"User Growth Methodology" builds a complete user growth method system from multiple dimensions such as product, channel, and marketing creativity

about the author

Huang Yongpeng, currently working as a senior user growth expert at Alibaba. Huang Yongpeng is a typical " slash youth " . Ten years ago, he moved from the advertising consulting industry to the Internet. He worked in three BAT companies and was responsible for many products with more than 100 million users and daily activities, such as Tencent Mobile Manager, Baidu Maps, and Baidu Takeaway, are you hungry, star selection, etc., are experienced experts in user growth.

about this book

With the gradual disappearance of mobile Internet traffic dividends, the growth of single-point assault " pulse " users has failed. At this time, what we need is a more systematic and refined growth strategy, and this book provides such a systematic thinking framework.

core content

1. The basis for user growth is to accurately define user pain points.

2. In the initial stage of the product, user growth is driven by strengthening pain points.

3. In the mature stage of the product, user growth is driven through the product matrix.

foreword

"User Growth Methodology".

" Growth " is a hot word in the Internet world today, and almost everyone is talking about growth. The reason is not that growth has become easier, but that it has become harder. With the gradual disappearance of mobile Internet traffic dividends, there are fewer and fewer opportunities for " blitz expansion " ; relying on simple and rude screen exposure, buying traffic, and attracting new customers to achieve user growth is no longer effective. At this time, what we need is a more systematic and refined growth strategy. This "User Growth Methodology" provides us with such a systematic thinking framework. The author of this book is Huang Yongpeng, who is currently working as a senior user growth expert at Alibaba. Huang Yongpeng is a typical " slash youth " . He moved from the advertising consulting industry to the Internet ten years ago. He has worked in three BAT companies and has been responsible for many products with more than 100 million users and daily activities, such as Tencent Mobile Manager, Baidu Maps, Baidu Takeaway, are you hungry, star selection, etc. During this period, he not only did activities to acquire millions of users at zero cost, but also worked on large projects that invested hundreds of millions of yuan a year to stimulate user growth; he not only realized the rapid growth of some products, but also experienced The decline and failure of , can be regarded as an experienced expert in user growth. Huang Yongpeng believes that there are some typical misunderstandings about user growth. Many people simplify user growth to certain operational actions, such as brand exposure, buying traffic, giving subsidies, and so on. In fact, user growth is a complex system that involves the cooperation of multiple links such as products, operations, markets, and technologies. Single-point assaults alone are not enough. If there is no systematic thinking, even if the growth is suddenly detonated, your product may not be able to catch up, and the result will be short-lived. For another example, some people like to follow the trend when doing user growth, and I will learn from whoever is the most popular at present. However, like Ruixing Coffee, Xiaohongshu, Douyin, and Pinduoduo, the growth methods are different. Who do you learn from? It may be learned differently. When it comes to user growth, you can’t just look at other people’s successful experiences, but also look for the most suitable growth strategy for you based on your product’s stage, industry attributes, competition situation, etc.

In this book, Huang Yongpeng builds a complete user growth method system from multiple dimensions such as product, channel, and marketing creativity , so that junior product managers can quickly get started. Of course, I have to emphasize that the most important thing here is the product. If there is a problem with the product itself, it is as if you planted a grass seed, no matter how carefully you water and fertilize, it will

It is impossible to grow into a towering tree. It is divided into three parts to introduce Huang Yongpeng's user growth method to you.

First, the basis for user growth is to accurately define user pain points.

Second, in the initial stage of the product, user growth is driven by strengthening pain points.

Third, in the product maturity stage, user growth is driven through the product matrix.

first part

Let me talk about the first point first, the basis of user growth is to accurately define user pain points . The pain points here refer to user needs, including the pain points, cool points and itchy points we often say .

Everyone knows that it is important to pinpoint the pain point. This is a cliché. But the problem is that there are still a large number of startups that find false pain points and fail miserably. A think tank in Silicon Valley carefully analyzed the reasons for the failure of 101 start-up companies, and found that finding the wrong pain points led to the product " no market demand " , ranking first in the cause of death, and as many as 42% of start-up companies were recruited. In China's Internet industry, there are also a lot of start-up companies that died of " finding the wrong pain point " . For example, in the wave of O2O entrepreneurship a few years ago , " home haircut " was a typical false pain point.

Think about it, the biggest pain point of our haircut is really because we are lazy and don’t want to go out? Not really. There are barber shops near most residential areas, so it is very convenient to go there. What we are most worried about is that we cannot find a suitable barber and the haircut is not satisfactory. And " door haircut " can't solve this problem, and it will also cause additional trouble of cleaning and hidden safety hazards.

