Why are Twitter's "blind" startups successful?

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Author: Ryan Hoover,product Hunt founder

A recent article has suggested: To determine the product market, you need to be clear what the product can solve the problem. But it may be hard to get an accurate answer to this question on Twitter. Even Twitter founders find it hard to describe the product's purpose, let alone predict how it will evolve in the future.

What is Twitter? Some say it's a social network, it's called a micro-log (microblogging), but it seems really hard to define it because it's not an alternative to an existing product. The process of understanding Twitter is a discovery process that requires the user to slowly understand the product. --ev Williams (founder of Twitter)

So how did these startups start off with seemingly comical ideas and move on to success?

Last month I saw the former Summize and Twitter executive Abdur Chowdhury. He is currently the CEO of an application company called "pushed". In the past 1.5, Chowdhury has formed a team of six people to plan and produce experimental products. They designed three applications, but they all stalled in public, and the team denied the application.

For each negative application, the team will put the experience gained from it into the practice of the next idea. The team wants to keep the movement flexible, and in their view, although the product failed, but if you can learn from it is also a way of progress.

As for the latest product design, Abdur admits it was a very strange design, and they named the app "gummy."

Gummy is a mobile app that users can use to generate "gummy", an electronic card that is passed to nearby friends. It is used to transmit electronic cards via GPS or Bluetooth in the distance that can be met between the two sides.

I wonder how they came up with this strange idea. Abdur explained:

"At the time I and the team were in the room thinking of the idea of collecting products with divergent thoughts, a team of mobile engineers, Ben, proposed the idea of linking media fragments to people's real life." At first glance the idea is absurd, but bold enough, so we try to practice it. ”

A week later, the team took out the original version of the gummy application.

In the absence of communication with people outside the team, no market research, no attempt to create a login page to test whether to attract users to register, they come up with the application of semi-finished products.

In the past year, they have abandoned the traditional customer relationship development and enterprise construction ideas, to join in the optimization of the iterative speed of the team and technology.

"Existence" is the first step

Although doing research is a good thing, not all feedback is effective. Such differences are easy to understand, such as not having finished products, and those who claim to be interested in them are less trustworthy than those who claim to be interested in real products. Because the product of the entity has not yet appeared, leaving them a variety of the position of the posterior. In the same application, the feedback from the paid version of the user is more reliable than the feedback from the free version of the user, at least in the product loyalty, the former is heavier.

Before building a product, test the assumptions about the product and the market requirements for the product, there are a variety of options, such as visiting customers, publishing test pages, and so on. Through these research behavior, many times do harvest good advice, but sometimes it is a waste of time, and even let the enterprise to produce the illusion of products, upset the original correct product ideas.

Twitter is an example of a product that is not investigated directly. In contrast, this product can be said that even if the investigation or experiment in advance, there is no one can predict the current success of Twitter so large, and perhaps even draw the opposite conclusion.

Before the launch of the product survey is an armchair, sometimes only after the introduction of products users can really explain the problem. Recent hot applications or social networks, such as Twitter, Snapchat, and Foursquare, have not been able to imagine these products before they occur, as apps are first introduced and then built into users ' awareness.

Market Research regards user behavior as predictable and rational behavior, but the actual situation often makes people surprised, especially the related products such as Twitter, Abdur and so on. The product can be a certain intuitive speculation, but only the real user experience to the most direct answer gummy is not a good product.

Unpredictability and "negative mode" (Anti-patterns)

At the end of last year, Aileen Lee of Cowboy Ventures published an article commenting on a 1 billion-dollar start-up (Billion-dollar startups), in the hope of summarizing some common patterns among the companies. Although different companies have some common ground, their success in general is not the same.

Although the author has more than 14 years of venture capital experience, it is still admitted that it is very difficult to choose a truly successful model. Recently I was fortunate enough to meet Aileen herself, who shared the Cowboy Venture's investment philosophy and her assessment of possible investments.

Aileen An example of a company he has invested in. A few years ago, she met the start-up team, who lacked the investment points that the average investor sought, their products being crude, their product development and their own model and lack of clarity, less attractive than competing products. But Aileen chose to invest in the company. Now, the start-up team has developed into a company worth about 4 billion dollars.

Investors such as Aileen are looking for a pattern, but startups are, by their very nature, uncertain and unpredictable. If not, startups will not go through so many failures, and investors will be able to pinpoint promising seed companies. Despite the best templates, it's not going to stop the fate of most startups failing, and the success of N an unusual start-up-the so-called "negative model".

"Negative mode" is the direct translation of Anti-pattern, and the meaning of "adverse example" is similar to the model that is used as an example, but the potential model to be optimized in practice.

Example: Im apps WhatsApp has recently been bought by Facebook at $19 billion trillion (cash + stock options) to break the traditional mindset of Silicon Valley. Technology blogger TechCrunch has published Semil Shah's comments, mentioning the success of this instant messaging tool as a reminder of the risk of honeycomb thinking (hive mind):

"The technology industry, which is represented by Silicon Valley, has been created, accepted, and disseminated through the seemingly ridiculous channels of blog posts, Twitter, links, and information and sharing." While establishing a set of standards has its advantages, we can share a fairly rich knowledge base, but we also pay the cost. We are concerned with the same content, in this customary edification, and through the various channels of communication to constantly strengthen the consciousness of this pattern, it is easy to let us in ignorance, into a condom: first to recognize such a view, and then hands-on practice of this practice, so that our practice more and more stereotyped, Kill the potential of our innovation. ”

YOLO

Yolo is "Only live Once" (one time only) abbreviation, probably in the expression "should have their own characteristics, dare to walk with others different road" meaning.

The team led by Abdur, without market research, Rashly developed three products, which may seem incomprehensible. But it seems to me that the Abdur team's approach is the mature place. They know clearly that at least in the current embryonic stage, gummy may not be able to gain market recognition.

Abdur also analyzed why it might not be a good idea to say gummy, and a few reasons to try the idea.

"Why is this an idea worth trying? Because it can change the way people encounter in real life, so that users can always think of others, this product design starting point is good. I appreciate the idea of using technology to develop a new application that makes people more comfortable with others. Although the product itself may not have a market, but to design creative, it is worth a try. ”

This fresh point of view gives me the awe.

I am full of expectations of the Abdur team, they and the general team is different, there is Abdur to communicate the passion of people, there is a team of streamline, there is a new product market understanding, to recognize the user use above all, which is in line with the characteristics of new product development.

Traditional "right practices" may not apply to startups, and most innovative companies often do the opposite. Although the experience of experienced entrepreneurs can learn from the success or failure of the precedent, but the founders may have their own judgment in mind: there is no simple right and wrong to do business.