📖 在读

Lean Analytics

Use Data to Build a Better Startup Faster

✍️ 作者

• Alistair·Croll
• Benjamin·Yoskovitz

📅 出版日期

2024-4-02

🌐 语言

EN-US (关联版本: 精益数据分析)

🔢 ISBN

9781098168186

阿利斯泰尔企业家、作家、演讲家，用户体验管理先锋公司 Coradiant 联合创始人。曾花大量时间研究各种规模的组织如何使用数据做出优良决策、加速创业过程。他职业生涯的大部分时间都是技术公司的产品经理，是 O'Reilly Strata、TechWeb Cloud Connect、Interop 企业云计算峰会、International Startup Festival（国际创业节）等 5 个国际知名技术大会的主要发起人。

本杰明目前担任广受欢迎的二手货买卖应用 VarageSale 产品管理副总，主要负责 Web 和移动平台的产品开发。他是 Standout Jobs 和 Year One Labs 公司联合创始人，曾积极指导众多创业公司和其他加速器项目。他创办了以精益创业、产品管理、创业公司和企业家精神为主题的博客 Instigator Blog，并定期在创业会议上演讲。他也是天使投资人、连续创业者，具有 15 年以上的互联网产品运营经验。

前言

精益创业运动正在激励一代创业者。它帮助你识别商业计划中最具风险的部分，然后找到快速迭代学习以降低这些风险的方法。其大部分见解可以概括为一句话：不要销售你能制造的，而要制造你能销售的。这意味着要弄清楚人们想要购买什么。

不幸的是，很难知道人们真正想要什么。很多时候，他们自己也不知道。当他们告诉你时，往往是什么他们认为你想听到的。更糟糕的是，作为一名创始人和企业家，你对其他人如何看待事物有强烈的、几乎令人难以承受的先入为主的观念，这些观念以微妙和阴险的方式影响你的决策。

分析可以帮助。衡量某事会让你负责。你被迫面对不方便的真相。并且你不会浪费你的生活和金钱去建造没有人想要的东西。

精益创业帮助你构建进度并识别商业中最具风险的部分，然后快速学习它们以便适应。精益分析用于衡量进度，帮助你提出最重要的问题并快速获得清晰的答案。

在这本书中，我们将向您展示如何确定您的商业模式和您的成长阶段。我们将解释如何找到对您当前最重要的指标，以及如何划定界限，以便您知道何时加速，何时猛踩刹车。

精益分析是您业务每个阶段的仪表盘，从验证问题是否真实，到识别您的客户，到决定要构建什么，到在潜在的收购者面前占据有利位置。它不能强迫您根据数据采取行动——但它可以将数据放在最显眼的位置，使您更难忽视，并防止您完全偏离轨道。

本书适合谁

这本书适合那些试图构建创新事物的企业家。我们将引导您通过分析过程，从想法产生到实现产品/市场契合以及超越，这本书既适合那些刚开始创业旅程的人，也适合那些正处于其中的人。

网络分析师和数据科学家也可能发现这本书有用，因为它展示了如何超越传统的“漏斗可视化”，并将他们的工作与更有意义的企业讨论联系起来。同样，参与产品开发、产品管理、市场营销、公共关系和投资的企业专业人员会发现其中的许多内容相关，因为它将帮助他们理解和评估初创公司。

我们将要涵盖的大多数工具和技术最初应用于消费者网络应用程序。然而，如今它们对更广泛的受众很重要：独立的地方企业、选举管理人员、商业对商业的初创公司、试图从内部改变系统的“叛逆公务员”，以及在大公司内部进行创新的“内部企业家”。*

在这方面，精益分析适用于任何试图使其组织更有效的人。在撰写这本书的过程中，我们与小型家族企业、全球性公司、新兴的初创公司、竞选组织者、慈善机构，甚至宗教团体进行了交谈，他们都正在将其组织中的精益、分析方法学付诸实践。

本书如何使用

这本书里包含了很多信息。我们采访了超过一百位创始人、投资者、内部创业者和创新者，其中许多人与我们分享了他们的故事，我们收录了三十多个案例研究。我们还列出了十多个你可以立即应用的最佳实践模式。我们将内容分为四个大的部分。

• 第一部分侧重于对精益创业和基本分析的理解，以及你需要成功所需的数据驱动思维。我们回顾了多个用于构建你创业公司的现有框架，并介绍了我们自己的、以分析为中心的框架。这是你了解精益分析的入门指南。在本节结束时，你将对基本分析有一个很好的理解。

• 第二部分向你展示如何将精益分析应用于你的创业公司。我们考察了六个样本商业模式以及每个创业公司在发现正确产品和最佳目标市场时所经历的五个阶段。我们还讨论了找到对你业务至关重要的那一个指标。当你完成时，你会知道你的业务是什么，你处于什么阶段，以及应该做什么。

• 第三部分探讨了什么是正常的。除非你有一个明确的界限，否则你不知道自己做得好还是不好。通过阅读这一部分，你将获得一些关键指标的良好基准，并学习如何设定自己的目标。

• 第四部分向你展示了如何将精益分析应用于你的组织，改变以消费者和企业为中心的初创企业的文化，以及成熟企业的文化。毕竟，数据驱动的方法不仅适用于新公司。

在大多数章节的末尾，我们提供了一些问题，你可以回答这些问题来帮助你应用你所读的内容。

模块构建

Lean Analytics doesn’t exist in a vacuum. We’re an extension of Lean Startup, heavily influenced by customer development and other concepts that have come before. It’s important to understand those building blocks before diving in.
精益分析并非孤立存在。我们是精益创业的延伸，深受客户开发和其他早期概念的影响。在深入之前，了解这些基础构建块非常重要。

客户开发

客户开发——由企业家和教授史蒂夫·布兰克（Steve Blank）提出的一个术语——直接针对过时的“造好了他们自然会来”的瀑布式产品开发方法。客户开发专注于收集持续的反馈，这些反馈将对产品和业务的每一步方向产生实质性影响。

布兰克首先在他的书《创业的四个步骤》（Cafepress.com）中定义了客户开发，并与鲍勃·多夫（Bob Dorf）在《创业者手册》（K & S Ranch）中完善了他的想法。他对创业的定义是他作品中最重要的概念之一：

创业公司是一个为了寻找可扩展和可重复的商业模式的组织。
在阅读本书的其余部分时，请记住这个定义。

精益创业

当埃里克·莱斯将客户开发、敏捷软件开发方法和精益制造实践结合到一个快速高效地开发产品和企业的框架中时，他定义了精益创业流程。

最初应用于新公司，Eric 的工作现在被各种规模的组织用来颠覆和创新。毕竟，精益不是关于廉价或小，而是关于消除浪费和快速行动，这对任何规模的组织都有好处。

精益创业的核心概念之一是构建 $\to$ 测量→学习——你做一切事情的过程，从建立愿景到构建产品功能到开发渠道和营销策略，如图 P-1 所示。在该周期中，精益分析专注于测量阶段。你的组织越快地完成周期，你就能越快找到合适的产品和市场。如果你测量得更好，你更有可能成功。

图 P-1. 构建 $\to$ 测量 $\to$ 学习周期

该周期不仅仅是一种改进产品的方法。它也是一个很好的现实检查。构建必要的最小产品是 Eric 所称的创新会计的一部分，它帮助你客观地衡量进展。精益分析是一种量化创新的方法，让你越来越接近持续的现实检查——换句话说，就是接近现实本身。

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P A R T O N E : STOP LYING TO YOURSELF

第一部分：停止欺骗自己

探讨为什么你需要数据才能成功。
处理一些基本的分析概念，如定性数据、定量数据、虚荣指标、相关性、队列、细分和领先指标。考虑过度依赖数据的危害。
稍微思考一下你应该在生活中做什么。

It depends on what the meaning of the word “is” is. William Jefferson Clinton
这取决于“是”这个词的含义。威廉·杰斐逊·克林顿

We’re All Liars

我们都是骗子

面对现实吧：你疯了。

我们都疯了——有些人比其他人更疯。企业家是最疯的。

企业家尤其擅长欺骗自己。欺骗甚至可能是成为成功的企业家的一项先决条件——毕竟，在没有充分、确凿的证据的情况下，你需要说服他人某件事是真的。你需要信徒与你一同冒险。作为一名企业家，你需要活在一种半幻觉的状态中，才能度过创业过程中不可避免的过山车般的旅程。

小谎言是必不可少的。它们创造了你的现实扭曲场。它们是成为企业家的必要部分。但如果你开始相信自己的吹嘘，你就不会生存下来。你会过度沉溺于你创造的泡沫中，直到你撞上硬墙——然后泡沫才会破裂。

你需要欺骗自己，但不能到危及你业务的地步。

这就是数据发挥作用的地方。

你的幻想，无论多么有说服力，在严酷的数据面前都会枯萎。分析是欺骗的必要制衡，是夸张的阴阳相生。此外，数据驱动学习是创业成功的基石。这是你了解什么有效，并在资金耗尽之前迭代出正确的产品和市场的方法。

我们并不是说直觉不好。直觉是灵感，你需要在创业旅程中倾听并依赖它。但不要自我毁灭。直觉很重要；你只需要去测试它。直觉是实验。数据是证明。

The Lean Startup Movement

精益创业运动

Innovation is hard work—harder than most people realize. This is true whether you’re a lone startup trying to disrupt an industry or a rogue employee challenging the status quo, tilting at corporate windmills and steering around bureaucratic roadblocks. We get it. Entrepreneurship is crazy, bordering on absurd.
创新是艰苦的工作——比大多数人意识到的更艰苦。无论是试图颠覆行业的孤独创业公司，还是挑战现状的叛逆员工，挑战企业风车和绕过官僚障碍，都是如此。我们理解。创业是疯狂，接近荒谬。

Lean Startup provides a framework by which you can more rigorously go about the business of creating something new. Lean Startup delivers a heavy dose of intellectual honesty. Follow the Lean model, and it becomes increasingly hard to lie, especially to yourself.
精益创业提供了一个框架，让你能够更严谨地从事创造新事物的业务。精益创业提供了一剂强烈的智力诚实。遵循精益模型，越来越难说谎，尤其是对自己说谎。

There’s a reason the Lean Startup movement has taken off now. We’re in the midst of a fundamental shift in how companies are built. It’s vanishingly cheap to create the first version of something. Clouds are free. Social media is free. Competitive research is free. Even billing and transactions are free.* We live in a digital world, and the bits don’t cost anything.
精益创业运动之所以现在能迅速发展，是有原因的。我们正经历着公司建设方式的根本性转变。制作第一个版本的东西成本极低。云是免费的。社交媒体是免费的。竞争研究是免费的。甚至计费和交易也是免费的。*我们生活在一个数字世界，比特是免费的。

That means you can build something, measure its effect, and learn from it to build something better the next time. You can iterate quickly, deciding early on if you should double down on your idea or fold and move on to the next one. And that’s where analytics comes in. Learning doesn’t happen accidentally. It’s an integral part of the Lean process.
这意味着你可以构建一些东西，衡量其效果，并从中学习，以便在下一次构建更好的东西。你可以快速迭代，尽早决定是否要坚持你的想法，或者放弃并转向下一个想法。而这就是分析学发挥作用的地方。学习不是偶然发生的。它是精益过程的一个组成部分。

Management guru and author Peter Drucker famously observed, “If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it.”† Nowhere is this truer than in the Lean model, where successful entrepreneurs build the product, the go-tomarket strategy, and the systems by which to learn what customers want— simultaneously.
管理大师和作家彼得·德鲁克曾著名地观察到，“如果你不能衡量它，你就不能管理它。”在精益模型中，这一点比任何地方都更真实，成功的创业者同时构建产品、市场进入策略以及学习客户想要什么的方法。

Poking a Hole in Your Reality Distortion Field

穿破你的现实扭曲场

Most entrepreneurs have been crushed, usually more than once. If you haven’t been solidly trounced on a regular basis, you’re probably doing it wrong, and aren’t taking the risks you need to succeed in a big way.
大多数创业者都被击垮过，通常不止一次。如果你没有定期被彻底击败，你可能做错了，并且没有承担成功所必需的风险。

But there’s a moment on the startup rollercoaster where the whole thing comes right off the rails. It’s truly failed. There’s little more to do than turn off the website and close down the bank account. You’re overwhelmed, the challenges are too great, and it’s over. You’ve failed.
但在创业过山车上的某个时刻，一切都偏离了轨道。它真正失败了。除了关闭网站和关闭银行账户，几乎没有什么可做的了。你感到不知所措，挑战太大，一切都结束了。你失败了。

Long before the actual derailment, you knew this was going to happen. It wasn’t working. But at the time, your reality distortion field was strong enough to keep you going on faith and fumes alone. As a result, you hit the wall at a million miles an hour, lying to yourself the whole time.
在实际的脱轨发生之前，你就知道这会发生。它根本不行。但在当时，你的现实扭曲力场足够强大，足以让你仅凭信念和燃料继续前进。结果，你以每小时百万英里的速度撞上了墙壁，自始至终都在欺骗自己。

We’re not arguing against the importance of the reality distortion field— but we do want to poke a few holes in it. Hopefully, as a result, you’ll see the derailment in time to avoid it. We want you to rely less on your reality distortion field, and rely more on Lean Analytics.
我们并不是反对现实扭曲力场的重要性——但我们确实想在这上面戳几个洞。希望因此，你能及时看到脱轨，避免它。我们希望你少依赖现实扭曲力场，多依赖精益分析。

CASE STUDY Airbnb Photography—Growth WithinGrowth

案例研究 Airbnb 摄影——增长中的增长

Airbnb is an incredible success story. In just a few years, the company has become a powerhouse in the travel industry, providing travelers with an alternative to hotels, and providing individuals who have rooms, apartments, or homes to rent with a new source of income. In 2012, travelers booked over 5 million nights with Airbnb’s service. But it started small, and its founders—adherents to the Lean Startup mindset—took a very methodical approach to their success.
Airbnb 是一个令人难以置信的成功故事。在短短几年内，该公司已成为旅游业的巨头，为旅行者提供了替代酒店的选择，为有房间、公寓或房屋出租的个人提供了一种新的收入来源。2012 年，旅行者通过 Airbnb 的服务预订了超过 500 万晚。但它起步很小，其创始人——精益创业思维的拥护者——采取了非常系统的方法来取得成功。

At SXSW 2012, Joe Zadeh, Product Lead at Airbnb, shared part of the company’s amazing story. He focused on one aspect of its business: professional photography.
在 2012 年的 SXSW 大会上，爱彼迎的产品负责人 Joe Zadeh 分享了公司令人惊叹的故事。他专注于公司业务的一个方面：专业摄影。

It started with a hypothesis: “Hosts with professional photography will get more business. And hosts will sign up for professional photography as a service.” This is where the founders’ gut instincts came in: they had a sense that professional photography would help their business. But rather than implementing it outright, they built a Concierge Minimum Viable Product (MVP) to quickly test their hypothesis.
一开始是一个假设：“拥有专业摄影的房东会获得更多生意。而且房东会作为一项服务来注册专业摄影。” 这就是创始人直觉发挥作用的地方：他们有一种感觉，专业摄影会帮助他们的业务。但他们并没有直接实施，而是构建了一个管家式最小可行产品（MVP）来快速验证他们的假设。

What Is a Concierge MVP?

什么是管家式 MVP？

The Minimum Viable Product is the smallest thing you can build that will create the value you’ve promised to your market. But nowhere in that definition does it say how much of that offering has to be real. If you’re considering building a ride-sharing service, for example, you can try to connect drivers and passengers the old-fashioned way: by hand.
最小可行产品是你能为市场创造价值的最小构建物。但在那个定义中，并没有说明这个产品需要有多少是真实的。例如，如果你正在考虑构建一个拼车服务，你可以尝试用传统的方式：手工连接司机和乘客。

This is a concierge approach. It recognizes that sometimes, building a product—even a minimal one—isn’t worth the investment. The risk you’re investigating is, “Will people accept rides from others?” It’s emphatically not, “Can I build software to match drivers and passengers?” A Concierge MVP won’t scale, but it’s fast and easy in the short term.
这种方法是管家式服务。它认识到有时候，即使是一个最简化的产品，也不是值得投资的。你所调查的风险是，“人们会接受他人提供的乘车服务吗？”它绝不是，“我能开发软件来匹配司机和乘客吗？”管家式最小可行产品（MVP）无法扩展，但在短期内是快速且简单的。

Now that it’s cheap, even free, to launch a startup, the really scarce resource is attention. A concierge approach in which you run things behind the scenes for the first few customers lets you check whether the need is real; it also helps you understand which things people really use and refine your process before writing a line of code or hiring a single employee.
现在启动一家创业公司成本很低，甚至免费，真正稀缺的资源是注意力。在最初几名客户背后运行管家式服务，让你能够检查需求是否真实；它还有助于你了解人们真正使用哪些东西，并在编写一行代码或雇佣一名员工之前优化你的流程。

Initial tests of Airbnb’s MVP showed that professionally photographed listings got two to three times more bookings than the market average. This validated the founders’ first hypothesis. And it turned out that hosts were wildly enthusiastic about receiving an offer from Airbnb to take those photographs for them.
Airbnb 的最小可行产品（MVP）的初步测试显示，专业摄影的房源比市场平均水平多获得两到三倍的预订。这验证了创始人最初的假设。而且事实证明，房东对于 Airbnb 提供为他们拍摄照片的提议非常热情。

In mid-to-late 2011, Airbnb had 20 photographers in the field taking pictures for hosts—roughly the same time period where we see the proverbial “hockey stick” of growth in terms of nights booked, shown in Figure 1-1.
2011 年中期至晚期，Airbnb 有 20 名摄影师在实地为房东拍照——大约是预订夜数出现传统“冰球杆”式增长的同一时期，如图 1-1 所示。

图 1-1 用 20 名摄影师和人们的公寓能做出多么惊人的事情 2012 年 11 月 9 日，星期五

Airbnb experimented further. It watermarked photos to add authenticity. It got customer service to offer professional photography as a service when renters or potential renters called in. It increased the requirements on photo quality. Each step of the way, the company measured the results and adjusted as necessary. The key metric Airbnb tracked was shoots per month, because it had already proven with its Concierge MVP that more professional photographs meant more bookings.
Airbnb 进一步进行了实验。它给照片添加了水印以增加真实性。它让客服在租客或潜在租客来电时提供专业摄影服务。它提高了照片质量要求。每一步，公司都衡量了结果并进行必要的调整。Airbnb 跟踪的关键指标是每月拍摄次数，因为它已经通过其管家 MVP 证明了更专业的照片意味着更多的预订。

By February 2012, Airbnb was doing nearly 5,000 shoots per month and continuing to accelerate the growth of the professional photography program.
到 2012 年 2 月，Airbnb 每月几乎要进行近 5000 次拍摄，并且继续加速专业摄影计划的增长。

摘要

• Airbnb 的团队猜测更好的照片会增加租赁。
• 他们用 Concierge MVP 测试了这个想法，在测试中投入了最小的精力，以获得有效结果。
• 当实验显示出良好结果时，他们建造了必要的组件并将其推广到所有客户。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析经验教训

Sometimes, growth comes from an aspect of your business you don’t expect. When you think you’ve found a worthwhile idea, decide how to test it quickly, with minimal investment. Define what success looks like beforehand, and know what you’re going to do if your hunch is right.
有时，增长来自于你意想不到的某个业务方面。当你认为找到了一个有价值的主意时，决定如何快速地、以最小的投资来测试它。事先定义成功的样子，并知道如果你的猜测是对的，你将做什么。

Lean is a great way to build businesses. And analytics ensures that you’ll collect and analyze data. Both fundamentally transform how you think about starting and growing a company. Both are more than processes— they’re mindsets. Lean, analytical thinking is about asking the right questions, and focusing on the one key metric that will produce the change you’re after.
精益是建立企业的好方法。而分析确保你会收集和分析数据。两者都从根本上改变了你如何看待创办和成长公司。两者都不仅仅是流程——它们是思维方式。精益、分析思维是关于提出正确的问题，并专注于那个将产生你所追求的变化的关键指标。

With this book, we hope to provide you with the guidance, tools, and evidence to embrace data as a core component of your startup’s success. Ultimately, we want to show you how to use data to build a better startup faster.
通过这本书，我们希望为您提供指导、工具和证据，让您将数据作为创业公司成功的关键组成部分来拥抱。最终，我们想向您展示如何利用数据更快地打造一家更好的创业公司。

How to Keep Score

如何计分

Analytics is about tracking the metrics that are critical to your business. Usually, those metrics matter because they relate to your business model— where money comes from, how much things cost, how many customers you have, and the effectiveness of your customer acquisition strategies.
分析学关注的是跟踪对您的业务至关重要的指标。通常，这些指标之所以重要，是因为它们与您的商业模式有关——钱从哪里来，成本是多少，有多少客户，以及客户获取策略的有效性。

In a startup, you don’t always know which metrics are key, because you’re not entirely sure what business you’re in. You’re frequently changing the activity you analyze. You’re still trying to find the right product, or the right target audience. In a startup, the purpose of analytics is to find your way to the right product and market before the money runs out.
在创业公司中，您并不总是知道哪些指标是关键的，因为您并不完全确定自己从事的是什么业务。您经常改变分析的活动。您仍在尝试找到合适的产品或目标受众。在创业公司中，分析的目的是在钱花光之前找到通往合适产品和市场的方法。

What Makes a Good Metric?

什么是一个好的指标？

Here are some rules of thumb for what makes a good metric—a number that will drive the changes you’re looking for.
以下是一些关于什么是一个好指标的经验法则——一个能推动你所期望变化的数字。

A good metric is comparative. Being able to compare a metric to other time periods, groups of users, or competitors helps you understand which way things are moving. “Increased conversion from last week” is more meaningful than ${}^{66}2\mathrm{\%}$ conversion.”
一个好的指标是具有可比性的。能够将指标与其他时间段、用户群体或竞争对手进行比较，有助于你理解事物的发展方向。“上周转化率的增加”比“0%的转化率”更有意义。

A good metric is understandable. If people can’t remember it and discuss it, it’s much harder to turn a change in the data into a change in the culture.
一个好的指标是易于理解的。如果人们记不住它并讨论它，将数据变化转化为文化变化就会更加困难。

A good metric is a ratio or a rate. Accountants and financial analysts have several ratios they look at to understand, at a glance, the fundamental health of a company.* You need some, too.
一个好的指标应该是一个比率或速率。会计师和财务分析师会查看多个比率来快速了解公司的基本健康状况。你也需要一些这样的指标。

There are several reasons ratios tend to be the best metrics:
比率通常是最好的指标有以下几个原因：

• Ratios are easier to act on. Think about driving a car. Distance travelled is informational. But speed—distance per hour—is something you can act on, because it tells you about your current state, and whether you need to go faster or slower to get to your destination on time. • Ratios are inherently comparative. If you compare a daily metric to the same metric over a month, you’ll see whether you’re looking at a sudden spike or a long-term trend. In a car, speed is one metric, but speed right now over average speed this hour shows you a lot about whether you’re accelerating or slowing down. • Ratios are also good for comparing factors that are somehow opposed, or for which there’s an inherent tension. In a car, this might be distance covered divided by traffic tickets. The faster you drive, the more distance you cover—but the more tickets you get. This ratio might suggest whether or not you should be breaking the speed limit.
• 比率更容易采取行动。想想开车。行驶的距离是信息。但速度——每小时行驶的距离——是可以采取行动的，因为它告诉你你的当前状态，以及你是否需要更快或更慢才能按时到达目的地。
• 比率也天然具有可比性。如果你将一个每日指标与同一个月的同一指标进行比较，你会看到你是面对一个突然的峰值还是一个长期趋势。在汽车中，速度是一个指标，但当前速度与平均速度的比较能告诉你很多关于你是否在加速或减速的信息。
• 比率也适用于比较那些某种程度上相互对立或存在内在张力的因素。在汽车中，这可能是一定距离除以交通罚单。你开得越快，行驶的距离就越多——但得到的罚单也越多。这个比率可能会建议你是否应该超速行驶。

Leaving our car analogy for a moment, consider a startup with free and paid versions of its software. The company has a choice to make: offer a rich set of features for free to acquire new users, or reserve those features for paying customers, so they will spend money to unlock them. Having a full-featured free product might reduce sales, but having a crippled product might reduce new users. You need a metric that combines the two, so you can understand how changes affect overall health. Otherwise, you might do something that increases sales revenue at the expense of growth.
暂时放下我们的汽车比喻，考虑一个拥有免费和付费版本的软件的初创公司。该公司需要做出选择：为获取新用户提供丰富的免费功能，还是将这些功能保留给付费客户，让他们花钱来解锁它们。提供功能齐全的免费产品可能会减少销售额，而提供功能受限的产品可能会减少新用户。你需要一个结合两者的指标，以便了解变化如何影响整体健康状况。否则，你可能会做某事，在增加销售收入的同时牺牲了增长。

A good metric changes the way you behave. This is by far the most important criterion for a metric: what will you do differently based on changes in the metric?
一个好的指标会改变你的行为。这是衡量指标最重要的标准：基于指标的变化，你会做出哪些不同的行为？

• “Accounting” metrics like daily sales revenue, when entered into your spreadsheet,  need to make your predictions more accurate. These metrics form the basis of Lean Startup’s innovation accounting, showing you how close you are to an ideal model and whether your actual results are converging on your business plan.
• “会计”指标，如每日销售收入，当输入到你的电子表格中时，需要使你的预测更加准确。这些指标构成了精益创业的创新会计的基础，显示你距离理想模型有多近，以及你的实际结果是否正在趋近于你的商业计划。

• “Experimental” metrics, ike the results of a test, help you to optimize the product, pricing, or market. Changes in these metrics will significantly change your behavior. Agree on what that change will be before you collect the data: if the pink website generates more revenue than the alternative, you’re going pink; if more than half your respondents say they won’t pay for a feature, don’t build it; if your curated MVP doesn’t increase order size by $30\mathrm{\%}$ , try something else.
• “实验性”指标，如测试结果，有助于优化产品、定价或市场。这些指标的变化将显著改变你的行为。在收集数据之前，先就变化达成一致：如果粉色网站比替代方案产生更多收入，那就采用粉色；如果超过一半的受访者表示不愿意为某个功能付费，那就不要开发它；如果你的精选最小可行产品未能使订单量增加 $30\mathrm{\%}$ ，那就尝试其他方法。

Drawing a line in the sand is a great way to enforce a disciplined approach. A good metric changes the way you behave precisely because it’s aligned to your goals of keeping users, encouraging word of mouth, acquiring customers efficiently, or generating revenue.
划定界限是实施严格方法的好方法。一个好的指标之所以能改变你的行为，正是因为它与你的目标保持一致，即留住用户、鼓励口碑传播、高效获取客户或产生收入。

Unfortunately, that’s not always how it happens.
不幸的是，事情并不总是这样发生。

Renowned author, entrepreneur, and public speaker Seth Godin cites several examples of this in a blog post entitled “Avoiding false metrics.” Funnily enough (or maybe not!), one of Seth’s examples, which involves car salespeople, recently happened to Ben.
著名作家、企业家和公众演讲者塞斯·戈丁在一篇题为“避免虚假指标”的博客文章中引用了几个这方面的例子。有趣的是（或者也许不有趣！），塞斯的一个例子，其中涉及汽车销售员，最近恰好发生在本身上。

While finalizing the paperwork for his new car, the dealer said to Ben, “You’ll get a call in the next week or so. They’ll want to know about your experience at the dealership. It’s a quick thing, won’t take you more than a minute or two. It’s on a scale from 1 to 5. You’ll give us a 5, right? Nothing in the experience would warrant less, right? If so, I’m very, very sorry, but a 5 would be great.”
在办理新车的手续时，经销商对本说：“下周左右会给你打电话。他们想了解你在经销商处的体验。这很简单，不会占用你一分钟或两分钟。它是从 1 到 5 的评分。你会给我们一个 5 分，对吧？没有任何体验值得不到这个分数，对吧？如果是这样，我非常、非常抱歉，但一个 5 分会很好。”

Ben didn’t give it a lot of thought (and strangely, no one ever did call). Seth would call this a false metric, because the car salesman spent more time asking for a good rating (which was clearly important to him) than he did providing a great experience, which was supposedly what the rating was for in the first place.
本并没有过多考虑这件事（而且奇怪的是，没有人真的打电话）。塞斯会称其为虚假指标，因为汽车销售员花更多时间请求好评（这显然对他很重要），而不是提供所谓的伟大体验，而好评本应是为了这个体验。

Misguided sales teams do this too. At one company, Alistair saw a sales executive tie quarterly compensation to the number of deals in the pipeline, rather than to the number of deals closed, or to margin on those sales. Salespeople are coin-operated, so they did what they always do: they followed the money. In this case, that meant a glut of junk leads that took two quarters to clean out of the pipeline—time that would have been far better spent closing qualified prospects.
错误的销售团队也这样做。有一次，Alistair 看到一位销售高管将季度薪酬与管道中的交易数量挂钩，而不是与已关闭的交易数量挂钩，或者与这些销售的利润挂钩。销售人员就像投币机一样，他们总是追逐金钱。在这种情况下，这意味着大量低质量的潜在客户，需要两个季度才能清理出管道——而在这段时间里，他们本可以用来关闭合格的潜在客户，这会更好。

Of course, customer satisfaction or pipeline flow is vital to a successful business. But if you want to change behavior, your metric must be tied to the behavioral change you want. If you measure something and it’s not attached to a goal, in turn changing your behavior, you’re wasting your time. Worse, you may be lying to yourself and fooling yourself into believing that everything is OK. That’s no way to succeed.
当然，客户满意度或管道流量对成功的业务至关重要。但如果你想要改变行为，你的指标必须与你想改变的行为挂钩。如果你衡量某件事，但它没有与目标挂钩，进而改变你的行为，你就是在浪费时间。更糟的是，你可能是在欺骗自己，让自己相信一切都没问题。这绝不是成功的方式。

One other thing you’ll notice about metrics is that they often come in pairs. Conversion rate (the percentage of people who buy something) is tied to time-to-purchase (how long it takes someone to buy something). Together, they tell you a lot about your cash flow. Similarly, viral coefficient (the number of people a user successfully invites to your service) and viral cycle time (how long it takes them to invite others) drive your adoption rate. As you start to explore the numbers that underpin your business, you’ll notice these pairs. Behind them lurks a fundamental metric like revenue, cash flow, or user adoption.
你还会注意到，指标通常以成对出现。转化率（购买产品的人数百分比）与购买时间（某人购买产品所需时间）相关联。两者结合，能让你了解现金流。类似地，病毒系数（用户成功邀请他人使用你服务的人数）和病毒周期时间（他们邀请他人所需时间）推动你的采用率。当你开始探索支撑你业务的数字时，你会注意到这些成对出现的指标。它们背后隐藏着一个基本指标，如收入、现金流或用户采用率。

If you want to choose the right metrics, you need to keep five things in mind:
如果你想要选择正确的指标，你需要记住五件事：

Qualitative versus quantitative metrics

定性指标与定量指标

Qualitative metrics are unstructured, anecdotal, revealing, and hard to aggregate; quantitative metrics involve numbers and statistics, and provide hard numbers but less insight.
定性指标是无结构的、轶事的、揭示性的，且难以汇总；定量指标涉及数字和统计数据，提供确切的数字但洞察力较少。

Vanity versus actionable metrics

虚荣指标与可操作指标

Vanity metrics might make you feel good, but they don’t change how you act. Actionable metrics change your behavior by helping you pick a course of action.
虚荣指标可能会让你感觉良好，但它们不会改变你的行为。可操作指标通过帮助你选择行动方案来改变你的行为。

Exploratory versus reporting metrics

探索性指标与报告性指标

Exploratory metrics are speculative and try to find unknown insights to give you the upper hand, while reporting metrics keep you abreast of normal, managerial, day-to-day operations.
探索性指标是推测性的，试图发现未知见解以给你带来优势，而报告性指标则让你了解正常的、管理性的、日常的运营情况。

Leading versus lagging metrics

领先指标与滞后指标

Leading metrics give you a predictive understanding of the future; lagging metrics explain the past. Leading metrics are better because you still have time to act on them—the horse hasn’t left the barn yet.
领先指标能让你对未来有预测性的理解；滞后指标则解释过去。领先指标更好，因为你还有时间采取行动——马还没跑出马厩呢。

Correlated versus causal metrics

相关指标与因果指标

If two metrics change together, they’re correlated, but if one metric causes another metric to change, they’re causal. If you find a causal relationship between something you want (like revenue) and something you can control (like which ad you show), then you can change the future.
如果两个指标一起变化，它们就是相关的；但如果一个指标导致另一个指标变化，它们就是因果的。如果你发现你想要的东西（比如收入）和你能控制的东西（比如展示哪个广告）之间存在因果关系，那么你就能改变未来。

Analysts look at specific metrics that drive the business, called key performance indicators (KPIs). Every industry has KPIs—if you’re a restaurant owner, it’s the number of covers (tables) in a night; if you’re an investor, it’s the return on an investment; if you’re a media website, it’s ad clicks; and so on.
分析师关注驱动业务的特定指标，称为关键绩效指标（KPI）。每个行业都有 KPI——如果你是餐厅老板，它是夜间餐桌数量；如果你是投资者，它是投资回报率；如果你是媒体网站，它是广告点击量，等等。

Qualitative Versus Quantitative Metrics

定性与定量指标

Quantitative data is easy to understand. It’s the numbers we track and measure—for example, sports scores and movie ratings. As soon as something is ranked, counted, or put on a scale, it’s quantified. Quantitative data is nice and scientific, and (assuming you do the math right) you can aggregate it, extrapolate it, and put it into a spreadsheet. But it’s seldom enough to get a business started. You can’t walk up to people, ask them what problems they’re facing, and get a quantitative answer. For that, you need qualitative input.
定量数据易于理解。它是我们跟踪和测量的数字——例如，体育比分和电影评分。一旦某物被排名、计数或放在一个尺度上，它就被量化了。定量数据既美观又科学，并且（假设你计算正确）可以将其汇总、推断并放入电子表格中。但它很少足以启动一个业务。你不能走上前去，问人们他们面临的问题，并得到一个定量答案。为此，你需要定性输入。

Qualitative data s messy, subjective, and mprecise. It’s the stuff of nterviews and debates. It’s hard to quantify. You can’t measure qualitative data easily. If quantitative data answers “what” and “how much,” qualitative data answers “why.” Quantitative data abhors emotion; qualitative data marinates in it.
定性数据杂乱、主观且不精确。它是访谈和辩论的内容。很难量化。你无法轻易地衡量定性数据。如果定量数据回答“是什么”和“有多少”，那么定性数据回答的是“为什么”。定量数据厌恶情感；定性数据则沉浸其中。

Initially, you’re looking for qualitative data. You’re not measuring results numerically. Instead, you’re speaking to people—specifically, to people you think are potential customers in the right target market. You’re exploring. You’re getting out of the building.
最初，你寻找的是定性数据。你并不是用数字来衡量结果。相反，你是在与人们交谈——特别是那些你认为在正确的目标市场中是潜在客户的人。你正在探索。你正在走出大楼。

Collecting good qualitative data takes preparation. You need to ask specific questions without leading potential customers or skewing their answers. You have to avoid letting your enthusiasm and reality distortion rub off on your interview subjects. Unprepared interviews yield misleading or meaningless results.
收集好的定性数据需要准备。你需要提出具体的问题，而不要引导潜在客户或扭曲他们的答案。你必须避免让你的热情和现实扭曲影响到你的访谈对象。准备不足的访谈会产生误导性或无意义的结果。

Vanity Versus Real Metrics

虚荣指标与真实指标

Many companies claim they’re data-driven. Unfortunately, while they embrace the data part of that mantra, few focus on the second word: driven. If you have a piece of data on which you cannot act, it’s a vanity metric. If all it does is stroke your ego, it won’t help. You want your data to inform, to guide, to improve your business model, to help you decide on a course of action.
许多公司声称自己是数据驱动的。不幸的是，虽然他们接受了这个口号中的数据部分，但很少人关注第二个词：驱动。如果你有一份数据，却无法采取行动，那它就是一个虚荣指标。如果它只是满足你的虚荣心，它就毫无帮助。你希望你的数据能够指导，能够引导，能够改进你的商业模式，能够帮助你决定行动方案。

Whenever you look at a metric, ask yourself, “What will I do differently based on this information?” If you can’t answer that question, you probably shouldn’t worry about the metric too much. And if you don’t know which metrics would change your organization’s behavior, you aren’t being datadriven. You’re floundering in data quicksand.
每当你查看一个指标时，问问自己，“基于这些信息，我会做出什么不同的改变？”如果你无法回答这个问题，你可能就不必太担心这个指标了。如果你不知道哪些指标会改变你组织的行为，你就不算是数据驱动的。你正陷入数据的泥潭。

Consider, for example, “total signups.” This is a vanity metric. The number can only increase over time (a classic “up and to the right” graph). It tells us nothing about what those users are doing or whether they’re valuable to us. They may have signed up for the application and vanished forever.
例如，“总注册数”。这是一个虚荣指标。这个数字只能随着时间的推移而增加（一个经典的“向上向右”的图表）。它告诉我们关于这些用户在做什么，或者他们是否对我们有价值的信息。他们可能注册了应用程序，但很快就消失了。

“Total active users” is a bit better—assuming that you’ve done a decent job of defining an active user—but it’s still a vanity metric. It will gradually increase over time, too, unless you do something horribly wrong.
“总活跃用户数”稍微好一些——假设你对活跃用户的定义做得还算不错——但它仍然是一个虚荣指标。除非你犯了严重的错误，否则它会随着时间的推移而逐渐增加。

The real metric of interest—the actionable one—is “percent of users who are active.” This is a critical metric because it tells us about the level of engagement your users have with your product. When you change something about the product, this metric should change, and if you change it in a good way, it should go up. That means you can experiment, learn, and iterate with it.
真正有意义的指标——可操作的指标——是“活跃用户百分比”。这是一个关键指标，因为它告诉我们用户对产品的参与程度。当你改变产品的某些方面时，这个指标应该会发生变化，如果你以正确的方式改变它，它应该会上升。这意味着你可以通过实验、学习和迭代来处理它。

Another interesting metric to look at is “number of users acquired over a specific time period.” Often, this will help you compare different marketing approaches—for example, a Facebook campaign in the first week, a reddit campaign in the second, a Google AdWords campaign in the third, and a LinkedIn campaign in the fourth. Segmenting experiments by time in this way isn’t precise, but it’s relatively easy.* And it’s actionable: if Facebook works better than LinkedIn, you know where to spend your money.
另一个值得关注的指标是“特定时间段内获取的用户数量”。通常，这会帮助你比较不同的营销策略——例如，第一周进行脸书推广，第二周进行 reddit 推广，第三周进行谷歌广告词推广，第四周进行领英推广。以这种方式按时间划分实验并不精确，但它相对容易。而且它是可操作的：如果脸书比领英效果更好，你就知道该在哪里花钱。

Actionable metrics aren’t magic. They won’t tell you what to do—in the previous example, you could try changing your pricing, or your medium, or your wording. The point here is that you’re doing something based on the data you collect.
可操作的指标并非魔法。它们不会告诉你该做什么——在之前的例子中，你可以尝试改变你的定价、你的媒介或你的措辞。这里的重点是，你根据收集到的数据在做事情。

PATTERN Eight Vanity Metrics to Watch Out For

模式：八个需要警惕的虚荣指标

It’s easy to fall in love with numbers that go up and to the right. Here’s a list of eight notorious vanity metrics you should avoid.
很容易沉迷于那些持续上升的数字。这里列出了八个臭名昭著的虚荣指标，你应该避免使用。

1. Number of hits. This is a metric from the early, foolish days of the Web. If you have a site with many objects on it, this will be a big number. Count people instead.
   访问次数。这是一个来自早期、愚蠢的互联网时代的指标。如果你有一个包含许多对象（内容）的网站，这个数字会很大。统计人数而不是次数。

2. Number of page views. This is only slightly better than hits, since it counts the number of times someone requests a page. Unless your business model depends on page views (i.e., display advertising inventory), you should count people instead.
   页面浏览量。这比点击量稍微好一点，因为它统计了页面被请求的次数。除非你的商业模式依赖于页面浏览量（例如，展示广告库存），否则你应该统计人数。

3. Number of visits. Is this one person who visits a hundred times, or are a hundred people visiting once? Fail.
   访问次数。是同一个人访问了一百次，还是一百个人各访问一次？失败。

4. Number of unique visitors. All this shows you is how many people saw your home page. It tells you nothing about what they did, why they stuck around, or if they left.
   独立访客数量。这只能告诉你有多少人看到了你的主页。它无法告诉你他们做了什么，为什么他们停留，或者他们是否离开。

5. Number of followers/friends/likes. Counting followers and friends is nothing more than a popularity contest, unless you can get them to do something useful for you. Once you know how many followers will do your bidding when asked, you’ve got something.
   关注者/朋友/点赞数量。统计关注者和朋友不过是搞一场人气比赛，除非你能让他们为你做一些有用的事情。一旦你知道有多少关注者会在你要求时为你做事，你就有了东西。

6. Time on site/number of pages. These are a poor substitute for actual engagement or activity unless your business is tied to this behavior. If customers spend a lot of time on your support or complaints pages, that’s probably a bad thing.
   站点停留时间/页面数量。除非你的业务与这种行为紧密相关，否则这些指标并不能真正反映用户参与度或活动。如果用户在支持或投诉页面上花费了大量时间，那可能是个坏兆头。

7. Emails collected. A big mailing list of people excited about your new startup is nice, but until you know how many will open your emails (and act on what’s inside them), this isn’t useful. Send test emails to some of your registered subscribers and see if they’ll do what you tell them.
   收集的电子邮件。一个由对你新公司充满热情的人组成的庞大邮件列表很棒，但除非你知道有多少人会打开你的邮件（并对其内容采取行动），否则这并没有用处。向一些已注册的订阅者发送测试邮件，看看他们是否会按照你的指示行事。
   . Number of downloads. While it sometimes affects your ranking in app stores, downloads alone don’t lead to real value. Measure activations, account creations, or something else.
   下载次数。虽然它有时会影响你在应用商店中的排名，但下载次数本身并不能带来真正的价值。衡量激活次数、账户创建次数或其他指标。

Exploratory Versus Reporting Metrics

探索性指标与报告性指标

Avinash Kaushik, author and Digital Marketing Evangelist at Google, says former US Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld knew a thing or two about analytics. According to Rumsfeld:
Google 的数字营销布道师 Avinash Kaushik 说，前美国国防部长唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德在分析方面颇有见地。据拉姆斯菲尔德所说：

There are known knowns; there are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns; that is to say there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown unknowns— there are things we do not know, we don’t know.
有已知的已知；有我们知道的我们知道。有已知的未知；也就是说，有我们现在知道我们不知道的事情。但也有未知未知——有我们不知道我们不知道的事情。

Figure 2-1 shows these four kinds of information.
图 2-1 展示了这四种类型的信息。

Figure 2-1. The hidden genius of Donald Rumsfeld
图 2-1. 唐纳德·拉姆斯菲尔德隐藏的智慧

The “known unknowns” is a reporting posture—counting money, or users, or lines of code. We know we don’t know the value of the metric, so we go find out. We may use these metrics for accounting (“How many widgets did we sell today?”) or to measure the outcome of an experiment (“Did the green or the red widget sell more?”), but in both cases, we know the metric is needed.
“已知未知”是一种报告姿态——计算金钱、用户或代码行数。我们知道这个指标的价值未知，所以去寻找答案。我们可能用这些指标进行会计（“今天我们卖了多少个零件？”）或测量实验结果（“绿色还是红色的零件卖得更多？”），但在两种情况下，我们都知道这个指标是必要的。

The “unknown unknowns” are most relevant to startups: exploring to discover something new that will help you disrupt a market. As we’ll see in the next case study, it’s how Circle of Friends found out that moms were its best users. These “unknown unknowns” are where the magic lives. They lead down plenty of wrong paths, and hopefully toward some kind of “eureka!” moment when the idea falls into place. This fits what Steve Blank says a startup should spend its time doing: searching for a scalable, repeatable business model.
“未知未知”对初创公司最为相关：探索以发现有助于颠覆市场的新事物。正如我们将在下一个案例研究中看到的，Circle of Friends 发现妈妈们是其最佳用户的方式。这些“未知未知”是魔法所在。它们会引导我们走许多错误的道路，并希望最终在想法成型时带来某种“啊哈！”的时刻。这符合史蒂夫·布兰克所说的初创公司应该花时间做的事情：寻找可扩展、可重复的商业模式。

Analytics has a role to play in all four of Rumsfeld’s quadrants:
分析在拉姆斯菲尔德的四个象限中都扮演着角色：

• It can check our facts and assumptions—such as open rates or conversion rates—to be sure we’re not kidding ourselves, and check that our business plans are accurate.
• 它可以检查我们的事实和假设——例如打开率或转化率——以确保我们没有自欺欺人，并检查我们的商业计划是否准确。
• It can test our intuitions, turning hypotheses into evidence.
• 它可以检验我们的直觉，将假设转化为证据。
• It can provide the data for our spreadsheets, waterfall charts, and board meetings.
• 它可以为我们提供电子表格、瀑布图和董事会会议所需的数据。
• It can help us find the nugget of opportunity on which to build a business.
• 它可以帮助我们发现可以建立业务的机遇之核。

In the early stages of your startup, the unknown unknowns matter most, because they can become your secret weapons.
在创业的早期阶段，未知数中的未知数最为重要，因为它们可以成为你的秘密武器。

CASE STUDY Circle of Moms Explores Its Way to Success

案例研究：Circle of Moms 探索成功之路

Circle of Friends was a simple idea: a Facebook application that allowed you to organize your friends into circles for targeted content sharing. Mike Greenfield and his co-founders started the company in September 2007, shortly after Facebook launched its developer platform. The timing was perfect: Facebook became an open, viral place to acquire users as quickly as possible and build a startup. There had never been a platform with so many users and that was so open (Facebook had about 50 million users at the time).
Circle of Friends 是一个简单的想法：一个 Facebook 应用程序，允许你将朋友组织成圈子进行有针对性的内容分享。Mike Greenfield 和他的联合创始人于 2007 年 9 月创办了这家公司，当时 Facebook 刚刚推出开发者平台。时机完美：Facebook 成为一个开放、病毒式的平台，可以快速获取用户并建立一家初创公司。当时还没有一个拥有如此多用户且如此开放的平台（当时 Facebook 有大约 5000 万用户）。

By mid-2008, Circle of Friends had 10 million users. Mike focused on growth above everything else. “It was a land grab,” he says, and Circle of Friends was clearly viral. But there was a problem. Too few people were actually using the product.
到 2008 年年中，Circle of Friends 拥有 1000 万用户。Mike 专注于增长，高于一切其他事情。“这是一场争夺战，”他说，Circle of Friends 显然是病毒式的。但有一个问题。实际使用产品的人太少了。

According to Mike, less than $20\mathrm{\%}$ of circles had any activity whatsoever after their initial creation. “We had a few million monthly uniques from those 10 million users, but as a general social network we knew that wasn’t good enough and monetization would likely be poor.”
根据 Mike 的说法，在初始创建后，不到 $20\mathrm{\%}$ 个圈子有任何活动。“我们从这 1000 万用户中获得了几百万每月独立访客，但作为一个通用社交网络，我们知道这还不够好，而且盈利可能很差。”

So Mike went digging.
所以迈克开始深入挖掘。

He started looking through the database of users and what they were doing. The company didn’t have an in-depth analytical dashboard at the time, but Mike could still do some exploratory analysis. And he found a segment of users—moms, to be precise—that bucked the poor engagement trend of most users. Here’s what he found:
他开始查看用户数据库以及他们的行为。当时公司没有深入的分析仪表板，但迈克仍然可以进行一些探索性分析。他发现了一个用户群体——具体来说是妈妈们——她们打破了大多数用户参与度低的趋势。以下是他发现的情况：

• Their messages to one another were on average $50\mathrm{\%}$ longer.
• 她们之间发送的消息平均长度是 $50\mathrm{\%}$ 。
• They were $115\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to attach a picture to a post they wrote.
• 她们在发帖时附上图片的可能性是 $115\mathrm{\%}$ 。
• They were $110\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to engage in a threaded (i.e., deep) conversation.
• 他们更有可能参与主题（即深入）的讨论。
• They had friends who, once invited, were $50\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to become engaged users themselves.
• 他们有朋友，一旦被邀请，更有可能成为活跃用户。
• They were $75\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to click on Facebook notifications.
• 他们更有可能点击 Facebook 通知。
• They were $180\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to click on Facebook news feed items.
• 他们更有可能点击 Facebook 新闻动态中的条目。
• They were $60\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to accept invitations to the app.
• 他们更有可能接受邀请加入该应用。

The numbers were so compelling that in June 2008, Mike and his team switched focus completely. They pivoted. And in October 2008, they launched Circle of Moms on Facebook.
这些数据非常令人信服，因此 2008 年 6 月，迈克和他的团队完全改变了方向。他们转型了。并于 2008 年 10 月，在 Facebook 上推出了“妈妈圈”。

Initially, numbers dropped as a result of the new focus, but by 2009, the team grew its community to 4.5 million users—and unlike the users who’d been lost in the change, these were actively engaged. The company went through some ups and downs after that, as Facebook limited applications’ abilities to spread virally. Ultimately, the company moved off Facebook, grew independently, and sold to Sugar Inc. in early 2012.
最初，由于新的焦点，用户数量有所下降，但到 2009 年，团队将其社区增长到 450 万用户——与在转型中失去的用户不同，这些用户非常活跃。公司在那之后经历了一些起伏，因为 Facebook 限制了应用程序的病毒式传播能力。最终，公司离开了 Facebook，独立发展，并在 2012 年初被 Sugar Inc.收购。

摘要

• Circle of Friends was a social graph application in the right place at the right time—with the wrong market.
• 圈子朋友是一款社交图谱应用，在正确的时间出现在了正确的地点，但市场不对。
• By analyzing patterns of engagement and desirable behavior, then finding out what those users had in common, the company found the right market for its offering.
• 通过分析参与模式和理想行为，然后找出这些用户有什么共同点，公司找到了其产品正确的市场。
• Once the company had found its target, it focused—all the way to changing its name. Pivot hard or go home, and be prepared to burn some bridges.
• 一旦公司找到了目标，它就集中精力——甚至改变它的名字。艰难转型或回家，并准备好烧一些桥梁。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学到的教训

The key to Mike’s success with Circle of Moms was his ability to dig into the data and look for meaningful patterns and opportunities. Mike discovered an “unknown unknown” that led to a big, scary, gutsy bet (drop the generalized Circle of Friends to focus on a specific niche) that was a gamble—but one that was based on data.
迈克在 Circle of Moms 上取得成功的秘诀是他能够深入挖掘数据，寻找有意义的模式和机会。迈克发现了一个“未知的未知”，这促使他做出了一个大胆、令人恐惧的赌注（将通用的 Circle of Friends 专注于一个特定的利基市场），这是一个冒险，但它是基于数据的。

There’s a “critical mass” of engagement necessary for any community to take off. Mild success may not give you escape velocity. As a result, it’s better to have fervent engagement with a smaller, more easily addressable target market. Virality requires focus.
任何社区要起飞都需要“临界量”的参与。温和的成功可能不会给你提供逃逸速度。因此，最好对一个小而更容易应对的目标市场进行狂热参与。病毒式传播需要专注。

Leading Versus Lagging Metrics

领先指标与滞后指标

Both leading and lagging metrics are useful, but they serve different purposes.
领先指标和滞后指标都是有用的，但它们服务于不同的目的。

A leading metric (sometimes called a leading indicator) tries to predict the future. For example, the current number of prospects in your sales funnel gives you a sense of how many new customers you’ll acquire in the future.
主要指标（有时也称为领先指标）试图预测未来。例如，销售漏斗中当前的潜在客户数量可以让你了解未来将获得多少新客户。

If the current number of prospects is very small, you’re not likely to add many new customers. You can increase the number of prospects and expect an increase in new customers.
如果当前的潜在客户数量很少，你可能不会增加很多新客户。你可以增加潜在客户的数量，并期待新客户的增加。

On the other hand, a lagging metric, such as churn (which is the number of customers who leave in a given time period) gives you an indication that there’s a problem—but by the time you’re able to collect the data and identify the problem, it’s too late. The customers who churned out aren’t coming back. That doesn’t mean you can’t act on a lagging metric (i.e., work to improve churn and then measure it again), but it’s akin to closing the barn door after the horses have left. New horses won’t leave, but you’ve already lost a few.
另一方面，滞后指标（如流失率，即一定时期内离开的客户数量）会给你一个问题的迹象——但等到你收集数据并识别出问题时，已经太晚了。流失的客户不会回来了。这不意味着你不能根据滞后指标采取行动（即，努力改善流失率，然后再次测量它），但这就像在马离开马厩后才关上马厩的门。新的马不会离开，但你已经失去了一些。

In the early days of your startup, you won’t have enough data to know how a current metric relates to one down the road, so measure lagging metrics at first. Lagging metrics are still useful and can provide a solid baseline of performance. For leading indicators to work, you need to be able to do cohort analysis and compare groups of customers over periods of time.
在你创业的早期，你不会有足够的数据来了解当前指标与未来指标之间的关系，所以一开始要测量滞后指标。滞后指标仍然有用，可以提供坚实的绩效基准。要使领先指标起作用，你需要能够进行队列分析，并在一段时间内比较不同客户群体。

Consider, for example, the volume of customer complaints. You might track the number of support calls that happen in a day—once you’ve got a call volume to make that useful. Earlier on, you might track the number of customer complaints in a 90-day period. Both could be leading indicators of churn: if complaints are increasing, it’s likely that more customers will stop using your product or service. As a leading indicator, customer complaints also give you ammunition to dig into what’s going on, figure out why customers are complaining more, and address those issues.
例如，考虑客户投诉的数量。你可能会跟踪每天发生的支持电话数量——一旦你有了电话数量，它就变得有用。在早期，你可能会跟踪 90 天内客户投诉的数量。两者都可能是流失的领先指标：如果投诉增加，很可能更多客户将停止使用你的产品或服务。作为领先指标，客户投诉也为你提供了深入调查情况、找出客户投诉增加的原因并解决这些问题的弹药。

Now consider account cancellation or product returns. Both are important metrics—but they measure after the fact. They pinpoint problems, but only after it’s too late to avert the loss of a customer. Churn is important (and we discuss it at length throughout the book), but looking at it myopically won’t let you iterate and adapt at the speed you need.
现在考虑账户取消或产品退货。这两个都是重要的指标——但它们是在事后衡量的。它们可以指出问题，但在避免客户流失方面已经太迟了。客户流失很重要（我们在整本书中都会详细讨论它），但狭隘地看待它将不会让你以你需要的速度迭代和适应。

Indicators are everywhere. In an enterprise software company, quarterly new product bookings are a lagging metric of sales success. By contrast, new qualified leads are a leading indicator, because they let you predict sales success ahead of time. But as anyone who’s ever worked in B2B (businessto-business) sales will tell you, in addition to qualified leads you need a good understanding of conversion rate and sales-cycle length. Only then can you make a realistic estimate of how much new business you’ll book.
指标无处不在。在企业软件公司中，季度新产品预订量是销售成功的滞后指标。相比之下，新合格线索是领先指标，因为它们让你能够提前预测销售成功。但任何曾经从事 B2B（企业对企业）销售的人都会告诉你，除了合格线索外，你还需要很好地理解转化率和销售周期长度。只有这样才能对你会预订多少新业务做出现实的估计。

In some cases, a lagging metric for one group within a company is a leading metric for another. For example, we know that the number of quarterly bookings is a lagging metric for salespeople (the contracts are signed already), but for the finance department that’s focused on collecting payment, they’re a leading indicator of expected revenue (since the revenue hasn’t yet been realized).
在某些情况下，公司内某一群体的滞后指标可能是另一群体的领先指标。例如，我们知道季度预订数量对销售人员来说是滞后指标（合同已经签订），但对专注于收款的管理部门来说，它是预期收入的领先指标（因为收入尚未实现）。

Ultimately, you need to decide whether the thing you’re tracking helps you make better decisions sooner. As we’ve said, a real metric has to be actionable. Lagging and leading metrics can both be actionable, but leading indicators show you what will happen, reducing your cycle time and making you leaner.
最终，你需要决定你所追踪的东西是否有助于你更快地做出更好的决策。正如我们所说，一个真正的指标必须是可行动的。滞后指标和领先指标都可以是可行动的，但领先指标会告诉你将要发生什么，从而减少你的周期时间，使你变得更精益。

Correlated Versus Causal Metrics

相关指标与因果指标

In Canada, the use of winter tires is correlated with a decrease in accidents. People put softer winter tires on their cars in cold weather, and there are more accidents in the summer.* Does that mean we should make drivers use winter tires year-round? Almost certainly not—softer tires stop poorly on warm summer roads, and accidents would increase.
在加拿大，冬季轮胎的使用与事故减少相关。人们在寒冷的天气里给汽车装上较软的冬季轮胎，夏天的事故更多。*这意味着我们应该让司机全年使用冬季轮胎吗？几乎可以肯定不是——较软的轮胎在温暖的夏季道路上制动不佳，事故会增多。

Other factors, such as the number of hours driven and summer vacations, are likely responsible for the increased accident rates. But looking at a simple correlation without demanding causality leads to some bad decisions. There’s a correlation between ice cream consumption and drowning. Does that mean we should ban ice cream to avert drowning deaths? Or measure ice cream consumption to predict the fortunes of funeral home stock prices? No: ice cream and drowning rates both happen because of summer weather.
其他因素，例如驾驶的小时数和暑假，可能是导致事故率上升的原因。但仅凭简单的相关性而不探究因果关系，会导致一些错误的决定。冰淇淋的食用和溺水之间存在相关性。这意味着我们应该禁止冰淇淋以避免溺水死亡吗？或者测量冰淇淋的食用量来预测殡仪馆股票价格的命运？不：冰淇淋和溺水率都因为夏季天气而发生。

Finding a correlation between two metrics is a good thing. Correlations can help you predict what will happen. But finding the cause of something means you can change it. Usually, causations aren’t simple one-to-one relationships. Many factors conspire to cause something. In the case of summertime car crashes, we have to consider alcohol consumption, the number of inexperienced drivers on the road, the greater number of daylight hours, summer vacations, and so on. So you’ll seldom get a $100\mathrm{\%}$ causal relationship. You’ll get several independent metrics, each of which “explains” a portion of the behavior of the dependent metric. But even a degree of causality is valuable.
在两个指标之间找到一个相关性是一件好事。相关性可以帮助你预测会发生什么。但找到某个事物的起因意味着你可以改变它。通常，因果关系并不是简单的单一对应关系。许多因素共同导致了某件事的发生。在夏季车祸的例子中，我们必须考虑酒精消费、道路上的新手司机数量、白天时间的增加、暑假等等。因此，你很少会得到一个纯粹的因果关系。你会得到几个独立的指标，每个指标都“解释”了依赖指标行为的一部分。即使只有一定程度上的因果关系也是宝贵的。

