From the blue ocean to the Shura field, go to sea to start the "reverse" time machine theory cycle

❌ Why do we ask product managers to stop talking about "time machine theory"?
🤔️ Is the PLG scraped from Silicon Valley a "panacea" for growth?
🤯 Why is it said that "compliance" is the first lesson that must be taken when going overseas?
😎 Is it necessary to ask whether to hire local employees?

The industry's first programmer variety show "Ape Table School" has some stalks, insights and insights. Welcome to the [Rongyun Global Internet Communication Cloud] video account to watch the program.
In EP11 of "Ape Table School" on August 2, Song Qingchen, general manager of Rongyun's overseas business, opened the "Frank Bureau" together with Wang Chao, partner of Eggplant Technology, and Chen Hao, CTO of Hektar , and talked deeply about "from going overseas to globalization". Son.

Eggplant Technology started to go overseas from the tool business in 2015, and gradually expanded to many fields including cross-border payment; Hektar, formerly known as Beeto, is a Middle East social product hatched by a major domestic manufacturer in 2020, and once rushed to the top of the Saudi social product list; Rongyun is Since the early days, it has embarked on the road of globalization as a communication cloud partner of developers, and its services cover 233 countries and regions around the world.

Rongyun Global Internet Communication Cloud, will make a live reservation at 19:00 on August 18th for the third quarter of the Ape Desk Party [Global Localization Evolution, the Basic Law of Team Management]

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Why do we ask product managers to stop talking about "time machine theory"?

Chen Hao, Hektar CTO

Chen Hao:
In the early years of overseas business, we believe that the "time machine theory" is effective. Our technology and talent reserves are very sufficient. When we go to an emerging market, it is easy to quickly win a market. But looking at it again in the past two years, the "time machine theory" has gradually become less well-informed, because the vast majority of overseas users have been educated by some major software and formed their own aesthetics and appeals.

New entrants will face the situation of being compared. The user will ask for certain functions of the bidding product, but when you are done, he will also put forward new requirements. It is difficult to surpass a platform simply by chasing, because chasing never ends .

I think it has now entered the "reverse time machine" period , and the user's requirements for you are higher than the domestic standards. He believes that you should be a full-featured, high-quality product as soon as you sell it, and the ease of entering the blank market in the early days to win success no longer exists.

This also puts forward a new requirement for our globalized enterprises, that is, if they want to be deeply rooted overseas, they must do localized innovation from the very beginning. Localized innovation requires you to have a certain amount of local accumulation, discover user needs from the market segment, and then design products based on the exact needs of users.

Wang Chao:
We also mentioned the "time machine theory" internally at the earliest time. Everyone thinks that it will be a win if this method of play in the Chinese market is used in emerging markets, because this is a dimensionality reduction attack. But in fact, we suffered a lot in this matter later, especially in new products, everyone has different expectations for you.

Therefore, we later strictly prohibited product students from talking about "time machine theory".

What happened in the Chinese market can be your inspiration or your lesson, but it should never be your template . It will not work to use the "time machine theory" to set up a product.

Song Qingchen:
"Time Machine Theory" is actually a "lazy" channel for ourselves. Applying this theory, investing some models or products in emerging markets seems to be able to reduce dimensionality, but in fact these are all our imaginations.

When an enterprise uses the "time machine theory" to develop overseas business, we cannot strip away the huge influence of specific regions and development stages, including necessary restrictive factors such as its economic conditions and geopolitics. So the "time machine theory" seems to be simply understood as a dimensionality reduction blow (to emerging markets), but in fact it is really complicated. When expanding our customers and market territory, we can only use it to assist some strategic decisions in our development, but we must not copy them. This is really too dangerous.

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The battle between "big and complete" and "small and beautiful" third-party services

Song Qingchen, General Manager of Rongyun Overseas Business

Song Qingchen:
Our requirements for third-party services integrated in the product have indeed gone through a process from "big and comprehensive" to "specialized and refined".

