The so-called “indie developers”, the so-called “indie developers”
I use the word “indie” a lot just to let everyone know what I’m talking about, since the majority of my current income comes from indie development, and many of the people I work with and the people I write to are indie developers.
But I never thought that was the right word. ** “indie” and “indie product people” are two different kinds of people. ** The way I see myself, at least the latter.
Indie, which means “one person,” or a very small team, as opposed to “a group of people” in a company. But what happens outside of development, how the product is marketed, how the product is iterated, how the users are operated, is not mentioned. No, which means maybe, maybe not.
Work outside of development, if it’s not there, then it’s not going to be a career, because you always have to eat, and when the code is written, the project doesn’t turn into money on its own. So far, the output is called Project, not Product. Project is oriented to producers, while Product is oriented to users and market.
Work outside of development, if any, may not be profitable (it’s a necessary, not a sufficient, condition for making money), but the nature of what you’re doing changes, because you’re making products instead of projects. ** This is an “independent product person”. Development, in turn, becomes a secondary factor because you can come up with ideas first, learn to code again, even outsource the coding, or even have a friend work on a small project over the weekend.
A lot of people think, “I’m a programmer, I’ve been around for 20 years, and I can’t do anything but write code. That’s why I did indie. I don’t know anything else.” This is the problem of cognition. Behind the product, the role is “programmer”. Such cognition can only support the interest, but not the job.
In other words, whether or not you do non-development work (more on how to do it later) depends on whether or not you make money. You can choose not to make money, but if you’re going to make money and all you’re doing is writing code, something’s going to go wrong.
One sentence reveals the programmer’s identity
There are a lot of indie developers, even those who make money, who don’t feel like they should be doing marketing. More people who plan to do independent development think that “good technology, independent development can make more money”. As I talked more, I realized that there were some people who basically revealed themselves as programmers in one sentence.
“Your App ranks so high, it’s amazing, what language is it written in?” ‘–‘ Is the ferrari so fast because it’s always painted red? ‘
“Xx is the technical god of Ali, this thing he did not make, it is estimated that the market competition is too fierce” — “Jack Ma sprint performance is not good, is sprint not suitable for human beings?”
“Why do you search for the same word? Your App ranks first, while mine ranks more than ten” — “ASO is an industry, and any keyword search question of any App can produce a report of at least two pages.”
It’s not that you have to avoid technology when it comes to products, it’s that when it comes to things like “App sells well,” you have to be attributive. As for asking which repository the App code is hosted in, this is already noise.
For example, an App, without the long-term support of complex operation and sales methods, remains at the top of the App Store list. This may be due to the word-of-mouth effect of the product itself, or the fact that it occupies some keywords with high search index (65% of App Store traffic comes from search). It may also have no strong competitors in a segment of the field, resulting in a variety of wechat public number once recommended App, small writing can not write, can only write it. There are even apps that do well, that the App Store editors love, that are regularly featured in the App Store, and that get a lot of traffic.
For example, some APPS have no traffic at ordinary times, but suddenly sales soar. This is obviously the effect of external forces. You can ask if he has any referrals and activities. The information we can get from this is to recommend the official account, Weibo, Douyin account and so on to him. Can you ask for the contact information of these channels and try to cooperate with him?
For example, if an App gets a 4.9 out of 5 rating on the App Store and you think it’s not that bad, you can ask if you paid for it or if there are other tips.
This process is called attribution. The ability of attribution, questioning and inquiry can establish the cognition of independent product man.
Otherwise, always talking about the product from a programmer’s point of view, from a technical point of view, means that you only know technology and need to catch up on other things.
Always exposing yourself as a programmer when building a product is a problem.
First change the mentality, then talk about cognition
I met an investor the other day, and we were talking about “interesting headlines”. I do not know the funny headlines, the other party started, said that the funny headlines to meet the eight-tier small cities of some people, want to usually have nothing to earn a little money, such as if you read dozens of seconds of the article, you will give you 50 cents.
The first thing that comes to my mind is ROI, because if paying for articles is going to be a core point, it should be a long-term thing, not a short-term burn. If the product makes money from this, they can guarantee that for every 50 cents you get, the platform gets at least 60 cents, and the more you read the article, the more money the platform makes.