For another example, in the past two years, many entrepreneurial teams have entered the social field of strangers, but all of them fell into the pit. Yu Zhou, the founder of the social software JOIN , said that he has been working in this field for more than a year, and was surprised to find that the social networking track of strangers does not exist at all! Everyone is looking for the wrong pain point. Think about it, as a modern person, you deal with strangers almost every day, which is simply an unavoidable thing. But be aware that socializing with strangers in real life is scene-driven. For example, if you want to start a business, you will meet some investors ; Met a bunch of new classmates. Obviously, peer-to-peer stranger social products cannot solve these scenario-based social needs. The only real needs that strangers’ social products can meet are online dating and blind dates. Place

Not surprisingly, the surviving social products are either turned to social networking with acquaintances, or turned to communities or live broadcasts, or directly turned to online dating and blind dates. We further asked: Why do even senior product managers find the wrong pain points? The reason is that when we think about pain points, we tend to fall into a single dimension. In fact, to define pain points, we must consider three dimensions at the same time- users, scenarios, and problems . In other words, who is your target user, in what scenario, and what problem does he need to solve. This is how the author defines pain points

"Trigonometric formula".

Let's take the example of eating. Programmer Zhang San, he was hungry after working overtime in the company, but he had no time to go out to eat, so he chose to take out the food when he was hungry. Advertiser Li Si, he wanted to treat his friends to dinner near Beijing International Trade Center, but he didn't know any good restaurants there, so he chose to check out Dianping. Wang Wu, a college student, wants to invite some roommates to dinner for his birthday today.

Wanting to find a cheap place to eat and play, he chose to go to Meituan for group buying. You see, the three users, Zhang San, Li Si, and Wang Wu, have different identities, different scenarios, and different problems encountered. Of course, the pain points are also different, and the solutions are also different.

In the " triangular formula " that defines pain points , we focus on the two dimensions of user and scenario, because the last dimension " problem " actually must be considered in these two dimensions. Once you figure out the users and scenarios, you will naturally figure out the problem.

Let's talk about users first. The same product can theoretically cover different user groups. For example, some users of online children's English hope to improve their English test scores;

Improve English communication skills, especially listening and speaking skills; some hope to prepare for studying abroad. Also, users of fitness products, some want to lose weight, some want to shape their body, and some just want to develop a waistline. For another example, a high-end running shoe, its users include marathon runners, ordinary runners, and the public who follow the trend and occasionally run. These different users actually belong to different circles. In the initial stage of the product, you must not be greedy for everything and want to cover all circles, but you should focus your business on a certain core circle. This core circle is what Mr. Liang Ning called "the first sheep". If your first sheep has played well here, then you can lock in such users for promotion, and gradually penetrate this layer ; then you can start the next step, which is to break the circle and expand the product to other circles .

For example, Xiaomi’s early business focused on the circle of mobile phone enthusiasts who had relatively high configuration requirements and pursued the ultimate price-performance ratio. After the word-of-mouth has been established in this circle, it will break through the circle and reach ordinary mobile phone users. For another example, the 2020 New Year's Eve swipe screen Bilibili party was considered by netizens to have blown up all David TV's New Year's Eve parties and successfully broke the circle. Behind this, Station B has spent a full ten years focusing only on users in the second-dimensional circle, so as to deeply understand the cultural psychology of the post-90s and post -00s groups. In fact, there are very few products that can truly cover the entire circle. For example, Ali’s annual Double Eleven event has invested 10 to 2 billion in marketing costs to basically cover most of the online and offline communication channels. For most products, the most important thing is to figure out your core circle of users and raise your first sheep well.

After talking about users, let’s talk about scenarios . In many cases, the user has figured out who the user is, but they have not thought about the usage scenario clearly, and they will also step on the pit. The book tells a very interesting case, the protagonist of the case is Wang Kai, the founder of " Uncle Kai Storytelling " .

We know that Wang Kai was originally a host of CCTV, or an artist of novel performance, and has won many awards. For him, telling stories to children is a piece of cake. After starting his business, he recorded 18 stories in one go on the first day and put them online in the product. Unexpectedly, the background received complaints from users one after another, saying that the stories he told were too vivid. This is strange, shouldn't storytelling be vivid? It turned out that Uncle Kai made a mistake, that is, he did not consider the scene. The typical usage scenario of this product is after 8:30 every night , mother and child listen to stories together in bed.

