In the movie, Social Network, Mark Zuckerberg stressed the importance of implementation. Idea is just a concept and avague hint on how to make things in reality. When a strategist or a service developer makes a plan for a new service or business, they firstly focus on the issue of “what” and “where”. It’s very important to consider various business areas. But sometimes alot people excessively spend their time on deciding its accurate and more reasonable options.
<A Scene From “Social Network”>
When we talk about other services such as Gypsii, Loopt, Foursquare and Gowalla, they have the common character of user-participated geo-coding service. But the detail service feature is different between the two. And results of businesses are also different. Foursquare has gathered over 10 million users based on its creative idea – check-in. The factor that affects to its success is very delicate and seems to be too small to be ignored. What is the difference between iPhone and other smartphone which were released before? The viewpoint of function and strategy should not be underestimated. But everyone knows the strongest point of iPhone is user experience which is totally differentiated from other gadgets.
When I participated in TechCrunch Disrupt in Beijing, one of the key issues was “copycat” products from Chinese companies. As many experts pointed out, those services are not easy to be expanded globally even though they are leading the Chinese market. The real competitiveness is coming from the “how to”. A concept is just a concept. You can not evade a trial error. Rather, quick launching is appropriate to make it more perfect. So many people insist that “Lean Growth” can work well in an internet industry. Launching with a core component and simple concept is the essence for the future.