About this book
This book is regarded as the foundation of lean entrepreneurship theory and a must-read for entrepreneurs and investors all over the world. This paper describes a set of entrepreneurial methods, that is, taking customer development as the core and establishing trial and error and repeatable entrepreneurial steps. The entrepreneurial method proposed in this book includes four important steps, namely, customer exploration, customer inspection, customer training and company formation. Each step can be divided into four links, so this book is called the four-step entrepreneurship method.
Core content
This book introduces an entrepreneurial method in detail, that is, customer development method. Customer-centered entrepreneurship can reduce the cost of entrepreneurship and improve the probability of success.
First, the road to ruin of entrepreneurship is the traditional product development method, and the road to epiphany of entrepreneurship is the customer development method.
1. The traditional product development method has been used for decades, but it has become the road to the destruction of entrepreneurial enterprises.
The traditional product development method has four steps: product creativity, product development, product testing and external release. It implies several fatal misunderstandings: for example, you don't know where the customer is at all, but you think you know the customer's needs; Too much emphasis on the time of product listing, strict implementation of the set goals, but almost no reflection on whether there is a judgment error; Often blindly and hastily expand, making the company short of cash flow; Relying on sales and marketing often lacks a correct understanding of the market and so on.
This book points out that the only weight in the hands of startups is product creativity, and what startups need to do is to find a market for products, rather than optimizing products according to known markets. This is the root cause of the poor effect of traditional product development methods.
2. The epiphany of starting a business is the customer development method.
The customer development method also has four steps: customer discovery, customer inspection, customer training and company formation. A very important idea of customer development method is that every step can be repeated, because finding customers and markets is unpredictable and needs to be tried and adjusted repeatedly. This is the biggest difference from product development. The traditional product development method is one-way, linear and generally does not repeat, while the customer development method is trial and error. Every step has to be explored many times until the test is ok.
Second, the core idea of customer development is to find angel customers and complete the transformation from angel customers to mainstream customers.
1.？ "Angel customers" are the "closest people" of startups.
Although the customer development method attaches importance to the collection of customer needs, this kind of collection is not to spread the net widely, but to focus on fishing. What's the point of your fishing? It's an angel client
Angel customers are named by the author, referring to those customers who are willing to try early products, have the desire to buy and have the enthusiasm to promote. These customers are the "closest people" of start-ups and the key to success. Few products of entrepreneurial enterprises can face the mainstream market at the beginning, because the products developed in the early stage are generally imperfect and can only meet some special needs. Therefore, the customer exploration of entrepreneurial enterprises should focus on a few customers and find those customers who need to solve problems most and are most urgent for products.
situation
One company's product is an automatic vacuum cleaner instead of a manual vacuum cleaner. At first, the company thought we should look for angel customers among housewives, because they are the people who deal with vacuum cleaners all day and want to be liberated most. However, after actual customer exploration, the company found that it is not housewives who are fascinated by products, but single men who are not married. The reason is that this robot vacuum cleaner not only caters to the needs of single men who are too lazy to clean their rooms, but also meets their needs for high technology to change their lives. Many single men even keep robot vacuum cleaners as pets. So, the company found their angel customers-single men.
2. The transition from angel customers to mainstream customers needs to choose corresponding strategies according to different market types.
It is not enough to have angel clients. After all, the number of customers is still relatively small, which is not enough to support the large-scale profit of enterprises. Then at a certain stage, we must find ways to expand angel customers into the mainstream market.
What strategy to adopt depends on whether the enterprise enters the existing market or the new market. Enterprises want to enter the existing market, because products and customers are ready-made, the most important thing is to find the right product positioning and stand out from many products. Because the difference between competitors is not significant, the key is not to increase the exposure of the company and promote the brand, but to let customers list the characteristics of the products and distinguish them from other competitors.
situation
Wang Lao Ji herbal tea is a beverage aimed at the existing market. At first, herbal tea was just a product that Cantonese people often drank. It sold well in the local area, but it was difficult to get out of Guangdong for a long time. How can we expand to mainstream customers all over the country? Wang Lao Ji herbal tea needs to find its own characteristics among many beverage products and form its own positioning. After long-term market research and analysis, Wang Laoji found that "reducing fire" was the biggest demand of customers for herbal tea, so he put forward the slogan of "afraid of getting angry and drinking Wang Laoji". The result was an instant hit, and the sales quickly exceeded10 billion.
