What are we going to catch from more fish today? Its origins, how to achieve the MVP, the rise of the three elements, these points to talk about the company in depth.
01 What is catching more fish?
Catching more fish is what, simply put, is a second-hand circulation bookstore opened in WeChat, they first pay to collect the book from the user's hand, and then identify, disinfect, renovate, package and then sell it on the shelves, which is a C2B2C model. The apparel and electronics categories have also been expanded.
They only had small programs before, and now they have also made apps. In addition to online, offline has also opened two stores in Beijing and Shanghai.
02 The Soul of Catching More Fish: CatSuke
Catching more fish starts with two people: CatSuke and Chen Tuo.
Cat Helper, whose real name is Wei Ying, is the soul of catching fish. During the university period, I had a practice and interest in second-hand trading, left Sohu at the beginning of 13 years, went to Zhihu, was the marketing director, mainly engaged in marketing promotion and community operations, in April 16 and then went to idle fish, 9 months later, more catch fish (Beijing) Technology Co., Ltd. was established.
Chen Tuo is the cornerstone of catching more fish. Former head of commercial products and former head of Douban community development. The idea of not having his cat help would not have landed.
During his college years, Cat Helper often "sucked for sale". This feeling of idle goods circulation is something that Catsuke likes very much, and he is determined to make the second-hand circulation bigger and stronger in a commercial way.
Dreams run through The rest of Inosuke's career, and she will also go to Japan to visit large and small second-hand bookstores to absorb inspiration from them, of which BOOKOFF is the most inspired.
BOOKOFF was founded in the 90s and expanded from the second-hand book category to various categories:
If you are familiar with catching more fish, I believe you know that electronic products and clothing are the new categories of catching fish, is it seen in BOOKOFF?
Catsuke's love of the second-hand industry and insight into business make catching more fish become more catching fish.
03 MVP for catching more fish
So how does catching more fish go from 0 to 1?
They have several stages in starting a business:
1. During the research period,
First, the market judgment, Japan and the United States of the second-hand industry is very mature, China is also gradually developing, first- and second-tier cities have accumulated a lot of good things, there are many pioneers in the market have good results, it seems that the time is OK.
Second, why books? Books are standard, each book has an ISBN code, you can get the cover, publisher, price, reviews, etc. Standards are important in order to circulate well. Books are still relatively frequent, and Amazon also cuts into the whole category from the beginning of books.
Third, whether it can make money, from the survey data, at least the business will be very healthy, is a possible business model.
Fourth, back to the user level, the biggest pain point of the seller is convenience, and soon the book can be transferred out, and the biggest demand of the buyer is good quality and low price, otherwise why buy second-hand.
2. Start-up period.
There are several issues that need to be validated with the MVP after activation:
- Does anyone really sell books?
- What is the content and quality of the books received?
- How big is the size of the warehouse to keep the sale and selling in circulation?
- How much is it appropriate to sell at a few folds?
- Can you make money in the end?
These important points are finally verified by a WeChat group + Excel table.
The way of operation is to pull the people around the team who like to read to the WeChat group, the people who want to sell books at the group owner, private chat, take pictures, choose the books to buy, and then call the courier, after receiving the courier, check the WeChat money, and then go to the group to tell everyone that there are new books!
After running for a while, the group verified that it was OK:
That's a good MVP. After verifying the MVP, I caught more fish before I began to think about how to design products to improve the efficiency of this trading link.
04 Three elements of the rise of more catch fish
I think these three elements, many people do not have a clear understanding, so this part I hope you will watch carefully:
One. Business logic is the bottom
Idle Fish in June 2014, Cat Suke went to Idle Fish in April 2016, and did more catching fish in January 2017, and it's hard to say that there is no factor to learn here.
Idle fish is a typical C2C, does not intervene in transactions, has a fund guarantee mechanism, but will not be drawn from transactions.
For users, there are two biggest costs in the C2C transaction process: the cost of communication and the cost of matching.
On the surface, the emergence of more fish is to reduce these two costs.
At a deeper level, only by deeply controlling the transaction can we maximize the value from it. The profit model of catching more fish is very simple, the bid-ask spread, the realization of this value depends on whether the user buys with the platform or buys with the user.
So the business logic of catching more fish is well designed, C2B2C.
Two. The algorithm regulates as a kernel
"Algorithms are used to seek second-hand books on the market and its demanders, and algorithms to manage this supply and demand relationship and pricing system"
This phrase is the essence of catching more fish, but few people are aware of the key element.
You think one thing, after the user scans the ISBN code on the book with more fish, he will immediately get the book is not charged, how much money is charged, right.
So how to decide whether this book is or not, how much is it?
This thing is a bit like stocks, the stock market is also a supply and demand relationship, second-hand book trading can be considered a low-frequency stock market, the price is adjusted according to supply and demand, behind which is statistics and economics.
