How to truly understand the kernel of growth?Remember these eight words, it's enough

Author:CITIC Publishing Time:2022.06.20

Text/Liu Xinhua (Gao Rong Capital Investment Partner and Chief Growth Officer of Kuaishou)

Source: "Growth: Growth: Ming Dao, Taking Substation, Excellent, and Consciousness", Liu Xinhua, CITIC Publishing Group Published in June 2022

Under today's business competition pattern, growth is a topic that has been talked about too much and is anxious. The growth of traditional enterprises is generally stagnant. The barbaric growth of Internet companies is yesterday's carnival. The way to find a breakthrough of growth is a topic that cannot be avoided by enterprise development. Growth is the most important strategic projection of an enterprise. The choice of growth strategy is directly related to the short -term success or failure of the enterprise and even the long -term rise and fall.

In the past 20 years, I have been fortunate to have experienced the high -speed development of the Chinese Internet and mobile Internet. I participated in or witnessed the miracles and highlights of many product growth, and I also see many problems or hidden prices covering the deeper levels of growth operation data.

After I withdrew from the front line of entrepreneurship all the way in early 2019, I was invited by the founding partner of Gao Rong Capital Mr. Zhang Zhen and Mr. Gao Xiang. During the process, the growth methodology of thinking and summarizing, through Gao Rong's capital of the innovation community "Ronghui" and Gao Rong's investment enterprises shared, listened to the direct feedback from the first -line outstanding entrepreneurs.

These feedback made me more convinced that it would be more to jump out of growth; the growth plan is not only local war, but also a global strategy; growth performance must not only reflect short -term breakthroughs, but also bring long -term barriers.

Practicing the long -term vision and mission of the enterprise; the growth tactics can be bloomed, but the growth logic has never been separated from its ancestors.

However, the "lightning protection" in growth is not easy. Various growth concepts "disorderly flowers are gradually fascinating".

Growth is the effect of taking medicine, and the right medicine is effective. There is no medicine that treats all diseases;

Liu Xinhua (Gao Rong Capital Investment Partners and Chief Growth Officer of Kuaishou)

In the new normal of today, what is the way of anti -fragile growth?

I am inspired by the Tao Te Ching and divided the growth system into four major modules: Ming Dao, Taking Sobes, Excellent Square, and Consciousness. Growth cognition and methodologies are fully integrated into the book "Growth: Ming Dao, Taking Substation, Excellent, and Consciousness". It is hoped that this book can bring different growth perspectives to entrepreneurs, help entrepreneurs to understand the underlying methodology of growth in addition to practicing growth and chapters, and build a long -term growth system for long -term moat.

01 Growth first: user is king, value creation, growth is good

The complexity of growth lies in its confusing. Growth trader often feels in the game, with new changes every day, and often seek new breakthroughs. Fortunately, the growth team is loved and flowers; When under pressure with investors.

As an entrepreneur and trader of the growing authorities, how can he see the clouds, surpass the short -term emergency work, truly understand the true meaning of growth, and achieve continuous growth performance?

Everything is the first, that is, the origin and the core issue of things. What is the first nature of growth? My clumsy opinion is "the user is king, the value creation, and the growth is good."

1) First of all, "user is king", not the traffic is king, the explosive model is king, and the sales volume is king.

If the maximum conversion rate of short -term traffic is pursued, and the sales volume of explosive models is pursued without care about user activation and user stickiness. In the multilateral platform, "user is king" must take into account the demands and interests of bilateral and multilateral users; we must not only care about customer demands, but also care about the needs of merchants, but also take into account the relatively weak groups under the platform ecosystem, such as the rider of the takeaway platform. The courier of the e -commerce platform, the intermediary of the real estate trading platform, the head of the community group purchase platform, and various individual creators of the short video platform. "User is king" is that the premise of growth should be based on the interests of users, and the "growth" that harms the interests of the user cannot continue to grow.

2) Followed by the premise of "value creation", the prerequisite for the existence of continuity to survive is to create unique or greater value compared to alternatives or competing products.

