To achieve recognition, to break out of the circle, and to productize, this is my half-year entrepreneurial review and experience summary

This article is based on personal work experience and puts forward some valuable work and life concepts. It is recommended for those who are starting or are in the process of starting a business.

2023 is already halfway through, and looking back, we have accomplished a lot and have many feelings.

I'll review it and write it down to share with you. It doesn't matter whether you are a professional or an entrepreneur. As long as you care about my progress, you are welcome to read it.

1. Cognition of long-term business

We provide operational consulting to enterprises, and our clients require a longer decision-making cycle.

There are several steps: first, they need to know that I exist, second, they need to trust me, and finally, they need to encounter the right signing opportunity. The whole process takes 2-3 months.

What is the use of knowing this? Let me give you a specific scenario.

To do such a long-cycle business, the entire team must understand: don’t place too much emphasis on the conversion of each action.

For example, how many leads does a live broadcast or an article generate, and how many of them are converted orders? This is something that needs to be considered, but it is not decisive.

Because we are not in the retail business, we cannot quickly identify the value of traffic.

The essential characteristics of the business determine that we should follow the cognitive logic rather than the traffic logic. The latter is more focused on the efficiency of traffic conversion, such as converting the traffic entering the live broadcast room into orders as much as possible.

Is it difficult to do business with a long cycle? Not necessarily.

Since the decision-making cycle is long, it means that the cost of cooperation for customers is also high and they will not change easily.

Just like when we buy a house, we need to pay attention to real estate information for several months in advance, then go to the site to see a few houses, and then we can reach the bargaining and signing stage. The whole cycle is very long, but once you buy a house, you will live in it for a long time.

The high cost of customer replacement will make our cooperation more in-depth and last longer.

After going deep and persisting, we will become industry experts, have greater opportunities to serve our customers, and form competitive barriers that are difficult to break through.

Having said so much, this is actually the characteristic of B-side business.

2. Pan-hot content can go viral

First talk about the case, then talk about the reasoning. I posted two Weibo posts, both of which went viral.

The first one was a post I casually posted about Keep selling medals, and it went viral.

How to define out of the circle?

Fortunately, I don’t need to report to anyone. I think that’s the sensitivity.

For example, the data on Weibo is good, and I saw many friends forwarding it. They also pulled out a lot of media articles to analyze this matter, and the source of all of them was my information.

The second one was about me expressing my views on the Xiaoguo House incident and getting scolded.

I’m not afraid of being scolded, but I have rarely encountered it before, so I read the comments carefully (I blocked many people who were too radical and tried to stir up trouble, because I was worried about the risks).

They just use this content as an outlet for their emotions and regard me as an imaginary enemy. They don't care who I am or what my opinions are.

The data of these two Weibo posts are unprecedentedly good.

Let me talk about what I gained from these two cases.

If you want to stand out, grasp the following three points:

1) Broad but not in-depth

The public has no patience for content, so people who create content are forced to stop trying to explain things clearly.

In other words, the content of explaining things clearly cannot be avoided, and no one can see it, which is the survivor bias.

Therefore, most of the content on the market is general. In particular, many knowledge-based content has no logic and is full of loopholes. But the viewing experience is good, and the data is good.

2) Satisfy emotional value

Whether it is about telling logic or catering to emotions, the emphasis is different.

The former is too costly for general users to understand and does not conform to the distribution logic of the platform, so it is difficult to break out of the circle. The latter is easier.

Don’t think that just because a video says it’s talking about the “logic” of making money, it is rational and objective, and that it is not catering to emotional values.

There is no contradiction. The word "logic" is just a tool to cater to user emotions.

3) Take advantage of the hot spots

Some rules have been verified countless times and are undisputed. For example, if you use popular content, the data will be better than if you don’t use it.

This is the consensus.

The key is whether to rub and what posture to use.

Simply put, don't try to take advantage of the popularity by damaging IP or violating moral bottom lines. This will only bring short-term benefits and ruin your bright future.

3. Maintain the richness of the spiritual world

Mental work is also a form of consumption. After excessive consumption, people will lose their enthusiasm, creativity, and tenacity, so they need to be replenished.

But the workaholics around me don't take this matter seriously at all.

The supplies here cover a wide range, from reading and writing, shopping, listening to music and watching movies to vacations and travel.

In March, I took my dad (my mom temporarily gave up due to high blood pressure) on a self-driving tour in Hainan Island.

On the one hand, I was showing my filial piety and making the elderly happy; on the other hand, I also took a break. After the holiday, I brought back not only the oxygen and sea breeze from Hainan, but also strong fighting spirit and inspiration.

In addition to traveling, I also pay attention to replenishing my spiritual world.

I will spend at least 30% of my time on reading, writing, listening to music, and playing games. Apart from social expenses, all my personal expenses are spent on these things.

Especially when I am busy or stressed at work, these hobbies are the best "nutrients".

Some friends also said that because I have a financial foundation, I can afford to do these "empty" things.

If it were a dozen years ago, I might have thought the same.

But it was after years of high-pressure work that I realized that if I want to continue to struggle for a long time, I must learn to rest. If my body is broken and my spirit is broken, how can I struggle?

Therefore, this has no necessary connection with economic income, but it is somewhat related to the perspective of looking at problems and social experience.

4. Productization is a belief

Treating something as a product and building it is what we are best at and what we believe in.

We believe that this is the right way to do things, and we are even only familiar with this way of thinking and doing things. In this startup, let's continue with it.

Productizing personal IP and enterprise services is where we have not done well, at least in the past six months.

I asked a friend a question and he asked: What is your product?

I explained a lot of things using all sorts of Internet jargon, but he shook his head and said he didn't understand.

This reminds me of the American TV series "Silicon Valley". In the early stage of his business, although the male protagonist took money from a well-known VC, he still couldn't answer clearly what his product was, which made him suffer for a long time.

I understand him because I also felt uncomfortable when I was telling my story.

Why do we say that productization can solve these problems?

Only when we do productization well, we know what we are making and what the carrier is. Otherwise, where will we put the positioning, audience, internal and external advantages and disadvantages?

Productization is also conducive to reducing costs, improving efficiency and accelerating operations.

In addition, customers know what you are selling, what they can use it for, and whether it meets their needs. Especially when we sell services, which are invisible and intangible, productization is even more core.

It doesn’t matter if we didn’t do well before, we will work hard to make up for it next time.

The above is my experience of starting a business in half a year.

Author: Han Xu

Source: WeChat official account: "Operation Dog Work Diary (ID: yunyingriji)"