This article is selected from the latest article published by the 360 chairman Zhou 祎, in the article, Zhou from Ai Reese and Jack Kraut's "marketing War", the business and war linked, citing a number of commercially famous cases, from the entrepreneur's perspective, to explain how an entrepreneur to subvert the Giants, Zhou in the text to emphasize " If you want to subvert the Giants, the first must not speak out loudly, the second must play flank war. ”
The article reads as follows:
There are two masters, one is Ai Li, one is Jack Kraut, their co-author of the book "Positioning" is a landmark in the field of marketing works. They later put forward the concept of "brand reorientation", wrote a series of books, one of which is called "Marketing War" (Marketing Warfare), some translated as "business". This book is worthy of the entrepreneur to read carefully, which tells a lot of beat, weak case. I concluded from the inside that the power of subversion has never come from the mainstream, hot market, but from the edge, from the flank.
I like to read the military works, I think to a certain extent, the commercial and war have similarities. For example, in World War II, the United States and Britain allied to open the second battlefield, is to choose Germany's unexpected Normandy breakthrough, rather than in the German army to the most defensive place to storm. In the history of business, the revolution of subversion has never been a drum of gongs and drums. If the newspapers, magazines, TV stations, even the old lady on the street can say two, then sorry, the industry's big Brother has long written a thick analysis of the report, has already made a strategic deployment, heavily guarded, waiting for you to come. It's impossible to subvert at this time. So the power of subversion must come from things that big brothers have been dismissive of, or things that they can't see or understand, or even ridicule from giants.
In fact, whether it is Yu do uc, Hu Zemin do 91, or I do 360, can develop to today, because the industry's giants because of the unclear, can not understand, gave us 35 years of growth time. If you do things, industry giants immediately react to it, even if you put three Zhou 祎 tied together, can not do.
So, meet the entrepreneur, I have stressed that, do not think about the platform, but to find a large company can not see the corner, to the user to solve the problem. Platform is a big company to play things. Subversion is about micro-forces, not platform forces. Platform is not a subversive force, large companies can become a platform, because it in the process of solving the user problem, the scale of the big, and naturally become a platform. For those of us who have no resources and are more bitter, the real subversive force comes from the microscopic place, from the flank, from the edge, from the focus of your resources on a point, the pursuit of perfection. We often talk about doing it simply, doing it cheaply or, most importantly, the ultimate.
Like Mark Anderson, who would have had the opportunity to make Netscape a great company to rival Microsoft, his fatal mistake was to start a public challenge with Microsoft when Netscape's browser had not yet laid a solid foundation, waking the sleepy Microsoft. As it turns out, Microsoft has driven Netscape out of the market by leveraging its dominance of Internet Explorer in the operating system.
So if you want to subvert the Giants, first of all must not speak out loudly, the second must play flank war. The most taboo is to see the giant in there to feast, you rushed in to have a piece with the Giants. Entrepreneurs need to have a kind of bench spirit, because you do not the hottest, the most fashionable things, the media may not want to report, the list does not give a hot review, you do not feel that no meaning. Now, many enterprises are doing reviews, but 10 years ago Zhang do the public comments, someone saw its business model? Certainly a lot of people are dismissive.
Small business partners, you'd better keep a low profile. Finally have an idea, do not want to do not wish to beat gongs and drums, today to Sina to do interviews, tomorrow to Sohu bright phase. In fact, the early days of entrepreneurship, it is best not to let the Giants see, to moderate to participate in industry meetings. But more time should be spent with the average person, wondering what perceptual needs they have, what problems have not been solved, and then focusing your limited strength on a single point on the flanks. 3 years from now, when you make your debut, you'll see that the Giants don't understand. When it's finally clear, it's a long way off, so you can really get the chance of subversion.