In the past, products that provided comprehensive functions may have problems that are not close to the user. In the process of getting closer to users, our products are becoming more and more "specialized and refined". Moreover, I think that a service that is easy to go global must remove some local cultural attributes . If we strongly bind a service to cultural attributes, it will be difficult for it to go abroad.

The IM instant messaging and RTC real-time audio and video services that Rongyun has been deeply cultivating are very subdivided and vertical fields on the one hand, and basic services that support human communication on the other hand, without any special cultural attributes. This also makes it easier to go out in the global development of the core.

Wang Chao:
Looking at this from a product perspective, I personally think that it is difficult for us to make products with a "big and comprehensive" idea.

When we tried to bring out some of our internal capabilities as products to everyone, we found that this is indeed the case. Because everyone's thinking and accumulation in all directions are actually quite sufficient, it is difficult for one platform to solve all problems. We think that the closed-loop design of our products is quite complete, but many customers do not use them according to our design.

Because there is always a contradiction between the individual demands of customers and the abstraction ability of services , you always hope to abstract enough common needs, but for customers, common needs will not bring differentiated competitive advantages. What customers are looking for must be your special capabilities in a specific region and your optimization capabilities for specific scenarios, and we finally ask ourselves to be narrower and narrower.

So, I think "small and beautiful" is a must-have for successful products in this industry.

Chen Hao:
From a technical perspective, many third-party services themselves have a solid technical foundation. When we choose third-party services, especially when we make overseas projects, we need an efficient and stable service, and some vertical services are very advantageous.

Some services like IM instant messaging and RTC real-time audio and video have certain technical difficulties if they are self-developed. And in overseas business, we have to face the problem of overseas nodes. You know, the overseas network situation is much more complicated than China.

I think these problems can be solved boldly by third-party services. Therefore, I think this kind of intensive service on a certain track is more suitable for globalization , and it also has an advantage in the competition.

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Globalization is the superposition of "numerous localizations"

Wang Chao, Partner of Eggplant Technology

Wang Chao:
In today's global market with frequent black swan events, I think data compliance and supervision are already in an equally important position as cultural compatibility .

At present, all countries are trying to extend their management tentacles through long-arm jurisdiction. We must find a solution in the space where various "long arms" are intertwined. Therefore, data compliance and data localization governance are the first compulsory courses for all companies going overseas . This lesson is about life and death, and if you don't fix it, it may even wipe out your years of hard work overnight.

In addition, today's globalization is very different from the globalization we understand in the traditional sense.
Traditional globalization is more global expansion with a high potential productivity, and even becomes a cultural symbol and cultural symbol.

Today's globalization is actually the result of the superposition of countless and subtle localizations. So I think the real globalization is to make each country localized enough.

From this perspective, whether to hire local employees is a question that needs no discussion because the answer is obvious.

In the process of globalization, it is very important that the team is resilient enough. A team that can fight against the wind is a truly excellent team.
This is also one of the deepest feelings we had when we got back up after being broken down in India.

Since then, when we build a team, we will adjust the priority of skills and knowledge to the back, and put the most basic attributes of people at the top. Because knowledge and skills can be obtained through training, but some basic characters of people are innate.

Another important point is that there are more and more variables in the ocean business today, and we must firmly grasp the fulcrum of data-driven . Combine variables and non-variables to form a formula that guides the team's day-to-day work. A resilient team with the highest program of this action can adapt to today's overseas environment.

Chen Hao:
I also think that globalization is actually a localization strategy for each country. Taking our experience as an example, we see that Saudi Arabia and Egypt seem to be very close, and they both speak Arabic, but when you really go deep into the local market, you will find the personnel stratification, content preferences, and even the content they play in these two countries. The stalks are completely different.

If you want to go deeper, you can only rely on hiring a local employee to explain the semantics for you.

In this process, national isolation of data is also necessary. For example, there are actually some religious factions in the Middle East world. When entering a new market, a lot of energy must be invested in compliance. These all require the guidance of our local staff.

So I think, on the first day of entering a market, you should recruit local people. Even local people largely determine whether the product can continue to move forward , because the initial word-of-mouth spread and the subsequent ensuring that the app will not go wrong are all centered on them.