You prove causality by finding a correlation, then running an experiment in which you control the other variables and measure the difference. This is hard to do because no two users are identical; it’s often impossible to subject a statistically significant number of people to a properly controlled experiment in the real world.
你通过发现相关性，然后运行一个控制其他变量并测量差异的实验来证明因果关系。这很难做到，因为两个用户并不完全相同；在现实世界中，通常不可能对足够多的统计显著数量的人进行适当的控制实验。

If you have a big enough sample of users, you can run a reliable test without controlling all the other variables, because eventually the impact of the other variables is relatively unimportant. That’s why Google can test subtle factors like the color of a hyperlink,* and why Microsoft knows exactly what effect a slower page load time has on search rates.† But for the average startup, you’ll need to run simpler tests that experiment with only a few things, and then compare how that changed the business.
如果你有一个足够大的用户样本，你可以在不控制所有其他变量的情况下运行可靠的测试，因为最终其他变量的影响相对不重要。这就是为什么谷歌可以测试像超链接颜色这样的微妙因素，而微软确切地知道页面加载时间变慢对搜索率的影响。但对于平均水平的创业公司，你需要运行更简单的测试，只实验少数几件事，然后比较这些变化对业务的影响。

We’ll look at different kinds of testing and segmentation shortly, but for now, recognize this: correlation is good. Causality is great. Sometimes, you may have to settle for the former—but you should always be trying to discover the latter.
我们很快会看看不同类型的测试和细分，但现在要认识到这一点：相关性是好的。因果关系是极好的。有时，你可能不得不满足于前者——但你应该始终努力去发现后者。

Moving Targets

移动的目标

When picking a goal early on, you’re drawing a line in the sand—not carving it in stone. You’re chasing a moving target, because you really don’t know how to define success.
在早期选择目标时，你是在划定一条界限，而不是刻下不可更改的印记。你追逐的是一个移动的目标，因为你真的不知道如何定义成功。

Adjusting your goals and how you define your key metrics is acceptable, provided that you’re being honest with yourself, recognizing the change this means for your business, and not just lowering expectations so that you can keep going in spite of the evidence.
调整你的目标和如何定义你的关键指标是可以接受的，只要你对自己诚实，认识到这对你的业务意味着什么，并且不是仅仅降低期望，以便在证据面前继续前进。

When your initial offering—your minimum viable product—is in the market and you’re acquiring early-adopter customers and testing their use of your product, you won’t even know how they’re going to use it (although you’ll have assumptions). Sometimes there’s a huge gulf between what you assume and what users actually do. You might think that people will play your multiplayer game, only to discover that they’re using you as a photo upload service. Unlikely? That’s how Flickr got started.
当你的初始产品——你的最小可行产品——进入市场，你正在获取早期采用者客户并测试他们使用你的产品的行为时，你甚至不知道他们会如何使用它（尽管你有假设）。有时，你假设的和用户实际做的之间存在巨大的差距。你可能会认为人们会玩你的多人游戏，结果发现他们把你当作照片上传服务。不可能吗？这就是 Flickr 开始的方式。

Sometimes, however, the differences are subtler. You might assume your product has to be used daily to succeed, only to find out that’s not so. In these situations, it’s reasonable to update your metrics accordingly, provided that you’re able to prove the value created.
然而，有时差异可能更微妙。你可能会假设你的产品必须每天使用才能成功，结果发现并非如此。在这种情况下，只要你能证明所创造的价值，相应地更新你的指标是合理的。

CASE STUDY HighScore House Defines an “Active User”

案例研究 HighScore House 定义了一个“活跃用户”

HighScore House started as a simple application that allowed parents to list chores and challenges for their children with point values. Kids could complete the tasks, collect points, and redeem the points for rewards they wanted.
HighScore House 最初是一个简单的应用程序，允许父母为他们的孩子列出带有积分值的家务和挑战。孩子们可以完成任务，收集积分，并用积分兑换他们想要的奖励。

When HighScore House launched its MVP, the company had several hundred families ready to test it. The founders drew a line in the sand: in order for the MVP to be considered successful, parents and kids would have to each use the application four times per week. These families would be considered “active.” It was a high, but good, bar.
当 HighScore House 发布其 MVP 时，该公司有数百个家庭准备测试它。创始人划了一条线：为了使 MVP 被认为成功，父母和孩子每周至少要使用该应用程序四次。这些家庭将被视为“活跃的”。这是一个高但好的标准。

After a month or so, the percentage of active families was lower than this line in the sand. The founders were disappointed but determined to keep experimenting in an effort to improve engagement:
大约一个月后，活跃家庭的比例低于这条线。创始人感到失望，但决心继续实验，以努力提高参与度：

• They modified the sign-up flow (making it clearer and more educational to increase quality signups and to improve onboarding). • They sent email notifications as daily reminders to parents. • They sent transactional emails to parents based on actions their kids took in the system.
• 他们修改了注册流程（使其更清晰、更具教育性，以提高高质量注册并改善用户引导）。• 他们向家长发送了每日提醒邮件。• 他们根据孩子们在系统中的行为向家长发送了事务性邮件。

There was an incremental improvement each time, but nothing that moved the needle significantly enough to say that the MVP was a success.
每次都有渐进式的改进，但没有什么能显著推动 MVP 的成功。

Then co-founder and CEO Kyle Seaman did something critical: he picked up the phone. Kyle spoke with dozens of parents. He started calling parents who had signed up, but who weren’t active. First he reached out to those that had abandoned HighScore House completely (“churned out”). For many of them, the application wasn’t solving a big enough pain point. That’s fine. The founders never assumed the market was “all parents”—that’s just too broad a definition, particularly for a first version of a product. Kyle was looking for a smaller subset of families where HighScore House would resonate, to narrow the market segment and focus.
然后联合创始人兼 CEO 凯尔·西曼做了一件关键的事情：他拿起电话。凯尔与数十位家长交谈。他开始联系那些已注册但未活跃的家长。首先，他联系那些完全放弃 HighScore House 的家长（“流失的”）。对许多人来说，该应用程序并没有解决一个足够大的痛点。这很好。创始人从未假设市场是“所有家长”——这只是一个太广泛的定义，特别是对于产品的第一个版本。凯尔正在寻找一个 HighScore House 能够产生共鸣的小型家庭子集，以缩小市场细分并集中精力。

Kyle then called those families who were using HighScore House, but not using it enough to be defined as active. Many of these families responded positively: “We’re using HighScore House. It’s great. The kids are making their beds consistently for the first time ever!”
凯尔随后联系了那些使用 HighScore House 但使用频率不足以被定义为活跃的家庭。许多家庭积极响应：“我们在使用 HighScore House。它非常好。孩子们第一次开始坚持整理床铺！”

The response from parents was a surprise. Many of them were using HighScore House only once or twice a week, but they were getting value out of the product. From this, Kyle learned about segmentation and which types of families were more or less interested in what the company was offering. He began to understand that the initial baseline of usage the team had set wasn’t consistent with how engaged customers were using the product.
家长的反应令人惊讶。他们中的许多人每周只使用 HighScore House 一两次，但仍然从中获得了价值。从中，凯尔了解了细分市场，以及哪些类型家庭对公司的产品更感兴趣或不感兴趣。他开始意识到团队最初设定的使用基准与客户实际使用产品的程度不一致。

That doesn’t mean the team shouldn’t have taken a guess. Without that initial line in the sand, they would have had no benchmark for learning, and Kyle might not have picked up the phone. But now he really understood his customers. The combination of quantitative and qualitative data was key.
这并不意味着团队不应该猜一猜。没有最初的界限，他们就没有学习的基准，凯尔可能就不会拿起电话。但现在他真正理解了他的客户。定量和定性数据的结合是关键。

As a result of this learning, the team redefined the “active user” threshold to more accurately reflect existing users’ behavior. It was okay for them to adjust a key metric because they truly understood why they were doing it and could justify the change.
通过这次学习，团队重新定义了“活跃用户”的阈值，以更准确地反映现有用户的行为。他们调整关键指标是可以的，因为他们真正理解为什么要这样做，并且能够证明这个改变。

摘要

• HighScore House drew an early, audacious line in the sand—which it couldn’t hit.
• HighScore House 早早地划下了一条大胆的界线——但它没能达到。
• The team experimented quickly to improve the number of active users but couldn’t move the needle enough.
• 团队快速进行实验以增加活跃用户数量，但没能取得足够的进展。
• They picked up the phone and spoke to customers, realizing that they were creating value for a segment of users with lower usage metrics.
他们拿起电话与客户交谈，意识到他们为使用指标较低的用户新群体创造了价值。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

First, know your customer. There’s no substitute for engaging with customers and users directly. All the numbers in the world can’t explain why something is happening. Pick up the phone right now and call a customer, even one who’s disengaged.
首先，了解你的客户。没有比直接与客户和用户互动更好的方法了。世界上所有的数字都不能解释为什么事情会发生。现在就拿起电话给一个客户打电话，即使他是一个疏远的客户。

Second, make early assumptions and set targets for what you think success looks like, but don’t experiment yourself into oblivion. Lower the bar if necessary, but not for the sake of getting over it: that’s just cheating. Use qualitative data to understand what value you’re creating and adjust only if the new line in the sand reflects how customers (in specific segments) are using your product.
其次，尽早做出假设，并为你认为的成功设定目标，但不要让自己实验到一无所有。如果必要的话，降低标准，但不是为了克服它：那只是作弊。使用定性数据来了解你创造了什么价值，并且只有在新的界限反映了客户（在特定群体中）如何使用你的产品时才进行调整。

Segments, Cohorts, A/B Testing, and Multivariate Analysis

用户细分、队列分析、A/B 测试和多变量分析

Testing is at the heart of Lean Analytics. Testing usually involves comparing two things against each other through segmentation, cohort analysis, or A/B testing. These are important concepts for anyone trying to perform the kind of scientific comparison needed to justify a change, so we’ll explain them in some detail here.
测试是精益分析的核心。测试通常涉及通过用户细分、队列分析或 A/B 测试来比较两个事物。这些是任何试图进行科学比较以证明改变重要性的概念，因此我们在这里将详细解释它们。

Segmentation

用户细分

A segment is simply a group that shares some common characteristic. It might be users who run Firefox, or restaurant patrons who make reservations rather than walking in, or passengers who buy first-class tickets, or parents who drive minivans.
用户细分就是一个共享某些共同特征的小组。它可能是使用 Firefox 的用户，或者预订餐厅而不是走进来的餐厅顾客，或者是购买头等舱票的乘客，或者是驾驶旅行车的父母。

On websites, you segment visitors according to a range of technical and demographic information, then compare one segment to another. If visitors using the Firefox browser have significantly fewer purchases, do additional testing to find out why. If a disproportionate number of engaged users are coming from Australia, survey them to discover why, and then try to replicate that success in other markets.
在网站上，您根据一系列技术和人口统计信息对访客进行细分，然后比较不同的细分群体。如果使用 Firefox 浏览器的访客购买量显著较低，请进行额外测试以找出原因。如果来自澳大利亚的参与用户比例过高，请对他们进行调查以发现原因，然后尝试在其他市场复制这种成功。

Segmentation works for any industry and any form of marketing, not just for websites. Direct mail marketers have been segmenting for decades with great success.
细分适用于任何行业和任何形式的营销，而不仅仅是网站。直接邮件营销人员已经几十年了，通过细分取得了巨大的成功。

Cohort Analysis

群组分析

A second kind of analysis, which compares similar groups over time, is cohort analysis. As you build and test your product, you’ll iterate constantly. Users who join you in the first week will have a different experience from those who join later on. For example, all of your users might go through an initial free trial, usage, payment, and abandonment cycle. As this happens, you’ll make changes to your business model. The users who experienced the trial in month one will have a different onboarding experience from those who experience it in month five. How did that affect their churn? To find out, we use cohort analysis.
第二种分析方法是比较相似群体随时间的变化，称为群组分析。在构建和测试产品时，你会不断迭代。在第一周加入的用户与后来加入的用户体验会有所不同。例如，所有用户可能都会经历一个初始免费试用、使用、付费和流失的周期。在这个过程中，你会对商业模式进行修改。在第一个月体验试用的用户与在第五个月体验试用的用户在入门体验上会有所不同。这如何影响了他们的流失率？为了找出答案，我们使用群组分析。

Each group of users is a cohort—participants in an experiment across their lifecycle. You can compare cohorts against one another to see if, on the whole, key metrics are getting better over time. Here’s an example of why cohort analysis is critical for startups.
每个用户群体都是一个群组——他们在整个生命周期中参与的一个实验。你可以比较不同的群组，看看整体上关键指标是否随着时间的推移而改善。这里有一个群组分析对初创企业至关重要的例子。

Imagine that you’re running an online retailer. Each month, you acquire a thousand new customers, and they spend some money. Table 2-1 shows your customers’ average revenues from the first five months of the business.
想象一下，你正在运营一个在线零售商。每个月，你都会获得一千名新客户，他们会消费一些钱。表 2-1 显示了该业务前五个月的客户平均收入。

Table 2-1. Average revenues for five months
表 2-1. 五个月的平均收入

From this table, you can’t learn much. Are things getting better or worse? Since you aren’t comparing recent customers to older ones—and because you’re commingling the purchases of a customer who’s been around for five months with those of a brand new one—it’s hard to tell. All this data shows is a slight drop in revenues, then a recovery. But average revenue is pretty static.
从这张表中，你无法学到很多东西。情况是变好了还是变差了？因为你没有将最近的客户与老客户进行比较——而且因为你将一个已经存在五个月的客户的购买与一个全新的客户的购买混在一起了，所以很难判断。这些数据显示的是收入略有下降，然后又恢复。但平均收入相当稳定。

Now consider the same data, broken out by the month in which that customer group started using the site. As Table 2-2 shows, something important is going on. Customers who arrived in month five are spending, on average, \9$ in their first month—nearly double that of those who arrived in month one. That’s huge growth!
现在考虑相同的数据，按客户组开始使用网站的月份进行细分。如表 2-2 所示，正在发生一些重要的事情。五月份加入的客户在第一个月平均花费 9 美元——几乎是那些在一月份加入的客户的两倍。这增长太大了！

Table 2-2. Comparing revenues by the month customers arrived
表 2-2。比较按客户加入月份的收入

Another way to understand cohorts is to line up the data by the users’ experience—in the case of Table 2-3, we’ve done this by the number of months they’ve used the system. This shows another critical metric: how quickly revenue declines after the first month.
另一种理解队列的方法是将数据按照用户的体验排列——在表 2-3 的案例中，我们通过他们使用系统的月份数来排列。这显示了另一个关键指标：第一个月之后收入下降的速度。

Table 2-3. Cohort analysis of revenue data
表 2-3。收入数据的队列分析

A cohort analysis presents a much clearer perspective. In this example, poor monetization in early months was diluting the overall health of the metrics. The January cohort—the first row—spent \5$initsfirstmonth,thentaperedofftoonly$$0.50$in its fifth month. But first-month spending is growing dramatically, and the drop-off seems better, too: April’s cohort spent$$8$initsfirstmonthand$$7$ in its second month. A company that seemed stalled is in fact flourishing. And you know what metric to focus on: drop-off in sales after the first month.
簇分析提供了一个更清晰的视角。在这个例子中，早期月份的变现不良正在削弱整体指标的健康状况。一月份的簇——第一行——在第二个月花费了$0.50，$8，$7。一家看似停滞不前的公司实际上正在蓬勃发展。你知道应该关注哪个指标：第一个月后的销售额下降。

This kind of reporting allows you to see patterns clearly against the lifecycle of a customer, rather than slicing across all customers blindly without accounting for the natural cycle a customer undergoes. Cohort analysis can be done for revenue, churn, viral word of mouth, support costs, or any other metric you care about.
这种报告方式让你能够清晰地看到客户生命周期的模式，而不是盲目地切割所有客户，不考虑客户经历的天然周期。簇分析可以用于收入、客户流失率、病毒式口碑传播、支持成本或任何你关心的指标。

A/B and Multivariate Testing

A/B 测试和多变量测试

Cohort experiments that compare groups like the one in Table 2-2 are called longitudinal studies, since the data is collected along the natural lifespan of a customer group. By contrast, studies in which different groups of test subjects are given different experiences at the same time are called cross-sectional studies. Showing half of the visitors a blue link and half of them a green link in order to see which group is more likely to click that link is a cross-sectional study. When we’re comparing one attribute of a subject’s experience, such as link color, and assuming everything else is equal, we’re doing A/B testing.
比较表 2-2 中那样对分组进行的队列实验称为纵向研究，因为数据是沿着客户群体的自然生命周期收集的。相比之下，在同一时间给不同的测试对象不同的体验的研究称为横断面研究。为了查看哪个组更有可能点击链接，向一半访客展示蓝色链接，另一半展示绿色链接，这就是一个横断面研究。当我们比较主体的一个属性，比如链接颜色，并假设其他一切都相等时，我们正在进行 A/B 测试。

You can test everything about your product, but it’s best to focus on the critical steps and assumptions. The results can pay off dramatically: Jay Parmar, co-founder of crowdfunded ticketing site Picatic, told us that simply changing the company’s call to action from “Get started free” to “Try it out free” increased the number of people who clicked on an offer— known as the click-through rate—by $376\mathrm{\%}$ for a 10-day period.
你可以测试产品的各个方面，但最好专注于关键步骤和假设。结果可能会显著：crowdfunded 票务网站 Picatic 的联合创始人 Jay Parmar 告诉我们，仅仅将公司的号召性用语从“免费开始”改为“免费试用”，在 10 天内就增加了点击率——即点击率——的人数增加了 $376\mathrm{\%}$ 。

A/B tests seem relatively simple, but they have a problem. Unless you’re a huge web property—like Bing or Google—with enough traffic to run a test on a single factor like link color or page speed and get an answer quickly, you’ll have more things to test than you have traffic. You might want to test the color of a web page, the text in a call to action, and the picture you’re showing to visitors.
A/B 测试看似简单，但它们有一个问题。除非你是一个巨大的网络资产——比如 Bing 或 Google——有足够的流量来运行一个单一的测试因素，比如链接颜色或页面速度，并快速得到答案，否则你将比你有更多的东西要测试。你可能想要测试网页的颜色、行动号召中的文字以及向访客展示的图片。

Rather than running a series of separate tests one after the other—which will delay your learning cycle—you can analyze them all at once using a technique called multivariate analysis. This relies on statistical analysis of the results to see which of many factors correlates strongly with an improvement in a key metric.
与运行一系列连续的单独测试——这将延迟你的学习周期——你可以使用一种称为多变量分析的技术来一次性分析它们。这依赖于对结果的统计分析，以查看哪些许多因素与关键指标的重大改进有很强的相关性。

Figure 2-2 illustrates these four ways of slicing users into subgroups and analyzing or testing them.
图 2-2 说明了这四种将用户细分为子组并分析或测试的方法。
Figure 2-2. Cohorts, segments, A/B testing, and multivariate analysis, oh my
图 2-2。群组、细分、A/B 测试和多变量分析，哦我的

The Lean Analytics Cycle

精益分析周期

Much of Lean Analytics is about finding a meaningful metric, then running experiments to improve it until that metric is good enough for you to move to the next problem or the next stage of your business, as shown in Figure 2-3.
精益分析的大部分内容是找到一个有意义的指标，然后通过运行实验来改进它，直到这个指标对你来说足够好，可以让你进入下一个问题或业务的下一阶段，如图 2-3 所示。

Eventually, you’ll find a business model that is sustainable, repeatable, and growing, and learn how to scale it.
最终，你会找到一个可持续、可重复增长的业务模式，并学会如何扩展它。

Figure 2-3. The circle of life for analytical startups
图 2-3。分析型创业公司的生命周期循环

We’ve covered a lot of background on metrics and analytics in this chapter, and your head might be a bit full at this point. You’ve learned:
在本章中，我们讨论了很多关于指标和分析的背景知识，现在你的头脑可能有点满。你学到了：

• What makes a good metric
• 好的指标是什么
• What vanity metrics are and how to avoid them
• 什么是虚荣指标以及如何避免它们
• The difference between qualitative and quantitative metrics, between exploratory and reporting metrics, between leading and lagging metrics, and between correlated and causal metrics
• 定性指标和定量指标的区别，探索性指标和报告性指标的区别，领先指标和滞后指标的区别，以及相关指标和因果指标的区别
• What A/B testing is, and why multivariate testing is more common
• 什么是 A/B 测试，以及为什么多变量测试更常见
• The difference between segments and cohorts
• 用户细分和用户群组之间的区别

In the coming chapters, you’ll put all of these dimensions to work on a variety of business models and stages of startup growth.
在接下来的章节中，你将运用这些维度在各种商业模式和初创公司成长阶段上。

EXERCISE |  Evaluating the Metrics You Track

练习 | 评估你追踪的指标

Take a look at the top three to five metrics that you track religiously and review daily. Write them down. Now answer these questions about them:
查看您严格追踪并每日复习的前三个到五个指标。把它们写下来。现在回答关于它们的问题：

• How many of those metrics are good metrics?
• 那些指标中有多少是好的指标？
• How many do you use to make business decisions, and how many are just vanity metrics?
• 您有多少个指标用于做商业决策，有多少只是虚荣指标？
• Can you eliminate any that aren’t adding value?
• 您能消除那些没有增加价值的指标吗？
• Are there others that you’re now thinking about that may be more meaningful?
• 你现在是否还在考虑其他更有意义的事情？

Cross off the bad ones and add new ones to the bottom of your list, and let’s keep going through the book.
划掉那些不好的，在列表底部添加新的，然后我们继续读这本书。

Deciding What to Do with Your Life

决定如何对待你的生活

As a founder, you’re trying to decide what to spend the next few years of your life working on. The reason you want to be lean and analytical about the process is so that you don’t waste your life building something nobody wants. Or, as Netscape founder and venture capitalist Marc Andreesen puts it, “Markets that don’t exist don’t care how smart you are.”*
作为创始人，你正在试图决定未来几年要专注于做什么。你希望在这个过程中保持精益和数据分析，这样你就不会浪费你的生命去构建一些没人想要的东西。正如网景公司创始人和风险投资家马克·安德森所说，“不存在的市场不在乎你有多聪明。”*

Hopefully, you have an idea of what you want to build. It’s your blueprint, and it’s what you’ll test with analytics. You need a way of quickly and consistently articulating your hypotheses around that idea, so you can go and verify (or repudiate) them with real customers. To do this, we recommend Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas, which lays out a clear process for defining and adjusting a business model based on customer development. We’ll discuss Ash’s model later in this chapter.
希望你已经有了一个你想要构建的想法。这是你的蓝图，也是你将要用分析来测试的东西。你需要一种快速且一致地阐述你关于这个想法的假设的方法，这样你就可以去用真实客户来验证（或推翻）它们。为此，我们推荐 Ash Maurya 的精益画布，它为基于客户开发定义和调整商业模式提供了一个清晰的流程。我们将在本章后面讨论 Ash 的模型。

But the canvas is only half of what you need. It’s not just about finding a business that works—you also need to find a business that you want to work on. Strategic consultant, blogger, and designer Bud Caddell has three clear criteria for deciding what to spend your time on: something that you’re good at, that you want to do, and that you can make money doing.
但是，画布只是你需要的一半。它不仅仅是找到一个可行的商业模式——你还需要找到一个你愿意投入时间的商业模式。战略顾问、博主和设计师 Bud Caddell 提出了三个明确的标准来决定你应该如何投入你的时间：你擅长的事情、你想要做的事情，以及你能从中赚钱的事情。

Let’s look at the Lean Canvas and Bud’s three criteria in more detail.
让我们更详细地看看精益画布和 Bud 的三个标准。

The Lean Canvas

精益画布

The Lean Canvas is a one-page visual business plan that’s ongoing and actionable. It was created by Ash Maurya, and inspired by Alex Osterwalder’s Business Model Canvas.* As you can see in Figure 3-1, it consists of nine boxes organized on a single sheet of paper, designed to walk you through the most important aspects of any business.
精益画布（Lean Canvas）是一份持续更新且可操作的页面式商业计划。它由 Ash Maurya 创建，并受到 Alex Osterwalder 商业模型画布的启发。正如图 3-1 所示，它由九个方框组成，排列在一张纸上，旨在引导你了解任何业务的最重要方面。

Figure 3-1. You can describe your entire business in nine small boxes
图 3-1。你可以在九个小方框中描述你的整个业务

The Lean Canvas is fantastic at identifying the areas of biggest risk and enforcing intellectual honesty. When you’re trying to decide if you’ve got a real business opportunity, Ash says you should consider the following:
精益画布在识别最大风险区域和强制智力诚实方面非常出色。当你试图判断你是否有一个真正的商业机会时，Ash 建议你应该考虑以下几点：

1. Problem: Have you identified real problems people know they have? 2. Customer segments: Do you know your target markets? Do you know how to target messages to them as distinct groups? 3. Unique value proposition: Have you found a clear, distinctive, memorable way to explain why you’re better or different? 4. Solution: Can you solve the problems in the right way?
   问题：你是否识别了人们真正知道的问题？2.客户细分：你是否知道你的目标市场？你是否知道如何将信息作为不同的群体进行定位？3.独特价值主张：你是否找到了一个清晰、独特、难忘的方式来解释你为什么更好或不同？4.解决方案：你是否能以正确的方式解决问题？

2. Channels: How will you get your product or service to your customers, and their money back to you?
   渠道：你将如何将产品或服务传递给客户，并让他们的钱回到你这里？

3. Revenue streams: Where will the money come from? Will it be onetime or recurring? The result of a direct transaction (e.g., buying a meal) or something indirect (magazine subscriptions)?
   收入来源：钱将从哪里来？是一次性还是经常性的？是直接交易的结果（例如，购买一顿饭）还是间接的（杂志订阅）？

4. Cost structure: What are the direct, variable, and indirect costs you’ll have to pay for when you run the business?
   成本结构：当你运营业务时，你将不得不支付哪些直接、可变和间接成本？

5. Metrics: Do you know what numbers to track to understand if you’re making progress?
   你知道要跟踪哪些数字来了解你是否在取得进展？

6. Unfair advantage: What is the “force multiplier” that will make your efforts have greater impact than your competitors?
   不公平的优势：什么是能让你的努力比竞争对手产生更大影响的“倍增器”？

We encourage every startup to use Lean Canvas. It’s an enlightening experience, and well worth the effort.
我们鼓励每个创业公司使用精益画布。这是一次启发性的体验，非常值得努力。

What Should You Work On?

你应该专注于什么？

The Lean Canvas provides a formal framework to help you choose and steer your business. But there’s another, more human, side to all of this.
精益画布提供了一个正式的框架来帮助你选择和引导你的业务。但这一切还有更人性化的一面。

Do you want to do it?
你想这样做吗？

This doesn’t get asked enough. Investors say they look for passionate founders who really care about solving a problem. But it’s seldom called out as something to which you should devote much thought. If you’re going to survive as a founder, you have to find the intersection of demand (for your product), ability (for you to make it), and desire (for you to care about it).
投资者说他们寻找充满激情的创始人，他们真正关心解决问题。但这很少被称作是应该投入大量思考的事情。如果你要作为创始人生存下来，你必须找到需求（对你的产品的需求）、能力（你能够制作它）和愿望（你关心它的愿望）的交集。

That trifecta is often overlooked, withering under the harsh light of data and a flood of customer feedback. But it shouldn’t. Don’t start a business you’re going to hate. Life is too short, and your weariness will show.
这个三重奏经常被忽视，在数据和大量客户反馈的严酷光线下枯萎。但它不应该是这样。不要开始一个你讨厌的企业。生命太短暂了，你的疲惫会显露出来。

Bud Caddell has an amazingly simple diagram of how people should choose what to work on, shown in Figure 3-2.
Bud Caddell 有一个如何选择要做什么工作的惊人简单的图表，如图 3-2 所示。

Figure 3-2. Bud Caddell’s diagram belongs on every career counselor’s wall
图 3-2。Bud Caddell 的图表应该贴在每个职业顾问的墙上

Bud’s diagram shows three overlapping rings: what you like to do, what you’re good at, and what you can be paid to do. For each intersection between rings, he suggests a course of action:
Bud 的图表显示了三个重叠的圆圈：你喜欢做的事情、你擅长做的事情以及你能得到报酬做的事情。他对每个圆圈之间的交集提出了行动建议：

• If you want to do something and are good at it, but can’t be paid to do it, learn to monetize.
• 如果你喜欢做某件事并且擅长它，但无法得到报酬，那就学会如何将其变现。
• If you’re good at something and can be paid to do it, but don’t like doing it, learn to say no.
• 如果你擅长某件事并且能获得报酬，但不喜欢做它，那就学会拒绝。
• If you like to do something and can be paid to do it, but aren’t very good at it, learn to do it well.
如果你喜欢做某件事，并且能因此获得报酬，但你并不擅长，那就努力把它做好。

This isn’t just great advice for career counselors; when launching a new venture, you need to properly assess these three dimensions as well.
这不仅是对职业顾问的绝佳建议；在启动新事业时，你也需要正确评估这三个维度。

First, ask yourself: can I do this thing I’m hoping to do, well? This is about your ability to satisfy your market’s need better than your competitors, and it’s a combination of design skill, coding, branding, and myriad other factors. If you identify a real need, you won’t be the only one satisfying it, and you’ll need all the talent you can muster in order to succeed. Do you have a network of friends and contacts who can give you an unfair advantage that improves your odds? Do you have the talent to do the things that matter really well? Never start a company on a level playing field— that’s where everyone else is standing.
首先，问问自己：我能把我想做的事情做好吗？这关乎你比竞争对手更好地满足市场需求的能力，它结合了设计技能、编码、品牌以及其他无数因素。如果你识别到一个真正的需求，你不会是唯一满足它的人，你需要召集你所能找到的所有人才才能成功。你有朋友和联系人组成的网络能给你带来不公平的优势，提高你的胜算吗？你有能力把重要的事情做得非常出色吗？永远不要在均等的基础上创办公司——那就是其他人所站的位置。

These same rules apply to people working in larger organizations. Don’t launch a new product or enter a new market unless your existing product and market affords you an unfair advantage. Young competitors with fewer legacies will be fighting you for market share, and your size should be an advantage, not a handicap.
这些规则同样适用于在大型组织中工作的人。除非你的现有产品和市场能给你带来不公平的优势，否则不要推出新产品或进入新市场。年轻且资历较浅的竞争对手会和你争夺市场份额，而你的规模应该是优势，而不是劣势。

Second, figure out whether you like doing this thing. Startups will consume your life, and they’ll be a constant source of aggravation. Your business will compete with your friends, your partner, your children, and your hobbies. You need to believe in what you’re doing so that you’ll keep at it and ride through the good times and the bad. Would you work on it even if you weren’t being paid? Is it a problem worth solving, that you’ll brag about to others? Is it something that will take your career in the direction you want, and give you the right reputation within your existing organization? If not, maybe you should keep looking.
其次，要弄清楚你是否喜欢做这件事。创业会消耗你的生活，并成为你持续不断的烦恼来源。你的事业将与你的朋友、你的伴侣、你的孩子和你的爱好竞争。你需要相信你所做的事情，这样你才能坚持下去，经历好的和坏的时期。即使你不拿薪水，你也会愿意做它吗？这是否是一个值得解决的问题，以至于你会向别人吹嘘？这是否会把你的事业引向你想去的方向，并在你现有的组织中给你带来合适的声誉？如果不是，也许你应该继续寻找。

Finally, be sure you can make money doing it.* This is about the market’s need. You have to be able to extract enough money from customers for the value you’ll deliver, and do so without spending a lot to acquire those customers—and the process of acquiring them and extracting their money has to scale independent of you as a founder.
最后，确保你能通过这件事赚钱。这是关于市场的需求。你必须能够从客户那里获得足够的钱，以提供你所提供的价值，并且这样做时，获取这些客户的成本不能太高——获取他们并从他们那里获取金钱的过程必须独立于创始人你而扩展。

For an intrapreneur, this question needs to be answered simply to get approval for the project, but remember that you’re fighting the opportunity cost—whatever the organization could be doing instead, or the profitability of the existing business. If what you’re doing isn’t likely to have a material impact on the bottom line, maybe you should look elsewhere.
对于内部创业者来说，这个问题需要简单回答才能获得项目批准，但要记住你在对抗机会成本——组织可以替代做其他事情，或者现有业务的盈利能力。如果你所做的事情不太可能对底线产生实质性影响，也许你应该另寻出路。

This is by far the most important of the three; the other two are easy, because they’re up to you. But now you have to figure out if anyone will pay you for what you can and want to build.
这是最重要的三个问题中最重要的一个；另外两个都很容易，因为它们取决于你。但现在你必须弄清楚是否有人会为你所能并且想要建立的东西付费。

In the early stages of a startup, you’ll be dealing with a lot of data. You’re awash in the tides of opinion, and buffeted by whatever feedback you’ve heard most recently.
在创业的早期阶段，你会处理大量数据。你被各种观点的浪潮所淹没，并且受到最近听到的反馈的影响。

Never forget that you’re trying to answer three fundamental questions:
不要忘记你正在试图回答三个基本问题：

• Have I identified a problem worth solving? • Is the solution I’m proposing the right one? • Do I actually want to solve it?
• 我是否识别了一个值得解决的问题？• 我提出的解决方案是否正确？• 我是否真的想解决这个问题？

Or, more succinctly: should I go build this thing?
或者更简洁地说：我应该去构建这个项目吗？

EXERCISE  |  Create a Lean Canvas

练习 | 创建精益画布

Go to http://leancanvas.com to create your first canvas. Pick an idea or project you’re working on now, or something you’ve been thinking about. Spend 20 minutes on the canvas and see what it looks like. Fill in the boxes based on the numbered order, but feel free to skip boxes that you can’t fill out. We’ll wait.
前往 http://leancanvas.com 创建您的第一个画布。选择您目前正在处理的想法或项目，或者您一直在思考的事情。花 20 分钟在画布上看看它是什么样子。根据编号顺序填写方框，但请随意跳过您无法填写的方框。我们会等待。

How did you do? Can you see what areas of your idea or business are the riskiest? Are you excited about tackling those areas of risk now that you see them described in the canvas? If you’re confident, share your Lean Canvas with someone else (an investor, advisor, or colleague) and use it as a discussion starter.
你做得怎么样？你能看到你的想法或业务中哪些领域风险最大吗？当你看到这些领域在画布上描述时，你对此感到兴奋吗？如果你有信心，请与另一个人（投资者、顾问或同事）分享你的精益画布，并以此作为讨论的起点。

Data-Driven Versus Data-Informed

数据驱动与数据指导

Data is a powerful thing. It can be addictive, making you overanalyze everything. But much of what we actually do is unconscious, based on past experience and pragmatism. And with good reason: relying on wisdom and experience, rather than rigid analysis, helps us get through our day. After all, you don’t run A/B testing before deciding what pants to put on in the morning; if you did, you’d never get out the door.
数据是一件强大的事情。它可以让人上瘾，让你过度分析一切。但我们所做的很多其实是无意识的，基于过去的经验和实用主义。这也有充分理由：依靠智慧和经验，而不是僵化的分析，能帮助我们度过一天。毕竟，你不会在早上决定穿什么裤子之前进行 A/B 测试；如果你那样做，你永远也出不去。

One of the criticisms of Lean Startup is that it’s too data-driven. Rather than be a slave to the data, these critics say, we should use it as a tool. We should be data-informed, not data-driven. Mostly, they’re just being lazy, and looking for reasons not to do the hard work. But sometimes, they have a point: using data to optimize one part of your business, without stepping back and looking at the big picture, can be dangerous—even fatal.
批评精益创业的一个观点是它过于依赖数据。批评者说，我们不应该被数据所奴役，而应该将其作为工具来使用。我们应该受数据启发，而不是被数据驱动。大多数情况下，他们只是在找借口，不愿做艰苦的工作。但有时他们也有道理：如果在优化业务的一个部分时，不后退一步看看大局，可能会很危险——甚至致命。

Consider travel agency Orbitz and its discovery that Mac users were willing to reserve a more expensive hotel room. CTO Roger Liew told the Wall Street Journal, “We had the intuition [that Mac users are $40\mathrm{\%}$ more likely to book a four- or five-star hotel than PC users and to stay in more expensive rooms], and we were able to confirm it based on the data.”*
考虑一下旅行社 Orbitz 的发现，即 Mac 用户愿意预订更昂贵的酒店房间。CTO 罗杰·李告诉华尔街日报，“我们有一种直觉[Mac 用户比 PC 用户更有可能预订四星级或五星级酒店，并住更昂贵的房间]，并且我们能够根据数据来证实它。”*

On the one hand, an algorithm that ignores seemingly unrelated customer data (in this case, whether visitors were using a Mac) wouldn’t have found this opportunity to increase revenues. On the other hand, an algorithm that blindly optimizes based on customer data, regardless of its relationship to the sale, may have unintended consequences—like bad PR. Data-driven machine optimization, when not moderated by human judgment, can cause problems.
一方面，一个忽略看似无关的客户数据（在这种情况下，是访问者是否使用 Mac）的算法将无法发现增加收入的机会。另一方面，一个盲目根据客户数据进行优化的算法，无论其与销售的关系如何，可能会产生意想不到的后果——比如糟糕的公关。当数据驱动的机器优化不受人类判断的调节时，可能会造成问题。

Years ago, Gail Ennis, then CMO of analytics giant Omniture, told one of us that users of the company’s content optimization tools had to temper machine optimization with human judgment. Left to its own devices, the software quickly learned that scantily clad women generated a far higher click-through rate on web pages than other forms of content. But that click-through rate was a short-term gain, offset by damage to the brand of the company that relied on it. So Omniture’s software works alongside curators who understand the bigger picture and provide suitable imagery for the machine to test. Humans do inspiration; machines do validation.
多年前，分析巨头 Omniture 的 CMO 盖尔·恩尼斯曾对我们之一说过，使用该公司内容优化工具的用户必须用人类判断来调节机器优化。如果任其自行其是，软件很快就会学会，穿着很少衣服的女性在网页上产生的点击率远高于其他形式的内容。但这个点击率只是短期收益，被依赖它的公司的品牌损害所抵消。因此，Omniture 的软件与了解大局的策展人一起工作，为机器测试提供合适的图像。人类提供灵感；机器进行验证。

In mathematics, a local maximum is the largest value of a function within a given neighborhood.* That doesn’t mean it’s the largest possible value, just the largest one in a particular range. As an analogy, consider a lake on a mountainside. The water isn’t at its lowest possible level—that would be sea level—but it’s at the lowest possible level in the area surrounding the lake.
在数学中，局部最大值是指函数在给定邻域内的最大值。* 这并不意味着它是最大的可能值，只是在特定范围内最大的值。打个比方，考虑山腰上的一个湖泊。水位并不是最低的可能水平——那将是海平面——但它是在湖泊周围区域内的最低可能水平。

Optimization is all about finding the lowest or highest values of a particular function. A machine can find the optimal settings for something, but only within the constraints and problem space of which it’s aware, in much the same way that the water in a mountainside lake can’t find the lowest possible value, just the lowest value within the constraints provided.
优化就是寻找特定函数的最低或最高值。机器可以找到某些事物的最佳设置，但仅在其意识和问题空间内，就像山腰湖泊中的水无法找到最低的可能值，只能找到在给定约束条件下的最低值一样。

To understand the problem with constrained optimization, imagine that you’re given three wheels and asked to evolve the best, most stable vehicle. After many iterations of pitting different wheel layouts against one another, you come up with a tricycle-like configuration. It’s the optimal threewheeled configuration.
要理解约束优化的问题，想象一下你被给了三个轮子，并被要求进化出最稳定、最好的车辆。经过多次将不同的轮子布局相互对比的迭代，你最终设计出了类似三轮车的配置。这是最佳的三个轮子的配置。

Data-driven optimization can perform this kind of iterative improvement. What it can’t do, however, is say, “You know what? Four wheels would be way better!” Math is good at optimizing a known system; humans are good at finding a new one. Put another way, change favors local maxima; innovation favors global disruption.
数据驱动的优化可以执行这种迭代改进。然而，它却不能说，“你知道的，四个轮子会好得多！”数学擅长优化已知系统；而人类擅长发现新的系统。换句话说，变革倾向于局部最大值；而创新倾向于全局颠覆。

In his book River Out Of Eden (Basic Books), Richard Dawkins uses the analogy of a flowing river to describe evolution. Evolution, he explains, can create the eye. In fact, it can create dozens of versions of it, for wasps, octopods, humans, eagles, and whales. What it can’t do well is go backward: once you have an eye that’s useful, slight mutations don’t usually yield improvements. A human won’t evolve an eagle’s eye, because the intermediate steps all result in bad eyesight.
在他的书《伊甸园之河》（基本图书）中，理查德·道金斯用一条流动的河流的比喻来描述进化。他解释说，进化可以创造出眼睛。事实上，它可以创造出几十种眼睛，用于黄蜂、章鱼、人类、鹰和鲸鱼。但它并不擅长倒退：一旦你拥有一个有用的眼睛，轻微的突变通常不会带来改进。人类不会进化出鹰的眼睛，因为中间步骤都会导致视力不佳。

Machine-only optimization suffers from similar limitations as evolution. If you’re optimizing for local maxima, you might be missing a bigger, more important opportunity. It’s your job to be the intelligent designer to data’s evolution.
仅机器优化与进化有类似的局限性。如果你在优化局部最大值，你可能会错过一个更大的、更重要的机会。你的工作就是成为数据进化的智能设计者。

Many of the startup founders with whom we’ve spoken have a fundamental mistrust of leaving their businesses to numbers alone. They want to trust their guts. They’re uneasy with their companies being optimized without a soul, and see the need to look at the bigger picture of the market, the problem they’re solving, and their fundamental business models.
我们与许多创业公司创始人交谈时发现，他们普遍对完全依赖数字来管理公司缺乏信任。他们更愿意相信自己的直觉。他们不希望公司在没有灵魂的情况下被优化，并认为需要从更宏观的市场、他们所解决的问题以及基本的商业模式的角度来审视。

Ultimately, quantitative data is great for testing hypotheses, but it’s lousy for generating new ones unless combined with human introspection.
毕竟，定量数据在检验假设方面非常出色，但如果不结合人类的内省，它对于产生新的假设就没什么用了。

PATTERN |  How to Think Like a Data Scientist

模式 | 如何像数据科学家一样思考

Monica Rogati, a data scientist at LinkedIn, gave us the following 10 common pitfalls that entrepreneurs should avoid as they dig into the data their startups capture.
领英的数据科学家莫妮卡·罗加蒂给了我们以下 10 个常见陷阱，创业者们在挖掘他们公司捕获的数据时应避免。

1. Assuming the data is clean. Cleaning the data you capture is often most of the work, and the simple act of cleaning it up can often reveal important patterns. “Is an instrumentation bug causing $30\mathrm{\%}$ of your numbers to be null?” asks Monica. “Do you really have that many users in the 90210 zip code?” Check your data at the door to be sure it’s valid and useful.
   假设数据是干净的。清理你捕获的数据通常是大部分工作，而简单地清理它往往可以揭示重要模式。“是测量错误导致你的数字中有 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 个为空？”莫妮卡问道。“你真的有那么多用户在 90210 邮政编码吗？”在数据门前检查你的数据，以确保它是有效的和有用的。
2. Not normalizing. Let’s say you’re making a list of popular wedding destinations. You could count the number of people flying in for a wedding, but unless you consider the total number of air travellers coming to that city as well, you’ll just get a list of cities with busy airports.
   不进行标准化。比如说你正在制作一个热门婚礼目的地的列表。你可以统计有多少人飞往参加婚礼，但除非你同时考虑到达该城市的总旅客数量，否则你只会得到一个机场繁忙的城市列表。
3. Excluding outliers. Those 21 people using your product more than a thousand times a day are either your biggest fans, or bots crawling your site for content. Whichever they are, ignoring them would be a mistake.
   排除异常值。那些每天使用你的产品超过一千次的人，要么是你的最大粉丝，要么是爬取你网站内容的机器人。无论他们是什么，忽略它们都将是一个错误。
4. Including outliers. While those 21 people using your product a thousand times a day are interesting from a qualitative perspective, because they can show you things you didn’t expect, they’re not good for building a general model. “You probably want to exclude
   包括异常值。虽然那些每天使用你的产品一千次的人从定性角度来看是有趣的，因为他们可以向你展示你没有预料到的事情，但它们不适合建立一般模型。“你可能想要排除

them when building data products,” cautions Monica. “Otherwise, the ‘you may also like’ feature on your site will have the same items everywhere—the ones your hardcore fans wanted.”
她们提醒说，在构建数据产品时要小心，“否则，你网站上的‘你可能还喜欢’功能将到处都是相同的项目——那些你忠实粉丝想要的东西。”

5. Ignoring seasonality. “Whoa, is ‘intern’ the fastest-growing job of the year? Oh, wait, it’s June.” Failure to consider time of day, day of week, and monthly changes when looking at patterns leads to bad decision making.
   忽略季节性。“哇，‘实习生’是今年增长最快的职业吗？哦，等等，现在是六月。”在查看模式时，不考虑一天中的时间、一周中的某一天以及月度变化会导致错误的决策。
6. Ignoring size when reporting growth. Context is critical. Or, as Monica puts it, “When you’ve just started, technically, your dad signing up does count as doubling your user base.” 7. Data vomit. A dashboard isn’t much use if you don’t know where to look.
   报告增长时忽略规模。背景信息至关重要。或者，正如莫妮卡所说，“当你刚开始时，技术上，你父亲注册也确实算作用户基数翻倍。”7. 数据呕吐。如果不知道该看哪里，仪表板就没什么用处。
7. Metrics that cry wolf. You want to be responsive, so you set up alerts to let you know when something is awry in order to fix it quickly. But if your thresholds are too sensitive, they get “whiny”— and you’ll start to ignore them.
   呼叫狼的指标。你想保持警觉，所以你设置了警报，以便在出现问题时快速修复。但如果你的阈值太敏感，它们会变得“烦人”——你将开始忽略它们。
8. The “Not Collected Here” syndrome. “Mashing up your data with data from other sources can lead to valuable insights,” says Monica. “Do your best customers come from zip codes with a high concentration of sushi restaurants?” This might give you a few great ideas about what experiments to run next—or even influence your growth strategy.
   “不在此收集”综合征。“将你的数据与其他来源的数据结合可以带来有价值的见解，”莫妮卡说。“你最好的客户来自集中了许多寿司餐厅的邮编吗？”这可能给你一些关于下一步要进行的实验的绝佳想法——甚至可能影响你的增长战略。
9. Focusing on noise. “We’re hardwired (and then programmed) to see patterns where there are none,” Monica warns. “It helps to set aside the vanity metrics, step back, and look at the bigger picture.“
   关注噪音。“我们（被本能和编程）习惯于在没有模式的地方看到模式，”莫妮卡警告说。“这有助于你放下虚荣指标，退一步，看看大局。“

Lean Startup and Big Vision

精益创业和宏大愿景

Some entrepreneurs are maniacally, almost compulsively, data-obsessed, but tend to get mired in analysis paralysis. Others are casual, shootfrom-the-hip intuitionists who ignore data unless it suits them, and pivot lazily from idea to idea without discipline. At the root of this divide is the fundamental challenge that Lean Startup advocates face: how do you have a minimum viable product and a hugely compelling vision at the same time?
一些企业家对数据痴迷，近乎强迫症，但往往陷入分析瘫痪。另一些则是随意的、即兴发挥的直觉主义者，除非数据对他们有利，否则会忽略数据，从想法到想法懒散地转变，缺乏纪律。这种分歧的根本挑战在于精益创业倡导者面临的问题：如何在同时拥有最小可行产品和极具吸引力的愿景？

Plenty of founders use Lean Startup as an excuse to start a company without a vision. “It’s so easy to start a company these days.” They reason, “the barriers are so low that everyone can do it, right?” Yet having a big vision is important: starting a company without one makes you susceptible to outside influences, be they from customers, investors, competition, press, or anything else. Without a big vision, you’ll lack purpose, and over time you’ll find yourself wandering aimlessly.
许多创始人利用精益创业作为没有愿景就创办公司的借口。“如今创办公司太容易了。”他们这样推理，“门槛这么低，每个人都能做，对吧？”然而拥有一个宏大的愿景非常重要：没有愿景地创办公司会让你容易受到外界的影响，无论是来自客户、投资者、竞争者、媒体，还是其他任何方面。没有宏大的愿景，你会缺乏目标，随着时间的推移，你会发现自己在漫无目的地游荡。

So if a big, hairy, audacious vision is important—one with a changing-theworld type goal—how does that reconcile with the step-by-step, alwaysquestioning approach of Lean Startup?
那么如果需要一个宏大、艰巨、雄心勃勃的愿景——一个具有改变世界类型的目标——这与精益创业的逐步、不断质疑的方法如何协调一致？

The answer is actually pretty simple. You need to think of Lean Startup as the process you use to move toward and achieve your vision.
答案实际上相当简单。你需要将精益创业视为一个帮助你实现愿景的过程。

We sometimes remind early-stage founders that, in many ways, they aren’t building a product. They’re building a tool to learn what product to build. This helps separate the task at hand—finding a sustainable business model—from the screens, lines of code, and mailing lists they’ve carefully built along the way.
我们有时会提醒早期阶段的创始人，在很多方面，他们并不是在构建一个产品。他们是在构建一个学习要构建什么产品的工具。这有助于将当前的任务——找到可持续的商业模式——与他们沿途精心构建的屏幕、代码行和邮件列表区分开来。

Lean Startup is focused on learning above everything else, and encourages broad thinking, exploration, and experimentation. It’s not about mindlessly going through the motions of build $\to$ measure $\to$ learn—it’s about really understanding what’s going on and being open to new possibilities.
精益创业专注于学习，鼓励广泛思考、探索和实验。它不是盲目地走过构建 $\to$ 衡量 $\to$ 学习的过程——而是真正理解正在发生的事情，并对新的可能性持开放态度。

Be Lean. Don’t be small. We’ve talked to founders who want to be the leading provider in their state or province. Why not the world? Even the Allies had to pick a beachhead, but landing in Normandy didn’t mean they lacked a big vision. They just found a good place to start.
要精益，不要小。我们与一些创始人交谈过，他们希望成为他们所在州或省的领先提供者。为什么不是全世界呢？即使是盟军也必须选择一个滩头阵地，登陆诺曼底并不意味着他们缺乏远大 vision。他们只是找到了一个好的起点。

Some people believe Lean Startup encourages that smallness, but in fact, used properly, Lean Startup helps expand your vision, because you’re encouraged to question everything. As you dig deeper and peel away more layers of what you’re doing—whether you’re looking at problems, solutions, customers, revenue, or anything else—you’re likely to find a lot more than you expected. If you’re opportunistic about it, you can expand your vision and understand how to get there faster, all at the same time.
有些人认为精益创业鼓励小，但实际上，正确使用的话，精益创业有助于扩大你的 vision，因为你被鼓励质疑一切。当你深入挖掘，剥开你所做的事情的更多层——无论是看待问题、解决方案、客户、收入还是其他任何东西——你很可能会发现比你预期的更多。如果你抓住机会，你可以在同一时间扩大你的 vision 并更快地理解如何到达那里。

P A R T T W O :
第二部分：

FINDING THERIGHT METRICFOR RIGHT NOW

找到合适的指标

You now have an understanding of analytics fundamentals. So let’s talk about the importance of focus, about specific business models, and about the stages every startup goes through as it discovers the right product and the best target market. Armed with this, you’ll be able to find the metrics that matter to you.
你现在已经了解了分析的基础知识。那么，让我们谈谈专注的重要性，关于特定的商业模式，以及每个创业公司在其发现合适的产品和最佳目标市场的过程中所经历的阶段。有了这些知识，你将能够找到对你重要的指标。

It is the framework which changes with each new technology and not just the picture within the frame.
这是随着每一项新技术的出现而变化的框架，而不仅仅是框架内的画面。

Marshall McLuhan
马歇尔·麦克卢汉

Analytics Frameworks

分析框架

Over the years we’ve seen a number of frameworks emerge that help us understand startups and the changes they undergo as they grow, find their markets, and help startups acquire customers and revenue. Each framework offers a different perspective on the startup lifecycle, and each suggests a set of metrics and areas on which to focus.
多年来，我们看到了许多框架的出现，它们帮助我们理解初创公司以及它们在成长、找到市场、帮助初创公司获取客户和收入过程中所经历的变化。每个框架都提供了对初创公司生命周期的不同视角，并且每个框架都建议了一套要关注的指标和领域。

After comparing and contrasting a number of these frameworks, we’ve created our own way to think about startups, and in particular the metrics that you use to measure your progress. We’ll use this new framework throughout the book—but first, let’s take a look at some of the existing frameworks and how they fit into Lean Analytics.
在比较和对比了这些框架之后，我们创建了自己的思考初创公司的方法，特别是用于衡量你进展的指标。我们将在整本书中使用这个新的框架——但首先，让我们看看一些现有的框架以及它们如何融入精益分析。

Dave McClure’s Pirate Metrics

戴夫·麦克卢尔的海盗指标

Pirate Metrics—a term coined by venture capitalist Dave McClure—gets its name from the acronym for five distinct elements of building a successful business. McClure categorizes the metrics a startup needs to watch into acquisition, activation, retention, revenue, and referral—AARRR.*
海盗指标——由风险投资家戴夫·麦克卢尔（Dave McClure）提出的一个术语——其名称来源于构建成功企业所需的五个不同要素的缩写。麦克卢尔将初创企业需要关注的指标分为获取用户（acquisition）、激活用户（activation）、用户留存（retention）、收入（revenue）和用户推荐（referral）——即 AARRR 模型。*

Figure 5-1 shows our interpretation of his model, describing the five steps through which users, customers, or visitors must progress in order for your company to extract all the value from them. Value comes not only from a transaction (revenue) but also from their role as marketers (referral) and content creators (retention).
图 5-1 展示了我们对该模型的解读，描述了用户、客户或访客必须经历的五个步骤，以便您的公司能够从他们身上获取全部价值。这种价值不仅来自交易（收入），还来自他们作为营销者（推荐）和内容创作者（留存）的角色。

Figure 5-1. Even pirates need metrics, says Dave McClure
图 5-1。即使是海盗也需要指标，戴夫·麦克卢尔说

These five elements don’t necessarily follow a strict order—users may refer others before they spend money, for example, or may return several times before signing up—but the list is a good framework for thinking about how a business needs to grow (see Table 5-1).
这五个要素并不一定遵循严格的顺序——用户可能在花钱之前就推荐他人，或者可能在注册之前就多次返回——但这个列表是一个思考企业如何增长的不错框架（见表 5-1）。

Table 5-1. Pirate Metrics and what you should track
表 5-1。海盗指标和你应该追踪的内容

Eric Ries’s Engines of Growth

埃里克·莱斯（Eric Ries）的增长引擎

In Lean Startup, Eric Ries talks about three engines that drive the growth of a startup. Each of these has associated key performance indicators (KPIs).
在精益创业中，埃里克·莱斯谈到了驱动创业公司增长的三个引擎。每个引擎都有相关的关键绩效指标（KPI）。

Sticky Engine

粘性引擎

The sticky engine focuses on getting users to return, and to keep using your product. It’s akin to Dave McClure’s retention phase. If your users aren’t sticky, churn will be high, and you won’t have engagement. Engagement is one of the best predictors of success: Facebook’s early user counts weren’t huge, but the company could get nearly all students in a university to use the product, and to keep coming back, within a few months of launch. Facebook’s stickiness was off the charts.
粘性引擎专注于让用户回归，并持续使用你的产品。它类似于戴夫·麦克卢尔的留存阶段。如果你的用户不够粘性，那么流失率会很高，你也不会有用户参与度。参与度是成功最好的预测指标之一：Facebook 早期的用户数量并不大，但该公司在推出后的几个月内就能让几乎所有大学的学生使用该产品，并持续回来使用。Facebook 的粘性极高。

The fundamental KPI for stickiness is customer retention. Churn rates and usage frequency are other important metrics to track. Long-term stickiness often comes from the value users create for themselves as they use the service. It’s hard for people to leave Gmail or Evernote, because, well, that’s where they store all their stuff. Similarly, if a player deletes his account from a massively multiplayer online game (MMO), he loses all his status and in-game items, which he’s worked hard to earn.
粘性引擎的基本 KPI 是客户留存率。流失率和使用频率是其他需要跟踪的重要指标。长期的粘性通常来自于用户在使用服务过程中为自己创造的价值。人们很难离开 Gmail 或 Evernote，因为，嗯，那里是他们存储所有东西的地方。类似地，如果一个玩家从大型多人在线游戏（MMO）中删除了他的账号，他会失去所有他的状态和游戏内物品，这些是他努力赚取的。

Stickiness isn’t only about retention, it’s also about frequency, which is why you also need to track metrics like time since last visit. If you have methods of driving return visits such as email notifications or updates, then email open rates and click-through rates matter, too.
粘性并不仅仅关乎留存，还关乎频率，这也是为什么你需要追踪诸如上次访问时间等指标。如果你有驱动用户再次访问的方法，比如邮件通知或更新，那么邮件打开率和点击率也同样重要。

Virality Engine

病毒式传播引擎

Virality is all about getting the word out. Virality is attractive because it compounds—if every user adds another 1.5 users, your user base will grow infinitely until you’ve saturated all users.*
病毒式传播的全部意义在于让更多人知道。病毒式传播之所以吸引人，是因为它会指数级增长——如果每个用户能带来 1.5 个新用户，你的用户群将无限增长，直到所有用户都被覆盖为止。

The key metric for this engine is the viral coefficient—the number of new users that each user brings on. Because this is compounding (the users they bring, in turn, bring their own users), the metric measures how many users are brought in with each viral cycle. Growth comes from a viral coefficient of greater than one, but you also have to factor in churn and loss. The bigger the coefficient, the faster you grow.
这个引擎的关键指标是病毒系数——每个用户带来的新用户数量。由于这是指数级增长（他们带来的用户又会带来自己的用户），这个指标衡量了每个病毒传播周期带来的用户数量。增长来自于病毒系数大于 1，但你也要考虑用户流失和损失。系数越大，增长越快。

Measuring viral coefficient isn’t enough. You also need to measure the actions that make up the cycle. For example, when you join most social networks, you’re asked to connect to your email account to find contacts, then you’re given the option to invite them. They receive emails, which they might act upon. Those distinct stages all contribute to virality, so measuring actions is how you tweak the viral engine—by changing the message, simplifying the signup process, and so on.
衡量病毒系数还不够。你还需要衡量构成周期的行为。例如，当你加入大多数社交网络时，你被要求连接到你的电子邮件账户以查找联系人，然后你被提供邀请他们的选项。他们收到电子邮件，他们可能会采取行动。这些不同的阶段都对病毒性有贡献，所以衡量行为就是调整病毒引擎——通过改变信息、简化注册过程等等。

