[note] One will work millions bone withered! Seven Ways to kill apps

One will millions the bone and it will always happen in a bubble-like industry. Mobile internet is especially. From "Angry Birds " to " Plants vs Zombies ", " fishing talent ", " Sing bar ", "Mo Mo" ... App app overnight " burst red ", they create the user and financing myth, stimulated millions of individuals and small teams into app development, they also want to do nouveau riche.

The glitz faded, leaving only a bunch of app corpses.

According to the Street-side Network CEO evoking recalled, 2010 and street at the same time the birth of the LBS application close to 20, which makes him very safe, think he chose the right direction. A year later, the applications disappeared and the streets were struggling.

There are more than 20 disappearing apps. X reporters took several months to take stock of the Apple appstore,91 wireless , Android Market and other apps, sort out the list of 100 disappearing apps, and extensively interview managers of investors, app entrepreneurs, and individual app stores to Comb out the "death" reasons for these apps.

Do you dare to step on the corpse of these apps to start a business ?

"Little white" rushed into the profession? Die fast!

Li Jiageng 's story has a certain representativeness. July 2010, Li Jiageng in Shanghai to participate in the micro-Bo entrepreneurship competition, met a lot of internet people. In his friend's persuasion, he found himself with a "product manager" trait, eager to start a business. In June 2011 he left Dongguan to Beijing, soon found a technology partner and angel Investment, but he did not understand the product , and even the mobile Internet heavy users are not counted . Three months after the product on-line, the user experience is very poor, scold constantly, and one months after the investment end investment. Two months later, the product manager quit, the team dissolved, he also said that the balance of 50,000 yuan on account of the technical partners to roll away.

Of the 100 dead apps, social class accounted for 35%, the highest mortality category.

' It's no surprise, ' says one investment manager, ' because social applications are purely product-driven (not technology-driven), and they're all about light startups . Everyone has a little imagination about how to socialize, and there is an idea that makes it easy to do something. But the social product is actually the threshold is not the idea or the product, but lies in the operation, there are very many pits, compared to the entrepreneur's understanding of the user, the control of the resources , as well as to dance with the platform, the ability to access users from the platform, the topic of the public relations ability to create, financing capacity (social monetization is the premise of large users or high user retention rate, which requires long-term burn money). Social applications have been very difficult to make a large number of users, business model is still hard to find (Weibo is so big, their own model is not really groping out). As a result, there are too many entrepreneurs in the social app field who are not clearly aware of the situation and the highest mortality rate is normal.

Lack of market research, empty talk mode, must hang!

Li Tianfang, the founder of FM, plans to return from Silicon Valley in 2010. When he first arrived in Beijing, he hoped to know some friends through the activity, and decided to make an application after experiencing the magic time net and the watercress with the city . The Program FM can initiate activities with social functions and provide users with information about activities that were once very well-known in the Entrepreneurial circle.

Despite the fact that many Internet users in the north are aware of the planned FM, Li Tianfang says in the "real" world, there is no user plan for FM. "I wouldn't do it if I stayed in China for a few more years." Because the concept of activities abroad and domestic understanding is completely different . ”

In Li Tianfang's memory, many of Silicon Valley's Internet activities are very pure, and many of the activities in the country are not high and expensive, and the target customers of the program FM are losing their appeal. There is also a big reason for the late transition of the FM program.

Because I wanted to make friends by participating in the event, Li Tianfang's first reaction was to filter the activity with a friend's focus on the flow, so there was the original version of the Plan FM. It turns out that this method of generating a pattern with a+b is not tenable. "The real success of the product is to observe what the existing needs are." What value do we really provide to our users? And then I thought we were not worth living. "Li Tianfang reflection, those who talk about Solomo, on-the-go, social projects are all dead, and those who live will not feel particularly bad, perhaps they are only doing special things ."

Copy fails and dies.

domestic and foreign What is welcomed by the products and models, in the domestic copy one , which is the typical "model" of Chinese Internet entrepreneurship. The era of mobile internet not only can not mundane , but also intensified, of course, also staged a copy of the story of failure .

2010, the street and other lbs applications mostly copy the American Foursquare. But the question is, will Chinese users be happy to share geographic information ? Check-in meets the user's core needs? If only rely on medals , concessions and other means, is clearly not the major group deals in the network side of the opponent.

Street For example, early seed users, A class of people with discovery site for the purpose , class of people focuses record life . Street-side network CEO evoking that the user demand is not uniform is the root cause of obstruction of street development, it is difficult to determine the end of the service which group of people, which function is not suitable .

Evoking in mind, when the location or sign -in function has become the bottom of all content , simply do sign-sharing application can not survive, he wants to make a street to a user-led Community sharing , to cater to the small crowd who love to record their lives , but also worry about being rejected by other users. The only way is to develop a few apps at the same time, made like watercress FM, watercress read the same series of products , an app only do one thing . This may be the direction of the future of the street, but he is not sure now.

If the street is just a little confused and depressed, some food apps really "copy" to be thrilling, and some even quickly "copy dead." May 23, 2012, Food application " God Shake " by Apple notice the next rack. On the same day, the public issued a statement saying that "Food god shook" a large number of copies of the Merchant information on its website, pictures and user reviews. Thanks to the popular review of the counterattack, let "the Ogre shook" very hurt.

