Do what you like - write to new product people

Soon, 2012 is over. This year is the seventh year that I have touched the Internet and the third year that I have made products. In the past year, I have done a few things to make myself gain something, so I wrote down my experience and shared it with everyone.

The following, what I said is not necessarily right, it is very likely wrong. If you have any ideas, welcome to find me at reynold of Weibo @雷劷巷.

1. Do what you like

Humans are a strange animal. Doing what you like is like being beaten by chicken blood. The same is true of making products. If you are still dealing with your product as a job, then you really have to think about your next step. On September 18, 2012, on the second day of my birthday, I founded the Internet er's morning reading class, which is a blog focusing on products, user research, and interaction. I have always liked the experience summary and viewpoint sharing brought by the leaders in these fields. Over time, I want to derive such a point into a product, so that the impetuous Internet people can stop and enjoy 15 minutes of slow reading every day. There is no thinking and fantasy of any profit model, and sometimes these purposeless likes will make you unburdened and make you full of fun.

Doing a favorite product can almost be regarded as a PM's blessing in life. If you have just stepped in, do something you like to do, even maintaining a blog of your own to excerpt some experiences, improve this product in a planned way and collect feedback, these are rare first-hand information.

2. Persistence in doing The truth of

perseverance , almost anyone can easily say it all day and night. I have seen too many people, including myself, of course, doing something hot for a few minutes. But after doing it seriously, you will actually find that the cost of "persisting" is really low. For a morning reading course website, I only need to get up early every day and read for an extra hour every day, and the benefits have indeed greatly enriched my knowledge. If you think about some things from a high level, you will no longer struggle with the daily details such as "I need to sleep an hour less" and "I can't have dinner with my friends at night"...

There are too many excuses in life to give yourself a reason not to continue something, "I'm not feeling well", "I'm going to play tomorrow", "I have a party the day after tomorrow" and so on. Insist on doing something that you think is worth doing. For a new product novice, what you gain is not only the benefits of this event, but more importantly, the habits developed behind it. Randomly go to the app market to experience 2-3 apps every day, slowly read 1-2 articles every day and think about recording your own gains, and insist on reading an original English work every day... These are things that you and I can always insist on.

3. Focus direction

Any product should have its own focus direction, and the same is true for you who grasp this product. Taking the early reading class as an example, since the official launch, we have received a lot of feedback from the industry, such as easy-to-remember domain names, a separate APP, a WeChat public account, and group discussions and even group voice discussions. At present, the monthly PV of the website is less than 10,000. Based on such a weak user base, any interpretation of the third channel is to differentiate the core user group of its own products. On the contrary, it is easy for us to see the endless emergence of products with large tails in the application market.

Learn to kindly reject some products that do not meet the needs of your product focus and even the needs of your bosses, and learn to prioritize the functional points that your product focus should do. This should be something a new product novice should learn from the very beginning. In addition, focusing on one direction helps you think about the needs and details behind the product. Everyone's energy is only this. Instead of shouting slogans to meet the needs of everyone, it is better to meet a small number of users that you can meet.

4. Weighing the investment

You may be in a large Internet company with a clear division of labor and lean collaboration. Every day you only need to do some things you are good at in your own field; you may also be in an entrepreneurial or small and medium-sized company with multiple jobs. I can't wait for UI, UX, PM, and operations to come together. The former is likely to make you develop a mindset that you can’t jump out of the vicious circle when thinking about products; the latter is likely to make you feel that you can do everything, but you can’t do anything. When I first started working on a product, I spent a long time thinking about what I could do. Maybe you are in a company with a strong background and resources, and some investment can be easily applied for, but what else can you do without it?

Being an Internet er's early reading course website allows me to spend my own money and time for the first time, and several friends with similar interests can do it myself through a process such as domain name space, content selection, promotion and operation, revision and optimization, etc. With no profit plan, better allocation of limited resources, and weighing the cost of each demand, all allow you to think beyond a narrow perspective and understand the basic ways of doing things and the benefits that each role can bring. Now it seems that some things have really been done, and it is not as simple as you thought. For example, I am a non-technical PM. Faced with tasks such as website building, revision, and optimization, which are relatively technically demanding, I have to learn some basic things myself. After more than three months, at least I understood one sentence. In the future, I will never say to the development team in charge of the product -- "This function point is very simple to implement, why is it not implemented yet".