There are other factors at play with virality as well, including the speed with which a user invites another (known as the viral cycle time) and the type of virality. We’ll dive into these later in the book.
病毒性还有其他因素，包括用户邀请另一个的速度（称为病毒周期时间）和病毒性的类型。我们将在本书的后面深入探讨这些内容。

Paid Engine

付费引擎

The third engine of growth is payment. It’s usually premature to turn this engine on before you know that your product is sticky and viral. Meteor Entertainment’s Hawken is a multiplayer game that’s free to play, but it makes money from in-game upgrades. Meteor is focusing on usage within a beta group first (stickiness), then working on virality (inviting your friends to play), and finally payment (players buying upgrades to become competitive or enhance the in-game experience).
第三种增长引擎是支付。在你不知道你的产品是否粘性和病毒性之前，开启这种引擎通常是过早的。Meteor Entertainment 的 Hawken 是一款多人游戏，可以免费玩，但它通过游戏内的升级赚钱。Meteor 首先专注于在测试组内的使用（粘性），然后致力于病毒性（邀请你的朋友来玩），最后是支付（玩家购买升级以变得有竞争力或增强游戏体验）。

Getting paid is, in some ways, the ultimate metric for identifying a sustainable business model. If you make more money from customers than it costs you to acquire them—and you do so consistently—you’re sustainable. You don’t need money from external investors, and you’re growing shareholder equity every day.
获得收入在某些方面是识别可持续商业模式的最终极指标。如果你从客户那里获得的钱比你获取他们的成本多——并且你能够持续这样做——你就是一个可持续的企业。你不需要外部投资者的钱，并且每天都在增加股东权益。

But getting paid, on its own, isn’t an engine of growth. It’s just a way to put money in the bank. Revenue helps growth only when you funnel some of the money generated from revenue back into acquisition. Then you have a machine that you can tune to grow the business over time.
但是仅仅获得收入并不是增长的引擎。它只是把钱存进银行的一种方式。收入只有当你把一些收入产生的钱再投资到获取客户上时，才能帮助增长。然后你就有了一个可以调整以随着时间的推移增长业务的机器。

The two knobs on this machine are customer lifetime value (CLV) and customer acquisition cost (CAC). Making more money from customers than you spend acquiring them is good, but the equation for success isn’t that simple. You still need to worry about cash flow and growth rate, which are driven by how long it takes a customer to pay off. One way to measure this is time to customer breakeven—that is, how much time it will take to recoup the acquisition cost of a customer.
这台机器的两个旋钮是客户终身价值（CLV）和客户获取成本（CAC）。从客户那里获得的钱比获取他们的成本多是一件好事，但成功的公式并不那么简单。你仍然需要担心现金流和增长率，这些是由客户多久能够还清成本来驱动的。衡量这一点的一种方法是客户盈亏平衡时间——也就是说，需要多长时间才能收回客户的获取成本。

Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas

阿什·莫里亚的精益画布

We looked at the Lean Canvas in Chapter 3, when we talked about deciding what problem you should solve. See the sidebar “How to Use a Lean Canvas” for some tips on putting it into practice.
在第 3 章中，我们讨论了如何决定要解决的问题，并介绍了精益画布。有关如何使用精益画布的提示，请参阅侧边栏“如何使用精益画布”。

How to Use a Lean Canvas

如何使用精益画布

Unlike a traditional business plan, you should use and update the Lean Canvas continuously. It’s a “living, breathing” plan, not a hypothetical tome of nonsense that you throw out the minute you start actually working on your startup. Once you’ve filled out the Lean Canvas (or most of it), you start running experiments to validate or invalidate what you’ve hypothesized.
与传统的商业计划不同，你应该持续使用和更新精益画布。它是一个“活生生、呼吸着”的计划，而不是一个假设性的、毫无意义的著作，一旦你开始实际进行创业工作时，就会将其扔掉。一旦你填写完精益画布（或大部分内容），就开始进行实验来验证或推翻你的假设。

In its simplest form, think of each box as a “pass/fail”: if your experiments fail, you don’t go to the next box; rather, you keep experimenting until you hit a wall completely or get to the next step. The only exception is the “Key metrics” box, which is meant to keep a record of the most important metrics you’re tracking. You don’t run experiments on this box, but it’s important to fill it out anyway because it’s definitely open to debate and discussion.
在最简单的形式下，可以将每个方框视为“通过/失败”：如果你的实验失败，你就不会进入下一个方框；相反，你会继续进行实验，直到完全撞墙或进入下一步。唯一的例外是“关键指标”方框，它用于记录你正在跟踪的最重要指标。你不会在这个方框上运行实验，但无论如何都很重要要填写它，因为它确实可以供讨论和辩论。

Each of the boxes in Ash’s canvas has relevant metrics you need to track, as outlined in Table 5-2 (the canvas actually has a box for metrics, which should get updated each time you focus on something different in the canvas). These metrics either tie your one-page business model to reality by confirming each box, or they send you back to the drawing board. The individual metrics may change depending on your type of business, but the guidelines are valuable just the same. We’ll share more details later in the book on the key metrics that matter based on your type of business, as well as benchmarks you can aim for.
阿什画布中的每个方框都有相关的指标需要跟踪，如表格 5-2 所示（画布实际上有一个用于指标的方框，每次你关注画布中的不同内容时都应该更新它）。这些指标通过确认每个方框将你的单页业务模式与现实联系起来，或者将你带回绘图板。具体的指标可能会根据你的业务类型而变化，但指导方针仍然很有价值。我们将在本书的后面分享更多关于根据你的业务类型重要的关键指标，以及你可以追求的基准。

Table 5-2. Lean Canvas and relevant metrics
表 5-2。精益画布和相关指标

Sean Ellis’s Startup Growth Pyramid

Sean Ellis 的创业增长金字塔

Sean Ellis is a well-known entrepreneur and marketer. He coined the term growth hacker and has been heavily involved with a number of meteoricgrowth startups, including Dropbox, Xobni, LogMeIn (IPO), and Uproar (IPO). His Startup Growth Pyramid, shown in Figure 5-2, focuses on what to do after you’ve achieved product/market fit.
Sean Ellis 是一位著名的创业者和营销人员。他创造了“增长黑客”一词，并深度参与了多个飞速发展的创业公司，包括 Dropbox、Xobni、LogMeIn（IPO）和 Uproar（IPO）。他的创业增长金字塔（如图 5-2 所示），关注在您实现了产品/市场契合度之后应该做什么。

Figure 5-2. Like building, real pyramid, startup growth is back-breaking labor
图 5-2。像建造真正的金字塔一样，创业增长是艰苦的劳动

The question this poses a of course, is how do you know if you’ve achieved product/market fit? Sean devised a simple survey that you can send customers (available at survey.io) to determine if you’re ready for accelerated growth. The most important question in the survey is “How would you feel if you could no longer use this product or service?” In Sean’s experience, if $40\mathrm{\%}$ of people (or more) say they’d be very disappointed to lose the service, you’ve found a fit, and now it’s time to scale.
这个问题当然地提出的是，你如何知道你是否达到了产品/市场契合？肖恩设计了一个简单的调查问卷，你可以发送给客户（可在 survey.io 获取），以确定你是否准备好加速增长。调查问卷中最重要的一个问题是如何“如果你不能再使用这个产品或服务，你会怎么想？”根据肖恩的经验，如果有 $40\mathrm{\%}$ 人（或更多）说他们很失望如果失去这个服务，你就找到了契合点，现在就是扩展的时候了。

The Long Funnel

长漏斗

In the early days of the Web, transactional websites had relatively simple conversion funnels. Visitors came to the home page, navigated to the product they wanted, entered payment information, and confirmed their order.
在互联网的早期，交易性网站有相对简单的转化漏斗。访客来到主页，导航到他们想要的产品，输入支付信息，并确认订单。

No more. Today’s funnel extends well beyond the front door of a website, across myriad social networks, sharing platforms, affiliates, and pricecomparison sites. Both offline and online factors influence a single purchase. Customers may make several tentative visits prior to a conversion.
不再如此。如今的漏斗远不止网站的入口，它跨越了无数社交网络、分享平台、联盟营销和比价网站。线上和线下的因素都会影响单次购买。顾客可能在转化之前进行多次试探性访问。

We call this the Long Funnel. It’s a way of understanding how you first come to someone’s attention, and the journey she takes from that initial awareness through to a goal you want her to complete (such as making a purchase, creating content, or sharing a message). Often, measuring a long funnel involves injecting some kind of tracking into the initial signal, so you can follow the user as she winds up on your site, which many analytics packages can now report. Figure 5-3 shows the Social Visitors Flow report in Google Analytics, for example.
我们称之为“长漏斗”。这是一种理解你如何首先引起某人注意，以及她从最初的意识到完成你希望她达成的目标（例如购买、创建内容或分享信息）所经历的旅程的方式。通常，衡量长漏斗需要在初始信号中注入某种跟踪方式，以便你能跟随用户最终到达你的网站，许多分析工具现在都能报告这一点。例如，图 5-3 展示了 Google Analytics 中的社交访客流量报告。

Figure 5-3. Where your paying customers waste most of their time before they buy from you
图 5-3。你的付费客户在购买前最常花费时间的地点

What’s more, overlapping traffic sources can show how much a particular platform influenced conversions, as shown in Figure 5-4.
此外，重叠的流量来源可以显示某个特定平台对转化的影响程度，如图 5-4 所示。

Figure 5-4. Sometimes it takes a lot of peer pressure to acquire a customer
图 5-4。有时候需要很大的同伴压力才能获取一个客户

We tracked our own long funnel during the process of launching the Lean Analytics Book website.* We didn’t have a hard “goal” such as a purchase, but we did have a number of things we wanted visitors to do: sign up for our mailing list, click on the book cover, and take a survey. By creating custom URLs for our proponents to share, we injected a signal into the start of the Long Funnel, and were able to see how our message spread.
在推出 Lean Analytics 书籍网站的过程中，我们追踪了自己的长漏斗。我们没有设定一个硬性的“目标”，比如购买，但我们确实有一些希望访客做的事情：订阅我们的邮件列表，点击书籍封面，以及填写调查问卷。通过为我们的支持者创建自定义的 URL 以便他们分享，我们在长漏斗的起点注入了一个信号，并且能够看到我们的信息是如何传播的。

We learned, for example, that author and speaker Julien Smith’s followers were less likely to fill out the survey than Eric Ries’s and Avinash Kaushik’s followers, unless they were returning visitors, in which case they were more likely to do so. This kind of insight can help us choose the right kind of proponent for future promotional efforts.
例如，我们了解到作者和演讲者 Julien Smith 的追随者填写调查问卷的可能性比 Eric Ries 和 Avinash Kaushik 的追随者低，除非他们是回访者，在这种情况下他们更有可能这样做。这类见解可以帮助我们为未来的推广工作选择合适的支持者。

The Lean Analytics Stages and Gates

Lean Analytics 阶段和关卡

Having reviewed these frameworks, we needed a model that identified the distinct stages a startup usually goes through, and what the “gating” metrics should be that indicate it’s time to move to the next stage. The five stages we identified are Empathy, Stickiness, Virality, Revenue, and Scale. We believe most startups go through these stages, and in order to move from one to the next they need to achieve certain goals with respect to the metrics they’re tracking.
在审查了这些框架之后，我们需要一个模型来识别创业公司通常会经历的不同阶段，以及应该是什么“关卡”指标来表明是时候进入下一个阶段了。我们确定的五个阶段是同理心、粘性、病毒性、收入和规模。我们相信大多数创业公司都会经历这些阶段，为了从一个阶段过渡到下一个阶段，它们需要在所跟踪的指标方面实现某些目标。

Figure 5-5 shows the stages and gates of Lean Analytics, and how this model lines up with the other frameworks. A good portion of the book is structured by our stages, so it’s important to understand how this works.
图 5-5 显示了精益分析的阶段和关卡，以及这个模型与其他框架的对应关系。这本书的大部分内容都是按照我们的阶段来组织的，因此理解这一点非常重要。

THE STAGES OF LEAN ANALYTICS

精益分析的阶段

Figure 5-5. Frameworks, frameworks everywhere
图 5-5。到处都是框架

Ultimately, there are a number of good frameworks that help you think about your business.
归根结底，有一些好的框架可以帮助你思考你的业务。

• Some, like Pirate Metrics and the Long Funnel, focus on the act of acquiring and converting customers.
• 其中一些，如海盗指标和长漏斗，专注于获取和转化客户的行为。
• Others, like the Engines of Growth and the Startup Growth Pyramid, offer strategies for knowing when or how to grow.
• 另一些，如增长引擎和创业增长金字塔，提供了关于何时或如何增长的策略。
• Some, like the Lean Canvas, help you map out the components of your business model so you can evaluate them independent of one another.
• 其中一些，如精益画布，帮助你勾勒出商业模式的各种组成部分，以便你可以独立地评估它们。

We’re proposing a new model called the Lean Analytics Stages, which draws from the best of these models and puts an emphasis on metrics. It identifies five distinct stages startups go through as they grow.
我们提出了一种名为精益分析阶段的新模型，该模型借鉴了这些模型的最佳实践，并特别强调指标。它确定了初创公司在成长过程中经历的五个不同阶段。

While we believe the Lean Analytics Stages represent a fairly simple framework for understanding your startup’s progress, we recognize that it can still look overwhelming. And even with our framework, you’ll still use the other frameworks as well, so there’s a lot to digest. That’s why you should put all of this aside (for now!) and focus on the One Metric That Matters, which we’ll cover in the next chapter.
虽然我们相信精益分析阶段代表了一个相对简单的框架，用于理解你初创公司的进展，但我们认识到它仍然可能看起来令人不知所措。即使有了我们的框架，你仍然会使用其他框架，所以有很多东西需要消化。这就是为什么你现在应该把所有这些事情都放在一边（暂时！）并专注于“最重要的指标”，我们将在下一章中介绍。

The Discipline of One Metric That Matters

“最重要的指标”的纪律

Founders are magpies, chasing the shiniest new thing they see. They often use the pivot as an enabler for chronic ADD, rather than as a way to iterate through ideas in a methodical fashion.
创始人是喜鹊，追逐他们看到的最新最闪亮的东西。他们经常使用转型作为一种慢性注意力缺陷障碍的促进手段，而不是作为一种以系统的方式迭代想法的方法。

But one of the keys to startup success is achieving real focus and having the discipline to maintain it. You may succeed if you’re unfocused, but it’ll be by accident. You’ll spend a lot more time wandering aimlessly, and the lessons learned are more painful and harder-won. If there’s any secret to success for a startup, it’s focus.
但创业成功的关键之一是真正地集中注意力和拥有维持这种专注的纪律。如果你不专注，也许也能成功，但那只是偶然。你会花更多时间漫无目的地游荡，而学到的教训更加痛苦和来之不易。如果创业有任何成功的秘诀，那就是专注。

Focus doesn’t mean myopia. We’re not saying that there’s only one metric you care about from the day you wake up with an idea to the day you sell your company. We are, however, saying that at any given time, there’s one metric you should care about above all else. Boiled down to its very essence, Lean Startup is really about getting you to focus on the right thing, at the right time, with the right mindset.
专注并不意味着短视。我们并不是说从你一醒来有想法到你卖掉公司的那一天，你只关心一个指标。然而，我们确实是在说，在任何特定的时间，你应该关心最重要的指标。归结到其本质，精益创业真正是关于让你在正确的时间，以正确的心态，专注于正确的事情。

As noted in Chapter 5, Eric Ries talks about three engines that drive company growth: the sticky engine, the viral engine, and the paid engine. But he cautions that while all successful companies will ultimately use all three engines, it’s better to focus on one engine at a time. For example, you might make your product sticky for its core users, then use that to grow virally, and then use the user base to grow revenue. That’s focus.
如第五章所述，埃里克·莱斯谈到了驱动公司增长的三个引擎：粘性引擎、病毒引擎和付费引擎。但他警告说，虽然所有成功的公司最终都会使用这三个引擎，但一次专注于一个引擎会更好。例如，你可能会让你的产品对核心用户具有粘性，然后利用这一点进行病毒式增长，然后利用用户群来增加收入。这就是专注。

In the world of analytics and data, this means picking a single metric that’s incredibly important for the step you’re currently working through in your startup. We call this the One Metric That Matters (OMTM).
在分析和数据的世界中，这意味着选择一个对你当前正在进行的创业阶段极其重要的单一指标。我们称之为“关键指标”（OMTM）。

The OMTM is the one number you’re completely focused on above everything else for your current stage. Looking at CLV (customer lifetime value) isn’t meaningful when you’re validating a problem, but it might be the right metric to focus on as you’re approaching product/market fit.
OMTM 是你当前阶段完全专注的唯一数字，其他一切都不重要。在验证问题时，查看客户终身价值（CLV）没有意义，但在你接近产品/市场契合度时，它可能是正确的关注指标。

You’ll always track and review multiple numbers. Some will be important: these are your key performance indicators (KPIs), which you’ll track and report every day. Others will be stored away for future use, such as when it’s time to tell the company history to an investor or to make an infographic. Setting up and managing instrumentation is fairly easy these days with tools like Geckoboard, Mixpanel, Kissmetrics, Totango, Chartbeat, and others. But don’t let your ability to track so many things distract you. Capture everything, but focus on what’s important.
你将始终跟踪和审查多个数字。有些很重要：这些是你的关键绩效指标（KPI），你将每天跟踪和报告。其他的将存档以备将来使用，例如在向投资者讲述公司历史或制作信息图表时。如今，使用像 Geckoboard、Mixpanel、Kissmetrics、Totango、Chartbeat 等工具设置和管理仪器相当容易。但不要让你的跟踪太多事情的能力分散你的注意力。记录一切，但要专注于重要的事情。

CASE STUDY Moz Tracks Fewer KPIs to Increase Focus

案例研究：Moz 通过减少 KPI 数量来增加专注度

Moz (previously known as SEOmoz) is a successful Software as a Service (SaaS) vendor that helps companies monitor and improve their websites’ search engine rankings. In May 2012, the company raised \18$ million. Its CEO, Rand Fishkin, published a detailed post about the company’s progress up to that point.* Rand’s update did include a number of vanity metrics—when you have roughly 15 million visitors on your site each year, you have the right to a bit of vanity—but he also shared some very specific and interesting numbers related to conversions from free trials to paid subscriptions and churn.
Moz（曾被称为 SEOmoz）是一家成功的软件即服务（SaaS）供应商，它帮助公司监控和提升其网站的搜索引擎排名。2012 年 5 月，该公司筹集了 1800 万美元。其 CEO 兰德·菲什金（Rand Fishkin）发布了一篇详细的文章，介绍了公司到那时为止的进展。兰德的更新中包含了一些虚荣指标——当你的网站每年有大约 1500 万访客时，你有权拥有一些虚荣指标——但他也分享了一些与免费试用转化为付费订阅和客户流失率相关的非常具体和有趣的数字。

We spoke with Joanna Lord, Vice President of Growth Marketing at Moz, to learn more about how the company handles metrics. “We are very metrics-driven,” she says. “Every team reports to the entire company weekly on KPIs, movement, and summaries. We also have a huge screen up in the office pumping out customer counts and free trial counts. We believe that having company-wide transparency into the metrics keeps us all informed, and is a great reminder of the progress (as well as the challenges) we are seeing as a company.”
我们采访了 Moz 的增长营销副总裁乔安娜·劳德（Joanna Lord），以了解更多关于该公司如何处理指标的信息。“我们非常注重指标，”她说。“每个团队每周都会向整个公司报告 KPI、变化和总结。我们还在办公室挂了一个巨大的屏幕，上面显示着客户数量和免费试用数量。我们相信，让公司全体员工都能透明地了解指标，可以让我们都保持信息同步，这也是对我们所看到的进展（以及挑战）的一个很好的提醒。”

For a company that’s found product/market fit and is now focused on scaling, it becomes more challenging to focus on a single metric. This isn’t surprising; there are multiple departments all growing quickly, and the business can tackle several different things simultaneously. But even with all these concurrent efforts, Joanna says that one metric stands above the rest: Net Adds. This metric is the total of new paid subscribers (either conversions from free trials or direct paid signups) minus the total who cancelled.
对于已经找到产品/市场契合点并专注于规模扩张的公司来说，关注单一指标变得更加具有挑战性。这并不令人意外；因为多个部门都在快速成长，业务可以同时处理几件不同的事情。但即使有这么多并发工作，乔安娜说有一个指标脱颖而出：净新增用户。这个指标是新增付费订阅者（无论是来自免费试用还是直接付费注册）总数减去取消订阅者总数。

“Net Adds helps us quickly see high cancel days (and troubleshoot them) and helps us get a sense of how our free trial conversion rate is doing,” Joanna says.
“净新增用户帮助我们快速识别高取消日（并解决这些问题），也让我们了解我们的免费试用转化率如何，”乔安娜说。

Moz tracks other related metrics including Total Paying, New Free Trials Yesterday, and 7-Day Net Add Average. All of these really bubble up into Net Adds per day.
Moz 还跟踪其他相关指标，包括总付费用户数、昨日新增免费试用用户数和 7 天净新增用户平均数。所有这些都与每日净新增用户数密切相关。

Interestingly, when Moz raised its last round of financing, one of its lead investors, the Foundry Group’s Brad Feld, suggested that it track fewer KPIs. “The main reason for this is that as a company, you can’t simultaneously affect dozens of KPIs,” Joanna says. “Brad reminded us that ‘too much data’ can be counterproductive. You can get lost in strange trends on numbers that aren’t as big-picture as others. You can also lose a lot of time reporting and communicating about numbers that might not lead to action. By stripping our daily KPI reporting down to just a few metrics, it’s clear what we’re focused on as a company and how we’re doing.”
有趣的是，当 Moz 进行最后一轮融资时，其主要投资者之一 Foundry Group 的 Brad Feld 建议该公司减少追踪的 KPI 数量。“主要原因是一个公司不可能同时影响数十个 KPI，”Joanna 说。“Brad 提醒我们‘过多的数据’可能会适得其反。你可能会迷失在那些不如其他数据宏观的趋势中。你也会浪费很多时间在报告和沟通那些可能不会导致行动的数字上。通过将我们的每日 KPI 报告简化为仅几个指标，我们清楚地知道公司专注于什么以及我们做得怎么样。”

摘要

• Moz is metrics-driven—but that doesn’t mean it’s swimming in data. It relies on one metric above all others: Net Adds. • One of its investors actually suggested reducing the number of metrics the company tracks to stay focused on the big picture.
• Moz 以数据为导向——但这并不意味着它被数据淹没。它依赖一个最重要的指标：净新增用户。• 其中一位投资者实际上建议减少公司追踪的指标数量，以专注于大局。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学到的经验教训

While it’s great to track many metrics, it’s also a sure way to lose focus. Picking a minimal set of KPIs on which your business assumptions rely is the best way to get the entire organization moving in the same direction.
虽然跟踪许多指标很棒，但这也会让你失去焦点。选择一个最小化的、你的业务假设所依赖的关键绩效指标（KPI）集，是让整个组织朝着同一个方向前进的最佳方法。

Four Reasons to Use the One Metric That Matters

使用“一个关键指标”的四个理由

The OMTM is of most importance early on. Later, as your startup scales, you will want to focus on more metrics, and you’ll have the resources and experience to do so. Importantly, you’ll also have a team to whom you can delegate metrics. Your operations person might care about uptime or latency, your call center might worry about average time on hold, and so on.
“一个关键指标”在早期最为重要。后来，随着你的创业公司扩大规模，你将想要关注更多指标，并且你将有资源和经验来做这件事。重要的是，你还将有一个团队可以委托给你来管理这些指标。你的运营人员可能关心正常运行时间或延迟，你的呼叫中心可能担心平均等待时间等等。

At Year One Labs, one of the litmus tests for us as advisors and investors was the clarity with which a team understood, and tracked, their OMTM. If it was on the tip of their tongues, and aligned with their current stage, that was a good thing. If they didn’t know what it was, if it was the wrong metric for their stage, if they had several metrics, or if they didn’t know what the current value was, we knew something was wrong.
在第一年实验室，作为顾问和投资者的一个关键测试，是我们团队对“一个关键指标”的理解和跟踪的清晰度。如果它就在他们的舌尖上，并且与他们的当前阶段一致，那是一件好事。如果他们不知道它是什么，如果它不是他们当前阶段的正确指标，如果他们有多个指标，或者他们不知道当前的值是多少，我们就知道出问题了。

Picking the OMTM lets you run more controlled experiments quickly and compare the results more effectively. Remember: the One Metric That Matters changes over time. When you’re focused on acquiring users (and converting them into customers), your OMTM may be tied to which acquisition channels are working best or the conversion rate from signup to active user. When you’re focused on retention, you may be looking at churn, and experimenting with pricing, features, improving customer support, and so on. The OMTM changes depending on your current stage, and in some cases it will change quickly.
选择关键指标（OMTM）可以让你快速进行受控实验，并更有效地比较结果。记住：关键指标会随时间变化。当你专注于获取用户（并将他们转化为客户）时，你的 OMTM 可能与哪些获取渠道效果最好或从注册到活跃用户的转化率有关。当你专注于留存时，你可能会关注流失率，并尝试测试定价、功能、改善客户支持等等。OMTM 会根据你当前的阶段而变化，在某些情况下，它会迅速变化。

Let’s look at four reasons why you should use the One Metric That Matters.
让我们看看你应该使用关键指标的四个原因。

• It answers the most important question you have. At any given time, you’ll be trying to answer a hundred different questions and juggling a million things. You need to identify the riskiest areas of your business as quickly as possible, and that’s where the most important question lies. When you know what the right question is, you’ll know what metric to track in order to answer that question. That’s the OMTM.
• 它回答了你最重要的那个问题。在任何特定时刻，你都会试图回答一百个不同的问题，同时处理一百万件事。你需要尽快确定你业务中最危险的领域，而最重要的那个问题就在其中。当你知道正确的问题是什么时，你就会知道要跟踪哪个指标来回答那个问题。这就是 OMTM。
• It forces you to draw a line in the sand and have clear goals. After you’ve identified the key problem on which you want to focus, you need to set goals. You need a way of defining success.
• 它迫使你划定界限并设定明确的目标。在确定了你想专注的关键问题后，你需要设定目标。你需要一种定义成功的方式。
• It focuses the entire company. Avinash Kaushik has a name for trying to report too many things: data puking.* Nobody likes puke. Use the OMTM as a way of focusing your entire company. Display your OMTM prominently through web dashboards, on TV screens, or in regular emails.
• 它使整个公司都聚焦。Avinash Kaushik 给试图报告太多事情起了个名字：数据呕吐*。没有人喜欢呕吐物。使用 OMTM 作为聚焦你整个公司的方式。通过网页仪表板、电视屏幕或定期电子邮件醒目地展示你的 OMTM。
• It inspires a culture of experimentation. By now you should appreciate the importance of experimentation. It’s critical to move through the build $\to$ measure→learn cycle as quickly and as frequently as possible. To succeed at that, you need to actively encourage experimentation. It will lead to small- $\cdot f$ failures, but you can’t punish that. Quite the opposite: failure that comes from planned, methodical testing is simply how you learn. It moves things forward in the end. It’s how you avoid
• 它激发了一种实验文化。到现在你应该认识到实验的重要性。快速且频繁地通过构建 $\to$ 测量→学习循环是至关重要的。为了成功，你需要积极鼓励实验。它会导致小- $\cdot f$ 失败，但你不能惩罚它。恰恰相反：来自计划性、系统性测试的失败只是你学习的方式。最终它推动事物前进。这就是你避免

big- $F$ Failure. Everyone in your organization should be inspired and encouraged to experiment. When everyone rallies around the OMTM and is given the opportunity to experiment independently to improve it, it’s a powerful force.
大- $F$ 失败的方式。你组织中的每个人都应该受到启发并被鼓励去实验。当每个人都团结在 OMTM 周围，并有机会独立地改进它时，它就是一个强大的力量。

CASE STUDY |  Solare Focuses on a Few Key Metrics

案例研究 | Solare 专注于少数几个关键指标

Solare Ristorante is an Italian restaurant in San Diego owned by serial entrepreneur Randy Smerik. Randy has a background in technology and data, once served as the general manager for business intelligence firm Teradata, and has five technology exits under his belt. It’s no surprise that he’s brought his data-driven mindset to the way he runs the business.
Solare Ristorante 是位于圣地亚哥的一家意大利餐厅，由连续创业者 Randy Smerik 拥有。Randy 拥有技术和数据背景，曾担任商业智能公司 Teradata 的总经理，并且有五次技术退出经历。难怪他将数据驱动的思维方式带到了经营餐厅的方式中。

One evening at the restaurant, Randy’s son Tommy—who manages the bar—yelled out, “24!” Since we’re always looking for stories about business metrics, we asked him what the number meant. “Every day, my staff tells me the ratio of staff costs to gross revenues for the previous day,” he explained. “This is a fairly well-known number in the restaurant industry. It’s useful because it combines two things you have a degree of control over—per-diner revenues and staffing costs.”
一天晚上在餐厅里，Randy 的儿子 Tommy——负责酒吧——喊出了“24！” 由于我们一直在寻找关于商业指标的故事，我们问他这个数字是什么意思。“每天，我的员工都会告诉我前一天员工成本与营业收入的比率，”他解释道。“这个数字在餐饮行业里相当有名。它之所以有用，是因为它结合了你可以在一定程度上控制的两个因素——每位顾客的收入和员工成本。”

Randy explained when staffing costs exceed $30\mathrm{\%}$ of gross revenues, that’s bad, because it means that you’re either spending too much on staff or not deriving enough revenue per customer. A Michelin-starred restaurant can afford to have more staff, and pay them more, because it sells customers expensive wines and enjoys good per-customer revenue. At the other end of the spectrum, a low-margin casual dining restaurant has to keep staff costs down.
兰迪解释说，当人员成本超过总收入 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 时，那就不好了，因为这意味着你是在人员上花费过多，或者每个客户的收入不够高。一家米其林星级餐厅可以负担得起更多的人手，并且支付他们更高的薪水，因为它销售昂贵的葡萄酒，并且享受较高的每客户收入。在另一端，一家低利润的休闲餐厅必须控制人员成本。

The ratio works because it’s:
这个比率之所以有效，是因为它：

• Simple: It’s a single number.
• 简单：它是一个单一的数字。
• Immediate: You can generate it every night.
• 立即：你可以每晚都生成它。
• Actionable: You can change staffing, or encourage upselling, the very next day, whereas ingredient costs, menus, or leasing take longer to modify.
• 可操作的：你可以第二天就调整人员配置或鼓励追加销售，而原料成本、菜单或租赁则需要更长的时间来修改。
• Comparable: You can track it over time, and compare it to other restaurants in your category.
• 可比较的：你可以追踪它随时间的变化，并将其与同类别中的其他餐厅进行比较。
• Fundamental: It reflects two basic facets of the restaurant business model.
• 基本的：它反映了餐厅商业模式中的两个基本方面。

As it turns out, $24\mathrm{\%}$ is about right. Below $20\mathrm{\%}$ , there’s a chance that you’re under-serving customers and that their dining experience might suffer (Randy could experiment with different staffing levels and measure the tips diners leave, or comments on Yelp, if he wanted to be really analytical).
结果证明， $24\mathrm{\%}$ 是正确的。在 $20\mathrm{\%}$ 之下，你有可能服务顾客不足，他们的用餐体验可能会受到影响（如果 Randy 想要真正地进行分析，他可以尝试不同的员工配置，并测量顾客留下的小费或 Yelp 上的评论）。

Randy also uses a second metric to predict how many customers he’ll have. At ${\mathfrak{s}}_{\mathfrak{p}.\mathrm{m}}$ . every day, his staff sends him the number of reservations that have currently been made for the evening. “If I get 50 reservations at 5 p.m., I know I’ll have around 250 covers that night,” he says. “We’ve learned that a 5-to-1 ratio is normal for Solare.”
兰迪还使用第二个指标来预测他会有多少顾客。在 ${\mathfrak{s}}_{\mathfrak{p}.\mathrm{m}}$ 。每天下午 5 点，他的员工会向他发送当天晚上已预订的餐位数量。“如果我下午 5 点收到 50 个预订，我就知道那天晚上会有大约 250 个座位，”他说。“我们了解到，索拉雷餐厅的正常比例是 5 比 1。”

This number doesn’t work across all restaurants—the in-demand Michelin-starred restaurant has a 1-to-1 ratio, since it’s sold out, and a fast food restaurant that doesn’t take reservations obviously can’t use the metric. But for Solare reservations at ${\mathfrak{s}}_{\mathfrak{p}.\mathrm{m}}$ ., plus some experience, provides a good leading indicator of what the night will be like. It also allows the Solare team to make small adjustments to staffing or buy additional produce in time to ensure that the restaurant can handle the traffic.
这个数字并非适用于所有餐厅——这家热门的米其林星级餐厅的比例是 1 比 1，因为它已经售罄，而一家不提供预订的快餐店显然无法使用这个指标。但对于索拉雷餐厅的预订，加上一些经验，可以很好地预测当晚的情况。它还允许索拉雷团队在适当的时候调整员工数量或购买额外的食材，以确保餐厅能够应对客流。

摘要

• Restaurants know from experience that demand is tied to reservations, and what the right ratio of staffing to revenue should be.
• 餐厅从经验中知道需求与预订有关，以及正确的员工与收入比例应该是什么。
• Good metrics help predict the future, giving you an opportunity to anticipate problems and correct them.
• 好的指标有助于预测未来，让你有机会预见问题并加以纠正。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Even non-technical businesses need to find a few, simple metrics that relate to their core business model, then track them over time to predict what’s going to happen and identify patterns or trends.
即使是非技术性企业也需要找到几个与核心商业模式相关的简单指标，然后随着时间的推移跟踪它们，以预测将要发生的事情并识别模式或趋势。

Drawing Lines in the Sand

划定界限

Knowing which metric to focus on isn’t enough. You need to draw a line in the sand as well. Let’s say that you’ve decided “New Customers Per Week” is the right metric to focus on because you’re testing out new ways of acquiring customers. That’s fair, but it doesn’t answer the real question: How many new customers per week do you need? Or more specifically: How many new customers per week (per acquisition channel) do you think defines a level of success that enables you to double down on user acquisition and move to the next step in the process?
知道应该关注哪个指标还不够。你还需要划定一条界限。假设你决定“每周新客户数”是你要关注的指标，因为你在测试新的客户获取方式。这很合理，但它并没有回答真正的问题：你需要每周多少新客户？或者更具体地说：你认为每周（按获取渠道）多少新客户可以定义一个成功水平，使你能够加大用户获取力度并进入过程的下一步？

You need to pick a number, set it as the target, and have enough confidence that if you hit it, you consider it success. And if you don’t hit the target, you need to go back to the drawing board and try again.
你需要选一个数字，将其设为目标，并要有足够的信心，如果你达到了这个目标，就认为它是成功。如果你没有达到目标，就需要回到起点重新尝试。

Picking the target number for any given metric is extremely hard. We’ve seen many startups struggle with this. Often, they avoid picking a number altogether. Unfortunately, this means it’s difficult to know what to do once an experiment is completed. If, in our example, the user acquisition experiment is a dismal failure, any number you had picked beforehand is probably immaterial; you’ll know it’s a failure. And if your efforts are insanely successful, you’re going to know that as well. It’ll be obvious. But most of the time, experiments end up right in the big fat middle. There was some success, but it wasn’t out of this world. Was it enough success to keep going, or do you have to go back and run some new experiments? That’s the trickiest spot to be in.
为任何给定指标设定目标数字都极其困难。我们见过许多初创公司在这上面挣扎。他们经常完全避免设定一个数字。不幸的是，这意味着一旦实验完成，就很难知道该做什么。如果在我们这个例子中，用户获取实验是彻底的失败，那么你事先设定的任何数字可能都无关紧要；你会知道它是失败的。如果你的努力极其成功，你也会知道。这将非常明显。但大多数情况下，实验结果都处于中间地带。取得了一些成功，但并不突出。这是否足以继续前进，还是必须回去运行一些新的实验？这就是最棘手的情况。

There are two right answers to the question of what success looks like. The first comes from your business model, which may tell you what a metric has to be. If you know that you need $10\mathrm{\%}$ of your users to sign up for the paid version of your site in order to meet your business targets, then that’s your number.
对于成功看起来像什么的问题，有两个正确的答案。第一个来自你的商业模式，它可能告诉你一个指标应该是什么。如果你知道你需要 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 的用户注册你的网站付费版本才能达到你的商业目标，那么那个数字就是你的目标。

In the early stages of your business, however, you’re still figuring out what your business model should look like. It won’t tell you precisely what you need. The second right answer is to look at what’s normal or ideal. Knowing an industry baseline means you know what’s likely to happen, and you can compare yourself to it. In the absence of any other information, this is a good place to start. We’ll share some industry benchmarks that may be helpful to you later in the book.
然而，在业务的早期阶段，你仍然在确定你的商业模式应该是什么样子。它不会告诉你你需要什么。第二个正确的答案是看看什么是正常或理想的。了解行业基准意味着你知道可能会发生什么，并且可以将其与你进行比较。在没有其他信息的情况下，这是一个很好的起点。我们将在本书的后面分享一些可能对你有帮助的行业基准。

The Squeeze Toy

按压玩具

There’s another important aspect to the OMTM. And we can’t really explain it better than with a squeeze toy.
OMTM 还有另一个重要的方面。我们无法比用一个按压玩具更好地解释它。

If you optimize your business to maximize one metric, something important happens. Just like one of those bulging stress-relief squeeze toys, squeezing it in one place makes it bulge out in another. And that’s a good thing. Optimizing your OMTM not only squeezes that metric so you get the most out of it, but it also reveals the next place you need to focus your efforts, which often happens at an inflection point for your business:
如果你优化你的业务以最大化一个指标，会发生一件重要的事情。就像那些鼓起的减压玩具一样，在一个地方挤压会使它在另一个地方鼓起。这是个好事。优化你的 OMTM 不仅会挤压那个指标以获得最大的效益，而且还会揭示你接下来需要集中精力的下一个地方，这通常是你业务的拐点：

• Perhaps you’ve optimized the number of enrollments in your gym, and you’ve done all you can to maximize revenues—but now you need to focus on cost per customer so you turn a profit.
• 也许你已经优化了健身房的人数，并且已经尽力最大化收入——但现在你需要关注每客户的成本，以便实现盈利。

• Maybe you’ve increased traffic to your site—but now you need to maximize conversion.
• 也许你已经增加了网站的流量——但现在你需要最大化转化率。
• Perhaps you have the foot traffic in your coffee shop you’ve always wanted—but now you need to get people to buy several coffees rather than just stealing your Wi-Fi for hours.
• 也许你的咖啡店已经拥有你一直想要的客流量——但现在你需要让人们购买多杯咖啡，而不仅仅是长时间蹭你的 Wi-Fi。

Whatever your current OMTM, expect it to change. And expect that change to reveal the next piece of data you need to build a better business faster.
无论你当前的 OMTM 是什么，都要预期它会改变。并且预期这种改变会揭示你需要构建更好业务所需的下一条数据。

EXERCISE Define Your OMTM

练习：定义你的关键指标

Can you pick the One Metric That Matters for your startup? Give it a try. If you did the exercise at the end of Chapter 2, you have a short list of good metrics you track; now pick the one you couldn’t live without.
你能为你创业公司挑选出那个最重要的指标吗？试试看。如果你在第二章的末尾做了练习，你应该有一个不错的指标列表；现在挑选那个你无法没有的指标。

Could your entire company work exclusively on improving that metric? What might break if you did? Could you draw a line in the sand to measure results? If not, that’s OK. For now, write down your One Metric That Matters and where it currently stands, and we’ll come back to the line later.
你的整个公司能专门致力于改进那个指标吗？如果你这样做，可能会出什么问题？你能画一条线来衡量结果吗？如果不行，那也没关系。暂时写下你的关键指标以及它目前的状况，我们稍后再讨论那条线。

What Business Are You In?

你的业务是什么？

How you get and make money drives what metrics you should care about. In the long term, the riskiest part of a business is often directly tied to how it makes money.
你如何获取和赚钱将决定你应该关注哪些指标。从长远来看，企业最危险的部分往往与其赚钱方式直接相关。

Many startups can build a product and solve technical issues, some can attract the right (and occasionally large) audiences, but few make money. Even giants like Twitter and Facebook have struggled with extracting money from their throngs of users.
许多初创公司可以构建产品并解决技术问题，有些可以吸引合适的（有时相当大的）受众，但很少能赚钱。即使是像 Twitter 和 Facebook 这样的巨头，在从其众多用户那里赚钱方面也遇到了困难。

There’s no more iconic symbol of a startup than the lemonade stand, and with good reason—it’s a simple, entrepreneurial, low-risk way to learn how businesses operate. And like a lemonade stand, while it might be reasonable and strategic to delay monetization—giving away lemonade for a while to build a clientele—you have to be planning your business model early on.
柠檬水摊是初创公司最具标志性的象征，这并非没有道理——它是一种简单、创业、低风险的方式来学习商业运作。就像柠檬水摊一样，虽然推迟盈利——暂时免费提供柠檬水以建立客户群——可能合理且具有战略意义，但你必须尽早规划你的商业模式。

If we asked you to describe the business model of a lemonade stand, you’d probably say that it’s about selling lemonade for more than it costs to make it. Pressed for more detail, you might say that costs include:
如果我们让你描述一个柠檬水摊的商业模式，你可能会说它是在制作成本之上销售柠檬水。如果你被要求提供更多细节，你可能会说成本包括：

• Variable costs of materials (lemons, sugar, cups, water)
• 材料的可变成本（柠檬、糖、杯子、水）
• One-time costs of marketing (stand, signage, cooler, bribing a younger sibling to stand in the street)
• 一次性营销成本（摊位、标志、冷却器、贿赂一个年轻的兄弟姐妹在街上站）
• Hourly costs of staffing (which, let’s face it, are pretty negligible when you’re a kid)
• 员工的每小时成本（老实说，当你是个孩子时，这几乎是微不足道的）

You might also say that revenue is a function of the price you charge, and the number of cups sold.
你也可以说收入是你收取的价格和售出的杯子数量的函数。

Now let’s suppose that you’re asked to identify the risky parts of the business. They include the variability of citrus futures, the weather, the foot traffic in your neighborhood, and so on.
现在，假设有人要求你识别业务中的风险部分。它们包括柑橘期货的波动性、天气、邻里的客流量等等。

One thing we’ve noticed about almost all successful founders we’ve met is their ability to work at both a very detailed, and a very abstracted, level within their business. They can worry about the layout of a page or the wording of an email subject one day, and consider the impact of one-time versus monthly recurring sales the next. That’s partly because they’re not only trying to run a business, they’re also trying to discover the best business model.
我们发现几乎所有我们遇到的成功创始人都有一个特点，那就是他们能够在业务中同时进行非常具体和非常抽象的层面工作。他们可以一天担心页面布局或邮件主题的措辞，第二天考虑一次性销售和月度经常性销售的影响。这 partly 是因为他们不仅试图经营一个业务，还在试图发现最佳商业模式。

To decide which metrics you should track, you need to be able to describe your business model in no more complex a manner than a lemonade stand’s. You need to step back, ignore all the details, and just think about the really big components.
为了决定你应该跟踪哪些指标，你需要能够像柠檬水摊一样简单的方式来描述你的商业模式。你需要退一步，忽略所有细节，只思考真正的大组件。

When you reduce things to their basic building blocks in this way, you come up with only a few fundamental business models on the Web. Interestingly, all of them share some common themes. First, their aim is to grow (in fact, Paul Graham says that a focus on growth is the one defining attribute of a startup).* And second, that growth is achieved by one of Eric Ries’s fundamental Engines of Growth: an increase in stickiness, virality, or revenue.
当你将事物简化为其基本构建模块时，你会发现只有少数几种基本的网络商业模式。有趣的是，它们都共享一些共同的主题。首先，它们的目的是增长（事实上，保罗·格雷厄姆说，关注增长是初创公司的一个定义性特征）。其次，增长是通过埃里克·莱斯的基本增长引擎之一实现的：粘性、病毒性或收入的增加。

Each business model needs to maximize the thrust from these three engines in order to flourish. Sergio Zyman, Coca-Cola’s CMO, said marketing is about selling more stuff to more people more often for more money more efficiently.†
每种商业模式都需要最大化这三个引擎的推动力，以繁荣发展。可口可乐的 CMO 塞尔吉奥·齐曼说，营销就是以更高效的方式，向更多的人、更频繁地销售更多的东西、收取更多的钱。

Business growth comes from improving one of these five “knobs”:
业务增长来自于改进这五个“旋钮”：

• More stuff means adding products or services, preferably those you know your customers want so you don’t waste time building things they won’t use or buy. For intrapreneurs, this means applying Lean methods to new product development, rather than starting an entirely new company. • More people means adding users, ideally through virality or word of mouth, but also through paid advertising. The best way to add users is when it’s an integral part of product use—such as Dropbox, Skype, or a project management tool that invites outside users outsiders— since this happens automatically and implies an endorsement from the inviting user.
• 更多意味着添加产品或服务，最好是那些你知道你的客户想要的东西，这样你就不会浪费时间构建他们不会使用或购买的东西。对于内部创业者来说，这意味着将精益方法应用于新产品开发，而不是创办一家全新的公司。• 更多人员意味着增加用户，理想情况下是通过病毒式传播或口碑传播，但也通过付费广告。增加用户最好的方式是将其作为产品使用的一个组成部分——例如 Dropbox、Skype 或邀请外部用户的项目管理工具，因为这些是自动发生的，并意味着邀请用户的认可。

• More often means stickiness (so people come back), reduced churn (so they don’t leave), and repeated use (so they use it more frequently). Early on, stickiness tends to be a key knob on which to focus, because until your core early adopters find your product superb, it’s unlikely you can achieve good viral marketing.
• 更频繁意味着粘性（所以人们会回来），减少流失率（所以他们不会离开），以及重复使用（所以他们更频繁地使用它）。早期，粘性往往是关键的可调参数之一，因为直到你的核心早期采用者发现你的产品非常出色，你不太可能实现良好的病毒式营销。
• More money means upselling and maximizing the price users will pay, or the revenue from ad clicks, or the amount of content they create, or the number of in-game purchases they make.
• 更多资金意味着追加销售和最大化用户愿意支付的价格，或者广告点击的收入，或者他们创建的内容数量，或者他们在游戏中的购买数量。
• More efficiently means reducing the cost of delivering and supporting your service, but also lowering the cost of customer acquisition by doing less paid advertising and more word of mouth.
• 更高效意味着降低提供和支持您服务的成本，同时通过减少付费广告和增加口碑传播来降低客户获取成本。

About Those People

关于那些人

Business models are about getting people to do what you want in return for something. But not all people are equal. The plain truth is that not every user is good for you.
商业模式是让人们为了得到一些东西而做您想让他们做的事情。但并非所有人都平等。坦白说，并非每个用户都对您有益。

• Some are good—but only in the long term. Evernote’s freemium model works partly because users eventually sign up for paying accounts, but it can take them two years to do so.
• 有些人是有益的——但只是从长远来看。Evernote 的免费增值模式部分有效是因为用户最终会注册付费账户，但这可能需要他们两年的时间。
• Some provide, at best, free marketing, and while they may never become paying users, they may amplify your message or invite someone who will pay.
• 有些工具最多只能提供免费营销，虽然他们可能永远不会成为付费用户，但可能会放大你的信息或邀请有人付费。
• Some are downright bad—they distract you, consume resources, spam your site, or muddy your analytics.
• 有些工具简直是糟糕的——它们会分散你的注意力，消耗资源，让你的网站被垃圾信息充斥，或者使你的分析变得混乱。

When you get a wave of visibility, few of the resulting visitors will actually engage with your product. Many are just driving by. As Vinicius Vacanti, cofounder and CEO of Yipit, recalls in a blog post inspired by his company’s 2010 launch:*
当你获得一波曝光时，其中很少的访客会实际与你提供的产品互动。许多人只是路过。正如 Yipit 的联合创始人兼 CEO Vinicius Vacanti 在他的一篇受公司 2010 年发布启发的博客文章中所回忆的那样：

Was that our big launch? Why didn’t more people sign up? Why didn’t people complete the sign-up flow? Why weren’t people coming back? Now that people covered our startup, how are we supposed to get more press? Why aren’t our users pushing their actions to Facebook and Twitter? We got some users to invite their friends but why aren’t their friends accepting the invite?
那是我们的重大发布吗？为什么没有更多的人注册？为什么人们没有完成注册流程？为什么人们没有回来？现在既然媒体已经报道了我们的创业公司，我们该如何获得更多的媒体关注？为什么我们的用户没有将他们的行为分享到 Facebook 和 Twitter？我们让一些用户邀请了他们的朋友，但为什么他们的朋友没有接受邀请？

The key here is analytics. You need to segment real, valuable users from drive-by, curious, or detrimental ones. Then you need to make changes that maximize the real users and weed out the bad ones. That may be as blunt as demanding a credit card up front—a sure way to reject curious users who don’t have any intention of committing or paying. Or it may be a subtler approach, such as not trying to reactivate disengaged users once they’ve been gone for a while.
关键在于分析。你需要将真正的有价值用户与偶然浏览或有害的用户区分开来。然后你需要做出改变，以最大化真实用户并清除不良用户。这可能很直接，比如要求用户 upfront 提供信用卡——这是一种确保拒绝没有付款或承诺意愿的偶然用户的方法。或者，这可能是一种更微妙的方法，比如在用户一段时间没有活跃后，不再尝试重新激活他们。

If you’re a developer of a game that users play once, or an e-commerce site stocking rarely purchased items, that’s fine—just get your money up front. If you’re a SaaS provider with low incremental costs for additional users, freemium may work, as long as you clearly separate engaged from casual users. If you expect buyers to purchase from you often, you need to make them feel loved. You get the picture.
如果你开发的是用户只玩一次的游戏，或者是一个销售很少被购买物品的电子商务网站，那没关系—— upfront 获取你的钱。如果你是一个 SaaS 提供商，增加用户的边际成本很低，那么免费增值模式可能有效，只要你能清楚地区分积极参与用户和随意用户。如果你期望买家经常从你这里购买，你需要让他们感觉被爱。你明白了吧。

Segmenting real users from casual ones also depends on how much effort your users have to put into using the application. Some products collect information passively: Fitbit logs walking steps; Siri notices when you’ve arrived somewhere; Writethatname analyzes your inbox for new contacts. Users don’t have to do much, so it can be hard to tell if they’ve “checked out.” It’s easier to find disengaged users if they have to actively use the product.
将真实用户与普通用户区分开来也取决于用户使用应用程序所需的努力程度。有些产品会被动地收集信息：Fitbit 记录步数；Siri 注意到你已到达某个地方；Writethatname 分析你的邮箱以查找新联系人。用户无需做什么，因此很难判断他们是否“退出”了。如果用户需要主动使用产品，就更容易找到不活跃的用户。

Consider the aforementioned Fitbit, a tiny life-logging device that measures steps, from which it calculates calories burned, miles walked, stairs climbed, and overall activity.
考虑上述的 Fitbit，一个可以测量步数的小型生活记录设备，它根据步数计算卡路里消耗、行走距离、爬楼梯次数和整体活动量。

Fitbit users can simply record their steps with a device in their pocket, they can use it to sync data to the company’s hosted application, they can visit the portal to see their statistics and share them with friends, they can manually enter sleep and food data to augment what’s collected passively, and they can buy the premium Fitbit offering to help them reach their health goals.
Fitbit 用户可以简单地用口袋里的设备记录步数，他们可以使用它将数据同步到公司的托管应用程序，他们可以访问门户网站查看他们的统计数据并与朋友分享，他们可以手动输入睡眠和食物数据以补充被动收集的信息，他们还可以购买高级 Fitbit 服务以帮助他们实现健康目标。

Each of these use models represents a different tier of engagement, and Fitbit could segment users across these five segments. And it should: it’s perfectly acceptable for a Fitbit user to only use the clip-on device to record the number of steps taken per day, without ever uploading that information, but as a result the company won’t be able to monetize that user beyond the initial purchase (through on-site ads, premium subscriptions, or selling aggregate user data, for example). The value of that user is significantly lower. Predicting revenues accurately relies on an understanding of how its different user segments employ the product.
这些使用模型代表了不同的参与层级，Fitbit 可以根据这五个细分市场来划分用户。而且应该这样做：对于 Fitbit 用户来说，只使用挂扣设备来记录每天步数而不上传信息是完全可以接受的，但作为结果，公司无法在初始购买之外进一步变现该用户（例如通过站内广告、高级订阅或出售汇总用户数据）。该用户的价值会显著降低。准确预测收入依赖于对不同用户细分如何使用产品的理解。

As a startup, you have a wide range of payment and incentive models from which to choose: freemium, free trial, pay up-front, discount, ad-funded, and so on. Your choice needs to match the kind of segmentation you’re doing, the time it takes for a user to become a paying customer, how easy it is to use your service, and how costly an additional drive-by user is to the business.
作为一家初创公司，你有广泛的支付和激励模式可供选择：免费增值模式、免费试用、预付费、折扣、广告支持等。你的选择需要匹配你正在进行的细分类型、用户成为付费客户所需的时间、使用你服务的便捷性以及额外路过用户对业务的成本。

Not all customers are good. Don’t fall victim to customer counting. Instead, optimize for good customers and segment your activities based on the kinds of customer those activities attract.
并非所有客户都是好的。不要成为客户数量的受害者。相反，要优化优质客户，并根据那些活动吸引的客户类型来划分你的活动。

The Business Model Flipbook

商业模式翻转手册

A product is more than the thing you buy. It’s the mix of service, branding, fame, street cred, support, packaging, and myriad other factors you pay for. When you purchase an iPhone, you’re also getting a tiny piece of Steve Jobs’s persona.
产品不仅仅是你购买的东西。它还包括服务、品牌、声誉、街头信誉、支持、包装以及其他无数你为之付费的因素。当你购买一部 iPhone 时，你也在获得一小部分史蒂夫·乔布斯的人格魅力。

In the same way, a business model is a combination of things. It’s what you sell, how you deliver it, how you acquire customers, and how you make money from them.
同样地，商业模式是一系列事物的组合。它包括你销售什么、如何交付、如何获取客户以及如何从他们身上赚钱。

Many people blur these dimensions of a business model. We’re guilty of it, too. Freemium isn’t a business model—it’s a marketing tactic. SaaS isn’t a business model—it’s a way of delivering software. The ads on a media site aren’t a business model—they’re a way of collecting revenue.
很多人混淆了商业模式的不同维度。我们也有过这样的错误。免费增值模式不是商业模式——它是一种营销策略。软件即服务不是商业模式——它是一种软件交付方式。媒体网站上的广告不是商业模式——它是一种收入收集方式。

Later in the book we’re going to outline six sample businesses. But before we do that, we want to talk about how we came up with them. Think of one of the flipbooks you had as a kid—the kind where you could combine different body parts on each page to make different characters.
在这本书的后面，我们将概述六个样本企业。但在那之前，我们想谈谈我们是如何想到这些企业的。想象一下你小时候拥有的那种翻转书——那种你可以在每一页上组合不同的身体部位来制作不同角色的书。

You can build business models this way, but instead of heads, torsos, and feet, you have several aspects of a business: the acquisition channel, selling tactic, revenue source, product type, and delivery model.
你可以用这种方式构建商业模式，但代替头部、躯干和脚部的是，你有几个商业方面：获取渠道、销售策略、收入来源、产品类型和交付模式。

• The acquisition channel is how people find out about you. • The selling tactic is how you convince visitors to become users or users to become customers. Generally, you either ask for money or you provide some kind of scarcity or exclusivity—such as a time limit, a capacity limit, the removal of ads, additional functionality, or the desire to keep things to themselves—to convince them to act. The revenue source is simply how you make money. Money can come from your customers directly (through a payment) or indirectly (through advertising, referrals, analysis of their behavior, content creation, and so on). It can include transactions, subscriptions, consumption-based billing charges, ad revenue, resale of data, donations, and much more. • The product type is what value your business offers in return for the revenue.
• 获取渠道是指人们如何了解到你。• 销售策略是指你如何说服访客成为用户或用户成为客户。通常，你要么直接要求金钱，要么提供某种稀缺性或排他性——例如时间限制、容量限制、去除广告、附加功能，或者希望保持私密——来促使他们采取行动。收入来源是指你如何赚钱。钱可以直接来自客户（通过支付）或间接来自广告、推荐、行为分析、内容创作等等。它可以包括交易、订阅、按使用量计费、广告收入、数据转售、捐赠等等。• 产品类型是指你的业务为收入提供的价值。

• The delivery model is how you get your product to the customer.
• 交付模式是指你如何将产品交付给客户。

Figure 7-1 shows these five aspects, with a variety of models and examples for each one. Remember that this is only a set of examples—most businesses will rely on several acquisition channels, or experiment with different revenue models, or try various sales tactics.
图 7-1 展示了这五个方面，以及每个方面的各种模式和示例。请记住，这只是一些示例——大多数企业会依赖多个获取渠道，或者尝试不同的收入模式，或者尝试各种销售策略。

Figure 7-1. Just like the flipbooks you had as a kid, with more words
图 7-1。就像你小时候拥有的翻页书一样，里面有很多文字

Lots to Choose From

选择众多

There is an abundance of “pages” you can put into the flipbook. The team at Startup Compass, a startup dedicated to helping companies make better business decisions with data, identifies 12 revenue models: advertising, consulting, data, lead generation, licensing fee, listing fee, ownership/ hardware, rental, sponsorship, subscription, transaction fee, and virtual goods. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson has a document listing a vast number of web and mobile revenue models, many of which are variants on six basic ones we’ll list later in the book.*
翻页书上有大量的“页”可以放入。Startup Compass 团队，一个致力于帮助公司利用数据做出更好商业决策的初创公司，确定了 12 种收入模式：广告、咨询、数据、潜在客户生成、许可费、列表费、所有权/硬件、租赁、赞助、订阅、交易费和虚拟商品。风险投资家弗雷德·威尔逊有一份列出了大量网络和移动收入模式的文档，其中许多是我们将在本书后面列出的六个基本模式的变体。

Startup Compass also suggests some “fundamental” financial models that combine several pages from the flipbook: search, gaming, social network, new media, marketplace, video, commerce, rental, subscription, audio, lead generation, hardware, and payments.
Startup Compass 还建议了一些“基本”的财务模型，这些模型结合了翻页书中的多个“页”：搜索、游戏、社交网络、新媒体、市场、视频、商业、租赁、订阅、音频、潜在客户生成、硬件和支付。

You can use these “pages” to create a back-of-the-napkin business model. For example, Figure 7-2 shows a sample business model flipbook for Dropbox.
你可以使用这些“页面”来创建一张草稿纸上的商业模式。例如，图 7-2 展示了一个 Dropbox 的样本商业模式翻页簿。