If the enterprise is entering a brand-new market, the situation is completely different. Because mainstream customers are unfamiliar with products and consumer behavior needs to be guided, there is a strategy called "tipping point", also known as virus transmission strategy. It emphasizes that a few key people play a key role in the thinking and behavior of mainstream customers. As long as enough key people are influenced to influence consumers' decision-making and behavior, herding effect can be generated and product sales can increase geometrically.
situation
The typical performance of the tipping point strategy is the rise of Facebook. Facebook is targeting new markets. At that time, people didn't have the habit of using social networks, and the demand in the mainstream market needed to be cultivated. Facebook first started on the campus of Harvard University. It can be said that students from Harvard University form an angel customer base of Facebook. Because Harvard University is the leader of colleges and universities, the consumption behavior of Harvard students was quickly imitated by Ivy League universities, and Facebook fever began to spread to many university campuses. Subsequently, the new trend of college students going to social networking sites has affected social people, making Facebook a viral spread effect. Facebook detonated the whole market through the influence of several key figures.
Third, the biggest challenge for a startup to transform into a mature enterprise is to get rid of the founder's personal heroism model and maintain the flexibility and innovation vitality of the startup.
The last step in the transition from a startup to a mature enterprise is to form a company. "Incorporating a company" here does not mean "registering a company", but forming a mature modern enterprise structure. This means that it is necessary to explore an intermediate state to change from a learning and exploring organization to an enterprise with complete structure and standardized management. In this intermediate state, the goal is to move towards standardized management and maintain vitality.
1. Establish a goal-centered corporate culture.
The goal here does not refer to some specific tasks, but the goal that can condense the thoughts and knowledge of the whole company. This goal can clearly guide every employee in the company to carry out their work and let them know what to do and to what extent to achieve the goal.
2. Maintain the quick response ability of all departments of the company.
The author puts forward that we can grasp two principles-decentralized decision-making principle and OODA principle. Among them, the principle of decentralized decision-making refers to changing the previous flat model, establishing a vertical management model, and fully delegating power to various departments, so that each department can respond quickly according to changes in customers and markets. The OODA principle emphasizes the need to fully observe the information of various departments, maintain the efficiency of judgment, decision-making and implementation, and shorten the whole process as much as possible. For companies in the existing market, they should compete with competitors for time; For companies in new markets, it is necessary to compete with cash flow for time.
3. Cultivate employees' sense of ownership
Start-up companies should advocate employees to enjoy the maximum free space within a reasonable range and ensure that they can take the initiative to take responsibility instead of passively accepting jobs. The management team of the company should try to collect the information of front-line operations in time, and only control the general direction when the work is released, and the specific implementation details are decided by the employees themselves. Managers should focus on helping employees achieve their work goals, rather than interfering with specific work links.
line
1. The only weight in the hands of startups is product creativity. What startups need to do is to find a market for their products, rather than optimizing their products according to the known market.
2. In many cases, the reason for the failure of starting a business is not the lack of market research, but the excessive development of market research.
3. Few products of entrepreneurial enterprises can face the mainstream market as soon as they come up, because the products developed in the early stage are generally imperfect and can only meet some special needs, so the customer exploration of entrepreneurial enterprises should focus on a few customers.
The purpose of starting a business is to explore an intermediate state. In this intermediate state, the goal is to move towards standardized management and maintain vitality.
5. For companies in the existing market, they should compete with competitors for time; For companies in new markets, it is necessary to compete with cash flow for time.