talents encourage and influence each other, and can produce advance progress (i.e. upward curve). If it is mixed with rabbit-type or some unpromising employees, it will also lead to waste of resources and efficiency, and the ability to continuously innovate is not possible.

      In the long run, enterprises lack continuous good functions, good products and good services. Therefore, the underlying logic of talent density lies in believing that excellent people should gather together to produce 1+1 efficiency.

      in one sentence summary: Enterprises should create an environment and atmosphere that allows outstanding people to be in the same frequency. Some large companies only recruit prestigious universities, rather than ordinary universities, second-tier or third-tier students. It's not just that the screening cost is high. Instead, it is: the same frequency of talents is very important, and it is a talent strategy for enterprises to shape high-value products and services.

      3. How do small businesses/individuals break the deadlock

      How do companies that do not meet these conditions break the deadlock? For example: to compete with the right products and a good employee atmosphere, thereby creating competitiveness? Discover more breakthrough points in non-consensus cognition? Deeply invest in a market that small but refined giants cannot covet?

      Compared to individuals, how to gather outstanding talents around you? You can learn the above-mentioned process of breeding and retention of talent density. Choose: Get in touch with some circles and make friends. Yu: Observe people, look at people. Stay: Continuous contact, create value exchange with each other, and establish a circulation mechanism for high-quality friend talents.

      18. Customer needs to product needs are not necessarily straight

      Christensen's "Innovators' Dilemma" believes that

      listens carefully to customer opinions, but the problems they seem to be unable to solve are problems of downward vision on the orbit chart and flow to the downstream market. ..These leading companies seem to be tied to their customers, thus giving off offensive emerging companies the opportunity to disrupt their leadership when disruptive technologies emerge.

      Listen to customer opinions and continuously develop products that meet user needs may actually be the beginning of a company from success to loss.They followed the inertial thinking of successful experience, and ignored the insight into fresh and keen opportunities when they expanded their territory, and ignored the insight into emerging markets, emerging customer groups, and the application of emerging technologies.

      For example: try to observe products and business models that are growing rapidly due to emerging technologies. Pay attention to adapting to technology (rather than so-called hot products), what can you find? ..

      The growth of emerging enterprises into mature enterprises is also achieved through some breakthroughs. Then, the decline of mature enterprises lies in path dependence: simply put, when it becomes a successful place, it will rely on it to continue to achieve success later. The case of the

      hard disk industry shows that at that time, large-capacity and large-size hard disks that met large computer manufacturers could not match hard disks that were several inches long. Behind path dependencies are stakeholder networks.

      Why is the boss subverted by his younger brother? Because of the emergence of new technologies, the rapid development of personal computers (small computers), thus leading to the emergence of small, portable and adaptable hard disks.

      Behind the small computer, it represents the rise of new customer groups.

      Note: This part of the customer base is completely different from that of the customer base that meets large manufacturers. From this we can find that in fact, the traditional hard drive industry giants have lost the market because they ignore the emerging applications and corresponding customer groups brought by emerging technologies. I didn't notice it at first, but it was too late when I noticed it. The case of

      seems to tell us an abnormal knowledge: Is it really important to listen to the customer base? We basically understand that the functions come from demand. The demand generally comes from users. User feedback, screening and analyzing, obtain real demand. So it was put into development.

      Is this really correct? This reminds me of a product story: in the early 20th century, you asked a person what kind of carriage you wanted, and the other party replied that you wanted a faster carriage. So, the demand behind it is speed. Not a carriage. But this analysis, in this way, is not in-depth. Because, faster speeds must be combined with the new applications brought by the technology at that time, that is, the development of mechanization, making automobile manufacturing a reality. Otherwise, it is also possible to produce faster horses in the end.

      Conclusion: Do not simply discuss and analyze the needs, but combine technology, the applications brought by technology, possible emerging potential customer groups, and combine such essential needs to obtain new solutions. This is one way to innovate. The distance between between customer needs and actual needs is not necessarily a simple straight line, but rather, it may be curved or reverse.

      19. Observe human nature

      to determine whether a product can be liked by users, you can start with user examples. That is: to understand what kind of people this type of user are, by constructing user models, you can predict whether they are fun (interested) in the product or function they are designed.

      In other words, the user model formed by a large number of user cases essentially represents a group with a certain unique attribute. These attributes are common needs. (For example, the pursuit of convenience, cost-effectiveness, and vanity) Analyze a large number of similar or different products to summarize the underlying human nature. I have understood the different human natures represented by different products, and have a broad knowledge and natural understanding of the human nature that may be satisfied by the products I designed. Quantitative change produces qualitative change, which becomes our insight.