If you derive users with short -term subsidies or marketing strategies, then how can users come and go. There is no unique value, no value incremental creation, and growth is the source of no water and no wood. Products or service homogeneity, unable to occupy mental differences, and only rely on burning money to do the growth of user incremental growth.

3) Finally, "growth to good" is the most important point. It not only summarizes the first two points, but also shows the company's ultimate growth standard.

Growing to good, good in their hearts, all companies are eventually social enterprises. If the growth of a product and a company cannot make the world better, the so -called "growth" will eventually be the burden of society.

"Xiangshan" has different standards and dimensions, but the original intention is to "to good".

Entrepreneurs have to think about why products or companies are born from the beginning of creating MinimumViableProduct (MVP), and whether users and customers create unique value. This is the "growth of growth" of growth origin. In the practice of product growth, consider whether to make a minimum investment and minimum user interference, run quickly, iterates stable, and achieve the goal of growth. Efficient growth and lean growth are "growth to good" at the implementation level.

With the improvement of users, in the advancement of growth, how to achieve data use, transparent supply chain, transparent and fair law rules, how to take into account efficiency and fairness in communities and platforms, and create a more balanced ecology. "Growth to good" in the growth stage of enterprise scale.

Abandon all the fast money that can be obtained by chasing everything, insist on deep cultivation of the long -term value of users, believe in the deep water flow, and the pursuit of long -term compound profit. This is the "growth to good" at the level of business monetization.

"How much slander you can withstand, how much praise you can be suffered," the public's expectations for the entertainment stars, and unicorn companies that control the greater resources of the society must face public accountability and regulatory constraints frankly Ensure that corporate growth is matched with the public expectations. The faster the growth and the greater the volume, the more you need to create a "good culture" to form a "good organizational ability" to better give back the trust and investment of users, public and ecological chains.

02 The essence of growth: the core is "long" not "increase"

What is the growth from the perspective of combat?

Growth is not a simple violence or expansion of lightning. Growth is a combination of multiple strategies, and is the balance and optimal distribution of elements, models and resources under the goal of growth.

1) Flow and stock

Many growth traders pay attention to traffic, but there are traffic to go with traffic. How much traffic can be converted into stock? Can the new traffic be consistent or even better than the quality of the stock? What is the growth rate of traffic? At the moment when the traffic dividend is further tightened, the stock optimization and refined operation, and even the new traffic of the stock becomes more important.

2) Pulling and promoting work

Pulling new focuses on constantly finding new traffic sources, promoting the focus to improve user stickiness. Both are the basic path of growth. User growth is the continuous optimization balance of two basic operations of pulling new and promoting (including recovery loss).

3) Exposure and delivery

Especially when the transaction -oriented growth is necessary, we must not just look at the conversion of front -end traffic, trace back to the transformation of the overall chain, and look at the overall ROI (investment return rate).

4) Demand and supply

Many people always feel that growth must be the perspective of user side and demand side. In fact, the supply side perspective is equally important. In the multilateral network, if the demand -side growth and supply -side growth cannot be effectively matched, the risk of systemic collapse may occur. Therefore, the breakthrough of growth can not only start with the demand side and the user -side guidance, but also improve the supply structure, especially with high -quality and more diverse supply to force the demand side to grow. It is a typical thinking misunderstanding.

5) Paid purchase volume and natural traffic

After many aspects of growth are done, the product may bring a lot of natural traffic, which is the so -called "natural explosive model" and "own traffic". Natural traffic is naturally more good, but excessive pursuit of natural traffic may miss the best window for growth and miss the competitive advantage. Therefore, it will spend money, buy volume, and make high -level traffic buyers with quality increase, which is a technical job with a very high threshold.

6) Growing hackers and "growth black"

Growing hackers may not do well, it may become "growth black". Common "Growing Black" will make these mistakes: First, the growth of growth does not take into account the ability of the back -end orders, and the rapid growth encounters insufficient service capabilities, resulting in word of mouth decline and user loss; The user brought by rapid growth, the platform failed to provide a matching supply, which led to users to be unwilling and lost; the third is that the anti -cheating and anti -junk strategy must not be proper. Drinkling, the labor and the people hurt their wealth, causing product ecological disorders.