More fish will be set up at the beginning of the database, because the book is a standard product, can also be exhausted (such as grabbing from the Douban), there is a function in the early days is the arrival reminder, if a book has accumulated a certain arrival reminder, it must indicate that the user has needs, you can go to collect the book.
This leads to a high inventory turnover rate of more catches, and the time from shelf to sale of books can be about 16 hours early.
Behind it is more the role of algorithms and databases. So we can understand that the core of catching fish is algorithms, and it's a technology company.
Three. Supplemented by community tone
For catching more fish, it is more appropriate to have a content community.
Build connections around content. The biggest gripper for catching more fish is still the book list, and the book list user can co-create it with the user.
Also, on the book details page, you can see who bought and sold the same book, and you can see who recommended a book in the book list, including reviews.
From here is to be able to read the book that this person bought and sold, which to some extent helps users to follow the vine, find the person who agrees, and find good books by the way.
This brought a sense of brand identity beyond function to the high degree of recognition of multi-catch users in the early days.
However, with the expansion of the number of users, most users are buying and selling second-hand books as the core appeal to catch more fish. I don't believe you can see, you bought books on more fish, have you received a bean mail? Maybe you don't even know what bean mail is.
In order to maintain the community tone, the logic of closed invitations is basically adopted, and not everyone can comment, create or self-propose books on books.
At present, it is difficult for us to perceive the community culture of catching more fish, so community tone may have been a very powerful weapon in the early days, but now, the convenience of selling books and the reasonable price of buying books are more important factors.
05 Is catching more fish in second-hand books the endgame?
In fact, I myself and another book-related platform founder is a good friend, he is a big tree, he made a log cabin to get Lu Qi's leading first phase of YC China's incubation investment.
What does the chalet do? A simple understanding can be thought of as Netflix for BOOKS. Is a book rental company, you apply for membership here, you can rent books without restrictions, 4 books at a time, free round-trip postage.
Funky, this can be considered a shared logic.
The difference between it and catching more fish is that more fish is not a book, but only assists in completing the circulation of the book transaction, while the log cabin book, the user borrows books from the chalet.
Most people probably know how to catch fish, but they probably haven't heard of cabins.
In the car sales method, there is a kind of financial leasing, that is, you can own the right to use the car, but you do not have to take ownership of the car. I believe that many people may not have heard of it. This strategy is similar to a log cabin.
But a big problem is that Chinese always want things to be their own, and the price of the books themselves will not be very high, and the cost they need to pay is not large, so they tend to have them.
Both will face some challenges in business, the challenge of catching more fish is the supply is unstable, because more fish is more after receiving books and then selling, there will be some books that some people buy but no one sells, Super himself did not grab the goods after many times to remind the goods to turn off the reminders.
In theory, the log cabin can achieve a stable supply, which is nothing more than more books. But the reality is not entirely so, there are problems such as capital occupation, warehouse occupation and book loss, which will bring some challenges to its own business.
Later, the cabin used a new strategy, but also a new product to carry: white bear rent books.
The logic of the White Bear is costco's logic, that is, to spend some money to buy members, and then you can rent books at a very low cost. Don't make money on logistics and book rental, earn membership fees.
I prefer this model. Then White Bear's selection will tend to be popular bestsellers, and the public will be more receptive, a good business, and Super's own selfish desire is to hope that it can be bigger.
We have to admit that the way to make more money is to buy and sell, and although it will create some value in it, the algorithm will be given extra meaning, which is also my concern: the price of collecting books is getting lower and lower, the price of selling books is getting higher and higher, and the algorithm is guaranteeing that commercial companies can maximize the benefits.
If there is only one company on the market that can make the second-hand books circulate efficiently, then it has "pricing power", which is actually a monopoly in the sense of fact to some extent, and what is more frightening is that there is a so-called literary and artistic atmosphere behind it.
I personally very much dislike the emergence of such a state, which has been verified to some extent from the consumer's point of view:
In Super's own video, 70% of sweet potatoes use too much fish to sell books, and Super's own small red book fan portrait is a first-tier city in the north, Guangzhou, and Shenzhen, indicating the popularity and user coverage of more fish in these places.
The comments with the most likes are also expressing this view.
So second-hand books, catching more fish is the end game? I personally do not want this, the format should be rich and diverse, consumers can choose the right one.
For log cabins and white bear rental books, you can search in the mini program.
brief summary
DuoYu is a C2B2C commercial company that started from the second-hand book trading, gradually expanded its category, and also released its own app. Its founder, Maosuke, has a love for the second-hand industry, research and insight, and from the beginning of the company's establishment, he wanted to understand that catching more fish is actually an algorithm-centered technology company. Then its MVP is also very interesting, which is verified by using WeChat group + EXCEL. The three elements of the rise of more catch fish are: business logic as the bottom, algorithm regulation as the core, and community tone as the supplement.
Author: Super Huang focuses on product dismantling & self-growth in two directions