How can an application app avoid becoming a hit and then dying out?

Face Meng has become popular. Whether it is praise or criticism, encouragement or pessimism, the topic about it runs through the media and entrepreneur groups throughout June. The big boss Cai Wensheng personally taught entrepreneurial opportunities and also confirmed a tens of millions investment in the A round.

But in just one month, Faceu's popularity quickly declined, and voices of pessimism about the popular app also emerged. How entrepreneurial teams think about maintaining the sustainability of application-type apps has become a question that countless investors and app entrepreneurial teams have been thinking about.

Recently, Ren Xiaoqian, one of the founders of Moman, said in an interview with China Business News that "a hot app will die" is actually a frivolous term. In fact, many apps will not necessarily face operational problems after a hot app. In fact, they are just returning to a normal state. Many investors also shared their views on investing in popular apps with reporters. Tu Hongchuan, partner of Gaoyuan Capital, told reporters that any product has a life cycle, and the key is to have a second-generation product superimposed soon after the product reaches its peak. In his opinion, absorbing information from user feedback and launching the second-generation product based on it is the core of success.

"The most important thing when investing in the Internet or mobile Internet is whether the product is valuable and whether the product has enough stickiness for users," said Tu Hongchuan.

After the "Fire"

Ren Xiaoqian is one of the founders of Moman Camera, a mobile app that allows users to quickly turn photos they take into cartoons. Moman Camera was launched in July 2013, and its downloads exceeded one million in August, and exceeded ten million in September. It has now been downloaded over one hundred million times.

But it is undeniable that today, Moman Camera is no longer as popular as before in WeChat Moments, and there are even comments online saying that it will “die after a short period of popularity”.

"Now, our monthly active users in the tool category are still very high, although we are no longer at the stage of crazy screen-sweeping in the WeChat Moments." Ren Xiaoqian told reporters that a good application does not necessarily have to be screen-sweeping in the WeChat Moments to prove its status. That is a crazy stage.

In fact, it is no exaggeration to describe the development of APP in the past two years as a blowout.

Looking at the iOS system alone , Apple launched the Apple App Store in 2008. By 2009, there were only 500 apps in the store, but four years later, the number exceeded 650,000. The latest data is that the App Store provides more than 1 million applications to iPhone , iPad and iPod touch users in 155 countries and regions around the world, and the total amount of users' spending on the App Store exceeded US$10 billion in 2013. This is only the data for the iOS system, not including the Android system.

But the competition is also extremely fierce, with over a million apps competing fiercely for a small mobile phone screen. Every day, countless apps are born and disappear. Capital is always keeping an eye on those apps that are popular and quickly occupy the mobile phone screen.

When it was at its peak, Moman also won the favor of investors. Ren Xiaoqian once revealed to the outside world last year that Moman Camera had obtained 30 million yuan in venture capital and was still undergoing a new round of financing.

But now she didn't talk much about capital on the other end of the phone. "We have currently obtained the A+ round. The first round was supported by friends, and another one was from institutions, which is higher than tens of millions. But we ourselves have a clear path for development, and investment will not affect anything." Ren Xiaoqian said.

After the media attention returned to calm, Ren Xiaoqian emphasized to reporters that "dying after a short period of popularity" is actually a rash statement. In fact, many applications do not necessarily face operational problems after a short period of popularity. They just calm down and return to a normal industry state. This comment is misleading. It does not mean that if there is no crazy forwarding in the circle of friends, it means it is dead.

It is conceivable that after experiencing the so-called "big hit", some voices that are pessimistic about Moman will always appear around the product, rather than what the product will do in the future.

In Ren Xiaoqian's opinion, Moman is just not at its highest point now. "Moman's growth is still very good, and we know the data best." She told reporters that after calming down, it actually still has high daily and monthly activeness, which proves that there are still many real users, and the number of downloads does not represent the real user data. "I never calculate the number of downloads, which does not represent the real users. We have millions of daily active users and more than 200 million downloads."

According to the reporter, the current daily comic production volume of Moman remains at 120 million times, and Moman is still exploring the sustainable development path of its products.

