本文由 ones ventures 任宁翻译
该文微信公众号：宁愿折腾
译者按：作者Sanjeev Agrawal从麻省理工毕业，曾是谷歌的首任产品营销负责人。随后他曾三次在创业公司担任要职，可说是硅谷连续创业者的典型代表。这篇文章里提出的这五个小测试，创业者可以默默地在心里过一遍。其实，更令我不由地思考的是文末提到的“不要去找融资”的观点。只要事情做得足够好，钱和人就会自己找上门？逻辑上似乎是通顺的，但也许“用事找钱还是看钱办事”这永远是个仿佛“先有鸡还是先有蛋”那样的无解问题。
Everyone I know has a “killer app” idea.
每个做app的创业者都觉得自己的主意简直太牛了。
A lot of entrepreneurs come to me with a shiny new app they’ve built that’s “cool”. From sharing cooking videos to self-diagnosing broken bones. I’ve built several apps myself — some succeeded, some failed — and I can tell you “killer” or “cool” doesn’t lead to success. But there are some common rules I’ve learned that I am going to share.
许多创业者带着自己做的“很酷的”app来找我，内容包罗万象，从分享做菜视频到骨折的自我诊断，什么玩意儿都有。我自己也做过几个app，有成有败。可以十分确定地说，“酷”或者“牛”并不总是意味着成功。但我想分享一些我一路走来学到的教训——并不高深，算是几条基本原则吧。
First, consumer ideas come easily. Look around and everything seems broken. It’s easy to reimagine a better way to do many things. Plus it doesn’t cost much to quickly build something and test it out. In many ways it’s unprecedented — today you could build and launch an app within a few days, and in theory get a million users without spending a dollar on marketing.
首先，2C的主意总是最容易想的。看看你的周围，简直太多东西是可以被改善的了。要想出几个“用更好的方法去做某事”的点子简直轻而易举。而且现在要做个app出来测试测试其实成本也不大，你可以几天就做个原型，然后（理论上）不花一分钱推广费就有可能获取百万级别的用户。从许多意义上来说，这是个史无前例的时代。
Second, it’s very tempting, especially if you can quickly build it yourself. Traditionally, entrepreneurship was all about who you know and what you know. The internet has changed that — today it’s about how fast you can iterate and how much traffic you can drive. The traditional glass walls are gone.
第二，正是由于门槛低、好实现，所以“做个app”这个想法会显得特别诱人。在以前，创业时最重要的是你认识些什么人和你知道些什么事。但现在最要紧的是你能多快完成迭代和你能导多少流量。传统的那些壁垒已经消失不见。
Third, neither of the first two means that your app will succeed. There’s a LOT of noise out there — getting noticed is hard.
第三，就算你把迭代和导流做得再好，也没法保证你的app能成功。外界噪音太多，要获得用户的注意力很难。
Very hard.
准确来说，是非常非常难。
There’s no formula for this. No one can tell you if your app will take off or not — everyone knows you have to test it out. Unlike B2B ideas where you can (and should) do customer discovery in advance, the only way to test out consumer ideas (especially mobile apps) is to build something and show it around.
没有什么锦囊妙计能完全解决这个问题。也没人能预言某个app会不会成——地球人都知道，你不试就永远不知道结果。B2B的项目还尚且可以（也应该）提前敲定若干种子用户，2C的app要想测试就只能等做出来以后到处给人看。
A 1000 people SurveyMonkey survey won’t give you any conviction. Asking your friends won’t help either. But, if you build something and show it around, you might get a good sense of where it’s headed.
真的，问问朋友或者在网上搞个千人问卷调查没什么用。但如果你把app做出来并且逢人就给他们看，你倒还可能会获得更清晰的思路。
So here’s a framework I’ve developed over the years to think through app ideas — a small set of filters that ideas have to pass before you begin execution.
我总结了创业几年以来的经验，搞了一个流程来梳理做app的思路——可以说是一个小过滤器，帮你在实际执行之前过滤掉那些不靠谱的想法。如果你的app卡在某一关过不去，那你也许就该好好再想想了。
It’s Personal
It has to be a problem or pain point you personally have. My previous startup was about a pain point I personally had, both as a job seeker and as an employer. The one before that was about eliminating the pain of text and voice search on mobile through contextual content push.
第一关：它是以人为本的
它必须是个你自己的问题或者痛点。我上一次创业就是源于我自己在找工作和招人的过程当中实际遇到的一个痛点。再在那之前的项目则是用结合上下文的内容推送来解决移动平台上文字和语音搜索的难题。
Unless you are the core user, you’ll be doing a lot guesswork about the user persona, pain point, and right solution. And it has to be a strong enough pain point that you’d be fine if you were the only user.
除非你自己就是核心用户，否则你无法否认你就是在尽可能猜测用户的喜好、痛点和可能的解决方法。这些痛点必须足够“痛”，不然你很有可能就是你的app的唯一用户。
A simple exercise: Look at all the ways you can achieve what you’re thinking about, and honestly ask yourself “does the world need really need this app?”
通关测试：人们通过你的app能达到的那个目标，目前还有没有其他的方法可以达到？把所有的方法都绞尽脑汁想一遍，然后诚实地回答自己，“这个世界真的需要这个app么？”
It has an Audience
Forget about a million users — find 100 people that would give your app a shot on day one when you launch. These are your very first, golden users that will help you validate the core idea, tune the experience, and fix issues before you open it up for more. Without that initial validation and seed users who love your app, you’re driving blind.
