When appearance, content, and traffic continue to become the hot spots pursued by new brands, everyone is less enthusiastic about discussions and research on product and category innovation. After all, there are not so many variables visible here, but as the core of the brand, Is there really not much room for innovation here?

The answer is of course no. For entrepreneurs who truly love and focus on products, there are actually too many things that need to be polished and re-established in terms of products and categories to build a new brand.

For example, the pidan we are going to mention today is a typical example. The pursuit of real product experience and the exploration of appropriate category definitions have made this brand blindly pursue sales and exposure like the market. Internet celebrities are completely different, including the founder’s many essential thoughts, which also make us re-examine, does it need to learn so many things to be a good brand?

The founder of pidan, Ma Wenfei, was born as a drama actor, and he is also quite philosophical. His understanding and creation of the brand are basically based on his original intention and understanding of the laws of things. The seemingly literary genes actually have no influence. pidan's commercial development has led to it receiving Series B financing within a few years and currently ranking first among cat pet brands, allowing us to see the many possibilities of new things.

pidan founder Ma Wenfei

In the recent New Wave Brand Club membership event, Ma Wenfei also shared his unique practices and insights on product experience, category definition, and incompleteness and mediocrity. Among many founders In sharing, in comparison, pidan is a unique and profound existence, and I look forward to seeing its more in-depth iterations in the next new wave of brands.

Before we officially start, let me first emphasize that in the past three or four years of our development, not everything we did was right every time, because we once lost the state that we really wanted to express. And then let the company become a little less than good.

Now that we are back on track, the company has moved into a very efficient and high-speed growth rhythm, so what I will say next are some words from the bottom of my heart.

If a company that has never failed or made no mistakes comes here to talk about some successful cases, he will most likely promote his success, but we have struggled with the problem, hesitated or not I have been determined, so I think the value of such sharing is quite great.

What I want to talk about today is divided into three sections. The first is to spend the cost on things that can truly improve the experience; the second is not only to ensure that the supply of materials is not a problem, but also that the quality can be traced; the third is to frankly accept your own mediocrity and believe in the power of iteration. It would be better to express it again. 1. What is the effect of the costs you spend?

Let’s talk about the first one first. In the past three or four years, because I have been the company’s largest product manager, in the process of creating products, I have seen many peers or brand founders in other industries create products. , what is very sad is that many people spend too much money on packaging boxes. I think this is problematic.

For example, as a mooncake company, the older generation used mooncakes as gifts and spent a lot of money on mooncake boxes. This was the inertia of mooncakes in the last creative cycle.

If you are a new company making mooncakes and want to gain recognition or empathy, I don’t think you should spend money on boxes. The reason is very simple. The current social atmosphere is not like before.

What impressed me deeply when I was a child was that all my friends would give gifts no matter what they asked someone to do. But I think the rules in the consensus of the crowd have changed.

You see why one of the best clothing companies in the world is Uniqlo. It is a company that does not emphasize design but materials, fashion or high-end replacement. What it emphasizes is practicality, durability and good quality. Use or use efficiently. With the advancement of social science, technology and civilization, we are increasingly abandoning those products with vanity elements.

If I were asked to make a mooncake product at this time, I would definitely spend more money on the mooncake itself, on its skin and core, or on the box to store the mooncake. , not to make the packaging box look good.

So the cost I am talking about here is spent on real experience. In fact, what is the effect of the cost you spend?

For example, we are recently developing a nail clipper for small animals. The cost of this nail clipper can be divided into the human part of being easy to hold, the second part is the blade for cutting nails, and the third part is the product. Packaging, such as shipping these things in express boxes.

Suppose your current cost budget for this product is fifty or sixty, first of all, its box or logistics, we can easily know these costs.

Then there is the blade. In fact, more money should be spent on the blade, because unlike us, small animals know not to move when cutting their nails. The biggest fear when cutting their nails is when you hold it. There may be a problem if the blade is not sharp enough at this time if there is a sudden movement.

Once the blade is sharp enough, you have to consider other issues. For example, is it possible to make a lamp that can illuminate the blood lines of small animals, so that the blood vessels will not be cut? Is it possible to spend another money to collect the spattered nails, because the ends of small animal nails It's very sharp, very dangerous if it gets in your eyes, and you usually don't get very far away from it in order to see clearly when cutting your nails.