After the incident, an entrepreneur said he had shaken the food appa bit earlier than the "God of the Gods", but did not do it, the Changjiang newspaper reported. As a gourmet app, if there is no reliable offline merchant data , everything is a rip-off, destined for a flash, become a mobile internet accident, not a story. The founder of a flight-type application that mimics the flight Butler also said that, because of the lack of aviation industry resources, the project was only one months old and could not get the first-hand flight information, and finally gave up .

Not receiving money, starving to death.

App app has only two revenue models : User-paid download; User free download + embed ad mode. in the domestic, "the Internet is free of all things ," the concept of popular, want to let users pay, how a difficult word! Most small and medium-sized app developers want to earn money, either by downloading it from overseas app market or by doing app games that users are most willing to charge. In 2009, the two apps--the touch-treasure input method and the Dolphin browser--survived with a $10 download or $6.99 donation for each user in the US app market. That's because they're doing it early, and 2011 years from now, as soon as an app pops up, there's a bunch of similar, free, shoved apps to keep up . collect money, difficult ! Of course, the game app, as long as the product is good, or the most easy to receive money. This explains why game apps account for only 1% of the 100 app death lists.

User free download + ad mode is also extremely difficult for most apps . First, there is no mass download (Bachi) There is no independent advertising value, only through the Anwar, multi-League and other mobile advertising alliance to obtain poor advertising revenue. Even this is hard to sustain, because most of the app ads are now apps, and so many developers to collect money, very few people willing to spend money. The 2012 economic environment is not good, originally willing to "Daotie money" to raise small and medium-sized developers of mobile advertising platform also in the contraction of the winter, it is very rarely divided into more pathetic. How can this game last?

Early, some developers to undertake the application of outsourcing to maintain their livelihoods, a project can often receive 30,000 million, but with the chase, Jiang and other so-called fool-style app rapid generation platform, so many developers even this life of survival has gone.

The cottage ferocious, was copied to death

"Copy Death", that is acclimatized, no resources and other causes; Was killed by the capital, the big company squeezed dead . Also is the K song class application, does the earliest and the user experience best not sings , but sings the Leng to throw the money to launch . X previously interviewed some brush list companies , some people say, there are financing to sing bar to find all over the domestic brush list company (no one brush list companies can bear so large volume) large-scale brush list. Of course, this kind of statement has been sung, CEO Chen Hua denied.

Sequoia Capital Partner Ji Yue said in an interview with the I Black Horse, some companies to brush the list as a daily major task , a fixed monthly spending of hundreds of thousands of yuan, long-term locked in the top 100 or Top 50 of the list . These companies generally have a round of investors, and no individual developer can afford to play. In fact, the existing investors generally know, open one eye closed, and some even encourage entrepreneurs to brush the list or lock the table, mainly for the next round of smooth financing . Some app lists are especially bright when it's time to finance the B-round. The free social and tool apps that can't be instantly available are particularly motivated. This may explain to some extent why 100 app deaths have added up to 50% of social and tool applications. in the hot areas where the Giants and the "rich" are gathered, how can the small and medium-sized developers be doomed ?

In addition to brush list , advertising (and volume ), Pre-installed is the most important means of app promotion. Touch Treasure founder Wang Jialiang once said to I dark horse, big companies copy an app, can spend money to invest in advertising, with already resources, and even money pre-installed on the mobile phone terminal, where is the average developer can bear it? The app that is being stared at by the giant is normal, and it's not normal to die faster than the PC Internet age.

Missed funding time and died

It is very difficult to have hematopoietic ability , but also want to burn money to make a large number of users, this needs to invest a lot of blood transfusion , so financing capacity and timing determines the life and death of many apps. missing financing opportunities is sometimes deadly .
Photo Application founder Zhang Yan (pseudonym) to I Dark Horse reporter said that his application in 2011 to prepare a round of financing, and the domestic two institutions signed a memorandum, late due to the venture into the VC and other issues delayed the financing schedule. "Time will change a lot of things. The market's valuation of the product has changed since the opportunity was missed. ”
Zhang Yan has so far felt that the root cause of the project's failure was missed financing. "VC At the outset, we have the intention, is to recognize our model and team, but good things to push Ah, the latter involves product promotion, need money to do, and not the angel's money can be solved." "
He resigned from his career in 2011 and returned to the media circle after the project failed. "That's not the way to say it, when a media man comes out to start a business, it proves the industry's bubble is already very big." "He said with a slight self-deprecating.

The "Day-cast" app died and died.

The smooth download mode of App Store and SNS network make the explosion effect of word-of-mouth marketing appear, also came into being a lot of new application. For example, you can throw a cell phone to measure height, or can imitate people's funny voice of the app. This application user's use of freshness is only one or two times , they are more like a "day-cast" products .

In the past business model, no one wants to do a "day-throw" application, but in the existing app download environment, a large number of people are doing "day-throw" software. even if the user is not retained for a long time, once the outbreak of word-of-mouth marketing is captured, developers will still be able to get some advertising revenue , even if users are willing to pay. It is clear that this product will not provide continuous value, but investors and developers are still willing to believe that this is a viable model. "Day-cast" app is the tool to make money quickly, dead died, anyway their mission has been completed.

Source:I black horse net ??? Stone Hai Wei

[note] One will work millions bone withered! Seven Ways to kill apps