"We started with the simplest application, with 15 pictures. A month later, users could receive more than a dozen pictures a day, sometimes of the hot topics of the moment. Then we launched animations, which can be used as emoticons in chats. A month later, we launched group photos. At the beginning of the year, we implemented search, and users can search for whatever they want. For example, if I want to write a PPT, I can find comics in it to express myself in words. Now Moman has opened up a huge amount of content, and we can allow users to express themselves more in the future. In the fan dialog box, they can enter text bubbles and create a scene in multiple dimensions."

Ren Xiaoqian has to admit that most of the 160 million users of Moman are not deep users, but she said she still has confidence in its future development.

"This is my second venture. I have been doing this for six years. I am very clear about the business model and why I am doing it at this stage. The goal is not to make money, but whether the value you want to present can be presented. Many people go into business when they reach my level, but I did not do so."

Recently, there were reports that Moman had received a new round of investment, but Ren Xiaoqian did not respond.

Investor's logic

In addition to Moman, Faceu, which is currently in the limelight, actually received an investment of several million yuan from IDG Capital at the beginning of this year. At that time, it was one month since the Android version of Faceu was launched, and only two weeks since the iOS version was launched.

However, Faceu became really popular in early June this year, but its popularity was actually completely expected by IDG Capital. However, even the investors did not expect it to happen so quickly.

"At that time, we were optimistic about the trend of young people tending to be self-creative," said Li Feng, partner of IDG Capital, in a written reply to a reporter from China Business News.

Under this premise, IDG Capital is actually consciously looking for investment projects in this direction. As for the investment logic behind the Face Meng project, Li Feng said: "The Face Meng team is composed of people who love this thing and are of the same or similar age as the users. At the same time, they are well-trained after coming from large companies."

According to the reporter, Faceu is not an isolated case. IDG Capital has spent a long time paying attention to young entrepreneurs. In the past year, it has invested in several projects of entrepreneurs born in the 1990s or after 1988 or 1989. In fact, Chang Liang, a colleague of Li Feng who discovered Faceu and led the investment, is also a young man born after 1985.

Although Faceu is an avatar application, IDG Capital said it is not just interested in an avatar application app. When the outside world began to worry whether Faceu would become a short-lived product as its popularity waned, Li Feng said he had thought clearly, "It is inevitable that it will cool down, so we should keep a normal mind." He believes that "the ability to continuously innovate is the most important, and we should keep a rhythm in product design and operation, and be able to identify core users and retain them."

Regarding the future development of Faceu, Li Feng also made it clear to reporters that as an investor, what he can do is to contribute ideas, help the company without causing trouble, and give the team space to trial and error and play freely.

"In fact, investment institutions still focus on the team. When they decide to invest, they pay more attention to whether the company has the reserves for follow-up projects and the ability to adjust and transform its business model in the future." Gao Jianbin, the managing partner of PwC China's technology industry, expressed his views on investment in popular mobile Internet projects in an interview with reporters.

Crazy Guess the Picture, which became popular with the help of WeChat in March last year, soon received a Series A investment from Qiming Venture Partners in the middle of last year after introducing angel investments from Zhen Fund and Xiangfeng Huaxing. Although Crazy Guess the Picture seems to have lost its popularity now, when talking about the project now, Gan Jianping, managing partner of Qiming Venture Partners, told reporters that he invested in it because he thought the product was very interesting, and that the producer of Crazy Guess the Picture, Hao Teng Jia Ke, quickly launched Crazy Guess the Song after Crazy Guess the Picture, which was the team's ability that he valued.

Gan Jianping does not deny that the life cycle of such game applications will be short and will soon be replaced by new things, but his focus is on whether the company or team can keep up quickly.

Ren Xiaoqian also told reporters that no one knows the product development path better than herself, and even investors will not participate too much in the discussion of product direction. "Moman Camera is just the tip of the iceberg of our dream. Our huge castle will appear later, and we will not forget our original intention in the process." Ren Xiaoqian said.

As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity.