The secret weapon of millet, you know?

Lei the establishment of millet, the past Jinshan model has been deep bone marrow reflection. One of the most important reflections is product thinking. "China is a long time product scarcity, extensive. Do a lot, but very tired. A week to work 7 days, a day to wish 12 hours, the result is still not good, think that the employees are not well enough, you have to engage in training, exercise, brainwashing. But never thought about doing less. The Internet era emphasizes a single point of entry, zoom in on one point. ”

At first, Lei said he wanted to make an internet phone. But what is the internet phone, who also do not know, in product thinking, Lei determined direction is "let users scream." Lei found a very direct single point of entry: the mobile phone as a computer. How did Nokia lose the smartphone war? Essentially the biggest difference between Apple's iphone and traditional handsets is that the iphone is actually a computer. "We have done 30 years of PC,PC last winning recruit only two, high-performance, cost-effective." ”

In Millet, Lei's first position was not the CEO, but the chief Product manager. Lei don't like to open management meeting, millet company now more than 2,500 people's scale, lei in the entire company's management but only once a week, each time 1 hours of company-level regular meeting, there is no quarterly summary will, half a year summary will be. Lei 80% of the time is to participate in a variety of products, weekly and miui, rice chat, hardware and marketing department of Grass-roots colleagues sit down to hold a product-level discussion. A lot of millet company's product details, is in such meetings by LEI and related business Line product manager, engineer together to discuss the decision.

In product thinking, Lei determined the direction is "let users scream" Word-of-mouth products. Lei asked us: What can produce Word-of-mouth? I can tell you a truth, good things are not necessarily word-of-mouth, cheap things are not necessarily word-of-mouth, good and cheap things are not necessarily word-of-mouth, not necessarily. I have been to the seabed fishing, only a small place touched me, is that his waiter is really in the laugh, is true smile is not a fake smile. Sea bottom of the service will certainly not be better than five-star hotel services, why have such a strong reputation? The true meaning of this word-of-mouth is beyond expectations, only to surpass the expectations of things we will form Word-of-mouth. ”

Millet mobile phone generation in order to create "user Scream", the greatest effort is high price, the first dual-core 1.5G mobile phone, 4-inch screen, standby time 450 hours, 8 million pixel lens. At that time, the price of this type of smartphone is basically about three thousand or four thousand, how low pricing will make users scream more? To be the key, it is said that the week before the conference is still discussing pricing, the final determination is 1999 yuan, the price has become a lot of smart phone reference line.

However, in order to achieve this "scream", the difficulty of Lei is 200%, in fact the difficulty is 1000%. 2010, the Millet team is facing the biggest difficulty is in the supply chain trust and support, can not find a good component suppliers, at that time is catching up with the smartphone change machine tide, good components are scarce goods, begging suppliers to get a point. Although lei in the Internet industry is well-known, responsible for the millet hardware Zhou Guanping was Motorola's senior executives, well-connected, but for the hardware people, we all think that millet hardware is not strong enough. From the end of September 2010 to the end of December, millet and chip dealers Qualcomm's negotiations only first. One of the important reasons for the high pass selection of Millet is to bet on the new model of internet phone. In order to get sharp LCD screen supply, spent a lot of time to communicate, Millet is the northeast of Japan after the earthquake, the first to visit the supplier of Chinese companies, Millet went to three founders, Lei led, President Lin Plus responsible for industrial design and supply CHAIN of * * *. Finally impress sharp is millet kind of anyway want to put the phone to do the faith and courage.

After the supply chain this one, the second hurdle is production and quality clearance. The processing line of the millet handset is the Ying-da, which assembles the ipad for Apple, production supply chain must have the process of climbing, workers need to be familiar with the process of the new process, how to ensure from the beginning of the Millet cell phone's good product rate became the most concerned about millet, 100,000 units sold out, the quality of the big problem, you can produce 1 million units. Up to now, nearly 80% of the business of the Beijing-wa-Nanjing plant is millet. Mr Gou once said that his biggest regret was missing millet.

Another scream product is Millet 2, hit the Fever level four nuclear high-performance, is a real in the quad-core era of memory standard, the mainstream machine pulled to 2G memory of the mobile phone, when the mainstream machine memory is 1G memory, the price or 1999 yuan.

The third Scream-type product is the Millet box. In the same product price as high as 800 yuan (apple price), millet box price only 299 yuan.

