8 tips for making money with gadgets

This article helps you expand your money-making opportunities. Why do I recommend making tools? The author also shares 8 money-making tips, emphasizing the key points of making tools. Reading this chapter will help you get new ideas for making money, and how to discover the real needs of customers in project exploration and get good cash flow from it.

There are still opportunities to make money by making tools.

Although many people in the market have failed in their tool business, it is still worth a try if you are interested and have the knowledge.

This is my third year in the tool industry. During this time, I have failed many projects and lost millions on each project.

But in the process, there were still one or two projects that tapped into the real needs of customers and generated good cash flow.

1. Doing business is not as good as making tools

I have done a lot of business myself, from opening a Taobao store to building an e-commerce platform, doing Taobao distribution, social e-commerce, private domain sales, and so on.

The biggest feeling is that compared to directly doing this kind of C-end business, making tools is a little easier.

Doing C-end business places too high demands on individuals and teams, and the competitive pressure is also great.

For example, there are millions of e-commerce sellers, but only a handful of them operate platforms.

For example, there are millions of internet celebrities on Douyin and Kuaishou, but there are very few tools for data analysis of short videos and live broadcasts.

Many people want to sell goods in the private domain, and a large number of businesses have gone bankrupt, but tools for opening stores and group buying, such as Qunjielong and Kuaituantuan, are still growing.

If you really have money, I suggest you try making tools first.

2. The investment in making tools is much less

Relatively speaking, I think investing in tools is easier than investing in a C-end product or tool.

For example, if you are building an e-commerce platform, in addition to investing your own development resources, you also have to deal with a series of issues such as the platform's merchants, customers, after-sales, and marketing.

But when making tools, we need to be frugal in terms of personnel, funds, development, and requirements.

3. Seize precise and high-frequency demands

Of course, we don’t make tools casually, but we really need to understand the needs of users.

1. Discover the real needs instead of just listening and looking and then deciding what to do.

2. Although some demands are real, we still need to see whether they are high frequency.

We have developed many functions for users in the past, and it took us more than a month to develop them working overtime.

Before you do it, users express their urgent needs. By the time you finish it, users have only used it once or twice, and it doesn't bring much commercial value.

4. Small demands can also make money

As tools, we all hope that our products will be used by hundreds of millions of people, but some tools are destined to be used only by a few people.

Many people want to make big tools. In fact, there are many seemingly small needs that can make money. Let me give you a few examples:

Case 1: It is very troublesome to synchronize information in WeChat groups, as you need to send them one by one manually. However, someone has developed a software for group live broadcast and group synchronization.

A group charges 39 or 69 yuan per month and earns tens of millions of yuan every year, making a fortune quietly.

Case 2: Some people want to publish paid articles and paid information, but many platforms have too high requirements. For example, public accounts can publish paid articles.

However, users have to register a public account, which wastes a lot of time.

But there is a small tool called Maiwan Mini Program, which allows users to directly send voice, text, graphics, pictures, reports, and set up payment. It is very simple and many people use it.

5. Find a spokesperson for your industry

When making tools, promotion is also required, but compared with 2C promotion, promotion on the small B side is easier.

In the early stage, you should focus all your resources on important channels and important users, which is the so-called benchmarking and setting examples.

Because no matter in the fields of social networking, self-media, private domain, etc., everyone is learning from the leaders. As long as one company does it well, others will follow suit and use it.

When our product was cold-started, one customer brought in thousands of people to use and pay.

6. If big companies do it, so can we

Regardless of the industry, many entrepreneurs have a sense of fear.

The big companies have done it, so we can’t do it anymore and we have no chance.

Sometimes it looks and sounds reasonable, but in fact there is still a chance.

Many people want to do big business before they even start, and they look down on small business.

Just like making mobile phones, in addition to the well-known brands such as Xiaomi, Huawei, Apple, Samsung, Oppo, and Vivo, there are actually dozens of brands developing.

There must be oligarchs in any industry, but as long as it is not a monopoly, there is room for small players to survive.

Sometimes, whether something is done well or not has nothing to do with the oligarchs, but has everything to do with the founder, the product, and the team.

7. Make money as soon as possible

No matter it is big software or small software, or big customers or small customers.

I hope everyone can cash in as soon as possible.

Not charging a penny is different from charging 5 or 10 yuan.

You must have the courage to charge users. You make money by charging fees, so you must have the courage to reject users who want to get your services for free.

If a tool product cannot be monetized immediately, it will be difficult to monetize it later.

8. The speed of product iteration determines the speed at which a company makes money

Finally, let me talk about a very important point that many people don’t realize.

Whether a tool is easy to use and whether users want to use it is only related to the product.

Many people have been complaining about the market and operations, but these are secondary and the product is the most important.

If one product doesn't work, all the others are in vain.

Your products are not as good as your competitors'. Why should people use yours and why should they pay for them?

A good product must have a fast iteration speed and a fast response speed!

As long as you exceed users' expectations, you will make money faster and faster.

Author: Shili Village

Source: WeChat public account: "Shili Village (ID: shilipxl)"