Finally figured it out! What should operations and products do in the early stages of a project?

Let’s take a look at the following picture

We need to make one thing clear: the relationship between product and operation is a collaborative and mutually supportive relationship, not a subordinate relationship.

When we want to do something great, this thing is a project. This project generates two pulses: product and operation, which do different things respectively:

● What we need to consider is how to create an excellent "product" that satisfies a group of people.

● What operations need to consider is how to operate a group and become the behind-the-scenes manipulator of this group.

Myth

Many times, product managers ’ misunderstanding of operations stems from their lack of understanding of operations, and they misinterpret the collaboration process with operations into a dispute over product functions.

After the project is established, the trajectory of product and operation is as shown in the figure below. There will be a parallel stage, then a crossover, and then back to a parallel state, and so on.

We can regard the intersection node as the goal and result of a stage. The biggest goal of the first stage is to verify whether the market is established and whether the demand is established. This is what we call the link of verifying market feasibility.

So at this stage, what should products and operations do respectively?

What the product should do

● What form of entry (how to introduce your product to users)

● How to get users to use the app a second time (functions that require a certain frequency)

● Implemented

Minimum cost and rapid testing, this concept has appeared in many places and is an attitude that is widely embraced and advocated by everyone.

So how many functions should a true 1.0 version have?

The fewer the better, with the answer to the above two questions as the core

We calculated the time required for this minimal version to be two weeks.

think

PS: The most effective way to control development pace and release strategy is to control demand. Does a product really need so many functions? This is worth thinking about.

What operations need to do

● Target user groups

● Find your group and build your resource library

● Establish channels to connect to target groups

● Screen active objects as seed users

● Establish user pool

● Induce users to take actions

● Establish daily operation system

The final product of operation is the user. In the first parallel stage after the project starts, all operation actions are achieved based on the user.

Real-life examples

You and your team want to create a cosmetics shopping guide community. If you were the operations manager of this project, what would you do?

Since operations and PM are roles that were created out of nothing, many operations actions are carried out by establishing their own operations systems. This is just a starting point and not an exhaustive list.

What does operations do?

1. Identify target users

For cosmetics, the market area is the largest, the frequency is the highest, and most of the communication is concentrated in the female group. Of course, the group of men who give gifts is also very considerable, but for us to verify and enter the market, it is more appropriate to choose the group that best meets the characteristics.

2. Find target users

Even if we can spend money on advertising, you still need a place to put the ads.

Where the user group is is a very serious issue. Not only finding it, but also evaluating and documenting the venue.

Your resource library should be categorized

Such as: young women's community, women's community, women's community with makeup section, women's tools , QQ group, WeChat group , micro-business, etc.

Each category will also have some parameter attributes: size, activity, group characteristics, address, etc.

For example

Women's makeup group, QQ group, 400 people, female makeup exchange, group activity level LV4

Ruili Women's Network, 12,000 visits per day, website, forum, investment news articles

3. Establish channels and connect users

If you just want to join a target user group, or find a group gathering place, you also need to connect with this group

Linking Methods

A. Become a big V, expert, and authority in this field.

B. Group transfer to another location

Two methods are suitable for parallelization:

Method A: Build your own authority system in the right place, using content, communication, payment and other methods. For example, you can be promoted to administrator in QQ group, speak frequently, show your presence, contribute high-quality articles in online communities, quickly gain followers, and get recommended exposure.

Method B: Build your own public account, headline account, and chat group. Of course, you can also have other carriers. The characteristic is that this carrier must have complete dominant control

hint

The above is the preparation period for operation, which is equivalent to the stage of outputting prototype files, requirement documents, or design drawings.

Next, we need to move to actual operation

4. Screen active objects as seed users

You have already integrated into the target user group, those individuals who pay close attention to cosmetics and are very active, and you can always pay attention to them.

They are your active users. What you need to obtain is their contact information, and you may even have already been in touch with them, such as becoming WeChat friends.

Popular Science

Activity: you can experience the enthusiasm, activity, attention, authority, and even some speech habits, whether you are easy to accept new things, whether you are a skeptic or an optimist.

Of course, depending on the project, you can also add different filtering conditions for the activity.

5. Build a user pool

WeChat public accounts, Toutiao accounts, and even some channels you have mastered to deliver content. At this stage, you can cast a wide net and reserve users in your own user pool for the purpose of group friendship and communication.

You can even set up such a pool by invitation, which can be a WeChat group or a QQ group. Of course, you need to evaluate which group is more suitable for the operation of this project.

hint

If you have completed the above preparations, then you need to communicate with the product manager. You need to know what functional points our first version of the product has, the operational suggestions he puts forward, and his analysis of the needs.