Parents not only hope that the story will bring new cognition to their children, but also hope that the story can play a role in lulling them to sleep, and the children will fall asleep after listening to it. As a result, Uncle Kai's speech was really wonderful. The more the child listened, the more excited he became, and the more he listened, the more he couldn't fall asleep. Of course, the parents would complain. Through scenario analysis, Uncle Kai finally figured out the real pain points of users and adjusted the product strategy in time. At the end of the story, a soft and slow poem is attached, read it a dozen times, the voice becomes smaller and smaller, and the child falls asleep easily. The adjusted products have been well received by parents. You see, this is the importance of examining pain points from the scene.

Let me add another case that I am deeply impressed by, and it is also about the scene. Japan's Toyota Company has a van called " Senna " , which is not selling well in the North American market. The company wanted to comprehensively improve the model according to the characteristics of the North American market, and appointed a young man named Yokoya Yuji as the chief engineer of R&D. Think about it, what would you do if it were you?

Generally, what can be thought of is to look at what models are currently popular in the North American market, look up information, and do some user surveys. What Yokoya did, however, was to personally drive the old Sienna around all 50 US states, 13 Canadian provinces and most of Mexico. What is he doing? It is to experience the pain points of users by personally integrating into the scene.

Yokoya Yuji found that the middle of the road in Canada is much higher than the two sides, probably because it often snows in Canada, which is easier to drain. With this in mind, it is necessary to

Enhanced control performance when changing lanes. When driving to the Mississippi River and the Great Lakes region, Yuji Yokoya found that the local crosswind and crosswind were very strong, and his Senna was blown straight and shaken.

It is required to increase the stability of the body.

Yuji Yokoya also found that in Japan, the roads are generally relatively short, and the Japanese don’t like to drink in the car, and a cup holder is enough; but Americans often drive long distances, and they often

Put two cups of coffee in the car, and add a few bottles of water, because you may not be able to buy a drink halfway, and Americans like to eat hamburgers and fries while driving. So, the new Senna is in the whole car at one go.

There are 14 cup holders designed inside , as well as a food tray that sticks out as soon as you press it, which makes long-distance travelers feel very intimate. Also, Americans like to go to home supermarket Home Depot to buy large items

I assembled it at home, but the backseat space of the old Senna was too small to accommodate the most common 4- foot-wide by 8- foot-long plywood. The new Senna has extended the rear seat space, just enough to hold

A splint of this size.

It can be imagined that after such a series of improvements, the new Senna has been a great success in the North American market. From this example, we can see more clearly that if we do not enter the real usage scenario of the user,

It will be difficult for you to discover the real pain points of users.

Well, in this part we introduce the three dimensions that define pain points, users, scenarios, and problems. Different users, different scenarios, different problems encountered, and different solutions. Precision

Identifying user pain points is the most important foundation for user growth.

the second part

It is so difficult to find users' pain points, and if you are not careful, you will step on the pit, what should you do? Inexperienced product managers often plan a large and comprehensive product with various functions as soon as they come up.

I think, anyway, if I cast the net widely, I can always catch a pain point. Doing this is actually very fatal. After there are too many functions, you don't know where to start verification and optimization.

In fact, to verify user pain points, we must start with the simplest product form, which is called MVP in the industry . This is not referring to the most valuable player, but to the minimum viable product,

Minimum Viable Product . That is to say, it is necessary to use the least time and resources to develop the most simplified and usable product, and to verify user pain through rapid iteration.

point.

For example, the minimum viable product of WeChat is an instant messaging tool. Its version 1.0 looks very simple today, with only four basic functions: sending text, sending pictures,

Import address book, set avatar and WeChat name. For another example, when Luo Zhenyu got the company's minimum viable product on December 21 , 2012 , which is the world prophesied by the Mayans,

On the day of the end of the world, the first 15- minute "Luo Ji Siwei" program was launched on Youku . It can also be seen from here that the minimum viable product is not necessarily an App or a website, it can be a video, a public account, or even a WeChat group. suppose you want

To make an online fee-based training product for junior product managers, do you have to develop an app first , then recruit a bunch of teachers, record a series of courses, and then

Can it go online to verify user needs? Totally useless. The easiest verification method is to pull a WeChat group of a junior product manager, and then make a training courseware PPT or record a video

If you share the video course in the group, you will get real feedback from the user immediately, so as to initially verify whether this demand exists or not.

If you have verified the pain points and found that it is indeed feasible, then the next step is to focus on this core business and do it thoroughly, instead of rushing to stretch the front line. Take Didi Chuxing as an example. you

You must remember that Didi's first minimum viable product was online taxi hailing, which was launched in September 2012 . And now our most commonly used Didi car business has been in two years

After that, it was launched in August 2014 .