Figure 7-2. Turning the flipbook pages to Dropbox
图 7-2。翻阅 Dropbox 的翻页簿

There’s another advantage of stating business models in a flipbook structure like this: it encourages lateral thinking. Each turn of a “page” is a pivot: what would it mean to offer Dropbox as a physical delivery? Or to charge up front for it? Or to rely on paid advertising?
另一个优势在于以这种翻页簿结构来陈述商业模式：它鼓励横向思维。每一次翻动“页面”都是一个转变：提供 Dropbox 作为实体配送会意味着什么？或者提前收费？或者依赖付费广告？

Six Business Models

六种商业模式

In the coming chapters, we’re going to look at six business models. Each model is a blend of these aspects, and we’ve tried to mix them up enough to give you a taste of some common examples. But just like a kid’s flipbook, there’s a huge variety: from the aforementioned list, there are over 6,000 permutations, and our list of aspects isn’t by any means exhaustive.
在接下来的章节中，我们将探讨六种商业模式。每种模式都是这些方面的结合，我们试图将它们混合得足够多，以给你一些常见示例的体验。但就像孩子的翻页书一样，种类繁多：从上述列表中，有超过 6,000 种排列组合，而且我们列出的方面也绝非详尽无遗。

As if that weren’t confusing enough, you can employ several at once: Amazon is a transactional, physical-delivery, SEM (search engine marketing), simple-purchase retailer, but it’s also running sub-businesses such as user-generated content in the form of product reviews. So unlike those relatively simple children’s books, your business can quite easily be a many-headed monster.
不仅如此，你还可以同时采用多种模式：亚马逊既是交易型、实体配送、搜索引擎营销（SEM）、简单购买的零售商，它还在运营子业务，如用户生成内容形式的产品评论。所以与那些相对简单的儿童书籍不同，你的业务可以很容易地成为一个多头怪物。

In the face of this complexity, we’ve decided to keep our six business models simple. We’ll talk about several aspects of those businesses, and the metrics that matter most to companies of each sort. Think of it as opening the business model flipbook to a particular “page”—one in which you see elements of your own business.
面对这种复杂性，我们决定将我们的六种商业模式保持简单。我们将讨论这些业务的几个方面，以及每种类型公司最相关的指标。把它想象成打开商业模式翻页书到某一“页”——你可以在其中看到自己业务的元素。

• If you’re running an e-commerce business where you sell things to customers, turn to Chapter 8.
• 如果你正在运营一个电子商务业务，在那里你向客户销售商品，请翻到第 8 章。
• If you’re delivering SaaS to users, turn to Chapter 9.
• 如果您向用户交付 SaaS，请转向第 9 章。
• If you’re building a mobile application and using in-app purchases to generate revenue, head to Chapter 10.
• 如果您正在构建移动应用程序并使用应用内购买来产生收入，请前往第 10 章。
• If you’re creating content and making money from advertising, you’ll find details on media sites in Chapter 11.
• 如果您正在创建内容并通过广告赚钱，您将在第 11 章找到有关媒体网站的信息。
• If your primary focus is getting your users to generate content on your platform the way Twitter, Facebook, or reddit do, turn to Chapter 12.
• 如果您的主要重点是让您的用户像 Twitter、Facebook 或 reddit 那样在您的平台上生成内容，请转向第 12 章。
• If you’re building a two-sided marketplace where buyers and sellers can come together, check out Chapter 13.
• 如果您正在构建一个买卖双方可以聚集的双边市场，请查看第 13 章。

Most businesses fall into one of these categories. Some won’t, but they have close parallels in the real world. A restaurant is transactional, like e-commerce; an accounting business offers a recurring service, like a SaaS company, and so on. Hopefully, you’ll find a model that’s close enough for you to learn important lessons about analytics and apply them to your business, as we review the stages of growth in Chapter 14 and beyond.
大多数企业都属于这些类别之一。有些不属于，但它们在现实世界中有着密切的相似之处。餐厅是交易性的，就像电子商务一样；会计公司提供定期服务，就像 SaaS 公司一样，等等。希望您能找到一个与您的业务足够接近的模型，以便您能在第 14 章及以后回顾增长阶段时，学习重要的分析知识，并将它们应用到您的业务中。

EXERCISE Pick Your Business Model

练习 选择您的商业模式

In the following chapters we go through six sample business models. Find yours and write it down, then list all the metrics we define in that business model and see how well that aligns with what you’re tracking. For the metrics that you’re tracking, put down the values as they stand today, if you haven’t already. If your business overlaps on a couple of models (which isn’t uncommon), then grab metrics from each of those models and include them in this exercise.
在接下来的章节中，我们将通过六个样本商业模式。找到您的模式并写下来，然后列出该商业模式中我们定义的所有指标，看看它们与您正在跟踪的内容如何匹配。对于您正在跟踪的指标，如果您还没有记录当前值，请记录下来。如果您的业务与几个模型重叠（这并不少见），那么从每个模型中获取指标，并将它们包含在这个练习中。

Model One: E-commerce

模型一：电子商务

In an e-commerce company, a visitor buys something from a web-based retailer. This is perhaps the most common kind of online business, and it’s certainly the one that the majority of traditional analytics tools are aimed at. Big retailers like Amazon, Walmart.com, and Expedia are all e-commerce companies.
在电子商务公司中，一个访客从基于网络的零售商那里购买商品。这也许是种最常见的在线业务，而且也是大多数传统分析工具所针对的业务。像亚马逊、沃尔玛.com 和 Expedia 这样的大型零售商都是电子商务公司。

If the e-commerce model most closely matches your business, this chapter will show you some of the most important metrics you need to watch, as well as some “wrinkles” that make the analytics more complex.
如果电子商务模型最符合你的业务，本章将向你展示一些你需要密切关注的最重要的指标，以及一些使分析变得更复杂的“小问题”。

Early e-commerce models consisted of a relatively simple “funnel”: a visitor arrived at the site, navigated through a series of pages to get to a particular item, clicked “buy,” provided some payment information, and completed a purchase. This is the traditional “conversion funnel” from which mainstream analytics packages like Omniture and Google Analytics emerged.
早期的电子商务模型由一个相对简单的“漏斗”组成：一个访客到达网站，浏览一系列页面以到达一个特定的商品，点击“购买”，提供一些支付信息，并完成购买。这是传统“转化漏斗”，主流分析软件包如 Omniture 和 Google Analytics 都是从中发展而来的。

But modern e-commerce is seldom this simple:
但现代电子商务很少如此简单：

• The majority of buyers find what they’re looking for through search rather than by navigating across a series of pages. Shoppers start with an external search and then bounce back and forth from sites they visit to their search results, seeking the scent of what they’re after. Once they find it, on-site navigation becomes more important. This means on-site funnels are somewhat outdated; keywords are more important.
• 大多数买家通过搜索而不是通过浏览一系列页面来找到他们想要的。购物者从外部搜索开始，然后在他们访问的网站和搜索结果之间来回跳转，寻找他们想要的线索。一旦找到，站内导航就变得更重要。这意味着站内漏斗已经有些过时了；关键词更重要。

• Retailers use recommendation engines to anticipate what else a buyer might want, basing their suggestions on past buyers and other users with similar profiles. Few visitors see the same pages as one another.
• 零售商使用推荐引擎来预测买家可能还需要什么，他们的建议基于过去的买家和其他具有相似档案的用户。很少有访客看到相同的页面。
• Retailers are always optimizing performance, which means that they’re segmenting traffic. Mid- to large-size retailers segment their funnel by several tests that are being run to find the right products, offers, and prices.
• 零售商总是在优化性能，这意味着他们在细分流量。中大型零售商通过几个正在进行的测试来细分漏斗，以找到合适的产品、优惠和价格。
• Purchases begin far from the website itself, in social networks, email inboxes, and online communities, making the buying process harder to track.
• 购买行为往往始于网站本身很远的地方，例如社交网络、电子邮件收件箱和在线社区，这使得购买过程更难追踪。

E-commerce companies make money in a straightforward way: they charge for products, which they then deliver either electronically (e.g., digital downloads on iTunes) or physically (e.g., shipping shoes from Zappos). They spend money to acquire customers through advertising and affiliate referrals. Prices are set based on what the market will bear, or on expectations set by competitors. Some large retailers with the budget and time to invest in it will generate prices algorithmically based on supply, demand, and constant testing, which in some cases leads to absurd pricing or recommendations based on factors such as browser type.
电子商务公司赚钱的方式很简单：他们收取产品费用，然后将产品以电子方式（例如 iTunes 上的数字下载）或实体方式（例如从 Zappos 运送鞋子）交付。他们通过广告和联盟推荐来获取客户，花费金钱。价格是根据市场能承受的程度或竞争对手设定的预期来确定的。一些预算充足、有时间和资源投入的大型零售商会根据供需和持续测试来生成算法价格，这有时会导致荒谬的价格或基于浏览器类型的推荐。

Loyalty-focused e-retailers like Amazon build a recurring relationship with their users. They have a wide variety of products to offer, and buyers return often, so they do everything they can to make purchasing simple and automatic (in Amazon’s case, the company patented the one-click purchase model, which it now licenses to other retailers, including Apple).
以忠诚度为中心的电子零售商如亚马逊与用户建立了持续的关系。他们提供各种产品，买家经常回头，所以他们尽一切努力使购买过程简单和自动化（在亚马逊的案例中，该公司获得了“一键购买”模式的专利，现在将其许可给其他零售商，包括苹果）。

These relationship-focused e-commerce companies encourage users to build wishlists and review products, which means that while their core business model is e-commerce, they care about other models, such as usergenerated content (UGC), too—as long as those models act as an enabler for purchases. On the other hand, e-commerce retailers that don’t expect frequent, repeat sales focus on getting as much from their buyer as they can and on getting the buyer to spread the word.
这些以关系为导向的电子商务公司鼓励用户建立愿望清单和评论产品，这意味着虽然他们的核心商业模式是电子商务，但他们也关心其他模式，例如用户生成内容（UGC），只要这些模式能够促进购买。另一方面，那些不期望频繁重复销售的电子商务零售商则专注于从买家那里获得尽可能多的利益，并促使买家进行口碑传播。

PATTERN What Mode of E-commerce Are You?

模式 你属于哪种电子商务模式？

Kevin Hillstrom of Mine That Data, a consultancy focused on helping companies understand how their customers interact with advertising, products, brands, and channels, works with a number of e-commerce companies. He says t’s essential for online retailers to know what kind of relationship they have with their buyers, because this drives everything from marketing strategy to shopping cart size. To understand this, he calculates the annual repurchase rate: what percentage of people who bought something from you last year will do so this year?
Mine That Data 顾问公司的凯文·希尔斯特罗姆，该公司专注于帮助公司了解客户如何与广告、产品、品牌和渠道互动，与许多电子商务公司合作。他说，对于在线零售商来说，了解他们与买家之间的关系至关重要，因为这决定了从营销策略到购物车大小的方方面面。为了了解这一点，他计算了年度回购率：去年从你这里购买过东西的人中有多少比例今年会再次购买？

Acquisition mode

获取模式

If less than $40\mathrm{\%}$ of last year’s buyers will buy this year, then the focus of the business is on new customer acquisition. Loyalty programs aren’t good long-term investments for this kind of business. Kevin says that $70\mathrm{\%}$ of e-commerce businesses fall into this category when they’re mature. Vendors of scuba or rock climbing equipment might be a great example of this: many of their customers buy gear once, and don’t get so hooked on the hobby that they need to upgrade. That’s not a bad thing—it just dictates marketing strategy. An online vendor of eyewear might put more of its marketing efforts into convincing past buyers to refer others, and less into convincing those buyers to purchase multiple pairs of glasses, for example.
如果去年的买家中少于 $40\mathrm{\%}$ 的人今年会再次购买，那么业务的重点在于新客户获取。忠诚度计划对于这种类型的业务来说并非长期的明智投资。Kevin 表示，当电子商务企业成熟时，有 $70\mathrm{\%}$ 的企业属于这种类型。潜水或攀岩设备供应商可能是一个很好的例子：他们的许多客户只购买一次装备，并且不会对这项爱好如此着迷以至于需要升级。这没什么不好——它只是决定了营销策略。例如，一个在线眼镜零售商可能会将其更多的营销工作投入到说服过去的买家推荐他人，而不是说服这些买家购买多副眼镜。

Hybrid mode

混合模式

If $40-60\mathrm{\%}$ of last year’s buyers will buy this year, then the company will grow with a mix of new customers and returning customers. It needs to focus on acquisition as well as on increasing purchase frequency—the average customer will buy 2 to 2.5 times a year. Zappos is a hybrid model e-commerce company.
如果去年的买家中 $40-60\mathrm{\%}$ 的人今年会再次购买，那么公司将随着新客户和回头客的增长而发展。它需要关注获取新客户，同时也要增加购买频率——平均每个客户每年会购买 2 到 2.5 次。Zappos 是一个混合模式的电子商务公司。

Loyalty mode

忠诚度模式

If $60\mathrm{\%}$ or more of last year’s buyers will buy something this year, the company needs to focus on loyalty, encouraging loyal clients to buy more frequently. Loyalty programs work well only if the retailer has this kind of engagement, and only $10\mathrm{\%}$ of e-commerce businesses end up in this mode when mature. Amazon is a good example of a company in this mode.
如果去年的买家中有 $60\mathrm{\%}$ 个或更多今年会购买商品，公司需要专注于忠诚度，鼓励忠实客户更频繁地购买。忠诚度计划只有在零售商具有这种参与度的情况下才能有效，并且只有 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 的电子商务企业在成熟时才会进入这种模式。亚马逊是一个处于这种模式的公司的良好例子。

The annual repurchase rate is an early indicator of how an e-commerce startup will succeed in the long term. Even before a year has elapsed, an e-commerce company can look at 90-day repurchase rates and get a sense of which model it’s in.
年度回购率是电子商务初创企业长期成功的一个早期指标。在一年过去之前，电子商务公司可以查看 90 天的回购率，并了解自己处于哪种模式。

• A 90-day repurchase rate of $1\mathrm{\%}$ to $15\mathrm{\%}$ means you’re in acquisition mode.
• 90 天回购率为 $1\mathrm{\%}$ 到 $15\mathrm{\%}$ 表示你处于获取模式。

• A 90-day repurchase rate of $15\mathrm{\%}$ to $30\mathrm{\%}$ means you’re in hybrid mode.
• 90 天回购率为 $15\mathrm{\%}$ 到 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 表示你处于混合模式。
• A 90-day repurchase rate of over $30\mathrm{\%}$ means you’re in loyalty mode.
• 90 天的回购率超过 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 意味着你处于忠诚模式。

There’s nothing particularly bad about any of these models. Kevin has clients where only $25\mathrm{\%}$ of this year’s buyers will purchase something next year. These clients are successful because they know they need a large number of new customers at relatively low costs, and they concentrate all of their marketing efforts around reliable, affordable customer acquisition.
这些模型并没有什么特别糟糕的地方。Kevin 有一些客户，今年只有 $25\mathrm{\%}$ 的买家明年会购买东西。这些客户之所以成功，是因为他们知道需要以相对较低的成本获得大量新客户，并且他们将所有的营销工作都集中在可靠、负担得起的新客户获取上。

“It doesn’t matter whatsoever what mode a business is in. But it means everything for the CEO to know what mode he or she is in,” Kevin says. “I see too many leaders trying to increase loyalty. If you’re in acquisition mode, you probably can’t—and shouldn’t try to—increase loyalty. The average customer only needs a couple of pairs of jeans a year, for instance. You can’t force the customer to buy more! Knowing your customer and mode is really important.”
“无论一个企业的模式是什么，但这对于 CEO 来说意味着一切，他或她需要知道自己所处的模式，”Kevin 说。“我看到太多领导者试图提高忠诚度。如果你处于获取模式，你可能无法——也不应该——提高忠诚度。例如，平均每个客户每年只需要几条牛仔裤。你不能强迫客户购买更多！了解你的客户和模式真的很重要。”

Kevin says he frequently sees business leaders with seasonal e-commerce properties trying to convince customers to buy gifts off-season. “It doesn’t work,” he says. “They’re in acquisition mode. They’re better off creating awareness during the year so that they get new customers in November and December.”
Kevin 说他经常看到具有季节性电子商务属性的企业领导者试图在非节日季节说服客户购买礼物。“这行不通，”他说。“他们处于获取模式。他们最好在一年中创造意识，这样他们就能在 11 月和 12 月获得新客户。”

While it’s important to optimize revenues, don’t try to make your customers into something they’re not. “I don’t try to force my customer to do things my customer isn’t pre-inclined to do. With Zappos, for example, I wouldn’t necessarily try to push my customer from hybrid mode to loyalty mode. But I do try to improve customer service (free returns), and that brings in new customers (half of hybrid mode success) who feel comfortable with my business,” says Kevin. “If I am in acquisition mode, then I will still try to improve service and merchandise and the like, but I know that my primary goal is to always get new customers, even once my business is mature.”
虽然优化收入很重要，但不要试图让你的客户变成他们不是的样子。“我不试图强迫我的客户去做他们没有预先倾向的事情。以 Zappos 为例，我可能不会试图把我的客户从混合模式推向忠诚模式。但我确实会尝试改善客户服务（免费退货），这会吸引新客户（混合模式成功的半数），这些客户对我的业务感到舒适，”凯文说。“如果我处于获取模式，那么我仍然会尝试改善服务和商品等等，但我知道我的主要目标始终是获取新客户，即使我的业务成熟了。”

Kevin says it’s difficult to move the annual repurchase rate by more than $10\mathrm{\%}$ , despite a company’s best efforts. “If the annual repurchase rate is $30\mathrm{\%}$ , it will vary between $27\mathrm{\%}$ and $33\mathrm{\%}$ ,” he says.
凯文说，尽管公司尽了最大努力，但要使年回购率超过 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 是非常困难的。“如果年回购率是 $30\mathrm{\%}$ ，它将在 $27\mathrm{\%}$ 和 $33\mathrm{\%}$ 之间变化，”他说。

With the rise of social networks and sites like Facebook and Pinterest, which can refer visitors, e-commerce companies are increasingly interested in a long funnel that begins with a tweet, a video, or a link, and ends with a purchase. Online retailers need to understand what messages, on what platforms, generate the kinds of visitors who buy things. Once they’re on the site, the emphasis is on maximizing the amount of stuff a buyer will purchase.
随着社交网络和 Facebook、Pinterest 等网站的兴起，电子商务公司越来越关注一个从推文、视频或链接开始，以购买结束的长漏斗。在线零售商需要了解哪些信息、在哪些平台上能吸引购买型访客。一旦他们来到网站，重点就是最大化买家购买的商品数量。

Getting pricing right is critical—particularly if you’re an acquisitionmode e-commerce site that gets only one chance to extract revenue from a customer. A 1992 study on business optimization by management consulting firm McKinsey compared the impact of improving different aspects of the business on operating profit.*
定价正确至关重要——特别是如果你是一个仅在获取客户时有一次机会提取收入的收购模式电子商务网站。管理咨询公司麦肯锡 1992 年对业务优化的一项研究比较了改进业务不同方面对运营利润的影响。

As Figure 8-1 illustrates, getting pricing right has a huge impact on the overall profitability of a business. A later study conducted in 2003 suggested a smaller impact of only $8\mathrm{\%}$ —but one that still far outstripped other efforts.†
如图 8-1 所示，定价正确对企业的整体盈利能力有巨大影响。一项稍晚在 2003 年进行的研究表明影响较小，仅为 $8\mathrm{\%}$ ——但仍然远超其他努力。

Figure 8-1. Want to fix your business? Get the price right
图 8-1。想改善你的业务？把价格定对

A Practical Example

一个实用示例

Consider an online luxury goods store. Subscribers to the site get exclusive deals at reduced prices for items that are curated by the site’s operators. Visitors to the site can browse what’s available, but must sign up to place an order or put something in a shopping cart; by signing up, they agree to receive a daily email update. Visitors can also tweet or like something they see on the site.
考虑一个在线奢侈品商店。该网站的订阅者可以获得由网站运营商精心挑选的商品的独家优惠，价格也较低。网站访客可以浏览有哪些商品可供选择，但必须注册才能下单或添加商品到购物车；通过注册，他们同意每天收到一次电子邮件更新。访客还可以在网站上分享他们看到的商品到推特或点赞。

The company cares about several key metrics:
该公司关注几个关键指标：

Conversion rate
转化率

The number of visitors who buy something.
购买商品的人数。

Purchases per year
每年购买次数

The number of purchases made by each customer per year.
每位客户每年的购买次数。

Average shopping cart size
平均购物车大小

The amount of money spent on a purchase.
购买所花费的金额。

Abandonment
放弃

The percentage of people who begin to make a purchase, and then don’t.
开始进行购买但最终没有完成的人数百分比。

Cost of customer acquisition
获取客户的成本

The money spent to get someone to buy something.
获取某人购买某物的花费。

Revenue per customer
每位客户的收入。

The lifetime value of each customer.
每位客户的终身价值。

Top keywords driving traffic to the site
驱动流量到网站的顶级关键词。

Those terms that people are looking for, and associate with you—a clue to adjacent products or markets.
人们搜索的术语，以及与你关联的术语——这是发现邻近产品或市场的线索。

Top search terms
顶级搜索术语

Both those that lead to revenue, and those that don’t have any results.
既能带来收入，又没有搜索结果的那些术语。

Effectiveness of recommendation engines
推荐引擎的有效性

How likely a visitor is to add a recommended product to the shopping cart.
访客将推荐产品添加到购物车的可能性。

Virality
病毒式传播

Word of mouth, and sharing per visitor.
口碑传播，每个访客的分享。

Mailing list effectiveness
邮件列表的有效性

Click-through rates and ability to make buyers return and buy.
点击率以及让买家再次购买的能力。

More sophisticated retailers care about other metrics such as the number of reviews written or the number considered helpful, but this is really a secondary business within the organization, and we’ll deal with these when we look at the user-generated content model in Chapter 12. For now, let’s look at the preceding metrics in a bit more detail.
更复杂的零售商关心其他指标，例如写评论的数量或被认为是帮助性的评论数量，但这实际上是组织内的次要业务，我们将在第 12 章讨论用户生成的内容模型时处理这些内容。现在，让我们更详细地看一下前面的指标。

Conversion Rate

转化率

Conversion rate is simply the percentage of visitors to your site who buy something. It’s one of the first metrics you use to assess how you’re doing. It’s simple to calculate and experiment with. You’ll slice conversion rate in many ways—by demographics, by copy, by referral, and so on—to see what makes people more likely to buy.
转化率简单地是指访问您网站并购买东西的访客百分比。它是您用来评估进展情况的首要指标之一。它易于计算和实验。您将按人口统计、按文案、按来源等多种方式切割转化率，以查看什么能让人们更倾向于购买。

Early on, conversion rate may even be more important than total revenue because your initial goal is to simply prove that someone will buy something (and it gives you that person’s email address and data on what he purchases). But there’s also a risk in focusing too intensely on conversion rate. Conversion rate is highly dependent on your type of e-commerce business, and whether your success will be driven by loyalty, new customer acquisition, or a hybrid of the two.
早期，转化率甚至可能比总收入更重要，因为你的初始目标是仅仅证明有人会购买东西（这会给你这个人电子邮件地址和关于他购买什么的数据）。但过度专注于转化率也存在风险。转化率高度依赖于你的电子商务业务类型，以及你的成功是否由忠诚度、新客户获取或两者的混合驱动。

Purchases Per Year

年度购买次数

While conversion rate is important, it doesn’t tell the whole story. There are many examples of e-commerce sites with high or low conversion rates that are successful. It depends on the type of e-commerce site and how people buy. A store that sells coffins probably sells only one per lifetime; a grocery store sells to a customer several times a week.
虽然转化率很重要，但它并不能说明全部情况。有许多电子商务网站转化率高或低但仍然成功。这取决于电子商务网站的类型以及人们的购买方式。一个销售棺材的商店可能一生只卖一个；而杂货店每周会向顾客销售几次。

If you look at the repurchase rate on a 90-day cycle, it becomes a very good leading indicator for what type of e-commerce site you have. There’s no right or wrong answer, but it is important to know whether to focus more on loyalty or more on acquisition.
如果你查看 90 天的回购率，它会成为一个非常好的领先指标，以判断你拥有哪种类型的电子商务网站。没有正确或错误的答案，但了解是更专注于忠诚度还是更专注于获取非常重要。

Shopping Cart Size

购物车大小

The other half of the conversion rate equation is the size of the shopping cart. Not only do you want to know what percentage of people bought something, you also want to know how much they spent. You may find that one campaign is more likely to make people buy, but another might make fewer people spend more money.
转化率方程式的另一半是购物车的大小。你不仅想知道有多少比例的人购买了商品，还想知道他们花了多少钱。你可能会发现一个活动更有可能促使人们购买，而另一个活动可能让更少的人花更多的钱。

In practice, you’ll compare the total revenue you’re generating to the way in which you acquired that revenue, in order to identify the most lucrative segments of your reachable audience. But don’t get too caught up in top-line revenue; profit is what really matters.
在实践中，你将比较你产生的总收入与你获取这些收入的方式，以确定你能够触及的受众中最有利可图的细分市场。但不要过于沉迷于总收入；利润才是真正重要的。

Bill D’Alessandro of Skyway Ventures, a private investment firm focused on e-commerce companies, says, “The key to successful e-commerce is in increasing shopping cart size; that’s really where the money is made. I like to think of customer acquisition cost as a fixed cost, so any increase in order size is expanding your margin.”
Skyway Ventures 私人投资公司，一家专注于电子商务公司的投资公司，Bill D’Alessandro 说：“成功的电子商务的关键在于增加购物车的大小；这才是真正赚钱的地方。我喜欢将客户获取成本视为固定成本，所以任何订单规模的增加都在扩大你的利润。”

Abandonment

放弃

Not everyone buys something. At its simplest, abandonment rate is the opposite of conversion rate. But a purchasing process often has several steps—reviewing items in a shopping cart, providing shipping information, entering billing details, and so on. In some cases, the process may even involve a third-party site: Kickstarter sends users to Amazon to provide their credit card information, and Eventbrite links to PayPal so buyers can pay for tickets.
并非所有人都购买。最简单地说，放弃率是转化率的反面。但购买过程通常包含多个步骤——查看购物车中的商品、提供运输信息、输入账单详情等等。在某些情况下，这个过程甚至可能涉及第三方网站：Kickstarter 将用户引导至 Amazon 提供信用卡信息，而 Eventbrite 则链接到 PayPal，以便买家购买门票。

The number of people who abandon a funnel at each of these stages is the abandonment rate. It’s important to analyze it for each step in order to see which parts of the process are hurting you the most. In some cases, this may be a particular form field—for example, asking people for their nationality could be alienating buyers. Tools like ClickTale perform abandonment analysis within the form itself, making it easier to pinpoint bottlenecks in the conversion process where you’re losing customers.
在这些步骤中的每个人放弃漏斗的数量就是放弃率。分析每个步骤都很重要，以便看到过程中哪些部分对你伤害最大。在某些情况下，这可能是一个特定的表单字段——例如，要求人们提供国籍可能会让买家感到疏远。像 ClickTale 这样的工具在表单内进行放弃分析，使你更容易确定转化过程中失去客户的瓶颈。

Cost of Customer Acquisition

客户获取成本

Once you know you can extract money from visitors, you’ll want to drive traffic to the site. You may be using advertising, social media outreach, mailing lists, or affiliates. Whatever the case, you’re going to need to add it up. E-commerce sites are simple math: make more from selling things than it costs you to find buyers and deliver the goods.
一旦你知道可以从访客那里赚钱，你将想要吸引流量到你的网站。你可能在使用广告、社交媒体推广、邮件列表或联盟营销。无论哪种情况，你都需要把它们加起来。电子商务网站很简单：通过销售商品获得的收入要比你找到买家和交付商品的成本高。

Accounting for the cost of acquisition in aggregate is fairly easy; it’s more complicated when you have myriad channels driving traffic to your site. The good news is that analytics tools were literally built to do this for you. The reason Google has a free analytics product is because the company makes money from relevant advertising, and wants to make it as easy as possible for you to buy ads and measure their effectiveness.
综合计算获取成本的难度并不大；当你有众多渠道将流量引至你的网站时，情况就变得复杂了。好消息是，分析工具就是为此而生的。Google 提供免费的分析产品是因为该公司通过相关广告赚钱，并希望尽可能简化你购买广告和衡量其效果的过程。

Revenue Per Customer

每客户收入

Revenue per customer (or lifetime value) is important for all types of e-commerce businesses, regardless of whether you’re focused on new customer acquisition or loyalty (or both). Even if your business doesn’t engender loyalty (because you’re selling something that’s infrequently purchased), you want to maximize revenue per customer; you do so by increasing shopping cart size and conversion while reducing abandonment. Revenue per customer is really an aggregate metric of other key numbers, and represents a good, single measure of your e-commerce business’s health.
每位客户的收入（或终身价值）对所有类型的电子商务企业都很重要，无论您是专注于新客户获取还是忠诚度（或两者兼而有之）。即使您的业务不产生忠诚度（因为您销售的商品购买频率不高），您也希望通过增加购物车大小和转化率来提高每位客户的收入；您可以通过减少放弃率来实现这一点。每位客户的收入实际上是一个其他关键数字的汇总指标，也是衡量您的电子商务企业健康状况的良好单一指标。

CASE STUDY WineExpress Increases Revenue by $41\mathrm{\%}$ Per Visitor

案例研究：WineExpress 通过 $41\mathrm{\%}$ 提高每位访客的收入

WineExpress.com is the exclusive wine shop partner of the Wine Enthusiast catalog and website, which have been providing quality wine accessories and storage for over 30 years. The company actively A/B tests and runs different experiments to improve sales conversions.
WineExpress.com 是 Wine Enthusiast 目录和网站的独家葡萄酒商店合作伙伴，这些目录和网站已提供超过 30 年的高品质葡萄酒配件和储存设备。该公司积极进行 A/B 测试并运行不同的实验来提高销售转化率。

It decided to tackle one of the most highly trafficked pages on its site— the “Wine of the Day” page—which features a single wine option that ships for just 99 cents. The company drives traffic to the page through an opt-in email list and site navigation. The page’s central focus, aside from the featured product, is a virtual wine-tasting video with the company’s highly regarded wine director.
它决定着手处理其网站上流量最高的页面之一——“每日葡萄酒”页面，该页面展示一款单独的葡萄酒选项，只需 99 美分即可发货。该公司通过注册电子邮件列表和网站导航将流量引至该页面。除了特色产品外，该页面的中心重点是公司备受推崇的葡萄酒总监进行的一次虚拟品酒视频。

The “Wine of the Day” page already converted well, but WineExpress.com felt there was an opportunity to improve it. However, the team was well aware of the challenge which is faced by all e-commerce sites: striking a balance between optimizing sales transactions and optimizing overall revenues. Focusing too much on sales conversions may negatively impact the bottom line if the average order size drops in the process.
“每日葡萄酒”页面已经转化效果很好，但 WineExpress.com 觉得还有改进的机会。然而，团队非常清楚所有电子商务网站都面临的挑战：在优化销售交易和优化整体收入之间取得平衡。如果在这个过程中平均订单金额下降，过度关注销售转化可能会对底线产生负面影响。

WineExpress.com engaged conversion optimization agency WiderFunnel Marketing to develop and execute a strategy for the “Wine of the Day” page. WiderFunnel developed and tested three design variations, aiming mostly at testing different layout approaches. Figure 8-2 shows the original layout.
WineExpress.com 聘请了转化优化机构 WiderFunnel Marketing 来开发和执行“每日葡萄酒”页面的策略。WiderFunnel 开发并测试了三种设计变体，主要目标是测试不同的布局方法。图 8-2 显示了原始布局。

In the end, one of the variations was a clear winner, leading to a $41\mathrm{\%}$ increase in revenue per visitor. “Conversion also went up,” says Chris Goward, CEO of WiderFunnel, “but the key here is that revenue per visitor went up substantially. A lot of e-commerce vendors focus too much on conversion. For WineExpress.com the success is that people bought substantially more product.”
最后，其中一个变体成为明显的赢家，导致每访客收入增长了 $41\mathrm{\%}$ 。“转化率也提高了，”WiderFunnel 的首席执行官 Chris Goward 说，“但关键在于每访客收入大幅提高。很多电子商务商贩过于关注转化率。对于 WineExpress.com 来说，成功之处在于人们购买的产品大幅增加。”

Villa Antinori 2oo5 Toscana IGT

安提诺里庄园 2005 托斯卡纳 IGT

Antinori is a world famous producer of Tuscan wines, their history going back literally centuries.The Villa Antinori is the estate where the Chianti Classico wines have been produced for many years.This wine is a natural progression from their Chianti Classico. As the Antinoris recognized how non-native grapes like Cabernet Sauvignon, Merlot and Syrah raised the level of quality of their wine they started blending more and more and finaly could no longer use the Doc designation and so it became a Super Tuscan IGT.But the quality they've reached is exceptional, especially as they've experimented more with aging in small oak barrels.This 2005 is a blend of $60\mathrm{\%}$ Sangiovese, $30\mathrm{\%}$ Cabernet Sauvignon, $15\mathrm{\%}$ Merlotand $5\mathrm{\%}$ Syrah aged for 12 months in French, American and Hungarian oak barrels.Aged in the hottle for another 8 months hefore release this Tuscan heautv has reached a stane
安蒂诺里是世界上最著名的托斯卡纳葡萄酒生产商，其历史可以追溯到几个世纪以前。安蒂诺里城堡是多年来生产奇安蒂经典葡萄酒的庄园。这款酒是他们奇安蒂经典葡萄酒的自然延伸。当安蒂诺里家族认识到像赤霞珠、梅洛和西拉这样的非本地葡萄品种如何提高了他们葡萄酒的质量时，他们开始越来越多地混合，最终不能再使用 DOC 指定名称，因此它成为了一款超级托斯卡纳 IGT。但他们达到的质量是卓越的，尤其是当他们更多地尝试在小橡木桶中陈年时。2005 年份是一款混合了 $60\mathrm{\%}$ 桑娇维塞、 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 赤霞珠、 $15\mathrm{\%}$ 梅洛和 $5\mathrm{\%}$ 西拉的葡萄酒，在法国、美国和匈牙利橡木桶中陈年了 12 个月。在酒瓶中再陈年 8 个月后发布，这款托斯卡纳佳酿已经达到了一个境界。

Sale Price:$24.95
售价：24.95 美元

Figure 8-2. The original WineExpress “Wine of the Day” page
图 8-2。原始 WineExpress“每日葡萄酒”页面

The winning layout and design is shown in Figure 8-3.
获胜的布局和设计如图 8-3 所示。

Figure 8-3. How would $41\mathrm{\%}$ more revenue per visitor change your business?
图 8-3。如果每访客收入增加 $41\mathrm{\%}$ ，将如何改变你的业务？

“We found that placing the video above the fold was a key element in the success of the new page,” says Chris. “The eyeflow of the new layout also improved clarity, with fewer distracting elements that could draw you away from purchasing.”
“我们发现，将视频放置在可视区域内是新版页面成功的关键因素，”克里斯说。“新布局的视觉流也提高了清晰度，减少了可能分散你购买注意力的干扰元素。”

摘要

WineExpress.com used A/B testing to find a better-converting page.
WineExpress.com 使用 A/B 测试找到了一个转化率更高的页面。
• While conversion went up, the real gain was a $41\mathrm{\%}$ increase in revenue per visitor.
• 虽然转化率上升了，但真正的收益是每访客收入增加了 $41\mathrm{\%}$ 。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Page optimization is important. But be sure you’re optimizing the right metric. You don’t just want a high conversion rate—though that’s good. You want high revenue per visitor, or high customer lifetime value (CLV), because that’s what’s really driving your business model.
页面优化很重要。但要确保你正在优化正确的指标。你不仅想要高转化率——尽管那很好。你想要高访客收入，或高客户终身价值（CLV），因为这才是真正推动你的商业模式的东西。

Keywords and Search Terms

关键词和搜索词

Most people find products by searching for them, whether that’s in a web browser, on a search engine, or within a site. In each case, you want to know which keywords drive traffic that turns into money.
大多数人通过搜索来找到产品，无论是在网络浏览器、搜索引擎还是网站内部。在任何情况下，你都想知道哪些关键词能带来转化为金钱的流量。

For paid search, you’re going to be bidding against others for popular keywords in search engines like Google. Understanding which words are a comparatively good “value”—not too expensive, but still able to drive a reasonable amount of traffic—is what search engine marketing professionals do for a living.
对于付费搜索，你将与其他人竞标搜索引擎（如 Google）中的热门关键词。理解哪些词在相对较好的“价值”——价格不是太高，但仍能带来合理的流量——这是搜索引擎营销专业人士的工作。

For unpaid search, you’ll be more focused on good, compelling content that improves your ranking with search engines, and on writing copy that includes the desirable search terms your paying customers tend to use (so you’ll be featured in search results because of your relevance).
对于未付费搜索，你将更专注于制作好的、有吸引力的内容，以提高搜索引擎的排名，并撰写包含你的付费客户倾向于使用的理想搜索词的文案（这样你就能因为相关性而在搜索结果中显示）。

You also want to analyze search within your site. First, you want to be sure you have what people are after. If users are searching for something and not finding it—or searching, then pressing the back button—that’s a sign that you don’t have what they want. Second, if a significant chunk of searches fall into a particular category, that’s a sign that you might want to alter your positioning, or add that category to the home page, to see if you can capture more of that market faster. Jason Billingsley, former VP of Innovation at Elastic Path, an enterprise e-commerce platform vendor, says, “Numbers vary by vertical and by site, but on-site search tools typically account for $5\mathrm{\%}$ of navigation.”
你还想要分析你网站内的搜索。首先，你想要确保你知道人们想要什么。如果用户搜索某些内容但没有找到——或者搜索后点击了返回按钮——这表明你没有满足他们的需求。其次，如果大量搜索集中在某个特定类别，这表明你可能需要调整你的定位，或者将该类别添加到主页上，看看是否能够更快地捕捉到这部分市场。Elastic Path，一家企业电子商务平台供应商的前创新副总裁 Jason Billingsley 说：“数字因行业和网站而异，但站内搜索工具通常占导航的 $5\mathrm{\%}$ 。”

We’re not going to get into the details of search engine optimization and search engine marketing here—those are worlds unto themselves. For now, realize that search is a significant part of any e-commerce operation, and the old model of formal navigational steps toward a particular page is outdated (even though it remains in many analytics tools).
我们不会在这里深入探讨搜索引擎优化和搜索引擎营销的细节——这些是各自独立的世界。目前，要认识到搜索是任何电子商务运营的重要组成部分，而旧的模式，即通过正式的导航步骤到达特定页面的模式已经过时（尽管它仍然存在于许多分析工具中）。

Recommendation Acceptance Rate

推荐接受率

Big e-commerce companies use recommendation engines to suggest additional items to visitors. Today, these engines are becoming more widespread thanks to third-party recommendation services that work with smaller retailers. Even bloggers have this kind of algorithm, suggesting other articles similar to the one the visitor is currently reading.
大型电子商务公司使用推荐引擎向访客推荐额外的商品。如今，由于与小型零售商合作的第三方推荐服务，这些引擎正变得越来越普及。甚至博主也有这种算法，推荐与访客当前正在阅读的文章相似的其它文章。

There are many different approaches to recommendations. Some use what the buyer has purchased in the past; others try to predict purchases from visitor attributes like geography, referral, or what the visitor has clicked so far. Predictive analysis of visitors relies heavily on machine learning, and the metrics you’ll track will vary from tool to tool, but they all boil down to one thing: how much additional revenue am I generating through recommendations?
推荐有很多不同的方法。有些使用买家过去的购买记录；另一些则尝试根据访客的属性，如地理位置、来源或访客迄今为止点击的内容来预测购买。访客的预测分析严重依赖于机器学习，您将跟踪的指标会因工具而异，但它们都归结为一点：通过推荐我能产生多少额外的收入？

When you make adjustments to the recommendation engine, you’ll want to see if you moved the needle in the right direction.
当您对推荐引擎进行调整时，您想知道是否朝着正确的方向移动了关键指标。

Virality

病毒式传播

For many e-commerce sites, virality is important, because referral and viral attention drives cheap, high-value traffic. It has the lowest cost of customer acquisition and the highest implied recommendation from someone the recipient trusts.
对于许多电子商务网站来说，病毒性很重要，因为推荐和病毒式关注会带来低成本、高价值的流量。这是客户获取成本最低的，并且来自受信者最高隐含的推荐。

Mailing List Click-Through Rates

邮件列表点击率

Email might not seem particularly sexy in a mobile, always-on world. But consider this: if you have the permission to reach out to your customers— and they do what you tell them to—you can keep them engaged far more effectively. Fred Wilson, partner at venture capital firm Union Square Ventures, calls email a secret weapon.*
在一个移动、始终在线的世界里，电子邮件可能看起来并不那么吸引人。但请考虑这一点：如果你有权限接触你的客户——并且他们做你告诉他们做的事情——你可以更有效地让他们保持参与。风险投资公司 Union Square Ventures 的合伙人弗雷德·威尔逊将电子邮件称为秘密武器。

Just a few years ago, many analysts and investors were wondering whether social media was going to lead to the end of email. In an ironic twist of fate, it turns out that social media adoption is driven by email. More and more social applications are leveraging the power of email to drive repeat usage and retention.
几年前，许多分析师和投资者都在思考社交媒体是否会导致电子邮件的终结。一个讽刺的转折是，结果发现社交媒体的采用是由电子邮件驱动的。越来越多的社交应用程序正在利用电子邮件的力量来提高重复使用率和留存率。

Every email you send can be blocked in many ways before a user does something you want, as shown in Figure 8-4.
每一封你发送的邮件都可能以多种方式在用户执行你所期望的操作之前被阻止，如图 8-4 所示。

Figure 8-4. Every email runs this gauntlet; is it any wonder your click-throughs are low?
图 8-4。每一封邮件都要经历这一系列考验；难怪你的点击率这么低？

Even those who respond to the call to action within a message might not do something useful once they get to your website. In some cases, the unsubscribe rate caused by a bad email can overshadow any profit from the campaign, so email is a tool to use carefully.
即使那些在邮件中响应了号召性用语的人，一旦到达你的网站也可能不会做任何有用的事情。在某些情况下，一封糟糕的邮件造成的退订率可能会超过活动带来的任何利润，因此要谨慎使用邮件。

You calculate the email click-through rate by dividing the number of visits you get from a campaign by the number of messages you’ve sent. A more sophisticated analysis of email click-through rate will include a breakdown of the various places where things can go wrong—for example, what percentage of email addresses didn’t work anymore—and a look at the eventual outcome you’re after (such as a purchase).
你通过将活动带来的访问次数除以发送的消息数量来计算邮件点击率。更复杂的邮件点击率分析将包括各种可能出现问题的环节的分解——例如，有多少电子邮件地址已经不再有效——以及对你最终期望的结果（例如购买）的审视。

You also need to create a campaign contribution metric—basically, the added revenue from the campaign, minus the cost of the campaign and the loss due to unsubscribes. The good news is that most email platforms include this data with minimal effort.
你还需要创建一个竞选捐款指标——基本上，竞选活动带来的额外收入减去竞选活动的成本和因退订造成的损失。好消息是，大多数电子邮件平台都可以轻松提供这些数据。

Offline and Online Combinations

线下和线上组合

All e-commerce vendors have to deliver something to buyers. That delivery may be electronic, but in most cases, it means moving physical goods around. Not only do high shipping costs reduce conversion rates, but successful, timely delivery is also a huge factor in buyer satisfaction and repeat purchases. Offline components of any e-commerce business need to be analyzed carefully.
所有电子商务商都必须向买家提供某种产品。这种交付可能是电子的，但在大多数情况下，它意味着移动实物商品。高运输成本不仅会降低转化率，而且及时、成功的交付也是买家满意度和重复购买的一个巨大因素。任何电子商务业务的线下部分都需要仔细分析。

Shipping Time

运输时间

Real-time delivery and next-day shipping are increasingly common, and buyers are becoming more demanding. Shipping time is key, and it’s tightly linked to how effectively the retailer handles logistics. E-commerce companies can most likely achieve significant operational efficiencies just by optimizing their fulfillment and shipping processes. These efficiencies turn into a competitive advantage, because they let you sell to consumers who are more interested in faster, better-quality service than the cheapest price.
实时配送和次日达越来越普遍，买家要求也越来越高。交货时间是关键，它与零售商处理物流的效率紧密相关。电子商务公司很可能只需优化其履行和配送流程就能实现显著的运营效率。这些效率转化为竞争优势，因为它们让你能够销售给那些更感兴趣于更快、更好服务的消费者，而不是最低价格。

Stock Availability

库存可用性

“When items are out of stock, sales go down,” says Jason Billingsley. “Of course that’s obvious, but few e-commerce vendors do anything about it.” Improving your inventory management can make a big difference to your bottom line. Jason recommends lowering out-of-stock items on product list or category pages, effectively hiding them from consumers. You can also hide these items from searches, or again, make sure they appear lower in the search results.
“当商品缺货时，销售额会下降，”杰森·比林斯利说。“当然这是显而易见的，但很少有电子商务供应商采取任何措施。”改善你的库存管理可以对你的利润产生重大影响。杰森建议在产品列表或分类页面上降低缺货商品的排名，有效地将它们从消费者那里隐藏起来。你也可以从搜索中隐藏这些商品，或者确保它们在搜索结果中排名靠后。

It’s also interesting to analyze inventory versus sales. “A lot of e-commerce vendors hold too much inventory for things that don’t sell well, and not enough for things that do sell well,” says Jason. He recommends aligning product categories based on how much they make up of sales versus inventory. If you’re not selling a lot in a product category, but that group of products makes up a high percentage of your inventory, things are out of balance.
分析库存与销售的对比也很有趣。“很多电子商务商贩对滞销产品持有过多的库存，而对畅销产品持有不足的库存，”杰森说。他建议根据产品类别在销售和库存中所占的比例来调整产品类别。如果你在一个产品类别中销售量不大，但该类别的产品却占了你库存的高百分比，那么情况就失衡了。

Visualizing the E-commerce Business

可视化电子商务业务

Figure 8-5 represents a user’s flow through an e-commerce business, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 8-5 表示用户在电子商务业务中的流程，以及每个阶段的关键指标。

Figure 8-5. More than a typical funnel: how e-commerce businesses acquire customers
图 8-5。不仅仅是典型的漏斗：电子商务业务如何获取客户

Wrinkles: Traditional E-commerce Versus Subscription E-commerce

折痕：传统电子商务与订阅电子商务

So far, we’ve looked at a relatively simple e-commerce model involving a one-time purchase. Plenty of services, however, are subscription-based. This complicates things.
到目前为止，我们已经看了一个相对简单的电子商务模式，涉及一次性购买。然而，许多服务是订阅制的。这使事情变得复杂。

Subscription services bill the customer on a regular basis. Churn is easier to measure—the customer doesn’t renew his account or cancels outright—but happens more dramatically. Rather than a gradual reduction in purchases over time, the customer’s revenue simply stops. If this is you, check out the following business model—Software as a Service—because it applies to you as well.
订阅服务定期向客户收费。客户流失更容易衡量——客户没有续订他的账户或直接取消——但发生得更加剧烈。不是随着时间的推移逐渐减少购买，客户的收入会突然停止。如果是这样，请查看以下商业模式——软件即服务——因为它也适用于你。

Phone companies devote considerable effort to tackling this kind of churn. They build sophisticated models that predict when a subscriber is about to cancel her service, and then offer her a new phone or a discount on a renewed contract just before the cancellation happens.
电话公司投入大量精力来应对这种客户流失。他们建立复杂的模型来预测客户何时即将取消服务，然后在取消服务之前向她提供新手机或在续订合同上提供折扣。

Expired payment information is also a concern for subscriptions. If you try to charge a customer’s credit card for his monthly renewal and the transaction fails, you have to convince him to re-enter payment details.
订阅服务中，过期的支付信息也是一个问题。如果你尝试为客户的信用卡扣款以进行月度续费，但交易失败，你必须说服他重新输入支付详情。

From an analytics perspective, this means tracking additional metrics for the rate of payment expiration, the effectiveness of renewal campaigns, and the factors that help (or hinder) renewal rates. These metrics matter later on as you’re working to reduce churn, but as the total number of loyal users grows, renewal revenue represents a significant portion of total revenue.
从分析的角度来看，这意味着需要跟踪支付过期率、续费活动效果以及影响（或阻碍）续费率的因素。这些指标在后续减少用户流失的工作中很重要，但随着忠诚用户总数的增长，续费收入代表了总收入的一个显著部分。

Key Takeaways

关键要点

• It’s vital to know if you’re focused on loyalty or acquisition. This drives your whole marketing strategy and many of the features you build.
• 你需要知道你的重点是为忠诚度还是获取新用户。这决定了你的整个营销策略以及你构建的许多功能。
• Searches, both off- and on-site, are an increasingly common way of finding something for purchase.
• 搜索，包括站内和站外，正变得越来越普遍，用于寻找购买的东西。
• While conversion rates, repeat purchases, and transaction sizes are important, the ultimate metric is the product of the three of them: revenue per customer.
• 虽然转化率、重复购买和交易规模很重要，但最终指标是这三者的乘积：每位客户的收入。
• Don’t overlook real-world considerations like shipping, warehouse logistics, and inventory.
• 不要忽视现实世界的考虑因素，如运输、仓库物流和库存。

There’s another business model that’s close to e-commerce: two-sided marketplaces. Both models are concerned with transactions between a buyer and a seller, and the loyalty of customers. If you want to learn more about marketplaces, head to Chapter 13. Otherwise, you can move on to Chapter 14 to understand how your current stage affects the metrics you watch.
另一种接近电子商务的商业模式是双边市场。这两种模式都关注买方和卖方之间的交易以及客户的忠诚度。如果你想了解更多关于市场的内容，可以跳转到第 13 章。否则，你可以继续阅读第 14 章，了解你当前的阶段如何影响你关注的指标。

Model Two: Software as a Service (SaaS)

模型二：软件即服务（SaaS）

A SaaS company offers software on an on-demand basis, usually delivered through a website it operates. Salesforce, Gmail, Basecamp, and Asana are all examples of popular SaaS products. If you’re running a SaaS business, here’s what you need to know about metrics.
一家 SaaS 公司以按需方式提供软件，通常通过其运营的网站交付。Salesforce、Gmail、Basecamp 和 Asana 都是流行的 SaaS 产品。如果你正在运营一家 SaaS 业务，以下是关于指标你需要了解的内容。

Most SaaS providers generate revenue from a monthly (or yearly) subscription that users pay. Some charge on a consumption basis—for storage, for bandwidth, or for compute cycles—although this is largely confined to Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and Platform as a Service (PaaS) cloud computing companies today.
大多数 SaaS 提供商通过用户支付的月度（或年度）订阅来产生收入。有些则按使用量收费——用于存储、带宽或计算周期——尽管这在今天主要局限于基础设施即服务（IaaS）和平台即服务（PaaS）的云计算公司。

Many SaaS providers offer a tiered model of their service, where the monthly fee varies depending on some dimension of the application. This might be the number of projects in a project management tool, or the number of customers in a customer relationship management application. Finding the best mix of these tiers and prices is a constant challenge, and SaaS companies invest considerable effort in finding ways to upsell a user to higher, more lucrative tiers.
许多 SaaS 提供商为其服务提供分层模式，其中月度费用根据应用程序的某个维度而变化。这可能是一个项目管理工具中的项目数量，或是一个客户关系管理应用程序中的客户数量。找到这些层和价格的最佳组合是一个持续的挑战，SaaS 公司投入相当大的精力来寻找让用户升级到更高、更有利可图的层的方法。

Because the incremental cost of adding another customer to a SaaS service is negligible—think of how little it costs Skype to add a new user—many SaaS providers use a freemium model of customer acquisition.* Customers can start using a free version of the service that’s constrained, in the hopes that they’ll consume all the free capacity and pay for more. Dropbox, for example, gives subscribers a few gigabytes of storage for free, then does everything it can—including encouraging sharing and photo uploads—to make sure users consume that capacity.
因为将另一个客户添加到 SaaS 服务的增量成本可以忽略不计——想想 Skype 添加一个新用户要花多少成本——许多 SaaS 提供商使用免费增值模式来获取客户。客户可以开始使用限制性的免费版本的服务，希望他们会消耗所有的免费容量并付费购买更多。例如，Dropbox 为订阅者提供几 GB 的免费存储空间，然后做它能做的一切——包括鼓励分享和照片上传——以确保用户消耗这些容量。

Consider a project management startup that lets users try its product, but charges for more than three concurrent projects. It offers four tiers: free, 10 projects, 100 projects, and unlimited. It runs ads on several platforms to attract users to its site, and each time a user invites someone else to join a project, that person becomes a user.
考虑一个项目管理初创公司，它允许用户试用其产品，但超过三个并发项目则收费。它提供四个层级：免费、10 个项目、100 个项目和无限制。它在多个平台上投放广告以吸引用户访问其网站，并且每次用户邀请其他人加入项目时，那个人就变成了用户。

The company cares about the following key metrics:
公司关注以下关键指标：

Attention
注意力

How effectively the business attracts visitors.
生意吸引访客的有效性。

Enrollment
注册

How many visitors become free or trial users, if you’re relying on one of these models to market the service.
如果您依赖这些模型来推广服务，有多少访客会变成免费或试用用户。

Stickiness

粘性

How much the customers use the product.
客户使用产品的程度。

Conversion
转化

How many of the users become paying customers, and how many of those switch to a higher-paying tier.
有多少用户成为付费客户，以及其中有多少人升级到更高付费的层级。

Revenue per customer
每个客户的收入

How much money a customer brings in within a given time period.
在给定时间段内，一个客户能带来多少收入。

Customer acquisition cost
客户获取成本

How much it costs to get a paying user.
获取一个付费用户需要多少成本。

Virality
病毒式传播

How likely customers are to invite others and spread the word, and how long it takes them to do so.
客户邀请他人并传播信息的可能性有多大，以及他们完成这些操作所需的时间。

Upselling

添加销售

What makes customers increase their spending, and how often that happens.
客户增加消费的原因以及发生的频率。

Uptime and reliability
系统正常运行时间和可靠性。

How many complaints, problem escalations, or outages the company has.
公司有多少投诉、问题升级或停机事件。

Churn

用户流失率。

How many users and customers leave in a given time period.
在给定时间段内有多少用户和客户流失。

Lifetime value
终身价值

How much customers are worth from cradle to grave.
从摇篮到坟墓，客户值多少钱。

These metrics follow a natural, logical order. Consider the customer’s lifecycle: the company acquires a user through viral or paid marketing. Hopefully, that user continues to use the service, and eventually pays for a subscription. The user invites others, and perhaps upgrades to a higher tier. As a customer, she may have issues. In the end, she stops using the service— at which point, we know how much revenue she contributed to the business.
这些指标遵循自然、逻辑的顺序。考虑客户的生命周期：公司通过病毒式或付费营销获取用户。希望该用户继续使用服务，并最终付费订阅。该用户邀请其他人，也许升级到更高等级。作为一名客户，她可能会遇到问题。最终，她停止使用服务——此时，我们知道她为业务贡献了多少收入。

Describing a customer lifecycle in this way is a good method for understanding the key metrics that drive your business. This is where Lean Startup helps. You need to know which aspects of your business are too risky and then work to improve the metric that represents that risk.
以这种方式描述客户生命周期是理解驱动你业务的的关键指标的一个好方法。这就是精益创业发挥作用的地方。你需要知道你业务的哪些方面风险太大，然后努力改善代表该风险的指标。

Unfortunately, that’s not always possible. There’s no way to measure conversion rates if there are no users to convert. You can’t quantify virality if no paid customers are inviting new users. And you probably can’t measure stickiness for just a few people if the service requires a critical mass of users to be useful. This means you have to know where the risk is, but focus, in the right order, on just enough optimization to get the business to a place where that risk can be quantified and understood.
不幸的是，这并不总是可能的。如果没有用户可以转化，就没有办法测量转化率。如果没有付费客户邀请新用户，就无法量化病毒式传播。如果服务需要临界数量的用户才能有用，那么对于只有少数人使用的情况，你可能无法测量粘性。这意味着你必须知道风险在哪里，但要以正确的顺序集中精力，只进行足够的优化，使业务达到可以量化和理解风险的地方。

Let’s say that the company in our example is concerned about whether the product is good enough to make people use it consistently. This is usually the right place to focus for SaaS companies, because they seldom get a second chance to make a first impression, and need users to keep coming back. In other words, they care about stickiness.
假设我们例子中的公司担心产品是否足够好，以让人们持续使用。这通常是 SaaS 公司的正确关注点，因为他们很少有机会做出第一印象，需要用户不断回来。换句话说，他们关心粘性。

The company will, of course, need some amount of conversion (and therefore some amount of attention), but only enough to test stickiness. Those initial users could be acquired by word of mouth, or by direct selling, or by engaging with users on social networks. There’s probably no need for a full-blown, automated marketing campaign at this stage.
公司当然需要一定数量的转化（因此也需要一定程度的关注），但只需要足够测试粘性。这些初始用户可以通过口碑、直接销售或通过社交媒体与用户互动来获取。在这个阶段，可能没有必要进行全面铺开、自动化的营销活动。

CASE STUDY Backupify’s Customer Lifecycle Learning

案例研究：Backupify 的客户生命周期学习

Backupify is a leading backup provider for cloud-based data. The company was founded in 2008 by Robert May and Vik Chadha, and has gone on to raise \19.5\mathrm{{M}}$ in several rounds of financing.
Backupify 是领先的云数据备份提供商。该公司由 Robert May 和 Vik Chadha 于 2008 年创立，并已成功完成多轮融资，筹集了 1950 万美元。

Backupify was good at focusing on a specific metric at a specific stage, in order to grow the company. “Initially, we focused on site visitors, because we just wanted to get people to our site,” said CEO and cofounder Robert May. “Then we focused on trials, because we needed people testing out our product.”
Backupify 擅长在特定阶段专注于特定指标来推动公司增长。“最初，我们专注于网站访客，因为我们只想让人们访问我们的网站，”CEO 兼联合创始人 Robert May 说。“然后我们专注于试用，因为我们需要人们试用我们的产品。”

Once Backupify had people trialing the product in sufficient numbers, Robert focused on signups (conversions from free trial to paying customer). Now, the primary focus is monthly recurring revenue (MRR).
一旦 Backupify 有足够多的人试用产品，Robert 就专注于注册（从免费试用到付费客户的转化）。现在，主要关注的是月经常收入（MRR）。

The cloud storage industry has matured a lot in a handful of years, but back in 2008 it was a nascent market. At the time, the company was focused on consumers and realized that, while revenue was going up, the customer acquisition cost (CAC) was too high. “In early 2010 we were paying \243$toacquireacustomer,whoonlypaidus$$39$ per year,” explained Robert. “Those are horrible economics. Most consumer apps get around the high acquisition costs with some sort of virality, but backup isn’t viral. So we had to pivot [from consumer sales] to go after businesses.”
云存储行业在短短几年内已经成熟了很多，但在 2008 年它还是一个新兴市场。当时，公司专注于消费者，并意识到虽然收入在增长，但客户获取成本（CAC）太高。“2010 年初，我们每年支付 39 美元，”Robert 解释道。“这经济状况很糟糕。大多数消费者应用程序都是通过某种病毒式传播来应对高昂的获取成本，但备份不是病毒式的。所以我们必须转型[从消费者销售]去追求企业客户。”

