As a product grows from 0 to 100, what is operations doing?

When I was in college, I started to get involved in operations work through internships, and in the past two years, I have been working in operations in the Internet industry. During the process, many people are not clear about what operations are, and some people think that operations is a pitfall, where they have to do everything and do miscellaneous tasks.

I was also confused, and I also consulted various materials and read books, and found that people had different interpretations of operations:

Products are like giving birth to children, and operations are like raising them.

Products are from 0 to 1, and operations are from 1 to 100

Both of these metaphors are good, but after reading them, you may still be a little confused. So what exactly does operations need to do? How to raise children? How to go from 1 to 100?

As I have been working in this field for a long time, my understanding of operations has become deeper (compared to myself), so I would like to share some of my views on operations.

Looking at operations from the perspective of product growth cycle

Let’s first put forward the concept: operation is a series of means to make more users know about the product, continue to use the product, and thus achieve commercial profit goals.

We cannot separate operations. Operations are a part of the product life cycle . To truly understand the concept of operations, we must look at the entire product cycle from a macro perspective. Only by clearly understanding the different stages of a product and the focus and mission of each stage can we better understand operations.

To help everyone understand, I simply divide the product life cycle into two stages: product birth and product growth.

Product creation process

There are four main stages in the product creation process:

1. Preliminary research

Products are often created to meet certain user needs. When a new user need is discovered, the first thing to do is to investigate the user need and the market status. This stage is mainly led by product decision makers.

2. Product planning

Through research, we found that this demand is worth doing. Then we consider long-term development issues such as how to do it, how to promote it , and how to make a profit. The main output of this stage is the business plan , which is led by product decision makers.

3. Product Design

The design of the actual functions of the product, what the product framework is like, what functions it needs to carry, and how the interaction works. This stage is mainly led by the product manager .

4. Product development

Realize product functions through technical means. This stage is mainly dominated by technological research and development.

During the process of product creation, people who understand operations are needed to participate in research, planning and design, but their level of participation will not be particularly high. (Except decision makers)

Product growth process

Different products have similar product birth processes, but their product growth processes may vary greatly.

At this stage, there are many things to do, and different products have very different things to do. To help everyone understand, I only list a few typical things, and there is no clear order of priority.

1. Content Production

The content here refers to content in a broad sense, including copywriting , pictures, articles, courses, etc. After the product framework comes out, the various things filled in it are all content.

2. Marketing

Now that you have a product, how do you let your target users know about it? At this time, you may go to various channels to promote your products, such as WeChat , Douban , Community, Toutiao , etc., which are divided into paid and free channels.

3. Retain users

Now that users know your product, how can you keep them using it? Continuously optimize product content, organize activities, promote communication between users, etc. The focus may be different for different products.

4. Commercial transformation

If a product does not make commercial profit, it is difficult for it to survive for long. There are many ways to convert business into profit. For educational and training products, the main way to make money is through course sales. For information products, the main way to make money is through advertising.

Note: In this process, products and technologies will also be involved to continuously improve the products. In fact, the birth of new functions and similar products will not be included in this stage.

These things are basically the main tasks of operations. Different products and companies may have different positioning and division of labor, but they are generally inseparable from this framework.

summary

I will use a short paragraph to summarize what operations need to do:

Produce high-quality content, use certain promotional methods to let target users know about the product, and then use some user maintenance methods to allow users to continue to use the product and continuously improve the product, ultimately achieving the goal of commercial conversion and achieving sustainable profitability.

The scope of operation is very broad, but this is a meticulous job, and I will share it slowly later.

The author of this article @Longer笔记 is compiled and published by (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!

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