Lucky to have experienced Box from 2009 Enterprise level transformation in SAAS Until 2013 A complete rise road to become an industry leader in, 2013 Decided to return to China for establishment inFangcloudscience and technology, In the past two years, my team and I have experienced difficulties and are still groping from 0 reach 1 On my way, Today, I take this opportunity to share these two experiences, The beauty I feel SAAS Similarities and differences of each dimension.

Today, I will talk more aboutFangcloudTaking the category as an example, Some parts have industry commonalities, Some parts may not be applicable, Let's judge by ourselves. In addition, because in fact, each problem can be discussed independently for a long time, Let's jump here. I think the most important thing is to say.

China SAAS Similarities and differences in the initial stage of entrepreneurship

same:

People with pure internet background also have opportunities at the enterprise level.

In the field of traditional enterprise software, The founders of the basic company are senior salespeople or senior product experts in the industry. Box The founder's background is very wonderful, Two 22 A student who dropped out of school at the age of. Box 09 Years ago 2C Product oriented, The founder didn't have any 2B And sales experience, But in SAAS The field is indeed hard to fight a bloody path.

I think SAAS It's the Internet+Combination of enterprise software, Whether at home or in the United States, Founders with pure internet background also have opportunities, But the premise is to be able to recognize it very quickly 2B This market, And recruit key 2B Sales and marketing talent. At the same time, because Box Powerful Internet gene, It has become the killer mace behind it to defeat a bunch of competitors in the traditional software industry.

The market stage is very similar

09 Joined in Box When, Box It is still small and just transformed into an enterprise SAAS. 09 The United States and 2015 China in SAAS The intuitive situation of the field is very similar, SAAS There are only CRM I have got up, Other categories are relatively small. For the public SAAS The acceptance level of is still relatively low, They all think that the enterprise market is still the world of traditional software giants, Like Microsoft in the field of enterprise file management at that time Sharepoint Has a huge amount of revenue and customers.

SAAS Startups include Box It is believed that this model mainly serves small and medium-sized enterprises, First, they are very rich, Second, they are worried about safety, Third, yes SAAS Distrust of small brands, It will definitely continue to be the food of the giants. But the real story behind it is, Box Four years later, it has become the choice of dozens of world top 500 companies, For medium and large enterprises SAAS Product capability of, Service capability, And the perception of safety has undergone earth shaking changes, This exceeded everyone's expectations at that time.

So everyone must be right SAAS be confident, This is the same as Alipay ten years ago, It won't take many years to become the mainstream.

SAAS The rise of the industry began with the popularity of the Internet

in the U. S, SAAS Rise is more in PC After the popularity of the Internet, And China is after the popularization of mobile Internet, This is mainly because PC The Internet has not really been popularized in China. But the common feature is that the popularity of the Internet has deepened people's understanding of the value and convenience of cloud services, Coupled with the popularity of the Internet, it has catalysed people's cognition of the rigid demand for office anytime, anywhere, And this is exactly SAAS Compared with traditional software, it has the most advantages.

different:

There is a great difference between the maturity of users' needs and their awareness of enterprise informatization

This is the most fundamental difference, As a result, whether it is a product in the initial stage of entrepreneurship, sale, The market model will be different. For example, take Box And Yifang cloud. stay Box from 09 The transformation into enterprise service began in, There was no offline sales in the first two years, It's all telemarketing. The vast majority of sales leads come from search engines, It indicates that there are enough enterprise customers with explicit demand, These customers can already support Box Early sales growth. And at home, Because of the cognition of enterprise informatization, The whole category is at a very early stage, Enterprise customers with direct needs will soon see the ceiling, This forces us to start the process of educating and guiding users' needs at a very early stage, Such sales can only be completed offline. So in China SAAS In the early stage, we must find the most suitable sales entry mode according to the different categories, It's not suitable to learn from the United States directly.

in addition, In fact, from home CRM We can see the rise of, Cloud CRM In fact, it has been market education for many years in China, Including the first 800 customers, But it's only recently erupted after so many years, So the challenge of market education is huge.

For other categories that haven't been up yet, How to carry out customer market education in the most effective, lowest cost and fastest way is the most important problem to be considered.

SAAS Differences in talent base

The biggest challenge of returning home to start a business, In addition to the challenges of market education mentioned above, In fact, the biggest challenge is not to SAAS Talents specially prepared for the industry.