If a CPA is $1, THEN I have to make sure that my App can earn $1 per user. If the payment rate is 10%, then each paying user will pay $10. To split the cost of other free users. Advertising, in turn, may reduce my App user payment rate, so I have to evaluate the impact of this on my acceptable CPA…
It’s a very simple example, but one of the things it does is, I’m in sales, I’m in growth, I’m in operations, and I don’t represent, “I’m a programmer.” So even if I don’t qualify as an entrepreneur, I have a ticket, and there’s no ticket for a pure tech person.
If I have always been a pure technical person’s mentality, believe that programming changes the world, when the other side said business model, I said that qiutoutiao do NB because their technology is hard, the background can support QPS and TPS (stands for server pressure capacity) is extremely high, then there should be no and then.
One of the reasons was that I was not mature enough to be a mature entrepreneur in terms of team building and equity allocation.
But I placed an order on JD.com that night and updated my bookshelf. My mindset changed from a more experienced product person to an entry-level business preparation.
As OF this writing, I have finished two paper books plus one e-book. I may still be immature when someone asks me about equity allocations, but I’m no longer clueless, AND I know how to ask a non-stupid question.
I think that’s what it’s all about. Three years ago, I completely let go of the Geek baggage and the belief that programming changes the world (not that technology doesn’t matter). Now, three years later, I put down the burden of “product is king, do it by myself”, continue to do products, and begin to supplement my entrepreneurial and management ability.
First change the mentality, then talk about cognition.
Innovation is better than god rewards those who work hard. ** To be more clear, as a developer, when you think your product is not selling, read more books, learn from the experience, and brush the “Bird brother notes”, don’t always open the IDE to optimize performance, clean up the code, no one cares about this.
Losers and losers
This paragraph, I think many readers may not agree with me, or even think I am off topic, but I will write it anyway. Because I think the people, ultimately, will reflect on the product, reflect on the revenue.
There are a lot of Internet practitioners around, all kinds of work, many of them do not recognize Pinduoduo, do not recognize OPPO/VIVO, think content jokes diaosi, think Tencent “copy” other products affect the innovation environment…… But if you really give him an OPPO phone, he will take it; Tencent really if send him an offer, he also go. I think the diaosi are the ones who are out of touch and don’t want to go along with the diaosi.
The final work is reflected in: for example, change the title of the App to attract hot spots to increase sales, for example, let users open the App every day to clock in, accumulate points and issue a virtual title…… He didn’t want to do the low stuff. He thinks it’s about money, losing style. He thinks it’s a dick. I don’t think it’s cool to do these things, and neither do the people who don’t. But developers and product people who don’t stick to the ground when they have no money, no sales, and no idea how to run a business are really cool.
These people think that it is a waste of users’ time and makes the world a little bit worse to let users punch in the App and get no B bar. But users don’t think so… Political economics says that transactions produce wealth. He thinks he’s a thief, and no one uses the product. No one pays the bill, and the code costs nothing to write. **OPPO/VIVO is grounded, is to create value. People who don’t create value, but to blame them, who is diaosi……
And that pinduoduo is all fake. Trade makes wealth. The lower the transaction cost, the better it is to create wealth. In Today’s China, if an e-commerce platform is responsible for the inspection of goods, it can basically shut down. Let the market to solve the problem, let businesses compete with each other, for reputation, is the market solution. ** Those who think they are not diaosi and scold a lot every day are diaosi who do not understand the basic principles of economics.
So what is the standard to measure whether something is bad or down to earth?
I think there is no standard. Just take responsibility for your own actions. If someone who sells fake goods keeps selling them for 100 years, it’s not his fault, it’s the market system that can’t tolerate the real thing. Those who sell fakes, if defeated, pay for the risk with money.
So if one day, an indie developer’s work is copied, and a copycat takes over his job. Should not feel aggrieved, obviously have the first mover advantage, was robbed by the later person, actually can not protect themselves. That should learn each other, review their own.
To highlight
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More than 90 percent of Indies fail in the cognitive process
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Only by changing your mindset and putting down your familiar technical role can we talk about product cognition
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Try to be a professional indie, rather than a diligent indie
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The pattern is a little bigger, the figure is a little lower, away from the diaosi mentality and thinking
So, how to get away from diaosi thinking, upgrade product awareness, and become a better independent product person? There are two feasible suggestions 🙂
- Follow my wechat official account [KyXu], ID: KyXuIndie
- Check out my column, keep learning: xiaozhuanlan.com/kyxuDev