Skip to main content

34 posts tagged with "management"

View All Tags

Zeng Ming's Strategic Management Philosophy

· 29 min read

Chapter 1: Strategic Concepts and Decision-Making Contributions During Alibaba Period

From 2006 to 2017, Professor Zeng Ming served as Alibaba Group's Chief Strategy Officer ("Chief of Staff"), deeply involved in the formulation and execution of Alibaba's overall strategy. As Jack Ma's strategic advisor, he helped create and develop important business segments including Taobao, Alipay, Alibaba Cloud, and Cainiao Network. During his time at Alibaba, Zeng Ming promoted a series of forward-looking strategic concepts, the most prominent being the platform ecosystem strategy and decentralized organizational transformation.

1. Platform Ecosystem Strategy: Zeng Ming believed that Alibaba's core competitiveness was not in a single business, but in building future commercial infrastructure—various types of platforms or ecosystems. He pointed out that the traditional emphasis on "core capabilities" had become outdated, and future enterprises should develop organically like networks, becoming more biological rather than mechanical. Under his advocacy, Alibaba gradually expanded from an early e-commerce platform to a complex ecosystem encompassing e-commerce, payments, logistics, cloud computing, and more, positioning itself as a builder of social business ecosystems. The Alibaba Group underwent a major structural adjustment from late 2012 to 2013: breaking down the e-commerce business into 25 small business units (BUs), reorganizing financial businesses into multiple divisions, and Jack Ma stepping down as CEO. This transformation was based on Zeng Ming's judgment—"if Alibaba wants to promote the development of an ecosystem externally, the company must also achieve ecologicalization internally". Therefore, Alibaba internally broke the traditional bureaucracy, distributing power and business into smaller, more flexible units, forming an internal ecosystem to adapt to the needs of the platform ecosystem strategy.

2. Decentralized Organizational Transformation: Zeng Ming advocated for distributed collaboration and small team operations as an organizational model to adapt to the rapidly changing environment of the internet era. He participated in formulating Alibaba's "four transformations" policy: marketization, platformization, ecologicalization (species diversity), and data-driven approach. For example, on the Taobao platform, external merchants and service providers were introduced to jointly create diversified goods and services, enabling "small but beautiful" and category-diverse sellers to flourish, achieving more personalized matching between buyers and sellers. At the organizational level, Alibaba abandoned the traditional unified management center and encouraged internal innovation through frontline empowerment and horse-racing mechanisms. As Jack Ma said: "Traditional management is no longer suitable for Alibaba; we need to build an ecosystem that integrates internal and external resources." After the 2013 reorganization, each business unit had greater autonomy, forming a competitive and cooperative ecosystem among them. This decentralized organization laid the foundation for Alibaba to maintain agility in the rapidly changing internet competition. When summarizing Alibaba's experience, Zeng Ming stated that future organizations are more like networks, needing to break bureaucracy and move toward network-based organizational forms. Alibaba provided momentum for the continuous evolution of the platform ecosystem through internal entrepreneurship, partnership systems, and other methods that made the organization flatter and self-driven.

Chapter 2: Zeng Ming's Core Theoretical Concepts

Based on practical experience, Zeng Ming developed a series of strategic management theories, including "Momentum Theory," "C2B Strategy," "New Business Civilization," "De-KPI," "De-Management Center," "Self-Evolving Organization," and "Structural Empowerment." These concepts form the core of Zeng Ming's strategic thinking system. The background, core views, and application cases of each are explained below.

2.1 Momentum Theory

Background: The rise of the internet and mobile internet has created a business environment full of high uncertainty and disruptiveness. Facing these changes, entrepreneurs need to grasp the major trends of the times to succeed. Through long-term research and practical experience, Zeng Ming realized the importance of "momentum" in strategy.

Core Views: "Momentum Theory" emphasizes following and utilizing the momentum contained in era trends to formulate strategy. Zeng Ming advocates that entrepreneurs should have a "ten-year vision," maintaining keen insight into future trends while "working for one year" tactically to find breakthrough points. "The times make heroes," and respecting and grasping major trends is a prerequisite for success. He further points out that leaders should not only follow trends but also dare to create trends. Only by skillfully utilizing momentum (the energy accumulated by trends) can enterprises become leaders of their time. The first principle of strategy is to develop with major trends in a highly uncertain environment to gain momentum. In a word, "without utilizing momentum, it's impossible to become a leader of the era."

Application Cases: Apple, after Steve Jobs' return, captured the major trends of digital music and smartphones, redefining the industry landscape through iPod and iPhone, thus achieving a takeoff. In contrast, PC giant Dell failed to see the major trend of mobile internet, missed momentum, and declined. Alibaba's own development was a result of following the macro trends such as the rise of China's consumer internet and the popularization of mobile payments. Zeng Ming often cites these examples to remind entrepreneurs: during key transformation periods, it's essential to assess major trends with a long-term perspective, and going with the flow can achieve twice the result with half the effort.

2.2 C2B Strategy

Background: In the traditional industrial era, business was dominated by the B2C model (Business to Consumer, where enterprises mass-produce and then sell to consumers). However, with the development of internet and data technology, consumer roles have strengthened, and the market has begun to shift from "seller-driven" to "buyer-driven." In 2012, when discussing with Jack Ma, Zeng Ming proactively proposed the "C2B" strategic concept, believing it to be the most important business paradigm in the digital age.

Core Views: "C2B Strategy," or Customer to Business, emphasizes that consumer demand drives enterprise production and value chain operations, which is a disruption of the traditional B2C model. Zeng Ming points out that C2B means that enterprises must design business processes around customers' personalized needs, achieving customized services on a large scale. He calls C2B the "most basic model of the new business era," and only when C2B emerges on a large scale across industries can the entire business chain be completely restructured by the internet and data. The essence of C2B is a fundamental change in business logic: from the enterprise-led supply chain of the past to a network-collaborative demand response chain. In the traditional model, enterprises first mass-produce standardized products, then stimulate demand through advertising and distribute products through channels; while in the C2B model, enterprises first interact with consumers to explore potential demands through data, then quickly organize resources to meet these demands, achieving on-demand production and services.

Application Cases: The development of the Taobao platform embodies the C2B concept: a large number of sellers adjust their product supply based on consumer search, browsing, and other data, achieving consumer data-driven supply. The Taobao customization, Juhuasuan, and other businesses promoted by Alibaba around 2010 were all explorations of C2B. For example, in the clothing industry, some merchants obtain fashion trends and consumer preferences through Taobao and Tmall, then conduct small-batch flexible production, truly achieving "production based on sales." Zeng Ming predicted that 2018-2023 would be a key period for the breakthrough of the C2B model, with large-scale personalized customization appearing in more industries. He even further proposed derivative models such as "S2B," exploring innovative paths where platforms (Supply/Support) empower numerous small business merchants to better serve the customer end. In summary, the C2B strategy reflects Zeng Ming's judgment on future business models: customer-driven will replace manufacturer-driven, and data will link customized needs with social supply chains.

2.3 New Business Civilization

Background: "New Business Civilization" is a macro concept proposed by Zeng Ming for business transformation in the information age. As the internet deeply penetrates the economy and society, new technologies and values are reshaping business rules, which he calls the emerging "new business civilization." As early as 2009, Zeng Ming gave a speech titled "The Dawn of New Business Civilization," believing that the mass production line and standardization model of the industrial age would give way to new networked and intelligent models.

Core Views: Zeng Ming believes that the DNA of new business civilization consists of two double helices: network collaboration and data intelligence. These two organically integrate to give birth to entirely new business species in the digital era. Network collaboration refers to breaking down complex business activities and having them collaboratively completed by numerous participants through internet platforms, making the process more efficient. Data intelligence refers to the use of big data and AI to continuously iterate and optimize decisions, more accurately perceiving and meeting user needs. Under the new business civilization, business operations are more biological—enterprises coevolve with ecosystems, far more flexible than mechanical hierarchical organizations. He emphasizes that "precision" is the essential difference between new business and old business. The industrial age succeeded through scale, while the new business era pursues precise fulfillment of individual needs: first exploring potential needs through interaction, matching supply in real-time, and providing customized services based on scenarios. Zeng Ming calls this upgrade the transition of business from "extensive scale" to "refinement and accuracy."