Statistics have shown that there are no less than 1/4 false traffic in the Internet, and everyone needs to be vigilant to prevent the recruitment.

03 Good track, good mode and good team achievement "good growth"

Buffett's most successful investment experience is that "investment is like snowball, the key is to find enough wet snow and long enough snow channels." The same is true. The long snow road is a good track. The wet snow is a good business model. These two are the prerequisite for cultivating companies with super growth potential.

As the saying goes, "Water Big Fish", if the ceiling of the track is high enough, and just emerge, it represents an irreversible hard trend, naturally "the sea is wide by fish, the sky is high as the bird fly", and the growth potential and possibility will also be possible. More. This is the "pioneering" we have just talked about. The growth of Dacheng is probably the biggest attribution is that we have chosen a track that has been imaginative. Conversely, when entrepreneurs choose the target market of resource fighting and the department, or in the market fighting of low thresholds and competition, even if the growth tactics are slightly better, it is difficult to truly achieve great companies. In other words, do you know that growth is minimal to the changes in the competition pattern.

What does a good model have to do with growth?

We talk about "value creation" when talking about the first sex of growth. The ultimate point of growth is to create financial value. Good growth means that you can not make money in the short term, but in the end, you must make money, and you must earn continuous money and earn a lot of money. The wet snow means that the user's user stickiness and the potential for making money have great potential. If a product is too low, or although the gross profit is good, the customer acquisition cost and the marketing cost of marketing are too high. It is difficult for such a unit of economic model Business models, such as optimizing cost structures to ensure the continuous improvement of the unit's economic model. Friends who have participated in SaaS (software as service) investment or entrepreneurs may know that the industry has an empirical law, that is, if the ratio of the LTV/CAC® is less than 3, even if there are more than 50%of the high hairy profit, the company's growth is unpalatable. Successively. This was proposed by investor David Scream in 2008. Interested friends can go online to find a specific demonstration process. This law also reveals how important it is to have a good business model with a good unit economic model from one side.

Finally, "things are artificial", and growth is naturally indispensable for good growth teams.

How do startups build a growth team?

In different stages of growth, startups need to match different growth capabilities. The hypothesis here is that in the stage of product conceptual verification (POC) and the minimum feasibility product stage, we do not need a special growth team, so after the growth team starts to complete the minimum feasibility product, before entering the product and market matching period, However, at different product stages, there are different requirements for the growth team.

The first stage is the matching period of the product and the market, usually the company is a small team of 10 to 20. During this period, verifying the product market matching point and mining product stickiness are the first priority of the growth team. The position responsible for growth only needs to set up one person, which is enough by CEO or a co -founder with growth hacker potential. This person's ability set is best covering marketing, product research and development, and data analysis. If there is a co -founder -level person, which has both the above three capabilities and can use growth as the sole work goal. As long as the user retains and is rapidly iterated based on user feedback, usually startups can achieve relatively efficient user growth. Essence If the co -founder can productize the growth mechanism and build a data -driven product culture, it will lay the foundation for the next stage of growth.

The second stage is the matching period of the product and the channel, and the company's volume to 100 people. This period is the early stage of rapid growth. It is necessary to gradually build a small and intensive growth team. The team responsibilities are gradually managed by the CEO by a growth leader. If the person in charge of the growth is the company's co -founder, it is a good choice, so it is easier to mobilize the company's resources to support growth; if there is no such candidate, you must try your best to recruit a data analysis ability, marketing capabilities, engineering or product capabilities at the same time Tongcai. The members of other growth teams also try to pass through as much as possible, and have several experiences aspects as many as possible. At this stage, the growth team needs to deeply understand the traffic distribution models of each major channels to find the best mode of leverage traffic; in addition, it is also necessary to explore feasible models in terms of fission mode design and other product -driven growth (PLG). At the same time, the team should build growth data systems, product buried points and monitoring systems, as well as various growth experiments and AB test systems to start systematically constructing growth capabilities and systems to prepare for subsequent large -scale expansion.

The third stage is the period of growth. In the future, some teams may enter the fourth stage, that is, the stage of lightning expansion, which requires a stronger and more professional growth team.

