Color falls to the apocalypse: Venture into 2.0 users become smarter

Intermediary transaction SEO diagnosis Taobao guest Cloud host technology Hall

Color falls to the apocalypse: Venture into 2.0 users become smarter

Bill Nguyen, CEO and co-founder of Bill Nouyerne, a photo-sharing app, has been reported missing from the company for several months.

That sounds a little surprising. But when I posted the message on Twitter, the most common response was: What, color is still there?

There are a number of factors that have led to color's decline today, the main reason being that after a successful venture in 1999, the Silicon Valley venture has changed dramatically, and Nouyerne lacks understanding of these changes.

People, technology and corporate change have been widely noted, but little attention has been paid to the changes in Silicon Valley entrepreneurship. Nouyerne did not notice this when it came out of color, but what was worse: people familiar with the matter said that when someone explained it to him, Nouyerne turned a deaf ear.

Publishing a new service does not guarantee success, but nothing is worse than publishing color. Nouyerne's ambitions for color have kept some reporters on the sidelines, but his ambitions have not been reflected in real products. Of the millions of picture-sharing sites, color is just one, and the user interface is pretty bad.

To make the worst of it, color bragged about winning 41 million of billions of dollars of investment without winning a single user. Nouyerne also said that Sequoia Capital thought color's creativity was bold, so the investment in color is equivalent to their initial investment in Google twice times. Nouyerne's comments were almost the headlines of the big media.

This is a very odd contrast, color is a completely different period, created in different areas of a completely different company, why its financing amount compared with Google's financing?

The reason: Nouyerne was in a different era in creating the top two companies, when the first round of financing was important. Because the internet was still a novelty, the number of netizens was relatively small. Winning an investment means more resources, more expensive domain names, a stylish product launch, and large-scale marketing campaigns.

But into the Web 2.0 era, all this has changed fundamentally, mainly around how to create a company of the whole economy has changed. The cost of starting a business is even lower, and entrepreneurs are no longer financing for flashy news releases. By reducing the amount of financing, the entrepreneur retains control of the company.

Marketing campaigns have also changed. The Pioneer advantage is not obvious, with a successful product, a stable user base and promising growth prospects, commercialization will succeed. Therefore, the successful entrepreneurial way is: appropriate financing, development of viable products, to the market, repeated updates, until the user acceptance.

In the Web 2.0 era, people are no longer told what products to use, they will actively use a product. If it works, it will also be recommended to their friends. Obviously, only two-star-rated color is not the case. Money and ambition cannot be a shortcut, the Internet market has become crowded and users have become smart.

This is a lesson left by a Web 1.0 entrepreneur, and I think of the situation when Max Leiff (Max levchin) launched the slide. At PayPal, the smart idea is to come up with a clever solution: a user who recommends a product to a friend will receive a 20 dollar reward. As a result, the product spreads quickly and users get far less cost than other companies.

But for slide, he was surprised to find that his experience, team and cash, all of which were useless, and that his means in the late 1990s had not worked. "You can't force users to use your product," he said angrily. ”

Nouyerne is publishing a picture-sharing app, so his release plan seems even more irrelevant. In this already crowded market, for users, product quality and whether friends are in use is the most important two things. In this respect, color is not accounted for.

By contrast, Instagram is a successful case. Kevin Systrom, the company's founder, initially Kevin Sistrom only small-scale funding and recruited a handful of employees, with a simple goal. In terms of strategy, style, product, CEO and so on, and color just the opposite.

Nouyerne has no longer been able to control the media, when the user gave up the color of the news of Nouyerne out, but in the social media joke, color has changed. In fact, the rapid departure of co-founder Peter Van Heim Peter Pham and Patty (DJ Patil) is partly indicative of color's decline.

Now, Nouyerne has run away, or at least has been paid to leave, so there is no need to put too much hope for color. Just one team was worth 41 million dollars, and now it seems so stupid. The outcome of these companies is often the result of the founders ' performance. Without excellent products, a great ambition is ultimately just a fantasy, as well as a poor user.

After color release, I had a chat with a friend of Nouyerne. I explained to him why the color strategy was not good. And this friend reluctantly shook his head, he said, in color before the introduction had persuaded Nouyerne, until two people are stiff. The friend said that Nouyerne had created the industry, so he always thought he knew better.

There is a strange paradox in Silicon Valley: Investors value both the experience of serial entrepreneurs and the freshness of young entrepreneurs. Each of these two areas has a successful case, but it is unlikely to be on the same entrepreneur. Either way, the founders should be aware of their inner limitations, listening to each other and achieving complementarity. For an outstanding young founder, they often consult seasoned investors and consultants. For a serial entrepreneur, you need to do the opposite.

This article is compiled from PandoDaily, author Sala Lessy (Sarah Lacy) is the founder and editor-in-chief of the technology blog PandoDaily.

(with Asia)