Application Cases: Google's search advertising analyzes user intent to achieve precise ad delivery by scenario and real-time bidding fees, which is the embodiment of "refinement" in the new business civilization; Taobao's advertising system can track the entire chain from advertising investment to sales conversion, making every penny's effect transparent, which is the embodiment of "accuracy." Additionally, ride-sharing platforms like Uber use data intelligence to achieve real-time matching and dynamic pricing, but Zeng Ming analyzes that their dilemma lies in the lack of true network collaboration effects—scale effects alone are insufficient to form monopoly barriers. In contrast, Taobao, because it built payment, credit evaluation, and other network collaboration systems early on, although developing slowly, laid the foundation for ecosystem network effects, and once the network matured, it achieved explosive growth. These examples illustrate that the new business civilization places more emphasis on collaboration effects and data-driven competitiveness, rather than traditional resources and scale. Zeng Ming summarizes: "Network collaboration + Data intelligence = Intelligent business", a simple formula that encapsulates the secret to Alibaba's success and reveals all the keys to future business.

2.4 "De-KPI" Concept

Background: In traditional management, KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) are widely used for assessment and motivation. However, in rapidly changing and innovation-driven environments, overly rigid KPI assessments can lead to short-sighted organizational behavior and constrain innovation. While promoting empowerment-type organizations, Zeng Ming proposed the concept of "De-KPI" (breaking free from KPI constraints), believing this to be a hurdle that organizational transformation must overcome.

Core Views: "De-KPI" does not mean completely abandoning indicators, but rather breaking free from the inertial constraints of traditional KPI management and establishing a real-time, dynamic, multi-dimensional indicator system. Zeng Ming points out that if a company promotes empowerment and innovation while still using old-style KPIs to assess and reward employees, employees will ultimately be led by these short-term indicators, making it difficult for the organization to truly transform. Overly simple KPIs distort strategy: many enterprises simplify strategies into one or two numerical targets (such as annual revenue, profit) during execution, which cannot reflect the true requirements of the strategy and instead cause management to sacrifice long-term development to achieve indicators. He stated directly: "Breaking free from KPI inertia is a very difficult but necessary hurdle for organizational innovation." Therefore, new-type organizations need to shift from single KPI orientation to online dynamic indicator matrices. Through digital tools, managers can monitor business health and progress in real-time, evaluating team contributions with multi-dimensional indicators, rather than a few static numbers at the end of the year.

Application Cases: At Alibaba, in the early days to encourage Taobao's rapid market expansion, Jack Ma boldly set the "double million KPI" (enabling 100,000 sellers to achieve annual incomes over 10,000 yuan and bringing 100 million consumers to online shopping within a year), a visionary indicator that at once shifted the team's focus from just staring at GMV (Gross Merchandise Volume). But as business complexity increased, Alibaba gradually de-emphasized hard KPI indicators for various sub-businesses, instead adopting more horse-racing mechanisms, process indicators, and user feedback for evaluation. Zeng Ming also advocated using data dashboards to provide real-time feedback on business status, allowing teams to self-correct without superior orders. This change effectively avoided behavior just for the sake of KPIs, making the organization more focused on creating user value and long-term strategic goals.

2.5 "De-Management Center" and Self-Evolving Organization

Background: "De-Management Center" is an innovative idea proposed by Zeng Ming for organizational structure. Traditional enterprises rely on top-down hierarchical decision-making and centralized management, but in an era of high uncertainty, this model responds slowly and suppresses frontline creativity. To this end, Zeng Ming advocates weakening central control and shifting toward an empowering, self-evolving organizational model that allows the organization to evolve in a self-driven manner.

Core Views: "De-Management Center" requires reducing dependence on a single authority and allowing decisions and innovations to emerge from within the organization. Zeng Ming points out that many leading enterprises today are exploring "operation without CEO commands"—even without boss-level instructions, the organization can operate efficiently in coordination. To achieve this, enterprises need new mechanisms to answer three questions: Without central control, how does the organization ensure healthy operation? How does it maintain the right direction? How does everyone truly collaborate? His answer is: use culture and vision to build consensus, use data and platforms to provide transparent feedback, and use distributed power to stimulate initiative. The focus of management will shift from "control" to "motivation" and "empowerment." As he says, the core of the industrial age was bureaucratic management, while the network age must break bureaucracy and move toward network-type organizations. In such organizations, central managers no longer direct everything in detail, but rather enable frontline employees to make decisions and collaborate through mechanism design. This self-organization can continuously self-evolve, constantly producing high-quality strategic decisions and innovations. "Self-evolving organization" refers to such an organization that dynamically adjusts strategy and continuously emerges innovations under external environment feedback. Zeng Ming emphasizes that in the midst of dramatic changes, being right once is far from enough; organizations must cultivate the ability to innovate continuously—letting strategy and innovation grow "bottom-up" within the organization.

Application Cases: The co-creation mechanism widely implemented within Alibaba embodies the de-management center thinking. Core employees participate in strategic discussions together, dynamically adjusting direction according to market changes, making strategic decisions emerge collectively within the organization. For example, the strategy for the annual "Double 11" shopping festival is not decided by executives behind closed doors, but is optimized in real-time by various business teams under data guidance, eventually forming a global consensus. In terms of organizational culture, Alibaba's "horse-racing mechanism" allows multiple teams to explore similar projects in parallel, with the successful ones prevailing, which is actually a decentralized adaptive evolution. In the early days of Taobao, multiple teams simultaneously developed different versions of product features, "growing wildly" with survival of the fittest, ultimately leaving the solution that best matched users. Similarly, Huawei's "rotating CEO" system and Haier's self-operating entity model are also attempts to weaken the single center and stimulate organizational self-evolution. Zeng Ming's ideas provide a theoretical foundation for such practices: future excellent enterprises should be self-evolving organisms, not machines driven by upper-level centralization.

2.6 Structural Empowerment

Background: "Empowerment" has become a buzzword in management, but Zeng Ming places more emphasis on "structural empowerment", which means embedding empowerment into the organizational structure itself through institutional and tool-level design. This way, empowerment is no longer just a matter of leader attitude but becomes part of the enterprise's operating mechanism.

Core Views: Structural empowerment requires enterprises to build platform systems that enable employees and partners to access needed resources and capabilities at any time. Zeng Ming points out that the future is an era of creativity, where much traditional management knowledge will be replaced by AI, and the greatest value of humans lies in innovation. Therefore, organizations need to stimulate human creative potential through empowerment. Empowerment is not just a slogan but must be implemented at the tool level. He exemplifies that for complex organizations like Alibaba, empowerment must rely on technological tools, among which *"data middle platform"* is a very important empowerment tool. The data middle platform precipitates the data and technical capabilities of various company businesses into universal modules, ready for use by front-end teams, greatly improving the efficiency of innovation and trial-and-error. Zeng Ming explains that the core value of the middle platform lies in allowing front-end innovation to change rapidly, equivalent to providing strong support for innovation. This is a form of structural empowerment: through platformized infrastructure (data, technology, operational support, etc.), capabilities are tooled and distributed to teams, allowing small teams to do what big companies can do. Structural empowerment also includes mechanism-level empowerment, such as equity incentives and benefit-sharing mechanisms, giving employees a sense of ownership, transforming from "I have to do it" to "I want to do it." In Zeng Ming's view, organizational principles are evolving from the past incentive to empowerment and co-creation. Empowering organizations enable talents to create value in a self-driven manner by providing space, resources, and help, rather than relying on manager supervision.