      This is also why young people from some large factories have come out to start businesses, designed high-quality services and products and achieved sustainable development. They have a deep understanding of the humanity represented by the product and how to design the product to satisfy humanity.

      think about the human nature of different products and how to design to satisfy these human natures. quantifies the common needs of human nature and thinks about what functions it designs to improve data. From the iteration, how does the function satisfy human nature, and what will be the next action? (What is human nature? How does a product match human nature?) It is actually a clever way to build a user model through a large number of cases (user stories), iterative data, and data analysis, and then predict or plan whether subsequent products are valuable.

      On the one hand, by predicting (i.e. building a model), and on the other hand, through actual user feedback data, the accuracy of the scope is adjusted, which is called verification. This will make more accurate judgments. Users are the protagonists of the business. By understanding the user and the interests between users, you can understand the business. To predict whether the product functions you designed are favored by users, you can judge from similar functions of competitors, or through some existing user data. Whether to obtain products designed that do not exist in the market may be welcomed.

      But note that the answers obtained from competitors and user feedback are not the best solution. For certain mature products and businesses, listening to customers is not the best solution. Even the suggestions and demands provided by users may run contrary to the new growth points. For example, the hard disk industry. (This involves the difference between continuity innovation and breakthrough innovation. But breakthrough innovation is not necessarily based on technology, but may be achieved through combined innovation)

      20. Link from idea end to delivery end

      has a project, and a high-speed iteration lasts for 3 months. How to do it in 3 months? Many people are prone to making mistakes, paying too much attention to form (ppt...) and failing to figure out the core issues. How to implement from ideas to delivery? How to find the real user needs and deliver the right products? Lu Qi's guidance suggests that a 3-month high-speed iteration will be carried out. The specific strategy is:

      The first point: within 3 months, get feedback on core indicators (such as orders, sales, recognition payment volume, number of users, etc.). Other feedback indicators are basically process indicators, and the most core result indicators (linked to commercial revenue and core value).

      Second point: After setting the indicator target, you must start to dismantle the iteration strategy once every 2 weeks. Disassemble tasks and action steps and develop detailed plans. In addition, the idea of ​​high-speed and fast iteration is emphasized.

      Note the high-intensity method here. Pre-emptively implementing such a fast customer acquisition and verification method to improve the efficiency of verifying whether the PMF is successful and can also improve the efficiency of the team in a short period of time. This design method is worth referring to. You must understand the data indicators of the product.

      Make a simple thought experiment: Investors ask you, how many people use your product and how long it takes? User retention rate? What is the growth rate? If you were them, how did you do it? So what do you want to do. Such thought experiments are actually a plan of action obtained by changing perspectives and simulating the other party’s experience and perspectives, and projecting them onto oneself. Become a mirror of yourself.

      can summarize the core idea: determine the goals of a certain time node - determine the core indicators - establish the degree to which each stage should be achieved (tempo) - decompose the core indicators into actions and subtasks, and each achievement. Disassembly becomes a weekly iteration. execution. This is the right idea. Whether in product development, other operations or project management, you can learn from this idea. Why iterate at high speed? One is to get results quickly, and the other is to reduce the consequences caused by mistakes. Correct the results in the early stage.

      I summarized Lu Qi's idea as: from idea to order, the core is to implement the product, and there is only one implementation standard. Only by focusing this chain and formulating product performance around needs can we be recognized by the market.

      's idea of ​​orders as the core is actually to test the market. Among them, we need to observe the acceptance of orders, possible growth rates, etc. Adjust quickly at any time. Within 3 months, having a certain quantity (not 1) order is one of the guarantees to confirm the success of products and services. The founder should personally understand the user and communicate with the user, and do a good job in research and development in the process to ensure that the user needs can be met in the end and thus orders are generated.

      21. The difference between technological innovation and model innovation

      Lu Qi mentioned wealth creation and corresponding magnitude, where the horizontal axis represents the evolution of time, and the vertical axis represents the growth of wealth. The growth rate of wealth is getting steeper and steeper. After careful observation, technology plays an important role in it.

      • Agriculture era: a wealth creation system based on fields;
      • Industrial era: a wealth creation system based on mechanization; Information era: a wealth creation system based on knowledge. The growth of wealth is closely related to technology.

