GMV is more important than anything else!

How to build a good project and launch a good product in the early stage of entrepreneurship? The author of this article summarizes some industry experience and provides some useful suggestions and thoughts on entrepreneurship, management, promotion and other aspects. It is recommended for reference by those who are interested in e-commerce and entrepreneurship. I hope it can inspire you.

Many of my friends’ projects lost a lot of money in the first half of the year, so today I want to share four insights related to money.

If you can understand this, you will be able to avoid some detours and lose less money in the early stages of your business.

1. Small companies should not analyze data

This is the most profound feeling I have gained after so many years of work and entrepreneurship.

Many small startup companies often need this data and that report, and need to analyze conversion rate, next-day, seven-day, monthly retention, etc.

In fact, it is really useless. For small companies, doing data analysis, making tables and statistics every day is a waste of time.

Because in 99% of cases, your analysis is useless. Some problems are obvious and take time to correct, while some problems cannot be analyzed at all until their scale reaches a certain level.

For example, our previous product had only been in operation for two or three months, with only a thousand daily active users and a daily transaction volume of only three to five thousand.

It is useless to analyze any data at this time because the problem is clear at a glance.

1. Few developers
2. Imperfect product
3. No one is doing the market
4. No money spent on advertising
5. Functionality is worse than competitors

These five problems are common to all small startups.

At this point, no matter how you analyze hundreds or thousands of users, it is meaningless.

If you call and ask users why they don't use it, they will definitely tell you that your function is not as good as that of someone else. Isn't this a waste of time?

So there are two things for a small startup:

1. Speed ​​up product development and fix bugs with technology and products.
2. The boss and operations staff focus on marketing and attracting customers.

2. GMV is more important than anything else

Many bosses like to pay attention to the number of registrations, the number of followers, and the daily active users, and ask the operations department to send out this chart and that chart every day, but it’s all useless.

I never paid attention to these before there were 400,000, 500,000 or even a million users.

I only care about GMV, the transaction amount is the only thing.

Even if you have 100,000 registered users, 10,000 daily active users, or 100,000 fans, what’s the point of only making a few hundred yuan a day?

What can you analyze from 10,000 or 20,000 daily active users?

Think more about why the transaction volume is low. Without money coming in, it is useless no matter how high the daily activity and registration are. It is useless to pursue doubling these numbers this month.

Let me tell you a real case. I had a product with 50,000 daily active users a month ago. Later, I implemented risk control, violation, and login restriction measures, and the daily active users dropped directly to 20,000.

Many people opposed it at the time, but after the change, the daily transaction volume of 20,000 active users was higher than that of 50,000 active users.

Therefore, entrepreneurs should look at the essence and not focus on those empty KPIs all the time.

A lot of data are so ridiculous. For example, if you are making B-side products, fewer transactions means fewer customers, right? What else do you need to analyze?

Recruiting marketing, launching advertising, organizing activities, and releasing products, do you have a plan based on the data? It’s pure nonsense!

3. How can you succeed if you are so casual?

In fact, this is a common problem, but it happens all the time.

Almost every day someone asks me if there are any simple, low-cost and fast monetization projects.

Almost every day, someone complains to me that the boom in e-commerce, short videos, and self-media has passed.

I shot forty or fifty videos, did more than a dozen live broadcasts, and created one or two accounts, but none of them were successful. The key point was that I spent several hundred dollars on tuition.

To be honest, I don’t want to reply to these questions now.

Because behind the above two situations is the mentality of laziness, free lunch and nouveau riche.

Let me ask you all: You are so casual and imagine that you can succeed without any effort.

Why are you more likely to succeed than those who have shot hundreds or even thousands of videos, ruined dozens of accounts, live-streamed for more than 12 hours a day, taken lunch breaks on holidays, and spent thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars on tuition fees?

Isn't it a daydream to want to get rich without putting in great effort and cost?

4. Opportunities and needs never change

In addition, many people have been asking, what other opportunities are there to make money?

What should we do if Taobao comes? What should we do if Pinduoduo becomes popular? What should we do if Douyin e-commerce becomes popular?

What should I do if my WeChat official account goes viral? What should I do if my short video on Douyin goes viral? What should I do if my video account goes viral?

It seems that everyone is very anxious, but let's think calmly:

1. Has the channel changed? No!

From offline entities to Taobao, JD.com, Pinduoduo, Douyin, communities, Moments, and live streaming, it’s just that the names have changed, but the channels will always exist.

It’s just up to you to choose which channel to sell through.

2. Has the product changed? No!

I sell tea offline, on Taobao and Jingpin, and I still sell tea on Douyin, Kuaishou, and WeChat Moments.

Pinduoduo has products with a price of 9.9, and they are still being sold on JD.com, Taobao, Pinduoduo, or the next platform.

Has the content changed? No!

In the past, financial, novel, and money-making stories were shared in books and newspapers, and later on television, radio, Weibo, and public accounts.

Now Kuaishou, Douyin, Xiaohongshu, Toutiao, Xigua, etc., beauties, love, novels, sports, movies, making money, etc., these have not changed.

Now let’s take a look at the video account again. The content that is popular on Douyin will still be popular on the video account, but the people are different, but the essence has not changed.

Including overseas entertainment, e-commerce and other apps, they are essentially the same. Does cross-border e-commerce mean we don’t sell trash cans, power banks, and mobile phone cases?

Today's four points are just some recent random thoughts. They may not be correct. They are just my personal understanding, but I hope to give you another dimension of thinking.

Author: The village chief lives in Shili Village

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