In terms of management, I think that from the day you choose to start a business, you should do a good job of education on setbacks, including for yourself and the team. Throughout the process of starting a business, there are bound to be variables of one kind or another. At this time, it is very important whether the core members have a relatively strong resistance to setbacks.

In addition, when we do business overseas, we must be compliant, follow local policies, and follow our country's major policies . For example, we are currently in line with the country's established policy of "One Belt, One Road", so even if there are some black swan events, make sure that your team has a sufficient talent density, adjust your mentality, and go back to the road.

Song Qingchen:
In line with everyone's business localization strategy in the direction of going overseas, Rongyun's global layout mainly has two key points.

The first is that Rongyun strives to polish its products to be localized enough to open up a new market. We will conduct in-depth research on the coverage area, including issues such as LAN stability that greatly affect user experience. We need to make the local users use it smoothly and reliably before going to the local shop.

Another point is to cooperate with partners to do some capabilities to assist you in localization, such as adapting to local product components, as well as very important content review services.

In the process of auditing services, we found a very interesting phenomenon. Everyone knows that GDPR is a general agreement for content review in Europe. Its terms of the agreement are very sound, and the corresponding penalties are also very strict.

The situation in the United States is not the same. In addition to GDPR, it also uses CCPA and agreements such as COPPA for children. Moreover, in different states in the United States, the boundaries between the enforcement and punishment of such clauses are also blurred.

Therefore, in terms of auditing, we must need local employees to help us do the calibration when we go to the local area, and this is done from the beginning, otherwise it may bring great hidden dangers to business development.

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Is Silicon Valley's PLG really a "magic bullet" for growth?

Chen Hao:
In fact, SLG (Sales-led Growth, sales-driven growth), simply put, all people revolve around customers. Behaviors under the principle of "signing first" often have the risk of not being able to meet customer expectations in the later stage.

Why did you start talking about PLG (Product-led Growth, product-driven growth) all these years? Because everyone ultimately revolves around the product to reach end users. One of the advantages of PLG is to provide standardized services, and the business layer that meets different scenarios can be left to customers to do.

The industry's move from SLG to PLG is a trend because it makes your product more competitive. But at the same time, I don't think SLG can be completely abandoned. After all, sales-oriented services are often developed around a few large customers. I think that PLG will gradually become a more dominant strategy in the future, but it is impossible to completely replace SLG.

Wang Chao:
PLG has been very popular for a while, and this wind has blown from Silicon Valley to the world. But in fact, I think whether it is PLG, SLG, or MLG (Marketing-led Growth, marketing-driven growth), in fact, the ultimate core is growth.

So around the "growth" thing, we should look at what kind of growth you want. Your product features, it will define the specific direction of your growth.

For example, if your product itself is driven by 3 to 5 large customers to drive 80% growth, it is a bit out of reality if you rely on PLG.

If your product's marginal effects account for more influence, then consider how medium and long-tail customers will be acquired. At this time, it is obviously not possible to rely on SLG, whether it is MLG or PLG, it must be considered.

At this stage, you will find that PLG is very important and will bring me enough marginal effects. But don't forget that it was actually those big customers who supported your basic market at the earliest.

So the specific mode selection requires us to have a deeper insight into the organization. Who makes decisions? Who will introduce the change? To say that we don't think about it, and just adopt it because the concept is more popular, would be a waste of time.

So I think the key is to chase growth, which is determined by your product characteristics and stage.

Song Qingchen:
I don't think one growth model can be sacrificed for another. For example, in order to pursue PLG, it is definitely inappropriate to abandon SLG. Fundamentally, it still needs to be in line with our current development stage and forward path .

We look at SaaS companies such as Slack, Zoom, and Figma, which started out with the PLG model. At the beginning, they also pursued the differentiated value of their products and had a wider product coverage. But it is precisely because they have transformed from a single customer to serving a large customer through the assistance of SLG in the process of pursuing growth, that they have achieved their current market position, and at this stage, SLG has become the dominant.

So, it is the mixed business model of PLG and SLG that helps them grow from a small company to an international big company.