Application Cases: Alibaba is particularly outstanding in empowering ecosystem partners. For example, basic services provided to merchants such as Alipay payment, Cainiao logistics, and Alibaba Cloud computing are a form of "structural empowerment," helping small merchants reduce technical and operational barriers to entrepreneurship on the platform. Another example is Alibaba Cloud's development of open SaaS interfaces, allowing numerous third-party software service providers to connect, which is equivalent to empowering the entire ecosystem to serve merchants together. Looking at the company internally, Alibaba's middle platform strategy precipitates the technical capabilities that were repeatedly built by various business lines, turning them into shared services empowering all business departments, greatly enhancing overall collaborative efficiency and stimulating product innovation in frontline teams. Zeng Ming emphasizes, whoever evolves into an empowering enterprise first is more likely to become a winner in the intelligent business era. This is because structural empowerment enables the creative power of the entire ecosystem to be exponentially amplified, forming a virtuous cycle. This concept is influencing more and more enterprises to think about how to build platforms to empower employees and customers, thereby achieving growth together.

Chapter 3: Key Ideas in Representative Speeches, Articles, and Works

Zeng Ming has systematically expounded the above strategic ideas in public speeches, published works, and articles. This chapter selects three representative works—"Smart Business," "The Dictator's Innovation," and "Fierce for Ten Thousand Years"—to extract his core concepts.

3.1 "Smart Business"

Work Background: "Smart Business: What Alibaba's Success Reveals About the Future of Strategy" is a book published by Zeng Ming in 2018, systematically summarizing his observations and practices during more than ten years at Alibaba. The English version of this book was published by Harvard Business School Press. The book combines numerous Alibaba cases and classic business cases, aiming to provide strategic guidance for the digital age to enterprises in all industries.

Key Ideas: "Smart Business" proposes a refined formula: "Network Collaboration + Data Intelligence = Smart Business". Zeng Ming emphasizes that this equation reveals the reason behind Alibaba's success and is also the essence of future business. The book explains in detail how network collaboration reorganizes business processes that were previously vertically integrated through internet platforms into dispersed, flexible, scalable, globally optimized processes; and how data intelligence records and iteratively optimizes all business data, more accurately mining user needs and providing personalized products and services. The smart business era is therefore defined as: solving problems through large-scale multi-role real-time interaction (collaboration) and continuously optimizing decisions through full-chain data feedback (intelligence). Zeng Ming believes this new strategy is applicable to enterprises in any industry, not just internet companies.

A famous case in the book is Alibaba's annual "Double 11" shopping festival. Zeng Ming calls it a perfect example of network collaboration: Taobao/Tmall itself does not produce a single product, but through the platform, it mobilizes tens of millions of sellers and millions of partners to work collaboratively, fulfilling massive orders throughout the day. Such complex trading activities could not be completed by traditional vertical enterprises, but in the platform ecosystem, various links collaborate to achieve results far exceeding the efficiency of a single enterprise. This proves the power of network collaboration. On the other hand, data intelligence also plays a key role in Double 11: real-time data analysis guides inventory allocation, logistics routing, and marketing strategies, forming global optimization. All these validate the new strategic framework advocated in "Smart Business."

Impact and Evaluation: "Smart Business" comprehensively organized Alibaba's commercial evolution process and strategic new blueprint for the first time. The strategic framework and organizational principles proposed in the book (such as the new positioning theory of point-line-plane-body, the organizational evolution from management to empowerment, etc.) provide thought guidance for numerous entrepreneurs. It can be said that the book integrates Zeng Ming's various concepts proposed over the years (C2B, new business civilization, collaborative effects, etc.) into a systematic whole. As stated in the book: "This is a strategic guide for the digital economy era." Many enterprise executives use this book as essential reading for learning internet thinking and intelligent strategy. Through this work, Zeng Ming established his influence in the field of strategic management academia and industry, being hailed as the authoritative summary of the "Alibaba experience" by "Jack Ma's military advisor."

3.2 "The Dictator's Innovation"

Work Background: "The Dictator's Innovation" is a thought-provoking proposition put forward by Zeng Ming in a certain speech or article. The title carries a hint of humor and contradiction: on one hand, "dictator" refers to centralized leadership with strong power, on the other hand, "innovation" requires diversity and vitality. Behind this phrase actually lies Zeng Ming's unique insights into the relationship between leadership and innovation.

Key Ideas: Zeng Ming points out that in the early stages of innovation and at critical decision-making moments, centralized leadership can often play a key role. He describes how some outstanding entrepreneurs exhibit firmness and decisiveness like "dictators" when driving innovation. This is not derogatory, but emphasizes the importance of clear vision and strong execution for innovation breakthroughs. For example, Zhang Xiaolong, the father of WeChat, adopted an almost decisive style when leading the WeChat product, insisting on a "one-man show" to maintain the purity of the product experience, which was one of the reasons for WeChat's rapid rise. Similarly, Steve Jobs was seen as a "innovation dictator" in Silicon Valley, and his personal pursuit of perfection and decisive decision-making created Apple's disruptive products. Through these cases, Zeng Ming points out: in rapidly changing innovation fields, a visionary leader needs to centralize decision-making power at critical moments, boldly try and error, and even break bureaucratic resistance with personal authority. This "dictatorial" leadership can escort innovation in its early stages.

However, he also emphasizes that "the dictator's innovation" does not mean one person accomplishes everything. On the contrary, successful "innovation dictatorship" is often built on stimulating team passion and keenly capturing user voices. Once the innovation direction is verified as effective, leaders should timely delegate power, allowing broader creativity to participate. Zeng Ming's view reflects a consideration of dynamic balance in leadership: innovation needs a relaxed and free atmosphere, but also needs strong leadership to anchor direction in the initial chaos. As he said, "the most important core ability of enterprises today is not whether a strategic decision is right or wrong, but whether there is a system that can continuously make strategic judgments and corrections." If the initial autocracy can evolve into later openness and co-creation, then the enterprise will have both explosive power and sustainability.

Application Examples: Many of Alibaba's early product innovations also embody this point: for example, when Taobao was first created, Jack Ma insisted against opposition on not charging commissions from sellers (free model), a decision with a strong personal style that created the miracle of Taobao rapidly accumulating popularity. Similarly, when Alipay was initially promoting guaranteed transactions, it faced questioning, and Jack Ma ordered "do it first, talk later," and this determination is also a manifestation of "dictatorial" innovation. It was later proven that these decisions opened new chapters for Alibaba. Through "The Dictator's Innovation," Zeng Ming reminds entrepreneurs: in an era when thousands of troops are exploring innovation, don't just pursue democratic consensus and fall into mediocrity; sometimes you need the courage to break through forbidden zones alone. Of course, he also calls for turning successful experiences into the collective wisdom of the organization after "dictatorship," using mechanisms to make innovations continuously emerge, rather than forever relying on individual heroes.

3.3 "Fierce for Ten Thousand Years"

Work Background: "Fierce for Ten Thousand Years" is a rather jianghu-flavored expression, originating from a themed speech or article title by Zeng Ming (the specific source is often entrepreneurial forums or Hupan University sharing). This phrase sounds exaggerated but reflects his unique interpretation of entrepreneurial spirit and has become a motto circulated among entrepreneurs.

Key Ideas: "Fierce" means strong, brave, not afraid of challenges. "Ten Thousand Years" symbolizes an extremely long time span. Connecting the two, Zeng Ming uses this humorous phrase to emphasize that entrepreneurs must have lasting determination and fearless spirit. The core ideas include: courage and tenacity. First, the entrepreneurial journey is full of unknowns and difficulties, and only a "fierce" mindset can break through barriers—this means daring to break conventions, boldly trying and erring, not fearing failure or mockery. Second, "ten thousand years" implies long-termism. Zeng Ming repeatedly advises entrepreneurs that great undertakings cannot be accomplished overnight, and they must be prepared psychologically to persist day after day for ten years. Just as Alibaba proposed to be a "102-year company," this is a symbol reminding enterprises to take a long-term perspective and continue to strive for the future. Therefore, "Fierce for Ten Thousand Years" can be understood as: persisting to the end with aggressiveness and perseverance. No matter how external circumstances change, truly excellent entrepreneurs must have both the vigor of newborn calves not fearing tigers and the persistence of water dripping through stone.