As for the proportion of cost distribution in various parts, I think this is an issue that can be discussed again, but obviously you should not spend money on boxes, because you can throw away the box as soon as you get it.

For example, if we buy a good kitchen knife, this kitchen knife needs to be inserted in a box like a whetstone to protect the knife. Then I think this thing can be spent, if the packaging only carries good-looking I think you don’t have to spend too much to deliver this product to your hands.

2. We must spend money on things that can truly bring experience.

We need to spend money on things that can truly bring experience. What is real?

The real meaning is that from an objective level, it is the part of this product that has actual impact on the real world. You have to spend money here, otherwise there will be no real innovation. You bring What comes is just some shortcut thinking that makes it easier for others to remember your product.

No matter what you think subjectively or how you think your product or brand is great, in the end it all comes down to one product after another.

The function it carries is to solve the problems of an individual or a group of people and bring a better feeling. With these, your product will be sold more and you can earn more. , so I emphasize the word "real" very much.

Many brands on the market have product problems. For example, some beverage companies make bottles that look good and are heavy, but this is actually problematic.

If it is a high-end foreign wine, this product is not something that people can drink in one go. The bottle is very expensive, whether it is made of glass or metal. I think it is worth it, because it must be able to store the liquid of wine.

But for many sparkling waters in glass bottles, I don’t want the bottle after drinking it. When I bought it, the burden of the glass bottle was too heavy for me. Unless you tell me what the bottle does, Otherwise I wouldn't recommend spending money on the bottle.

You don’t need to say that if you make a vanity product, more people will buy it. Please believe me that this must be temporary. You must spend your money on things that can truly bring experience. , this is a very important thing. 1. The first problem in creating products is the stability of raw materials

The next section is a very practical point of view. Whether many products can really sell well depends on it. There is no such direct relationship between design and function. Its prerequisite is to be produced.

If there is a problem with the stability of the raw materials of this product, I don’t particularly recommend you to do it because the cost cannot be controlled. Don't think that if the price of raw materials increases, the price of the terminal will increase. The world is not like this.

It is very impressive if a product can be sold for more than five months without price reduction. As a mass product, it lasts about forty-five days.

Many people decide whether a product is good or not as soon as it is launched. Good-looking, beautiful or not, this is actually a relatively false statement. I think we should first find some stability from objective data. Only after we find stability can we carry our subjective creations. This may be a comparison. Good stuff.

So the first question when creating a product is to ask yourself whether there is a problem with the raw material itself, and then after the product is released, the problem can be traced back to the raw material.

To give you an example, last year we sold more than 7 million pieces of cat litter a year because we invented a mixed litter that had never been seen on the market before.

Many colleagues want to surpass our mixed sand. They will think that pidan’s mixed sand is two mixed with one. If they want to be better than him, they will mix five or six kinds of things. Recently, some colleagues have mixed it. More than a dozen materials.

I want to ask a very sharp question at this time. First of all, ten raw materials are needed to make this product, which means that it is at least five times more difficult for you to ensure a stable supply than for me. If there is a problem with any of the raw materials, you will have no goods to produce.

Secondly, if this cat litter sells 100,000 packs, and 5% of consumers have various problems with this cat litter, how can we trace the problem of this product? If you don't identify the problem with this product, how do you upgrade it?

We did not create the individual product itself, but created a set of information, which is whether the raw materials are stable, whether they meet the standards, how to combine them, what are the production problems, what are the after-sales problems, and how to upgrade. ?

The product we create itself is also an information chain. Every core link in this information chain must be traceable, positioned, discussed, researched and upgraded. This is a good information chain.

So if you look at our mixed sand, we sold 100,000 pieces in the first month and 200,000 pieces in the second month. We are iterating month after month because we only have two types of materials.

Tofu sand has the function of absorbing water without bringing it out. The soil and sand exist at the bottom, which solves the problems of sticking to the bottom and agglomeration. The mixing of our two raw materials each assumes the irreplaceable role of the other. Functions and scenes.

If the cat litter absorbs water slowly, there must be something wrong with the tofu litter. If it sticks to the bottom, there must be something wrong with the soil sand, so we can locate the problem very quickly.

In fact, the formula ratio of this product has been adjusted many times in the background. We are adjusting like crazy based on consumer feedback. This is a good chain. How to adjust if your product has 10 raw materials?