Fifth, make good use of tools The speed of innovation in the

Internet industry can completely make you stunned. Almost every day, a large number of tools and software are released. With the help of new media, almost many tools have been myths. I saw a lot of product newcomers working hard on Axure skills and components, shutting down for three days in self-intoxication to design interactive prototypes, and in the end, because one detail was not clearly considered, it was completely overturned, and then they complained to their peers that they were working overtime every day at the wrong time. It’s too tiring and too hard; I also saw that many people used POP and KuaiXian to see the interaction when the prototype was not finished, and finally presented it to the development without even a complete document.

For product managers, there is no one-size-fits-all tool. Find tools in other people's recommendations, but use your own tools through your own exploration and practice. It's like we took the college entrance examination many years ago, and the champions of various college entrance examinations wrote their own experiences and experiences, and almost no one saw these experiences and greatly improved. Making good use of tools will make you more efficient with less effort; being involved in tools will make you exhausted and unpopular.

6. Discover the value

In the past two years, the rise of social media such as Weibo, Instagram, and Pinterest has led to the explosion of information. Almost everyone is used to reading pictures, reading 140 words, and other fragmented fast-food reading. If you are a heavy experiencer of a new product, I think you may be more indulged in this fragmented reading. How to find valuable content in such an information explosion society is a kind of ability, because you can not be burdened by spam. In the huge information age, in my opinion, this information can be divided into two types, one is news, you will know sooner or later, such as "xxx became the president", "Apple's profit declined in the fourth quarter", and this kind of information. Knowing the news sooner or later is probably not related to the pain of your career; the other is dry goods, such as "whether mobile application passwords should be displayed in plain text", "10 modes of mobile UI layout", etc. Experience summarization and point sharing of precipitation in the field.

In this regard, as a product newcomer, you must have your own channels when you obtain information and valuable things every day. You only need to choose a similar channel according to your personal preference. In addition, don't try to improve your ability quickly by reading an article, listening to a lecture, or reading a book. Any valuable content affects you gradually, not overnight.

7. Be cautious and think carefully

In such an information explosion society, it is easy for a newcomer to lose himself. Indulge in worthless news, talk to people about how I think about the future of Apple, and point out the aura of the country; indulge in the discussion of some professional products, use some "unsightly", "unattractive", "not good" Words such as "clear", "general", "problem", etc. to complain about a certain product of the predecessors, but they cannot specifically point out and solve the problem. The entire industry and even the world are never short of people who find problems, but people who solve them.

Some people say that it takes 6 seconds for the emotion to connect with the thought the moment it is created. That is, before 6 seconds, the emotion is not affected by the rationality, and it shows the instinctive emotional response. As a new product novice, since you have stepped into this industry, you should solve specific problems from a professional perspective and professional habits from the beginning, and don't indulge in the pleasure of complaining.

8. Always learn

It's unfortunate that you and I are both entering such a constantly changing industry. Yesterday's Nokia was crying, today's Apple is laughing, and the day after tomorrow's Samsung may be melancholy. Take this example and you may understand that some things will really change the fate of some industry giants. As small grains of sand in such an industry, what we can do is to learn all the time and not be abandoned by changes. Some people say that "everyone is a product manager", which is indeed an industry with a threshold. People from almost every professional background have entered the product manager career, and as a medical school graduate, I was no exception. You can step into the door of the product, but you can't find your way and lose yourself.

For example, the rise of the mobile Internet has made some design concepts on the Web side no longer suitable for new fields. Now, few people dare to say that they are the product pioneers of the mobile Internet. But that doesn't stop you from learning. No one can guarantee that what you learn every day will be of value to you, but you can at least know what you lack most. As a new product novice, you need to realize that step-by-step progress is not achieved overnight, and it is likely that there will be no quick gains in learning all the time.