Innovation may also be traceable.
Editor’s note: This article from the micro-channel public number “ or not raise their hands to speak ” (ID: JustBB2) , author Zhou Hang.
Some time ago I did a share of innovation in Dark Horse. I first asked the entrepreneurs in the class, what is innovation, and the answer is probably these.
“I have always advocated innovation and business in the company, three innovations. First, talent innovation; second, business model innovation; third, technology innovation. Business is known business and unknown business, innovation and The business is complementary. Our company is a traditional chemical company. It is a very traditional industry, but I am very hard to think about how to innovate.”
“Innovation is relative to existing or old. There are two kinds of innovation, micro-innovation and subversive innovation. Micro-innovation is improvement, mode improvement, technology improvement or idea improvement. Subversive innovation It is a leapfrogging of the original technology, such as the information revolution, the steam engine revolution…”
“There are two purposes for innovation. First, efficiency. Second, cost reduction.”
“Innovation is the only reason for companies to survive. The technology of the world’s cottages is too powerful. The good products of our company are imitated when they come out. If they are no longer innovative, they will definitely die in the market.”
“I understand the innovation is the result of re-disordering the existing production relations or productivity and reorganization, iterative upgrades, and other methods.”
Everyone The understanding of innovation is different, and every company is afraid that its company is not so innovative or loses its innovation. So I want to share with you a different understanding of my understanding and personal experience, in fact, three strokes can be, and then you will find that innovation may be an easy task.
Find long-term, real, and universal issues
The first step in innovation is to find the “problem” first, and
This one
The “problem” has three characteristics: long-term, real, and universal. This sentence is easy to understand, but the difficulty is that the “problem” is not easy to find, because you will find it harder to realize what is the “problem”.
I have heard many entrepreneurial cases, and their descriptions are more of a phenomenon than a problem. For example, there is an entrepreneur who is a beauty industry. He said that the industry has a short working time and the customer price is too high, resulting in a small number of customers. In fact, this is a phenomenon. Although this perception is real, the perception of the problem behind the phenomenon is still far from enough.
Therefore, we must first clarify the fundamental differences between phenomena and problems. This is also your fundamental understanding of the industry, user needs, and industry rules.
Next we will understand: long-term, real, and universal.
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The first point, universality, is how many people it involves.
I contributed a wrong demonstration of this, my own mistake.When I did what I called the “high-end car”, how big is this user group? Is it a quick way to define everyone from A to B, or is it a solution for a small group of people who can enjoy the same car service without a driver or a business trip? If it is the former, it is the whole network user; if it is the latter, it is counted that there were 600 motor vehicles and 5 million cars in Beijing at that time, and the crowd who can afford the dedicated driver is actually a very small proportion, the most optimistic The data should not exceed 200,000; if you want to have a driver experience or the driver is temporarily absent, there may be tens of thousands left.
One goal is to stare at these tens of thousands of people to serve. Another business model is to stare at more than 20 million people in Beijing, except for public transportation covering 10 million people. The rest are taxis or other means. There are millions more.
So even if it’s the same business, it may be because of your different perspectives and depth of understanding of the industry, which determines your final situation.
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The second point, long-term, how long does it take?
There was a time when the industry popularized the word “pain point theory”, and grasped the pain point and seized the direction. I am not in favor of this point of view. If a problem is solved, it will not hurt, and the demand will be gone. Maybe you will embark on a path of evil. For example, in the anti-virus industry of the PC era, after the poisoning is finished, the anti-virus software has no value, but they still do not give up, so many anti-virus companies embark on a path of evil, while anti-virus, while making drugs. First threaten the user to be invaded by the virus, then it will stand up like a fighter: “The Internet virus is constantly emerging, I have urgently developed a software to prevent this virus, you will always need me….”
PCs that were infected by the virus for years
There is another case that is better understood: grab the ticketing software. Is this a long-term demand? I don’t think this is a long-term demand, and it is difficult to support a company as an entry point to grow into a very great company. If this demand increases with supply, or the system itself is perfect, the function of grabbing tickets may be weakened.
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The third point, authenticity.
A person is a strange animal, and it is very greedy. For example, the travel service, users hope that you can provide him with free upgrades, unlimited return and change, preferably with a channel service, and the price is cheaper. Is this a demand? This is just a need.