      Lu Qi also mentioned the supply and demand issues of technology. That is: there are fewer and fewer technologies that can be commercialized, but more and more entrepreneurs will inevitably lead to unbalanced supply and demand, which is an obvious trend. However, the investment in technology is relatively small at the current stage, especially the investment in underlying science and technology. Therefore, we must increase technological investment and scientific research, which is the driving force for future wealth growth.

      Among them, commercial innovations include: one is based on model innovation; the other is based on technological innovation. Model innovation: shared bicycles, shared car models: Based on front-end positioning technology, idle vehicles are redistributed through the use rights to form innovation. But it is not based on innovation based on technology as the core. But combination innovation.

      technology innovation cases, such as genetic modification, human brain interface, chips, 5G and other cutting-edge technologies, which are technological innovations. Overall, the business model has been fully developed, but technological innovation is a blue ocean. This is a commercial gap created by the supply of underlying technology, which is also a difference between short-sighted and long-term perspectives.

      22. Be concise

      introduces the core selling point in one sentence, the essence is sales value and resonance with the audience. Behind this is insight into market demand. To introduce products, we need to combine these two points based on sales and demand insights. If your product cannot express the core in one sentence, it is not a good product. Sales: what to sell, what value to create, and why the other party wants it. Requirements: Whether it can resonate with users, whether it has in-depth insights and thinking. This is also the power of simplicity. The simpler it is, the deeper it is, the easier it is to understand it.

      Concise means courage. Not everything needs to be raised to develop, everything is included in the business, with a large and comprehensive scenario.

      This also conflicts with the concept of "big fish in a small fish pond". Why? Do anything, nothing can be done well. For business, concise results are similar to "deletion" in addition, deletion, modification and search. It takes courage to choose. In the initial stage of the project product, we must find the most core leverage points and focus points, find such core scenarios and businesses, and all in, plus rapid iteration. Why is

      concise? Customers’ cognitive minds about products are within the scope of one sentence. Apple is synonymous with smartphones. Is there anything else in the biggest consensus? Airbnb is synonymous with shared accommodation... Behind the simplicity, there is a profound insight into user needs.

      combined with our thoughts above: cannot make products that exceed the human capacity system, but the closer we get to the boundaries, the more valuable product innovation is.

      The more likely the product you get to gain from deep insights needs. Simplicity means innovation. The concise consideration lies in the value system, rather than a simple perspective effect and a product structure that lacks functionality. This user needs are closely related.

      23. Understand the relationship between supply and demand

      Lu Qi believes:

      ... Because new supply appears, new demand will be stimulated. Therefore, we cannot only look at the size of the surface stock market, but whether the solution output by this product can provide a higher efficiency and lower cost solution for a certain universal underlying demand.

      Before the personal computer was released, you asked how many people in this world would need a personal computer. Obviously you were stupid. What you should pay more attention to is the underlying needs of personal computers in the general sense that provide more efficient and lower-cost solutions. The answer is information processing, so business people, students, colleges and even housewives are potential target customers of personal computers.

      The emergence of personal computers has stimulated new demands? Not so. The need for faster contact and communication has not changed. However, the changes in the supply mechanism caused by the development of new technologies are the impact of the supply mechanism. From the perspective of supply mechanism, extend new opportunities to think about products.The founder of

      Vipkid observed that the number of foreign teachers per capita in China was seriously lacking, and introduced North American foreign teachers. By building a business model, it had an impact on the supply mechanism and broke the scarcity state of the market. appears to be that supply has increased, but behind it is that the supply mechanism has changed. Changes in the supply mechanism can be driven by business models. Behind is still the innovation mechanism, which has an impact on the market and forms a new supply mechanism. The

      path can be sorted out as follows: Innovation - (generating) - supply mechanism changes - awakens the original demand technology. The closer the boundaries of the capacity system, the greater the impact on the supply mechanism. Demand will not generate new demands, but existing ones.

      24. Learn to create (define) the problem first.

      Richard Feynman (a physicist at California Polytechnic) thinks: "what I cannot create, I do not understand."

      The method of dismantling big questions or difficult-to-answer questions into sub-problems. If the sub-question is answered, then this big question can be solved easily. This method is actually a problem of construction and disassembly. On the other hand, if you regard this as a way of thinking, ask a question (whether it is macro or micro), then disassemble it into a sub-problem and defeat it one by one. If you think about this method of

      carefully, you can solve many problems. Some difficult questions can be cleverly resolved through disassembly.

      further extends: to find the leads of this question, and gradually find the real question and answer through the leads. This reminds me of the attitude of Zhang Wuchang’s economist towards problems: ask questions with clarity and shallowness.