Application Examples: Jack Ma and Alibaba's growth process is exactly a portrayal of "Fierce for Ten Thousand Years": from the 18 founders starting the business in 1999, to adhering to beliefs when the internet bubble burst, to later e-commerce wars and financial storms, in the face of every severe challenge, the Alibaba team displayed extraordinary resilience and courage, ultimately surviving harsh winters and winning victories. This spirit has also influenced the students of Hupan University. Zeng Ming shares many failure cases in Hupan classrooms, aiming to prepare entrepreneurs psychologically for "nine deaths and one life," facing the winding road of entrepreneurship with strong will. He says: "The greatest enemy of excellence is being content with goodness," and only by maintaining a fierce upward momentum can one continuously climb to new heights. Therefore, this phrase is both an encouragement to entrepreneurs and an extension of Zeng Ming's strategic thinking at the human level: strategy is not only analysis and planning but also needs the support of spiritual strength. It is this style of both rational insight and passion that makes Zeng Ming's speeches widely welcomed by audiences and also injects confidence and fighting spirit into countless entrepreneurs.

Chapter 4: Systematic Summary and Outlook of Enterprise Strategy, Organizational Management, and Innovation Methods

Integrating the above ideas, Professor Zeng Ming has constructed a strategic management system for the intelligent business era, systematically summarizing enterprise strategy formulation, organizational management, and innovation methods, and making forward-looking prospects for future development.

1. New Paradigm of Strategy Formulation: Traditional strategy seeks to reduce uncertainty, formulate long-term plans, and execute efficiently. But Zeng Ming has redefined strategy: strategy is no longer a static plan, but a dynamic process of repeated iteration between Vision and Action. He proposed the "AV cycle" (vision-action rapid feedback loop) model. Specifically, enterprise leaders must first have a long-term industrial endgame judgment (Vision), but under rapidly changing environments, any prediction may deviate, so what's more important is the continuous process of "prediction-experimentation-correction". Action itself becomes an exploration tool: rapid execution, small-step trial-and-error, validating or correcting the initial vision from market feedback. This cycle repeats itself, allowing strategy to self-adjust and develop. Zeng Ming emphasizes: "What's important is not whether the prediction is right or wrong, but whether you are constantly making predictions." Through high-frequency iteration, enterprises can find certainty in uncertainty. He also points out that wasting some resources is worthwhile to quickly test and find direction; internet companies dare to progress on multiple lines and conduct redundant experiments for this reason. This shift in strategic thinking has enlightened many traditional enterprise managers: rather than trying to formulate perfect plans, it's better to learn while doing, seeking the optimal path in dynamics.

2. New Principles of Organizational Management: Zeng Ming's summary is that future organizations must transition from "management-oriented" to "empowerment-oriented". Management-oriented organizations rely on hierarchical commands and KPI assessments, suitable for stable environments; while empowerment-oriented organizations emphasize network collaboration and creativity, adapting to the rapidly changing intelligent era. Specific new principles include: vision-driven replacing instruction-driven—letting all employees understand the company's long-term mission, uniting through shared vision rather than constraining through regulations; culture and mechanisms replacing hierarchical control—guiding behavior through values, equity incentives, shared results, rather than through administrative orders; empowerment replacing management—leaders' roles changing from commanders to coaches and servers, providing resource platforms for the frontline to create greater value; co-creation replacing top-level decision-making—encouraging employees to participate in strategic discussions and innovation projects, forming bottom-up decision emergence mechanisms. Additionally, organizational structures will become more flattened and elastic. Zeng Ming deduces that the best form for creating new businesses in the future may be "special forces"-style small teams: a dozen people working closely together can support an entrepreneurial project. These small teams, supported by the company's internal loosely coupled platforms, plus externally open network collaboration, form a three-layer organizational structure of "tightly coupled small teams + loosely coupled platforms + open networks". In this form, efficient execution will increasingly be undertaken by AI, and human energy will focus on creating unique value. In a nutshell, future organizations are a kind of human-machine collaborative, network-evolving organism: AI handles tedious affairs, humans exert creativity, and the two collaborate in operations. This series of new organizational principles by Zeng Ming provides operational guidelines for enterprises transitioning from industrial paradigms to digital paradigms.

3. New Approaches to Innovation Methods: In the field of innovation, Zeng Ming particularly emphasizes embracing uncertainty and cross-border integration. He points out that uncertainty means opportunity, and true strategy should grasp potential demands that have not yet manifested. Therefore, enterprises should encourage exploratory innovation, preferring to experiment in multiple directions rather than adhering to a single direction. Alibaba's internal "horse-racing" mechanism is precisely to maintain diversity in response to an uncertain future. Zeng Ming also mentions the "point-line-plane-body" strategic thinking to guide different innovation paths: point breakthrough (single-point innovation like Uber focusing on ride-hailing), line integration (building an industry chain), plane orientation (creating multi-sided market platforms), and finally body as an ecosystem. Different enterprises should choose suitable innovation paths based on their own situations. Additionally, he is very concerned about technology-driven innovation. In recent speeches, he has discussed how AI technology is triggering business paradigm changes: "AI essentially solves the problem of decision efficiency and costs, with its core value lying in creating new supply." As artificial intelligence develops, machines will liberate people from repetitive, boring mental labor, giving people more time to engage in creative matters. This will give rise to many previously unimaginable new products and services. Zeng Ming predicts, "In principle, there will be no 'product companies' in the future, only 'service companies,' with products merely being carriers of services." In other words, enterprises need to transform into user-centered, scenario-based service providers. To meet this trend, he suggests that enterprises accelerate digital and intelligent transformation, using AI, big data, and other technologies to upgrade business models. In terms of organizational and intelligent entity co-creation, he depicts a future picture: AI becomes employees' "colleagues," organizational structures are redefined, and human-machine integration produces new work paradigms. Facing such a future, he encourages enterprises to maintain a spirit of lifelong learning and self-revolution, proactively embracing technological changes, even if it means overthrowing their old models. This self-iteration is the embodiment of the "self-evolution" spirit advocated by Zeng Ming at the innovation level.

4. Future Prospects: Zeng Ming is full of confidence about business transformation in the next 10 years and beyond. In his view, human business society has experienced agricultural economy and industrial economy, and is now entering a new era based on intelligent technology. This is a civilization-level leap. In his second "Looking Ten Years Ahead" public lecture, he pointed out that the AI era has arrived, like welcoming a new "iPhone moment." He predicts that three major technological mainlines—General Artificial Intelligence, Autonomous Driving, and Scientific Intelligence (AI for Science)—will reshape various industries. The underlying logic of enterprise value creation will also change—in the past, information asymmetry was a business opportunity, now AI makes information matching tend toward perfection; in the past, insufficient production capacity was the norm, now production overcapacity requires mining potential demands. Therefore, he believes that "uncertainty is the opportunity for creation". The essence of strategy will become more synonymous with innovation, with every executive and even every employee needing to possess strategic thinking, closely integrated with product technology. Zeng Ming also has prospects for talent: the future most needs creative talent with multi-dimensional perspectives and unique specialties, because AI will lower the threshold of professional knowledge, and composite creative talent will stand out. He encourages the younger generation to engage in learning cutting-edge technologies such as AI while cultivating humanistic insights, in order to lead innovation in the era of human-machine collaboration.

In summary, Professor Zeng Ming's strategic thinking system has painted for us a new blueprint for the intelligent business era: enterprise strategy must have the foresight to follow trends, as well as the agility for rapid trial and error; organizational management must be people-oriented and network-collaborative, allowing organizations to self-evolve like living organisms; innovation methods must dare to break boundaries, make good use of new technologies, and transform uncertainty into growth momentum. Looking toward the future, this system of thinking will continue to guide enterprises in finding the right direction amid turbulent technological changes and achieving sustained prosperity. As Zeng Ming says: "It takes ten years to achieve greatness," only by seeing the major trends, adhering to the mission, and continuously innovating can one stand invincible in the wave of new business civilization.

How to be an illuminator?