Lei disclosed the strategy of millet hardware, "the beginning of the idea we are the future of the smartphone as a computer to do: First, our mobile phone can install a different operating system, and then our system can be brushed on other mobile phones, this is not the PC industry has been very clear software and hardware separation, So the first thing we did was a hardware and software separation. Second, in terms of computer hardware manufacturing, we think that adequate, applicable is far from enough, performance is far from enough. In other people's high-end mobile phone only 512 trillion memory, we took the lead is 1G memory, in others 1G memory when we come up is 2G memory. If you're not going to be able to use the 512 trillion years ago, it's too slow, that's the rules of the computer industry. ”

Another product point that makes the user scream is MIUI. MIUI's position in the Android camp is two classic version, one is MIUI2.3, in the early Android operating system interface is very bad time, the Millet design team did a lot of work improvement, to the Android system to do the corresponding modification, optimization, landscaping, etc., in line with the use of the people. Another version is V5, from 5 major core applications, 18 gadgets, 8 major ecosystems, including browsers, app stores, theme stores, online music, online video, reading, etc., to optimize the user experience.

But for users, their screams are more of a visual element, such as a personalized theme, a lock screen, and a free desktop. Miui's next scream point aimed at NFC (short range wireless communication technology), Millet found a pain point is the user carry too many cards, whether through the phone to the wallet card integration.

MIUI, head of the Hong Feng, said, "screaming is important, but a year makes you scream one or two times is enough, for a long time it makes you smile more." Say vulgar some, because the MIUI product is with the handset, does not have own unique survival pressure, I often with product manager to make a metaphor, is you do is a big milk product, your mentality more peaceful some, is lets the user use comfortably. Your mentality is Bo concubine a smile of mentality, not to show off. ”

Some say MIUI has become another portal to mobile Internet. This entrance has become millet new revenue source, the current MIUI monthly revenue has exceeded 10 million.

That's what Lei says about Internet handsets: 1, the mobile phone is a computer, Millet began the idea is to do the computer's way to do mobile phones: high-performance, cost-effective is the core; on the hardware close to cost pricing; 2, in software, the use of Internet means to make users a piece of the product and user experience; 3, in the channel , to reduce the intermediate links, mainly to the electric business channel.

In Li Vanchang's view, the secret of millet products, first of all a category of victory, this is the internet phone. There is a man named @ hanbing Bill's once analyzed the brand positioning of the millet mobile phone: For the end consumer, all of the Shanzhai machine manufacturers of mobile phones are called cottage machines, all apple production of mobile phones are called the iphone, Millet want to do one thing, in fact, in the minds of consumers to form a position, Millet cell phone is no longer a andorid called Millet mobile phone, but become a proper noun, thus occupy a specific market segment of the space. Since then, all mid-range low-cost smartphone, called Millet mobile phone!

For the Internet mobile phone, we most directly see is millet through the Internet development operating system, through the Internet channel mainly for sale. In fact, there is a deeper layer behind this new category, product shape has changed, millet mobile phone is alive, the previous mobile phone is not alive. In addition, the changes in the business model, millet firmly believe that the future of the hardware must be cost pricing, hardware is not the future direction of money, the direction of the future is the software and value-added services.

From this perspective, Internet handsets and smartphones are two different species, the core of smartphones is the mobile phone, and the internet phone is the focus of the Internet.

After millet, there is a large number of internet phone model follow-up, they can imitate millet? For those who want to upgrade through the Internet of the traditional enterprises, they can learn from millet?

Their biggest problem is not the hardware, nor the software, but the product manager model that the Vermicelli participates in the user experience.

The rules of the Internet company's game is "get the product manager to have the world", Lei this product manager method into the mobile phone field, has produced the Cuikulaxiu power. In fact, millet just started to do mobile phones, HTC G3 gave a lot of inspiration, but, Ray military product manager thinking to see, G3 or too engineer thinking, do things not fine, this product manager thinking is millet early one of the biggest emboldened.

Lei is the largest product manager of Millet. He led the millet style is: On the line to focus on products. If you determine a demand point is the user pain point, die knock down, continuous micro-innovation. Internally, Lei's product methodology is a word-to make a user a friend, not a god. Lei requires all employees, in the friend use Millet mobile phone process encountered any problems, whether hardware or software, whether it is the use of methods or skills, or the product itself appeared a bug, to solve the problem of the idea to help friends.