I have a formula to understand both: need to pay less than the demand. See if the user has a willingness to pay for his needs or how strongly this willingness to pay. This payment is a pan-payment, not necessarily a direct payment at the C-end. For example, I am a business, I hope to have the best position, the best exposure, such as Taobao, Tmall, Jingdong, how much will he be willing to pay for this need?
Combine these, you can think about it, think about starting a business, have you found a long-term, real and common problem? At that time, there was no change or amendment to the judgment. If so, why? What is the starting point for the future operation and development of enterprises? The future is to work hard to solve long-term, real and universal problems?
If everyone finds it, congratulations first, but this is only the first step. The second step is the beginning of entrepreneurship.
Propose simple and accurate solutions
Just a friend said, found the problem, and then what to do? In fact, whether it is mode innovation or subversive innovation, it is to solve the problem, and the business interesting is that there is no standard answer to any one thing. There are N kinds of solutions to face a problem. Which solution is you? Should choose.
This solution is accurate, and it’s better to be simple. If it is vague and complicated, it is not a good solution.
Give an example of the hotel industry. The common needs of in-house guests are good location, clean, cheap and hygienic. So many smart entrepreneurs in this industry have come up with a variety of solutions. Some people do fast chain hotels, such as the home, Hanting, 7 days, Yaduo, this is a kind of solution; there is also a kind of solution, like Tujia, Airbnb, integrating the house, using civilian houses; and India OYO has proposed a new solution. The traditional single guest house, small hotel has no brand, no unified management system, from the brand integration, these single hotels have becomeOYO’s hotel is operated in a unified manner.
The rapid rise of OYO, will it be the next one?
Everyone understands the needs of users the same, but proposes completely different solutions, all of which can result in very large companies. The example just mentioned is already a good growing company. This shows that the interesting thing about business is that even if you recognize the problem, the proposed solution can be very diverse. Don’t argue about your plan or my plan is good, there is no such thing, because there is no perfect solution.
This is a very important premise to keep awe, you can easily see other people’s vulnerabilities, and at the same time not easily enlarge the opponent’s weaknesses, and do not easily enlarge their own advantages. Google’s openness is the same, there is no perfect thing, but at least the solution you find should be simple and accurate.
To pursue a rational and sustainable income growth model
Reasonable, in fact, it is a very difficult thing, especially in the development of the Internet in recent years. With the intervention of capital, the rapid growth of demand and highly competitive pressure, there will always be some new ideas. For example, if you have money, you will want to run to the head as soon as possible and become the leader of the track. Especially in the O2O field, whether it is a taxi or a take-away, it is almost normal to burn money later. With capital and money, it seems that it is not difficult to achieve growth.
Several companies that have been listed in China for the fastest time in the past two years, beforeThe scene seems to be bright, so think more,
Is its growth reasonable and sustainable?
We need to change the sense of time. Enterprise management is not only a year. We should take a ten-year or even longer time to see whether a business model is sustainable.
Instead of focusing on it, it reaches a peak in the short term.
If you think and observe in different time dimensions, you will get completely different conclusions. If you look at business history again, in fact, every industry will have some short-term and very good companies at every stage, but it may disappear for up to five or ten years.
About the vents, see the essence through the problem
The times are changing too fast. The rumor of the Internet, the concept of five or six in the New Year, seven or eight concepts in the New Year, are still chasing. I thought it was very good at the time, and I felt that it would not work for a while. Our feelings about the blockchain are just like the roller coaster. In 2017, the whole people are talking about the blockchain. Last year, everyone thought it was a liar. This year, the price of the coin was raised from 3,000 US dollars to 10,000 US dollars. The belief changed in three days. Also began to believe in the future of digital currency.
Therefore, the interference in the entrepreneurial process also needs to be cultivated. How can you maintain your own strength in such a complex and fast-changing business, is it the pursuit of success as soon as possible, or the pursuit of long-term development of the company? I found that everyone said no, the body is very honest. The mouth said that to pursue the company’s longevity, the company has become a century-old store, but almost everyone is eager to be the fastest and successful one, want to imitate how others succeed faster.
This is not wrong, can you be honest with your question? If you say that I want to pursue the fastest success, follow the fastest way to succeed; if you want to be a century-old store, follow the practice of a century-old store. This world is like that, no one is correct, but it is best to be honest.
Finally, I hope that you can find a long-term, real, and universal problem, and can propose a simple and accurate solution, giving a long-term sense for a reasonable and sustainable income growth model. Work hard, I believe that you will get closer and closer to innovation.