The pivot for Backupify was a success. The company is growing successfully. For now, it remains focused on MRR, but it also tracks how much a customer is worth in the entirety of his relationship with the company—the customer lifetime value (CLV). CLV and CAC are the two essential metrics for a subscription business.
Backupify 的转型很成功。公司正在顺利增长。目前，它仍然专注于 MRR，但也追踪一个客户在与公司关系的整个过程中值多少——客户终身价值（CLV）。CLV 和 CAC 是订阅业务的两个关键指标。

In Backupify’s case, the ratio of CLV to CAC is ${}_{5-6\mathrm{x}}$ , meaning that for every dollar the company invests in finding a customer, it makes back \5$to$$6$ . This is excellent, and it’s partly due to its low churn. As it turns out, lock-in is high for cloud storage, which gives the company plenty of time to make back its acquisition costs in the form of revenues. We’ll look at the CAC/CLV ratio in more detail later in the book.
在 Backupify 的案例中，CLV 与 CAC 的比率是 ${}_{5-6\mathrm{x}}$ ，这意味着该公司在获取每位客户上投资的每一美元，可以收回 $to$ 6 美元。这非常出色，部分原因是其低流失率。事实证明，云存储的锁定效应很高，这使得该公司有足够的时间通过收入收回其获取成本。我们将在本书的后面更详细地探讨 CAC/CLV 比率。

“MRR growth will probably be our top metric until we hit \100$ in annual recurring revenue,” said Robert. “I watch churn, but I’m more focused on customer acquisition payback in months, which is how quickly I make my money back on each customer.” Robert’s target for that metric is 12 months or less for any given channel. Customer acquisition payback is a great example of a single number that encompasses many things, since it rolls up marketing efficiency, customer revenue, cash flow, and churn rate.
“在达到 100 万美元的年度经常性收入之前，MRR 增长很可能是我们的顶级指标，”罗伯特说。“我关注流失率，但我更关注客户获取回报期，即我收回每位客户成本的速度。”罗伯特对该指标的目标是任何渠道都不超过 12 个月。客户获取回报期是一个很好的单一数字示例，因为它综合了许多因素，包括营销效率、客户收入、现金流和流失率。

摘要

• Before focusing on sophisticated financial metrics, start with revenue. But don’t ignore costs, because profitability is the real key to growth. • You know it’s time to scale when your paid engine is humming along nicely, which happens when the CAC is a small fraction of the CLV—a sure sign you’re getting a good return on your investment. • Most SaaS businesses thrive on monthly recurring revenue— customers continue to pay month after month—which is a great foundation on which to build a business.
• 在关注复杂的财务指标之前，先从收入开始。但不要忽视成本，因为盈利能力是增长的关键。• 当你的付费引擎运转良好时，你就知道该扩张了，这发生在 CAC（客户获取成本）只是 CLV（客户终身价值）一小部分的时候——这是一个你投资回报率良好的明显迹象。• 大多数 SaaS 企业依靠月度经常性收入——客户持续每月付款——这是建立业务的绝佳基础。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

There’s a natural progression of metrics that matter for a business that change over time as the business evolves. The metrics start by tracking questions like “Does anyone care about this at all?” and then get more sophisticated, asking questions like “Can this business actually scale?” As you start to look at more sophisticated metrics, you may realize your business model is fundamentally flawed and unsustainable. Don’t just start from scratch: sometimes what you need is a new market, not a new product, and that market may be closer than you think.
随着企业的发展，重要的指标会自然地演变。这些指标最初通过跟踪问题如“是否有人在乎这个？”开始，然后变得更加复杂，询问如“这个业务是否能够扩展？”当你开始关注更复杂的指标时，你可能会意识到你的商业模式从根本上存在缺陷且不可持续。不要从零开始：有时你需要的是一个新市场，而不是一个新产品，而这个市场可能比你想象的更近。

Measuring Engagement

衡量参与度

The ultimate metric for engagement is daily use. How many of your customers use your product on a daily basis? If your product isn’t a daily use app, establishing a minimum baseline of engagement takes longer, and the time it takes to iterate through a cycle of learning is longer. It’s also hard to demonstrate enough value, quickly enough, to keep people from churning. Habits are hard to form—and with any new product, you’re creating new habits, which you want to do as quickly and intensely as possible.
最终的参与指标是每日使用。有多少客户每天都在使用你的产品？如果你的产品不是每日使用型应用，那么建立最低的参与基准需要更长的时间，而学习周期的迭代时间也更长。此外，快速展示足够的价值以防止用户流失也很困难。习惯很难养成——对于任何新产品，你都在创造新的习惯，并且希望尽可能快、尽可能强烈地做到这一点。

Evernote is an example of a daily use application (at least, its creators would like you to use it on a daily basis!). The people who pay for Evernote are most likely those who use it daily. Evernote has reported that only $1\mathrm{\%}$ of users convert into paid customers,* but for CEO Phil Libin that’s OK— after all, the company has over 40 million users, and this year it’s focused further on engagement, which is why it’s acquiring companies like Skitch and adding image upload features.
Evernote 是一个每日使用型应用（至少，它的创造者希望你每天都使用它！）。付费使用 Evernote 的人最有可能的是那些每天使用它的人。Evernote 报告称只有 $1\mathrm{\%}$ 的用户转化为付费客户，*但对于 CEO Phil Libin 来说这没关系——毕竟，该公司拥有超过 4000 万用户，今年它进一步关注参与度，这就是为什么它收购了 Skitch 和增加了图片上传功能。

After years of operation, the company has also learned that users take months or even years to become paying customers. Investors likely agree with the company’s focus on engagement, since they’re giving the company deep cash reserves to keep growing. In other words, conversion isn’t Evernote’s main concern right now, although once it improves engagement that’s absolutely what it will concentrate on.*
多年的运营也让公司认识到，用户需要数月甚至数年才能成为付费客户。投资者很可能同意公司的关注重点，因为他们正在为公司提供充足的现金储备以保持增长。换句话说，转化率目前不是 Evernote 的主要关注点，尽管一旦提高用户参与度，它将绝对集中在这个问题上。

Consider two other applications we use heavily but don’t consider daily use applications: Expensify for expense reporting, and Balsamiq for wireframing. Just because we don’t use them every day doesn’t mean that a travelling sales rep, or a UI designer, isn’t a daily user.
考虑另外两个我们经常使用但不认为是日常使用应用程序的例子：用于费用报告的 Expensify，以及用于线框图的 Balsamiq。我们并不是每天都使用它们，但这并不意味着旅行销售代表或 UI 设计师不是每天都在使用。

That’s an important lesson around business models and Lean Startup—you bring an early version of your product to the market, test its usage, and look for where it’s got the highest engagement among your customers. If there’s a subsection of users who are hooked on your product—your early adopters—figure out what’s common to them, refocus on their needs, and grow from there. Claim your beachhead. It will allow you to iterate much more quickly on a highly engaged segment of the market.
这是关于商业模式和精益创业的一个重要教训——你将产品的早期版本推向市场，测试其使用情况，并寻找它在用户中最高的参与度。如果有一群对产品上瘾的用户——你的早期采用者，找出他们共同的特点，重新专注于他们的需求，并从这里开始成长。占据你的滩头阵地。这将使你能够在一个高度参与的细分市场中更快地进行迭代。

Some applications—such as a wedding gift registry, a reservation tool for a visit to the dentist, or a tax preparation site—simply aren’t meant to be used on a daily basis. But you still need to set a high bar for engagement and measure against it. It’s critical that you understand customers’ behavior, and draw lines in the sand appropriate to that. Perhaps the goal is weekly or monthly use.
有些应用程序——比如婚礼礼物登记、看牙医的预约工具或税务准备网站——根本就不是为日常使用而设计的。但你仍然需要设定一个高参与度标准，并以此进行衡量。理解客户行为，并据此划定合适的界限至关重要。也许目标是用例是每周或每月一次。

If you’re building something genuinely disruptive, you need to consider the technology adoption lifecycle, from early to mainstream. Hybrid cars, Linux servers, home stereos, and microwaves were first adopted by a small segment of their markets, but took years of evangelism and millions of marketing dollars to be considered conventional.
如果你正在构建真正具有颠覆性的产品，你需要考虑技术采用生命周期，从早期到主流。混合动力汽车、Linux 服务器、家用音响和微波炉最初都是由它们市场中很小的一部分人采用的，但需要多年的宣传和数百万美元的营销费用才能被视为常规产品。

In the first stages of your company, you typically have a small, devoted, unreasonably passionate following. This happens because new products initially appeal only to early adopters comfortable with change, or to that segment of the market so desperate for your solution that it’s willing to tolerate something that’s still rough around the edges. Those early adopters will be vocal, but beware. Their needs might not reflect those of the bigger, more lucrative mainstream. Google Wave attracted a flurry of early attention, but failed to achieve mainstream interest despite its powerful, flexible feature set.
在你公司的早期阶段，你通常有一个小而忠诚、不切实际地充满激情的追随者群体。这是因为新产品最初只吸引那些乐于接受变化的早期采用者，或者市场的那部分迫切需要你的解决方案而愿意忍受粗糙边缘的群体。这些早期采用者会大声表达自己的意见，但要小心。他们的需求可能并不反映更大、更有利可图的的主流需求。Google Wave 吸引了大量的早期关注，但由于其强大、灵活的功能集，未能获得主流市场的兴趣。

You hope your first users are reflective of the mainstream, so you can reach a bigger market—something Geoffrey Moore famously referred to as “crossing the chasm.” This isn’t always the case. You also won’t have the same volume of metrics on which to base your decisions.
你希望你的第一批用户能代表主流，这样你就能进入更大的市场——这是杰弗里·摩尔（Geoffrey Moore）著名提到的“跨越鸿沟”。这并不总是这样。你也不会有同样数量的指标来作为你决策的依据。

When measuring engagement, don’t just look at a coarse metric like visit frequency. Look for usage patterns throughout your application. For example, it’s interesting to know that people log in three times per week, but what are they actually doing inside your application? What if they’re only spending a few minutes each time? Is that good or bad? Are there specific features they’re using versus others? Is there one feature that they always use, and are there others they never touch? Did they return of their own accord, or in response to an email?
在衡量用户参与度时，不要只看粗略的指标，如访问频率。要寻找应用内的使用模式。例如，知道人们每周登录三次很有趣，但他们实际上在应用里做了什么？如果他们每次只花几分钟，这是好是坏？他们使用哪些功能多于其他功能？是否有一个功能他们总是使用，而其他功能则从未使用？他们是主动返回，还是因为收到邮件才返回？

Finding these engagement patterns means analyzing data in two ways:
发现这些参与度模式意味着要从两个方面分析数据：

• To find ways you might improve things, segment users who do what you want from those who don’t, and identify ways in which they’re different. Do the engaged users all live in the same city? Do all users who eventually become loyal contributors learn about you from one social network? Are the users who successfully invite friends all under 30 years old? If you find a concentration of desirable behavior in one segment, you can then target it. • To decide whether a change worked, test the change on a subset of your users and compare that subset’s results to others. If you put in a new reporting feature, reveal it to half of your users, and see if more of them stick around for several months. If you can’t test features in this way without fallout—the customers who didn’t get the new feature might get angry—then at the very least, compare the cohort of users who joined after the feature was added to those who came before.
• 要找到改进的方法，可以将执行了你期望行为和未执行的用户进行细分，并识别他们的不同之处。参与度高的用户是否都住在同一个城市？最终成为忠诚贡献者的用户是否都通过一个社交网络了解你？成功邀请朋友的用户是否都不到 30 岁？如果你在一个细分市场中发现了很多期望行为，那么你可以针对这个市场。 • 要决定一个改变是否有效，可以在你的一部分用户上测试这个改变，并将该部分用户的结果与其他用户进行比较。如果你添加了一个新的报告功能，将其展示给一半的用户，看看是否有更多的用户会留下来几个月。如果你不能以这种方式测试功能而不引起麻烦——没有获得新功能的客户可能会生气——那么至少，将添加功能后加入的用户群体与添加功能前的用户群体进行比较。

A data-driven approach to measuring engagement should show you not only how sticky your product or service is, but also who stuck and whether your efforts are paying off.
以数据驱动的方式衡量参与度应该不仅显示你的产品或服务有多粘性，还应该显示谁粘住了，以及你的努力是否有效。

Churn

用户流失

Churn is the percentage of people who abandon your service over time. This can be measured weekly, monthly, quarterly, etc., but you should pick a timespan for all your metrics and stick to it in order to make comparing them easier. In a freemium or free-trial business model, you have both users (not paid) and customers (paid), and you should track churn for both groups separately. While churn might seem like a simple metric, there are a number of complications that can make it misleading, particularly for companies that have a highly variable growth rate.
用户流失率是指一段时间内放弃使用你服务的用户比例。这可以按周、月、季度等时间跨度来衡量，但你应该为所有指标选择一个时间跨度并坚持使用，以便更容易地比较它们。在免费增值或免费试用商业模式中，你有免费用户和付费用户，你应该分别跟踪这两类用户的流失率。虽然用户流失率可能看起来是一个简单的指标，但存在一些复杂因素可能使其具有误导性，特别是对于那些具有高度可变增长率的公司。

Unpaid users “churn” by cancelling their accounts or simply not coming back; paid users churn by cancelling their accounts, stopping their payments, or reverting to an unpaid version. We recommend defining an inactive user as someone who hasn’t logged in within 90 days (or less). At that point, they’ve churned out; in an always-connected world, 90 days is an eternity.
免费用户通过取消账户或简单地不再回来而“流失”；付费用户通过取消账户、停止支付或恢复到免费版本而流失。我们建议将未活跃用户定义为 90 天（或更短时间）内未登录的用户。在这个时刻，他们已经流失了；在一个始终连接的世界里，90 天简直是一个漫长的时期。

Remember, however, that you may still be able to invite them back to the service later if you have significant feature upgrades—as Path did when it redesigned its application—or if you’ve found a way to reach them with daily content, as Memolane did when it sent users memories from past years.
然而，请记住，如果你有重要的功能升级，仍然可以稍后邀请他们回到服务中——就像 Path 在重新设计其应用程序时所做的那样，或者如果你找到了一种用每日内容与他们联系的方式，就像 Memolane 在发送用户过去几年的记忆时所做的那样。

As Shopify data scientist Steven H. Noble* explains in a detailed blog post,† the simple formula for churn is:
作为 Shopify 数据科学家 Steven H. Noble*在一篇详细的博客文章中解释的那样，流失率的简单公式是：

Table 9-1 shows a simple example of a freemium SaaS company’s churn calculations.
表 9-1 显示了一个免费增值型 SaaS 公司的流失率计算示例。

Table 9-1. Example of churn calculations
表 9-1。流失率计算示例

Table 9-1 shows users, active users, and paying users. Active users are those who have logged in at least once in the month after signing up. New users are growing at $20\mathrm{\%}$ a month, $30\mathrm{\%}$ use the service at least once (in the month after signing up), and $2\mathrm{\%}$ convert into paid customers.
表 9-1 显示了用户、活跃用户和付费用户。活跃用户是指在注册后至少登录过一次的用户。新用户每月增长 $20\mathrm{\%}$ ， $30\mathrm{\%}$ 至少使用过一次服务（在注册后一个月内）， $2\mathrm{\%}$ 转化为付费客户。

Here’s the churn calculation for February:
这是 2 月份的客户流失率计算方法：

If $2.5\mathrm{\%}$ of customers churn every month, it means that the average customer stays around for 40 months (100/2.5). This is how you can start to calculate the lifetime value of a customer (40 months $\times$ average monthly revenue per user).
如果每个月有 $2.5\mathrm{\%}$ 的客户流失，这意味着平均每个客户会留存大约 40 个月（100/2.5）。这就是如何开始计算客户的终身价值（40 个月 $\times$ 平均每月每用户的收入）。

Churn Complications

流失率复杂问题

Noble explains that because the number of churns in a particular period is affected by the entire period, but the number of customers at the beginning of a period is a moment-in-time snapshot, calculating churn in this simple manner can give misleading results in startups where growth is varied or unusually fast. In other words, churn isn’t normalized for behavior and size—you can get different churn rates for the same kind of user behavior if you’re not careful.
Noble 解释说，因为在特定时期内的流失客户数量受到整个时期的影响，但期初的客户数量只是一个瞬间的快照，所以以这种简单的方式计算流失率可能会在增长多变或异常快速的新创企业中给出误导性的结果。换句话说，流失率并没有根据行为和规模进行标准化——如果你不小心，对于同一种用户行为可能会得到不同的流失率。

To fix this, you need to calculate churn in a less simple, but more accurate, way: average out the number of customers in the period you’re analyzing, so you’re not just looking at how many you had at the beginning:
要解决这个问题，你需要用一种更复杂但更准确的方式来计算流失率：平均分析期间内的客户数量，这样你就不会只看分析开始时的客户数量：

(Number of churns during period)
（期间内的流失数量）

This spreads out the total number of customers across the period, which is better, but it still presents a problem if things are growing quickly. If you have 100 customers at the start of the month, and 10,000 at the end, this formula assumes you have 5,050 customers in the middle of the month— which you don’t, if you’re on a hockey stick. Most of your new customers come in the later part of the month, so an average won’t work. What’s more, most of your churns will, too.
这将客户总数分布在期间内，这更好，但如果增长很快，仍然存在问题。如果你在月初有 100 名客户，月末有 10,000 名客户，这个公式假设你在月中拥有 5,050 名客户——如果你处于冰球杆型增长，这是不正确的。你大部分的新客户都是在月末加入的，所以平均数行不通。此外，你大部分的流失客户也都是在月末。

Worse: if you’re counting churns as “someone who hasn’t come back in 30 days,” then you’re comparing last month’s losses to this month’s gains, which is even more dangerous, because you’re looking at a lagging indicator (last month’s bad news). So by the time you find out something is wrong, it’ll be next month.
更糟的是：如果你将流失客户定义为“30 天内没有回来的人”，那么你将上个月的损失与这个月的增长进行比较，这更加危险，因为你是在看滞后指标（上个月的坏消息）。所以等你发现问题时，已经到下个月了。

Ultimately, the math gets really complex. There are two ways to simplify it. The first is to measure churn by cohort, so you’re comparing new to churned users based on when they first became users. The second way is really, really simple, which is why we like it: measure churn each day. The shorter the time period you measure, the less that changes during that specific period will distort things.
归根结底，数学变得非常复杂。有两种方法可以简化它。第一种是按群体测量流失率，这样你就可以根据用户首次成为用户的时间来比较新老用户。第二种方法非常简单，这也是我们喜欢它的原因：每天测量一次流失率。测量时间段越短，该特定时间段内发生的变化就越不会扭曲结果。

Visualizing the SaaS Business

可视化 SaaS 业务

Figure 9-1 represents a user’s flow through a SaaS business, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 9-1 展示了一个用户在 SaaS 业务中的流程，以及每个阶段的关键指标。

Figure 9-1. Visitors, users, customers: the life of a SaaS company
图 9-1。访客、用户、客户：SaaS 公司的生命周期

CASE STUDY ClearFit Abandons Monthly Subscriptions for 10x Growth

案例研究：ClearFit 放弃月度订阅实现 10 倍增长

ClearFit is a SaaS provider of recruitment software aimed at helping small businesses find job candidates and predict their success. When they started, founders Ben Baldwin and Jamie Schneiderman offered a \99$ month (per job posting) package. “We kept hearing over and over that monthly subscriptions were the key to growing a successful SaaS business,” says Ben. “So that’s the direction we took, but it didn’t work as planned.”
ClearFit 是一家提供招聘软件的 SaaS 服务商，旨在帮助小企业寻找求职者并预测他们的成功。当他们开始时，创始人 Ben Baldwin 和 Jamie Schneiderman 提供了一款 99 美元/月（每个职位发布）的套餐。“我们一次又一次地听到，月度订阅是成功 SaaS 业务的关键，”Ben 说。“所以我们采取了这个方向，但它并没有按计划进行。”

Two things confused ClearFit’s customers: the price point and the monthly subscription. Ben and Jamie wanted to price ClearFit below what customers paid for job boards (typically more than \300$perjobposting),butcustomersweresousedtothatpricepointthattheywereskepticalofClearFi{t}^{\prime }svalueat$$99$ month. Ben says, “We don’t compete with job boards, we partner with them, but at the time it seemed reasonable to have a lower price point to garner attention.” Customers didn’t understand why they would pay a subscription fee for something that they would most likely use sporadically. “When a company needs to hire, they want to do it fast and they’re willing to invest at that moment in time,” says Ben. “Our customers are too small to have dedicated HR staff or recruiters that are constantly looking for talent, and their hiring needs go up and down frequently.”
让克雷尔菲特的客户感到困惑的有两件事：价格点和月度订阅。本和杰米希望将克雷尔菲特的价格定在客户支付的工作板费用以下（通常超过 300 美元/月）。本说：“我们不与工作板竞争，我们与它们合作，但在当时，似乎有一个较低的价格点来吸引注意力是合理的。”客户不明白为什么他们需要为可能偶尔使用的东西支付订阅费。“当一家公司需要招聘时，他们希望快速完成，并且愿意在当时投资，”本说。“我们的客户太小了，没有专门的人力资源团队或招聘人员来不断寻找人才，而且他们的招聘需求经常波动。”

Ben and Jamie decided to abandon their low monthly subscription and switch to a model that their customers understood: a per-job fee. ClearFit launched its new price point at \350$ for a single job (for 30 days) and almost immediately saw three times the sales. The increase in volume and the higher price point improved revenue tenfold. “When we increased the price,” Ben says, “it was an important signal to our customers. They understood the model and could more easily compare the value against other solutions they use. Even though what we do is different than a job board, we wanted our customers to feel comfortable with purchasing from us, and we wanted to fit into how they budget for recruiting.”
本和杰米决定放弃每月低订阅费，转而采用客户容易理解的模式：按任务收费。ClearFit 将新的价格点定为 350 美元/次任务（30 天），几乎立即看到了三倍的销售额。销量和更高价格点的提升使收入增长了十倍。“当我们提高价格时，”本说，“这是一个重要的信号给我们的客户。他们理解这个模式，并且更容易将价值与其他他们使用的解决方案进行比较。尽管我们所做的工作与招聘网站不同，但我们希望客户感到舒适地从我们这里购买，并且我们希望融入他们招聘预算的方式。”

In ClearFit’s case, innovating on the business model didn’t make sense. Ben says, “People don’t do subscriptions for haircuts, hamburgers, and hiring. You have to understand your customer, who they are, how and why they buy, and how they value your product or service.”
在 ClearFit 的案例中，创新商业模式并不合理。本说：“人们不会为理发、汉堡和招聘做订阅。你必须了解你的客户，他们是谁，如何以及为什么购买，以及他们如何评估你的产品或服务。”

ClearFit’s switch to a per-job-posting model may go against the popular grain of subscription-based SaaS businesses, but the company continues to see great success with $30\mathrm{\%}$ month-over-month revenue growth.
ClearFit 转向按任务发布收费模式可能与基于订阅的 SaaS 企业的主流做法相悖，但该公司继续看到每月收入增长的巨大成功。

摘要

• ClearFit initially focused on a subscription model for revenue, but customers misinterpreted its low pricing as a sign of a weak offering.
• ClearFit 最初专注于订阅模式来获取收入，但客户误解了其低价是一个弱小产品的信号。
• The company switched to a paid listing model, and tripled sales while improving revenue tenfold.
• 该公司转为付费列表模式，销售额翻三番，收入增长十倍。
• The problem wasn’t the business model—it was the pricing and the messages it sent to prospects.
• 问题不在于商业模式——而在于定价以及它向潜在客户传递的信息。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Just because SaaS is a recurring service doesn’t mean it needs to be priced that way. If your product is ephemeral—like a transient job posting—it might be better to offer more transactional pricing. Pricing is a tricky beast. You need to test different price points qualitatively (by getting feedback from customers) and quantitatively. Don’t assume a low price is the answer; customers might not attribute enough value to your offering. And remember that everything, including price, makes up the “product” you’re offering.
并非因为 SaaS 是一种定期服务，就意味着必须按这种方式定价。如果你的产品是短暂的——比如临时的职位发布——那么提供更多交易性定价可能更好。定价是一个棘手的问题。你需要通过获取客户反馈进行定性和定量测试不同的价格点。不要假设低价是答案；客户可能不会对你的产品赋予足够的价值。记住，包括价格在内的一切，构成了你提供“产品”。

Wrinkles: Freemium, Tiers, and Other Pricing Models

皱纹：免费增值、分层和其他定价模式

In a SaaS model, most of the complexity comes from two things: the promotional approach you choose, and pricing tiers.
在 SaaS 模式中，复杂性主要来自两个方面：你选择的推广方式以及定价层级。

As we’ve seen, some SaaS companies use a freemium model to convince people to use the service, and then make money when those users exceed some kind of cap. A second approach is a free trial, which converts to a paid subscription if the customer doesn’t explicitly cancel after a certain time. A third approach is paid-only. There are others. Each has its benefits and drawbacks—paid-only controls cost, is more predictable, and gives you an immediate idea of whether your offering is valuable; freemium allows you to learn how people are using your service and builds goodwill. The difference between these user groups can complicate analysis.
如我们所见，一些 SaaS 公司采用免费增值模式来吸引用户使用服务，并在用户超出某种限额时赚钱。第二种方法是免费试用，如果客户在一定时间内没有明确取消，则可以转化为付费订阅。第三种方法是纯付费模式。还有其他方法。每种方法都有其优点和缺点——纯付费模式控制成本，更具可预测性，并能立即了解你的产品是否具有价值；免费增值模式让你了解人们如何使用你的服务，并建立良好声誉。这些用户群体之间的差异可能会使分析变得复杂。

The second wrinkle comes from how you tier pricing. Since different customers have different levels of consumption, the price they pay may change over time. This means you’re constantly trying to upsell users to bigger tiers, and predicting growth adds to the dimensions of a model, making it harder to predict and explain your business.
第二个复杂因素来自如何分层定价。由于不同客户有不同的消费水平，他们支付的价格可能会随时间变化。这意味着你不断试图将用户升级到更高层级，而预测增长会增加模型的维度，使其更难预测和解释你的业务。

For the most part, we’ve talked about SaaS as a service provided to customers on a monthly subscription. But there are other revenue models that can work as well. While a subscription model lends itself to more predictive financial planning and less volatile revenue numbers, it doesn’t always fit the value proposition, or how customers expect to pay.
大部分情况下，我们讨论的是作为月度订阅提供给客户的服务即服务。但还有其他可以运作的收入模式。虽然订阅模式更有利于预测财务规划和更稳定的收入数字，但它并不总是符合价值主张，或者客户期望如何支付。

Key Takeaways

关键要点

While freemium gets a lot of visibility, it’s actually a sales tactic, and one you need to use carefully.
虽然免费增值模式获得了很多关注，但它实际上是一种销售策略，你需要谨慎使用。
• In SaaS, churn is everything. If you can build a group of loyal users faster than they erode, you’ll thrive.
• 在软件即服务中，用户流失率至关重要。如果你能比用户流失的速度更快地建立一群忠诚用户，你将蓬勃发展。
• You need to measure user engagement long before the users become customers, and measure customer activity long before they vanish, to stay ahead of the game.
• 你需要在用户成为客户之前很久就开始衡量用户参与度，在客户消失之前很久就开始衡量客户活动，以便领先于游戏。
• Many people equate SaaS models with subscription, but you can monetize on-demand software in many other ways, sometimes to great effect.
• 很多人将 SaaS 模式等同于订阅，但你可以在许多其他方式上对按需软件进行变现，有时效果会非常好。

SaaS businesses share much with mobile applications. Both business models care about customer churn, recurring revenue, and creating enough user engagement to convince users to pay for the product. You can read Chapter 10 to learn more, or you can skip to Chapter 14 to understand how your current stage affects the metrics you should watch.
SaaS 业务与移动应用程序有许多相似之处。这两种商业模式都关注客户流失率、经常性收入，以及创造足够的用户参与度来让用户为产品付费。你可以阅读第 10 章了解更多，或者你可以跳到第 14 章来了解你当前的阶段如何影响你应该关注的指标。

Model Three: Free Mobile App

模型三：免费移动应用程序

A third business model that’s ncreasingly common s the mobile app. If you’re selling a mobile application for money, you have a fairly straightforward sales funnel—you promote the application, and people pay you for it. But when you derive your revenue from other sources, such as in-game content, paying for features, or advertising, the model gets more complex. If, after looking at the business model flipbook in Chapter 7, you’ve decided you’re running a mobile app business, then this is what analytics look like for you.
第三种日益常见的商业模式是移动应用。如果你通过移动应用赚钱，那么你的销售漏斗相当直接——你推广应用，人们就付钱给你。但当你从其他来源获得收入，例如游戏内内容、付费功能或广告时，这种模式就会变得更加复杂。如果你在看了第 7 章中的商业模式翻转书后，决定你要做的是移动应用业务，那么这就是为你展示的 analytics。

The mobile application has emerged as a startup business model with the rise of iPhone and Android smartphone ecosystems. Apple’s application model is tightly regimented, with the company controlling what’s allowed and reviewing submissions. Applications for the Android platform may be downloaded from the Android store or “side-loaded” from sources that aren’t tightly controlled.
随着 iPhone 和 Android 智能手机生态系统的兴起，移动应用已经成为一种创业公司商业模式。苹果的应用模式管理严格，公司控制着允许的内容并审查提交的应用。Android 平台的应用可以从 Android 商店下载，也可以从不受严格控制来源“侧载”安装。

For Lean startups, an app store model* presents a challenge. Unlike web applications, where it’s easy to do A/B testing and continuous deployment, mobile apps go through the app store gatekeeper—which limits the number of iterations a company can undergo, and hampers experimentation. Modern mobile apps are getting around the gatekeepers to some degree by feeding in online content without requiring an actual app upgrade, but this takes extra work to set up. Some developers advocate trying out the Android platform first because it’s easier to push frequent updates to users. Once those developers have validated their MVP on Android, they move to Apple’s more constrained deployment environment. Others choose a smaller, secondary market (like the Canadian App Store) and work the bugs out there first.
对于精益创业公司来说，应用商店模式*是一个挑战。与易于进行 A/B 测试和持续部署的 Web 应用程序不同，移动应用程序需要经过应用商店的审查员——这限制了公司可以进行的迭代次数，并阻碍了实验。现代移动应用程序在一定程度上通过在不实际升级应用程序的情况下提供在线内容来绕过审查员，但这需要额外的工作来设置。一些开发者主张首先尝试 Android 平台，因为它更容易向用户推送频繁的更新。一旦这些开发者在 Android 上验证了他们的 MVP，他们就会转移到苹果公司更受限制的部署环境。其他人选择一个较小的、次要的市场（如加拿大应用商店），并在那里首先修复错误。

Mobile app developers make money within their applications in several ways:
移动应用开发者通过多种方式在他们的应用程序中赚钱：

Downloadable content (such as new maps or vehicles)
可下载内容（例如新的地图或车辆）

Tower Madness, a popular Tower Defense game for the iPhone, sells additional map sets at a small cost.
《塔防疯狂》是一款流行的 iPhone 塔防游戏，它以小成本销售额外的地图集。

Flair and customization of in-character appearance and gaming content (a pet, clothing for a player’s avatar)
角色外观和游戏内容的个性化定制（宠物、玩家角色的服装等）

Blizzard sells non-combat enhancements like pets or vanity mounts.
暴雪出售非战斗增强道具，如宠物或装饰性坐骑。

Advantages (better weapons, upgrades, etc.)
优势（更好的武器、升级等）

Draw Something charges for colors that make drawing easier.
Draw Something 对使用更易绘制的颜色收费。

Saving time
节省时间

A respawn rather than having to run a long distance, a strategy employed by many casual web-based MMOs.
重新生成，而不是跑很长的距离，这是许多休闲网页 MMO 游戏采用的一种策略。

Elimination of countdown timers
移除倒计时器

Topping up energy levels that would normally take a day to refresh, which Please Stay Calm uses.
快速补充通常需要一天时间来恢复的能量，这是《请保持冷静》游戏采用的策略。

Upselling to a paid version
向付费版本升级

Some applications constrain features. As of this writing, Evernote’s mobile application doesn’t allow offline synchronization of files unless a user has upgraded to the paid client, for example.
一些应用程序会限制功能。以笔者撰写本文时为例，Evernote 的移动应用程序不允许离线同步文件，除非用户升级到付费客户端。

In-game ads
游戏内广告

Some games include in-game advertising, where the player watches promotional content in return for credits in the in-game currency.
一些游戏包含游戏内广告，玩家观看推广内容以换取游戏货币中的积分。

Consider a mobile game that makes money from in-game purchases and advertising. Users find the application in an app store, either by searching or because it’s showcased due to popularity or as part of a list. They consider the application—consulting ratings, number of downloads, other titles, and written reviews—and ultimately download the application. Then they launch it and start playing.
考虑一个通过游戏内购买和广告盈利的手机游戏。用户在应用商店找到该应用，要么通过搜索，要么因为其受欢迎程度或作为列表的一部分被推荐。他们会考虑该应用——参考评分、下载量、其他应用以及书面评论——最终下载该应用。然后他们启动它并开始玩。

The game has an in-game economy (gold coins) that can be used to buy weapons or health more quickly than by simply playing the game. There’s also a way to watch ads that pays gold coins. The company spends considerable time striking a balance between making it enjoyable for casual players (who don’t want to pay) while still making a purchase attractive (so players pay a small amount). This is where the science of economics meets the psychology of game design.
该游戏有一个游戏内经济体系（金币），可以用来比单纯玩游戏更快地购买武器或健康。还有观看广告获得金币的方式。该公司花费了大量时间在让休闲玩家（不想付费）感到有趣和让购买具有吸引力（玩家支付少量费用）之间取得平衡。这就是经济学与游戏设计心理学的交汇点。

The company cares about the following key metrics:
该公司关注以下关键指标：

Downloads

下载量

How many people have downloaded the application, as well as related metrics such as app store placement, and ratings.
有多少人下载了应用程序，以及相关的指标，如应用商店排名和评分。

Customer acquisition cost (CAC)
客户获取成本（CAC）

How much it costs to get a user and to get a paying customer.
获取用户和获取付费客户的成本。

Launch rate
发起速度

The percentage of people who download the app, actually launch it, and create an account.
下载应用的人中，实际启动应用并创建账户的百分比。

Percent of active users/players
活跃用户/玩家的百分比

The percentage of users who’ve launched the application and use it on a daily and monthly basis: these are your daily active users (DAU) and monthly active users (MAU).
已启动应用并每日和每月使用它的用户百分比：这些是你的日活跃用户（DAU）和月活跃用户（MAU）。

Percentage of users who pay
支付用户的百分比

How many of your users ever pay for anything.
你们有多少用户曾经为任何东西付费。

Time to first purchase
首次购买时间

How long it takes after activation for a user to make a purchase.
激活后用户做出购买决策需要多长时间。

Monthly average revenue per user (ARPU)
每月每用户平均收入 (ARPU)

This is taken from both purchases and watched ads. Typically, this also includes application-specific information—such as which screens or items encourage the most purchases. Also look at your ARPPU, which is the average revenue per paying user.
这是从购买和观看广告中获取的。通常这也包括特定应用程序的信息——例如哪些屏幕或项目最能促进购买。还要查看您的 ARPPU，即每个付费用户的平均收入。

Ratings click-through
评分点击率

The percentage of users who put a rating or a review in an app store.
在应用商店中提交评分或评论的用户百分比。

Virality
病毒式传播

On average, how many other users a user invites.
平均每个用户邀请多少其他用户

Churn

用户流失率

How many customers have uninstalled the application, or haven’t launched it in a certain time period.
在一定时间内卸载应用程序的客户数量，或者从未启动应用程序的客户数量

Customer lifetime value

客户终身价值

How much a user is worth from cradle to grave.
从摇篮到坟墓，一个用户的价值是多少。

We’ve seen several of these metrics in the previous section on the SaaS business model, but there are some that differ significantly in a mobile app world.
在上一节关于 SaaS 商业模式中，我们已经看到了这些指标，但在移动应用世界中，有一些指标存在显著差异。

Installation Volume

安装量

According to mobile analytics consultancy and developer Distimo, getting featured in an app store has a huge impact on app sales.* An app that’s already in the top 100 and then gets featured will jump up an average of 42 places on the Android market, 27 places on the iPad App Store, and 15 places on the iPhone App Store.
根据移动分析咨询公司 Distimo 的数据，在应用商店中获得推荐对应用销售有巨大影响。一个已经进入前 100 名的应用，如果获得推荐，平均会在安卓市场中上升 42 位，在 iPad 应用商店上升 27 位，在 iPhone 应用商店上升 15 位。

For mobile developers, the dynamics of an app store matter more than almost anything else when it comes to achieving significant traction. Being showcased on the home page of Apple’s App Store routinely yields a hundredfold increase in traffic.† Analytics firm Flurry estimates that in 2012, the top 25 applications in the iPhone App Store accounted for roughly $15\mathrm{\%}$ of all revenue, and the rest of the top 100 accounted for roughly $17\mathrm{\%}$ . Lenny Rachitsky, founder of Localmind, a social mobile location app that was part of Year One Labs, said, “Getting featured is the single biggest thing that ever happened to us. It even matters what slot you’re featured in on the App Store, which affects whether you appear above the fold or not.”
对于移动开发者来说，应用商店的动态比几乎所有其他因素都更能影响其获得显著的增长。在苹果应用商店的主页上获得展示通常会带来十倍的流量增长。分析公司 Flurry 估计，2012 年，iPhone 应用商店前 25 名的应用大约贡献了 $15\mathrm{\%}$ 的收入，而其余前 100 名的应用大约贡献了 $17\mathrm{\%}$ 的收入。Localmind 的创始人 Lenny Rachitsky，一个社交移动定位应用，曾是 Year One Labs 的一部分，他说：“获得重点推荐是我们遇到的最大好事。即使在应用商店中，你获得重点推荐的位子也很重要，这会影响你是否出现在首屏之上。”

Alexandre Pelletier-Normand, co-founder of Execution Labs, a game development accelerator, says that getting featured on Google Play is even more beneficial for revenue than being featured in Apple’s App Store. “Getting featured on Google Play boosts your ranking, and the rankings in Google Play are quite static compared to the App Store. That means you’ll rank higher for longer, which in turn means more revenue.”
执行实验室（Execution Labs）的联合创始人 Alexandre Pelletier-Normand 说，在谷歌应用商店中获得重点推荐比在苹果应用商店中获得重点推荐对收入更有利。“在谷歌应用商店中获得重点推荐可以提高你的排名，而谷歌应用商店的排名相比苹果应用商店更为稳定。这意味着你将排名更高更长时间，进而意味着更多的收入。”

While this unfair advantage is gradually changing—revenues for less popular applications are growing overall—the facts are simple: if you want to make money, you need to be ranked highly in app stores, and getting featured helps a great deal.
虽然这种不公平的优势正在逐渐改变——不太受欢迎的应用程序的整体收入在增长——但事实很简单：如果你想赚钱，你需要在应用商店中排名靠前，并且获得推荐会非常有帮助。

Average Revenue Per User

每用户平均收入

Mobile app developers are constantly finding ingenious ways to monetize their applications. These developers focus on the average revenue per user (ARPU) on a monthly or lifetime basis. Many game developers instrument their applications heavily themselves, since there isn’t a dominant, open way to collect data from applications easily.
移动应用开发者不断寻找巧妙的办法来盈利他们的应用程序。这些开发者关注每月或按生命周期计算的每用户平均收入（ARPU）。许多游戏开发者自己大量地为他们自己的应用程序添加工具，因为没有一种主流的、开放的方式来轻松收集应用程序数据。

If you’re making a game, you don’t just care about revenue. You’re walking a fine line between the compelling content and addictive gameplay that makes things fun and the in-game purchases that bring in money. Avoiding the “money grab” that turns players off is hard: you need to keep users coming back and inviting their friends while still extracting a pound of flesh each month (or at least a few dollars!). As a result, in addition to ARPU, some metrics relate to playability (ensuring the game is neither too hard nor too easy, and that players don’t get stuck) and player engagement.
如果你正在制作一款游戏，你不仅关心收入。你正在一条微妙的线上行走，在这条线上，引人入胜的内容和上瘾的游戏玩法使事情变得有趣，而游戏内的购买则带来收入。避免让玩家反感的“金钱掠夺”是困难的：你需要在让用户持续回归并邀请他们的朋友的同时，每月榨取一些利润（或者至少几美元！）。因此，除了 ARPU 之外，一些与可玩性相关的指标（确保游戏既不太难也不太容易，并且玩家不会卡住）和玩家参与度也是重要的。

ARPU is simply the revenue you’ve made, divided by the number of active users or players you have. If you inflate the number of active players to make yourself look good, you’ll reduce the ARPU, so this metric forces you to draw a realistic line in the sand about what “engaged” means. Typically, ARPU is calculated on a monthly period.
ARPU 指的是您的收入除以您拥有的活跃用户或玩家的数量。如果您夸大活跃玩家的数量来让自己看起来更好，您会降低 ARPU，因此这个指标迫使您对“参与”的定义划出一条现实的界限。通常，ARPU 是按月计算的。

For mobile games, you can measure customer lifetime value (CLV) by calculating the averages of the money spent by every player post-churn. But because it will (hopefully!) take months or years for a player to leave you, it’s easier to estimate the CLV in the way we did for a SaaS company.
对于手机游戏，您可以通过计算每位玩家在流失后的平均花费来衡量客户终身价值（CLV）。但由于（希望！）玩家离开您需要几个月甚至几年，因此我们像对待 SaaS 公司那样估计 CLV 更容易。

Let’s return to our example of a free mobile game that makes money from in-game purchases and ads. This month, it’s had just over 12,300 downloads, and $96\mathrm{\%}$ of those people launch the app and connect to the company’s servers. Of these, $30\mathrm{\%}$ become “engaged” players that use the application on three separate days.
让我们回到我们免费手机游戏的例子，该游戏通过游戏内购买和广告赚钱。这个月，它有超过 12,300 次下载，其中 $96\mathrm{\%}$ 的人启动了应用程序并连接到公司的服务器。在这些人中， $30\mathrm{\%}$ 成为“参与”玩家，他们在三天内使用了该应用程序。

Each engaged player generates, on average, \3.20$amonthinrevenue,fromamixofin-gamepurchasesandadvertising.Thismeansthatthecurrentmont{h}^{\prime }sdownloadswillgenerateabout$$11,339$ in revenue (though it may take time for the company to receive that revenue because of the app store’s payment model).
每位参与玩家平均产生 3.20 美元（尽管由于应用商店的支付模式，公司可能需要时间才能收到这些收入）。

Of the total players, $15\mathrm{\%}$ churn every month, which means the average player lifetime is 6.67 months (1/0.15). This in turn means that the company’s monthly revenue is around \75,500$.TheplayerlifetimevalueistheARPUmultipliedbytheplayerlifetime—inthiscase,$$21.33$ . If the company knows the cost of acquiring an engaged player, it can also calculate the amount each player contributes to the bottom line, the return on investment in advertising efforts, and how long it takes to recover the investment made in acquiring an engaged user. Figure 10-1 shows how all these calculations are performed.
在所有玩家中， $15\mathrm{\%}$ 每月流失，这意味着平均玩家生命周期为 6.67 个月（1/0.15）。这反过来又意味着公司的月收入约为 \75,500 $.TheplayerlifetimevalueistheARPUmultipliedbytheplayerlifetime—inthiscase,$ $21.33$ 。如果公司知道获取一个活跃玩家的成本，它还可以计算每个玩家对利润的贡献、广告投入的投资回报率，以及收回获取一个活跃用户所做投资所需的时间。图 10-1 展示了如何进行所有这些计算。

Figure 10-1. How to calculate all the essential metrics for a mobile app
图 10-1。如何计算移动应用的所有关键指标

The business model for the company hinges on these numbers. The company needs to increase download volumes, increase the engagement rate, maximize ARPU, minimize churn, and improve virality so customer acquisition costs go down. There’s a natural tension between these goals— for example, making the game more enjoyable so people don’t churn versus extracting money so ARPU is high—and this is where the art and finesse of game design comes in.
该公司的商业模式依赖于这些数字。公司需要增加下载量、提高参与率、最大化每用户平均收入（ARPU）、最小化流失率，并提高病毒传播性，从而降低客户获取成本。这些目标之间存在自然的紧张关系——例如，让游戏更有趣以减少流失，与提高 ARPU 以增加收入之间的权衡——而这正是游戏设计艺术和技巧的体现。

Percentage of Users Who Pay

支付用户百分比

There are some players who simply won’t spend money in a game. And there are others (often referred to as “whales”) who will spend literally thousands of dollars to gain the upper hand in a game they love. Knowing the difference between the two—and finding ways to make more users purchase things within the application—is the key to a successfully monetized free mobile application.
有些玩家根本不会在游戏中花钱。而另一些玩家（通常被称为“鲸鱼”）则愿意花数千美元来在他们喜爱的游戏中获得优势。了解这两者之间的区别，并找到让更多用户在应用内购买东西的方法，是成功实现免费移动应用盈利的关键。

The most basic metric here is the percentage of users who pay something. Beyond this basic metric, you want to do segmentation and cohort analysis. If, for example, you know that a particular ad campaign brought in users who were more likely to make in-game purchases, you should be running more campaigns like that. You also need to be sophisticated in terms of what you market to users in-game: whales are more likely to make bigger in-app purchases, whereas users who haven’t bought anything yet should be offered something inexpensive to start.
这里最基本的指标是付费用户的百分比。除此之外，你还需要进行细分和队列分析。例如，如果你知道某个广告活动带来的用户更有可能在游戏中购买，那么你应该运行更多类似的广告活动。你还需要在游戏内对用户进行精准营销：鲸鱼更有可能进行大额应用内购买，而对于尚未购买任何东西的用户，则应该提供一些低成本的选项来吸引他们开始购买。

Measuring your ARPU gives you a good idea of how much paying users are spending. Convincing an already-paying user to pay more may not have a significant impact on your ARPU because most users won’t pay, but it could absolutely move the needle on revenue in a significant way. Treat your paying users as a separate customer base and track their behavior, churn, and revenue separately from your nonpaying ones.
衡量你的 ARPU 可以让你了解付费用户的花费情况。说服已经付费的用户支付更多可能不会显著影响你的 ARPU，因为大多数用户不会支付，但它绝对可以显著地影响收入。将付费用户视为一个独立的客户群体，并分别跟踪他们的行为、流失率和收入，与非付费用户分开。

Churn

流失率

We’ve looked at churn in detail in Chapter 9. It’s also a critical metric for mobile applications. Keith Katz, co-founder of Execution Labs, a game development accelerator, and former Vice President of Monetization for OpenFeint, recommends looking at churn in specific time periods:
我们在第九章详细讨论了流失率。对于移动应用程序来说，这也是一个关键指标。Execution Labs 的联合创始人、游戏开发加速器的前 Monetization 副总裁 Keith Katz 建议在特定时间段内查看流失率：

Track churn at 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month, because users leave at different times for different reasons. After one day it could be you have a lousy tutorial or just aren’t hooking users. After a week it could be that your game isn’t “deep enough,” and after a month it could be poor update planning.
在第 1 天、第 1 周和第 1 个月跟踪流失率，因为用户会在不同的时间因不同的原因离开。第一天可能是你的教程很糟糕或者你只是没有吸引住用户。一周后可能是你的游戏“不够深入”，一个月后可能是更新计划不佳。

Knowing when users churn gives you an indication of why they’re churning and what you can try in order to keep them longer.
知道用户何时流失，可以让你了解他们流失的原因，以及你可以尝试让他们停留更长时间的方法。

Visualizing the Mobile App Business

可视化移动应用业务

Figure 10-2 represents a user’s flow through a mobile app business, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 10-2 表示用户在移动应用业务中的流程，以及每个阶段的关键指标。

Figure 10-2. Everything in a mobile app feeds back to the app store
图 10-2。移动应用中的所有内容都会反馈到应用商店

German game developer Wooga is a master of metrics. The company is building a formula for successful social games that’s completely driven by numbers. The company has over 32 million active monthly users from 231 countries, and over 7 million daily users. In a 2012 Wired article, founder Jens Begemann shared his company’s approach.*
德国游戏开发商 Wooga 是指标大师。该公司正在构建一个完全由数字驱动的成功社交游戏公式。该公司拥有来自 231 个国家的 3200 多万月活跃用户和 700 多万日活跃用户。在 2012 年的一篇《连线》杂志文章中，创始人 Jens Begemann 分享了公司的做法。

Wooga iterates constantly and releases updates on a weekly basis. It picks a key metric to focus on for an update—retention, for example— and identifies a number of tactics to try to improve it. When the update is released, it measures the changes rigorously and adapts from there. All told, Jens reviews 128 data points on a daily basis. If he sees something that doesn’t make sense to him, he sends that to the product teams. It’s up to the product people at that point to home in on the number in question and figure out what’s going on, and how to make it better.
Wooga 不断迭代，每周发布更新。它会为更新选择一个关键指标来关注——例如留存率——并确定一些尝试提高它的策略。当更新发布时，它会严格测量变化，并据此进行调整。总而言之，Jens 每天会审查 128 个数据点。如果他看到一些让他觉得不合逻辑的东西，他会将其发送给产品团队。此时，需要产品人员集中精力研究那个数字，找出问题所在，并思考如何改进。

Wrinkles: In-App Monetization Versus Advertising

皱纹：应用内变现与广告

One of the factors that can complicate this model is the monetization approach. As we’ve seen, there are a wide variety of ways in which companies monetize their mobile applications. Some advertising consists of in-app videos; in other cases, it can be a “promoted download” where the user is encouraged to try out another app. When this happens, the user leaves the current application—which can increase churn, reduce engagement, and hamper the experience.
这个模型的一个复杂因素是变现方式。正如我们所见，公司可以通过多种方式为其移动应用程序变现。有些广告包括应用内视频；在其他情况下，它可能是一个“推广下载”，鼓励用户尝试另一个应用程序。当这种情况发生时，用户会离开当前应用程序——这可能会增加用户流失率，降低用户参与度，并损害用户体验。

Game developers have to find ways to carefully integrate monetization, particularly when it doesn’t fit the theme of the game, and must measure the impact of these revenue sources on their players’ subsequent behavior.
游戏开发者必须找到方法来仔细整合变现，特别是当变现方式与游戏主题不符时，并且必须衡量这些收入来源对其玩家后续行为的影响。

Key Takeaways

关键要点

• Mobile apps make their money in a variety of ways. • Most of the money comes from a small number of users; these should be segmented and analyzed as a distinct group. The key metric is average revenue per user, but you may also track the average revenue per paying user, since these “whales” are so distinct.
• 移动应用程序通过多种方式赚钱。 • 大部分收入来自少数用户；这些用户应该被分群并作为独立群体进行分析。关键指标是每用户的平均收入，但你也可以跟踪每付费用户的平均收入，因为这些“鲸鱼”非常独特。

Mobile businesses are a lot like SaaS businesses: both try to engage users, extract money from them repeatedly, and reduce churn. You can jump back to Chapter 9 to learn more about SaaS metrics, or you can skip to Chapter 14 to find out how the stage of your business drives the metrics that matter to you.
移动业务很像 SaaS 业务：两者都试图吸引用户，反复从他们身上赚钱，并减少用户流失。你可以跳回第 9 章了解更多关于 SaaS 指标的内容，或者你可以跳到第 14 章，了解你的业务阶段如何影响对你重要的指标。

Model Four: Media Site

模型四：媒体网站

Advertising pays for the Internet. It’s so easy to insert advertising into online content that for many companies, ad-based monetization is a fallback revenue source, which subsidizes a cheaply priced game or helps pay for the cost of operating a freemium product. Many websites rely on advertising to pay the bills, but few do it well. Those that do are generally content-focused, trying to attract repeat visitors who will spend a decent amount of time on the site and view many pages.
广告支撑着互联网。将广告插入在线内容非常容易，对于许多公司来说，基于广告的盈利是一种备选收入来源，它可以补贴价格低廉的游戏，或者帮助支付免费增值产品的运营成本。许多网站依赖广告来维持运营，但很少能做好。那些做得好的通常是内容导向的，试图吸引会花费相当时间在网站上并浏览许多页面的回头客。

If your business model most closely resembles a media site, then your primary focus is sharing advertisers’ messages with viewers, and getting paid for impressions, click-throughs, or sales. Google’s search engine, CNET’s home page, and CNN’s website are all media sites.
如果你的商业模式最接近媒体网站，那么你的主要重点是向观众分享广告商的信息，并通过展示次数、点击次数或销售额来获得报酬。谷歌搜索引擎、CNET 主页和 CNN 网站都是媒体网站。

Ad revenue comes in a variety of formats. Some sites make money when they display banners or have sponsorship agreements. Sometimes revenue is tied to the number of clicks on ads or to a kickback from affiliates. Sometimes it’s simply display advertising shown each time there’s an engagement with a visitor.
广告收入有多种形式。一些网站通过展示横幅广告或拥有赞助协议来赚钱。有时收入与广告点击次数或联盟营销的返佣挂钩。有时它只是每次与访客互动时展示的展示广告。

Media sites care most of all about click-through or display rates, because those are actual revenue, but they also need to maximize the time visitors spend on the site, the number of pages they see, and the number of unique visitors (versus repeat visitors who keep coming back), because this represents inventory—chances to show ads to visitors—and a growing reach of new people in whom advertisers might be interested.
媒体网站最关心的是点击率或展示率，因为这些是实际收入，但它们也需要最大化访客在网站上的停留时间、他们看到的页面数量以及独立访客的数量（而不是经常回访的重复访客），因为这些代表了库存——向访客展示广告的机会——以及新受众的不断扩大，这些新受众可能是广告商感兴趣的对象。

Imagine a sporting news site that makes money from all four revenue models (sponsorship, display advertising, click-based advertising, and affiliate). The site has 20,000 unique visitors who come to the site an average of 12 times a month, and each time they visit, they spend an average of 17 minutes on the site (see Table 11-1).
想象一个体育新闻网站，它通过赞助、展示广告、点击广告和联盟营销四种收入模式赚钱。该网站有 20,000 名独立访客，他们平均每月访问网站 12 次，每次访问平均在网站上花费 17 分钟（见表 11-1）。

Table 11-1. Calculating monthly page inventory
表 11-1。计算每月页面库存

The site has a partnership with a local sports team, and a standing contract to display banners for it on every page in return for \4,000$ a month (see Table 11-2).
该网站与当地一支体育队有合作关系，并签订了一份合同，每页都展示其横幅广告，每月获得 4000 美元（见表 11-2）。

Table 11-2. Calculating monthly sponsorship revenue
表 11-2。计算每月赞助收入

The site also has a display-ad contract that nets it \2$ for every thousand times someone sees a banner (see Table 11-3).
该网站还签订了一份展示广告合同，每次有人看到横幅就会赚取 2 美元（见表 11-3）。

Table 11-3. Calculating display ad revenue
表 11-3. 计算展示广告收入

So far, these are relatively simple revenue models. But the company also has pay-per-click revenue. A portion of its web layout is reserved for ads from a third-party advertising network, which inserts ads relevant to the visitor and the site content (see Table 11-4).
到目前为止，这些相对简单的收入模式。但公司也有按点击付费的收入。其网页布局的一部分被保留用于第三方广告网络投放的广告，这些广告与访客和网站内容相关（见表 11-4）。

Table 11-4. Calculating click-through revenue
表 11-4. 计算点击收入

The click-through revenue depends on what percentage of visitors click an ad and the amount paid for the click, which often depends on the value of a particular keyword. As a result, the site may write different kinds of content in order to attract more lucrative ad topics.
点击收入取决于访客点击广告的百分比以及点击费用，而点击费用通常取决于特定关键词的价值。因此，网站可能会撰写不同类型的内容，以吸引更有利可图的广告主题。

Finally, the site sells sports books through an affiliate relationship with an online bookstore. It features a “book of the week” on every page; it doesn’t make money when someone clicks the link to that book, but it does make money when someone buys the book (see Table 11-5).*
最后，该网站通过在线书店的联盟关系销售体育书籍。每个页面都推荐一本“本周图书”；当有人点击该图书的链接时，它不会赚钱，但当有人购买该图书时（见表 11-5）*。

Table 11-5. Calculating affiliate revenue
表 11-5. 计算联盟收入

The affiliate model is complex (and often, site operators won’t know what the visitor’s purchases were—they’ll just get a check). It relies on several funnels: the one that brought the visitor to the site, the one that convinced the visitor to click, and the one that ended in a purchase on a third-party site.
联盟模式很复杂（而且，网站运营商通常不知道访客的购买情况——他们只会收到一张支票）。它依赖于几个漏斗：将访客带到网站的漏斗、说服访客点击的漏斗，以及最终在第三方网站上完成的购买漏斗。

Our sports site is taking advantage of four distinct media monetization models. To do this, it’s had to set aside a considerable amount of its screen real estate to accommodate a sponsor, a display banner, two click-through ads, and an affiliate ad for a book. Of course, this undermines the site’s quality and leaves less room for valuable content that will keep visitors coming back. Striking a balance between commercial screen space and valuable content is tricky.
我们的体育网站正在利用四种不同的媒体变现模式。为此，它不得不将其相当一部分屏幕空间留出来以容纳赞助商、展示横幅、两个点击广告以及一本图书的联盟广告。当然，这破坏了网站的质量，并减少了保持访客回访的宝贵内容的空间。在商业屏幕空间和宝贵内容之间取得平衡很棘手。

Pricing for sponsorships and display advertising is often negotiated directly, and depends on the reputation of the site, since it’s a subtle form of endorsement and the advertiser is hoping for credibility. Ad networks set pricing for affiliate and pay-per-click advertising based on bidding by ad buyers.
赞助和展示广告的定价通常是直接协商的，并且取决于网站的名声，因为它是一种微妙的形式的背书，广告商希望获得信誉。广告网络根据广告购买者的竞价来设定联盟和按点击付费广告的定价。

Media sites involve a lot of math; sometimes they feel like they’re being designed by spreadsheets rather than editors. Many of the vanity metrics we’ve warned you about earlier are actually relevant to media sites, since those sites make money from popularity.
媒体网站涉及大量数学；有时它们感觉像是被电子表格而不是编辑人员设计的。我们之前警告过的许多虚荣指标实际上与媒体网站相关，因为这些网站通过人气赚钱。

