How to re-invent a short message this old wheel

Reinvent the wheel vs. from 0 to 1

The American proverb is called "Don't reinvent the wheel", presumably meaning that what someone else has already done, you don't have to take the time to go over it again.

Maybe a lot of friends who are interested in starting a business look at this sentence, and then combine the smattering from Peter Thiel's "0 to 1" to make a wrong understanding of your ambition. Think that there are similar products in the market, there are competing products, they should not be involved in, to do can only do in the market completely without competition, can let themselves in the absolute monopoly position of the product.

In fact, this sentence in the entrepreneurial field, you can use the concept of Pioneer advantage to analyze. That is to say, if you want to develop a product in the market already have a competitive product, then you lose the first to enter the market advantage, then you this product is difficult to do success. But Peter Thiel in "from 0 to 1" also said that if you this product is superior to other existing products 10 times times, you will be able to break the other side of the first-mover advantage.

Of course, 10 times times here is just an estimate. So it's not always possible to reinvent the wheel for success, and it's not going to be as much of a success as you completely overturn and invent. Of course, you will not have to pay less.

So, there are about two directions in which to innovate to address the user's pain points:

• New inventions from 0 to 1: To create a market that has never seen the owner of the huge market appeal of products, such as PayPal and Airbnb.

• Reinvent the wheel: Refine on an existing product and achieve the ultimate in functionality and user experience. I think the iphone should be a good example here, and it even redefined the product that Nokia led before.

How to find the breakthrough point of innovation from the niche market that the Giants have not noticed or can't see, to kill a crowd, to create a brand-new product, and then bigger and stronger, in the previous article has been talked about a lot, so here is not wasted ink, we are interested in looking at my Jane book on the article bar.

Here I would like to talk about the latter, to talk about reinventing the wheel this thing. Look at an industry or how a product is re-defined by re-inventing it.

Originally conceived this article when I want to analyze the iphone as an example to illustrate, but I think it as an example of a bit too tall, not enough ground gas, it is difficult to control.

I thought it was a good example of the card-messaging feature (which started in 77:24 seconds) that I saw in the last month's Mobile 2 press conference.

Re-definition of SMS

Before we begin, we will briefly describe the experience of the card-based short message function, which through the accurate semantic analysis of text messages, and then the text message to a beautiful card presentation to the user, and through the content of the text message can be accurate to provide users with fast service access function.

For example, after receiving a vehicle maintenance text message, the text message function will automatically semantic analysis of the text message, and then presented to the user in the following beautiful form, and let the user side of the Access response service:

As for the more detailed features, I'm not going to go into detail here. In fact, this text message parsing service by the small source technology company's letter analysis Bao This product provided, we are interested in the words themselves to their official website to carry out detailed research it.

Their product is in fact in the text message this ancient product to re-invent, or even to redefine. In the past mobile phone above, to solve the human communication function is mainly two: one is the telephone, to solve the problem of voice communication, the other is a short message to solve the problem of text communication. Later with the whatsapp,qq,wechat of these Ott IM, the original mobile phone these two major functions, especially short messages, began to be less people.

However, although the short message used in the point-to-point communication between people is less, but the various organizations and stores, such as the push of various services and other information, or by SMS. Why is it? In fact, the truth is very simple. Today's network mainly exists two sets of ID system, a set is such as and QQ account ID, one is mobile phone number. Imagine you go to the bank to run a business, you are to leave a QQ number or mobile phone number as a contact?

Now that the short message this platform is no longer mainly for the convenience of communication between people, but in order to facilitate the organization and businesses to provide services and information to individuals, then the original text message to the user a few new pain points are exposed:

• The text information is too dull: for the text information This ancient thing, the user has already had the esthetic fatigue. Now is the time to focus on user experience, your business provides a bunch of pale text can only pour the user's appetite.

• Service operation is too cumbersome: such as telecommunications to send a message to urge you to pay, but also you reply to a, reply to a B, and then reply to a C, or you open a link, bring up the browser and then a series of operations, in time so precious age, this is not a waste of our lives?

• Lack of scene service function: People use a passbook and so on to collect a coupon, in your coupon will soon expire when you remind you, when you go through the store will remind you can use this coupon, and then you can also very convenient in the inside find you this coupon. And if your coupon information in the message, often you will be missed because there is no reminder, when you walk through the store because there is no LBS service access, you also did not send a reminder, and even if you go to the store, you have to turn half a day of your information to find out this coupon information to the waiter to see, At this time it really is the yellow vegetable is cold.

Find the pain point, that how to re-create the text message the wheel of the plan is very clear, they are broken down:

• Solve the problem of aesthetic fatigue of text information: Through their industry's most accurate semantic analysis algorithm, the information extracted from the text message, through the content of the message with the beautiful card template will be refined after the content presented to the user.

• Solve the problem of service operation is too tedious: directly in the above beautiful template access to pay and other service functions. For example, if you receive the check-in information sent by the airline, in the presented card will provide the function of flight check-in, so that users can directly into the selection of seats, etc., to complete the check-in operation.

