Besides Allen Zhang from WeChat, there are many other "super famous" PMs in China. One is YU Jun 1st Product VP at Baidu & then at Didi.
5 Aspects of Good Product Management: 1) Logic 2) Empathy 3) (Sector) Experience 4) Dissent 5) Data
The first 3 are more dependent on the PM & their life experience, what they did before. The last 2 is more on the company & how it organizes its systems.
1) On Logic:
You can be wrong on the conclusion, but you can't afford to be wrong on the logic (thought process).
2 diff types of logic:
Small Logic:
You are a food delivery co & it's raining. You prob need to add $ to your delivery cost.
Big Logic:
If you don't add $ even when it's raining, u lose some % but user might remember u & appreciate u, you'll get the next 5, 10 orders.
2) On Empathy:
This is mostly trainable. The easiest way is to use your own product a lot, under every circumstance.
3) On Experience:
# of years does not indicate someone's level. There are 3 components to experience: reading, actual experience, and thinking. Your level is...
determined by the lowest one of these. Reading means how widely you acquire information. But you also need to think after you read. Experience is mostly irreplicable. This is why how you think abt your experience & apply to a new thing is so important. Reading & thinking help.
4) Dissent
You really need your company to have a flat culture & allow dissent to be heard. Everyone thinks they have egalitarian culture but really it's just the boss saying one thing & everyone else piling on w something additive. But decisions that can withstand a lot of ...
dissent are the best decisions.
But egalitarian culture is a difficult thing for any company and relies on multiple factors. For one, your talent needs to be high quality. A bunch of know-nothings in egalitarian environment won't magically produce great decisions.
5) Data
Data is the engine of the world today, but has its deficiencies.
Not everything can be AB tested. If you AB test everything, PMs will pick only the things that can be AB tested to work on.
Scaled up proj are great for data, but a new one is not.
Its up to the PM to figure out what should be data-driven, and which is only partially explained by data.
Thus, hiring a good PM is always abt this person's thinking. An avg PM will prob be very satisfied at a data-driven company, bc it's easy to feel fulfilled, there's less ...
uncertainty in ur output. But if you are a very high ability PM, I suggest you don't go to such a co, and I suggest u switch positions often, since u will find that ur thinking will be quickly bounded by the product & only in new applications of ur experience will u learn more.
That's how you get to thinking very thoroughly & to the level of being able to abstract experience into theory.
/end
Agree, disagree? Comments? I'll be elevating more thought leadership from China tech, so follow for more.
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On the @joinClubhouse town hall and @pdavison just mentioned tipping as a potential way of interaction. I mean I’ve always thought of it as Audio Livestreaming. Which led friends I to ask, why’s it not in China? Well it kind of is. YY has had audio Livestreaming function
since 2011 (too early? So early it was pc / discord style primarily used for gaming, not for phone, altho you could just audio chat like on clubhouse, and some eventually used it for education.) 1 yr old WeChat Channels video function allows viewers to send req to livestreaming
host to connect audio or video (as of Q4). So it’s there, and Allen Zhang seems big fan of it. Ximalaya (the audio book / podcasting platform) also has this function but it’s limited to 10 guest speakers. The issue w anything live in China is that you’re gonna have to do
So @DanGrover & I going to record a recap on WeChat Channels, the 1 year old, 200mm DAU video / Livestreaming feature in app. It’s gonna be available on our @TechBuzzChina YouTube channel & you have a chance to post some Qs below that you think we should answer!
You can read things I've already written up (for our beta TBC Insider community) on WeChat Channels to get an idea of what we're going to cover minimally.
And one of the most oft-asked questions right now, is WeChat Channels perhaps fundamentally different from Douyin / Kuaishou? Do they perhaps not even appeal to the same audience? Is it ... ahem ... for "old people"? Which BTW, is just 40+, so almost me!
Feeling so sad reading abt the tragic death of Gen Z Bilibili game streamer “Ink Tea.” Looks like he died of extreme poverty & lack of healthcare. His page now over 1mm fans (was 200 at death). W out his virtual friends crowdfunding $, he might’ve died earlier. Ppl still kind.
Current reports state his mom left at young age (divorce). Dad unreliable / ran from debt. He’s from a notoriously poor place in China. Even if his specific case untrue, can vouch personally w 1st hand exp that single parents v common in rural China. Lots of abandonment, disease.
Ppl so moved by his story bc despite being in pain not able to feed himself / buy meds he didn’t sell his story for pity $. Even tried to take care of a kitty, buy milk for it. Might be irrational but really understandable. Was a kid w no one else nearby. Hope the kitty made it.
Community Group Buying (CGB) War has new player: Logistics co SF Express. Like if UPS all of a sudden has its own grocery delivery.
Many differences stand out abt this still in beta product: and in fact, are so different I wouldn't call it CGB but just agri / grocery ecommerce.
1. No group leaders, just delivery staff. 2. It's not self pickup, but delivered to door. 3. Just hundred or so SKUs, vs the 000s or more on competing platforms. 4. Goods are sold in "bulk," ie family friendly quantities. 5. Going after 1st tier cities, instead of 3rd & below.
Advantages:
SF has many offline outposts already (like ur UPS Store).
Cold chain advantage.
So why do this? A reason might be there is such a price war in the pure-play logistics space that everyone wants to get deeper into commerce.
I asked the below Q bc while I also do refer to Pinduoduo $PDD as social commerce out of laziness sometimes, Colin the founder himself has said that doesn't make any sense!
So what is $PDD?
It's really just a gamified shopping / shoppertainment company. I paraphrase his words:
"Our team had done gaming and ecommerce businesses before Pinduoduo. What is gaming but just a sort of consumption upgrade for Chinese males (mostly)? So what abt the females? Well, all the women are playing a game. A very large game. It's called shopping."
"The problem is shopping itself doesn't generate any traffic. But look at Disneyland, it's always so packed. Why? Because it's fun. So people are looking for fun. So we made shopping fun. Buying in grps just creates a psychological connection u aren't alone. That's "fun.""
Allen Zhang the creator of WeChat (I am a fangirl) gave a 2 hr long speech yesterday abt his thoughts on the product on the eve of its 10th anniversary.
It's a lot on Channels (the new video function in WeChat).
Here are my notes & comments in parentheses:
WeChat daily usage looks like this:
1.09 Bn users log in, 330mm use video chat
780mm users view Moments feed (like FB feed), 120mm users post to Moments
360mm read articles, 400mm use mini programs
Why're we going after video?
In last 5 years, users are sending 33x more video msgs in chat, 10x more videos into their Moments feed.
Not everyone can write long content, but doing video requires new acct system (current public acct system is subscription based), we tried in 2017