Ultimately, then, media sites care about:
那么，最终媒体网站关心的是：

Audience and churn
受众和流失率

How many people visit the site and how loyal they are.
访问网站的人数以及他们的忠诚度。

Ad inventory
广告库存

The number of impressions that can be monetized.
可以货币化的展示次数

Ad rates

广告费率

Sometimes measured in cost per engagement—essentially how much a site can make from those impressions based on the content it covers and the people who visit.
有时以每次互动成本衡量——本质上是一个网站可以根据其涵盖的内容和访问者从这些展示中获得的收入。

Click-through rates

点击率

How many of the impressions actually turn into money.
有多少展示量能转化为收入。

Content/advertising balance
内容/广告平衡

The balance of ad inventory rates and content that maximizes overall performance.
广告位率和内容平衡，以最大化整体表现。

Audience and Churn

受众与流失率

The most obvious metric for a media site is audience size. If we assume that an ad will get industry-standard click-through rates, then the more people who visit your site, the more money you’ll make.
对于媒体网站来说，最明显的指标是受众规模。如果我们假设广告的点击率符合行业标准，那么网站访问者越多，你赚的钱就越多。

Tracking the growth in audience size—usually measured as the number of unique visitors a month—is essential. But measuring unique visitors can lead us astray if we focus on it too much; as we’ve noted earlier, engagement is much more important than traffic, so knowing how many visitors you’re losing, as well as adding, is critical.
跟踪受众规模的增长——通常以每月独立访客数量来衡量——是至关重要的。但如果过分关注独立访客数量，可能会让我们误入歧途；正如我们之前提到的，参与度比流量更重要，因此了解你正在失去的访客数量以及新增加的访客数量至关重要。

You can calculate audience churn on a media site by looking at the change in unique visitors in a specific month and the number of new visitors that month (see Table 11-6).
你可以通过查看特定月份内独立访客数量的变化以及该月份的新访客数量来计算媒体网站的受众流失率（见表 11-6）。

Table 11-6. Calculating audience churn
表 11-6. 计算受众流失率

In this example, a website launches in January, and gets 3,000 unique visitors that month. Each month, it adds a certain number of unique firsttime visitors to the site, but it also loses some visitors. You can calculate the churn by subtracting the number of unique first-time visitors from the change over the previous month—the new visitors are “making up” the last month’s loss.
在这个例子中，一个网站在一月份上线，当月获得了 3,000 个独立访客。每个月，它都会增加一定数量的新独立访客，但同时也会失去一些访客。你可以通过减去上个月的变化来计算用户流失——新访客正在“弥补”上个月的损失。

Note that sometimes an effective campaign can mask a churn problem. In this example, even though the site grew by 2,000 unique visitors in April, it managed to lose 1,000 visitors as well.
注意，有时一个有效的活动可能会掩盖用户流失问题。在这个例子中，尽管该网站在四月份增加了 2,000 个独立访客，但它也失去了 1,000 个访客。

If you have the ability to test different layouts—one with fewer ads, for example—across visitor segments, you can determine the level of “churn tax” you’re paying for having commercial content on the page. Then you can balance this against the revenue you’re earning from advertising.
如果你能够测试不同的布局——例如，较少的广告——在不同的访客群体中，你可以确定因为你页面上有商业内容而支付的“流失税”水平。然后你可以将其与广告带来的收入进行平衡。

Inventory

库存

Tracking unique visitors is a good start, but you need to measure ad inventory as well. This is the total number of unique page views in a given period of time, since each page view is a chance to show a visitor an ad. You can estimate inventory from visitors and pages per visit, but most analytics packages show the number automatically (see Table 11-7).
跟踪独立访客是一个好的开始，但你还需要衡量广告库存。这是在特定时间段内的独立页面浏览次数的总数，因为每次页面浏览都是向访客展示广告的机会。你可以根据每页访客数和每次访问的页面数来估算库存，但大多数分析工具会自动显示该数字（见表 11-7）。

Table 11-7. Calculating page inventory
表 11-7。计算页面库存

The actual inventory depends on page layout and how many advertising elements are on each page.
实际库存取决于页面布局以及每页上的广告元素数量。

PATTERN Performance and the Sessions-to-Clicks Ratio

模式性能和会话到点击比率

One other factor to consider is the sessions-to-clicks ratio. Every website loses a certain number of visitors before they ever come to the site. For every 100 web searches that link to you and get clicked, roughly 95 will actually land on your site. Basically, this says that five of those people hit the back button, or decide your site is taking too long to load, or change their mind about visiting.
另一个需要考虑的因素是会话到点击的比率。每个网站在访客实际到达之前都会失去一定数量的访客。对于每 100 个链接到你的网站并点击的网页搜索，大约有 95 个会实际到达你的网站。基本上，这意味着有五个人点击了后退按钮，或者认为你的网站加载太慢，或者改变了访问的念头。

The ratio of sessions (on your site) to clicks (from search links or referring links) is an indicator of web performance and reliability. Shopzilla’s Jody Mulkey and Phillip Dixon did a detailed analysis of the impact of performance improvement on the sessions-to-clicks ratio when the company rebuilt its site to make it load quickly and reliably.* Ultimately, the makeover landed the site $3\mathrm{\%}$ more visitors. But within a short while, the site slowed down again as a result of ongoing changes, and the ratio worsened once more. Keeping a site fast is a constant battle.
会话（你网站上的）到点击（来自搜索链接或推荐链接）的比率是衡量网站性能和可靠性的指标。Shopzilla 的 Jody Mulkey 和 Phillip Dixon 对性能改进对会话到点击比率的影响进行了详细分析，当时该公司重建了其网站，使其加载快速且可靠。*最终，这次改造为网站带来了更多的访客。但不久之后，由于持续的更改，网站再次变慢，比率也随之恶化。保持网站快速是一个持续的战斗。

Ad Rates

广告费率

The rate advertising networks will pay you for an ad depends on your content and the going rate for a particular search term or keyword. For a straight-up media site, the ad rate is driven by the topic of your site and the content you publish. For a social network, the demographics of your audience drive ad rates. Visitor demographics will become increasingly important as social platforms like Facebook introduce third-party-placed advertising based on demographic segments—you’ll get paid based on who your visitors are rather than what your site contains.
广告网络支付您广告的比率取决于您的内容以及特定搜索词或关键词的当前价格。对于纯媒体网站，广告率由您网站的主题和您发布的内容驱动。对于社交网络，您的受众人口统计驱动广告率。随着像 Facebook 这样的社交平台引入基于人口统计段的第三方广告，访客人口统计将变得越来越重要——您将根据您的访客是谁而不是您的网站包含什么来获得报酬。

Content/Advertising Trade-of

内容/广告权衡

The big decision any media site makes is how to pay the bills without selling out. This manifests itself in two ways. First, ad space: too many ads leads to lousy content and reduced visitor loyalty. Second, content: if your content is written to attract lucrative ad keywords, it’ll feel forced and seem like a paid promotion.
任何媒体网站做出的重大决定是如何在不出售的前提下支付账单。这体现在两个方面。首先，广告位：过多的广告会导致内容质量下降和访客忠诚度降低。其次，内容：如果您的内容是为了吸引高收益的广告关键词而写的，它将显得生硬，并像是有偿推广。

Layout design and copywriting style are aesthetic issues, but those aesthetic decisions are grist for the analytical mill. If you’re serious about content, you need to test different layouts for revenue-versus-churn, and different copy for content-versus-ad-value.
布局设计和文案风格是美学问题，但这些美学决策是分析磨坊的原料。如果您认真对待内容，您需要测试不同的布局以用于收益与流失，以及不同的文案用于内容与广告价值。

There are commercial tools to help with this. Parse.ly, for example, tries to analyze which content is getting the most traction. You might also segment key metrics like revenue or percentage of visitors who exit on a particular page by author, topic, or layout.
有商业工具可以帮助完成这项工作。例如，Parse.ly 就试图分析哪些内容最受欢迎。你也可以通过作者、主题或布局来细分关键指标，如收入或特定页面退出访客的百分比。

Visualizing the Media Business

可视化媒体业务

Figure 11-1 represents a user’s flow through a media business, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 11-1 展示了一个用户在媒体业务中的流程，以及每个阶段的关键指标。

Figure 11-1. Calculating the value of media site customers is complicated
图 11-1。计算媒体网站客户的价值很复杂

Wrinkles: Hidden Affiliates, Background Noise, Ad Blockers, and Paywalls

皱纹：隐藏的联盟伙伴、背景噪音、广告拦截器和付费墙

The variety of business relationships in online media can make finding the right key performance indicator (KPI) complex. Here are four examples of the kinds of complexity you need to watch out for.
在线媒体中的各种业务关系可能会使找到正确的关键绩效指标（KPI）变得复杂。以下是您需要警惕的四种复杂性的例子。

Hidden affiliate models
隐藏的联盟模式

Pinterest, an online pinboard of images, used to rewrite URLs for pictures of products its users had uploaded using a tool called Skimlinks. But as the site grew, its affiliate revenue quickly outstripped that of other big networks,* and it was called out for the practice.†
Pinterest 是一个在线图片墙，它使用一个名为 Skimlinks 的工具来重写用户上传的产品图片的 URL。但随着网站的增长，其联盟收入迅速超过了其他大型网络*，因此它因这种做法而受到指责。†

Pinterest was able to monetize traffic quickly with this strategy, and cared not only about how many people contributed content (a usergenerated content, or UGC, metric), but also about the likelihood that someone would click on a picture and in turn make a purchase. Affiliate rewriting is a good way to monetize user-generated content without ads—effectively turning everything that’s posted into an ad—but complicates business modeling, and can backfire.
Pinterest 能够通过这种策略快速实现流量变现，并且不仅关心有多少人贡献了内容（一个用户生成内容，或 UGC，指标），还关心有人点击图片并进而进行购买的可能性。联盟重写是一种在不使用广告的情况下变现用户生成内容的好方法——实际上把所有发布的内容都变成了广告——但这会使商业模式复杂化，并且可能适得其反。

Background noise

背景噪音

In one test, blank ads bearing no information had a click-through rate of roughly $0.08\mathrm{\%}$ —comparable to that of some paid campaigns.‡ The ads invited those who’d clicked to explain why they did so; respondents were evenly divided between simple curiosity and accidental clicking. If your ads are getting revenues that are hardly better than the background noise a blank ad would get, you need to find out why.
在一项测试中，没有任何信息的空白广告的点击率约为 $0.08\mathrm{\%}$ ——与一些付费广告相当。‡这些广告邀请点击过广告的人解释他们点击的原因；受访者对于好奇心和误点击的解释意见均等。如果你的广告收入几乎不比一个空白广告的背景噪音好，你需要找出原因。

Ad blockers

广告拦截器

Technical users sometimes install ad-blocking software in their browsers that blocks ads from known ad-serving companies. This reduces your inventory, and can mess with your analytics. Reddit actually runs some ads containing funny content, mini-games, or messages thanking visitors for not blocking ads.
技术用户有时会在他们的浏览器中安装广告拦截软件，这些软件会拦截来自知名广告服务公司的广告。这会减少您的广告库存，并可能干扰您的分析。实际上，Reddit 会运行一些包含有趣内容、小游戏或感谢访客未拦截广告的消息的广告。

Paywalls

付费墙

Unsatisfied with the revenues from online advertising, some media sites run paywalls that charge users to access content. The paywall model runs the spectrum from voluntary donations (usually in the form of a pop up when the visitor first arrives) to fully paid sites where content is accessible only for a recurring fee.
由于对在线广告收入的满意度不高，一些媒体网站运行付费墙，要求用户付费才能访问内容。付费墙模式从自愿捐赠（通常在访客首次访问时以弹窗形式出现）到完全付费的网站，后者只有支付定期费用才能访问内容。

Some media sites adopt a middle ground where visitors can access a quota of articles each month, as shown in Figure 11-2, but must pay to see more than this limit. Such sites are trying to strike a balance between “referred” content (e.g., an article mentioned on Twitter, which might generate ad revenue) and “subscribed” content (where the site is a user’s primary daily news source).
一些媒体网站采取了折中的做法，即访客每月可以访问一定数量的文章，如图 11-2 所示，但超过这个限额则需要付费。这些网站试图在“推荐”内容（例如，在 Twitter 上提到的文章，这可能会产生广告收入）和“订阅”内容（网站是用户主要的每日新闻来源）之间取得平衡。

Figure 11-2. The inexorable rise of the paywall
图 11-2。付费墙的不可阻挡的崛起

The paywall model complicates analytics because there’s a trade-off between ad and subscription revenue, and because there’s a new e-commerce funnel to measure: trying to convert casual referred visitors into recurring-revenue subscribers.
付费墙模式使分析变得复杂，因为广告和订阅收入之间存在权衡，并且需要衡量一个新的电子商务漏斗：试图将偶然的推荐访客转化为经常性收入订阅者。

Key Takeaways

关键要点

• For media sites, ad revenue is everything—but advertising may include displays, pay-per-view, pay-per-click, and affiliate models, so tracking revenues is complex.
• 对于媒体网站，广告收入是所有的一切——但广告可能包括展示、按次观看、按次点击和联盟模式，因此跟踪收入很复杂。
• Media sites need inventory (in the form of visitor eyeballs) and desirability, which comes from content that attracts a demographic advertisers want.
• 媒体网站需要库存（以访客眼球的形式）和吸引力，而这种吸引力来自于吸引广告商想要的目标受众的内容。
• It’s hard to strike a balance between having good content and enough ads to pay the bills.
• 在拥有优质内容和足够广告以支付账单之间取得平衡是困难的。

Media sites traditionally generate their own content, in the form of blogging, videos, and reported articles. But more and more of today’s online content is from users themselves. If you want to learn more about the user-generated content business model and the metrics it tracks, continue to Chapter 12. If, on the other hand, you want to get right to the stages of a startup and how they affect your media business, jump to Chapter 14.
媒体网站传统上会自行生成内容，形式为博客、视频和报道文章。但如今越来越多的在线内容来自用户自己。如果你想了解更多关于用户生成内容商业模式及其衡量指标，请继续阅读第 12 章。另一方面，如果你想直接了解创业阶段的各个阶段以及它们如何影响你的媒体业务，请跳转到第 14 章。

Model Five: User-Generated Content

模型五：用户生成内容

You might think that Facebook, reddit, and Twitter are media sites, and you’d be right: they make their money from advertising. But their primary goal is rallying an engaged community that creates content. Similarly focused sites like Wikipedia make their money from other sources, such as donations.
你可能认为 Facebook、reddit 和 Twitter 是媒体网站，这是正确的：它们通过广告赚钱。但它们的主要目标是团结一个积极参与的社区来创造内容。同样专注的网站如维基百科则通过其他途径赚钱，比如捐赠。

We call these businesses user-generated content (UGC) sites. They deserve their own business model because their primary concern is the growth of an engaged community that creates content; without user activity, the sites stop functioning entirely. If you’ve decided that you’re in the UGC business, then this chapter explains what metrics you’ll need to track.
我们称这些企业为用户生成内容（UGC）网站。它们值得拥有自己的商业模式，因为它们的主要关注点是培养一个积极参与的社区来创造内容；如果没有用户活动，这些网站将完全无法运行。如果你已经决定你从事的是 UGC 业务，那么这一章将解释你需要跟踪哪些指标。

In this model, you’re focused on the creation of good content, which means not only posts and uploads but also votes, comments, spam flagging, and other valuable activity. UGC is about the amount of good content versus bad, and the percentage of users who are lurkers versus creators. This is an  engagement funnel,* similar to the traditional conversion funnels of an e-commerce model—only instead of moving prospects toward buying, you’re constantly trying to move your user population to higher and higher levels of engagement, turning lurkers into voters, voters into commenters, and so on.
在这个模型中，你关注的是优质内容的创建，这意味着不仅包括帖子、上传，还包括投票、评论、垃圾邮件举报和其他有价值的活动。用户生成内容（UGC）是关于优质内容与劣质内容的比例，以及潜水用户与创作者的比例。这是一个参与漏斗，类似于电子商务模型中的传统转化漏斗——只是不是将潜在客户推向购买，而是不断尝试将你的用户群体推向更高层次的参与，将潜水者转变为投票者，将投票者转变为评论者等等。

Wikipedia is an example of a UGC site—good, reliable, well-referenced content helps the site; flame wars or frequent edits between two battling contributors are bad for it. Just as an e-commerce site creates a funnel out of the steps through which a buyer must proceed, a UGC site measures the percentage of users who behave in certain ways. Revenue often comes from advertising or donations, but it’s incidental to the core business of engaging users.
维基百科是一个用户生成内容（UGC）的网站——优质、可靠、有良好引用的内容有助于该网站；而争吵或两个相互斗争的贡献者之间的频繁编辑则对其不利。正如电子商务网站通过买家必须经历的步骤来创建漏斗一样，用户生成内容的网站衡量行为特定方式的用户百分比。收入通常来自广告或捐赠，但这与吸引用户的核心业务是偶然的。

Consider a social network focused on link sharing, such as reddit. Anyone can read content and share it using social buttons on the site. Once a user has an account, she can vote content up or down, comment on content, or post content of her own. She can create her own group discussion around a topic. And she can use her account to message other users privately.
考虑一个以链接分享为中心的社交网络，比如 reddit。任何人都可以阅读内容并使用网站上的社交按钮分享内容。一旦用户拥有一个账户，她就可以对内容进行点赞或点踩，评论内容，或发布自己的内容。她可以围绕一个主题创建自己的小组讨论。她还可以使用她的账户私下给其他用户发消息。

The tiers of engagement create a natural funnel, from the completely disengaged, fly-by visitors who come just once, to the hardcore. One of the core functions of the site is to acquire one-time visitors and turn them into users with accounts, and ultimately, into collaborators. Figure 12-1 shows an example engagement funnel, and lists what reddit, Facebook, and YouTube call tiers. Note that not every UGC site has all of these tiers.
参与程度的等级创建了一个自然的漏斗，从完全不参与的、一次性访问的访客，到铁杆用户。网站的核心功能之一是将一次性访客转化为拥有账户的用户，并最终转化为协作者。图 12-1 展示了一个参与度漏斗的例子，并列出了 reddit、Facebook 和 YouTube 所称为的等级。请注意，并非每个 UGC 网站都有所有这些等级。

Figure 12-1. Every social network in the world just wants you to love it
图 12-1。世界上每一个社交网络都希望你能爱上它

This pattern of gradually increasing engagement isn’t true only of websites—it’s an archetype that happens time and again online. Twitter is similar to reddit: people use it to chat, to share links, and to comment on links. Instead of up-voting, there’s a retweet button; instead of downvoting, there’s blocking. Flickr, Facebook, LinkedIn, and YouTube all have roughly similar engagement tiers.
这种逐渐增加参与度的模式并不仅限于网站——它是在线世界中反复出现的典型模式。Twitter 与 Reddit 类似：人们使用它来聊天、分享链接和评论链接。Twitter 有“转发”按钮而不是“点赞”，有“屏蔽”功能而不是“点踩”。Flickr、Facebook、LinkedIn 和 YouTube 都有大致相似的参与度层级。

A UGC company cares about several metrics in addition to those we’ve seen in the media model in Figure 12-1:
UGC 公司除了我们在图 12-1 所示的媒体模型中的那些指标外，还关注其他几个指标：

Number of engaged visitors
参与的访客数量

How often people come back, and how long they stick around.
人们回来的频率，以及他们停留的时间。

Content creation
内容创作

The percentage of visitors who interact with content in some way, from creating it to voting on it.
与内容互动的访客百分比，从创建内容到投票等。

Engagement funnel changes
用户参与度变化

How well the site moves people to more engaged levels of content over time.
网站在一段时间内引导用户参与更深入内容的能力。

Value of created content
创建内容的价值

The business benefit of content, from donations to media clicks.
内容的商业效益，从捐赠到媒体点击。

Content sharing and virality
内容分享和病毒式传播

How content gets shared, and how this drives growth.
内容是如何被分享的，以及这是如何驱动增长的。

Notification effectiveness
通知效果

The percentage of users who, when told something by push, email, or another means, act on it.
当通过推送、电子邮件或其他方式告知用户某事时，有多少百分比的用戶会采取行动。

Visitor Engagement

访客参与度

A UGC site is successful when its visitors become regulars. As we’ve seen with SaaS churn, we look at recency to understand this—that is, when was the last time someone came back to the site? One quick way to measure this is the day-to-week ratio: how many of today’s visitors were here earlier in the week? It’s an indicator of whether people are returning on a regular basis, even if users don’t create an account.
当一个 UGC 网站成功时，其访客会变成常客。正如我们通过 SaaS 流失率所见，我们通过查看最近性来理解这一点——也就是说，上次有人回访网站是什么时候？一个快速衡量这个的方法是日-周比率：今天有多少访客在一周前曾经来过这里？这是一个指标，表明人们是否定期回访，即使用戶没有创建账户。

Another metric is the average days since last visit, although you need to exclude users who are beyond some cutoff limit (such as 30 days) from this calculation; otherwise, churned users will skew your numbers. For users who have accounts and take actions, you can measure engagement in other ways: days since last post, number of votes per day, and so on.
另一个指标是上次访问以来的平均天数，但在计算中需要排除超过某个截止日期（例如 30 天）的用户；否则，流失用户会扭曲你的数据。对于拥有账户并采取行动的用户，你可以以其他方式衡量参与度：上次发布以来的天数、每天投票数等等。

Content Creation and Interaction

内容创作与互动

User participation varies wildly by UGC site. On Facebook, every user logs in to do more than view a profile because it’s a “walled garden” for content. Reddit is more open, but still has a high percentage of users who log in, because being logged in is required to up-vote posts.* On the other hand, sites like Wikipedia or YouTube, where the vast majority of users are simply consuming content, must rely on passive signals such as clickstreams or time on page, which serve as a proxy for ratings.
用户参与度因 UGC 网站而异。在 Facebook 上，每个用户登录都是为了做更多的事情，而不仅仅是查看个人资料，因为这是一个“封闭的花园”。Reddit 更开放，但仍然有很高比例的用户登录，因为登录是投票帖子所必需的。另一方面，像维基百科或 YouTube 这样的网站，其中绝大多数用户只是消费内容，必须依赖被动信号，如点击流或页面停留时间，这些作为评分的代理。

Interaction also varies significantly depending on what you’re asking users to do. A few years ago, Rubicon Consulting published a study of online community participation rates. It looked at how often respondents performed certain actions online. As Figure 12-2 shows, there’s significant variance in levels of engagement.
互动也因你要求用户做什么而异。几年前，Rubicon 咨询公司发布了一项关于在线社区参与率的研究。它研究了受访者在线执行某些操作的频率。如图 12-2 所示，参与程度存在显著差异。

RATES OF PARTICIPATION BY CONTENT TYPE
内容类型的参与率
Figure 12-2. So much for a community to do, so little time
图 12-2。社区能做的事很多，但时间太少

Early on, UGC sites need to solve a chicken-and-egg problem. They need content to draw in users, and users to create content. Sometimes, this content can be seeded from elsewhere: Wikimedia was originally going to be a site written by experts, but eventually pivoted to a community-edited model—it overcame the chicken-and-egg issue by having content in place at the start.
早期，UGC 网站需要解决一个鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡的问题。它们需要内容来吸引用户，也需要用户来创建内容。有时，这些内容可以从其他地方引入：维基百科最初打算是一个由专家编写的网站，但最终转向了社区编辑模式——它通过在开始时就有内容解决了鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡的问题。

The rate of content creation and the rate of enrollment matter a lot at the outset. Later, the question becomes whether good content is rising to the top, and whether people are commenting on it—signs that your user base cares about the discussion and is building a community.
在起步阶段，内容创作速度和注册速度非常重要。后来，问题变成了优质内容是否能够脱颖而出，以及人们是否在评论——这些是用户群体关心讨论并建立社区的表现。

Engagement Funnel Changes

参与度漏斗变化

On reddit, there are several tiers of engagement: urking, voting, commenting, subscribing to a subreddit, submitting links, and creating subreddits. Each tier represents a degree of involvement and content generation by a user, and each type of user represents a different business value to the company. Every UGC site has a similar funnel, though the steps may be different.
在 Reddit 上，参与度有几个层次：浏览、投票、评论、订阅子版块、提交链接和创建子版块。每个层次代表用户参与和内容生成的程度，每种类型的用户对公司来说代表不同的商业价值。每个 UGC 网站都有一个类似的漏斗，尽管步骤可能不同。

The steps in the funnel aren’t mutually exclusive—someone can comment without voting, for example—but these steps should be arranged in an order of increasing value to your business model as a user moves down the funnel. In other words, if someone who posts content is “better” for you than someone who simply shares a story, she’s in a later tier of the funnel. The key is to move as many users into the more lucrative tiers as possible (making more content and better selection of content that will be popular).
漏斗中的步骤不是相互排斥的——例如，某人可以评论而不投票——但这些步骤应该按用户在漏斗中向下移动时对商业模式的价值增加的顺序排列。换句话说，如果发布内容的人比仅仅分享故事的人“更好”，那么她就在漏斗的更晚层次。关键是将尽可能多的用户移动到更有利可图的层次（制作更多内容，并选择更受欢迎的内容）。

One way to visualize this is by comparing the tiers of engagement over time. This is very similar to the SaaS upselling model: for a given cohort of users, how long does it take them to move to a more valuable stage in the engagement funnel? To see this, lay out the funnel by time period (for example, per month) or by cohort (see Table 12-1).
一种可视化方式是将随时间的参与度层级进行比较。这非常类似于 SaaS 增值模式：对于给定的用户群体，他们需要多长时间才能在参与度漏斗中进入更有价值的阶段？要查看这一点，可以按时间段（例如，每月）或按群体（见表 12-1）来布置漏斗。

Table 12-1. Visitor funnel by monthly cohort
表 12-1。按月度群体划分的访问者漏斗

If we assume that each tier of the engagement funnel does all the “previous” actions—for example, commenters vote, posters comment, and so on—we can display the change over time as a stacked graph (see Figure 12-3).
如果我们假设每个参与度漏斗层级都执行所有“之前”的动作——例如，评论者投票，发帖者评论，等等——我们可以将随时间的变化显示为堆叠图（见图 12-3）。

Figure 12-3. Can you split your users into distinct groups based on behavior?
图 12-3。你能根据行为将用户分成不同的组吗？

This gives us an idea of growth for each segment, but it doesn’t really show us what parts of the engagement process are getting better or worse. For this, we need to first calculate the conversion rates of the engagement funnel for each month (see Table 12-2).
这让我们了解了每个细分市场的增长情况，但它并没有真正显示我们参与过程中的哪些部分在变得更好或更差。为此，我们需要首先计算每个月参与漏斗的转化率（见表 12-2）。

Table 12-2. Conversion rates of the engagement funnel by month
表 12-2。按月分的参与漏斗转化率

Once we know the conversion rates for each step, we can look at relative changes in rates from month to month (see Table 12-3).
一旦我们知道了每个步骤的转化率，我们就可以查看每月转化率的相对变化（见表 12-3）。

Table 12-3. Relative changes in conversion rates by month
表 12-3。按月变化的转化率相对变化

With this data, we can see which things got better or worse based on changes we’ve made, or the different experience a particular cohort had on the site. For example, a smaller percentage of first-time visitors returned to the site in March, but a greater percentage of people commented and created posts that month. This lets us make changes and keep score.
通过这些数据，我们可以看到哪些方面因为我们的改变而有所改善或变差，或者某个特定群体在网站上的不同体验。例如，三月份首次访问的访客中返回网站的比例较小，但那一个月评论和发帖的人数比例更高。这让我们能够做出改变并记录成果。

Eventually, you’ll hit a “normal” engagement funnel where a stable percentage of people are participating in each stage. This is OK; UGC sites have a power curve of content creation, where a small number of people create the vast majority of content. We’ll give you some examples of ideal conversion rates for engagement funnels in Chapter 27.
最终，你会达到一个“正常”的参与漏斗，其中每个阶段的参与人数都保持稳定。这没有问题；UGC 网站的内容创作具有幂律分布，少数人创造了绝大多数内容。我们将在第 27 章中为你提供一些理想参与漏斗转化率的例子。

Value of Created Content

已创建内容的价值

The content your users create has a value. That might be the number of unique visitors who see it (in the case of a site like Wikipedia), the number of page views that represent ad inventory (Facebook), or a more complicated measurement like affiliate revenues generated by clicks on content users post (as in the Pinterest affiliate model).*
用户创建的内容具有价值。这可能是指看到它的独立访客数量（例如维基百科的情况），或者是代表广告库存的页面浏览量（例如 Facebook），或者是一个更复杂的衡量标准，例如用户发布的内容中点击产生的联盟收入（例如 Pinterest 的联盟模式）。

Regardless of how you value content, you’ll want to measure it by cohort or traffic segment. If you’re trying to decide where to invest in visitor acquisition, you’ll want to know which referring sites bring valuable users. Perhaps you’re looking for a particular demographic (as Mike Greenfield did when he compared engagement and value across user segments on Circle of Friends and launched Circle of Moms as a result).*
无论你如何评估内容，你都需要按群体或流量细分来衡量它。如果你正在决定在哪里投资访客获取，你将想知道哪些推荐站点带来了有价值的用户。也许你在寻找特定的群体（就像 Mike Greenfield 在 Circle of Friends 上比较用户细分中的参与度和价值，并作为结果推出了 Circle of Moms 一样）。

Content Sharing and Virality

内容分享和病毒式传播

A UGC site thrives on its visitors’ behavior, and key among those behaviors is sharing. YouTube monetizes user content, relying on popular videos with virality to drive traffic and ad inventory. If your site is an unwalled garden— that is, users can share freely with the rest of the world—then tracking how content is shared is critical. It’s less important for walled-garden sites like Facebook, whose goal is to keep users within the application.
一个 UGC 网站的成功依赖于访客的行为，而其中关键的行为就是分享。YouTube 通过用户内容盈利，依靠热门视频的病毒式传播来驱动流量和广告库存。如果你的网站是一个开放的花园——也就是说，用户可以自由地与世界其他地方分享内容——那么追踪内容的分享方式至关重要。对于 Facebook 这样的封闭式花园网站来说，这种追踪就不那么重要了，因为它们的目的是让用户留在应用程序内。

While tweeting and liking content is useful, remember that a lot of sharing happens through other systems—RSS feeds and email, in particular. In fact Tynt, which makes tools for publishers to tag sharing when a link is copied and pasted, estimates that as much as $80\mathrm{\%}$ of sharing happens through email.†
虽然转发和点赞内容很有用，但请记住，很多分享是通过其他系统发生的——尤其是 RSS 订阅和电子邮件。事实上，Tynt 公司，它为出版商提供在链接复制粘贴时标记分享的工具，估计高达 $80\mathrm{\%}$ 的分享是通过电子邮件发生的。†

You want to track how content is shared for several reasons:
你想要追踪内容的分享方式，原因有几点：

• You need to know if you’re achieving a level of virality that will sustain your business.
• 你需要知道你是否达到了能够维持你业务的病毒式传播水平。
• You want to understand how content is shared and with whom. If every reader sends a URL to someone else, and that person then returns, you need to know that the visit was the result of a share, because the value of the content wasn’t just the ad inventory it presented, but also the additional visit it generated.
• 你想知道内容是如何被分享以及分享给了谁。如果每个读者都把一个 URL 发送给其他人，然后那个人又回来，你需要知道这次访问是由于分享而产生的，因为内容的价值不仅仅在于它所展示的广告库存，还在于它所产生的额外访问。
• It will help you understand whether you should consider a paywallstyle monetization strategy.
• 它将帮助你理解你是否应该考虑采用付费墙式的变现策略。

Notification Effectiveness

通知效果

We used to design exclusively for the Web. In recent years, designers rallied around portable devices with cries of “design for mobile” or “mobile first.” But there’s good reason to think that the future of applications isn’t mobility—it’s notification.
我们过去只设计网页。近年来，设计师们团结在便携式设备周围，高呼“为移动设备设计”或“移动优先”。但有充分的理由相信，应用程序的未来不是移动性——而是通知。

Today’s mobile device is a prosthetic brain. We rely on it to remind us of meetings, tell us when others are thinking of us, and find our way home. Smart agent technologies like Siri and Google Now will only reinforce this.
如今的移动设备就像一个外置大脑。我们依赖它来提醒会议、告诉我们别人是否在想着我们，以及找到回家的路。像 Siri 和 Google Now 这样的智能代理技术只会加强这一点。

Already, our mobile devices’ notification systems are a battleground, with applications fighting for our attention.
如今，我们的移动设备的提醒系统已经成为一个战场，各种应用程序都在争夺我们的注意力。

In a UGC model, the ability to keep pulling users back in through notifications is an essential part of sustaining engagement.
在用户生成内容（UGC）模型中，通过提醒持续吸引用户回归是维持用户参与度的关键部分。

Fred Wilson calls mobile notification a game changer:*
Fred Wilson 称移动提醒是一个变革者：*

Notifications become the primary way I use the phone and the apps. I rarely open Twitter directly. I see that I have ${}_{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}{}^{10}$ new $@$ mentions” and I click on the notification and go to [the] Twitter $@$ mention tab. I see that I have “20 new checkins” and I click on the notification and go to the Foursquare friends tab.
通知成了我使用手机和应用程序的主要方式。我很少直接打开 Twitter。我看到我有“ ${}_{}^{\mathrm{\infty }}{}^{10}$ 条新“ $@$ ”提及”，然后我点击通知并转到 Twitter 的“ $@$ ”提及标签。我看到我有“20 条新的签到”，然后我点击通知并转到 Foursquare 好友标签。

He cites three main reasons why this is such a significant shift:
他引用了三个主要原因，解释为什么这是一个如此重大的转变：

First, it allows me to use a lot more engagement apps on my phone. I don’t need them all on the main page. As long as I am getting notifications when there are new engagements, I don’t really care where they are on the phone.
首先，这使我能够在手机上使用更多的参与应用程序。我不需要它们都在主屏幕上。只要我在有新参与时收到通知，我不在乎它们在手机上的位置。

Second, I can have as many communications apps as I want. I’ve currently got SMS, Kik, Skype, Beluga, and GroupMe on my phone. I could have plenty more. I don’t need to be loyal to any one communication system, I just need to be loyal to my notification inbox.
第二，我可以拥有我想要的任何通信应用程序。我目前手机上有 SMS、Kik、Skype、Beluga 和 GroupMe。我可以拥有更多。我不需要忠于任何一种通信系统，我只需要忠于我的通知收件箱。

And finally, the notification screen is the new home screen. When I pull out my phone, it is the first thing I do.
最后，通知屏幕是新主屏幕。当我拿出手机时，它是我的第一件事。

You measure notification effectiveness in much the same way as you measure email delivery rates: you’re sending out a certain number of messages, and some of those messages produce the outcome you’re hoping for. This is true whether those messages are sent by email, SMS, or mobile application.
你衡量通知效果的方式与衡量电子邮件投递率的方式非常相似：你发送一定数量的消息，其中一些消息产生了你希望的结果。无论是通过电子邮件、短信还是移动应用程序发送这些消息，这都是正确的。

Visualizing a UCG Business

可视化一个 UGC 业务

Figure 12-4 represents a user’s flow through a UGC business, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 12-4 表示用户通过一个 UGC 业务的关键指标流程。

Figure 12-4. UGC is all about turning visitors into creators
图 12-4。UGC 的精髓在于将访客转化为创作者

Wrinkles: Passive Content Creation

皱纹：被动内容创作

Just as notifications happen in the background but are in many ways the new foreground interface, so too does content creation often happen stealthily. Google has been able to pack its social network, Google ${}^{+}$ , with information and updates across its user base simply by enabling background features like Latitude and image uploads, and by linking to external sites based on your profile.
就像通知在后台发生但在很多方面是新前景界面一样，内容创作也常常偷偷进行。谷歌通过启用像 Latitude 和图片上传这样的后台功能，并基于你的个人资料链接到外部网站，仅仅就能在其用户群中打包其社交网络 Google+的信息和更新。

As more and more mobile devices become sensors that track our health, our location, our purchases, and our habits, we’ll see a split into active content generation (sharing a link, writing a post) and passive content generation (automatically populating a timeline with our actions; helping the system learn from our clickstream). This shift gives a huge advantage to those who make the tools for collecting data—mobile device makers, payment companies, and so on.
随着越来越多的移动设备成为跟踪我们健康、位置、购买和习惯的传感器，我们将看到分为主动内容生成（分享链接、写帖子）和被动内容生成（自动用我们的行为填充时间线；帮助系统从我们的点击流中学习）的分化。这种转变给那些制作收集数据工具的人带来了巨大优势——移动设备制造商、支付公司等等。

Consider three changes on the horizon: ambient check-ins, in which your smart device registers changes in location and shares them; digital wallets designed to store loyalty, ticket, and membership data; and near-field communications technology that make it possible to share information or pay by bumping your device against something. These three technologies alone will provide a treasure trove of passive data that, given the right permissions, can populate someone’s timeline in detailed ways that might pass for user-generated content, even when they’re happening in the background.
考虑到三个即将发生的变化：环境签到，其中您的智能设备会注册位置变化并分享它们；数字钱包旨在存储忠诚度、门票和会员数据；以及近场通信技术，它使得通过将设备碰触到某物来共享信息或支付成为可能。仅这三项技术就将提供丰富的被动数据，如果获得正确的权限，它们可以以详细的方式填充某人的时间线，即使这些数据在后台生成，也可能被视为用户生成内容。

While this doesn’t change the UGC world today, it’ll gradually cloud the simple sharing measurements we have at the moment and introduce a lot more noise—is a user engaged, or did he simply forget to turn off some kind of passive engagement? Are certain kinds of passive sharing better for the business? If so, what can we do to encourage or reward them?
虽然这目前不会改变 UGC 世界，但它将逐渐模糊我们目前拥有的简单分享测量，并引入更多的噪音——用户是真正投入，还是仅仅忘记关闭某种被动参与？某些类型的被动分享是否对业务更好？如果是，我们能做些什么来鼓励或奖励它们？

Key Takeaways

关键要点

• Visitor engagement is everything in UGC. You track visitors’ involvement in an “engagement funnel.”
• 在 UGC 中，访客参与度至关重要。您跟踪访客在“参与漏斗”中的参与情况。
• Many users will lurk, some will contribute lightly, and others will become dedicated content creators. This 80/20 split exists throughout the activities you want your users to accomplish.
• 许多用户会潜水，有些会轻度参与，而其他人会成为忠实的内容创作者。这种 80/20 的分布存在于你希望用户完成的各种活动中。
• To keep users coming back and engaged, you’ll need to notify them of activity through email and other forms of “interruption.”
• 为了让用户持续回来并保持参与，你需要通过电子邮件和其他形式的“打扰”来通知他们活动。
• Fraud prevention is a significant amount of work for a UGC site.
• 防范欺诈对于一个 UGC 网站来说是一项大量的工作。

The UGC business might focus on user contribution above all else, but it still pays its bills with advertising most of the time. If you want to learn more about advertising and the media business, head back to Chapter 11. If you want to get straight to the stages of a startup and how they affect metrics, jump to Chapter 14.
UGC 业务可能将用户贡献放在首位，但它仍然主要依靠广告来支付账单。如果你想了解更多关于广告和媒体业务的内容，可以回到第 11 章。如果你想直接了解创业的各个阶段以及它们如何影响指标，可以跳到第 14 章。

Model Six: Two-Sided Marketplaces

模型六：双边市场

Two-sided marketplaces are a variation on e-commerce sites, but they’re different enough to warrant a separate discussion. If, after reading Chapter 7, you’ve concluded that you’re running this kind of company, here’s what you need to know.
双边市场是电子商务网站的一种变体，但它们差异足够大，值得单独讨论。如果在读完第 7 章后，你得出结论你的公司是这种类型，那么你需要知道的是。

In this model, the company makes money when a buyer and seller come together to complete a transaction. While eBay is undoubtedly the most famous example of a two-sided marketplace, the underlying pattern is fairly common. Consider the following business models, all of which have an aspect of a two-sided market:
在这种模式下，公司是在买家和卖家完成交易时赚钱。毫无疑问，eBay 是双边市场的最著名例子，但潜在的模式相当普遍。考虑以下商业模式，它们都有双边市场的某个方面：

• Real estate listing services allow prospective buyers to identify properties by a wide range of criteria, and then extract a fee for setting up the transaction, either as a one-time cost or a percentage.
• 房地产中介服务允许潜在买家通过一系列标准识别房产，然后为设立交易提取费用，无论是单次费用还是百分比。
• Indiegogo lets artists list projects and collect the support of backers. Backers are able to browse projects and find those they want to support. The site takes a percentage of monies raised.
• Indiegogo 允许艺术家列出项目并收集支持者的支持。支持者可以浏览项目并找到他们想要支持的项目。该网站收取筹集资金的一定比例。
• eBay and Craigslist let sellers list and promote items, and let buyers purchase from them. In the case of Craigslist, a very small number of transactions (rentals in certain cities, for example) cost money, making the rest of the site free.
• eBay 和 Craigslist 允许卖家列出和推广商品，并允许买家从他们那里购买。在 Craigslist 的情况下，极少数交易（例如某些城市的租赁）收费，使其余网站免费。
• App stores let software developers list their wares in exchange for sharing the revenues. The app store not only handles the catalog of apps and the delivery, it also distributes updates, helps with litigation, and manages currency transactions.
• 应用商店允许软件开发者列出他们的商品，以分享收入为代价。应用商店不仅处理应用程序目录和交付，还分发更新，帮助诉讼，并管理货币交易。

• Dating sites allow an inventory of prospective partners to browse one another, and charge a fee for completing an introduction or for revealing additional information in a paid subscription. • Hotwire and Priceline let hotels list additional inventory, then find buyers willing to buy it at a discount. They hide the identity of the hotel until after the purchase.
• 约会网站允许潜在伴侣之间互相浏览，并为完成介绍或为在付费订阅中透露额外信息收费。 • Hotwire 和 Priceline 允许酒店列出额外的库存，然后找到愿意以折扣购买它的买家。他们在购买后隐藏酒店的身份。

All of these examples include a shared inventory model and two stakeholders—buyers and sellers, creators and supporters, prospective partners,* or hotels and travellers. They all make money when the two stakeholders come together, and they often differentiate based on a particular set of search parameters or qualifications (e.g., apartments that have been vetted, seller ratings). And they all need an inventory to get started.
所有这些例子都包含一个共享的库存模型和两个利益相关者——买家和卖家、创作者和支持者、潜在合作伙伴*或酒店和旅行者。当这两个利益相关者聚集在一起时，他们都会赚钱，并且他们通常根据特定的搜索参数或资格（例如，经过审核的公寓、卖家评分）进行区分。而且他们都需要一个库存来开始。

In this section, we’re going to define two-sided marketplaces more narrowly, which will exclude some of the aforementioned examples. In our definition:
在本节中，我们将更严格地定义双边市场，这将排除上述一些例子。在我们的定义中：

• The seller is responsible for listing and promoting the product. A real estate service that simply publishes realtor listings wouldn’t qualify, but a for-sale-by-owner site would.
• 卖家负责列出和推广产品。一个仅仅发布房地产经纪人名单的服务将不符合资格，但一个“业主出售”网站将符合。
• The marketplace owner has a “hands off” approach to the individual transactions. Sites like Hotwire that create the hotel profiles wouldn’t be included.
• 市场所有者对个体交易采取“不干预”的态度。像 Hotwire 这样创建酒店简介的网站将不包括在内。
• The buyer and seller have competing interests. In most marketplace models the seller wants to extract as much money as possible, while the buyer wants to spend as little as possible. In a dating site, regardless of gender differences, both parties have a shared interest—a compatible partner—so we’ll leave them out of this discussion.
• 买方和卖方有着竞争的利益。在大多数市场模型中，卖方希望尽可能多地榨取金钱，而买方则希望尽可能少地花费。在约会网站上，无论性别差异如何，双方都有一个共同利益——找到一个合适的伴侣，因此我们将他们排除在这个讨论之外。

Two-sided marketplaces face a unique problem: they have to attract both buyers and sellers. That looks like twice as much work. As we’ll see in some of the case studies ahead, companies like DuProprio/Comfree, Etsy, Uber, and Amazon found ways around this dilemma, but they all boil down to one thing: focus on whomever has the money. Usually, that’s buyers: if you can find a group that wants to spend money, it’s easy to find a group that wants to make money.
双边市场面临一个独特的问题：它们必须吸引买方和卖方。这看起来像是一项双倍的工作。正如我们将在接下来的案例研究中看到的那样，像杜普瑞多/科姆弗里、Etsy、优步和亚马逊这样的公司找到了解决这个困境的方法，但它们都归结为一点：专注于谁有钱。通常，那是指买方：如果你能找到一个想花钱的群体，就很容易找到一个想赚钱的群体。

CASE STUDY What DuProprio Watches

案例研究：杜普瑞多观察

DuProprio/Comfree is the largest for-sale-by-owner marketplace, and second-most-visited real estate network in Canada. Founded in 1997 by co-president Nicolas Bouchard, it lists 17,000 properties and has roughly 5 million visits a month. The company charges a one-time fee of around \900$ for a listing, assistance with pricing, signage, and HDR photography. Additional tools, from legal advice to real estate coaching, are available for an extra fee. The company also has affiliate listing relationships with a prominent newspaper.
DuProprio/Comfree 是加拿大最大的个人出售房产市场，也是第二受欢迎的房地产网络。由联合总裁 Nicolas Bouchard 于 1997 年创立，该网站列出了 17,000 套房产，每月约有 500 万次访问。公司收取约 900 美元的单次费用用于发布房源，并提供定价协助、标识和 HDR 摄影服务。此外，公司还提供法律咨询和房地产辅导等额外工具，但需额外付费。该公司还与一家著名报纸建立了联盟房源关系。

Nicolas was Lean before Lean came along. The son of a realtor and an entrepreneur from a young age—already running a hardwood flooring business while in high school—he helped his father build a website in the early days of the Web. Then he had an epiphany. “I started to notice the black-and-orange ‘for sale by owner’ signs in hardware stores. So I made the connection, and said, ‘let’s do a real estate website for owners.’ I launched it in my parents’ basement.”
Nicolas 在精益方法流行之前就已经践行了精益理念。他是一位房地产经纪人的儿子，从小就展现出创业精神——高中时已经开始经营硬木地板业务，后来他帮助父亲在互联网早期时期建立了一个网站。接着他有了灵感。“我开始注意到五金店里的黑色和橙色的‘个人出售’标志。于是我建立了联系，说，‘让我们为业主做一个房地产网站。’我把它发射在我父母的地下室里。”

The first version of the website was static, built on Microsoft Frontpage. There was no staff. Nicolas acquired new sellers by scouring the classified ads and driving around looking for “for sale by owner” signs, convincing sellers to list with his site. “Back then, the only KPI was the number of signs we had on people’s lawns—because that’s how buyers found my website,” he recalls. “That, and of course, the number of properties listed on the website.”
网站的第一个版本是静态的，使用微软的 Frontpage 构建。当时没有员工。Nicolas 通过浏览分类广告和开车寻找“业主自售”的标志来获取新的卖家，说服他们将自己的房产挂在网站上。“那时候，唯一的 KPI 是我们有多少标志出现在人们的草坪上——因为买家就是通过这个找到我的网站的，”他回忆道。“当然，还有网站上列出的房产数量。”

Gradually, Nicolas found other sources of potential sellers, looking at sites like Craigslist and Kijiji. “It was the beginning of the Internet,” he says. “I was still playing with how to pitch the service and how to use the Web to my advantage, and that of my clients.”
慢慢地，Nicolas 找到了其他潜在的卖家来源，他查看了像 Craigslist 和 Kijiji 这样的网站。“那正是互联网的初期，”他说。“我还在玩如何推销这项服务和如何利用网络来为我的客户和我自己谋利。”

In early 2000, once the company had found some traction, it switched from a static site to a dynamic one, and manually transferred all the seller listings to the new site. Until that point, it had only rudimentary analytics—little more than a page hit counter. It added Webtrends for analytics. With the dynamic version of the site came a seller login, which allowed sellers to update data on their property by themselves. “At this point, sellers could see more about how they were doing, including how many times their listing appeared in search results, how many times the listing was clicked, and so on,” he says.
2000 年初，一旦公司找到了一些起色，它就从静态网站切换到了动态网站，并手动将所有卖家列表转移到新网站。直到那时，它只有非常基础的分析——不过是一个页面访问计数器。它添加了 Webtrends 进行数据分析。随着网站动态版本的推出，还增加了卖家登录，允许卖家自行更新其房产信息。“在这个阶段，卖家可以看到更多关于他们的表现，包括他们的列表在搜索结果中出现的次数、列表被点击的次数等等，”他说。

A couple of years later, the company added client-side logins. This allowed prospective buyers to set their search criteria, and eventually to subscribe to notifications when suitable properties came up for sale. The emphasis was on search.
几年后，公司增加了客户端登录。这允许潜在买家设置他们的搜索标准，并最终在合适的房产上市时订阅通知。重点是搜索。

“With the advent of the dynamic site, we tracked the number of visitors versus the number of seller subscriptions, because that’s bread and butter to us,” says Nicolas. But the data still wasn’t precise: the company was still focusing on visits, not visitors.
“随着动态网站的推出，我们追踪了访客数量与卖家订阅数量的对比，因为那才是我们的核心业务，”尼古拉斯说。但数据仍然不够精确：公司仍然关注访问量，而不是访客。

One reason for this was that the two-sided marketplace was more complicated than it might seem. Often, someone selling a house was also looking for a new one—which made it hard to segment traffic cleanly between the two groups—so Nicolas settled for a simple rule of thumb. “At some point we had a metric that 1,000 visits on the website equals 1 subscription.” Despite the coarseness of this baseline, it was enough to draw a line in the sand. “This was a rudimentary conversion rate,” he says. “The objective was to generate more conversions per visit.”
有一个原因是因为双边市场比看起来更复杂。通常，卖房子的人也在寻找新房子——这使得很难将两组人群的流量清晰地区分开——所以 Nicolas 采取了一个简单的经验法则。“在某个时候，我们有一个指标，即网站上的 1000 次访问等于 1 个订阅。”尽管这个基准很粗糙，但它足以划出一条界限。“这是一种原始的转化率，”他说，“目标是每次访问产生更多的转化。”

As the company became more sophisticated about analysis, it improved its analytics further. “We started to look at the conversion rate of visitors coming to the subscription page, where we display the various packages we offer,” he says. “We started to be a bit more disciplined, but this was long before we did any real A/B testing.” The company was making modifications to its website to see if they improved conversions or the visits-to-listings ratio, but this was still a month-bymonth process.
随着公司对分析的掌握越来越成熟，它进一步改进了其分析能力。“我们开始关注访问订阅页面的用户的转化率，在那里我们展示了我们提供的各种套餐，”他说。“我们开始更加自律，但这在我们进行任何真正的 A/B 测试之前。”公司正在对其网站进行修改，以查看是否提高了转化率或访问到列表的比率，但这仍然是一个月度过程。

While the company has detailed analytics from Google today, Nicolas doesn’t concern himself with details. “There are always more visitors looking to buy a property,” he points out. He also doesn’t focus as much on buyer-side account creation. “In Québec alone, we have 3 millions visits a month, and 1.2 million unique visitors a month, but only a small fraction of those— $.5\mathrm{\%}$ or less—create an account.”
虽然公司目前有来自谷歌的详细分析数据，但尼古拉斯并不关心细节。“总有更多想要购买房产的访客，”他指出。他也不太关注买方账户的创建。“仅在魁北克，我们每月就有 300 万次访问，120 万独立访客，但只有一小部分—— $.5\mathrm{\%}$ 或更少——创建了账户。”

Nicolas does care a lot about competitors, however. “We want to be as good as possible, and better than real estate agents. We have data from the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation and the Canadian Real Estate Board, so we know exactly how many properties were listed and sold. We benchmark ourselves against these numbers all the time, region by region.”
尼古拉斯非常关注竞争对手。“我们希望尽可能做得好，并且比房地产中介更好。我们拥有加拿大抵押贷款和住房公司以及加拿大房地产委员会的数据，因此我们确切地知道有多少房产被列出和售出。我们一直与这些数字进行区域比较。”

Today, the company has three big goals. It wants to convince sellers to list their property on the site, it wants to convince buyers to register for notifications when a property becomes available, and it wants to sell the properties.
目前，该公司有三个主要目标。它希望说服卖家在网站上列出他们的房产，希望说服买家在房产可用时注册通知，并希望销售房产。

DuProprio is a great example of how a company moves through several stages as it grows. The metrics the company tracked changed over time:
DuProprio 是一个公司随着成长经历多个阶段的例子。该公司跟踪的指标随着时间的推移而变化：

• Early on, a static site was fine—the focus was on acquisition (signs on lawns, volume of houses listed).
• 早期，静态网站就可以了——重点是获取用户（草坪上的标志，列出的房屋数量）。
• Then its focus shifted to the visitor-to-listing ratio, which was a measure of whether the marketplace was healthy.
• 然后它的重点转向了访客到列表的比例，这是一个衡量市场是否健康的指标。
• As the marketplace emerged, it focused on revenue metrics such as the list-to-sold ratio, and the average package sale price.
• 随着市场的形成，它关注收入指标，如列表到售出的比例，以及平均套餐销售价格。
• Now it’s adding new metrics to optimize the email click-through rate, search results, and use of its recently launched mobile applications. “Currently, because of the way the system is built, it’s hard to know where blank searches are occurring on the website, but it’s something we’re working on.”
• 现在它正在添加新的指标来优化电子邮件点击率、搜索结果和最近推出的移动应用程序的使用。“目前，由于系统构建的方式，很难知道网站上的空白搜索发生在哪里，但我们正在努力解决这个问题。”

Ultimately, in this two-sided marketplace, Nicolas has clearly chosen to focus on the source of the money.
归根结底，在这个双边市场中，尼古拉斯显然选择专注于钱的来源。

“For us, today, one big metric is the number of sales. An even bigger metric than that is the sold-to-list ratio: what’s the total number of properties listed versus the total number of properties sold,” he says. “If the property doesn’t sell, we don’t have a business. There will be no word of mouth, no good reviews, no 15,000 testimonials from satisfied sellers, no ‘I sold’ stickers on lawn signs. Even if tomorrow I’m listing 10,000 more properties, if no properties are selling, I’m dead.”
“对我们来说，今天，一个重要的指标是销售数量。甚至比这更重要的是售出与列表比率：列出的总房产数量与售出的总房产数量是多少，”他说。“如果房产没有售出，我们就没有生意。不会有口碑，没有好的评价，没有来自满意卖家的 15,000 个证言，也没有草坪标志上的‘我卖掉了’贴纸。即使明天我列出另外 10,000 套房产，如果没有任何房产售出，我就会完蛋。”

摘要

• Early on, a marketplace can grow its inventory by hand, using decidedly low-tech approaches. Do things that don’t scale.
• 早期，一个市场可以通过手工方式增长其库存，使用明显低科技的方法。做那些无法扩展的事情。
• For some marketplaces, a per-listing or per-transaction fee, rather than a commission, works well.
• 对于某些市场，按列表或按交易收费，而不是佣金，效果会更好。
• If you can build buyer attention, it’ll be easy to convince sellers to join you, so go where the money is.
• 如果你能够吸引买方注意，那么说服卖方加入你将很容易，所以去有钱的地方。
• A static, curated site can be enough to prove the viability of a bigticket, slow-turnover marketplace.
• 一个静态的、经过策划的网站就足够证明一个大额、慢周转市场的前景。
• Ultimately, volume of sales, and the resulting revenue, is the only metric that matters.
• 最终，销售额的量，以及由此产生的收入，是唯一重要的指标。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Start with the minimum marketplace that proves you have demand, supply, and a desire for buyers and sellers to transact. Then find ways of making money from that activity. The metrics you track will depend on transaction size, frequency, and other unique characteristics of the business. But the fundamentals are the same: revenue from transactions.
从最小化的市场开始，证明你有需求、供给，以及买家和卖家交易的愿望。然后寻找从这种活动中赚钱的方法。你跟踪的指标将取决于交易规模、频率和业务的独特特征。但基本原理是相同的：来自交易的收入。

Imagine you’re launching a two-sided marketplace for secondhand game consoles. Those with a console to sell can list it, and those looking for a console to buy can browse by a variety of criteria. The transactions are handled through PayPal, and you retain a portion of the proceeds above a minimum amount.
想象一下，你正在推出一个二手游戏机市场的双边平台。有游戏机要卖的人可以列出它，而想买游戏机的人可以根据各种标准浏览。交易通过 PayPal 处理，你保留超过最低金额的部分收入。

Because you’re not a vendor of consoles yourself, you need to find a way to produce either an inventory of consoles, or a large group of customers. You need to pick which side of the market you’re going to “seed.”
因为你自己不是游戏机的供应商，你需要找到一种方法来生产游戏机库存，或者吸引大量的客户。你需要选择市场的哪一边进行“种子”培育。

If you want to seed the seller side, you might crawl Craigslist and approach console owners to see if they have inventory, encouraging them to list items. If you want to seed the buyer side, you might set up a forum for nostalgic game players, bringing them together and inviting them from social sites.
如果你想为卖家端进行种子用户培养，你可以爬取 Craigslist 并联系游戏机所有者，看看他们是否有库存，鼓励他们列出商品。如果你想为买家端进行种子用户培养，你可以为怀旧游戏玩家建立一个论坛，将他们聚集在一起，并邀请他们从社交网站加入。

You could create an artificial inventory by selling consoles to start with, and then gradually adding inventory from others. Car-service provider Uber overcame the chicken-and-egg problem in new markets by simply buying up available towncars: when the company launched in Seattle, it paid drivers \30$ an hour to drive passengers around, and switched to a commission model only once it had sufficient demand to make it worthwhile for the drivers. The company created supply.
你可以通过先出售游戏机来创建一个虚假的库存，然后逐渐添加其他人的库存。汽车服务提供商 Uber 通过简单地购买可用的拖车克服了新市场的鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡的问题：当这家公司在西雅图启动时，它每小时支付司机 30 美元让他们载客，只有在它有足够的供应该让司机觉得值得时才切换到佣金模式。该公司创造了供给。

On the other hand, if you want to seed the buyer side, you probably need to pick something for which you can command an initial inventory, then purchase some; or you might take orders with a promise of fulfilling them later, knowing you have access to that inventory. Amazon, for example, started selling books, which allowed it to streamline its order, search, and logistics processes. Then it could offer a broader range of its own goods. Eventually, with access to many buyers and their search patterns, Amazon became a marketplace for goods from many other suppliers. Salesforce.com created a CRM product, and then created an app exchange ecosystem where third-party developers could sell software to existing customers. With respect to their marketplace offerings, both companies first created demand.
另一方面，如果你想培育买家端，你可能需要选择一些你可以控制初始库存的东西，然后购买一些；或者你可能先接订单，承诺稍后履行，知道你有库存。例如，亚马逊最初开始销售书籍，这使其能够简化订单、搜索和物流流程。然后它可以提供更广泛的自己的商品。最终，通过接触许多买家及其搜索模式，亚马逊成为了一个多供应商商品的市场。Salesforce.com 创建了一个 CRM 产品，然后创建了一个应用程序交换生态系统，第三方开发者可以在其中向现有客户销售软件。就他们的市场供应而言，这两家公司首先创造了需求。

