Talk to entrepreneurs about lean entrepreneurship

Absrtact: Last November went to see a project to do online short rental website. Short-term rental is a way to rent a house by the day, looking for work, business, tourism, education, medical treatment is the main target group. In about 2003 years, one of my younger brother was around the school.

Last November went to see a project to do online short rental website. Short-term rental is a way to rent a house by the day, looking for work, business, tourism, education, medical treatment is the main target group.

In 2003 years or so, I was a brother in the school surrounding rented a few suites, simple decoration and then sublet. The main customers are postgraduate, student friends visit, to hang tourism, looking for work, and so on, listen to the younger brother said that year Ye Yixi to participate in Super Girls also rented their house. The state of the short rental industry has not yet been standardized, so now do a short lease of the basic is No business license, the size of the following more than 10.

Short rental site model is very simple, the landlord will publish their own listings to the site, tenants to the site to select rental, the site to earn commissions. This model first by the foreign short-term rental web site Airbnb success caused by domestic entrepreneurs attention, thus imitating the number of entrepreneurs. But by November last year, the domestic short rental website development has begun to take shape, the relatively famous short rental website love the day rent, travel the world, way short rent, ant short rent, passers-by, etc. occupy a larger market share, in a leading position.

After analyzing the entrepreneur project, we find that there is no fundamental difference with other short term websites and the team has no advantage. In the case of other similar websites that have begun to take shape, and with large financing, we have judged that there is not much chance of success in this project. But entrepreneurs are more insistent, mainly because they want to try the C2B model. That is, the tenant to launch their own rental demand, the landlord to bid, and finally by the tenant to choose the most suitable for their own.

During the period and they also telephone contact one or two times, said the product in the test. These two days just met at a meeting, asked the situation, said the internal test. I suddenly dizzy, nearly half a year of products incredibly still not on the ground.

"You don't know this system development is very complex, such as to consider the tenant demand and availability of automatic matching problem, etc.", the entrepreneur explains.

Because early in the public micro-letter platform has just written a c2b article, not optimistic about short-term rental industry do C2B. So I would like to discuss this problem with the entrepreneur. My view is that short rental unit price is low, a few days rent difference is not too big, tenants are more willing to pick their own appropriate. And the landlord has not much profit space, so also not much interest to bid. Entrepreneurs say 30% of customers with short leases of more than 20 days are data from their offline surveys.

Not to mention their data is accurate, but an idea began to implement more than half a year without verification, which in itself there is a big risk. First of all, in the fund, with half a year's cost to bet that there is no verification of the idea, if not successful capital chain break How to do? Second, you again good idea, in the Internet entrepreneurship bubble today, half a year time is enough to make a new company hot up.

So I talked to entrepreneurs about lean entrepreneurship, and I proposed a possible product development plan in half a month as a unit time:

1, the first 1.5 months, start out the basic function. Basic function to achieve the tenant in the online publishing needs, the site can be directly entered by customer service to meet the listing information and prices.

2, the first 2.5 months, the promotion of C2B module, to guide tenants to issue rental demand information. After receiving the user's request, the website customer Service person (also may by the CEO guest appearance:) verifies the demand. At the same time from the site to find the most consistent with a few listings information, the telephone and the landlord to confirm the price. Will be confirmed after the listings and prices, published to the background.

This is actually a single mode, but the tenant also saw the landlord in the bidding, still can choose the right listings.

What do you do with your order? Money, you still afraid of orders more? Temporarily recruit a few students part-time top.

3, the first 3.5 months, according to the use of the last half month users, modify the tenant release requirements of some user interaction design. Further promote the C2B module. At the same time began to design the landlord's own bid function.

To the target, this one months time is actually doing one thing, quickly verify user needs. A business model is good, pulling out a slip is the most descriptive question. If the order of the user is very small, and can not find the adjustment method, there is no need to invest. If a lot of orders, the entrepreneurial team has confidence to increase investment.

4, if the business model is feasible, then design automatic matching housing, as well as billing, SMS reminders and other complex functions.

According to the business model design, the first development of the most verifiable requirements of the function, rapid validation. Each phase is based on the previous operating results, quickly adjust the product or business model. If the adjustment does not go on, we must stop decisively and not die.

In fact, in the business model involved and product operation, investors can not be smarter than entrepreneurs, our only advantage is that the whole day watching projects, research projects, so from another highly strategic planning, we will never know more about their industry, entrepreneurs can only put the possibility of thinking to the entrepreneurs to think.

The entrepreneur still basically agrees with my plan, although in the actual implementation of many details to consider, but in general should be more in line with the idea of lean entrepreneurship.

Two weeks ago, we voted for a company to do product development training, put forward some of the ideas of app product planning. Here are a few for your discussion:

First principles, quick. In two or three weeks. From the concept, prototype, design, development, testing, modification, on-line complete.

Secondly, the principle of functional choice:

o First consider the features most needed by the old user. Their app users are usually old users.

o If less this piece of functionality to the user will have an impact?

O Is there an alternative that can be implemented faster?

o How difficult it is to develop this function, will not affect the development cycle.

For many internet start-ups, lean entrepreneurship and product planning are integrated. In the product development planning, we should follow the concept of lean entrepreneurship. To control the risk of entrepreneurship, it is not easy to take your time and investors ' money to gamble the future.