From the foundry transformation of the household robot Corvos skip the three thresholds

[First person]

Corvos is a gradual process in the field of intelligent robot. 2000 years ago we mainly made the traditional vacuum cleaner. At that time, the future of the housework can be completed through the robot, so the next 6 years, began to carry out independent research and development. This process introduces a product. Frankly speaking, the original product quality is not ideal, less than 2000 units, there are even a lot of technical problems. But we found that the consumer is still satisfied with this concept, and then based on consumer feedback and technical innovation, from 2006 to 2008 launched a new product.

Threshold One: Education market

At that time, the biggest hurdle for us was to enter and nurture the market. We have also gone a lot of detours. For example, when the sweeping robot was launched, there were a lot of shocking jokes. We promote in Chengdu, many people think it is an electronic scale, and even will stand up. There was no money to advertise at the time. In fact, even if it is rich, advertising is useless, because consumers do not know what this is, only more than 10 seconds of advertising can not explain what content.

So we find people around the trial, they give feedback is that such products, although brought convenience, but at that time for the two thousand or three thousand yuan of a strange equipment, it is still difficult to accept. My family said: "If my neighbors and colleagues recommend I might buy." In fact, this has formed a contradiction. In the absence of a significant promotion before many people know, but at the same time rely on word-of-mouth and effect to open up the market.

It is about 2008 years since we began to move slowly to the market. There was an episode when many manufacturers marketed similar products through television shopping. The advantage is that such products are booming overnight, popularizing the market. But at the same time because of the uneven level of manufacturers, and even more concepts than products, but also let users do not recognize such products.

However, with the development of the Internet in the late, the power of Word-of-mouth can not be underestimated. Products in meeting the needs of users and the cost of decreasing, the popularity of the more and more high. At that time the market also slowly became hot.

Threshold Two: Expanded category

The next problem is that it's hard to go down if you just use a sweeping robot instead of a vacuum cleaner. Because this area still belongs to the international brand Philips and Panasonic and other well-known brands. Both the channel and the brand have no advantage. Even if we are slowly open up the market, but the final pick of the fruit must not be us.

How to take a road of alternative?

Sweeping the robot to our inspiration is that if users like this product, the fundamental reason is that a good product can replace the user's labor. So we want to extend the range from sweeping robots to home robots. If you can develop all kinds of home robots to replace their labor, then this is a blue sea, this one can be positioning accurate, the market should not be underestimated. So we started building new technology teams, research teams, building new categories like our window-cleaning robots. According to the concept of such a category, we from the sweeping robot, research and development of window-cleaning robot, and then developed an air purification robot, and finally developed a home robot housekeeper. This is a complete product line.

However, from the market acceptance, the current sweeping robot is still the most popular, sweeping robot accounted for more than 80%. In fact, when the sweeping robot for the market to do a foreshadowing, we found that later products such as window treasure and other products penetrate faster. In the field of home robots, our experience is that if we turn this concept into a market, we have to solve two problems: the first is whether there are barriers to products and the second is the penetration of the market.

Threshold Three: Channel complementary

From the business model point of view, most of the current home robots are in the way of selling hardware. The hardware itself will always exist, but it needs to be constantly updated. But at the same time how to do the combination of soft and hard? This is a question to consider. Compared with the cleaning robot, the potential of home security products should be relatively large, because the integration with the software may be better. If with the future smart home docking, imagine a larger space. But the technical threshold and standard docking threshold will also be relatively high.

But we are constantly adjusting to the sale of hardware.

At present in our customer groups, young generation accounted for the vast majority. So the channel is also changing with customers. Offline is mainly based on distributors. Dealers in the past few years more concentrated in high-end department stores selling, but the effect is very general. Now the offline layout is mainly concentrated in shoppingm all and so on, first of all, with this layout of his people can be guaranteed, followed by the young man's beer and Skittles is mainly concentrated online.

On the online side, I actually think that the field of home robots should be more focused on online sales. Unlike the general merchandise, this kind of untapped market is relying on word-of-mouth to spread, and online user evaluation is Word-of-mouth. This approach is actually very easy to nurture the market.