In the Internet age, there are no barriers in the traditional sense. Throughout the history of the Internet, there are many examples of large companies being killed by small startups. No matter how strong the partnership is, it is extremely fragile under the free strategy.
“UI”. If you have to talk about barriers, then only “fast market response speed, efficient and transparent decision-making process” can really be regarded as a barrier, a “dynamic barrier” that is tricky.
The rapid market response speed includes user research, feedback mechanism, rapid iteration mechanism, and so on. This time we will only talk about “fast iteration”.
In fact, the concept of rapid iteration is not a new thing in the Internet industry. However, in specific work, everyone is often dragged down by various statements such as “make products to the extreme” and “details determine success or failure”. If the product is not complete, you can’t always make up your mind to release it. In fact, there is nothing wrong with saying “make the product to the extreme” itself, and does not conflict with “fast iteration”, but most of the time, they are used in the wrong place. How to understand “extreme” and “details”, we will talk about it later, here, we directly cut into the theme: the meaning behind “fast iteration”:
Let the market and users make the decision as soon as possible.
For a brand-new product, it is generally easier to understand. Quick trial and error, after all, there is no other product to compare.
In the market where there are already competing products, people often think: the competing products have done a very comprehensive job, and our products have so many functions less than others, why would users be willing to use them?
What I want to say is that if your product has fewer peripheral functions than competing products, users will not come, it means that your product itself lacks more core competitiveness.
The core competitiveness can be more powerful operations, richer content, and more pain-resolving functions. If these points are present, your product will have fewer low-frequency and small features than competing products, and users will not care. Conversely, if all of these points are not dominant, no matter how comprehensive the product features are, it will not be able to attract users from competing products.
Therefore, whether it is a brand-new product or an existing product of the same kind, the faster iteratively launches, the better
Make sure to always do the most important things.
Unpredictability is a major feature of the Internet industry. Unexpected social events, government policy changes, the announcement of new strategies by competitors, and the establishment of new partners will all have a significant impact on the direction of the product. Things that can be scheduled in the plan at the beginning are likely to become irrelevant. We use a more intuitive way to explain: how fast iteration ensures that a team has been doing the most important things.
If at the beginning of the project, there are three functions that can be done, the priorities are 1, 2, and 3, each of which requires a two-week research and development cycle.
There are two companies A and B:
A. Release every time a function is completed
B. After all the functions are completed, unified release
Two weeks later, Company A released Function 1, and Company B’s 3 functions are still under development.
At this time, due to the various reasons mentioned above, another feature with priority 1 appears (the development cycle is still 2 weeks).
Company A can start the development of this priority 1 function immediately, and put other priority 2 functions aside for the time being. But company B is not the case, because their several functions with different priorities have all been developed halfway, and cannot be stopped halfway, so they have to wait for all functions to be developed (6 weeks) before they start to develop a new function with priority 1. .
In this way, after 4 weeks, company A completed the two functions with priority 1, while company B was still working on the first few functions planned, and the new important functions were ranked 6 weeks later.
But at this time, another important function demand appeared…In the long run, company B has been dragged down by various low-priority functions, while A has launched various important functions one step at a time.
Some people may think: You just talk about meaning, why don’t you talk about specific methods? In fact, the specific method of “fast iteration” can be found in many ways. The difficulty lies not in how to implement it, but in the determination to implement it.
In addition, if you directly talk about the method without talking about the purpose behind the method, it is easy for people to know what they are and do not know why. They are limited to the form and cannot flexibly choose and use each link of the method in different situations. After all, methods all serve the purpose. As long as the purpose is clear, any method has room for adjustment.