The health of their chicken-and-egg-defeating strategy was a critical metric:
他们鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡策略的健康状况是一个关键指标：

• For Uber, this meant measuring how much drivers would be making on a commission basis, as well as the inventory and the time it took a driver to pick up a customer. When those metrics were sustainable (with a reasonable margin of error), it was time to switch from the “artificial” market of paid drivers to the “sustainable” two-sided marketplace of commissions.
• 对于优步来说，这意味着衡量司机在佣金制下的收入，以及库存和司机接客所需的时间。当这些指标能够持续（在合理的误差范围内）时，就是从“人工”的付费司机市场转向“可持续”的双边佣金市场的时候了。
• For Amazon, this meant measuring the number of retained book buyers who were comfortable with the purchase and delivery process, and then trying out new offerings , such as electronics or kitchenware, that those buyers might purchase.
• 对于亚马逊来说，这意味着衡量那些对购买和配送流程感到舒适的留存书籍购买者的数量，然后尝试推出新的产品，比如电子产品或厨房用品，这些可能是这些购买者会购买的产品。

The first step of a two-sided marketplace—and the first thing to measure— is your ability to create an inventory (supply) or an audience (demand). DuProprio looked for “for sale by owner” signs and classified listings to build its initial set of listings, and the seller’s lawn sign then drove buyer traffic, so its metrics were listings and lawn signs. The metrics you’ll care about first are around the attraction, engagement, and growth of this seed group.
双边市场的第一步——也是首先要衡量的——是你的建立库存（供应）或受众（需求）的能力。DuProprio 寻找“业主出售”标志和分类广告来建立其初始的列表，然后卖家的小区标志吸引了买家流量，所以其指标是列表和小区标志。你首先关心的指标将围绕这个种子群体的吸引、参与和增长。

Josh Breinlinger, a venture capitalist at Sigma West who previously ran marketing at labor marketplace oDesk, breaks up the key marketplace metrics into three categories: buyer activity, seller activity, and transactions. “I almost always recommend modeling the buyer side as your primary focus, and then you model supply, more in the sense of total inventory,” he says. “It’s easy to find people that want to make money; it’s much harder to find people that want to spend money.”
Josh Breinlinger，Sigma West 的风险投资家，曾担任劳动力市场平台 oDesk 的市场营销负责人，将关键市场指标分为三类：买家活动、卖家活动和交易。他说：“我几乎总是建议将买家方作为主要关注点，然后对供应进行建模，更侧重于总库存。” “很容易找到想赚钱的人；但找到想花钱的人要难得多。”

Josh cautions that just tracking buyer, seller, and inventory numbers isn’t enough: you have to be sure those numbers relate to the actual activity that’s at the core of your business model. “If you wanted to juice those numbers you could do so quite easily by tweaking algorithms, but you’re not necessarily providing a better experience to users,” he says. “I believe the better focus is on more explicit marketplace activity like bids, messages, listings, or applications.”
Josh 警告说，仅仅跟踪买家、卖家和库存数量是不够的：你必须确保这些数字与你的商业模式核心活动相关。他说：“如果你想提升这些数字，你可以通过调整算法轻松实现，但这并不一定为用户提供更好的体验。” “我认为更好的关注点是更明确的市场活动，如出价、消息、列表或申请。”

Once you’ve got both sides of the market together, your attention (and analytics) will shift to maximizing the proceeds from the market—the number of listings, the quality of buyers and sellers, the percentage of searches for which you have at least one item in inventory, the marketplacespecific metrics Josh mentions, and ultimately, the sales volume and resulting revenue. You’ll also focus on understanding what makes a listing desirable so you can attract more like it. And you’ll start tracking fraud and bad offerings that can undermine the quality of the marketplace and send buyers and sellers away.
一旦你将市场的两边都聚集在一起，你的注意力（和分析）将转移到最大化市场的收益——列表数量、买方和卖方的质量、至少有一个商品在库存中的搜索百分比、Josh 提到的特定市场指标，以及最终的销售量和产生的收入。你还将关注是什么让列表变得有吸引力，以便吸引更多类似的列表。你还将开始跟踪欺诈和不良供应，这些可能会损害市场的质量，并使买方和卖方离开。

Our game console company starts by tracking the growth of buyers within the marketplace, and their interest in sellers’ listings. To track buyers, we start by tracking visitors who aren’t sellers (see Table 13-1). One useful metric is the ratio of buyers to sellers—a higher number should convince more sellers to list their merchandise.
我们的电子游戏公司最初通过跟踪市场买方的增长以及他们对卖方列表的兴趣来开始。为了跟踪买方，我们首先跟踪那些不是卖家的访客（见表 13-1）。一个有用的指标是买方与卖家的比率——较高的数字应该说服更多卖家列出他们的商品。

Table 13-1. Site visitors (potential buyers)
表 13-1。网站访客（潜在买方）

But this data looks a lot like vanity metrics. What we really care about are engaged buyers who’ve made a purchase. Drawing a line in the sand, we decide someone is a buyer if she’s made at least one purchase, and that a buyer is engaged if she’s searched for something in the last 30 days (see Table 13-2).
但这些数据看起来很像虚荣指标。我们真正关心的其实是购买过的活跃买家。我们划下一条线，决定如果一个人至少购买过一次，那么她就是一个买家，而如果她在过去 30 天内搜索过东西，那么她就是一个活跃买家（见表 13-2）。

Table 13-2. Number of engaged buyers
表 13-2. 活跃买家数量

Next we look at sellers, their growth in the marketplace, and the listings they create (see Table 13-3).
接下来我们看看卖家，他们在市场上的增长以及他们创建的列表（见表 13-3）。

Table 13-3. Growth of sellers and listings
表 13-3。卖家的增长和列表

This is a bit simplistic, however: it breaks our rule that good metrics are ratios or rates, and it doesn’t distinguish between active and disengaged sellers. A better set of data might dig a bit deeper. We draw some lines in the sand: sellers are disengaged if they haven’t added a listing in the last 30 days, and listings are inactive if they don’t show up in buyers’ search results at least five times a week (see Table 13-4).
这有点过于简单，因为它违反了我们关于良好指标应该是比率或速度的规则，并且它没有区分活跃和脱管的卖家。更好的数据集可能需要深入挖掘一些。我们划定了界限：如果卖家在过去 30 天内没有添加任何房源，则被视为脱管，而房源如果每周至少在买家的搜索结果中显示五次则被视为活跃（见表 13-4）。

Table 13-4. Number and percent of active sellers and listings
表 13-4。活跃卖家和房源的数量和百分比

Now that we have some data on buyers and sellers, we need to map out the conversion funnel leading to a purchase. We look at the number of searches, how many of them produce results, and how many of those results lead to a viewing of a detailed listing of the product. We also track the sale, and whether the buyer and seller were satisfied (see Table 13-5).
现在我们有一些关于买方和卖方的数据，我们需要绘制出导致购买的转化漏斗。我们查看搜索的数量，有多少个搜索产生了结果，以及有多少个结果引导用户浏览了产品的详细列表。我们还追踪销售情况，以及买方和卖方是否满意（见表 13-5）。

Table 13-5. Sales, satisfaction, and revenue
表 13-5。销售、满意度和收入

Finally, we track the quality of the listings and the buyers’ and sellers’ reputations (see Table 13-6).
最后，我们跟踪列表的质量以及买方和卖方的声誉（见表 13-6）。

Table 13-6. Quality of listings
表 13-6。列表质量

There’s a lot of data to track here, because you’re monitoring both buyer e-commerce funnels and seller content creation, as well as looking for signs of fraud or declining content quality.
这里有很多数据需要跟踪，因为你既在监控买家的电子商务流程，也在监控卖家的内容创作，同时还要寻找欺诈或内容质量下降的迹象。

Which metrics you focus on will depend on what you’re trying to improve: inventory, conversion rate, search results, content quality, and so on. For example, if you’re not getting enough click-through from search results to individual listings, you can show less information in initial search results to see if that encourages more click-through.
你关注哪些指标将取决于你想改进什么：库存、转化率、搜索结果、内容质量等等。例如，如果你从搜索结果到单个列表的点击率不够高，你可以减少初始搜索结果中的信息量，看看是否能鼓励更多的点击。

So the metrics you’ll want to watch include:
因此，你想要关注的指标包括：

Buyer and seller growth
买方和卖方的增长

The rate at which you’re adding new buyers and sellers, as measured by return visitors.
衡量你增加新买家和卖家的速度，以返回访客的比率来衡量。

Inventory growth

库存增长

The rate at which sellers are adding inventory—such as new listings— as well as completeness of those listings.
卖家增加库存的速度，例如新的列表，以及这些列表的完整性。

Search effectiveness

搜索效果

What buyers are searching for, and whether it matches the inventory you’re building.
买家在搜索什么，以及这与你正在构建的库存是否匹配。

Conversion funnels

转化漏斗

The conversion rates for items sold, and any segmentation that reveals what helps sell items—such as the professional photographs of a property mentioned in the Airbnb case study in Chapter 1.
已售商品转化率，以及任何揭示什么有助于销售商品的细分数据——例如第一章 Airbnb 案例研究中提到的房产专业照片。

Ratings and signs of fraud
评分和欺诈迹象

The ratings for buyers and sellers, signs of fraud, and tone of the comments.
买家和卖家的评分、欺诈迹象以及评论的语气。

Pricing metrics

定价指标

If you have a bidding method in place (as eBay does), then you care whether sellers are setting prices too high or leaving money on the table.
如果你有一个拍卖方法（像 eBay 一样），那么你关心卖家是否定价过高或留有利润。

All of the metrics that matter to an e-commerce site matter to a two-sided marketplace. But the metrics listed here focus specifically on the creation of a fluid market with buyers and sellers coming together.
对电子商务网站重要的所有指标对双边市场也同样重要。但这里列出的指标特别关注于创建一个买家和卖家能够结合的流动市场。

Rate at Which You’re Adding Buyers and Sellers

添加买方和卖方的速度

This metric is particularly important in the early stages of the business. If you’re competing with others, then your line in the sand is an inventory of sellers that’s comparable to that of your competitors, so it’s worth a buyer’s time to search you. If you’re in a relatively unique market, then your line in the sand is enough inventory that buyers’ searches are returning one or more valid results.
这个指标在商业的早期阶段尤其重要。如果你在与其他公司竞争，那么你的底线是拥有与竞争对手相当的卖家库存，这样才值得买家花时间搜索你。如果你在一个相对独特的市场中，那么你的底线是拥有足够的卖家库存，使得买家的搜索能够返回一个或多个有效结果。

Track the change in these metrics over periods of time to understand if things are getting better or worse. You’re already tracking the sellers and listings, but what you really want to know is how fast those numbers are growing.
跟踪这些指标随时间的变动，以了解情况是变好还是变差。你已经跟踪了卖家和列表，但你真正想知道的是这些数字的增长速度。

This makes it easier to pinpoint changes that are worth investigating. You’ll want to track how fast you’re adding sellers to the marketplace and whether the rate of addition is growing or slowing. If it’s growing, then you may want to focus on onboarding new sellers so they become active and list inventory right away; if it’s stalling, then you may want to spend more money to find new sellers or focus on increasing the number of listings per seller as well as the conversion rate of those listings.
这使得更容易确定值得调查的变化。你想要跟踪你添加卖家的速度，以及这个速度是增长还是放缓。如果它在增长，那么你可能想要专注于新卖家的入职，让他们尽快成为活跃状态并发布库存；如果它停滞不前，那么你可能想要花更多钱去寻找新卖家，或者专注于增加每个卖家的列表数量以及这些列表的转化率。

Long-term, you can always buy supply, but you can’t buy demand. In an attention economy, having an engaged, attentive user base is priceless. It’s the reason Walmart can coerce favorable terms from suppliers and that Amazon can build a network of merchants even though it’s a seller itself. When it comes to sustainable competitive advantage, demand beats supply.
从长远来看，你总能购买供应，但你无法购买需求。在一个注意力经济中，拥有一个投入、专注的用户基础是无价的。这是沃尔玛能够从供应商那里获得有利条件的原因，也是亚马逊即使自己是卖家也能建立商家网络的原因。在可持续的竞争优势方面，需求胜过供应。

Rate of Inventory Growth

库存增长速度

In addition to sellers, you need to track listings they create. Focus on the number of listings per seller and whether that’s growing, as well as the completeness of those listings (are sellers completing the description of their offering?).
除了卖家，你还需要跟踪他们创建的商品列表。关注每个卖家的商品列表数量以及是否在增长，以及这些列表的完整性（卖家是否完成了他们所提供商品的描述？）。

A bigger inventory means more searches are likely to yield results. If you start to saturate your marketplace (i.e., if most of the sellers in your market have already become members), then your growth will come from increasing their listings and the effectiveness of those listings.
更大的库存意味着更多的搜索可能会得到结果。如果你开始饱和你的市场（即，如果你市场上的大多数卖家已经成为了会员），那么你的增长将来自增加他们的商品列表以及这些列表的有效性。

Buyer Searches

买家搜索

In many two-sided markets, searches are the primary way in which buyers find sellers. You need to track the number of searches that return no results—this is a lost sales opportunity. For example, you might track the change in daily searches, new listings, and result counts, which will show you whether you’re growing the business (see Table 13-7).
在许多双边市场中，搜索是买家找到卖家的主要方式。你需要跟踪返回无结果的搜索数量——这是一个错失的销售机会。例如，你可以跟踪每日搜索量的变化、新上线列表和结果数量，这将显示你的业务是否在增长（见表 13-7）。

Table 13-7. Buyer searches month over month
表 13-7。买家搜索按月变化

In this example, buyers performed fewer daily searches in May and June than beforehand, relatively speaking. The number of listings in May also declined.
在这个例子中，买家的每日搜索量在五月和六月相对之前有所减少，五月份的列表数量也下降了。

You should also look at the search terms themselves. By looking at the most common search terms that yield nothing, you’ll find out what your buyers are after. A dominant search term—say, “Nintendo”—might suggest a category you could add to the site to make navigation easier, or a keyword campaign you could undertake to attract more buyers. You’ll want to know what the most lucrative search terms are, too, because that tells you what kind of seller you should attract to the site.
你还应该关注搜索词本身。通过查看那些产生无结果的最常见搜索词，你会发现你的买家想要什么。一个主导的搜索词——比如“任天堂”——可能表明你可以为网站添加一个类别，以使导航更方便，或者你可以进行一个关键词活动来吸引更多买家。你还想知道哪些最有利可图的搜索词，因为那能告诉你你应该吸引哪种类型的卖家。

The ratio of searches to clicked listings is also an important step in your conversion funnel.
搜索量与点击列表的比率也是你转化漏斗中的一个重要步骤。

Conversion Rates and Segmentation

转化率和细分

The conversion funnel will have several stages, starting with the number of searches done by visitors. You should also measure the number of satisfied transactions, because a spike in transactions where one party is unsatisfied suggests that the site is focused on short-term gain (more sales) for longterm pain (a bad reputation, demands for refunds, and so on). See Table 13-8.
转化漏斗将有几个阶段，从访客进行的搜索数量开始。你还应该测量满意交易的次数，因为交易中有一方不满意时的交易激增表明该网站专注于短期利益（更多销售）以换取长期痛苦（坏声誉、退款要求等等）。见表 13-8。

Table 13-8. Measuring conversions in a marketplace
表 13-8. 衡量市场中的转化

Buyer and Seller Ratings

买家和卖家评分

Shared marketplaces are often regulated by the users themselves—users rate one another based on their experience with a transaction. The easiest way to implement this system is to let users flag something that’s wrong, or that violates the terms of service. Users can also rank one another, and sellers work hard to earn a good reputation when the ratings system works well.
共享市场通常由用户自己进行监管——用户根据交易体验对彼此进行评分。最容易实现这种系统的办法是让用户标记出错误或违反服务条款的内容。用户还可以互相排名，当评分系统运行良好时，卖家会努力获得良好的声誉。

Percent of Flagged Listings

被标记列表的百分比

You’ll want to track the percentage of listings that are flagged, and whether this number is increasing or decreasing. A sharp increase in the percentage of listings your users are flagging indicates fraud. See Table 13-9.
你需要跟踪被标记列表的百分比，以及这个数字是在增加还是减少。用户标记列表的百分比急剧增加表明存在欺诈行为。见表 13-9。

Table 13-9. Flagged listings
表 13-9. 标记的列表

Similarly, a rise in poor ratings shows a problem with expectations, and may indicate that sellers aren’t delivering or buyers aren’t paying. In every case, you’ll have to start with these metrics, then investigate individually to see if there’s a technical problem, a malicious user, or something else behind the change.
类似地，差评的上升显示了期望问题，并可能表明卖家未履行承诺或买家未付款。在每种情况下，你都需要从这些指标开始，然后单独调查，看看背后是否有技术问题、恶意用户或其他原因。

Visualizing a Two-Sided Marketplace

可视化双边市场

Figure 13-1 illustrates a user’s flow through a two-sided marketplace, along with the key metrics at each stage.
图 13-1 说明了用户在双边市场中的流程，以及每个阶段的关键指标。

Figure 13-1. Two-sided marketplaces—twice the metrics, twice the fun
图 13-1。双边市场——双倍的指标，双倍的乐趣

Wrinkles: Chicken and Egg, Fraud, Keeping the Transaction, and Auctions

纠结：鸡兔同笼，欺诈，维持交易，以及拍卖

In the early days of the Web, pundits predicted an open, utopian world of frictionless markets that were transparent and efficient. But as Internet giants like Google, Amazon, and Facebook have shown, parts of the Web are dystopian. Two-sided marketplaces are subject to strong network effects—the more inventory they have to offer, the more useful they become. A marketplace with no inventory, on the other hand, is useless.
在互联网的早期，专家们预测了一个开放、乌托邦式的世界，那里市场无摩擦、透明且高效。但正如谷歌、亚马逊和 Facebook 等互联网巨头所展示的，互联网的一部分是反乌托邦的。双边市场受到强大的网络效应的影响——它们提供的库存越多，就越有用。另一方面，没有库存的市场是无用的。

Successful two-sided marketplaces find a way to artificially populate either the buyer or the seller side early on. As a particular niche matures, this network effect means there will be a few dominant players—as is the case with Airbnb, VRBO, and a few others in the rental property space.
成功的双边市场会找到一种方法，在早期人为地增加买方或卖方的数量。随着特定细分市场的成熟，这种网络效应意味着将会有少数主导者——在租赁房产领域，Airbnb、VRBO 和其他一些公司就是这种情况。

Fraud and trust are the other big issues for such marketplaces. You don’t want to assume responsibility for the delivery of goods or services within your marketplace, but you need to ensure that there are reliable reputation systems. Buyer and seller ratings are one approach to this, but there are other ways. Some dating sites offer guarantees (for example, that they will prosecute if a person turns out to be married).
欺诈和信任是这类市场面临的另一个大问题。你不想对你的市场内提供的商品或服务承担责任，但你需要确保有可靠的声誉系统。买方和卖方评分是一种方法，但也有其他方法。一些约会网站提供保证（例如，如果一个人被发现已婚，他们将提起诉讼）。

One more major issue is keeping the transaction within the network. In the case of a sailboat or house marketplace, the transaction may be tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. That’s not really suitable for a PayPal transaction, and it’s hard to stop “leakage”—buyers and sellers find one another through your marketplace, and then conclude their business without you getting a transaction fee.
另一个主要问题是将交易保持在网络内部。在帆船或房屋市场的情况下，交易金额可能是几万甚至几十万美元。这并不太适合 PayPal 交易，而且很难阻止“泄漏”——买家和卖家通过你的市场平台找到彼此，然后不通过你进行交易而完成交易。

There are a number of ways to overcome this—all of which you should test to see if they work for your product and market. For example, you might:
有许多方法可以克服这个问题——你应该测试它们以看看它们是否适合你的产品和市场。例如，你可以：

• Refer users to an outside agent to conclude the transaction (e.g., a realtor) and monetize the referral.
• 引导用户到一个外部代理人来完成交易（例如，房地产经纪人），并通过推荐来获利。
• Charge a fee (instead of a percentage) proportional to the value of the item the seller is listing.
• 对卖家列出的商品收取按商品价值比例计算的固定费用（而不是百分比）。
• Monetize something else about the market, such as in-site advertising, shipping services, or favorable placement.
• 利用市场的其他方面进行变现，例如网站内广告、运输服务或优惠位置。
• Make it impossible for the two parties to connect or find each other’s identity until after the transaction is confirmed (as discount travel site Hotwire does).
• 在交易确认之前，使双方无法连接或找到对方的身份（例如折扣旅游网站 Hotwire 的做法）。
• Offer value-added services (such as purchase insurance or escrow) that encourage participants to keep you in the deal.
• 提供增值服务（例如购买保险或托管），鼓励参与者将你留在交易中。

Finally, there are auction marketplaces such as eBay where the price of an item isn’t fixed. The seller may set the minimum price, as well as a “Buy now” value, but the final price is what the market is willing to pay. If this is your model, you’ll need to analyze how many sales failed to receive a bid (indicating overpricing), how many sold for the “Buy now” price (indicating underpricing), and the duration and outcome of auctions. You might use this information to improve the prices your sellers set—and your resulting revenues.
最后，还有像 eBay 这样的拍卖市场，其中商品的价格不是固定的。卖家可以设定最低价格，以及“立即购买”的价值，但最终价格是市场愿意支付的价格。如果是你的模式，你需要分析多少销售没有收到出价（表明定价过高），多少以“立即购买”的价格售出（表明定价过低），以及拍卖的持续时间和结果。你可以使用这些信息来改进卖家设定的价格——以及你的收入。

Key Takeaways

核心要点

• Two-sided markets come in all shapes and sizes.
• 双边市场各种各样。
• Early on, the big challenge is solving the “chicken and egg” problem of finding enough buyers and sellers. It’s usually good to focus on the people who have money to spend first.
• 早期的主要挑战是解决“鸡生蛋还是蛋生鸡”的问题，即找到足够的买方和卖方。通常最好首先关注那些有消费能力的人。
• Since sellers are inventory, you need to track the growth of that inventory and how well it fits what buyers are looking for.
• 由于卖家是库存，你需要跟踪库存的增长以及它如何满足买家的需求。
• While many marketplaces take a percentage of transactions, you may be able to make money in other ways, by helping sellers promote their products or charging a listing fee.
• 许多市场平台会从交易中抽取一定比例的佣金，但你或许可以通过帮助卖家推广产品或收取列表费用来赚钱。

Two-sided marketplaces are a variant of traditional e-commerce sites. We’ve focused on what makes marketplaces unique in this chapter, but if you want to learn more about e-commerce and the metrics that drive that business model, jump back to Chapter 8. If, on the other hand, you want to learn how the stage of your business drives the metrics you need to watch, continue to Chapter 14.
双边市场平台是传统电子商务网站的变体。在本章中，我们重点介绍了市场平台的独特之处，但如果你想了解更多关于电子商务及其驱动该商业模式的关键指标，可以回到第 8 章。另一方面，如果你想知道你的业务阶段如何影响你需要关注的关键指标，请继续阅读第 14 章。

What Stage Are You At?

你处于哪个阶段？

You can’t just start measuring everything at once. You have to measure your assumptions in the right order. To do that, you need to know what stage you’re at.
你不能一上来就测量所有事情。你必须按正确的顺序测量你的假设。要做到这一点，你需要知道你处于哪个阶段。

Our Lean Analytics stages suggest an order to the metrics you should focus on. The stages won’t apply perfectly to everyone. We’ll probably get yelled at for being so prescriptive—in fact, we already have, as we’ve tested the material for the book online and in events. That’s OK; we have thick skins.
我们精益分析的阶段为应该关注的指标提供了顺序。这些阶段可能不会完美适用于每个人。我们可能会因为太具体而受到责备——事实上我们已经受到了责备，因为我们已经在网上和活动中测试了这本书的材料。没关系；我们脸皮厚。

In a startup, your business model—and proof that your assumptions are reasonably accurate—is far more important than your business plan. Business plans are for bankers; business models are for founders. Deciding what business you’re in is usually quite easy. Deciding on the stage you’re at is complicated. This is where founders tend to lie to themselves. They believe they’re further along than they really are.
在创业公司中，你的商业模式——以及证明你的假设基本准确的证据——远比你的商业计划更重要。商业计划是给银行家的；商业模式是给创始人的。决定你从事什么业务通常很容易。决定你处于什么阶段很复杂。这就是创始人倾向于对自己撒谎的地方。他们认为自己已经走得更远了，但实际上并没有。

The reality is that every startup goes through stages, beginning with problem discovery, then building something, then finding out if what was built is good enough, then spreading the word and collecting money. These stages—Empathy, Stickiness, Virality, Revenue, and Scale—closely mirror what other Lean Startup advocates advise.
现实是，每个创业公司都会经历阶段，从问题发现开始，然后构建一些东西，然后发现所构建的东西是否足够好，然后传播消息并收集资金。这些阶段——同理心、粘性、病毒性、收入和规模——与其他精益创业倡导者建议的非常相似。

1. First, you need empathy. You need to get inside your target market’s head and be sure you’re solving a problem people care about in a way someone will pay for. That means getting out of the building, interviewing people, and running surveys.
   首先，你需要同理心。你需要进入目标市场的头脑中，并确保你正在以一种人们愿意付费的方式来解决人们关心的问题。这意味着要走出大楼，进行采访，并运行调查。

2. Second, you need stickiness, which comes from a good product. You need to find out if you can build a solution to the problem you’ve discovered. There’s no point in promoting something awful if your visitors will bounce right off it in disgust. Companies like Color that attempted to scale prematurely, without having proven stickiness, haven’t fared well.
   第二，你需要粘性，这来自于一个优秀的产品。你需要找出你是否能够构建一个解决方案来解决你发现的问题。如果你推广的东西很糟糕，你的访客会立刻厌恶地跳开，那么就没有意义了。像 Color 这样的公司，在没有证明粘性的情况下过早地尝试扩展，结果并不好。

3. Third, you need virality. Once you’ve got a product or service that’s sticky, it’s time to use word of mouth. That way, you’ll test out your acquisition and onboarding processes on new visitors who are motivated to try you, because you have an implied endorsement from an existing user. Virality is also a force multiplier for paid promotion, so you want to get it right before you start spending money on customer acquisition through inorganic methods like advertising.
   第三，你需要病毒性。一旦你有了粘性的产品或服务，就是时候利用口碑了。这样，你将测试你的获取和入职流程，对新访客来说，他们有动力尝试你，因为你得到了现有用户的暗示性背书。病毒性也是付费推广的乘数，所以在你开始通过广告等非有机方法花钱获取客户之前，你需要正确地掌握它。

4. Fourth, you need revenue. You’ll want to monetize things at this point. That doesn’t mean you haven’t already been charging—for many businesses, even the first customer has to pay. It just means that earlier on, you’re less focused on revenue than on growth. You’re giving away free trials, free drinks, or free copies. Now you’re focused on maximizing and optimizing revenue.
   第四，你需要收入。在这个阶段，你需要开始盈利。这并不意味着你之前没有收费——对许多企业来说，第一个客户也需要付费。它只是意味着在早期阶段，你更关注增长而不是收入。你提供免费试用、免费饮料或免费副本。现在你关注的是最大化并优化收入。

5. Fifth, you need scale. With revenues coming in, it’s time to move from growing your business to growing your market. You need to acquire more customers from new verticals and geographies. You can invest in channels and distribution to help grow your user base, since direct interaction with individual customers is less critical—you’re past product/market fit and you’re analyzing things quantitatively.
   第五，你需要规模。随着收入的增加，是时候从扩大你的业务转向扩大你的市场了。你需要从新的垂直领域和地区获取更多客户。你可以投资渠道和分销来帮助你扩大用户群，因为与单个客户的直接互动不再那么关键——你已经过了产品/市场契合点，并且你在定量分析事物。

So, as we shared in Chapter 5, we suggest these five Lean Analytics stages, and we believe you should go through them in the order shown in Figure 14-1, unless you have a really good reason to do otherwise.
因此，正如我们在第 5 章中分享的，我们建议这五个精益分析阶段，并且我们相信你应该按照图 14-1 中所示的顺序进行这些阶段，除非你有很好的理由不这样做。

While many of the examples we’ve looked at are technology companies— and many of those are B2C (business to consumer) companies—these five stages apply equally well to a restaurant as they do to an enterprise software company.
虽然我们看到的许多例子都是技术公司——而且其中许多是面向消费者的公司——但这五个阶段同样适用于餐厅，也适用于企业软件公司。

Figure 14-1. Why we put the five stages of Lean Analytics in that order
图 14-1。我们为什么按这个顺序排列精益分析的五个阶段

Consider a restaurant:
考虑一个餐厅：

1. Empathy: Before opening, the owner first learns about the diners in the area, their desires, what foods aren’t available, and trends in eating.
   同理心：在开业前，老板首先了解周边的食客，他们的需求，哪些食物不可得，以及饮食趋势。
2. Stickiness: Then he develops a menu and tests it out with consumers, making frequent adjustments until tables are full and patrons return regularly. He’s giving things away, testing things, and asking diners what they think. Costs are high because of variance and uncertain inventory.
   粘性：然后他开发菜单，并测试消费者，频繁调整，直到餐桌满员，顾客定期光顾。他提供免费餐食，测试产品，并询问顾客的看法。由于差异和不确定的库存，成本很高。
3. Virality: He starts loyalty programs to bring frequent diners back, or to encourage people to share with their friends. He engages on Yelp and Foursquare.
   传播性：他开始推出忠诚度计划，以吸引常客回归，或鼓励人们与朋友分享。他在 Yelp 和 Foursquare 上积极互动。
4. Revenue: With virality kicked off, he works on margins—fewer free meals, tighter controls on costs, and more standardization.
   收入：随着传播性启动，他开始关注利润率——减少免费餐食，加强成本控制，并提高标准化程度。
5. Scale: Finally, knowing he can run a profitable business, he pours some of the revenues into marketing and promotion. He reaches out to food reviewers, travel magazines, and radio stations. He launches a second restaurant, or a franchise based on the initial one.
   规模：最后，在知道他可以经营盈利性业务后，他将部分收入投入到营销和推广中。他联系食品评论家、旅游杂志和广播电台。他开设第二家餐厅，或基于第一家餐厅进行特许经营。

Now consider a company selling software to large enterprises:
现在考虑一家向大型企业销售软件的公司：

1. Empathy: The founder finds an unmet need because she has a background in a particular industry and has worked with existing solutions that are being disrupted.
   共情：创始人发现了一个未被满足的需求，因为她有某个特定行业的背景，并且已经与正在被颠覆的现有解决方案合作过。

2. Stickiness: She meets with an initial group of prospects and signs contracts that look more like consulting agreements, which she uses to build an initial product. She’s careful not to commit to exclusivity, and tries to steer customers toward standardized solutions, charging heavily for custom features. Her engineers handle customer support directly, rather than having an “insulating layer” of support staff in this early stage, so they have to confront the warts and wrinkles of what they’ve created.
   粘性：她与最初的客户群体会面，并签订看起来更像是咨询协议的合同，她利用这些合同来构建初始产品。她小心地不承诺排他性，并试图引导客户使用标准化解决方案，对定制功能收取高额费用。她的工程师直接处理客户支持，而不是在这个早期阶段设置“隔离层”的支持人员，因此他们不得不直面自己创造出的瑕疵和问题。

3. Virality: Product n hand, she asks for references from satisfied customers and uses those as testimonials. She starts direct sales and grows the customer base. She launches a user group and starts to automate support. She releases an API, encouraging third-party development and scaling potential market size without direct development.
   传播性：产品到手后，她向满意的客户索要推荐信，并将这些用作证言。她开始直销业务，扩大客户群。她推出用户组并开始自动化支持。她发布了一个 API，鼓励第三方开发，从而在不直接开发的情况下扩大市场规模。

4. Revenue: She focuses on growing the pipeline, sales margins, and revenues while controlling costs. Tasks are automated, outsourced, or offshored. Feature enhancements are scored based on anticipated payoff and development cost. Recurring license and support revenue becomes an increasingly large component of overall revenues.
   收入：她专注于增长管道、销售利润和收入，同时控制成本。任务被自动化、外包或离岸。功能增强根据预期的回报和开发成本进行评分。经常性许可证和支持收入成为整体收入中越来越大的组成部分。

5. Scale: She signs deals with large distributors, and works with global consulting firms to have them deploy and integrate her tool. She attends trade shows to collect leads, carefully measuring cost of acquisition against close rate and lead value.
   扩张：她与大型分销商签订合同，并与全球咨询公司合作，让他们部署和集成她的工具。她参加贸易展览以收集潜在客户，仔细衡量获取成本与成交率和潜在客户价值。

We’ll continue to use these five stages and correlate them to other frameworks as we did in Chapter 5. We’ll also outline the individual gates that you need to pass through as you move from one stage to the next.*
我们将继续使用这五个阶段，并将它们与其他框架相关联，就像我们在第 5 章所做的那样。我们还将概述在您从一阶段过渡到下一阶段时需要通过的各个关卡。

We care a lot about company stage because the metrics you focus on will be significantly impacted by the stage of your business. Premature focus or optimization of things that don’t really matter is a surefire way of killing your startup. So let’s dig into the five Lean Analytics stages.
我们非常关注公司阶段，因为您关注的指标将受到您业务阶段的影响。过早地关注或优化那些并不真正重要的事情是杀死您创业公司的可靠方式。所以让我们深入探讨精益分析的五个阶段。

EXERCISE |  Pick the Stage That You’re At

练习 | 选择你所在的阶段

What stage do you think you’re at? Write it down. After reading the following chapters on the five Lean Analytics stages, see if your answer changes. It will likely require more detail as well—zeroing in on a specific aspect of a stage that you’re focused on (for example, problem validation or solution validation in the Empathy stage). You may be overlapping between stages, too, so read them all before deciding.
你认为你处于哪个阶段？写下来。在阅读接下来的关于精益分析的五个阶段章节后，看看你的答案是否改变。很可能需要更多的细节——专注于你关注的特定阶段方面（例如，同理心阶段的“问题验证”或“解决方案验证”）。你可能处于多个阶段的重叠，所以决定之前请阅读所有阶段。

Stage One: Empathy

第一阶段：同理心

At the outset, you’re spending your time discovering what’s important to people and being empathetic to their problems. You’re searching through listening. You’re digging for opportunity through caring about others. Right now, your job isn’t to prove you’re smart, or that you’ve found a solution.
在一开始，你花时间发现人们重视什么，并对他们的问题表示同理心。你通过倾听来寻找。你通过关心他人来挖掘机会。现在，你的工作不是证明你很聪明，或者你找到了一个解决方案。

Your job is to get inside someone else’s head.
你的工作是进入别人的头脑里。

That means discovering and validating a problem and then finding out whether your proposed solution to that problem is likely to work.
这意味着发现并验证一个问题，然后找出你的解决方案是否可能有效。

Metrics for the Empathy Stage

同理心阶段的指标

In the Empathy stage, your focus is on gathering qualitative feedback, primarily through problem and solution interviews. Your goal is to find a problem worth solving and a solution that’s sufficiently good to garner early traction. You’re collecting this information by getting out of the building. If you haven’t gotten out of the building enough—and spoken to at least 15 people at each interviewing stage—you should be very concerned about rushing ahead.
在同理心阶段，你的重点是收集定性反馈，主要通过问题和解决方案访谈。你的目标是找到一个值得解决的问题和一个足够好的解决方案来获得早期支持。你通过“走出大楼”来收集这些信息。如果你没有足够多地“走出大楼”——在每个访谈阶段至少与 15 人交谈——你应该非常担心急于前进。

Early on, you’ll keep copious notes. Later, you might score the interviews to keep track of which needs and solutions were of the greatest interest, because this will tell you what features need to be in your minimum viable product (MVP).
早期，你会做大量的笔记。后来，你可能需要对访谈进行评分，以跟踪哪些需求和解决方案最感兴趣，因为这将告诉你你的最小可行产品（MVP）需要包含哪些功能。

This Is the Best Idea I’ve Ever Had! (or, How to Discover Problems Worth Solving)

这是我有史以来最好的想法！（或者，如何发现值得解决的问题）

Entrepreneurs are always coming up with ideas. While some people say “ideas are easy,” that’s not entirely true. Coming up with an idea is hard. Coming up with a good idea is harder. Coming up with an idea that you go out and validate to the point where it makes sense to build something is really, really hard.
企业家总是在提出想法。虽然有些人说“想法很容易”，但这并不完全正确。提出一个想法很困难。提出一个好想法更难。提出一个你出去验证到足以证明值得构建的想法，真的非常非常困难。

Problem (or idea) discovery often starts with listening. After all, people love to complain about their problems. But take their complaining with a grain of salt. You need to listen actively, almost aggressively, for the nugget of truth or the underlying pattern. Big, lucrative startups are often the result of wildly audacious solutions to problems people didn’t realize they had.
发现问题（或想法）通常从倾听开始。毕竟，人们喜欢抱怨他们的问题。但要带着一点盐来对待他们的抱怨。你需要积极、几乎是侵略性地倾听，以发现真理的种子或潜在的模式。大型、盈利性强的初创公司通常是由对人们没有意识到的问题的狂野大胆的解决方案产生的。

Discovery is the muse that launches startups.
发现是启动创业的灵感缪斯。

In some cases, you won’t need to discover a problem. It will be the reason you founded a startup in the first place. This is particularly true for enterprisefocused initiatives or startup efforts that happen within a willing host company. As an intrapreneur, you may have noticed a pattern in customer support issues that suggests the need for a new product. If you’re selling to enterprises, maybe you were an end user who realized something was missing, or a former employee of a vendor who saw an opportunity.
在某些情况下，你不需要去发现一个问题。它将是你成立创业公司的原因。这尤其适用于以企业为中心的倡议或在一个愿意的主公司内发生的创业努力。作为一名内部创业者，你可能在客户支持问题中注意到一个模式，这表明需要一款新产品。如果你在向企业销售，也许你是一个意识到某些缺失的最终用户，或者是一个前供应商员工，他看到了一个机会。

Your idea is simply a starting point. You should let it marinate awhile before jumping into it. We’re huge believers in doing things quickly, but there’s a difference between focused speed in a smart direction and being ridiculously hasty. Your first instinct will be to talk to your friends. This isn’t a genuine or measurable part of Lean Startup, but it’s not a bad first step. Ideally, you’ve got a group of friends, or trusted advisors, who are in and around the relevant space of interest, from whom you can get a quick reality check.
你的想法只是一个起点。你应该让它沉淀一段时间，然后再深入进去。我们非常相信快速行动，但专注的、明智方向的快速行动和胡乱行事之间是有区别的。你的第一反应是和你的朋友谈论。这不是精益创业中一个真实或可衡量的部分，但它是一个不错的初步步骤。理想情况下，你有一群朋友，或可信赖的顾问，他们处于相关领域内，你可以从他们那里快速得到一个现实检查。

Your trusted friends and advisors will give you their gut reaction (see—we don’t hate guts at all!), and if they’re not pandering to you or trying to avoid hurting your feelings, then you’ll get at least semi-honest feedback. You may also get some insight that you hadn’t thought of: information about competitors, target markets, different takes on the idea, and so on.
你可以信赖的朋友和顾问会给你他们的直觉反应（看——我们一点也不讨厌直觉！），如果他们不是在奉承你或试图避免伤害你的感情，那么你至少会得到一些半诚实的反馈。你还可能会得到一些你未曾想到的见解：关于竞争对手、目标市场、对想法的不同看法等等。

This quick “sniff test” is an excellent investment for the first few days after you get an idea, before committing any formal work to it. If the idea passes the sniff test, it’s time to apply the Lean Startup process.
这个快速的“嗅闻测试”是在你得到一个想法后的头几天里进行的一项绝佳投资，在你将其正式投入工作之前。如果这个想法通过了嗅闻测试，那么就是应用精益创业过程的时候了。

Finding a Problem to Fix (or, How to Validate a Problem)

寻找一个需要解决的问题（或者，如何验证一个问题）

The goal of the first Lean stage is to decide whether the problem is painful enough for enough people and to learn how they are currently trying to solve it. Let’s break down what that means:
第一个精益阶段的目标是决定这个问题是否对足够多的人来说足够痛苦，以及了解他们目前是如何尝试解决它的。让我们来分解一下这意味着什么：

The problem is painful enough

问题已经足够痛苦

People are full of inertia. You want them to act, and you want them to do so in a way that helps your business. This requires enough discomfort with their situation that they actually do what you want—signing up, paying your price, etc.
人们充满了惰性。你想让他们行动，并且你希望他们以有助于你业务的方式行动。这需要让他们对自身处境感到足够的困扰，以至于他们真的会做你希望他们做的事情——注册、支付你的价格等等。

Enough people care

有足够多的人关心

Solving a problem for one person is called consulting. You need an addressable market. Marketers want audiences that are homogeneous within (that is, members of the segment have things in common to which you can appeal) and heterogeneous between (that is, you can segment and target each market segment in a focused manner with a tailored message).
为一个人解决问题被称为咨询。你需要一个可衡量的市场。营销者想要内部同质（也就是说，该细分市场的成员有共同点，你可以利用这些共同点）且外部异质（也就是说，你可以细分并针对每个市场细分进行有针对性的方式，用定制的消息）。

They’re already trying to solve it

他们已经在试图解决这个问题了

If the problem is real and known, people are dealing with it somehow. Maybe they’re doing something manually, because they don’t have a better way. The current solution, whatever it is, will be your biggest competitor at first, because it’s the path of least resistance for people.
如果问题是真实且已知的，人们会以某种方式处理它。也许他们正在手动做某事，因为他们没有更好的方法。当前的解决方案，无论是什么，在最初将是你最大的竞争对手，因为它对人们来说是最省力的路径。

Note that in some cases, your market won’t know it has a problem. Before the Walkman, the minivan, or the tablet computer, people didn’t know they had a need—indeed, Apple’s ill-fated Newton a decade before the iPad showed that the need didn’t exist. In this case, rather than just testing for a problem people know they have, you’re also interested in what it takes to make them aware of the problem. If you’re going to have to “plow the snow” in your market, you want to know how much effort it will be so you can factor that into your business models.
注意，在某些情况下，你的市场可能不知道它有一个问题。在 Walkman、多功能旅行车或平板电脑出现之前，人们不知道他们有这个需求——事实上，十年前牛顿在 iPad 出现之前的失败表明这个需求并不存在。在这种情况下，除了测试人们已知的问题之外，你还感兴趣的是需要什么才能让他们意识到这个问题。如果你将不得不“在市场上铲雪”，你希望知道需要多少努力，这样你就可以将其纳入你的商业模式中。

You need to validate each of these (and a few more things too) before moving to the next stage. And analytics plays a key role in doing so.
你需要在进入下一阶段之前验证这些（以及其他一些事情）。而分析在这个过程中起着关键作用。

Initially, as we’ve pointed out, you’ll use qualitative metrics to measure whether or not the problem you’ve identified is worth pursuing. You start this process by conducting problem interviews with prospective customers.
如我们所指出的，最初，您将使用定性指标来衡量您所识别的问题是否值得追求。您开始这个过程是通过与潜在客户进行问题访谈。

We suggest that you speak with 15 prospective customers to start. After the first handful of interviews, you’ll likely see patterns emerging already. Don’t stop talking to people. Once you get to 15 interviews, you should have the validation (or invalidation) that you need to help clarify the next steps.
我们建议您先与 15 位潜在客户交谈。在前几次访谈后，您可能会已经看到一些模式出现。不要停止与人们交谈。一旦您达到 15 次访谈，您应该获得足够的验证（或无效验证）来帮助明确下一步的计划。

If you can’t find 15 people to talk to, well, imagine how hard it’s going to be to sell to them. So suck it up and get out of the office. Otherwise, you’re wasting time and money building something nobody wants.
如果您找不到 15 个人交谈，那么，想象一下向他们销售将有多难。所以，鼓起勇气，离开办公室。否则，您是在浪费时间和金钱，为没有人想要的东西构建东西。

While the data you’re collecting at this stage is qualitative, it has to be material enough so that you can honestly say, “Yes, this problem is painful enough that I should go ahead and build a solution.” One customer doesn’t make a market. You can’t speak with a few people, get generic positive feedback, and decide it’s worth jumping in.
虽然在这个阶段您收集的数据是定性的，但它必须足够重要，以至于您可以诚实地说：“是的，这个问题足够痛苦，以至于我应该继续构建一个解决方案。”一个客户并不能构成一个市场。您不能与几个人交谈，得到一些笼统的积极反馈，然后决定值得跳进去。

PATTERN Signs You’ve Found a Problem Worth Tackling

发现值得解决的问题的迹象

The key to qualitative data is patterns and pattern recognition. Here are a few positive patterns to look out for when interviewing people:
定性数据的关键在于模式和模式识别。在采访人们时，要注意以下几种积极模式：

• They want to pay you right away.
• 他们想立即付钱给你。
• They’re actively trying to (or have tried to) solve the problem in question.
• 他们正在积极尝试（或已经尝试过）解决所提到的问题。
• They talk a lot and ask a lot of questions demonstrating a passion for the problem.
• 他们谈论很多，问很多问题，表现出对问题的热情。
• They lean forward and are animated (positive body language).
• 他们身体前倾，表情生动（积极的肢体语言）。

Here are a few negative patterns to look out for:
以下是一些需要警惕的负面模式：

• They’re distracted.
• 他们分心。
• They talk a lot, but it’s not about the problem or the issues at hand (they’re rambling).
• 他们说得很多，但不是关于问题或当前的问题（他们在闲聊）。
• Their shoulders are slumped or they’re slouching in their chairs (negative body language).
• 他们的肩膀耷拉着，或者他们坐在椅子上缩着背（消极的身体语言）。

At the end of the problem interviews, it’s time for a gut check. Ask yourself: “am I prepared to spend the next five years of my life doing nothing else but solving the problem in question?”
在问题访谈结束后，是时候进行直觉检查了。问问自己：“我准备好在接下来五年里除了解决当前的问题之外不做其他任何事情了吗？”

PATTERN Running Lean and How to Conduct a Good Interview

PATTERN 运营精益化以及如何进行一次好的面试

Ash Maurya is one of the leaders in the Lean Startup movement. He’s experimented and documented Lean Startup practices for several years with his own startups, and he wrote a great book called Running Lean (O’Reilly). It’s a good complement to this book.
阿什·莫里亚是精益创业运动中的领导者之一。多年来，他通过自己的创业公司进行了实验和记录精益创业实践，并写了一本很棒的书，名为《精益创业》（奥莱利）。这本书是一个很好的补充。

Ash describes a prescriptive, systematic approach for interviewing people during the early stages of the Lean Startup process.
阿什描述了在精益创业过程的早期阶段对人们进行访谈的一种规范性、系统性的方法。

For starters, you need to conduct problem interviews. You decouple the solution (which we know you’re excited about!) from the problem, and focus on the problem alone. The goal is to find a problem worth solving. And remember, customers are tired of solutions—they get pitched continually on magical doohickeys that will make their lives easier. But most of the time, the people pitching don’t understand the customers’ real problems.
首先，你需要进行问题访谈。你要将解决方案（我们知道你对此很兴奋！）与问题分离，并专注于问题本身。目标是找到一个值得解决的问题。记住，客户对解决方案已经厌倦了——他们不断地被推销那些将使他们的生活更轻松的神奇小玩意。但大多数时候，推销的人并不理解客户的真正问题。

Here are some tips from Ash and Running Lean for conducting good interviews:
这里有一些来自阿什和《精益创业》进行良好访谈的建议：

• Aim for face-to-face interviews. You not only want to hear what people are saying, you also want to see how they’re saying it. People are generally much less distracted when meeting face-to-face, so you’ll get a higher quality of response.
• 争取面对面访谈。你不仅想听到人们说什么，还想知道他们是如何表达的。人们面对面交谈时通常注意力更集中，所以你能得到更高质量的回应。
• Pick a neutral location. If you go to a subject’s office, it’s going to feel more like a sales pitch. Find a coffee shop or something casual.
• 选择一个中立的地方。如果你去受访者的办公室，会感觉更像是销售演讲。找一个咖啡馆或休闲的地方。
• Avoid recording interviews. Ash notes that in his experience, subjects get more self-conscious if the interview is being recorded, and the quality of interviews subsequently drops.
• 避免录音访谈。Ash 指出，根据他的经验，如果访谈被录音，受访者会变得更加拘谨，访谈质量也会随之下降。
• Make sure you have a script. While you may adjust the script a bit over time, you’re not tweaking it constantly in order to “get the answers you want” or rig anything in your favor. You have to stay honest throughout the process.
• 确保你有一个脚本。虽然你可能随着时间的推移会调整脚本，但你不会不断地调整它以“得到你想要的答案”或偏袒任何一方。你必须在整个过程中保持诚实。

The script is probably the hardest thing to do well. Early on, you may not even be sure what questions to ask. In fact, that’s why surveys don’t work at an early stage—you just don’t know what to ask in order to collect meaningful information. But a script will give you enough consistency from interview to interview that you can compare notes.
脚本可能是最难做好的事情。早期，你可能甚至不确定要问什么问题。事实上，这就是为什么在早期阶段调查不起作用——你不知道该问什么才能收集到有意义的信息。但脚本能在访谈之间提供足够的连贯性，这样你就可以比较笔记了。

Most of the problem interview is fairly open-ended. You want to give subjects the opportunity to tell you whatever they want to, and you want them to do so in a comfortable free-form manner.
大多数问题访谈都是相当开放式的。你想给受访者机会，让他们想说什么就说什么，并且让他们以舒适的自由形式这样做。

In Running Lean, Ash provides a very good breakdown of interview cripts. We’ve summarized the problem interview script as follows:
在《精益创业》中，Ash 对访谈脚本做了非常好的分解。我们将问题访谈脚本总结如下：

• Briefly set the stage for how the interview works. This is the point where you tell the interviewee what you’re going to tell (or ask) her. Highlight the goals of the interview to put the interviewee in the right frame of mind.
• 简要说明访谈是如何进行的。这是你告诉（或询问）受访者你将要告诉（或询问）她的地方。突出访谈的目标，让受访者进入正确的状态。
• Test the customer segment by collecting demographics. Ask the subject some basic questions to learn more about her and understand what market segment she represents. These questions depend a great deal on the types of people you speak to. Ultimately, you want to learn about their business or their lifestyle (in the context of the problems you’re proposing to solve), and learn more about their role.
• 通过收集人口统计数据来测试客户群体。向受访者提出一些基本问题，以了解更多关于她的信息，并了解她代表的市场群体。这些问题很大程度上取决于你与哪些人交谈。最终，你想了解他们的业务或他们的生活方式（在你试图解决的问题的背景下），并了解更多关于他们的角色。
• Set the problem context by telling a story. Connect with the subject by walking her through how you identified the problems you’re hoping to solve, and why you think these problems matter. If you’re scratching your own itch, this will be a lot easier. If you don’t understand the problems clearly, or you don’t have good hypotheses for the problems you’re looking to solve, it’s going to show at this point.
• 通过讲故事来设定问题背景。通过与受访者一起回顾你如何识别出希望解决的问题，以及为什么你认为这些问题很重要，来与她建立联系。如果你在解决自己的问题，这将很容易。如果你对问题理解不清楚，或者你没有好的假设来解决问题，这一点将会暴露出来。
• Test the problem by getting the subject to rank the problems. Restate the problems you’ve described and ask the subject to rank them in order of importance. Don’t dig too deeply, but make sure to ask her if there are other related problems that you didn’t touch on.
• 通过让受访者对问题进行排序来测试问题。重述你描述的问题，并要求受访者按重要性排序。不要挖掘得太深，但要确保问她是否有其他相关的问题，这些问题你没有涉及。
• Test the solution. Explore the subject’s worldview. Hand things over to the customer and listen. Go through each problem—in the order the subject ranked them—and ask the subject how she solves it today. There’s no more script. Just let the subject talk. This is the point in the interview when you can really do a qualitative assessment of whether or not you’ve found problems worth solving. It may go well, with subjects begging you to solve the problem, or you might get a resounding “meh,” in which case there’s a clear disconnect between your business and the real world.
• 测试解决方案。探索主题的世界观。把事情交给客户并倾听。按照主题对问题排序的顺序，逐一讨论每个问题，并询问主题她现在如何解决这些问题。这里没有更多的脚本，只是让主题自由交谈。这是访谈中你可以真正进行定性评估，判断是否找到了值得解决的问题的时刻。可能会很顺利，主题会恳求你解决问题，或者你可能会得到一个响亮的“还行”，这表明你的业务与现实世界之间存在明显的脱节。

• Ask for something now that you’re done. You don’t want to discuss your solution at length here, because it will feel too much like a sales call, but you should use a high-level pitch to keep the subject excited. Ideally, you want her to agree to do a solution interview with you when you’re ready with something to show—these initial subjects can become your first customers—and you want her to refer other people like her so you can do more interviews.
• 现在请求一些东西。你不想在这里详细讨论你的解决方案，因为这会感觉太像一次销售电话，但你应该使用一个高级别的推销来保持主题的热情。理想情况下，你希望她同意在你准备好要展示的东西时与你进行解决方案访谈——这些初始主题可以成为你的第一批客户——并且你希望她能推荐其他像她一样的人，这样你就可以进行更多的访谈。

As you can tell, there’s a lot that goes into conducting a good interview. You won’t be great at it the first time, but that’s OK. Hopefully some of what we’ve covered here and other resources will give you the tools you need. Get a good script in place, practice it, and get out there as quickly as you can. After a handful of interviews, you’ll be very comfortable with the process and you’ll start seeing trends and collecting information that’s incredibly valuable. You’ll also be immeasurably better at stating the problem clearly and succinctly, and you’ll collect anecdotes that will help with blogger outreach, investor discussions, and marketing collateral.
如你所见，进行一次好的访谈需要考虑很多因素。你第一次可能不会做得很好，但这没关系。希望我们在这里涵盖的内容和其他资源能为你提供所需的工具。制定一个好的访谈脚本，练习它，然后尽快开始。经过几次访谈后，你会非常熟悉这个过程，并开始看到趋势，收集非常有价值的信息。你还会在陈述问题时变得更加清晰简洁，并收集有助于博主推广、投资者讨论和营销材料的故事。

Qualitative metrics are all about trends. You’re trying to tease out the truth by identifying patterns in people’s feedback. You have to be an exceptionally good listener, at once empathetic and dispassionate. You have to be a great detective, chasing the “red threads” of the underlying narrative, the commonalities between multiple interviewees that suggest the right direction. Ultimately, those patterns become the things you test quantitatively, at scale. You’re looking for hypotheses.
定性指标都是关于趋势的。你试图通过识别人们反馈中的模式来揭示真相。你必须是一个出色的倾听者，既要有同理心，又要有客观性。你必须像一个伟大的侦探一样，追寻“红线”背后的叙事，即多个受访者之间的共性，这些共性暗示着正确的方向。最终，这些模式将成为你大规模定量测试的假设。你正在寻找的是假设。

The reality of qualitative metrics is that they turn wild hunches—your gut instinct, that nagging feeling in the back of your mind—into educated guesses you can run with. Unfortunately, because they’re subjective and gathered interactively, qualitative metrics are the ones that are easiest to fake.
定性指标的现实是，它们能将狂野的猜测——你的直觉、你脑海中那个烦人的感觉——转化为可以付诸行动的明智猜测。不幸的是，因为它们是主观的并且是交互式收集的，所以定性指标是最容易伪造的。

While quantitative metrics can be wrong, they don’t lie. You might be collecting the wrong numbers, making statistical errors, or misinterpreting the results, but the raw data itself is right. Qualitative metrics are notoriously easy for you to bias. If you’re not ruthlessly honest, you’ll hear what you want to hear in interviews. We love to believe what we already believe— and our subjects love to agree with us.
虽然定量指标可能出错，但它们不会撒谎。你可能会收集错误的数字，犯统计错误，或者误解结果，但原始数据本身是正确的。定性指标很容易让你产生偏见。如果你不冷酷地诚实，你会在采访中听到你想要听到的东西。我们喜欢相信我们本来就相信的东西——而且我们的受访者也喜欢同意我们。

PATTERN |  How to Avoid Leading the Witness

模式 | 如何避免引导证人

We’re a weak, shallow species. Human beings tend to tell you what they think you want to hear. We go along with the herd and side with the majority. This has disastrous effects on the results you get from respondents: you don’t want to make something nobody wants, but everybody lies about wanting it. What’s a founder to do?
我们是一种软弱、肤浅的物种。人类倾向于告诉你他们认为你想听到的。我们随波逐流，附和多数人。这对受访者得到的结果有灾难性的影响：你不想制作出没人想要的东西，但每个人都撒谎说想要它。创始人该怎么做？

You can’t change people’s fundamental nature. Response bias is a wellunderstood type of cognitive bias, exploited by political campaigners to get the answer they want by leading the witness (this is known as push polling).
你无法改变人们的本性。响应偏差是一种认知偏差，政治活动家会利用它来引导证人说出他们想要的答案（这被称为引导性民调）。

You can, however, do four things: don’t tip your hand, make the question real, keep digging, and look for other clues.
然而，你可以做四件事：不要泄露你的意图，让问题变得真实，继续挖掘，并寻找其他线索。

Don’t Tip Your Hand

不要泄露你的意图

We’re surprisingly good at figuring out what someone else wants from us. The people you interview will do everything they can, at a subconscious level, to guess what you want them to say. They’ll pick up on a variety of cues.
我们在猜测别人想要什么方面做得相当好。你采访的人会在潜意识层面做一切他们能做的事来猜测你想让他们说什么。他们会注意到各种各样的线索。

• Biased wording, such as “do you agree that…” is one such cue. This leads to an effect called acquiescence bias, where a respondent will try to agree with the positive statement. You can get around this by asking people the opposite of what you’re hoping they’ll say—if they are willing to disagree with you in order to express their need for a particular solution, that’s a stronger signal that you’ve found a problem worth solving.
• 带有偏见的措辞，例如“你是否同意……”就是一种这样的提示。这会导致一种称为“顺从偏差”的效果，受访者会试图同意这个积极的陈述。你可以通过问人们与你希望他们说的话相反的问题来避免这种情况——如果他们愿意不同意你以表达他们对某个特定解决方案的需求，那表明你已经找到了一个值得解决的问题。
• This is one reason why, early in the customer development process, open-ended questions are useful: they color the answers less and give the respondent a chance to ramble.
• 这也是为什么在客户开发过程的早期，开放式问题是有用的：它们对答案的引导较少，并给受访者一个机会来随意发挥。
• Preconceptions are another strong influencer. If the subject knows things about you, he’ll likely go along with them. For example, he’ll answer more positively to questions on the need for environmental protection if he knows you’re a vegetarian. The fewer things he knows about you, the less he’ll be able to skew things. Anonymity can be a useful asset here; this is a big reason to keep your mouth shut and let him talk, and to work from a standardized script.
• 先入为主的观念是另一个强大的影响因素。如果受访者了解你的一些事情，他可能会顺着你的思路走。例如，如果他知道你是素食主义者，他会更积极地回答关于环境保护的必要性问题。他了解你的事情越少，他就越不能歪曲事情。匿名性在这里可以是一个有用的资产；这是让你保持沉默并让他说话，并使用标准化脚本的一个大原因。
• Other social cues come from appearance. Everything in your demeanor gives the respondent clues about how to answer you. These days, it’s probably hard for you to hide details about yourself,
• 其他社交线索来自外表。你的一举一动都给受访者提供了关于如何回答你的线索。如今，你可能很难隐藏自己的细节。

since we live fairly transparently online and you may have met your respondents through social networks. But you’ll get better data if you dress blandly and act in a manner that doesn’t take strong positions or give off signals.
既然我们在网上生活得相当透明，你可能在社交网络上遇到过你的受访者。但你如果穿着平淡无奇、行为不表态或发出信号，你会得到更好的数据。