· 3 min read

An Illuminator is someone who has a significant and positive impact on the people around them through their interactions and communication style. Key characteristics of an illuminator include:

  1. Persistent Curiosity about Others: Illuminators are genuinely interested in other people. They continuously seek to understand others more deeply.
  2. Skilled in Understanding People: They have either innate talent or have developed the skill to understand others. This involves knowing what to look for in conversations and how to ask the right questions at the right time.
  3. Making Others Feel Valued and Seen: Illuminators have the ability to shine their attention and care on people, making them feel respected, acknowledged, and important.
  4. Bringing Out the Best in Others: Through their interactions, illuminators help people become better versions of themselves. They encourage others to be more honest, sharp, and to realize aspects of themselves they might not have articulated before.
  5. Creating a Sense of Empowerment: Islluminators have the ability to make others feel clever and important. This contrasts with diminishers, who make people feel small and unseen.
  6. Enhancing Productivity and Creativity: Illuminators can significantly boost the productivity and creativity of those around them, simply by being good listeners and engaging thoughtfully in conversations.

A Diminisher, in contrast to an Illuminator, is a person who negatively impacts those around them through their interactions and behaviors. They tend to make others feel small, unimportant, or unseen, often focusing self-centeredly on their own needs and interests.

How do illuminators have great conversations?

To be an effective conversationalist or an "illuminator," one must focus on deeply engaging and understanding others. Here are key takeaways:

  1. Mutual Engagement
    • Engagement is Key: Deep engagement in understanding others' thoughts and perspectives.
    • The Art of Conversation: Fostering two-way exchanges for mutual exploration and understanding. Being present and actively participating in conversations.
  2. Active Listening and Seeking Depth
    • Developing listening skills like full attention and physical engagement (nodding, eye contact).
    • Encouraging free expression and supporting the sharing of stories and experiences.
    • Specificity and Depth: Good conversations involve asking specific questions that encourage others to share detailed stories and personal experiences, helping them articulate their feelings and thoughts more vividly.
  3. Empathy and Understanding
    • Handling Pauses: Embracing pauses for thoughtful reflection and deeper understanding.
    • Looping for Clarity: Repeating or paraphrasing for clarity and confirmation of understanding.
    • Finding common ground in disagreements and prioritizing empathy over being right.
    • Keep the gem statement at the center, even though there are disagreements.
    • Don't be a Topper: Avoiding overshadowing others' experiences with your own.
  4. Facilitating Self-Discovery and Expression
    • Midwife Model: Assisting in others' process of self-discovery and expression.
    • The Importance of Being Listened To: Ensuring interactions make individuals feel heard, understood, and valued.

Being a good conversationalist is about creating a mutual journey of exploration, understanding, and deep listening, where both parties feel heard and valued.

Conducting User Interview

· 3 min read

User interview is a comprehensive process to find out and understand users, their problems, and potential areas for product improvement.

  • Objectives of User Interviews:
    • Refine hypotheses about the user: Understand their profile, motivations, and relationship with the product.
    • Clarify the user's problem: Grasp the problem in the user's words, its severity, and their current solutions or workarounds.
    • Identify potentially more valuable problems: Explore if other issues might be more critical to address.
  • Focus of Interviews:
    • Interviews should center on understanding problems from the user's perspective.
    • Avoid exploring potential solutions to prevent bias and leading the user.
  • Common Pitfalls:
    • Insufficient warm-up, leading to missed insights.
    • Leading questions that bias towards preconceived hypotheses.
    • Strict adherence to a script, missing new and valuable information.
  • Interview Trail Guide Framework:
    • Warm-up Phase: Build rapport and foundational understanding of the user. Small talks to introduce the team and the research. Ask for approval for recording. Emphasize that there are no right or wrong answers.
    • Build Phase: Gradually approach the problem hypothesis, allowing users to express their views, from general experiences to specific experiences.
    • Peak Phase (2/3 of the time): Deep dive into specific problem-related questions. Are we disucssing the right problem? Are users approaching the problem with any alternative ways? How painful is the problem?
  • Conducting the Interview:
    • Start with rapport-building questions.
    • Gradually narrow down to the specific problem.
    • Allow space for unexpected insights and follow up on them.
    • Spend substantial interview time in the peak phase, focusing on the hypothesized problem.
  • Final Steps:
    • Prioritize emerging problems during the interview.
    • Structure interviews to adapt to new insights and user feedback.

Examples

  1. Doordash:

    • Warm-up Phase: Questions might start broadly, touching on general lifestyle and habits, such as weekend routines and eating habits.
    • Build Phase: Narrowing down to food delivery experiences, with questions like why and how users order food delivery, their typical order times, and their general experience with food delivery.
    • Peak Phase: Specific questions about Doordash’s service, such as frequency of use, user experience with Doordash’s delivery time, and alternatives they resort to when delivery times are long. The goal is to assess whether their hypothesis about delivery time being a pain point is accurate.
  2. Rippling Employee Onboarding:

    • Build Phase: Questions might start with general feelings about onboarding new employees, tools or systems currently used, and issues faced with these tools.
    • Peak Phase: Focus on specific problems identified, like steps taken to onboard a new employee, tracking various requirements and deadlines, and the impact of current practices on the onboarding experience.

Four Steps to Rational Decision-Making

· 3 min read

Ordinary people have few opportunities to make decisions in life and work, and it is also difficult to practice and improve their decision-making skills. Most people's decisions rely on intuition, while rational decisions depend on processes. The book "Decisive" proposes a four-step process for rational decision-making — to increase the probability of making the best decision, we need to 1. broaden options, 2. test assumptions with facts, 3. step outside ourselves to see ourselves, and 4. prepare for wrong decisions.

1. Broaden Options

People mistakenly think that making a choice is as simple as answering multiple-choice questions on an exam, selecting one from three or five options. However, the world is vast, and options are not limited to just a few. For example, an advertising design company may develop multiple design proposals simultaneously and combine useful elements into the final design outcome after each round of feedback. This not only increases work efficiency but also saves time costs in decision-making. Additionally, one can refer to the base rates of others' choices in similar situations. Sam Walton, the founder of Walmart, closely monitored competitors throughout his career to adjust decisions in a timely manner. As decision-makers, we should find the best solutions by creating more options and referencing others' choices.

2. Test Assumptions with Facts

If practice is the only criterion for testing truth, then conducting experiments before making final decisions can relatively accurately estimate whether an idea will work. Many companies have evolved from hiring employees solely through interviews to requiring them to go through short trial periods, precisely to avoid the limitations of interviews and increase decision accuracy. A friend of mine tried staying overnight in a house before buying it and discovered that he could hear the train's horn, thus avoiding a significant mistake at a low cost.

3. Step Outside Ourselves to See Ourselves

When decision-makers become too immersed in their own viewpoints, they often overlook external perspectives. Therefore, to assess the potential outcomes of a decision, one should investigate the objective circumstances underlying the decision. Consider evaluating options from a broader temporal and spatial perspective, such as Andy Grove pretending to be the new CEO entering through the front door and cutting the memory chip business; Kai-Fu Lee hypothesizing that tomorrow's headlines will report on his two choices — one being emotional but unjust, the other just but unfeeling, and then choosing to be just as a leader; Jeff Bezos imagining himself at 80 looking back, using the "regret minimization framework."

4. Prepare for Wrong Decisions

When considering the outcomes of decisions, you should contemplate both the best and worst-case scenarios to understand your position. If the situation approaches the worst outcome, you can respond in a timely manner. Additionally, you can establish signals that make you aware of your actions, thereby weakening the inertia of behavior and correcting decisions promptly. Notably, to increase the speed of decision-making, Bezos believes that decisions are inherently unequal and should never be treated equally — reversible decisions should use lightweight decision-making processes.

How to Build a Good Relationship with a Mentor?

· 6 min read

Research shows that individuals with mentors perform better, advance more quickly in their careers, and experience greater satisfaction in both work and life. Mentors also benefit from the relationship, gaining insights while teaching others. Despite the many advantages—76% of professionals believe mentors are important for growth—over 54% of people lack such relationships.

The issue often lies in people not knowing how to find a mentor or build a relationship. The following nine steps can help you.

1. Clarify Your Goals and Specific Needs

Take out a pen and paper and write down your career goals. Ensure these goals are SMART. Then, list the biggest obstacles to achieving these goals. These specific needs will help you determine what kind of mentor you should seek. Perhaps you need to develop new skills, expand your network in a specific field, or build confidence for tough negotiations. Once you understand the person you want to become and the gaps and opportunities to get there, you can identify how a mentor can truly assist you.