• Solve the problem of lack of scene services: access to services such as lbs, while using algorithms to find and synthesize other information to pinpoint exactly what scenario you are in, and then provide the appropriate services. For example, if you have a flight information in your information, if you go to the airport, the algorithm will be based on lbs location to you at the airport, while also retrieving your other information, if he found that you have a flight information in line with the order information, then the algorithm will judge you are going to fly, You will be provided with boarding-related services. Or, if you find that you do not have the corresponding ticket ordering information, then the algorithm will determine that you may be to pick up friends, and thus will render the corresponding service to you.

The premise of Reinventing the wheel

After reading this example of a re-inventing wheel, you might think of other chestnuts worth reinventing, such as whether a phone call should be re-invented, and then rushed to invest in angels and so on. I advise you not to catch the urgency, we might as well first talk about how to determine whether a product should be re-invented.

Whether the value proposition has changed

If you find that the value proposition of your product should be adjusted one day, it is likely that you will need to consider immediately whether or not you should re-invent your product.

As mentioned earlier, a large part of the original value proposition of SMS is to solve the remote communication between people, and with the rise of these Ott IM tools, this value proposition of SMS is relatively weakened. The important part of its value proposition slowly becomes: organizations and so on to provide information and services to individuals.

You can open your text messages to see how much information you and your friends sent, how much information is the verification Code, Bank repayment reminders, transfer notice, promotional notice, etc. by the merchant or other organizations sent over.

Another good example of the reverse is the function of the machine to the intelligent machine change, the value proposition of the function machine is also to solve the communication between people, but later this value proposition has changed, people began to hope that the mobile phone can also solve their more entertainment demands. As a result, a large number of function makers failed to adjust their value propositions in a timely fashion and re-invent their products, thus beginning to decline or even disappear.

How user interaction has changed

These changes in where, when, and how your product is used will lead you to reassess the functionality of your product.

If, for example, the now-hot driverless cars, if they are allowed to hit the road one day, and the price is acceptable to the general public, then the interaction of many of the services that your driving school now offers can change. For example, the training may be in the form of an indoor examination of the driverless laws and regulations, rather than a fight with an insatiable and demanding coach in the car.

Another example of the reverse is the BlackBerry, when the phone's interaction has shifted from the physical keyboard to the touch screen, it is still a long time to hold its "superior" physical keyboard does not let go, then, is no then.

Again, this example of text message, before, if the telecommunications to inform you that you need to renew the network fee, you will fart to run to the business hall to pay money. Now, after receiving the information, you can then open the browser or the application of the telecom to pay the fee. So now that the interactive way is more through the Internet to complete, then the re-invention of text messages can go further, there is no need to let users too much operation, directly in the text generated corresponding cards, so that users can directly through the card to provide the function of a simple and quick to complete the user's request.

Whether the user base has changed

The evolution of the user base consists of two aspects, one is that existing users have been tired of the function of the current product, resulting in aesthetic fatigue, begging for new changes on the basis of the original function. The second is that some of the new users expect to extend other services based on the original functionality provided by your product.

If the smartphone comes out, we just use a phone to call and send text messages. Later felt that the text alone is too dull, and began to have the request to send MMS. Later felt tight is to make a phone call to send a text message is not enough, began to hope that the net, play some simple Tetris and other games. Then, the users from Gameboy do not want a hand to see the information, a hand to play Gameboy, if the phone can also provide Gameboy function is good ...

Another example of the original text message is simply a textual presentation, then users face this text decades later, long ago the aesthetic fatigue, whether we should change the way of presentation, effectively the text organized and beautiful presentation? At the same time, as mentioned above, now the value proposition of text messages has changed, more is the organization for individuals to provide information and services, then there will be new business users come in hope to better use SMS to complete these services.

Whether the way the user decides to buy/use your product has changed

It is an age of information explosion, when information is scarce, people are difficult to make decisions because they can't get enough information, and too much information is too complicated, people will choose difficult to make choices.

We have access to information from the Internet through the following stages: At first, such as Sina, such as the major portals, then the internet generated more information, the portal is not enough, the search engine came out, and later found that the search for things out of the mixed, social-based information sharing out, Because the friend's recommended product is always more reliable than the random search.

But now it is still too much trouble, people still need to manually check the circle of friends to get the information they want. So then Baidu is simply based on your history search records, the initiative to you to recommend the information and products you want.

The change in the way users access the information will directly affect how your products and services reach the user. So this kind of short message revolution should also do this, should be able to users of historical information records and other information, intelligent to the user accurate recommendation of the corresponding products or services.

To overturn again or to invent again

Since the original product to re-invent, then the product is bound to have some core value we should not abandon. Apple's iphone, for example, is still defined as phone, not gameboy, because the core value of mobile phones to meet human-to-human communication is unchanged.

Then take the letter analysis treasure as an example, the operator precipitated the huge users, mobile phone numbers of these ID holders, these are short messages this product precipitation down the great value. If we abandon this set of ID system overturned again, then we have to do the product will be called.

Product building is bound to solve the user's pain point for the purpose, the user, product ecology and surrounding environment changes may lead to your users to create new pain points, but also will bring you new opportunities to seize these opportunities, the old products can also be renewed vitality.

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How to re-invent a short message this old wheel