2. Continuous trust and empathy are the foundation of the brand mind

We can recall the super single products in this world. The proportions of their raw material and ingredient lists are very solid. For those very complex products, their auxiliary ingredients and main ingredients will be the same in a certain category. This is what can be better delivered by global omni-channels.

So I especially don’t recommend that many companies make particularly complicated formulas, as this will only add trouble to themselves.

For example, when you go to Uniqlo, you don’t have to worry about choosing clothes. There are three types of shirt materials, cotton, polyester, and flannel. There are two types of T-shirts, pure cotton and polyester, and the collar is There are three types, point collar, round collar, and V-neck. There are only three types of jeans, straight, stretch, and no-wash. They are very easy to buy.

If you want to create a product that can be used by people regardless of gender, age, country, or cultural background, it must have a stable supply of raw materials and a simple ratio.

You cannot create a product that will sell well all at once. It must require iteration. The first prerequisite for iteration is the stable supply of raw materials. Each batch of raw materials has a stable supply. Only with the quality can you iterate.

If your raw materials change and bring changes to the product, how do you iterate? You can’t iterate, you can only solve after-sales problems.

After the supply of raw materials is stable, the second problem is not to mix too many meaningless raw materials. If you mix more materials, you can sell better. A big company can just make 100 mixed 1 , so that's not the case.

I have seen products from many companies that look indescribable. Recently I drank tea, and one company produced a red bean and barley tea that was the most incomprehensible. It was called red bean and barley tea, but that tea When the package is opened, there are ten colors, and each one is barley? Is it red bean?

If this tea bag costs 40 yuan for 8 bags, where will my money be spent? Such a product will not last long. It goes against the nature of more transparent and direct information transmission, and it creates gray areas.

A tea with such a complex color should not be called red bean and barley tea. You cannot tell consumers where the cost is spent, and it is impossible to truly establish basic mutual trust with consumers.

For a brand to be accepted by consumers, it must first establish consumer trust and drive emotions. Emotions create empathy, and continued trust and empathy are the foundation of the brand's mind.

And it has a process, and there are some conditions that are repeated again and again. It’s not just that you will remember me if you spend 1 billion ads at once. If 1 billion ads can form a Brand, why do we need entrepreneurs? 1. Products that exist in the physical world must have flaws.

The next is the third part today. What is interesting is that our company explicitly prohibits any employee from telling others that our product is the best. If it is a salesperson, I will fire it directly.

This is a language without intelligence, how can it be the best? Are you telling me that human beings are not making progress? I think there is no best thing.

I am very opposed to any extreme and generalized views, so what we often say is that pidan’s goal is not to create the best pet products in the world, because with the development of society and technology, it may Next month’s technology will be better than this month’s.

The core thing we want to express is that pidan just provides a brand new expression in the pet industry. As for whether you like the expression of this product and what it can do, I will show you it frankly. Buy it if you think you need it, maybe don't buy it if you don't need it.

We fully accept that not everyone needs products, and we do not resist such things, so we just frankly provide you with a choice and hope you like it.

This is the standard of our products and promotion, and the standard of grasping the information when disseminating it. I think this is right, why? It's very simple. A good product manager will have regrets no matter what product he makes.

The desire to break away from physics, production efficiency, cost, and all principles is endless. You always want a faster, lighter mobile phone with a larger screen, and you always want to drive faster and use less fuel. For your car, you always want a lighter, thinner and warmer down jacket. If you don’t consider the cost, your desire will be endless, and your expectations for products will also be endless.

So in the process of creating products, if you look at and understand the suppliers candidly, understand the channels of the entire company, and understand various after-sales tracking issues, you will believe in a product that exists in the physical world. There must be regrets.

No matter how big your company is, when you were young, small suppliers listened to you, and large suppliers ignored you. When you are big, your supply chain is under huge production pressure, and the degree of change may not be fast. .

At every stage you are mediocre and incomplete, and companies are just like people, so never think that a certain product is the best, because you will ruin the growth of this product yourself. possibility.

If you tell me that this product is the best, there is only one reason, that is, your knowledge reserve is not enough and you have not seen the larger world and deeper information.

When society will definitely progress, you must always carry regrets, understand and accept it reasonably with the shortcomings of this moment, and even tell consumers that this product can only do this. Because it is this cost and this price, so if you want to buy it, buy it.