2. Write Down the "Job Requirements" for Your Ideal Mentor

Knowing your goals and how to achieve them, think about how a mentor can help you. Describe the type of mentor who can help you seize the greatest opportunities or navigate challenges. Specifically, you may need a mentor to help you complete a project, introduce you to someone at a certain level in a specific industry, or guide you through difficult negotiations. Be sure to include "why" in your job requirements—just as companies want potential candidates to understand their broader direction, explain why mentoring you will yield greater rewards. When you reach out to potential mentors, share your job requirements so they understand why you're seeking mentorship and are more willing to help (as mentioned in points four and five).

3. Look for Mentors Through Your Second-Degree Connections

Mentors can come from anywhere. They might be part of your LinkedIn network, professional circles, or people you meet at conferences. Importantly, while people are undoubtedly busy, being invited to be a mentor is a tremendous compliment. People may decline, but it remains a positive interaction; be bold in trying and making requests, even if you think they might not have time for you. Let them decide whether to accept or decline.

4. Make Your Request (and Keep It Simple)

Asking someone to be your mentor for the first, second, or even third time can feel a bit awkward. You likely have never been invited to be someone else's mentor or taught anyone how to make this request. Embrace that discomfort. There's nothing wrong with asking, but take it slow. Invite others for an initial conversation to learn about their work and interests. Once you both know each other better, and if there's mutual agreement, you can make more requests for them to be your mentor. Conversely, sending a long email asking a stranger to be your mentor is less likely to be accepted.

5. Conduct the First Conversation

Your first conversation with a potential mentor has two goals. First, you want to determine if this person is the right mentor for you. Second, find out if they are open to mentoring you. How you conduct the conversation will depend on you, but generally, you’ll want to do the following:

  • Make the other person feel at ease. Choose a convenient location for them, prepare coffee (or tea), and keep the meeting low-pressure.

  • Spend time getting to know them. Ideally, let the mentor speak more, keeping your speaking time under 30%.

  • It’s okay to ask for small help right from the start. In fact, it may even help build the relationship.

  • Make a clear request: "I really enjoyed this conversation. If I make some progress on my goals within a month, could I follow up with you?"

  • Express gratitude, then follow up via email to thank them again.

6. Start Simple

For your next meeting, follow up on the previous one and keep it simple. Once they confirm a follow-up meeting, send an email outlining the agenda and hinting at building a long-term relationship. An example could be, "In our next chat, I’d like to quickly review what we discussed last time, and then I want to expand on that topic. I’ll prepare some specific questions that I think you can help me answer."

7. Establish a Structured Accountability Process and Draft a Mentor Agreement

After having one or two simple conversations, try to make a more formal request: would this person be willing to sit down with you once a month for the next six months until you achieve your goals or solve your issues? If they agree, consider drafting a simple one-page document outlining the tasks you aim to complete during these six months. While this may seem a bit excessive, it will clarify the goals for both you and your mentor. It will also help you define clear meeting content for each session. You might suggest, "I really appreciate your time and help, and I want to ensure I make the most of it. I was thinking I could prepare a simple document outlining my goals, my commitments to you, and the milestones I hope to achieve in the next three months. I think this will help keep me accountable and prepared for our conversations. Do you agree?"

8. Keep Following Up and Say Thank You

After each meeting, be sure to send a thank-you note. Additionally, when your mentoring relationship concludes, continue to express your gratitude. I once had a mentee email me two years after we worked together, and it made me very happy. In return, I helped her establish some new and interesting connections, and she did the same for me. So remember, asking for help is okay, but always ensure you express appropriate gratitude!

9. Use the Right Tools

To efficiently implement the above steps, I created a dedicated tool for myself Guanxi.io - End-to-End Encrypted Personal CRM, Free Registration, now open source, welcome to star.

How to Know If You Talk Too Much?

· 4 min read

When you are talking non-stop, it can be hard to notice that you are being overly enthusiastic. You may not even realize that the other person is only responding out of politeness or hinting that they want to leave.

Talking to others happens in three stages. In the first stage, your goals are clear, targeted, and concise. But then you may unconsciously find that the more you talk, the easier it feels. It’s so wonderful for you, relieving your tension, but it may not be as interesting for the other person. This is the second stage—when you feel good talking, you don’t even notice that the other person is not listening.

In the third stage, you have lost control of what you are saying and start to realize you might need to pull the other person back in. At this point, your monologue is disguised as a conversation, and you subconsciously sense that the other person is a bit annoyed. Can you guess what happens next?

Unfortunately, the typical response at this point is to talk even more to gain the other person's attention, rather than finding ways to get them to speak and listening to regain their interest.

Why does this happen? First, the reason is simple: everyone has a desire to be heard. But secondly, talking about oneself releases dopamine, the pleasure hormone. One reason talkative people keep talking is that they become addicted to this feeling of pleasure.

There is a method that has helped me, and it may help you too. It’s called the traffic light method. It is effective when talking to most people, especially Type A personalities, who often have less patience.

In the first 20 seconds of a conversation, you are at a green light: as long as your comments are relevant to the topic and serve the other person, your audience will appreciate you. Unless you are an exceptionally gifted speaker, talking for more than about half a minute will generally be considered boring and too talkative. So, in the next 20 seconds, the light turns yellow—now the other person starts to lose interest or thinks you are too verbose. By the 40-second mark, you hit a red light. Occasionally, you might feel tempted to run the red light and keep chatting, but most of the time, it’s best to stop, or you’ll be in trouble.

The traffic light method is just the first step to preventing you from talking too much. It’s also important to understand the underlying motivations for why you talk so much. Are you talking more just to feel good? Are you explaining your thoughts? Or is it because you often have to listen to others, and when you find an opportunity to speak, you just unload?

Regardless of the reason, talking too much usually leads to interruptions in the conversation and may result in both of you talking at each other instead of having a dialogue. This does not help advance the conversation or your relationship.

One reason some people talk too much is that they want to show the other person how smart they are, even though deep down, they may not feel that way. If this is the case, you should know that continuing to talk will only diminish the other person's impression of you.

Of course, some people just talk too much because they "may not have a sense of time passing." If this is the case, the solution is not to introspect but to cultivate a sense of how long 20 seconds and 40 seconds are. For example, use a watch to time yourself while on a call. You will gradually develop the habit of stopping when your traffic light is still green or at least yellow.

Finally, remember that if you do not involve the other person in the conversation, even a 20-second monologue can be off-putting. To avoid this, you can ask questions, try to build on what the other person says, and find ways to engage them in the dialogue. This way, you can achieve a real conversation instead of an ineffective one.

Hacking Product Management

· 15 min read

How to define, design, and sell a product that people like to use? How to manage self and a team to deliver results effectively? Here are the answers from industry leaders and renowned professors.

Join us on Telegram or WeChat(id: onetptp) to discuss and upgrade your PM skills.