After the third to fourth stage, there are usually three modes of the growth team: independent growth team, virtual growth team, and hybrid growth team.

Among them, the advantage of the independent growth team is that the team is controllable, the team's friction is small, and the decision -making speed is fast; the disadvantage is that it is not easy to form, and the second is that it is easy to produce cross -department friction in the process of growing, especially if you have not found the establishment of a cross -crossing crossing Under the Arctic Star indicators of the team consensus, friction may affect growth performance. The advantage of the virtual growth team is that it can be formed quickly. As long as the relevant personnel can be transferred from production, research, marketing, operation, and strategic analysis teams, they can also associate the growth of growth and responsibilities with all teams. However, the challenge often comes from how to balance how to balance The goals of other teams and growth teams. The general production and research team is responsible for not only the growth goal, but also the core value and user experience goals of the product, so the two need to be balanced. The disadvantage of the virtual growth team is that the internal needs of the department need balance, the priority is not clear, and the permission may be low. The mixed growth team is the comprehensive or compromise of the above two, but there are also problems with blurred organizational structure and unclear priority.

Regardless of the organizational model, the most important thing for growth team members is to have a "growth mentality" rather than a "fixed mentality". Teams with a growth mentality are easier to think about, cooperate with each other, focus on the common goals of teams and companies, and be more willing to actively seek improvement directions from each growth experiment.

Only a team with a growth mentality is most likely to create a first -class growth team.

04 Growth Four Views: Ming Dao, Taking Sobes, Excellent Square, and Consciousness

Growth practice has gradually become the living logic of all business from the imported products of Silicon Valley to the "local business practice" of Internet companies. Growth cognitive guidance growth practice. Without the guidance of the systemic and underlying cognitive guidelines, companies will be wrapped in local, fragmented and superficial cognition in the journey of rushing all the way, and embark on the road of disappointment or even returning. Many things I have done in the past 20 years are related to growth. In the process, I have stepped on many pits, witnessed the bitter fruits brought by arrogance and prejudice, and also seen a lot of brilliant and successful practice. These experiences and reflection made me realize that it is valuable to adhere to the first nature of growth. In the practice of growth, the growth masters not only perform excellent performance in "surgery, but also have a transparent understanding of the way of growth, growth, and even human nature. Borrowing the wisdom of Chinese philosophy, I divided the growth system into four major modules: Mingdao, Taking Positive, Excellent, and Introduction. I call these four modules "Growing Four Views."

People have three views: values, world outlook and outlook on life. Although everyone's three views are different, most of the happy people are those who think of the three views clearly and have unique cognition.

The same is true. Mingdao is the value of understanding growth, and the potential is a world view that conforms to growth. Excellent technique is proficient in growing product views, scenes, and tactical outlooks, while insights are in -depth understanding of growth and psychological views. Growing the four views, the view is intertwined.

If you do not understand the value logic of the underlying level, do not understand traffic and the trend of the world, do not understand the logic of product -driven growth, do not understand the logic of user behavior driving and habitual development, you cannot stitch these perspectives into overall maps. Paralying growth is basically basically. The idiot says dreams.

The so -called "Ming Dao" is to reveal the source of the underlying power of the driver's growth of the flywheel.

I think there are six main forces, or the underlying law, driving the most efficient, most competitive advantage, the most continuously strengthening, and the most resistant to risk -resistant growth model and value creation. These six forces are the laws of power, compound interest, lock effects, network effects, system laws and evolution theory. Some people say, do you miss the brand? The brand does not necessarily become the most efficient growth leverage. Only a brand with a certain "brand force" can have the power to drive the growth flywheel. "Brand power" can drive the repurchase of users (reflected in the law of compound interest), can drive users to get used to develop and form pricing power (reflected in the lock effect), or can lead the new concept of consumption, and through "consensus" to drive the brand fan group through "consensus" to drive the brand fan group through "consensus" Growing (reflected in the network effect). Therefore, we introduce the brand's driving driver to the three underlying logic.