      Asking questions is sometimes more important than answering. For some questions, asking methods and inspiration are more important than answers. Even some questions do not have a definite answer. In order to "make it difficult" myself, is there a question that I can't answer? Finally, I found this question: "What current knowledge or experience is separated from the boundaries of my knowledge experience system and I cannot answer it now?" It is another matter to build this question itself and how to disassemble it.

      25. Understand the logic of technology creating wealth

      Why does technology create wealth? Why are knowledge and innovation the driving force of today’s greatest wealth? Why is technology mainly not others (such as management model) able to make wealth grow rapidly? Lu Qi provides an explanation.

      First of all, technology has been available from ancient times to the present. According to observations, starting from the industrial age, technological innovation has allowed social wealth to grow rapidly. The characteristics of technology bringing human progress are more obvious. For example: The development of mechanized industrial production, energy technology and other aspects has greatly improved productivity. The capacity of the consumer side (demand side) is released, and the production capacity and circulation capacity of market goods are strengthened.

      Wealth originally comes from surplus value and transactions. Once the transaction efficiency improves, wealth will naturally increase rapidly. Lu Qi summarized this logic as "the technology is more versatile." The knowledge and information industry can reorganize social resources and become more versatile. This is the logic of the rapid increase in wealth brought by technology.

      The so-called technological universality, my understanding is: First of all, technology is the birthplace of technology, whether inspired by nature or produced from laboratories or research. This is not known to the majority of users at this time, let alone use it.

      Step 1: The technology is initially discovered, there are few scenarios to be applied, and the benefits are low. Therefore, the "universal" ability to use technology to ordinary users is not high, so it is weak in versatility.

      Step 2: The foundation of technology is gradually accumulating, and the benefits brought by technology commercialization are gradually being paid attention to and seen by more people. Therefore, technology is constantly being explored, its application scenarios have increased significantly, and the number of people being covered has increased accordingly, and at this time, the versatility is gradually becoming stronger.

      Step 3: Recognizing the technology's capabilities and the resulting increase in benefits have become a consensus among the public. Technology brings more and more new creations based on the former, and transaction efficiency, management level, user habits, market acceptance, etc. are constantly developing, and the impact of technology is becoming increasingly greater.I have summarized several dimensions of the versatility of

      technology: the degree of inclusiveness of the business results or benefits brought by technology, user usage or coverage, market recognition, etc.

      Note: The second picture mentions the definition of wealth. Lu Qi believes that the definition of wealth is also broad, and it is created through information industries such as knowledge and can meet people's needs and desires and is called wealth. For example: Develop a lesson to teach others a certain type of skills, which is a kind of wealth; based on historical behavioral data, insight into consumers and provide corresponding guidance, which is also a kind of business wealth.

      In other words, providing users with wealth is actually inseparable from the ability to meet user needs. Users who have been baptized by continuous digitalization have been awakened to a variety of desires and needs, which is an important factor in the explosion of wealth.

      26. Understand the difference between tool thinking and general ability thinking

      AI is a case. Humans are constantly developing tools, and these tools are becoming more and more advanced. The so-called advanced is reflected in: higher efficiency, more automatic and intelligent, less cost-effective, more efficient, easier to use, lower threshold... The tools developed can greatly solve various problems and improve our quality of life...

      But this is just tool thinking. Tool thinking and general ability thinking, one is purely technical thinking and the other is market thinking. The cognition brought is different. From this point of view, I have to admire the author's different understandings of different understandings of technology and tools. General ability is common. Commonalities may be reflected in general market demand. Compared with tools, it emphasizes the concept of empowerment and matching people's abilities.

      Further, due to technological development, human cognitive upgrades and changes in cultural habits, these general capabilities (such as AI) we are seeing now will become infrastructure. At that time, developing tools became the simplest thing. The sign of progress is no longer the category of creating more tools and general capabilities. Humans will develop more and more abilities that can adapt to their basic general abilities.

      The difference between humans and other species is that they know how to adapt their abilities to their abilities. AI is capability adaptation; industrialization and creating machines are extensions (achieves) under capability adaptation. That is: industrialization, various creative machines, and various achievements brought about by technological development are themselves part of human adaptation and an extension of human capabilities. They are just the result of the human ability to form a system, it is that simple.