Why is there a difference of two years between the two businesses? One of the reasons is that the product form is immature, but the more important reason is that it takes a long time to cultivate user habits and strengthen pain points.

time. At that time, the vast majority of people had not yet formed the habit of using online car-hailing services. If the private car business was launched rashly, it would be difficult to achieve rapid growth. And through the 2014 Didi and Kuaidi supplements

In the war of posting and burning money, users have already cultivated the habit of calling cars online. At this time, it will be a matter of course to launch special cars that are more convenient and better than taxis.

After talking about the successful case, let’s talk about a failed case, which is Baidu Waimai, which Huang Yongpeng was personally responsible for. Baidu Waimai is one of the few products that Baidu has developed well in the past few years.

It once achieved the No. 1 share in the food delivery market for white-collar workers, with a valuation of more than 10 billion yuan. It is listed as the top three food delivery giants along with Meituan Waimai and Are You Hungry. Unfortunately, such a star product,

In the end, it failed and was acquired by Hungry?

So, where did Baidu Waimai fail? Huang Yongpeng believes that the most fundamental reason is that Baidu Waimai did it at the wrong time when it has not thoroughly developed its core business.

Wrong industrial layout. Let's review the situation at that time. 2015 is a crucial year to determine the success or failure of Baidu Waimai. This year, the three food delivery giants each completed a new round of financing.

First, Baidu Waimai raised US$ 250 million, followed by Hungry Me, which raised US$ 630 million, and then Meituan and Dianping merged, raising US$ 3.3 billion. With enough bullets

The Big Three started the final fight.

The strategic choice of Ele.me and Meituan is to focus their business on the food delivery business, and use a large amount of subsidies to grab land and shops, which is tantamount to repeating the battle between Didi and Kuaidi in the field of food delivery.

However, the choice of Baidu Waimai is very strange. It has invested a lot of energy and capital in other layouts in the catering field, such as self-built central kitchen, self-built catering brand, online fresh food e-commerce and so on.

In the case of a strong enemy, the result of doing this is of course to lose the basic takeaway market. By the time it reacts, it is too late.

Where did Baidu Waimai go wrong? It is not impossible to build self-owned brands and fresh food e-commerce, but these businesses should be based on high frequency and rigid demand after the core food delivery business has gained a significant competitive advantage.

It is just like Didi uses the traffic of online taxi-hailing to drive the private car business. Just imagine, if Didi loses in the subsidy war for online taxi-hailing, its special car

Can the business still be done? The reason is the same.

Well, we have talked about this part. In the initial stage of the product, we must first verify the pain points through the minimum viable product, and then drive user growth by focusing on the core business and continuously strengthening the pain points.

the third part

When the product has a sufficiently solid core business, next, you can consider adding different business lines and product combinations to drive user growth through the product matrix. The essentials of the product matrix,

It is to allow different businesses and products to assume different functions and roles, and to collaborate and guide each other.

For example, Lei Jun called Xiaomi's product matrix " Triathlon " , which means that Xiaomi's business has three major parts, namely: smart hardware represented by Xiaomi mobile phones, Xiaomi shopping malls, small

New retail represented by Mijia, and Internet business represented by MIUI and Xiaomi Cloud. In this " triathlon " , Xiaomi's mobile phone traffic is extremely high but its profit margin is extremely low.

new retail is used to accumulate users’ business scenarios; and the Internet business represented by MIUI and Xiaomi Cloud is Xiaomi’s real profitable business.

Generally speaking, a good product matrix should have three types of products: traffic products, profit products and image products. As the name implies, these three types of products are used to create traffic, obtain profits and

enhance the image. Moreover, it doesn't have to be a giant like Xiaomi to change the product matrix, and a small format can also be done. In this book, Huang Yongpeng told a truth

A real case.

Huang Yongpeng said that there is a guy who sells pies downstairs in his house. He only makes two kinds of vegetarian pies, one with pickled cabbage and one with leek and egg, each of which is 1.5 yuan, and they are both very delicious. Huang Yongpeng often buys at his house

Pie, I got acquainted with the guy once I came and went. One day Huang Yongpeng asked the guy how the business was, and the guy replied that the sales volume was okay, but because the price was relatively low, he couldn’t make much money.

If the price is raised, I am afraid that no one will buy it.