  • Product Management
    • Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products? - Habits make you do things like no brainers. Businesses that know how to cultivate customer habits have a significant competitive advantage over others. The Hook Model teaches us how to form a user habit in four steps: trigger, action, variable reward and investment.
    • Telemetry Product Management Framework - A key role of product management is to make sure product development efforts are focused. The telemetry spreadsheet helps you visualize the roadmap, balance resource allocation, and hence keeps the project on track.
    • The Hierarchy of Engagement - To maximize the chances of building an enduring non-transactional customer company, we should build enduring engagement in three levels - growing engaged users, retaining users, and self-perpetuating.
    • Elements of Value - When customers evaluate a product or a service, they weigh the perceived value against the asking price. Products and services deliver fundamental elements of value that address four kinds of needs: functional, emotional, life-changing, and social impact.
    • MMRs, neutralizers, differentiators - There are three types of product features: MMRs, neutralizers, and differentiators. Customers often provide feedback on MMRs and neutralizers. The product management team must take responsibility for reinforcing the startup’s differentiator.
    • The 9x Effect - Companies often overweight their new product by a factor of 3 while consumers overweight the old product’s benefits by a factor of 3. So you have to be 9x better than the existing alternatives to win their market, which is called The 9x Effect.
    • 4 Guidelines for Website User Experience - To deliver a better website user experience, we concluded four guidelines from the book Don’t Make Me Think, Revisited: start with simple navigation; make an impressive home page; use visual hierarchies to present information; improve mobile loading speed.
    • Change Aversion - People hate new changes in a product they are already familiar with. To avoid change aversion, you can let users understand in advance and afterward, allow them to switch, ask them to give feedback, and finally remember to follow-through.
  • Strategy and Decision Making
    • Good Strategy, Bad Strategy 1 - A good strategy is often surprising but reasonable. A bad strategy is a formalism. Here are four hallmarks to detect bad strategies: fluff; failure to face the challenge; mistaking goals for strategy; bad strategic objectives.
    • Good Strategy, Bad Strategy 2 - Bad strategies are easier to be made in terms of three facts: it’s painful to make a choice; people like to follow templates without thinking; people tend to misbelieve that a positive attitude and a strong desire can earn them everything they want.
    • The Second Curve - When you know where you should go, it is too late to go there; if you always keep your original path, you will miss the road to the future.
    • Case Study: Amazon acquiring Whole Foods - Driven by the goal to take a cut of all economic activity, Amazon decides to develop grocery services. However, its grocery business has no first-and-best customer due to cost disadvantage. By acquiring Whole Foods, Amazon is buying more than a retailer - it’s buying a customer.
  • Marketing
    • What is a Market? - If two people buy the same product for the same reason but have no way they could reference each other, they are not part of the same market.
    • Diffusion of innovation - How does your product gain popularity? Answers from the model, the chasm, and the math.
    • TAL and the Chasm
    • Why take niche-and-next approach? - If the goal is to take over the mainstream market, why should we focus on the niche market in the beginning? First, You have to satisfy your customers so that they can be reference-able to others. Second, pragmatists favor market leaders. So be a big fish in a small pond.
    • Growth Phase 1: PMF - According to Ryan Holiday, to begin with PMF, we need to start with MVP and evolve with feedback, use data and information to back PMF, understand the needs of customers as early as possible and develop answers with the Socrates method.
    • Growth Phase 2: growth hack - How to find your growth hack? Ryan Holiday has some advice for you. Target a few hundred or a thousand key people, not millions. Do not target all people - target the right people. Focus on new user sign-ups instead of awareness. Use growth techniques.
    • Growth Team - A growth team is a team with the responsibility to measure and improve the flow of users. There are three mandatory skills of a growth leader: building growth models, developing experimentation models and creating customer acquisition channels.
    • AARRR Model - AARRR is a startup metrics developed by Dave McClure: Acquisition - how do users find you? Activation - do users have a great first experience? Retention - do users come back? Referral - do users tell others? Revenue - how do you make money?
    • Buyer Persona - To better sell products, you need to know your customers better. A generic buyer profile doesn’t help in knowing his buying decision. The most effective way to build buyer personas is to interview buyers who have weighed their options but finally made the decision you expect.
    • CAC / LTV / PBP - Customer Acquisition Cost is the cost to convert a customer to buy a product/service. Lifetime Value is the estimated net profit we can make from a customer. Payback Period refers to the period of time required to recoup the funds expended in an investment.
    • Lean Analytics: Simplified - Data and metrics play a vital role in business. The book Lean Analytics suggests some metrics for start-up founders to assess their success. By choosing the metrics more effectively, the entrepreneur can navigate through the unknown more effectively.
    • Lean Analytics: Slides
    • Mobile Analytics Metrics
    • How to run a tech community? - Why do people need the tech community? What is the value proposition of it? What are the interesting examples we can learn from? Why does it align with your blockchain company?
    • SaaS Sales Performance Metrics - David Schneider, ServiceNow's President of Customer Ops, shares his sales performance metrics for SaaS companies that are aiming for hyper-scale.
    • Persuasive Copywriting - Copywriting is the simplest and most direct way of impressing your customers. Persuasive copywriting = three means of persuasion + copywriting. Three means of persuasion are emotion, logic, and credibility.
    • 6 Elements to Create Sticky Ideas - Why some stories managed to spread quickly, live long and prosper? In Made to Stick, Heath brothers summarize six elements to create sticky ideas -- Simple, Unexpected, Concrete, Credible, Emotional, and Story, SUCCES for short.
  • People Management
    • Tips for First-time Managers - Julie Zhuo, the vice president of product design at Facebook, based on her own experiences as a first-time manager, gives some useful advice on how to become a good manager in her book The Making of a Manager.
    • Managerial Leverage - Managerial leverages can maximize the output of an organization. Those leverages are information gathering, information-giving, decision-making, nudging and being a role model.
    • Task-Relevant Maturity - A manager’s most important responsibility is to elicit top performance from his subordinates. Unfortunately, one management style does not fit all. A fundamental variable to find the best management style is task-relevant maturity (TRM) of the subordinates.
    • Managers and Bozos - Steve Jobs coined the phrase “bozo management”. Bozos referred to the professional managers who know how to manage but don’t know how to DO anything. It turns out the best managers are great individual contributors who never ever want to be a manger but decide to be one.
    • Responsibilities with RACI and DACI - When the organization grows too big, it becomes unclear that who should do what and who should decide what to do. RACI and DACI are here to clarify those responsibilities.
    • 3 Skills to Boost Group Performance - It is a common misbelief that the performance of a group hinges on the average capacity of its members. The truth is, the interaction and communication among group members are much more impactful. From the book The Culture Code, we conclude three skills to improve group performance: creating a safe working environment, showing your vulnerabilities, establishing a common purpose.
    • Making progress 30km/day - The Amundsen team successfully reached the South Pole first and won the competition with the Scott team. The success of the Amundsen team lies in their abundant resources and making progress 30km per day no matter what the weather is.
    • Good to Great - Leading a company to leap from good to great is like pushing a giant flywheel to breakthrough. Disciplined people, disciplined thought and disciplined action are indispensable.
    • Bikeshedding - Bikeshedding refers to the fact that members of an organization give disproportionate weight to trivial issues. To overcome the bikeshedding, we should have a clear agenda of the meeting and not mix complex topics with easy ones.
    • Ownership - The authors of the book Extreme Ownership were once task unit leaders of US Navy SEAL in Iraq. They draw on their experiences in the battlefields and conclude five rules for successfully leading a Navy SEAL team, providing useful references for any organization.
    • Building momentum for startup - The acceleration of rockets takes a propeller, and the acceleration of startups take the similar. There are two propellers: 1. Listen to the customer. 2. fast execution. How to achieve these two? Here is the answer from Suhail Doshi.
  • UX Research
    • How Dropbox scale its design research - Dropbox's design research team grew from 4 members to 30+ today. How do they scale the efforts healthily, even when the headcount for the team is limited? More researches usually mean more harm if they are done improperly.
  • Communication
    • Nonviolent Communication - Judgments and violence are tragic expressions of unmet needs. Nonviolent communication can improve communication quality by valuing everyone’s needs. It is NOT about being nice or making others do what we want.
    • Tailoring the arguments for persuading the decision maker - To improve the chances of success in persuading decision-makers, the way of message delivering should be considered carefully. There are five decision-making categories and they should be treated with different strategies.
    • Bullshit Detector - North Americans bullshit the most. Develop your mental device to detect deception, dishonesty, corruption, fraud, insincerity, hypocrisy and falsity.
    • Small Talking - Initiating a conversation with strangers is the biggest social fear. Actually, people often appreciate it when you make an effort to speak with them. Here we provide some ideas on how to start a small talk, what we should talk about and how to end it in a courteous way.
    • Exactly What to Say: Keywords for Impacts - There are several keywords and templates of sentences that can help you influence people. For example, a sentence like “I’m not sure it’s for you, but” is a non-intrusive recommendation. Saying “are you open-minded to do something” can encourage people to do something.
  • Managing Self
    • Time Management: Principles - It is very inspiring to learn time management from system admins (SAs) because we share the same challenges such as endless interruptions, simultaneous projects, and rush requests. SAs’ principles of time management may solve your problem of time management.
    • Time Management: Focus - Focus is the best friend of productivity. A fundamental work we can do to stay focused is to de-clutter our brain. Always be aware of stress and sleep level. Remember an un-distracting environment is necessary. Deal with interruptions effectively.
    • Time Management: Routines - Routines are useful tools in time management since they enable us to think once and do many. A routine can be anything in real life that has certain patterns. Try to develop your own routines!
    • Time Management: Cycle System - The key to perfect follow-through is the cycle system. It is called the cycle because it repeats every day and the output of one day is the input to the next. Three tools are used in the process - a to-do list, a calendar and a list of long-term goals.
    • Time Management: Cycle System in Action - The cycle system enables people to follow through. It suggests every day should start with your to-do list, hours needed and plans. The secrets also lie in writing down goals and scheduling things with the calendar, instead of your brain.
    • Work-life balance - Some job and career choices are fundamentally incompatible with being meaningfully engaged on a day-to-day basis with a young family. We should be careful with time frame and approach balance in a balanced way.
    • How to Get Rich? - How to get rich without getting lucky? Naval Ravikant summarized a few tips for you. Seek wealth instead of money or status. Understand that ethical wealth creation is possible. Ignore people playing status games. You’re not going to get rich renting out your time. You must own equity.
    • Taking truly restful breaks - People will burn out when having too much pressure. A truly restful break can help them to recover willpower and the power of attention. To take truly restful breaks, you need to fully switch off, take short breaks early and often and get out of the office.
    • Loving long with healthy diets - American Journal of Medicine says, disease, not age, is the most significant cause of death among over-100-year-old patients. And diets tend to the primary reason for disease. People often underestimate how food affects their physical and mental health.
    • Productivity Tips from Professionals - MIT surveyed nearly 20,000 professionals from around the world - 50% from North America, 21% from Europe, 19% from Asia, and the rest from Australia, South America, and Africa. Takeaways are ...
  • Business Model
    • Stages of Company Building - Initial Product > PMF > GTM Scale & Consistency > Org Building > Enduring Public Company
    • Economic Moat - An economic moat is the ability to maintain advantages over its competitors. It can provide protection for business’ long-term profits and market share. Technology is not an economic moat as it will always be duplicated.
    • Why Startups Have to Innovate? - Why startups have to innovate? Anna Karenina principle answers this question. Each successful company earns a monopoly by solving a unique problem whereas all failed are the same. If a startup does not innovate but copy from the market leader, people will not buy it.
    • Intangible Economy - The intangible economy is rising. It has three characteristics: Intangible assets can expand rapidly. Intangible assets are high-risk and irrecoverable investments. Intangible assets are easy to be duplicated.
    • Infinite Game - Business can operate like an Infinite Game and the ultimate goal of participants is to stay in the game as long as possible. In order to achieve that, businesses should get back to long-term thinking. In the book The Infinite Game, the author suggests companies need to have a Just Cause, build trusting teams, be flexible to changes, and learn from worthy rivals so as to gain advantages in the game.
  • Leadership
    • Definition of Technology Leadership - We engineers often boast about leadership without a clear definition of what we are saying. Here are the definitions to distill the clarity from those chaotic ramblings of the mass.
    • Technology Leadership Radar - How to evaluate the performance of a technology leader? Each company or individual has its own answer with engineering rubrics. And those rubrics usually focus on a specific role - IC (Software Engineer, Product Manager, Designer) or Engineering Manager. Is there a grand unified framework to evaluate the potential business impact that a technology leader could make?
    • Start with Why - People don’t buy what you do. They buy why you do it. Simon Sinek coined a phrase ‘Golden Circle’ which has three tiers, from core to exterior - why, how, and what. However, average leaders think from what, how, to why.
  • Corporate Ladder
    • Sponsor - Successful Caucasian men receive more career guidance than women and multicultural professionals even though more women have mentors than men. The reason is mentors can not help with promotions but sponsors can.
    • 12 Habits that can Boost Women's Promotion - There are 12 habits American women think would be helpful to their promotions. For example, remember to claim your achievements often because others will not notice and reward your contributions unless you say it. Also, you need to be aware that expertise is not the only criteria.
  • EP Doc Templates
    • EP Doc Templates - Templates make it easy to think and design clearly and rule out blind spots. (Though it may also introduce blind spots...) Here is a collection of templates that help you build better products.
    • PRFAQ - PRFAQ means press release and fequently asked questions. People at Amazon adopt it to write down requirements and important features of yet to be developed products.
    • ADR - ADR means Architectural Decision Record, a mini-doc to capture significant architectural changes that are not worth a full design doc.
    • OKR - A simple template for OKR with guiding policies.
    • Investment Memo - Template for writing an investment memo to capture the learning process before spending a large amount of money.