Once, Lei was asked a question by a friend: How to screen screenshots of the phone to save as a picture. MIUI has a special shortcut function key to achieve this function, Lei told him this shortcut key. But after being asked a few times, lei to Miui's product manager, said: "Many users need this function, but our shortcut key features many users do not know how to use." Is there a simpler way for users to stop the screen without US teaching? Lei directly with MIUI product Manager discussion, on the Whiteboard painting product design prototype, finally, designed in the MIUI notice bar drop-down menu switch on the function of adding a key screen, very convenient.

Lei found a pain point in an interview with a reporter, many reporters with smart phone recordings will encounter telephone interruption, recording time is too long easy to interrupt, etc., in Miui V5, lei with his large number of interviews and exchanges with reporters to the experience, did the MIUI Recorder product Manager, designed MIUI V5 's tape recorder products are very well received.

Lei found that users need beautiful wallpapers, in the Millet Forum and MIUI Forum, users of the mobile wallpaper resource discussions and exchanges are very much. So from the 1 generation of millet mobile phone, lei a time and design department of the designer together to discuss wallpaper, pick wallpaper, he has seen nearly million wallpaper, but also to launch all colleagues in the company to recommend beautiful wallpaper. Finally, the decision to pay 1 million collection mobile wallpaper.

In order for engineers to have product manager thinking, Millet took an unconventional approach. And many companies have banned developers from chatting on the Internet what's the difference, millet company from the outset to encourage, and even ask all engineers through the forum, microblogging and QQ channels and users directly to get in touch. Let engineers face each piece of code results before the user feedback, when a newly developed feature released, engineers will immediately see the user feedback. Millet even asked engineers to participate in offline activities with fans. Hong Feng said: "Such activities so that engineers know what he is doing in the service who, he felt the user is not just a number, is a face, is a real figure, there are female users, female fans are very enthusiastic to pull their past to seek autographs, ask for a photo." These otaku engineers think he wrote the program is not for the millet company, is for his fans to do a job, this value realization is very important. ”

In the product, the fan is not only the participant, but also the referee. Li Vanchang identified two mechanisms in early MIUI: one is the Internet development Model with forum as its core, and the other is focusing on ease of use and personalization. This became the key to millet later to stimulate the strength of fans, millet product manager has designed a number of tools to allow fans to participate in the user experience evaluation and optimization. For example, the millet has a fixed weekly upgrade iteration mechanism, every Tuesday will open a fan to participate in the four-grid experience report, by the user selected this week in the update of your favorite, the least favorite. Within the millet, a weekly "Popcorn Award" will be awarded to the winners, and a photo of him hanging in the office, and then sending some small gifts, is also a vote incentive from fans.

In the interview, Lei a word is the secret behind the millet secret, he said: "Millet sales is a sense of participation." This sense of participation first comes from Lei's own experience, he used to be a fever-level user to Nokia made a lot of suggestions, and directly to the Nokia was responsible for research and development of the global vice president, the other side said very reasonable, but in the end can not change. This makes lei very angry: "I made a lot of comments with him, he said that there is a reason, they finally changed it?" When you like something you don't really have a financial purpose, you just think it's bad, and it's better if you change it. Therefore, the starting point of millet is very simple, we have an extremely clear positioning, is to gather so many people's wisdom to do everyone can participate in a mobile phone. You use mobile phone every day you have a bunch of ideas, you have a bunch of complaints, can change it? Can you change it except millet? Do you complain about Samsung being heard? You pay attention to Ah, we have launched millions of people online, when you really participate in the end, you put this suggestion was adopted by us, this feature I designed, you see how much cattle, You will tell your friends that you said to switch to millet, this sense of honor is they sell millet very important motivation. ”

In other words, millions of fans are free to give you product managers, as user experience reviewers, this is a powerful force. Like the Internet revolution's most bull thinker clay. Shirky in "cognitive surplus", said: "Leading user innovation" is not the product of the designer, but the product of the most active users to promote.

Millet, a mobile-Internet vehicle, is still moving at a high speed, with sales in the first half of the year that have been achieved last year.

Millet's ambition is not just in the mobile world, it wants to reshape consumer electronics by using the Internet.

However, in front of millet, still face great challenges. On the one hand, some big manufacturers of mobile phones, such as Samsung, Huawei, Lenovo, are on the high cost of millet to launch a strong march on the cost-effective, on the other hand, the concept of the Internet mobile phone of the millet imitators, together, it is hard to say will not rush out a dark horse.

However, in our view, millet as the Internet mobile phone This category of pioneers, the biggest enemy is not opponents, but can continue to produce "let users scream" products. This is a curse for all companies that are good at winning the user experience, even if Apple is not.

And see the next millet version of the "Scream of surprise"?