Startup App, 4 Cold Start Methods from 0 to 1

When cold-starting , Internet products can be roughly divided into four categories: single-point cold start, unilateral cold start, bilateral cold start, and multilateral cold start.

The difficulty of cold starting these four types of products increases in sequence. Once the product is cold started successfully, the more difficult the product is to start, the higher the competition threshold will be. This may be a bit abstract, so let's explain it with examples to help you better understand it.

Single point start product

Single-point launch products are usually " tool " products, such as Meitu XiuXiu , search engines , anti-virus software, etc. Their feature is that one person, even one customer, can use it. Unlike unilateral products, which need to rely on network effects to drive, and unlike matching products, which require both the supply and demand sides to start driving at the same time.

For tool-type products, the product can be polished slowly and adjusted and optimized based on the feedback from each user and customer until the product is polished and mature, and then gradually promoted and expanded.

For a product like this, it can be relatively slow to start cold, because unlike online game products, there is no need to worry about a lack of users and players, which will lead to a lack of interaction and cooperation, and thus a large number of existing users leaving.

Therefore, tool-type products are usually more suitable for grassroots teams or entrepreneurial teams with limited funds.

Single-side start-up products

A typical example of a unilaterally launched product is a social product: such as WeChat , QQ, and of course the online game products mentioned above.

The key to the success of this type of product is user density. Because the characteristic of these projects is that they can only be launched if a certain group of people use them at the same time. Once the indicators of simultaneous use by the group cannot be met, existing users will quickly leave.

For a product like this, you must initiate users in batches and reach a user density threshold in a short period of time before the project can proceed. For example, for a dating website, you must have enough men and women in the area so that the website will have the possibility of sustainable development. Therefore, the first batch of users must be imported in large quantities rather than developed one by one, otherwise one will be developed and lost. This is also the core reason why no matter how well MiTalk performs, it cannot compete with WeChat, which has a massive user base.

Double-side starter products

Bilaterally initiated products are what we often call matchmaking products, such as taxi-hailing, food delivery, live streaming , e-commerce platforms, etc. For matchmaking products, the two most important points during a cold start are to satisfy both parties of demand at the same time, allowing them to start driving at the same time, and to emphasize the density of merchants and users on the platform. Regarding these two points, if matchmaking products fail to meet any of them, they will not be able to develop effectively and stably, and the platform’s participating users will be lost. In fact, this is a question of whether the chicken or the egg came first.

One very important feature of bilateral matching products is that they are all big “businesses” and are usually platform-based products. Platform-based products are “winner-takes-all, venture capitalists’ favorite”!

For bilateral matching products, the startup capital required for launching both sides at the same time is huge, and the difficulty of starting up is also very high. Once established, the competition threshold will be very high, and the possibility of opponents wanting to subvert it is almost zero. JD.com and Taobao are such examples. It is no exaggeration to describe them as “too big to fail”.

Multilateral start-up products

Multi-sided startup products are actually also matching products, but they match "more side" users. This type of product requires not only the supply and demand sides, but also the participation of a third or even fourth party in order to be launched simultaneously. If any party fails to achieve sufficient participation, effective and stable development cannot be achieved, and participating users will be lost.

Taobao seems to have a bit of this feeling at the moment, but in fact, Taobao's third side only started to gradually heat up after the two sides were launched. For example, its third side is the connection with logistics service providers, financial derivatives, etc.

There are no successful cases of purely multilateral and simultaneously launched products yet, but there is a conceptual product that meets this characteristic - a platform that provides food delivery services using idle manpower.

As you can imagine, this type of project needs to be successful:

• First, you need a large number of merchants to join.
• Second, you need enough users, otherwise the merchant will definitely not be interested in maintaining this thing.
• Third, you need enough couriers online to ensure that the goods are delivered in a timely manner.

Not to mention how difficult it is to launch this type of product. Given the current money-burning trend of domestic Internet startups , apart from Baidu, Tencent, and Alibaba , who has enough money in their pockets to dare to think about this?

at last

Looking back at the four major types of entrepreneurial projects discussed in this article, as mentioned at the beginning, the difficulty of their start-up increases successively. We all know that for most entrepreneurs , when a project is just established, there is definitely a lack of people, money, and resources. Does that mean that entrepreneurs have no chance to participate in platform-based businesses? Not necessarily. Entrepreneurship is actually a process of setting up points, leading lines, and constructing surfaces. The same goes for entrepreneurial projects. It can also be a process from point to surface.

Take Baidu as an example. Its product prototype - the search engine, was originally a single-point launch product. But Robin Li optimized the product bit by bit, increasing the market share point by point. After increasing the number of users, he developed a single-sided product like Baidu Tieba , slowly making up for the loss of the single-point product like the search engine. Baidu Experience, Baidu Wenku, and Baidu Encyclopedia have gone a step further, expanding their products from unilateral to bilateral, consolidating their products while raising the threshold of competition significantly.

Therefore, we can draw a conclusion or reference from the Baidu example.

For a simple product, if it is launched very successfully from a single point, if you want to raise the threshold and reduce the threat from competitors, you must shift from a single point to a unilateral approach and build a crowd barrier. No matter how good your product is, if you don’t have enough crowd, you are not as good as me. If it is still possible, you can build a bilateral relationship. Even if you can get a wave of people, you still can’t compete with me. If you are more capable, you can build three-sided barriers or four-sided barriers, such as Taobao’s logistics system and financial system. The moat becomes longer and longer, and finally the competitors can only sigh in despair.