What is the truth behind the popularity of the APP "Catch Dolls Everyday"?

Recently, I often see advertisements for the Tiantian Grab Dolls APP on Weibo, and occasionally I see people sharing screenshots of themselves catching dolls on this APP in the circle of friends . Moreover, it is a real scene of catching dolls, but the operating handles have become virtual buttons on the mobile phone. I felt very curious, so I downloaded it and played it myself. I found it very interesting, so I would like to introduce this product to you here and analyze the business logic behind it.

Product Introduction

"Catch Dolls Everyday" is an online doll-catching APP. Users can experience the feeling of the doll-catching machine in a shopping mall through the app, and the prizes caught will be sent to the user's home. Each time you catch a doll, it costs 10-30 doll coins/time. Users will receive 60 coins when they register and log into the game for the first time, and for each friend they invite to join, after successful registration, they will receive 60 doll coins, and a maximum of 3,000 coins can be obtained.

The interface uses a drawer-style navigation design, which has the advantage of saving page display space and allowing users to focus more attention on the current page. At the same time, it also hides some low-frequency and low-priority functions. Make the interface look fresh and clean. The homepage is mainly divided into two parts: banner and room list. The image of the room shows what doll the user is grabbing. The lower left corner of the image will show whether the room is idle or in-game. If it is idle, the user can click to enter and start playing directly. If it is in-game, the user can watch other users grab dolls and start the game after they finish. The setting interface is also very simple, mainly for replacing recharge. Users can invite WeChat friends or send recharge invitations to friends through WeChat Moments to replace recharge. The amount each time ranges from 5.2 yuan, 20 yuan, 66.6 yuan or 131.4 yuan. This not only plays a promotional role but also maintains friendship between friends. It is a good idea.

The game interface is shown above. The camera function can be selected in the upper left corner. The front and rear cameras can be switched through the camera icon on the right. You can also choose not to show your face, so that only your own avatar will be displayed. If other people are playing the game, the button to start the game will be gray, and there will be barrages on the interface showing "So-and-so came in" and "So-and-so left". You can also send real-time barrages through the chat button in the lower left corner. When the user is in the game, there are four buttons, up, down, left and right, to adjust the position of the claw. There will be a countdown in the lower right corner. When the countdown ends, the claw will automatically fall. Since I haven't caught a doll by the end of this article, I have no way of knowing the subsequent operation process.

Product Analysis

Solve user pain points and restore real usage scenarios

Users do not understand models or algorithms; they only have scenarios, needs and motivations. How to restore to the user scenario is often a "bottleneck" that product managers need to break through. ——Zhang Xiaolong

The value of "Catch Dolls Everyday" lies in the fact that it truly restores the scene of users grabbing dolls. Before this game, users grabbed dolls through doll machines in shopping malls and game halls, which exposed many pain points:

1. Not all shopping malls have claw machines.
2. Some old-style claw machines still require coins to use, but nowadays most young people don’t carry cash when they go out, let alone coins.
3. The game hall is more attractive to boys, and there are few girls who go there specifically to catch dolls.
4. Some male players are also interested in claw machines, but are embarrassed to play them in public due to face concerns.
5. The cost of a claw machine is very high. In order to recoup the cost and make a profit, the merchants usually set the success rate of such claw machines very low. Therefore, most players often spend a lot of money and can only catch a few or even none, which also causes the loss of some players in disguise.
6. Users only think of playing claw machines when they go out shopping, mostly on weekends. They rarely go to shopping malls or even go out of their way to catch dolls.

Let’s take a look at what pain points “Catch Dolls Everyday” solves:

1. There are as many claw machines as there are rooms. There are usually staff responsible for maintaining these machines. It is preliminarily estimated that there are about 100 claw machines for users to use, so there is no situation where there are no machines to play.

2. Users can get 60 doll coins upon first use. If they play with 10 coins each time, they can play for free 6 times. If they recharge 10 yuan, they can get 100 coins. For the first recharge of 10 yuan, they will get another 100 coins. On average, it is 0.5 yuan each time. Users can recharge through WeChat and Alipay , which is very convenient. There are also special offers of 1 coin/time every day, with many discounts and benefits.

3. Girls like to be accompanied by someone when they go shopping, it can be a best friend or a boyfriend. Sometimes if they can't find someone to accompany them, they simply don't go out. But now, you can catch dolls on your mobile phone without leaving the house, you can play while lying on the bed, curl up on the sofa, on a rainy afternoon or a foggy night, etc. With this APP, these restrictions are gone.

4. Most girls cannot resist furry and cute dolls, so when they see the dazzling array of dolls on the interface, they will have the urge to get one. This APP has all kinds of dolls, which can almost satisfy all the ideas of girls.

5. Male users no longer have to worry about face, so the number of male potential users will increase greatly. In addition, this challenging game will also give male users a sense of accomplishment. Some boys may play this game for the following purposes:

• An invitation from a female friend, hoping that he could help catch the doll and give it to her.
• Realize your self-worth, gain recognition from others and gain a sense of accomplishment through this game.
• Some boys have a girlish heart and like dolls. I also buy some dolls on a regular basis, and catching dolls is also a channel for collecting them.

