We often hear that such and such a business venture failed, but did not think carefully about the root cause. In this article, the author describes the examples of business failures. If you are interested, come and have a look together. I hope it will be helpful to you.

There are still a few months until the end of 2022. Many teams can no longer make it through, and their startups have failed.

And they failed for a reason, many of which are obvious.

It's just that at some point, the boss or the manager of the enterprise is a fan of the authority and is not deeply aware of these.

The village head shared with you the reasons for the failure of many businesses before, and today I will talk about the most recent examples.

The village head company has two projects, of which I am in charge of project A and project B.

Project B has been in operation for almost a year. This year, we encountered some problems in the project, team, and market, and were forced to suspend it not long ago.

Because there are not many participants in Project B, the village chief only shared with you the root cause of its inability to continue from the perspective of a bystander.

The 01 project was never invented

This year, this B project has invested more than 3 million yuan from the start of project approval, research and development to its termination. The project is led and implemented under the will of the chairman.

The key investment of 3 million is the cost of employees and venues, which has nothing to do with the use and promotion of the project itself, not even formal promotion.

Because this project was conceived by the boss based on a small personal pain point, this brought about several problems.

One of them is that no one in the team can really grasp the pain points and needs of the boss, because they don't know enough about this kind of business scenario, which leads to the delay in achieving satisfactory results in product design.

The products made are very similar to existing products, so there is no differentiation and competitive advantage at all.

Second, because the boss came up with it himself, there are essentially no professional people and resources in the team except for the boss who is willing to invest money to try.

Therefore, employees with similar experience have to be recruited again, and the resources and capabilities of the original team are of no use.

But why bother?

The reason is also very simple. The boss is willing to spend money, but the management has no absolute will or right to change, so they can only bite the bullet.

But the facts have proved that in the actual market research and promotion, the biggest problem is whether the pain points are not painful.

It seems that there is such a problem, but the demand for this tool is not strong, even if the tool can improve efficiency, it doesn't matter.

02 Resources must match the business

Many bosses always want to do a little innovative business, or have a little Internet dream in their hearts.

For example, I met a boss in the traditional two-wheeler and battery industry who didn’t want to be a car anymore. He was quite a Douyin celebrity and a community.

Originally, I had a strong network, reputation, and voice in the industry, but when I went to Douyin to talk about business and management, the original resources were not fully used.

It seems that there is a little connection between business management and my previous experience, but the actual effect is not great.

Because the core of making short videos on Douyin is how to turn your experience into something you can watch, how to get traffic, and how to turn it into a commodity.

Therefore, it shoots short videos for more than half a year, broadcasts live three times a week, and has few fans.

But a female boss I know used to do skin management, and then made an account on Kuaishou.

There are only 20,000 to 30,000 fans, and the live broadcast room has never seen more than a hundred, but it can sell hundreds of thousands every month.

Because her previous knowledge, lectures, customers, and commodity sources can all be used.

I am most afraid that the boss will not use the resources. I have never done something I have never done before. If my heart is not strong and the funds are not sufficient, I will give up after doing it for a while.

This happened to our B project this year. Whether it is the internal founding team or externally recruited BAT members, there is no value that can be used and promoted for the business itself.

03 Don't be a talker

Many bosses have a rigid impression of the employees of big factories, or feel that if their companies are not worthy of BAT employees, they are not high enough.

Our B project also made such a mistake, because it is in Hangzhou, so we mainly recruited some employees from Ali, Dingding, Netease, and Byte.

The positions given are all senior managers, product directors, operations directors, etc., with salaries above 25K, and there are even people with many years of experience in 4A companies.

But I want to remind everyone that not all the people from big companies are really capable.

Especially at the level of business, there are very few people who can actually implement and get results.

The higher the position, the lower the executive power, because he positions himself as a manager.

But for small and medium-sized enterprises, especially start-ups with 10 or 20 employees, what they need are firm executives.

In addition, in addition to execution, you also need to bring your own resources.

For example, if you recruit sales, you will have the information and channels of your original customers.

For example, products, operations, and recruiting will clearly know how to do the product, how to change it, what kind of path to design, what kind of activities to do, and so on.

In the process, what I deeply felt was just the opposite. It was a group of people who were right in what they said, understood everything, but couldn't do anything.

It is useless for start-ups to make PPT beautiful, it is useless to sit in a conference room and analyze it, it is useless to study this, to investigate and learn.

Talents recruited by start-up companies are for hard work, and they can work when they come.

The boss knows how to do it, the team knows how to do it, everyone has their own resources to use, the most important thing!

Even for students who have no resources, it is possible to implement it unswervingly.

For example, a member of our A team does not use any resources, but the responsible Zhihu channel, every week, three accounts can post 100 articles and questions and answers, bringing more than 100,000 exposures, which is better than those with several accounts. It works for people who have a monthly salary of 10,000 and talk about it.

04 Powers and responsibilities are unclear, and there is no core person in charge

In the implementation of Project B, another problem is that the rights and responsibilities are not clear.

This project was initiated by the chairman, but there is no clear person in charge of the project.

So a lot of work in the early stage was carried out as a product manager or operating in the organization.

Later, a market leader was recruited. Because he was more active in doing things, he was appointed as the project leader.

But the rights and responsibilities of the project leader are not clear, because he is only a manager, and there are product managers and operation managers in the team. How to manage this?

In the specific implementation, I can't command others, let alone order others.

As a result, the execution of the entire project was carried out separately, and the progress of the project was delayed again and again.

05 All failed teams have problems, and the authorities are obsessed

The above four points are the core reasons for the failure of project B. In fact, every failed project has such and such problems.

But why are many problems only recognized after failure, or only bystanders?

This is definitely not an afterthought, but most bystanders do not have the right to criticize or stop a project that is being implemented.

Maybe he had a chance to express it, but no one listened carefully and adjusted the execution.

For example, you feel that your team director is unreliable and has average ability, but you, as a commissioner or manager, have no decisive role.

Fans of the authorities, many bosses or executives don't really have the courage to accept criticism or give up a project.

Because of giving up because of acknowledging your mistakes, or even losing opportunities because of it.

For example, how could a corporate director give up a salary of 30,000 to 50,000 yuan?

As long as the boss is willing to pay wages, he is willing to fool the boss for one more day until the project can't go on.

Therefore, many times the project fails, and many people are powerless.

As the end of the year approaches, I hope that the teams and friends who are on the road to entrepreneurship will seriously reflect on their own teams, products, and decisions, and it is not too late to make up for it.

Columnist

Shili Village, WeChat public account: Shili Village (shilipxl), everyone is a product manager columnist. Occasionally share life, pay attention to e-commerce, technology, and new things.

This article was originally published on Everyone is a product manager, without permission, reprinting is prohibited.

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