第二关：它具有受众
先别去想百万用户——先找到一百个愿意当你的内测小白鼠的人，他们是你珍贵的种子用户。他们会帮你完善你的核心想法，改善用户体验，并且帮在你正式推广前更正一些错误。没有这批喜欢你的app的种子用户，你就相当于是在闭门造车或闭眼开车。
A simple exercise: Build a clickable prototype, put up a landing page, and drive traffic to it. Ask the people that signed up and clicked through the experience — what they like about it and why it’s better than what they’re used to.
通关测试：做一个简单的网站和一个app原型（不必真的能用，能点就行），然后往上面导流。找些人注册下载并且感受一下用户体验，问问他们什么地方是他们喜欢的，以及他们认为这个app是如何解决了现实中的问题的。
It’s Simple but “Complete”
If it takes you more than 30 seconds to explain your idea, you lost me. Consumer attention spans are very very small. So it has to be idiot simple. And that’s not just with messaging, but with your initial user experience and the core product.
第三关：它简洁而完整
如果来找我的人光解释想法就要耗掉30秒以上，我一般就不太听下去了。用户是最没耐心的了，所以你的想法必须简洁得让任何人都能秒懂。不仅仅是向用户传达信息时要简洁，你的核心产品和用户体验也必须是那样。
At the same time your app has to provide some “complete” service — push a button and order a taxi and pay for it without worrying about it. Take a picture and click one button to share across your favorite networks. Something the user finds valuable because it makes something hard easier. Or cheaper. Or more fun. Ideally all the above.
与此同时，你的app也需要提供某些“完整”的服务——比如按一个键就能打到出租车并且顺利支付车钱，或者按一个键就能拍张照然后分享到网上。只有让某件事情变得更简单，或更便宜，或更有趣（最理想的情况是三者皆有），用户才会觉得这个app值得用。
A simple test: Show it to a few people at Starbucks and don’t say a word. If they don’t get it, you need to go back to the drawing board.
通关测试：跑到咖啡馆里把你的项目给随便什么人看但别做过多解释。如果他们看不太明白，那就代表革命尚未成功，你仍须努力了。
It’s Novel
There’s no room for “me too” apps these days. Unless the app makes something 10x better or has a wow factor that’s hard to resist, chances of getting attention are very low. It’s not just about fancy UI — think about the end to end user experience and how your app makes it fundamentally better. Look at similar apps and be honest about asking yourself why the world needs another one.
第四关：它是独特的
现在人们已经越来越看不起找个东西来山寨的行为了。除非山寨品能做出什么比原作好十倍的功能，否则没人会特别留意它。漂亮的用户界面设计也不是灵丹妙药，还是好好想想你的app要如何通过改善体验而解决真正的问题吧。看看跟你类似的app们，然后扪心自问那个老问题：“这个世界真的需要我这个app么？”
A simple test: If your Starbucks test users don’t get a “wow” feeling, it’s probably not novel.
通关测试：如果上一关里人们看到你的app而被惊艳到，那它应该就足够独特了。
It’s Small
This might sound counter intuitive, but it’s not. If a market or behavior is popular, that means lots of people are already playing in that space. Just because Uber is successful doesn’t mean every “Uber for X” will be. The best ideas are the ones that look small or unattractive today but can become very big — often called “shadow markets”. These are the ideas that most people reject, a few get, and a lot more can adopt. Look for the intersection of “old ways” of doing things and “new ways” of doing things and play there.
第五关：它很小
这点乍听可能有点儿反直觉，但其实并不是。如果一个市场早就备受瞩目，或某个行为业已变得流行，那多半就意味着这个相关领域已经人满为患了。优步的成功并不意味着每个“某某界的优步”也都能鸡犬升天。最优秀的想法，往往在今天看起来很小，不那么吸引人，但是未来会变得很大——这常被称做“影子市场”。大部分人会不喜欢这样的“小”想法。看得懂的人虽不多，但也会有不少人愿意尝试看看。可以从app与传统行为习惯的共同点入手，逐步引导。
A simple test: Create a simple pitch deck with your market analysis and show it around within your entrepreneur or investor circles. If people dismiss it as a “small idea”, it’s probably a good idea.
通关测试：做一份商业计划书给创投圈内的朋友们看。如果大家都觉得这个想法有点“小”，那它可能反而倒还不错。
Finally, a lot has been said about this already, but I’ll repeat: Don’t waste your time seeking funding. There’s this myth that you can get an app built for $20k and go raise $500k. That just doesn’t work, and even if it does, that’s the wrong way to do it. That distraction will derail you from your core focus on the product.
最后，虽然已经有很多人这么说了，但我还是想重复：别浪费时间去主动找融资。虽然有一种神话叫“用2万美金做一个app出来就可以拿它去融50万美金”，但这条路是行不通的。退一万步，就算行得通，这也不是条正路。老想着融资会让你“出轨”——不能一心扑在产品上。
If you build something that gets traction, you will get a lot of help, and it’ll come very quickly.
So don’t build that killer app yet — vet out your idea thoroughly, and if it passes your filters, just focus on the product and get traction.
如果你做的app很吸引人，你会极快地获得很多帮助。所以别急着动手，先彻底检查一下你的想法，如果它通过了所有测试，那就集中精力在产品上，努力吸引用户。
Traction trumps everything.
吸引力胜过一切。有了它，万事大吉。