6. Induce users to take action

You already have a lot of user resources. Why not use some techniques to make users behave in the same way as expected by the product to verify the establishment and responsiveness of the demand points in advance, so as to make strategic preparations for the operational actions after the product is launched.

For example

If our product is based on the live broadcast of cosmetics

a. Look for similar live broadcast communities or live broadcast files, or even create some content ourselves (content operation)

b. Distribute these contents to different channels in batches (channel operation)

c. In a communication place, such as a WeChat group, put out the content from a user's perspective and ask some questions to see if there is any reaction (seed user operation )

d. Carefully observe the data on how the content is read and the ripple effects it produces ( data analysis )

7. Daily system establishment

We are well aware that the initial volume of action is not large, but very complex, just as we know that operations is a very complex position.

In this context, in order to focus on analysis and formulation of operational strategies, it is necessary to standardize and systematize some routine actions so that you can concentrate your energy.

Routine actions will be the most effective means of operation. When you find that a certain link is overloaded or the demand increases, you can quickly know who needs to be recruited and can also easily design positions.

Popular Science

We see so many recruitments, but in fact, recruitment is much more complicated than what we are exposed to, especially in the job design stage. Companies cannot add staff just because of temporary demand pressure.

Therefore, each position must go through repeated design, short-term tasks, long-term tasks, and the future development space of this position.

In terms of operations, let’s summarize

The operational actions before the launch of product 1.0 have been introduced. We are still using actual combat cases and have not enumerated the changes and parameters of each link. There are many methods, but the principles remain the same.

Skill

For the 1.0 trial phase of the product, a certain number of seed users are needed for verification, rather than large-scale rollout. The requirement for operation is not quantity, but quality.

The product plan completed in two weeks was not able to support the use of a large number of users. This is the general background.

By using the operation strategy properly, it is relatively easy to reserve a four-digit seed user group in two weeks.

The next intersection node is to convert users to products. Why not think about what needs to be done during the conversion?

What does the product do

Compared with operation, the time for product design is more limited. It seems to be two weeks, but in fact, there is only about three days available for product design. Otherwise, it is impossible to guarantee the launch of version 1.0 of the project within two weeks.

1. What form of entry (product features)

How should you introduce your product to users?

Even if as a product you don't need to be involved in operational work, you still have to consider this issue.

The product entry form is basically equivalent to the core function of the product, and such core function is determined immediately after the project is established.

In this article, we use live video streaming as a starting point. In addition to live video streaming, there are many other options, such as content, community, e-commerce , etc.

After determining the approach, the function and product design should be as simple as possible. The first thing to verify is the user's viewing and discussion reactions to the live video, which determines the user's stickiness and retention.

2. Functions must have frequency

The first use is basically an action generated by operations, and how to make users have a certain frequency of use is more in the scope of product logic.

Of course, for some innovative products, education will be a very serious problem that operations have to face, so we won’t go into details here.

In the initial stage, we can cleverly replace the user's usage frequency with the content update frequency, or the update frequency of a certain event, and influence the user's usage frequency by controlling the changes in the product itself.

This kind of logic is quite common in the gaming field. You can pay attention to the time limit function of the game.

For example

In a certain application, an information section was added. The time limit was to update one piece of information every day. After 24 hours, the information was automatically deleted. The entire software had only this one function. More than 40% of users used it for 30 to 50 consecutive days (every day~~)

3. Invest in R&D and control the iteration rhythm

When we are making a version, we must have a clear sense of time. The biggest factor in how to complete the release within two weeks lies in the source strategy.

There are also some tips to shorten the project release time. Here are some tips for you.

Skill

1. Start requirements review with prototype files instead of waiting for requirements documents

2. Try to arrange the design intervention time in advance, because the client needs the design drawings for smooth development.

3. Try to advance the time for R&D intervention. I won’t go into details about this.

4. Try to advance the time for QA to intervene. After the requirements document is output, QA can enter

5. The backend management part can be developed after the client is released.

6. If you need backend support, you can directly modify the database.

7. If you need to publish on both iOS and Android, and iOS takes up to two weeks to review new apps, it is better to use an enterprise certificate instead of publishing to the app store.

8. Prepare a bunch of corresponding accounts and permissions in advance, because many account applications require review time, such as WeChat payment

9. Cut off all unimportant features in v1.0 and focus on

10. Follow the principle of simplification and replace all relatively complex functions. For example, in version 1.0, you really don’t need the functions of registration and logout. Embrace third-party login.

11. Choose the most suitable option, not all of them. For third-party login, in the early stage, it is enough to open WeChat.

12. There are many more tips~

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