Building momentum for startup

· One min read
  • Listen to customers

    • Continuously communicate with customers
      • Making friends with customers is the simplest strategy: once they become your friends, you can bother them for feedback frequently. To a certain extent, sending chat messages is easier than emails and meetings.
    • Pick customers you serve
      • Exclude customers who are not painful about the problem you are solving
      • Exclude customers who want features that you haven't made yet
  • Fast execution

    • Define just the right scope
      • Usually, satisfy the simplest use case and wait to see what else people want. You will naturally know what to do next.
    • Develop an intuition for problem-solving
    • Maximize autonomy and promote a culture of prioritization by persuasion. At the same time, allow teams to choose their work based on their emotions, lives, and interests. Use persuasiveness and dynamic adjustment to drive progress.

SaaS Sales Performance Metrics

· One min read

David Schneider, ServiceNow's President of Customer Ops, shares his sales performance metrics for SaaS companies that are aiming for hyper-scale. For the last 5 quarters:

    • Total Contract Value Attainment
    • Total Managed (ACV, Renewal, PS)
    • Net New ACV Attainment
    • Sales Quota Achievement
    • Q/Q Growth
    • Y/Y Growth
    • Cumulative Total New Customers
    • New Customers (incl. losses)
    • ACV Repeat Customers % to Net New
    • Cumulative Total Net Customers
    • New Customers
    • # Reps On-Board
    • Average Productivity per Sales Rep
    • Sales Rep Annualized Attrition Rate
    • Total Sales Annualized Attrition Rate

Patrick McKenzie: Why is Stripe's Engineering Quality So High?

· 2 min read

You need enough chips to play the game — hire a sufficient number of high-caliber talents who care about quality and are smart enough. You must repeatedly emphasize the company's culture of valuing quality, forming formal routines to check large pieces of work and fix what needs fixing.

Tactically, there is a best practice — reduce the difficulty of doing the right thing. The Stripe tech team makes various trade-offs to ensure that any engineer can improve any part of the system. Encourage a sense of ownership.

There are dedicated internal tools to check the level of internationalization, which may seem tedious but is worth the time. It goes back to the company's culture; when an individual contributor says, "I spent some time on i18n last week," they should assume that leadership values this enough to respond, "Of course, you took the time to do this, great job."

"Open a ticket for the relevant team, and someone will handle it" is a good practice, but if you can push this system to resolve tickets faster and better, you can motivate people to open tickets.

The company provides dedicated channels, such as mailing list aliases, to report product quality bugs. There are dedicated teams to triage these tasks or assign them to the appropriate groups for fixing, along with established routines to inform the entire company about the bug fix rate.

Before making significant API changes, both internal and external testing should be conducted. Regularly ask, "Who has a real Stripe account on hand? Can we update to the beta version and try it out?" People need to set aside dedicated time for this and document it thoroughly — imagine having a group of picky customers; while you may not be able to use your product as deeply and broadly as users do, this approach is much better than guessing.

Discovering that "a piece of payment code hasn't been touched in 5 years, and I don't know how it works, and there are no tests" is rare but valuable for the engineering team.

None of the above is high-tech, nor is it a sufficient condition to guarantee quality. Stripe never settles for the current level of quality and does not passively say, "Our standards are high," but rather maintains a proactive approach to continuously improve.