In the United States because Salesforce Early rise, And this industry from 2000 Continuous breeding since, reach 2008 Around, the talent base was already relatively sufficient. But in the early stage of returning home and starting a business, My most intuitive feeling is that there is a great lack in China SAAS Professionals in the field, especially sales, market, Service talents. Such as sales, The vast majority of domestic sales are in the traditional software industry with mature categories, And many are more relationship oriented. Suddenly let them sell categories immature, Value based sales, Moreover, a lot of things with low customer unit price will be very unsuitable and may not sell well.

Another example is market talents.

SAAS Market talents should have both 2B as well as 2C Ability of, Because we need to understand the routines that traditional software will sell in order to cooperate with sales, At the same time, it is regarded as the low passenger unit price SAAS Products should also be widely disseminated and market education through the Internet, need 2C Thinking of. This kind of talent is really hard to find. Similarly, service talents are also, The vast majority of service talents in China are passive Call center Background, but SAAS Pay attention to service and help customers succeed, Strong proactive service capability, More like a consultant, At the same time, they should also bring some sales skills to guide users to renew and increase purchases. Therefore, when selecting talents, we should try to choose those with strong plasticity, Because everyone has to reposition themselves.

Sino-American SAAS Similarities and differences of product form and product strategy

same

Product experience is SAAS The killer mace of

Product experience I know is SAAS The product must be well made and must be as different as possible from the traditional software of the same category. I once asked Box Sales of, In the hands of so many competitors, Their functions are not very different, Why do most people choose it in the end Box. The answer is Box Better user experience. This is in the selection of domestic enterprise customers SAAS The products are also very similar.

More and more CIO Will realize, The real enterprise informatization is to purchase products that employees like to use, Because employees can't use it or use it well, No matter how powerful the information system is, it is useless.

however, The user experience here refers not only to the ease of use of the product, It is also worth, for example, the mobility of products, Demand scene fit, etc.

Product configurability is very important

SAAS At the beginning of the design, the product should be made as freely configurable as possible. Because as an enterprise product, The functions of products will only become more and more complex with the increase of enterprise needs. and SAAS Unlike traditional software, there are many song versions, It has only one set of codes. At this time, we really need products, including the underlying modules, to be highly configurable, In this way, we can freely show different customers only the functions they need, On the one hand, this ensures the simplicity and ease of use of the product, On the other hand, it can make products compatible with the differentiated needs of different enterprises.

Gongyouyun? Private cloud? The whole world is debating

The debate on this topic is really global.

Make it clear first, The debate we are talking about here does not include products that are naturally more suitable for private cloud, such as many big data products, Because they are public, their performance is poor or the amount of data is too large. stay Box When, This issue has also been repeatedly discussed. Because many big customers only need private deployment, Otherwise, interview. But in the end Box There is no privatization deployment. My suggestion here is, Private cloud and public cloud must have their own advantages, But if the startup is ready to do SAAS If, Try to refrain from privatizing deployment, Unless to survive.

The combination of public cloud and private cloud will cause several serious problems:

1) Privatized deployment companies cannot promise customers the same product availability as the public cloud, Iterative and even quality of service.

2) This will make all your sales willing to sell private cloud, Because it is better to sell and more expensive to buy in the early stage, This will keep you away SAAS Farther and farther away.

3) Giving consideration to private cloud will gradually make you far away from real product and technological innovation. Because many things cannot be realized in such a small-scale cluster as the private cloud.

different

in China, The feature of mobile first is more obvious

I said before that in the United States SAAS yes PC After the popularity of the Internet, it began to explode, Therefore, the starting point of people's demand cognition, including the relatively accepted product forms, is mainly based on websites. Until now, But not in China, Because Chinese bosses contact SAAS Through mobile Internet, This requires Chinese products to be more mobile oriented, Because this is the value that many small and medium-sized enterprise bosses in China can understand. And it is more suitable for the usage habits of Chinese users.

Chinese enterprise users are more difficult to accept changing their working habits

Because Chinese enterprise users' awareness of their own needs and the degree of informatization are relatively elementary, It is difficult for them to accept any new working tool. In the United States, many enterprise employees I have contacted have a relatively open mind about new information tools, But this is not true in China.

Chinese employees are seldom willing to try new things before they reach the unbearable stage of work. This general psychology determines what we do in China SAAS Products should not only be extremely easy to use, We should also change users' working habits as little as possible. For example, use their familiar interface style, Familiar interaction mode. Familiar workflow.

So for example, similar Yammer In that way, social work products will be rejected by many employees in China, Because it violates their basic habits and patterns of work.

in China, Product safety is the stepping stone to market education

Say more about safety, Many small and medium-sized enterprises in the United States, They are really open to the products of start-ups, So there won't be too many security concerns. But in China, I think SAAS Startups have a lot of feelings, And often the first reason is safety.

therefore, The best thing for Chinese products is to make users feel safe, What I mean here is not only the technical level, It also includes user perceived security on the interface, This is important for getting users early.

