App's body

Statistics show that according to the relevant statistics, 100 deaths in the social category accounted for 35%, which is the highest in the mortality rate. As soon as it becomes a bone marrow, it is hard to avoid such a bubble in the industry. Mobile Internet is more serious. From Angry Birds to Plants vs. Zombies, Fishing Catch, Singing, and Street Stones ... One App App explodes overnight, creating users and financing Myths make countless individuals and small teams engaged in App development because they also want to be upstarts and make money overnight.

Vanity faded, leaving just a bunch of App corpse.

According to the street network CEO Liu David memories, in 2010 and the street at the same time the birth of LBS applications close to 20, which makes him very safe, that he chose the right direction. A year later, these applications disappear one after another, and the street is also struggling.

No more than 20 disappeared App. The Entrepreneur reporter took a few months to inventory app stores on the App Store, 91 Wireless, Android Market and other 100 stores, and extensively interviewed managers of investors, App entrepreneurs and application stores Comb out the "death" causes of these apps.

You, dare to steal these App corpses start it?

"White" rush into the market? Die fast!

Li Jiageng's story has a certain representation. July 2010, Li Jiageng microblogging entrepreneurs in Shanghai to participate in competitions, made a lot of Internet users. Persuaded by his friends, he found himself a "product manager" of the character, just want to start a business. He left Dongguan in June 2011 to Beijing and soon found a technology partner and an angel investor, but he did not understand the product even for the heavy users of the mobile Internet. Three months after the product on the line, the user experience very poor, condemning continued, another month after the termination of investment investors. Two months after the product manager left, the team dissolved, he also said the balance of 50,000 yuan account was swept away by technical partners.

According to "entrepreneur" statistics, social apps account for 35% of the 100 apps that have died, the highest category of deaths. An investment manager said that is no surprise, because social applications are completely product-driven (rather than technology-driven), is entirely light start-ups. Everyone a little bit of their own social imagination, there is an idea it is easy to make a thing. However, the threshold of social products is actually not the idea or product, but rather the operation, there are a lot of pit, than the entrepreneurs understanding of the user, the control of resources, and dances with the platform, access from the platform The ability of the user, the ability to create the topic of public relations, financing capacity (social cash on the premise of a large number of users or higher retention rate of users, which require long-term burn. Social applications finally make the user volume bigger, the business model is still hard to find (microblogging is so big, his model did not really explore). As a result, too much social entrepreneurship has been involved with entrepreneurs who are confused about the situation and the highest rates of death are normal.

Lack of market research, empty talk mode?

Li Tian Fang, founder of FM program, returned from Silicon Valley in 2010 to start a business. When he first arrived in Beijing, he hoped to know some friends through the activities. When he experienced the magic net and Douban, he decided to make an application himself. Program FM can initiate activities and social functions, and provide users with a variety of event information, once in the entrepreneurial circle is very famous.

Although many Internet users in the Guangzhou-Shenzhen area are aware of the program FM, Li Tian-fang says that in the "real" world, there are actually few users of the program FM. "If I live in China for a few more years, I will not do it, because the understanding of the concept of activities is totally different both in China and abroad."

In the memory of Li Fangfang, many Internet activities in Silicon Valley are very pure, while many domestic activities are not high quality and expensive, and are gradually losing their appeal to the target customers who plan FM. The great reason for planning the post-transformation of FM is also related to this.

Because initially wanted to make friends by participating in activities, Lee Tian Fang's first response is to filter out the activities of the way friends are concerned about the flow, so there is the first version of the program FM. It turns out that this method of generating a pattern with A + B does not hold. "The real success of the product is to observe what is the existing demand.What value can we really provide to the user? Later, I think we are not worth living." Li Tianfang reflection, those who talk about everyday SoLoMo, O2O, socialization projects Are dead, and those who live on the project actually do not make people feel particularly powerful, maybe they are only doing something special soil.

Copy failed and died

What are the popular products and models at home and abroad, one in the country, this is a typical "model" of China's Internet business. Mobile Internet era not only can not be empty, but also intensified, of course, staged a copy of the story failed.

In 2010, LBS applications such as the street mostly copy the United States Foursquare. But the question is, whether Chinese users are willing to share geographic information? Sign-in to meet the user what kind of core needs? If only rely on the medal, concessions and other means, obviously not major buy discount network terminal opponents.

Take the street as an example. Among the early seed users, a group of people are trying to find places and a group of people focus on recording life. Street network CEO Liu David believes that the user needs are not unified is hindered the development of the root cause of the street, it is difficult to judge in the end the service which group of people, which features are not appropriate.

Liu Dawei knew that when the local point or check-in function has become the bottom of all the content, the application of simple sign-sharing can not survive. He wants to make the street a shared community dominated by user UGC and cater to those who love to record life Of the minority crowd, but worried about being disgusted by other users. The only way is to develop several App at the same time, to make the same series of products like Douban FM, Douban, an App only one thing. This may be the direction of the future transformation of the street, but he is not sure now.

If the street is only a little confused and sluggish, some food App really "copy" was thrilling, and some even quickly "copy dead." May 23, 2012, food applications, "God of Shake" was notified Apple off the shelf. On the same day, the public comments on the external announcement that "God of Shake" a lot of plagiarism on its website business information, pictures and user reviews. As the public comment on the counterattack, so that "God of Shake" was injured.