Once you sincerely face the incomplete parts of yourself and realize the regretful parts of yourself at this moment, you will be enthusiastic about the next creation, because you know that waiting for one or two indicators can make the whole thing better. Products get better.

So I don’t really like the word innovation. It tends to lead us into a narrow comparison game. Some innovations mean that there is something in the world called A. I made a lowercase a. It’s called innovation, but I don’t think so. Such a thing is a vortex of downward negative entanglement, and it’s impossible for you to escape from this vortex.

We should use the word creation, which means you can fully express a product, where its raw materials come from, what price they are, how to use them, what functions it wants to solve, and why?

To give you an example, we produced a backpack specifically for carrying pets. When we were making this product, we had some internal disagreements. The industrial design department said that we wanted this product to be smaller because of its size. If it is smaller, it will be lighter and look better when carried on the body, and it is easier to wear.

I say this logic is correct, but the point of view is wrong. It is very simple. Who does a pet backpack serve first? It’s the pet itself. If a small animal cannot stretch out even if it stays in it, this backpack is not qualified to be called a pet backpack, it is just a backpack.

Because it is called a pet backpack, you should first take care of whether the kitten is comfortable in it, so first of all, the space must be enough, and then its material. If it is too light, will it be unsturdy? If we make the bag bigger , it is possible to put two cats in. If the consumer cannot carry it, can he turn it sideways and put it on the ground?

But the starting point of all this is the first question. A kitten of normal size in a pet backpack. Can it turn around, sleep, and stand freely in this bag? Can we I just developed this product, and if it doesn’t work, I shouldn’t do it because it goes against the principles of this category.

2. Innovation is not competition in the narrow sense of functional description, but redefining categories

This brings us back to the topic we are talking about today. Innovation is not competition in the narrow sense of functional description, but redefining categories. .

So our backpack ranked first in the pet backpack category not long after it went online. The reason is very simple. We are the largest cat bag on the market. All consumers get this The praise of the bag is all because of its large space and the cats can stay comfortably, it’s as simple as that.

And I talked to my colleagues and found that there are many companies in the world, and there is no shortage of companies that make bags based on whether people are comfortable.

As a company that serves kittens, if we don’t give priority to whether kittens are comfortable when being carried, then why would any other company in the world do this? So what qualifications do we have to earn the money in kitty life? So no matter from which perspective, we should be the company with the largest launch space for cat backpacks.

What we want to define is a pet backpack. The first principle is not to add lights, fans, cushions, etc. These are not rigid requirements. There is only one rigid requirement, and the kitten is comfortable inside.

If you define this product, it should be that the space is sufficient as the first principle. If its materials or other things cannot be done, do not produce it, otherwise it will waste social resources.

We have become such a stable and sharp company since the fourth quarter of last year. We finally know what our mission is. All the products we make are to consider cats first, and kittens first. Under the premise, if we can take care of people, we will take care of both.

If this product greatly improves the living conditions of cats, but makes people uncomfortable, I'm sorry and I will release it. I'll let you take a look first and see if you can improve each one. After the supply chain comes, I will make it something you are comfortable with.

If the scene of changing the kitten is not rigid, I can wait. If it is rigid, for example, one day I can make Garfield kitten’s bones feel more comfortable and let the folded-eared kitten grow comfortably. One point, I will definitely release it. I think as a pet company, we must put pets first, so we need to define this category.

Let me summarize and review:

First of all, you must spend your money or time on things that can really improve this product.

The second is that the supply and quality of raw materials must be stable and must be traceable. Don’t make the product complicated because of marketing and the size of the numbers. If it cannot be traced, it cannot be upgraded and cannot be sustained. The upgraded product must not be the best product in the world.

And we need to have a chain with elastic iteration. It can become the best chain after thousands of iterations. It must be like this.

3. Accept the incompleteness and mediocrity at this moment, and believe that your next iteration will be better

The last step is to accept your own mediocrity, and then read the world more and more deeply, fully Enjoy and accept your own imperfections and mediocrity at the moment, and then believe that your next iteration will be better.

I hope that one day all companies that make products will be like us, saying that our product is not bad and it can solve this problem, but I guarantee you that the next one will be better.

If you can't bear this demand, you can buy this first and use it. You can also buy it after we update it. If you can bear this demand now, you may wait. Our next one is better!