Sino-American SAAS What are the differences in the market competition pattern

China SAAS Rise faster than the United States

Although the service foundation of Chinese enterprises is much behind that of the United States, But this field is like many consumer Internet fields, Once it breaks out, it will be faster than the United States. have a look CRM, HR These categories will be known. The competition pattern of large categories of enterprise services will basically take shape in the next two years. On the one hand, this inference is because the driving force of Chinese capital is stronger,

on the other hand, Many barriers to enterprise services are caused by the first mover advantage of time. In another two years, others will have ten times more money than you, It developed two years earlier than you, What are you going to catch up with.

in China, whatever SAAS Category SME market will become a red sea

SAAS In fact, it also lowers the entrepreneurial threshold of enterprise services. Just today, There are many similar things in any category of enterprise services, And they all serve small and medium-sized enterprises. As we all know, the needs of small and medium-sized enterprises are relatively simple, This means that the differentiation between competing products will be relatively small, And the latecomers can gradually catch up with the first comers because the barriers of products are not so high, Then you can think about it. The final result must be a red sea. So get rid of this red sea, It is necessary to find a way to establish sustainability, High barrier approach, Or your product, Either your customer base or you always have an order of magnitude more money than competitive products (This one is almost impossible)

Beware of overtaking on the curve of competing products

Competition in the Chinese market is really possible. I mean to be cautious about overtaking in curves because the current market maturity is not high enough, The customer's ability to distinguish products is still relatively weak, Even if your product is mature, When there is a start-up company that has been established very late, its products are immature, but has raised a lot of money, When quickly forming brand influence through market means and using large-scale sales team and low price outrageous ways to impact you, He is likely to disrupt the market. Although he may not survive in the end, But you may be greatly affected, including financing, Customer acquisition.

of course, The most serious problem is that the soil of this market has been irreparably polluted.

BAT Role of

Nail nail, The emergence of killer platforms such as wechat enterprise account is actually of great significance to China SAAS Ecology is definitely a good thing, Because they will greatly accelerate the acceptance of Chinese enterprises SAAS Process of, This has never happened in the American market. How can we really make good use of these platforms, It will be a very important move to get the first wave of dividends from their promotion. Avoid and BAT The way to compete head-on is to constantly specialize and deepen products, because BAT What we want is not any professional category, but ecosystem.

Those in Box I think it is also worth learning from in China

Slow is better than fast

By "slow" I mean when we haven't found a rapid and healthy expansion model. At this time, slow down and concentrate on making the product solid, Do a good job of public praise, Prepare typical customers, Do a good job of service, Doing user stickiness well is more important than anything. Because without these, Blind rapid expansion must bring false castles in the air, Because burning money can bring a temporary explosion, But the money will burn out one day, At that time, if you find that your enterprise has a high unsubscribe rate, Weak user stickiness, Product barriers are not obvious, But at the same time, I have a very large sales team, This will eventually plunge the enterprise into a deep crisis, The previous scale investment may pave the way for the latecomers.

Box The real rapid expansion of is actually 2011 Years later, Previous two years Box Less than a total of 2000 Ten thousand dollars, After that, the annual investment exceeded 2 US $100 million.

Deep is better than wide

That's the same sentence, SAAS If there are no strong barriers and differentiated values for products, It will easily fall into the competition of the Red Sea. And the establishment of product barriers often has advantages over the wide range, have a look Salesforce, Workday, Box I'll know. Instead, the breadth of products is relatively easy to be imitated.

Listed in the United States SAAS None of the companies did more than one category before listing. image Salesforce It also started to expand to other categories after it was very large.

Concentration is better than divergence

SAAS Finally, the means to achieve ultra-high valuation and profits is to continuously reduce the average service cost. That's why the single category SAAS On the contrary, the reasons for higher valuation and higher profits than large and comprehensive platforms. Because focus allows you to make the best of a product and then quickly replicate it to generate large-scale revenue. And more product lines will inevitably lead to R & D costs, Operation and maintenance cost, Generalization complexity, Service costs will rise across the board, In the end, it has become a bottleneck for the company to further grow.

Be good at Association

Box A great element of early success is that he is very active in finding others SAAS Manufacturers are united, Product connection, Even the customer gets through. Because on the one hand, doing so virtually raises the value of its products, On the other hand, we have obtained many high-quality customer resources in this way. At the same time, let Box The importance of cloud vendors continues to grow.

writing by Cheng Yuan