The worldview is the basic view of a variant of the world. The so -called "growth worldview" requires the medium and long -term development direction of the variables related to the growth of the growth, such as the migration of traffic platforms, the emergence of new technologies, the emergence of new society consensus, the outbreak of the new cultural trend, and the new economy of the new economy, and the new economy Cycle and so on. Standing at the current point, you may feel that the traffic has been topped and there is no growth; but looking at the eyes longer, this may be the top of the previous traffic cycle, and a new traffic cycle has just begun. The law of grasping the new traffic cycle can make product growth reproduce their vitality. Entrepreneurs can easily fall into the daily work that is in the early days of entrepreneurship, and whether there is a greater trend and growth leverage can be used in lack of thinking.

"Getting the potential" is to study the law of trends and take advantage of the trend, and obtain good power to borrow the speed of good wind.

But in the future, how to accurately foresee the trend and be used for growth? First of all, we must be able to distinguish between "popularity" and "trend". "Popularity" is very important for short -term growth operations, but "trend" capture can gain greater growth advantages. Secondly, the "taking the potential" we say is more about understanding the law of "trends", as well as the exploration of some certainty trends of "big trends" and "culture".

The so -called "excellent technique" is based on the understanding of the underlying law and the prediction of traffic trends. It will indicate the growth, modelization, componentization, and measurable quantification, construct and continuously optimize the growth framework, and achieve excellent growth performance.

Specifically, the core demand of the growth framework is to find the best product market matching point (PMF), product channel matching points (PCF), and channel monetization matching points to dig the potential of products at different stages.

For example, in the practice of "excellent surgery", we usually use the classic pirate growth model AARRR or the improved lean growth model ARRRA to optimize the efficiency of products and users' full cycle. In addition, we often use user growth formulas, that is, growth = new+promotion+losses to find the key starting point of user growth. Of course, this is a simple model that does not consider product realization. If you consider the monetization dimension, you must not only pay attention to the increase of the user, but also pay attention to the hierarchy of the user value. Therefore, the focus of "excellent technique" is to build a more fine portrait of users, cover the overall chain from entering the product to the final monetization or loss, and based on this, the growth optimization of new and old users is optimized. Growth and realization link optimization of high, middle and low -value users, or the growth and monetization of other user segmentation dimensions.

Doing growth, finally learn to "know people".

Most of the decisions in the daily operation of the growth team are based on data. Over time, the team may fall into the "indicator hallucinations" and ignore the data of the data. We are used to abstracting users into a group, but there are no two users in the world. Each user has different preferences and cognitions. Users will have different decisions and behaviors in different scenarios. Users' preferences and cognition can also be shaped and changed. Users will always maximize individual total efficiency. Although users are pursuing rationality, they are actually limited, and their attention is limited. Users can only be limited. Only when we truly understand the limited rationality, behavior motivation, habit development, mental establishment and decision -making process, can we better interpret the real needs and implicit needs of user behavior and enhance our empathy for users.

The product is ultimately a contract between the product designer (including the growth team) and the user. Only by understanding the underlying logic of user behavior can we judge what good product logic and what kind of product mechanism can drive users to do our expectations. In order to fit the user's motivation triggering, habit development, and mental establishment, it will eventually establish long -term dependence on products and services.

The exploration of growth has just begun, and we will share deeper and practical content in the later chapters in the book "Growth: Mingdao, Taking Substation, Excellent, and Consciousness".

This article is compiled from the new book "Growth: Ming Dao, Taking Substation, Excellent, and Consciousness", Liu Xinhua, published by CITIC Publishing Group in June 2022. The copyright belongs to the author and this book.

"Growth: Ming Dao, Taking Sob, Excellence, and Consciousness"

Liu Xinhua

★ Liu Xinhua, a partner of Gao Rong Capital Investment and the former Chief Growth Officer of Kuaishou, has grown dry goods in 25 years.

★ See the underlying logic of growth to achieve continuous and stable growth.

★ A system of growth cognition and methodology helps enterprises to establish an anti -fragile growth system.

★ Zhang Chuan and CEO Yang Haoyong, senior vice president of Meituan, Liang Changlin, the founder of Ding Dong, and the founder of the CEO of the leader group, Chen Yijie sincerely recommended.

★ The real growth masters are all practicing basic skills!

- END -