Therefore, Huang Yongpeng gave him a trick: First, on the basis of the existing sour cabbage and leek eggs, add two more flavors of vegetarian pies, such as cabbage tofu and zucchini eggs, the price

It's still 1.5 yuan each. Sell ​​it for a period of time to see which ones sell well, and then eliminate the ones that don't sell well. Second, add two kinds of meat pies, pork filling, 2.5 yuan each, beef filling, 3

Yuan one. Third, launch a crayfish pie, priced at 5 to 6 yuan, and only make 20 per day . At the same time, put a pot of fresh crayfish next to the booth, and set up a sign saying " the most

Fresh crayfish pies are limited to 20 servings per day . "

What is this doing? In fact, this is the product matrix Huang Yongpeng designed for the pie stand. Vegetarian Pie is a traffic product. The purpose of adding categories is to find out the real hits, and then

In the end, we will only do hot money drainage. Meat pies are profitable products, allowing the guy to increase profit margins without losing low-end customers. As for the crayfish pie, it is a typical image product, the purpose

It is to create a sense of quality and scarcity, so that customers feel that the pie ingredients here are fresh, exquisite, and reassuring. Huang Yongpeng said that half a month later, the pie seller told him very excitedly that he earned more money in the past half month than in the past month, and the number of people who came to buy pies also increased significantly. this is OK

It is a typical case of using product matrix to drive user growth.

In this case, all the products in the product matrix are developed around the same pain point, which is also a common practice for many companies to make product matrices. However, there is another type of enterprise that

When we were doing our core business, we discovered the derived pain point of users, so we deployed new business along this derived pain point.

Let me talk about a typical case in a traditional industry, that is Yamaha Corporation of Japan. Japan's Yamaha Corporation is a company that simultaneously produces musical instruments, furniture, automobiles, electrical appliances, robots and other diversified products.

Enterprise Group. Looking at its business fields that do not match each other, you may feel inexplicable, but if you look back at its development process, there are actually traces to follow.

At the beginning, Yamaha's business was to repair pianos. After repairing, they found that many pianos were of poor quality, so they started to build their own pianos. Pianos are made of wood, and Yamaha learned to make pianos

By the way, I made wooden furniture, then I started to make wooden aircraft propellers, and thus entered the field of aircraft engine production, and then I started to make cars by myself, and then I made robots.

You see, each of its new business areas grows naturally when it discovers new pain points when it is doing old business. Mr. Wu Bofan calls this growth method "Vine Style "

growth " .

In China's Internet industry, ByteDance's product line is a typical " vine growth " . Toutiao is a product started by ByteDance, founded in 2012 , until 2016

The number of active users is 66 million, and the number of monthly active users is 140 million, which is in a period of rapid growth. Just this year, Zhang Yiming keenly discovered that the total time users spend watching videos on Toutiao

It has surpassed reading pictures and texts, which means that the information products of pictures and texts are about to peak, and short videos are on the rise.

After discovering this new pain point and demand, Zhang Yiming proposed the "all in" strategy, concentrating the company's resources to attack this pain point, and launched three short video products in less than half a year, namely Toutiao Video, Volcano Live and Tik Tok. Among them, the Toutiao video and the volcano live broadcast were originally placed on the Toutiao platform, but Zhang Yiming took them out and operated them independently.

The video was renamed as Watermelon Video, and Volcano Live was renamed as Volcano Small Video. Together with Douyin, they formed ByteDance’s video product matrix.

This last step is critical. If Xigua Video and Volcano Video are not independently operated, they may not be able to go very far, so ByteDance’s video matrix will be weak

a lot of. This is a lesson learned. For example, Xunlei, through the download business, discovered the derived pain point of users, which is the demand for the content of film and television dramas, so they made a

The video platform called " Xunlei Kankan " mainly focuses on film and television dramas. It is a pity that this platform was not implemented in the end.

Cheng Hao, the founder of Xunlei, said that his biggest mistake was that he did not take Xunlei Kankan to operate independently, but put it under the original organizational structure. Xunlei is essentially a technology-driven

The company's core business is to allow users to download faster through technical means. Xunlei Kankan is essentially a content-driven product, which belongs to the entertainment industry, and the gameplay is completely different.

of. As a result, products with different genes are not compatible in the company, and Xunlei also missed the opportunity to become iQiyi or Youku.

Well, we have talked about this part. In the mature stage of the product, user growth can be driven through the product matrix. A good product matrix should include traffic products, profit products and image products;

To achieve " vine growth " by discovering the derived pain points of users .

The basis of user growth is to accurately define user pain points. There are three dimensions to define pain points, namely users, scenarios, and problems. Different users, different scenarios, different problems encountered, and different solutions. In the initial stage of the product, it is necessary to verify the pain points through the minimum viable product, and then drive user growth by focusing on the core business and continuously strengthening the pain points. At the stage of product maturity, user growth can be driven through the product matrix. A good product matrix should include traffic products, profit products, and image products; it can also achieve " vine growth " by discovering the derived pain points of users .