According to a report by the Changjiang Daily, after the incident, an entrepreneur claimed he had swished the gourmet App earlier than Shakespeare, but eventually did not do it. Because of the gourmet app, if there is no reliable offline business data, everything is nonsense, doomed to short-lived, become an accident on the mobile Internet, not a story. The founder of a flight application that imitates "Flight Butler" also said that as a result of the fact that both themselves and investors lacked resources in the aviation industry, the project went online for only a month and could not get first-hand flight information and could only eventually be abandoned.

Can not receive money, starve to death

There are only two revenue models for App apps: paid downloads for users; free download for users + mode for embedded ads. In the country, "online things are free," the concept enjoys popular support, users want to pay, what a terrible! Most small App developers want to get income, either by overseas application market charges to download, or do the user Most willing to pay for the App game. Both the TouchPal input method and the Dolphin Browser 2009 are live by downloading $ 10 or $ 6.99 per user in the U.S. app market in 2009. That is because they are doing early, and after 2011, as soon as an application emerges, there will soon be a bunch of similar, free, aggressive applications to keep up. Money, hard! Of course, games App, as long as the product is good, or the most easy to receive money. This explains why in the 100 app death list, the game category only accounts for 1%.

Users download free + advertising mode is also very hard for most of the App. First of all, there is no independent advertising value without massive downloads (millions of users), and poor advertising revenue can only be gained through mobile ad networks such as Evangelion and Union. Even if this is unsustainable, because most of the App ads now vote App, such as the development of a lot of money, willing to spend very few people. The 2012 economic environment is not good, the original willing to "stick money" small and medium-sized developers to support the mobile advertising platform is also shrinking the winter, have rarely been divided into even more pathetic. How can this game last?

In the early days, some developers maintained their livelihood by undertaking App Outsourcing. A project can often receive 30,000 to 50,000 yuan. However, with the advent of so-called fool-type App rapid generation platforms such as chasing letters and shorthand, many developments Even the survival of this life is gone.

Cottage fierce, was copied to death

"Die", it is acclimatized, there is no resource and other reasons; "being copied to death" is squeezed by the capital, large companies. The same is the K-song applications, the earliest and the user experience is not the best to sing it, but sing it stunned is throwing money launched. The entrepreneur magazine has interviewed some brush companies before, some people claim that the financing of singing all over the domestic brush companies (not a single company can only withstand such a large amount of brush) large-scale brush list. Of course, this statement was sung by CEO Chen Hua's denial.

Sequoia Capital Partners Guey Yue in an interview with "entrepreneurs" said that some companies brush the list as their daily major tasks, the monthly fixed costs of several hundred thousand dollars, the long-term lock in the top 100 or the top 50 . These companies generally have rounds of investors, and individual developers who have no investment can not afford it. In fact, there are investors who generally know that one eyebrows one eye closed, and some even encourage entrepreneurs brush chart or lock list, mainly for the next round of smooth financing. In the crucial period of financing round B, some App charts performed particularly well. In particular, free social and tool apps that can not be realized immediately have a "motive for committing the crime." This may explain, to some extent, why 100 social apps and utility apps actually add up to 50% of the 100 app deaths. In the giants and "rich" gathered in the hot areas, are desperate squeeze of small and medium developers how the early days?

In addition to brush list, advertising (and change), pre-installed is the most important means of App promotion. Wang Jia Liang, the founder of TouchPal, once said to Entrepreneurs that a large corporation can copy an App, use the money to advertise it, change the amount of resources it has available, and even pre-load it on the mobile terminal. Where is the average developer can Endorsed by the giants of the App, than the Internet age of PC died faster is normal, not die is not normal.

Miss the financing time and die

Itself difficult to have hematopoietic ability, but also want to burn hard to make the user volume bigger, which requires investors to a large number of blood transfusions, so the financing ability and timing of a lot of App's life and death. Missed financing timing is sometimes terrible.

Photo application founder Zhang Yan (a pseudonym) on the "entrepreneur" reporter said his application in preparation for the A round of financing in 2011, the two agencies and China signed a memorandum late due to VC due diligence and other matters delayed the financing schedule. "Time will change a lot, and after that moment, the market's valuation of the product has changed."

Zhang Yan has so far considered the root cause of the project's failure to miss the financing. "VC originally intended us to recognize our model and team, but good things are to be extrapolated. Later, when it comes to product promotion, we need money to do it, and not angels' money can solve it."

He started his career as a journalist in 2011, and once again he returned to the media after the project failed. "Do not you say something like this? When a media guy comes out to start a business, that bubble in the industry is already huge," he said with a slight jest.

Daily Polishing App dies and dies

App Store's smooth download mode and SNS network to make the explosion effect of word of mouth marketing emerge, but also came into being a lot of new applications. For example, you can throw the phone to measure the height, or can imitate people's funny voice App. This application users use freshness only once or twice, they are more like a "diathesis" products.

In the past business model, no one is willing to do a "diathesis" application, but in the existing App download environment, a large number of people doing "diathesis" software. Even if the user does not long-term retention, once caught the outbreak of word of mouth marketing, developers are still able to get some advertising revenue, and even some users are willing to pay to buy. It is clear that this product will not provide sustained value, but investors, developers are still willing to believe this is a viable model. "Daily Polishing" App is a tool to make quick money, dead to die, anyway, their mission has been completed.

Source: i dark horse of the network: Shihai Wei (entrepreneurs Reporter)