      Therefore, various new technologies such as AI and intelligent interaction technology are actually to manifest the achievements of the capability system. The impact on the composition of human capacity is due to the comprehensive role of culture, current technology feeding back, intellectual level, technical achievements foundation, market (habits, demand, etc.), policies, ideology, etc. From this, it is inferred that humans can only do things within the scope of the system of capabilities in the current stage. It is impossible to break through this level.

      If the results of the capability composition system are certain, why not find them? Whether it is the so-called MPV or the demand. In fact, they are all completing the results of the ability composition system. If the needs are incorrect, it is not an extension of human capabilities.

      If we look at it from this perspective, all innovations and creations that are currently happening and potentially occur are looking for the right extension of capabilities. From this we are inspired, which value is more important? It is a product that finds the boundaries of human capabilities to form the system. The boundary means competitiveness. The so-called boundary of is not pure technology, but also includes needs, cultural innovation, habit changes, etc. further explores and finds that innovative products and results occur within the boundaries of capabilities. The closer you are to the boundary, the higher the value dimension, and the more you are valued by the times.

      27. Learn to explore new business models from front-end technology

      This article is some of my thoughts after reading Xiao Feng's "Philosophy of Information Technology". The topic is related to information technology. This article mainly explores the essence, development stage and characteristics of information technology, and also contains some of my views.

      The philosophical discussion of information technology is actually a discussion of abstract thinking.Information and technology are both summarizing things covering different types and forms. They are not simply a matter or element. In order to facilitate understanding and the explanation of this article, let’s first talk about the concept of “abstract”. Then discuss the relevant philosophy of information technology and finally draw some conclusions. This is a general framework explained in this article.

      1. What is abstract

      What is "abstract"? We often hear "abstract xx into xx", "xx is essentially xx". And so on. "Abstract" is a generalization, refinement and induction, which is to refine certain elements of a thing into higher-level things and possess the universal attributes of that thing.

      For example: abstract plants into creatures, abstract books into learning materials, and abstract computer into electronic devices... Such abstraction seems to be a kind of summary. The process of "refining" things into abstract can be to expand the scope of things, to become a major feature of abstract things, or to classify things.

      In plain words, there are many ways to "abstract", and abstract things are also different. For example: abstracting plants into organisms means tracing the source through classification, that is, organisms are divided into plants and animals. Animals can also be abstracted as creatures. For example: live broadcast dissemination of knowledge, abstraction is the teaching process, it can also be abstraction as interactive learning methods, or abstraction as information flow.

      The abstraction of information technology covers the carriers, methods and methods related to human emergence, development and information. For example: WeChat daily active users are 1 billion, and people interact and communicate through WeChat's means such as voice, video, and text. The carriers of these information are electronic devices such as mobile phones, IPads, computers, etc., and the technology includes information-related data technology, information circulation and transmission technology, information reception technology, information interaction and processing technology, etc.

      The problem is here. In ancient times, there was no network, no power generation, no information receiver, and no display technology..., so is there information technology? This is also a point we want to discuss.

      My understanding is that if we abstract the inherent scope determined by the word "technology" and expand its extension, then we will come to the conclusion that printing is a technology. The "oracle bone inscriptions" engraved on the turtle shell is also a technique.

      Similarly, in an era without words in history, "word of mouth" itself is also a technology. This technology still exists at present, but it is more primitive, that is, the circulation (influence) of information will be different through word of mouth. "Good things don't go out, bad things spread thousands of miles." From the perspective of information technology, the circulation and transmission of "negative information" can be greatly disseminated under the premise of "mouth" carrier.

      This is a transmission through the technology of "body information". The development of information technology will in turn continue to affect the attributes of information transmission, the carriers of information, etc. For example, the development form of Internet enterprise products called "word of mouth effect" is generated by accumulating user praise.

      The carriers of users' praise can be spread by word of mouth through "body technology", and can also be distributed by posting pictures, texts and videos in the form of friends, communities, and multimedia. Therefore, the scope of "information technology" discussed here is from ancient times to the present, and is not limited to the development of information technology brought about by the emergence of modern and modern electronic devices.

      The book "Philosophy of Information Technology" divides information technology into several stages. This article also uses this idea. And based on this idea, we will think and summarize the relationship between the core elements of information technology and other aspects.

      • stage 1: the era of word-of-mouth;
      • stage 2: the printing era;
      • stage 3: the era of electronic media;
      • stage 4: the postmodern era. The four stages above

      are also easy to understand. After observing several stages, we found that the difference lies in the differences in the technologies such as information production, dissemination, processing, and processing.

      For example: word-of-mouth era (this word is very general, which can be traced back to ancient times), at that time there was no text, and no advanced technical equipment.The production of information is processed by human thinking and is transmitted through the human body (mouth, hand, expression, etc.).

      In the printing era, words can be widely copied and disseminated. Human thoughts no longer become mythical through the body's information technology, fabrics, utensils, etc., but resonate with people thousands of miles away from home between the lines of printed paper. The cost of information production has been greatly reduced, which has also promoted the popularity of ideas. Information dissemination has grown due to technology. Information, civilization, and human cognition influence and restrict each other. As a result, during the rise and fall of the dynasty, the records of the Ming Dynasty's punishment were retained, recording various legal systems, torture measures at that time, and became a reference for later systems.

      The era of electronic media, that is, the era of production and development of transistors, broadcasters, TVs, light bulbs, etc. Light bulbs can of course become part of information technology, such as using the Morse code made by lamps to transmit information, guiding lighthouses in the sea, etc. With the emergence of TV, the way information is disseminated from two-dimensional viewing and listening to three-dimensional listening effects. Use eyes and ears at the same time.

      Don’t underestimate this transformation method. It is extremely difficult to start simply from the perspective of information display dimensions. This means that the production and processing of information are different due to the different information presentation. Pure text brings linear thinking, and the thinking brought by TV will be more three-dimensional.

      is visible, and information technology will also affect people's thinking and thinking cognition. The development of human thinking and cognition will bring about different forms of information (this sentence is a bit difficult to describe and can be understood as a reaction). "Philosophy of Information Technology" was written in 2016. Many of the discussions seemed distant myths at the beginning, but at present, some have been practiced (for example: the technology of implanting chips in the brain).

      The postmodern era can cover a large range, and this line is the era we are currently in. Electronic information devices are no longer one-way transmission, but interactive; they are no longer feedback set by the system, but artificial intelligence decisions, no longer limited carriers, and everything has gradually become the "application (distribution) center."

      2. 3 elements: human, machine, information

      I have refined the core elements of information technology into several parts: human, machine, information. We will use these 3 elements to discuss later on

      . The machines here no longer refer to the narrow "computer, large-scale processor, database, etc." technology, but cover carriers related to information technology from ancient times to the present. The relationship between people, machines and information also has different manifestations at different stages. Below are several parts summarized by the author, for reference only:

      Stage 1: Word of mouth. In the era of word-of-mouth, people act on other people through human body information technology and through voice transmission. Therefore, this is the simplest layer of information relationship. The author will not discuss the "form of function" here. This will be explained later. What does the effect of human beings on people have to do with? The "negative news" mentioned above is a kind of, and what other information has different forms of influence?

      Phase 2: Printing era. One of the characteristics of the printing era is that people no longer directly influence others, but influence more people through printing machines. More people will have mutual influence effects. For example: We can imagine that during the Ming Dynasty or the Qing Dynasty, a group of literary enthusiasts would hold some "Song Ci Sects" or "Tang Poetry Seminars", and they would hold a book "Jiqi Xin Ci Song" to study. This is the mutual influence of people on information through the printed matter carrier.

      Stage 3: The era of electronic media. In the era of electronic media, there are machine 2.0, that is, electronic equipment such as televisions, broadcast equipment, telephones, and radios. Different machines lead to differences in information transmission methods, information production methods, etc.

      Stage 4: Postmodern era. Machine 3.0. The machine technology and equipment of information are updated, and information has a new form of processing and processing, making information more intelligent and humanized. Everything is gradually digitized, so that machines gradually become the master of the value chain.By collecting human behavior information and processing (AI), machines become more personalized to humans. With the increase in data volume, machines are more and more simulated like people and understand people better. The decision-making mechanism of humans has created a stratification phenomenon.

      Everything has become the "application center" as the data is improved, and the dimensions of information are richer. The power characteristics of information and its systemic impact on people will also vary. This will be discussed later.

      columnist

      product light years, WeChat official account: zinc products, everyone is a product manager columnist. He once served as the B-end product manager of a top knowledge payment platform in China, and was responsible for the product design of the platform of over 100 million users. I am more interested in system design, system thinking, etc.

      This article was originally published on Everyone is a product manager and reproduction is prohibited without permission.

      question picture is from Unsplash, based on the CC0 protocol.

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