1. "Catch Dolls Everyday" is still in its early stages of development and is in the stage of burning money. It is estimated that a large number of VCs will come in in the future. The profit model is still in the exploration stage, but if nothing unexpected happens, it should be based on advertising and user recharge. Therefore, there is no need to set too much difficulty in catching dolls, which will instead lose a large number of players. For them, the cost of a single doll is obviously not worth mentioning in the face of the number of users.

By solving these pain points of users and authentically restoring the scenarios, the growth in the number of users is understandable.

Sunk costs ignored by users

Sunk cost refers to the tendency for people to continue investing in something because of their previous investment, even if they may lose more by continuing to invest.

When you first play this game, the APP gives you 60 doll coins for free. Of course, you would rather play it than not. When you have spent all of them and haven’t caught any, you will think to yourself, “I already have a feeling. Give me another chance. Maybe my luck will burst.” So you put 10 yuan into it. When the 10 yuan is spent and you still haven’t caught any, “I have spent 10 yuan. If I don’t catch any, won’t I lose money?”. When you spend 20 yuan and still haven’t caught any, “I will try again. I will definitely catch one.” In the end, you find that you have spent dozens of yuan in total, and you could have bought a super big doll... You regret it, but it’s of no use. This silencing effect is particularly evident in the initial period of time. But this influence will gradually fade over time until it eventually disappears.

Many users fall into the sunk cost fallacy when playing this game. For example, in order to reward employees, the company gave each employee a concert ticket with a front row middle seat worth 800 yuan. You really like going to concerts, but unfortunately the weather is not good. A snowstorm suddenly hits on the day of the concert, causing heavy snow on the roads. All public transportation is suspended, but the concert goes on as usual. If you want to go, you can only walk to the concert hall for half an hour in the cold wind. Will you go to this concert? Give your answer.

Let's look at another question. If there is also a concert that you are very interested in and there is also a rare snowstorm that paralyzes traffic, and if the ticket is not issued by your company but you got it on Damai.com with great difficulty, would you walk for half an hour in the snow to go to the concert?

Faced with a sudden snowstorm, many people are unwilling to go out in the first case, because they think the loss will not be too big, but in the second case, people are very reluctant and would rather brave the cold and insist on going to the concert, because the tickets are the ones they have managed to grab and buy with their own money. This is the sunk cost fallacy. When people decide whether to do something, they not only look at whether this thing is good for them, but also look at whether they have already invested in this thing in the past. These irrecoverable expenditures: money, time, and energy are called sunk costs.

A completely rational decision maker should not include sunk costs in the cost-benefit analysis because the past is irreversible. Since it cannot be recovered, it cannot have an impact on the present and should be allowed to pass and ignored when making decisions.

Three conditions for a trend to explode

Generally, three conditions must be met to trigger a trend: one is the adhesion factor; two is the law of individual characters; and three is the law of environmental power. The adhesion factor refers to the fact that the physical information itself has highlights that resonate with others and is contagious. The rule of individual figures refers to the participation of certain opinion leaders in broadcasting such information. The law of environmental power means that if this information happens to meet the needs of society at the time, it will become a trend.

Why did “Catch Dolls Every Day” become so popular all of a sudden? First of all, this APP itself has great highlights. Users can use this APP to truly experience the feeling of claw machines in a shopping mall, which can easily arouse the interest of players. Secondly, through the form of invitation codes, users can post their invitation codes on social software. After inviting a friend to successfully register, they can get 60 doll coins. Therefore, a large number of players posted screenshots of their invitation codes on Sina Weibo , Zhihu, and QQ Space, which is equivalent to promoting themselves in disguise. In addition, the official APP will also spend money to invite many big Vs to send relevant Weibo for promotion, such as APP Emperor, Green Hat Society, etc. In addition, there have been various Weibo topic discussions in recent times, such as #Show off your dolls every day and get rewards for showing pictures#, #The master of claw machines#, #Show off your dolls every day#, etc., which have attracted widespread attention and discussion among users. On October 31, a limited edition Halloween TED was launched with copywriting such as "If you don't catch me, I'll play tricks on you", which successfully sparked a trend.

We analyze "Catch Dolls Everyday" based on three conditions - the adhesion factor is the cloud-based doll-catching, which allows users to catch dolls without leaving home by just opening the APP; the rule of individual characters is the forwarding of big Vs plus the spontaneous publicity of users; the rule of environmental power is the series of promotional activities and limited-time specials plus the Halloween carnival when the APP was first launched. These factors can attract users' attention and trigger trends.

Jack Ma has a famous saying:

"In this era of money grabbing, there is no time to bother with those who are still in the primitive society and have too many excuses. As long as they have the wrong ideas, they will be the next one. Those who can't see the business opportunities will also be the next one."

Traditional industries may not understand why the Internet can change all this? The Internet cannot understand why traditional industries think that change means earth-shaking changes? What we have to do now is to improve as we go along and look for opportunities as we improve. Even though there are still many problems with "Catch Dolls Everyday", such as slow operation and system errors in catching dolls, growth is the result of continuous iteration. Don't worry too much and just do whatever you think of. With the essential change from 0 to 1, the change from 1 to N will naturally grow wildly with the environment and time. Finally, I hope that "Catch Dolls Everyday" can continue to improve itself and make greater progress.