Curriculum Lattice founder Li Tianfang: Small demand into the big market

Li Tianfang, a typical student in August 2012, founded the social application course grid for college students, which sets up social elements in tandem with the small needs of the curriculum, and has become the most popular curriculum application in the country at present. This interview is mainly about how he made a small timetable to tens the big picture. Into the course Grid team is located in Dongzhimen office, clear and bright minimalist style so that people are bright, humanities and technology of the breath hit the face. The source of this thick Silicon Valley wind comes from Li Tianfang, the founder of the curriculum lattice. Li Tianfang went to the United States at the age of 6 to study, joined Microsoft as a software engineer after college, and then took part in the early ventures of Palantir, a big data company. Three years later, he left Silicon Valley to return to business. After planning FM, the course grid is the third product after its return to business, and the most successful product so far. Don't label yourself on the course grid "What do you think is Internet thinking?" The problem has become a bit sharper since the controversy over a pancake in the domestic tech media circle and the entrepreneur Circle last week. The shelves used in the course grid are tools, campus, social, but in fact, Li Tianfang does not put such a label on their team--like some of the domestic entrepreneurial team that shouted "We want to do xx field of Baidu" or "I want to do xx field of 58 with the city-if you must label, Li Tianfang wants to label his team as Geek, Hacker, scientist (geek, hacker, scientist). This labeling is designed to allow us to find the right kind of fresh blood for our team, not to limit our product orientation. In fact, the course lattice development process is not like some entrepreneurial team is a from the top down (from the perspective of entrepreneurs) the birth process. The course lattice itself is a "user-led" project. One of the products before Li Tianfang's team is Program FM, an application that is open to everyone for shared activities and programs. After a period of operation, the team found that the product's outstanding activities are mainly from two directions one is the Internet and the other is the university. Later, planned FM responded to user needs by making a campus version of the program FM, adding the timetable function, and soon the campus version of the user volume exceeded the normal version, Li Tianfang know that their team needs to change direction. Back to the topic of Internet thinking, what is the Internet thinking? Rapid iterative, continuous improvement, and user interaction development. In the beginning, our idea is the same as many other entrepreneurs, we have no clear ideas, so we can only use the existing elements to piece together, such as a move, take a social, and then learn from the watercress with the city, put together such a product. But this product is not reliable ... This pattern of patchwork products sounds beautiful and looks good, but generally the result is that nobody uses it. In the course gridIn the development process, the team gave up labeling, positioning, selection strategy, from a simple need to start the product to make, and then go and users to function. In the course grid team, the Product manager and customer service is a person. The function of the user in the course lattice--Exam countdown and Tree hole If the user needs strongly, there is data support, the function to him. If you actually prove that this function is useless, chop it off. Let the product manager go to real contact with the user, to find the user's needs and pain points, in conjunction with some data on the guide constitutes the course lattice this product. Course lattice in the past year's operation process, accumulated a large number of users and background operating data, including campus activities, curriculum information, and so on, the future course of the main grid will be from the channel and data in these two directions to expand their products. Course grid is a user demand-driven products, the current in a little bit of innovation, not easily set themselves dead in a certain mode. Impetuous environment and entrepreneurs when asked about the biggest difference between China and Silicon Valley, Li Tianfang not hesitate to say two words: mentality in Silicon Valley entrepreneurship, most entrepreneurs will themselves as a scientist. To start a business in Silicon Valley, you don't need a star product manager like Zhangxiaolong, or a big corporate background. In fact, many tens users of Silicon Valley innovative products are coming out of the campus, with a thick academic atmosphere. Product design, functional improvement behind are algorithms and data analysis support, rarely seen in some large companies in China, many product managers are constantly fighting that kind of situation. However, when it comes to domestic entrepreneurial mentality, Li Tianfang a slight frown seems to be hesitant also as a Chinese to fight the entrepreneur how to say is not a slander small partner, finally he chose a familiar word to express: " Impetuous "Chinese entrepreneurs are often products have not been done in place, there is no real mining to the user's pain point, is only in the product's user reach a certain level of time has begun to realize." In Li Tianfang's view, this is a short-sighted act, if the product itself is not mature, it means that the product derived from the business model is also immature, although in the short term by virtue of a certain amount of user even in the simplest way (such as advertising, promotional exchange, etc.) can actually make some money, But that is the product of the future life for the cost of money, the money to get the product is destroyed. But even so, the wrong is not the entrepreneur, but the environment. Every entrepreneur in China is like a hero, with the determination to perish without success. Li Tianfang that the difference between entrepreneurial environments in China and Silicon Valley has created two distinct entrepreneurial mindsets. In Silicon Valley, there are also many excellent teams and entrepreneurs who have not been able to be recognized by the market every year. If their team is really good, the end result is likely to be Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, such as the company's millions of dollars per engineer to buy the price and get a good middle position in these big companies. At home, it is almost impossible for Giants to acquire a start-up team, in order to introduceTalent and acquisition team is even more unheard of. At home, if the entrepreneurial failure, the ultimate face is the failure of these years to start the loss of money and youth. Still, Li Tianfang doesn't want the course grid to turn into a blundering product with an impetuous team. For this course lattice has sold a part of very precious original shares to investors, in exchange for a part of Angel investment, the money in the eyes of Li Tianfang is a valuable trial and error opportunity. With these (funds), we can in a short period of time without a quick success, and constantly try and error to find a long-term development of the profit model, rather than opportunistic one. The survival of the small team of the course grid to millions of users when only 4 people, it sounds like an incredible miracle, but actually did. But Li Tianfang has some "lingering fear" in answering the question: Instagram's story is only Silicon Valley. Entrepreneurial environment in China is very different. There are many stumbling blocks, robbers, and people who want to hitch a ride. Four or five Nerd it's dangerous to go this way. As a target group of students for the product, campus promotion is naturally the most important part of the curriculum lattice goal. and campus Ambassador System Campus Ambassador System let the course grid team with the lowest human cost to achieve the highest goal of promotion effect, compared to the construction of the team for different schools to engage in cooperation, directly from the campus to find people to promote not only the effect of better and lower cost. Any online advertising for us is not cost-effective, we go through the channel to promote, is a person to see advertising eight are not students. And if we rely on the advertising model to promote it, it means that every year we start the season with a steady stream of ads. But the campus ambassador mechanism is completely different, each campus ambassador himself is a student, they are also facing students. Curriculum lattice of the campus ambassador in his spare time to promote this product is not difficult, because the course of the product itself has to seize the user's pain point, promote the difficulty is how to start. Getting the first 50 users in every school is the hardest, but once the number of users has exceeded 50, it's no big feat to break 500 or more. In addition to promotion, the course lattice will certainly face the same problem as all of the other domestic start-up teams: Giant crushing. Imagine what it would be like if Renren, a campus social giant, could do something about a course function? The course grid team had previously accepted the help of Microsoft's VC cloud Accelerator, which is also an important developer partner for Renren, and is also being Baidu's The developer incubation program, it can be said that without these giant course lattices it is impossible to go so quickly and so well. For the giant, Li Tianfang said: "Giants like water, entrepreneurs are swimmers, forward also depend on them, drowned naturally also because of them." Both in Silicon Valley and in China, where entrepreneurs are in the direction of a gap that giants can't see or do, making up for market and customer demand, the Giants are not only crushing but alsoWilling to help, lies in the giants of the game to force to enrich themselves, is the survival of small teams.