Make the Questions Real

让问题变得真实

One way to get the real answer is to make the person uncomfortable.
一种获得真实答案的方式是让那个人感到不舒服。

People only get really interesting when they start to rattle the bars of their cages. Alain de Botton, author and philosopher
当人们开始挑战他们笼子的栏杆时，他们才会变得真正有趣。阿兰·德波顿，作家和哲学家

Next time you’re interviewing someone, instead of asking “Would you use this product?” (and getting a meaningless, but well-intentioned, “yes”), ask for a \100$ pre-order payment. You’ll likely get a resounding “no.” And that’s where the interesting stuff starts.
下次你面试某人时，不要问“你会使用这个产品吗？”（然后得到一个虽然善意但无意义的“是”），而是要求他们预付 100 美元。你可能会得到一个响亮的“不”。而这就是有趣的事情开始的地方。

Asking someone for money will definitely rattle her cage. Will it make both of you uncomfortable? Absolutely. Should you care? Not if you’re interested in building something people will actually pay for.
向某人要钱肯定会让他/她的笼子摇动。这会让你/她感到不舒服吗？当然。你应该在乎吗？如果你感兴趣的是构建人们真正愿意为之付费的东西，就不必在乎。

The more concrete you can make the question, the more real the answer. Get subjects to purchase, rather than indicating preference. Ask them to open their wallets. Get the names of five friends they’re sure will use the product, and request introductions. Suddenly, they’re invested. There’s a real cost to acting on your behalf. This discomfort will quickly wash away the need to be liked, and will show you how people really feel.
你能多具体地提出问题，答案就会多真实。让受访者购买，而不是仅仅表示偏好。让他们打开钱包。获取他们确信会使用产品的五个朋友的名字，并要求介绍。突然间，他们就有了投资。为你做事真的有成本。这种不适感会迅速消除被喜欢的需要，并会显示出人们真实的感受。

One other trick to overcome a subject’s desire to please an interviewer is to ask her how her friends would act. Asking “Do you smoke pot?” might make someone answer untruthfully to avoid moral criticism, but asking “What percentage of your friends smoke pot?” is likely to get an accurate answer that still reflects the person’s perception of the overall population.
另一个克服受访者想要讨好面试官的技巧是询问她的朋友们会怎么做。问“你抽大麻吗？”可能会让人为了避免道德批评而撒谎，但问“你朋友中有百分之多少抽大麻？”则可能得到一个准确的答案，同时仍然反映人们对整体人群的看法。

Keep Digging

继续挖掘

A great trick for customer development interviews is to ask “why?” three times. It might make you sound like a two-year-old, but it works. Ask a question; wait for the person to finish. Pause for three seconds (which signals to her that you’re listening, and also makes sure she was really done). Then ask why.
在客户开发访谈中，一个很棒的技巧是连续问“为什么？”三次。这可能会让你听起来像是个两岁的孩子，但它确实有效。问一个问题；等对方说完。停顿三秒钟（这会向她表明你在听，同时确保她真的说完了）。然后问为什么。

By asking “why?” several times, you force a respondent to explain the reasoning behind a statement. Often, the reasoning will be inconsistent or contradictory. That’s good—it means you’ve identified the gap between what people say they will do and what they will actually do.
通过多次问“为什么？”，你迫使受访者解释他们说法背后的理由。通常，这些理由会不一致或自相矛盾。那很好——这意味着你发现了人们所说的和他们实际会做之间的差距。

As an entrepreneur, you care about the latter; it’s hard to convince people to act against their inner, moral compasses. “Anyone who values truth,” says Jonathan Haidt, author of The Righteous Mind (Pantheon), “should stop worshipping reason.” The reasoning of your interview subjects is far less interesting than their true beliefs and motivations.
作为一名企业家，你更关心后者；很难让人们违背他们内心的道德准则行事。“任何重视真理的人，”道德直觉的作者乔纳森·海德说，“都应该停止崇拜理性。”你访谈对象的说理远不如他们的真实信念和动机有趣。

You can also take a cue from interrogators and leave lingering, uncomfortable silences in the interview—your subject is likely to fill that empty air with useful, relevant insights or colorful anecdotes that can reveal a lot about her problems and needs.
你还可以从审讯者那里得到启发，在访谈中留下令人不安的沉默——你的访谈对象很可能会用有用的、相关的见解或生动的轶事来填补这空荡荡的空气，这些可以揭示很多关于她的问题和需求。

Look for Other Clues

寻找其他线索

Much of what people say isn’t verbal. While the amount of nonverbal communication has been widely overstated in popular research, body language often conveys feelings and emotions more than words do. Nervous tics and “tells” can reveal when someone is uncomfortable with a statement, or looking to another person for authority, for example.
人们所说的大部分内容都不是口头表达的。虽然非语言交流的数量在流行研究中被广泛夸大，但肢体语言往往比语言更能传达情感和情绪。例如，紧张的小动作和“破绽”可以揭示当某人对某个陈述感到不舒服，或者在看另一个人寻求权威时。

When you’re interviewing someone, you need to be directly engaged with that person. Have a colleague tag along and take notes with you, and ask him to watch for nonverbal signals as well. This will help you build a bond with the subject and focus on her answers, and still capture important subliminal messages.
在面试某人时，你需要直接与对方互动。让同事和你一起做笔记，并让他留意非语言信号。这将帮助你与受访者建立联系，专注于她的回答，同时捕捉重要的潜意识信息。

And never forget to ask the “Columbo” question. Like Peter Falk’s TV detective, save one disarming, unexpected question for the very end, after you’ve said your goodbyes. This will often catch people off guard, and can be used to confirm or repudiate something significant they’ve said in the interview.
永远不要忘记问“科洛姆”问题。像彼得·法尔的电视侦探一样，在告别后，保留一个令人意想不到的问题。这通常会让人们措手不及，并可以用来确认或否认他们在面试中说过的重要事情。

Convergent and Divergent Problem Interviews

聚合和发散问题面试

As we wrote this book, we tested out several ideas on entrepreneurs and blog readers. One of the more contentious ideas we discussed was that of scoring problem validation interviews. Several readers felt that this was a good idea, allowing them to understand how well their discovery of needs was proceeding and to rate the demand for a solution. Others protested, sometimes vociferously: scoring was a bad idea, because it interfered with the open, speculative nature of this stage.
在我们写这本书的过程中，我们向创业者和博客读者测试了几个想法。我们讨论的一个更具争议性的想法是评分问题验证面试。一些读者觉得这是一个好主意，让他们了解需求发现的进展情况，并评估解决方案的需求。其他人则表示反对，有时甚至激烈地反对：评分是一个坏主意，因为它干扰了这个阶段的开放性和推测性。

We’ll share our scoring framework later in the book. First, however, we’d like to propose a compromise: problem validation can actually happen in two distinct stages.
我们稍后在书中会分享我们的评分框架。首先，不过，我们想提出一个折衷方案：问题验证实际上可以分成两个不同的阶段。

While the goal of a problem interview is always the same—decide if you have enough information and confidence to move to the next stage—the tactics to achieve this do vary.
虽然问题访谈的目标始终如一——决定你是否拥有足够的信息和信心进入下一阶段，但实现这一目标的策略却有所不同。

In Ash Maurya’s framework from earlier in this chapter, he suggests telling a story first to create context around the problem. Then he suggests introducing more specific problems and asking interviewees to rank them. This is a convergent approach: it’s directed, focused, and intended to quantify the urgency and prevalence of the problems, so you can compare the many issues you’ve identified. In a convergent problem interview, you’re zeroing in on specifics—and while you want interviewees to speak freely, and the interviews aren’t heavily structured—you’re not on a fishing expedition with no idea what you’re fishing for.
在本章前面提到的 Ash Maurya 的框架中，他建议首先讲述一个故事来为问题创造背景。然后他建议引入更具体的问题并要求受访者对它们进行排序。这是一种收敛方法：它是有方向性、专注的，旨在量化问题的紧迫性和普遍性，以便你可以比较你已确定的所有问题。在收敛式问题访谈中，你正专注于具体问题——虽然你希望受访者自由发言，而且访谈不是高度结构化的——但你不是在没有明确目标的情况下进行盲目搜索。

A convergent problem interview gives you a clear course of action at the risk of focusing too narrowly on the problems that you think matter, rather than freeing interviewees to identify other problems that may be more important to them. For example, you might steer subjects back to your line of questioning at the expense of having them reveal an unexpected adjacent market or need.
收敛性问题访谈会让你在专注于你认为重要的问题的同时，冒着过于狭隘的风险，而不是让受访者去发现对他们来说可能更重要的问题。例如，你可能会把受访者引回到你的问题上来，而牺牲了让他们揭示一个意想不到的相邻市场或需求的机会。

On the other hand, a divergent problem interview is much more speculative, intended to broaden your search for something useful you might go build. In this type of problem interview, you’re discussing a big problem space (healthcare, task management, transportation, booking a vacation, etc.) with interviewees, and letting them tell you what problems they have. You’re not suggesting problems and asking them to rank them. You probably have a problem or two that you’re looking to identify, and you’ll measure the success of the interviews, in part, by how often interviewees mention those problems (without you having done so first).
另一方面，发散性问题访谈则更加推测性，旨在拓宽你寻找可能去构建的有用事物的搜索范围。在这种类型的问题访谈中，你和受访者讨论一个大的问题空间（如医疗保健、任务管理、交通、预订假期等），并让他们告诉你他们有什么问题。你并不是提出问题并让他们进行排序。你可能有一两个问题正在寻找，你将通过受访者是否提及这些问题（而你没有首先提及）来衡量访谈的成功。

The risk with a divergent problem interview is that you venture too broadly on too many issues and never get interviewees to focus. Divergent problem interviews run the risk of giving you too many problems, or not enough similar problems, and no clarity on what to do next.
发散式问题访谈的风险在于你过于广泛地涉及太多问题，导致受访者无法集中注意力。发散式问题访谈可能会给你带来太多问题，或者不够相似的问题，并且无法明确下一步该做什么。

It takes practice to strike the right balance when doing interviews. On the one hand, you want to give interviewees the opportunity to tell you what they want, but you have to be ready to focus them when you think you’ve found something worthwhile. At the same time, you shouldn’t hammer away at the problems you’re presenting if they’re not resonating.
做访谈时找到合适的平衡点需要练习。一方面，你想给受访者机会告诉你要什么，但当你认为找到了有价值的东西时，你必须准备好引导他们。同时，如果你提出的问题没有引起共鸣，就不应该一直追问。

If you’re just starting out, and really focused on an exploratory exercise, then try a divergent problem interview. Scoring in this case is less relevant. Collect initial feedback and see how many of the problems people freely described to you match up. If that goes well, you can move to convergent problem interviews with other people and see if the problems resonate at a larger scale.
如果你刚开始，并且非常专注于探索性练习，那么可以尝试发散式问题访谈。在这种情况下，评分就不那么重要了。收集初步反馈，看看人们自由描述的问题中有多少与你匹配。如果效果不错，你可以转移到与其他人进行收敛式问题访谈，看看这些问题在更大范围内是否依然有共鸣。

How Do I Know If the Problem Is Really Painful Enough?

我如何知道这个问题是否真的足够痛苦？

While the data you’ve collected to this point is qualitative, there are ways of helping you quantify that data to make an informed decision on whether you want to move forward or not. Ultimately, the One Metric That Matters here is pain—specifically, your interviewees’ pain as it pertains to the problems you’ve shared with them. So how can you measure pain?
虽然你到目前为止收集到的数据是定性的，但有一些方法可以帮助你量化这些数据，以便就你是否要继续前进做出明智的决策。最终，这里的关键指标是痛苦——具体来说，是指你与受访者分享的问题中，受访者感受到的痛苦。那么，如何衡量痛苦呢？

A simple approach is to score your problem interviews. This is not perfectly scientific; your scoring will be somewhat arbitrary, but if you have someone assisting you during the interviews and taking good notes it should be possible to score things consistently and get value out of this exercise.
一种简单的方法是给你的问题访谈打分。这并不完全科学；你的评分会有一定的任意性，但如果你在访谈时有一个人协助你并做好的笔记，那么你应该能够一致地评分并从这次练习中获得价值。

There are a few criteria you can score against based on the questions you’ve asked in a convergent problem interview. Each answer has a weight; by adding the results up, you’ll have a sense of where you stand.
你可以根据你在收敛性问题访谈中提出的问题，根据几个标准来打分。每个答案都有一个权重；通过把这些结果加起来，你将了解你的现状。

After completing each interview, ask yourself the following questions.
完成每次访谈后，问自己以下问题。

Even in a convergent problem interview where you’ve focused on a specific set of problems, the interview is open-ended enough to allow interviewees to discuss other issues. That’s completely fine, and is extremely important. There’s nothing that says the problems you’ve presented are the right ones—that’s precisely what you’re trying to measure and justify. So stay open-minded throughout the process.
即使在针对特定问题集的收敛性问题面试中，面试也是开放式的，允许面试者讨论其他问题。这完全没问题，而且非常重要。没有任何规定你提出的问题是正确的——这正是你试图衡量和证明的。所以在整个过程中保持开放的心态。

For the purposes of scoring the interview and measuring pain, a bad score means the interview is a failure—the interviewee’s pain with the problems you’re considering isn’t substantial enough if she spends all her time talking about other problems she has. A failed interview is OK; it may lead you to something even more interesting and save you a lot of heartache.
为了给面试打分和衡量痛苦程度，一个差的分数意味着面试失败——如果面试者把所有时间都花在谈论她考虑的其他问题上，那么她对你所考虑问题的痛苦程度就不够。面试失败是可以接受的；它可能会引导你发现更有趣的东西，并为你节省很多痛苦。

The more effort the interviewee has put into trying to solve the problems you’re discussing, the better.
面试者在你讨论的问题上付出的努力越多，越好。

Ideally, your interviewees were completely engaged in the process: listening, talking (being animated is a good thing), leaning forward, and so on. After enough interviews you’ll know the difference between someone who’s focused and engaged, and someone who is not.
理想情况下，你的受访者完全投入了整个过程：倾听、交谈（表现得热情一些是好事）、身体前倾等等。进行足够多的访谈后，你将能区分出专注投入的人和那些不投入的人。

The point totals for this question are lower than the previous two. For one, engagement in an interview is harder to measure; it’s more subjective than the other questions. We also don’t want to weigh engagement in the interview as heavily—it’s just not as important. Someone may seem somewhat disengaged but has spent the last five years trying to solve the problems you’re discussing. That’s someone with a lot of pain . . . maybe he’s just easily distracted.
这个问题的得分点比前两个要低。一方面，面试中的投入程度更难衡量；它比其他问题更主观。我们也不希望过分重视面试中的投入程度——它并不那么重要。某人可能看起来有些投入不足，但实际上已经花费了五年时间试图解决你们正在讨论的问题。那是一个有强烈痛点的人……也许他只是容易分心。

The goal of the problem interview is to discover a problem painful enough that you know people want it solved. And ideally, the people you’re speaking to are begging you for the solution. The next step in the process is the solution interview, so if you get there with people that’s a good sign.
问题面试的目标是发现一个足够痛苦的问题，以至于你知道人们想要它被解决。理想情况下，你正在与之交谈的人正恳求你提供解决方案。过程的下一步是解决方案面试，如果你能带着人们到达那里，这是一个好迹象。

At the end of every interview, you should be asking for referrals to other interviewees. There’s a good chance the people your subjects recommend are similar in demographics and share the same problems.
在每次面试结束时，你应该要求他们推荐其他面试候选人。你的受访者推荐的人很可能在人口统计方面相似，并且面临相同的问题。

Perhaps more importantly at this stage, you want to see if the subjects are willing to help out further by referring people in their network.  This is a clear indicator that they don’t feel sheepish about introducing you, and that they think you’ll make them look smarter. If they found you annoying, they likely won’t suggest others you might speak with.
也许在这个阶段，更重要的是，你想看看受访者是否愿意通过推荐他们网络中的人来提供进一步的帮助。这是一个明确的迹象，表明他们不觉得在介绍你时很尴尬，而且他们认为你会让他们看起来更聪明。如果他们觉得你很烦人，他们很可能不会建议其他人你可能会交谈。

Although having someone offer you money is more likely during the solution interviews (when you’re actually walking through the solution with people), this is still a good “gut check” moment. And certainly it’s a bonus if people are reaching for their wallets.
虽然在解决方案面试中（当你实际与人们一起探讨解决方案时）更有可能有人向你提供资金，但这仍然是一个很好的“直觉检查”时刻。当然，如果人们伸手去拿钱包，那更是个不错的信号。

Calculating the Scores

计算分数

A score of 31 or higher is a good score. Anything under is not. Try scoring all the interviews, and see how many have a good score. This is a decent indication of whether you’re onto something or not with the problems you want to solve. Then ask yourself what makes the good-score interviews different from the bad-score ones. Maybe you’ve identified a market segment, maybe you have better results when you dress well, maybe you shouldn’t do interviews in a coffee shop. Everything is an experiment you can learn from.
得分 31 分或以上是一个好分数。低于这个分数则不算。尝试给所有面试打分，看看有多少个面试得分较高。这可以很好地表明你是否在解决问题的方向上有所进展。然后问问自己，得分高的面试和得分低的面试有什么不同。也许你已确定了市场细分，也许当你穿着得体时效果更好，也许你不应该在咖啡馆进行面试。一切都是你可以从中学习的实验。

You can also sum up the rankings for the problems that you presented. If you presented three problems, which one had the most first-place rankings? That’s where you’ll want to dig in further and start proposing solutions (during solution interviews).
你还可以总结你提出的那些问题的排名。如果你提出了三个问题，哪一个问题获得了最多的第一名？这就是你想要深入挖掘并提出解决方案（在解决方案面试中）的地方。

The best-case scenario is very high interview scores within a subsection of interviewees where those interviewees all had the same (or very similar) rankings of the problems. That should give you  more confidence  that you’ve found the right problem and the right market.
最理想的情况是在面试者的一个子集中，这些面试者对问题的排名相同（或非常相似）。这应该让你更有信心，你找到了正确的问题和正确的市场。

CASE STUDY Cloud9 IDE Interviews Existing Customers

案例研究：Cloud9 IDE 面试现有客户

Cloud9 IDE is a cloud-based integrated development environment (IDE) that enables web and mobile developers to work together and collaborate in remote teams anywhere, anytime. The platform is primarily for JavaScript and Node.js applications, but it’s expanding to support other languages as well. The company has raised Series A financing from Accel and Atlassian.
Cloud9 IDE 是一个基于云的集成开发环境（IDE），它使 Web 和移动开发人员能够一起合作，在任何时间、任何地点的远程团队中协作。该平台主要用于 JavaScript 和 Node.js 应用程序，但它也在扩展以支持其他语言。该公司已从 Accel 和 Atlassian 获得系列 A 融资。

Although the Cloud9 IDE team is well past the initial problem interview stage, they regularly speak with customers and engage in systematic customer development. Product Manager Ivar Pruijn says, “We’re close to product/market fit, and it helps us a great deal to speak with customers, understanding if we’re meeting their needs and how they’re using our product.”
虽然 Cloud9 IDE 团队已经过了初始问题面试阶段，但他们定期与客户交谈并参与系统的客户开发。产品经理 Ivar Pruijn 说：“我们接近产品/市场契合，与客户交谈有助于我们了解我们是否满足他们的需求以及他们如何使用我们的产品。”

Ivar took the scoring framework outlined previously and modified some of the questions for the types of interviews he was doing. “Since we’re now speaking with customers using our product, we asked slightly different questions, but we scored them just the same,” he says. The first two questions that Ivar asked himself after conducting an interview were:
Ivar 采用了之前概述的评分框架，并根据他进行的访谈类型修改了一些问题。“我们现在正在与使用我们产品的客户交谈，所以我们问了一些略有不同的问题，但评分方式仍然相同，”他说。Ivar 在完成一次访谈后，问自己的前两个问题是：

1. Did the interviewee mention problems in his/her workflow that our product solves or will solve soon? 2. Is the interviewee actively trying to solve the problems our product solves/will solve soon, or has he/she done so in the past?
   访谈对象是否提到了我们产品解决或即将解决的问题在其工作流程中的问题？2. 访谈对象是否正在积极尝试解决我们产品解决/即将解决的问题，或者在过去是否已经解决过？

“With these questions, we’re trying to determine how well we’re solving problems for actual customers. If many of the scores would have been low, we would have known something was wrong,” he says.
“通过这些问题，我们试图确定我们为实际客户解决问题的程度。如果许多得分较低，我们就知道出问题了，”他说。

Happily, most of the interview scores were good, but Ivar was able to dig deeper and learn more. “I was able to identify the customer types to focus on for product improvements. I noticed that two specific customer segments scored the highest on the interviews, especially the first two scoring criteria about meeting their needs and solving their problems.”
令人高兴的是，大多数访谈得分都很高，但 Ivar 能够深入挖掘并了解更多信息。“我能够确定需要为产品改进而关注的客户类型。我注意到有两个特定的客户群体在访谈中得分最高，尤其是在关于满足他们的需求和解决问题的前两个评分标准上。”

After scoring the initial interviews, Ivar then verified the results and the scoring in two ways. First, he interviewed some of the company’s top active users, gaining an in-depth knowledge of how they work. Second, he analyzed the data warehouse, which has information on how the product is being used. Both of these confirmed his initial findings: two specific segments of customers were getting significantly more value from the product. “Interestingly, both of these customer groups weren’t the initial ones we were going after,” he says. “So now we know where we can invest more of our time and energy.”
在对初步面试进行评分后，伊瓦尔然后通过两种方式验证了结果和评分。首先，他采访了公司的一些顶级活跃用户，深入了解了他们的使用情况。其次，他分析了数据仓库，其中包含了产品使用情况的信息。这两者都证实了他的初步发现：两个特定的客户群体从产品中获得了显著的价值。“有趣的是，这两个客户群体都不是我们最初瞄准的目标，”他说。“所以现在我们知道我们可以投入更多的时间和精力。”

In this case, open-ended discussions followed by scoring—even when the company was beyond the initial Empathy stage—revealed a market segment that had better stickiness and was ripe for rapid growth. What’s more, Ivar says that scoring the interview questions helped him improve his interviewing over time, focusing on results that could be acted upon.
在这种情况下，开放式讨论随后进行评分——即使公司已经超越了最初的共情阶段——也揭示了一个粘性更好、适合快速增长的细分市场。此外，伊瓦尔说，对面试问题的评分帮助他随着时间的推移改进了面试技巧，专注于可以采取的行动结果。

摘要

• Cloud9 IDE decided to run scored customer interviews even though the company was well past the Empathy stage.
• Cloud9 IDE 决定即使公司已经远远超过了共情阶段，也要进行评分客户访谈。
• The interviews showed that customers were happy, but also revealed two specific customer segments that derived higher value from the product.
• 采访显示客户很满意，但也揭示了两个特定的客户群体从产品中获得的价值更高。
• Using this insight, the company compared analytics data and verified that these groups were indeed using the product differently, which is now driving the prioritization of features and marketing.
• 利用这一洞察，公司比较了分析数据，并证实这些群体确实以不同的方式使用产品，这现在正推动功能和营销的优先级排序。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学到的经验教训

You can talk to customers and score interviews at any stage of your startup. Those interviews don’t just give you feedback,they also help you identify segments of the market with unique problems or needs that you might target.
你可以在创业的任何阶段与客户交谈并评分采访。这些采访不仅给你反馈，还帮助你识别具有独特问题或需求的细分市场，你可以针对这些市场。

How Are People Solving the Problem Now?

人们现在是如何解决这个问题的？

One of the telltale signs that a problem is worth solving is when a lot of people are already trying to solve it or have tried to do so in the past. People will go to amazing lengths to solve really painful problems that matter to them. Typically, they’re using another product that wasn’t meant to solve their problem, but it’s “good enough,” or they’ve built something themselves. Even though you’re doing qualitative interviews, you can still crunch some numbers afterward:
一个表明问题值得解决的迹象是，很多人已经在尝试解决它，或者在过去尝试过。人们会为了解决真正困扰他们的难题而付出惊人的努力。通常，他们使用的是并非为解决他们问题而设计的产品，但它“足够好”，或者他们自己动手做了。尽管你正在进行定性访谈，但事后你仍然可以做一些数据分析：

• How many people aren’t trying to solve the problem at all? If people haven’t really made an attempt to solve the problem, you have to be very cautious about moving forward. You’ll have to make them aware of the problem in the first place.
• 有多少人根本就没有尝试解决这个问题？如果人们没有真正尝试解决这个问题的迹象，你必须非常谨慎地继续前进。你必须首先让他们意识到这个问题。

• How many volunteer a solution that’s “good enough”? You’ll spend more time on solutions when you do solution interviews, but startups regularly underestimate the power of “good enough.” Mismatched socks are a universal problem nobody’s getting rich fixing.
• 有多少人愿意接受一个“足够好”的解决方案？在解决方案访谈中，你会花更多时间在解决方案上，但初创公司经常低估“足够好”的力量。错配的袜子是一个普遍存在的问题，但没有人因此变得富有。

Too often, idealistic startups underestimate a market’s inertia. They attack market leaders with features, functionality, and strategies that aren’t meaningful enough to customers. Their MVP has too much “minimum” to provoke a change. They assume that what they’re doing—whether it’s a slicker UI, simpler system, social functionality, or something else—is an obvious win. Then “good enough” bites them in the ass.
太频繁地，理想主义的初创公司低估了市场的惰性。他们用对客户来说意义不大的功能、功能性和策略来攻击市场领导者。他们的最小可行产品（MVP）包含了太多的“最低限度”来引发改变。他们假设自己正在做的事情——无论是更流畅的用户界面、更简单的系统、社交功能或其他什么——都是显而易见的胜利。然后，“足够好”就给了他们一记耳光。

The bar for startups to succeed at any real scale is much higher than that of the market leaders. The market leaders are already there, and even if they’re losing ground, it’s generally at a slow pace. Startups need to scale as quickly as possible. You have to be 10 times better than the market leader before anyone will really notice, which means you have to be 100 times more creative, strategic, sneaky, and aggressive. Market leaders may be losing touch with their customers, but they still know them better than anyone else.
初创公司要在任何真正规模上取得成功，其标准都远高于市场领导者。市场领导者已经占据了市场，即使他们在失去地盘，通常也是以缓慢的速度。初创公司需要尽可能快地扩大规模。在别人真正注意到你之前，你必须比市场领导者好 10 倍，这意味着你必须比他们更有创造力、战略性地、狡猾和侵略性。市场领导者可能已经失去了与客户的联系，但他们仍然比任何人都更了解客户。

You need to work much harder to win customers from incumbents. Don’t just look at the “obvious” flaws of the incumbents (like an outdated design) and assume that’s what needs fixing. You’ll have to dig far deeper in order to find the real customer pain points and make sure you address them quickly and successfully.
你需要更加努力地从现有企业手中赢得客户。不要只关注现有企业的“明显”缺陷（比如过时的设计），并假设这就是需要解决的问题。你必须深入挖掘，才能找到真正的客户痛点，并确保快速而成功地解决它们。

Are There Enough People Who Care About This Problem? (or, Understanding the Market)

有足够多的人关心这个问题吗？（或者，理解市场）

If you find a problem that’s painful enough for people, the next step is to understand the market size and potential. Remember, one customer isn’t a market, and you have to be careful about solving a problem that too few people genuinely care about.
如果你发现了一个足够让人们痛苦的问题，下一步就是了解市场规模和潜力。记住，一个客户不是市场，你必须小心解决一个只有很少人真正关心的问题。

If you’re trying to estimate the size of a market, it’s a good idea to do both a top-down and a bottom-up analysis, and compare the results. This helps to check your math.
如果你试图估计市场规模，同时进行自上而下和自下而上的分析，并比较结果是个好主意。这有助于检查你的计算。

A top-down analysis starts with a big number and breaks it into smaller parts. A bottom-up one does the reverse. Consider, for example, a restaurant in New York City.
自上而下的分析从一个大数字开始，并将其分解成更小的部分。自下而上的分析则相反。例如，考虑纽约市的一家餐厅。

• A top-down model would look at the total money people spend dining out in the US, then the percentage of that in New York, then the number of restaurants in the city, and finally calculate the revenues for a single restaurant.
• 自上而下的模型会先看美国人在外出就餐上花费的总金额，然后看其中纽约的比例，再来看该市的餐厅数量，最后计算单个餐厅的收入。

• A bottom-up model would look at the number of tables in a restaurant, the percent that are occupied, and the average price per party. Then it would multiply this by days of the year (adjusting for seasonality).
• 自下而上的模型会看餐厅的桌子数量、被占用的百分比以及每桌的平均消费额。然后将其乘以一年的天数（调整季节性因素）。

This is an oversimplification—there are plenty of other factors to consider such as location, type of restaurant, and so on. But the end result should provide two estimates of annual revenue. If they’re wildly different, something is wrong with your business model.
这是一种过度简化——有很多其他因素需要考虑，比如位置、餐厅类型等等。但最终结果应该提供两个年度收入的估计。如果它们差异很大，说明你的商业模式有问题。

As you’re conducting problem interviews, remember to ask enough demographic-type questions to understand who the interviewees are. The questions you’ll ask will depend a great deal on who you’re speaking to and the type of business you’re starting. If you’re going after a business market, you’ll want to know more about a person’s position in the company, buying power, budgeting, seasonal influences, and industry. If you’re going after a consumer, you’re much more interested in lifestyle, interests, social circles, and so on.
在进行问题访谈时，记得问一些人口统计类型的问题，以了解受访者是谁。你将提出的问题很大程度上取决于你正在交谈的对象以及你正在创办的业务的类型。如果你面向的是商业市场，你需要更多地了解一个人在公司中的职位、购买力、预算、季节性影响和行业。如果你面向的是消费者，你更感兴趣的是生活方式、兴趣爱好、社交圈等等。

What Will It Take to Make Them Aware of the Problem?

需要付出什么才能让他们意识到问题？

If the subjects don’t know they have the problem—but you have good evidence that the need really exists—then you need to understand how easily they’ll come to realize it, and the vectors of awareness.
如果受访者不知道他们有这个问题——但你确信这个需求确实存在——那么你需要了解他们如何容易意识到这一点，以及意识到的途径。

Be careful. Most of the time, when people don’t have a problem, they’ll still agree with you. They don’t want to hurt your feelings. To be nice, they’ll pretend they have the problem once you alert them to it. If you’re convinced that people have the problem—and just need to be made aware of it—you need to find ways to test that assumption.
要小心。大多数情况下，当人们没有问题时，他们仍然会同意你。他们不想伤害你的感情。为了表示友好，一旦你提醒他们有这个问题，他们会假装自己有这个问题。如果你确信人们有问题——只是需要被意识到——你需要找到方法来验证这个假设。

Some ways to get a more honest answer from people are:
获取更诚实回答的一些方法有：

• Get them a prototype early on.
• 早期给他们一个原型。
• Use paper prototyping, or a really simple mockup in PowerPoint, Keynote, or Balsamiq, to watch how they interact with your idea without coaching.
• 使用纸质原型，或 PowerPoint、Keynote 或 Balsamiq 中的非常简单的模型，来观察他们如何与你的想法互动，而不进行指导。
• See if they’ll pay immediately.
• 看他们是否愿意立即付款。
• Watch them explain it to their friends and see if they understand how to spread the message.
• 观察他们向朋友解释，看看他们是否理解如何传播这个信息。
• Ask for referrals to others who might care.
• 请求他们向可能关心的人推荐。

A “Day in the Life” of Your Customer

您客户的“一天生活”

During problem interviews, you want to get a deep understanding of your customer. We mentioned collecting demographics earlier and looking for ways to bucket customers into different groups, but you can take this a step further and gain a lot more insight. You can get inside their heads.
在问题访谈期间，您希望深入了解您的客户。我们之前提到了收集人口统计数据，并寻找将客户分组的方法，但您可以再进一步，获得更多的见解。您可以深入了解他们的想法。

Customers are people. They lead lives. They have kids, they eat too much, they don’t sleep well, they phone in sick, they get bored, they watch too much reality TV. If you’re building for some kind of idealized, economically rational buyer, you’ll fail. But if you know your customers, warts and all, and you build things that naturally fit into their lives, they’ll love you.
顾客是人。他们过着生活。他们有孩子，吃太多，睡不好，假装生病，感到无聊，看太多真人秀。如果你为某种理想化的、经济理性的买家而构建产品，你会失败。但如果你了解你的顾客，包括所有缺点，并构建自然融入他们生活的东西，他们会爱你。

To do this, you need to infiltrate your customer’s daily life. Don’t think of “infiltrate” as a bad word. In order for you to succeed, customers need to use your application; if you want them to do so, you need to slot yourself into their lives in an effortless, seamless way. Understanding customers’ daily lives means you can map out everything they do, and when they do it. With the right approach, you’ll start to understand why as well. You’ll identify influences (bosses, friends, family members, employees, etc.), limitations, constraints, and opportunities.
要做到这一点，你需要渗透到顾客的日常生活中。不要把“渗透”当作一个坏词。为了你的成功，顾客需要使用你的应用程序；如果你希望他们这样做，你需要以毫不费力、无缝的方式将你自己融入他们的生活中。了解顾客的日常生活意味着你可以规划他们所做的一切，以及他们何时做这些事。用正确的方法，你将开始理解原因。你将识别影响（老板、朋友、家庭成员、员工等）、限制、约束和机会。

One tactic for mapping this out is a “day in the life” storyboard. A storyboard is visual—it’s going to involve lots of multicolored sticky notes plastered on the wall—and it allows you to navigate through a customer’s life and figure out where your solution will have the most impact. Figure 15-1 shows an example of a storyboard.
一种绘制此图的策略是“一天的生活”故事板。故事板是可视的——它将涉及大量贴在墙上的彩色便利贴——并允许你浏览客户的生活，并确定你的解决方案将产生最大影响的地方。图 15-1 展示了一个故事板的示例。

Having this map in place makes it much easier to come up with good hypotheses around how, when, and by whom your solution will be used. You can experiment with different tactics for interrupting users and infiltrating their lives. The right level of positive access will allow to use your product successfully..
拥有这张地图可以让你更容易地提出关于你的解决方案如何、何时以及由谁使用的好假设。你可以尝试不同的策略来打断用户并渗透他们的生活。适当的积极接入程度将允许你成功地使用你的产品。

Mapping a day in the life of your customer will also reveal obvious holes in your understanding of your customer, and those are areas of risk you may want to tackle quickly. With a clearer understanding of when and how your solution will be used, you have a better chance of defining a minimum viable product feature set that hits the mark.
绘制客户的一天的生活也将揭示你对客户理解的明显漏洞，这些是你可能想要快速解决的问题的风险区域。对何时以及如何使用你的解决方案有更清晰的理解，你将更有机会定义一个命中要害的最小可行产品功能集。

The “day in the life” exercise is a way of describing a very detailed, human use case for your solution that goes beyond simply defining target markets and customer segments. After all, you’ll be selling to people. You need to know how to reach them, interrupt them, and make a difference in their lives at the exact moment when they need your solution.
“一天的生活”练习是一种描述非常详细、人类使用案例的方式，它超越了仅仅定义目标市场和客户细分。毕竟，你要向人们销售产品。你需要知道如何与他们联系、打断他们，并在他们需要你的解决方案的精确时刻给他们带来改变。

Figure 15-1. How HighScore House mapped the chaos of parenting
图 15-1。HighScore House 如何描绘养育孩子的混乱

User experience designers also rely on mental models of their users to understand how people think about something. A mental model is simply the mental representation of something in the real world—often a simplified version of reality that helps someone work with a thing. Sometimes these are metaphors—the recycle bin on a computer, for example. Other times, they’re simple, fundamental patterns that live deep down in our reptile brains—team allegiance, or xenophobia.
用户体验设计师也依靠用户的心理模型来理解人们如何思考某事。心理模型仅仅是现实世界中某物的心理表示——通常是对现实的简化版本，帮助人们处理某个事物。有时它们是隐喻——例如计算机上的回收站。其他时候，它们是我们爬行动物大脑深处简单的、基本模式——团队忠诚或排外。

Adaptive Path co-founder Indi Young has written extensively about mental models, developing a number of ways to link your customers’ lives and patterns with the products, services, and interactions you have with them.* Figure 15-2 shows an example of Indi’s work, listing a customer’s morning behaviors alongside various product categories.†
Adaptive Path 联合创始人 Indi Young 曾大量撰写关于心智模型的内容，并发展出多种将客户的生活和习惯与产品、服务以及与客户的互动联系起来的方法。图 15-2 展示了 Indi 的工作示例，列出了一个客户早晨的行为以及各种产品类别。

Figure 15-2. Overanalyzing the day’s ablutions with a mental model
图 15-2. 用心智模型过度分析一天的个人卫生习惯

Outlining your customers’ behaviors as they go about a particular task, then aligning your activities and features with those behaviors, is a good way to identify missed opportunities to improve engagement, upsell, endorse, or otherwise influence your buyers. If you’re making a personal fitness tool, timing interactions with gym visits, holiday binges, and morning ablutions lets you create a more tailored, engaging experience.
列出客户在执行特定任务时的行为，然后将你的活动和功能与这些行为对齐，是识别改进参与度、追加销售、认可或以其他方式影响购买者的良好方法。如果你正在制作一个个人健身工具，将互动与健身访问、假日暴饮暴食和早晨的个人卫生习惯同步，可以创造一个更个性化、更具吸引力的体验。

PATTERN |  Finding People to Talk To

模式 | 寻找与谁交谈

The modern world isn’t inclined to physical interaction. We have dozens of ways to engage people at a distance, and when you’re trying to find a need, they’re mostly bad. Unless you’re face-to-face with prospects, you won’t see the flinches, the subtle body language, and the little gasps and shrugs that mean the difference between a real problem and a waste of everyone’s time.
现代世界并不倾向于物理互动。我们有很多远程与人交流的方式，而当你试图寻找需求时，这些方式大多不好。除非你面对面与潜在客户交流，否则你不会看到那些细微的抽搐、身体语言以及表示真实问题和浪费时间的小声惊呼和耸肩。

That doesn’t mean technology is bad. We have a set of tools for finding prospects that would have seemed like superpowers to our predecessors. Before you get the hell out of the office, you need to find people to talk with. If you can find these people efficiently, that bodes well: it means that, if they’re receptive to your idea, you can find more like them and build your customer base.
这并不意味着技术是坏的。我们有一套寻找潜在客户的工具，这些工具在我们前辈看来就像是超能力。在你离开办公室之前，你需要找到可以与之交谈的人。如果你能高效地找到这些人，那是个好兆头：这意味着，如果他们对你提出的想法持开放态度，你就能找到更多像他们的人，并建立你的客户群。

Here are some dumb, obvious, why-didn’t-I-think-of-that ways to find people to talk to, mail, and learn from.
以下是一些愚蠢、明显、为什么我没有想到这些方法来找到可以与之交谈、邮寄和学习的人。

Twitter’s Advanced Search

Twitter 的高级搜索

For startups, Twitter is a goldmine. Its asymmetric nature—I can follow you, but you don’t have to follow me back—and relatively unwalled garden means people expect interactions. And we’re vain; if you mention someone, he’ll probably come find out what you said and who you are. Provided you don’t abuse this privilege, it’s a great way to find people.
对于初创公司来说，推特是一个金矿。它的非对称性——我可以关注你，但你不必关注我——以及相对开放的平台意味着人们期待互动。而且我们很虚荣；如果你提到某人，他可能会来了解你说了什么以及你是谁。只要你不要滥用这个特权，这是一个很好的方法来找到人们。

Let’s say you’re building a product for lawyers and want to talk to people nearby. Put keywords and location information into Twitter’s Advanced Search, as shown in Figure 15-3.
假设你正在为律师开发一个产品，并想与附近的人交谈。将关键词和位置信息输入推特的高级搜索，如图 15-3 所示。

Figure 15-3. Using Twitter’s Advanced Search to stalk people
图 15-3。使用推特的高级搜索来跟踪人们

You’ll get a list of organizations and people who might qualify similar to the one in Figure 15-4.
你将得到一个类似图 15-4 的组织和人员列表，他们可能符合资格。

Now, if you’re careful, you can reach out to them. Don’t spam them; get to know them a bit, see where they live and what they say, and when they mention something relevant—or when you feel comfortable doing so—speak up. Just mention them by name, invite them to take a survey, and so on.
现在，如果你小心一点，你可以与他们联系。不要垃圾邮件；了解他们一些，看看他们住在哪里，他们说什么，当他们提到一些相关的事情——或者当你觉得这样做合适的时候——说话。只需提及他们的名字，邀请他们参加调查等等。

There are other interesting tools for digging into Twitter and finding people. Moz has a tool called Followerwonk, and there’s also the freely available people search engine, Twellow.
还有其他有趣的工具可以挖掘 Twitter 并找到人们。Moz 有一个名为 Followerwonk 的工具，还有免费提供的人名搜索引擎 Twellow。

Figure 15-4. Real customers are just a few tweets away
图 15-4。真实客户就在几条推文之外

LinkedIn

Another huge boon to startups everywhere is LinkedIn. You can access a tremendous amount of demographic data through searches like the one in Figure 15-5.
对所有初创公司来说，领英也是一个巨大的优势。你可以通过图 15-5 中的搜索方式获取大量的统计数据。

You don’t need to connect to these people on LinkedIn, because you can just find their names and numbers, look up their firms’ phone numbers, and start dialing. But if you do have a friend in common, you’ll find that a warm intro works wonders.
你不需要在领英上与这些人建立联系，因为你可以直接找到他们的姓名和电话号码，查找他们公司的电话号码，然后开始拨打电话。但如果你有共同的朋友，你会发现一个温暖的介绍会起到奇效。

LinkedIn also has groups which you can search through and join. Most of these groups are aligned around particular interests, so you can find relevant people and also do some background research.
领英还有可以搜索和加入的群组。这些群组大多围绕特定的兴趣领域，因此你可以找到相关的人，并进行一些背景调查。

Figure 15-5. All this information is just lying around for you to use
图 15-5。所有这些信息都为你所用。

Facebook

Facebook is a bit more risky to mine, since it’s a reciprocal relationship (people have to friend you back). But you’ll get a sense of the size of a market from your search results alone, as seen in Figure 15-6, and you might find useful groups to join and invite to take a test or meet for a focus-group discussion.
Facebook 的挖掘稍微有些风险，因为它是一种互惠关系（人们必须回请你为友）。但仅从搜索结果中，你就能了解市场的规模，如图 15-6 所示，并且你可能会发现一些有用的群组可以加入并邀请他们进行测试或进行焦点小组讨论。

Figure 15-6. Even without details, Facebook shows you who to follow up with
图 15-6。即使没有详细信息，Facebook 也能告诉你要联系谁

Some of these approaches seem blindingly obvious. But a little preparation before you get out of the office—physically or virtually— can make all the difference, giving you better data sooner and validating or repudiating business assumptions in days instead of weeks.
其中一些方法似乎显而易见。但在你离开办公室之前——无论是身体上还是虚拟上——稍作准备就能带来巨大差异，让你更快地获得更好的数据，并在几天内而不是几周内验证或推翻商业假设。

Getting Answers at Scale

大规模获取答案

You should continue doing customer interviews (after the first 10–20 or so) and iterate on the questions you ask, dig deeper with people, and learn as much as you can. But you can also expand the scope of your efforts and move into doing some quantitative analysis. It’s time to talk to people at scale.
你应该继续进行客户访谈（在最初的 10-20 次之后），并迭代你提出的问题，深入挖掘人们的想法，尽可能多地学习。但你也可以扩大你的工作范围，并开始进行一些定量分析。是时候大规模地与人交流了。

This does several things:
这做了几件事：

• It forces you to formalize your discussions, moving from subjective to objective.
• 它迫使你使讨论正式化，从主观转向客观。
• It tests whether you can command the attention—at scale—that you’ll need to thrive.
• 它测试你是否能够在大规模上吸引注意力——这是你成功所必需的。

• It gives you quantitative information you can analyze and segment, which can reveal patterns you won’t get from individual groups. • The respondents may become your beta users and the base of your community.
• 它为你提供可以分析和细分的数据，这能揭示从单个群体中无法获得的模式。受访者可能会成为你的测试用户和社区的基础。

To talk with people at scale you can employ a number of tactics, including surveys and landing pages. These give you the opportunity to reach a wider audience and build a stronger, data-driven case for the qualitative feedback you received during interviews.
要大规模地与人交流，你可以采用多种策略，包括调查和着陆页。这些方法能让你接触到更广泛的受众，并为在面试中收到的定性反馈建立更强的、数据驱动的案例。

CASE STUDY LikeBright “Mechanical Turks” Its Way into TechStars

案例研究：LikeBright “机械土耳其人” 如何进入 TechStars

LikeBright is an early-stage startup in the dating space that joined the TechStars Seattle accelerator program in 2011. But it wasn’t an easy road. Founder Nick Soman says that at first Andy Sack, managing director of the Seattle program, rejected LikeBright, saying, “We don’t think you understand your customer well enough.”
LikeBright 是一家处于早期阶段的约会类创业公司，于 2011 年加入了 TechStars Seattle 加速器项目。但这并非一条容易的道路。创始人 Nick Soman 表示，最初 Seattle 项目的负责人 Andy Sack 拒绝了 LikeBright，他说：“我们认为你并不足够了解你的客户。”

With the application deadline looming, Andy gave Nick a challenge: go speak to 100 single women about their frustrations with dating, and then tell TechStars what he’d learned.
随着申请截止日期的临近，Andy 给 Nick 提出了一个挑战：去和 100 位单身女性谈谈她们在约会方面的烦恼，然后告诉 TechStars 他学到了什么。

Nick was stuck. How was he going to speak with that many women quickly enough? He didn’t think it was possible, at least not easily. And then he decided to run an experiment with Mechanical Turk.*
Nick 感到困窘。他该如何快速地与那么多的女性交谈呢？他以为这不可能，至少不轻松。然后他决定通过 Mechanical Turk 运行一个实验。

Mechanical Turk is a service provided by Amazon that allows you to pay small amounts of money for people to complete simple tasks. It’s often used to get quick feedback on things like logos and color choices, or to perform small tasks such as tagging a picture or flagging spam.
Mechanical Turk 是亚马逊提供的一项服务，允许你支付少量费用来让人们完成简单的任务。它通常用于获取关于标志和颜色选择等事物的快速反馈，或执行诸如给图片打标签或标记垃圾邮件等小任务。

The idea was to use Mechanical Turk to survey 100 single women, putting out a task (or what Mechanical Turk calls a HIT) asking women (who fit a particular profile) to call Nick. In exchange he paid them \2$ . The interviews typically lasted 10–15 minutes.
这个想法是利用亚马逊土耳其机器人来调查 100 位单身女性，发布一个任务（或者亚马逊土耳其机器人称之为 HIT），要求符合特定条件的女性给 Nick 打电话。他支付她们 2 美元作为报酬。采访通常持续 10-15 分钟。

“In my research, I found that there’s a good cross-section of people on Mechanical Turk,” says Nick. “We found lots of highly educated, diverse women that were very willing to speak with us about their dating experiences.”
“在我的研究中，我发现亚马逊土耳其机器人上有很多人，”Nick 说。“我们找到了很多受过高等教育、多元化且非常愿意谈论她们约会经历的女性。”

Nick set up several Google Voice phone numbers (throwaway numbers that couldn’t be tracked or reused) and recruited a few friends to help him out.
Nick 设置了好几个谷歌语音电话号码（无法追踪或重复使用的临时号码），并招募了几个朋友来帮助他。

He prepared a simple interview script with open-ended questions, since he was digging into the problem validation stage of his startup. Nick says, “I was amazed at the feedback I got. We were able to speak with 100 single women that met our criteria in four hours on one evening.”
他准备了一个简单的采访脚本，包含开放式问题，因为他正在研究创业项目的验证阶段。Nick 说：“我对收到的反馈感到惊讶。在一个晚上，我们能够在四小时内与 100 位符合我们标准的单身女性进行交流。”

As a result, Nick gained incredible insight into LikeBright’s potential customers and the challenges he would face building the startup. He went back to TechStars and Andy Sack with that know-how and impressed them enough to get accepted. LikeBright’s website is now live with a $50\mathrm{\%}$ female user base, and recently raised a round of funding. Nick remains a fan of Mechanical Turk. “Since that first foray into interviewing customers, I’ve probably spoken with over 1,000 people through Mechanical Turk,” he says.
结果，尼克对 LikeBright 的潜在客户以及建立创业公司将面临的挑战有了深刻的洞察。他带着这些知识回到了 TechStars 和 Andy Sack 那里，给他们留下了深刻的印象，从而获得了接纳。LikeBright 的网站现在已经上线，拥有 $50\mathrm{\%}$ 的女性用户群体，并且最近完成了一轮融资。尼克仍然是 Mechanical Turk 的粉丝。“自从第一次通过 Mechanical Turk 采访客户以来，我可能已经通过这个平台与超过 1000 人进行了交流，”他说。

摘要

• LikeBright used a technical solution to talk to many end users in a short amount of time.
• LikeBright 使用了一种技术解决方案，在短时间内与许多最终用户进行了交流。
• After talking to 100 prospects in 24 hours, the founders were accepted to a startup accelerator.
• 在 24 小时内与 100 位潜在客户进行了交流后，创始人被一家创业加速器接纳。
• The combination of Google Voice and Mechanical Turk proved so successful that LikeBright continues to use it regularly.
• Google Voice 和 Mechanical Turk 的结合非常成功，以至于 LikeBright 仍然经常使用它。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

While there’s no substitute for qualitative data, you can use technology to dramatically improve the efficiency of collecting that data. In the Empathy stage, focus on building tools for getting good feedback quickly from many people. Just because customer development isn’t code doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest heavily in it.
虽然没有比定性数据更好的替代品，但你可以使用技术来显著提高收集这些数据的效率。在同理心阶段，专注于构建能够快速从许多人那里获得良好反馈的工具。客户开发不是代码并不意味着你不应该大力投资它。

LikeBright chose Mechanical Turk to reach people at scale, but there are plenty of other tools. Surveys can be effective, assuming you’ve done enough customer development already to know what questions to ask. The challenge with surveys is finding people to answer them. Unlike the one-toone interviews you’ve been conducting so far, here you need to automate the task and deal with the inevitable statistical noise.
LikeBright 选择 Mechanical Turk 来大规模地接触人们，但也有许多其他工具。如果已经做了足够的客户开发，知道要问什么问题，调查可以很有效。调查的挑战是找到人回答它们。与到目前为止你一直在进行的一对一访谈不同，这里你需要自动化这项任务并处理不可避免的统计噪声。

If you have a social following or access to a mailing list, you can start there, but often, you’re trying to find new people to speak with. They’re new sources of information, and they’re less likely to be biased. That means reaching out to groups with whom you aren’t already in touch, ideally through software, so you’re not curating each invitation by hand.
如果你拥有社交关注者或可以访问邮件列表，你可以从那里开始，但通常，你试图找到新的人来交谈。他们是新的信息来源，而且不太可能存在偏见。这意味着联系那些你尚未接触的群体，理想情况下通过软件，这样你就不会手工审核每一份邀请。

Facebook has an advertising platform for reaching very targeted groups of people. You can segment your audience by demographics, interests, and more. Although the click-through rate on Facebook ads is extremely low, you’re not necessarily looking for volume at this stage. Finding 20 or 30 people to speak with is a great start, plus you can test messaging this way, through the ads you publish, as well as the subsequent landing pages you have to encourage people to connect with you.
Facebook 有一个广告平台，可以针对非常特定的人群进行推广。你可以根据人口统计、兴趣等进行受众细分。尽管 Facebook 广告的点击率非常低，但在这个阶段你并不一定追求数量。找到 20 或 30 个人来交谈就是一个很好的开始，而且你可以通过发布的广告以及鼓励人们与你联系的后续着陆页来测试信息。

You can advertise on LinkedIn to very targeted audiences. This will cost you some money, but if you’ve identified a good audience of people through searching LinkedIn contacts and groups, you might consider testing some early messaging through its ad platform.
你可以在 LinkedIn 上针对非常特定的受众进行广告投放。这会花费你一些钱，但如果你通过搜索 LinkedIn 联系人及群组已经确定了一个好的受众，你可以考虑通过其广告平台测试一些早期信息。

Google makes it really easy to target campaigns. If you want to promote a survey or signup on the Web, you can do so with remarkable precision. In the first step of setting up an AdWords campaign, you get to specify the location, language, and other information that targets the ad, as shown in Figure 15-7.
谷歌让广告投放变得非常容易。如果您想在网上推广调查或注册，您可以非常精确地进行。在设置 AdWords 广告活动的第一步中，您可以指定位置、语言和其他信息来定位广告，如图 15-7 所示。

Figure 15-7. Some of the ways you can control who sees your ad
图 15-7。您控制谁可以看到您的广告的一些方式

Once you’ve done that, you can create your message, using a screen like the one in Figure 15-8. This is an excellent way to try out different taglines and approaches: even the ones that don’t get clicks show you something, because you know what not to say. Try different appeals to basic emotions: fear, greed, love, wealth, and so on. Learn what gets people clicking and what keeps them around long enough to fill out a survey or submit an email.
一旦您完成了这些，您可以使用如图 15-8 所示的屏幕创建您的信息。这是尝试不同标语和方法的绝佳方式：即使那些没有点击的广告也能向您展示一些东西，因为您知道什么话不该说。尝试针对基本情感的不同诉求：恐惧、贪婪、爱、财富等等。了解什么能吸引人们点击，什么能让人们停留足够长的时间来填写调查或提交电子邮件。

Figure 15-8. Would you click on these ads?
图 15-8。您会点击这些广告吗？

Google also has a survey offering, called Google Consumer Surveys, that’s specifically designed to collect consumer information.* Because of the wide reach of Google’s publishing and advertising network, the company can generate results that are statistically representative of segments of the population as a whole.
谷歌还有一个调查服务，称为谷歌消费者调查，专门设计用于收集消费者信息。*由于谷歌的发布和广告网络的广泛覆盖，该公司能够生成在统计上能代表整个人口群体的结果。

Google’s technique uses a “survey wall” approach, but by simplifying the survey process to individual questions requiring only a click or two, the company achieves a $23.1\mathrm{\%}$ response rate (compared to less than $1\mathrm{\%}$ for “intercept” surveys, $7-14\mathrm{\%}$ for phone surveys, and $15\mathrm{\%}$ for Internet panels).† However, because of the quick-response format, it’s hard to collect multiple responses and correlate them, which limits the kinds of analysis and segmentation you can do.
谷歌的技术采用“调查墙”方法，但通过简化调查流程为只需点击几次的单个问题，该公司实现了 $23.1\mathrm{\%}$ 的响应率（与“拦截”调查的响应率 $1\mathrm{\%}$ 、电话调查的响应率 $7-14\mathrm{\%}$ 以及互联网小组的响应率 $15\mathrm{\%}$ 相比）。†然而，由于快速响应的格式，难以收集多个响应并进行关联，这限制了你可以进行的分析和细分类型。

PATTERN |  Creating an Answers-at-Scale Campaign

模式 | 创建大规模答案活动

An effective survey involves several critical steps: survey design, testing, distribution, and analysis. But before you do any of these, know why you’re asking the questions in the first place. Lean is all about identifying and quantifying the risk. What kind of uncertainty are you trying to quantify by doing a survey?
一个有效的调查涉及几个关键步骤：调查设计、测试、分发和分析。但在你进行这些步骤之前，要知道你为什么要问这些问题。精益思维的核心在于识别和量化风险。你通过进行调查试图量化哪种不确定性？

• If you’re asking what existing brands come to mind in a particular industry, will you use this information to market alongside them? Address competitive threats? Choose partners?
• 如果你问的是在特定行业中哪些现有品牌会浮现在你脑海中，你会利用这些信息与它们一起进行营销吗？应对竞争威胁？选择合作伙伴？
• If you’re asking how customers try to find a product or service, will this inform your marketing campaigns and choice of media?
• 如果你问的是顾客如何寻找产品或服务，这会否影响你的营销活动和媒体选择？
• If you’re asking how much money people spend on a problem you’re planning to address, how will this shape your pricing strategy?
• 如果你问的是人们在你计划解决的问题上花费多少钱，这会如何影响你的定价策略？
• If you’re testing which tagline or unique value proposition resonates best with customers, will you choose the winning one, or just take that as advice?
• 如果你正在测试哪个标语或独特价值主张最能引起顾客共鸣，你会选择获胜的那个，还是会将其作为建议接受？

Don’t just ask questions. Know how the answers to the questions will change your behavior. In other words, draw a line in the sand before you run the survey. Your earlier problem interviews showed you an opportunity; now, you’re checking to see whether that opportunity exists in the market as a whole. For each quantifiable question, decide what would be a “good” score. Write it down somewhere so you’ll remember.
不要只问问题。要知道问题的答案将如何改变你的行为。换句话说，在运行调查之前划一条线。你早期的问题访谈显示了一个机会；现在，你正在检查这个机会是否在市场上普遍存在。对于每个可量化的问题，决定一个“好”的分数。把它写下来，以便记住。

Survey Design

调查设计

Your survey should include three kinds of questions:
你的调查应该包括三种类型的问题：

• Demographics and psychographics you can use to segment the responses, such as age, gender, or Internet usage.
• 人口统计和心理特征，你可以用来细分回答，例如年龄、性别或互联网使用情况。
• Quantifiable questions that you can analyze statistically, such as ratings, agreement or disagreement with a statement, or selecting something from a list.
• 可以进行统计分析的量化问题，例如评分、对陈述的同意或不同意，或从列表中选择某项。
• Open-ended questions that allow respondents to add qualitative data.
• 允许受访者添加定性数据的开放式问题。

Always ask the segmentation questions up front and the open-ended ones at the end. That way you know if your sample was representative of the market you’re targeting, and if people don’t finish the last questions, you still have enough quantitative responses to generate results in which you can be confident.
始终将细分问题放在前面，开放式问题放在后面。这样你就知道你的样本是否代表了你要瞄准的市场，如果人们没有完成最后一个问题，你仍然有足够的定量回答来生成你可以确信的结果。

Test the Survey

测试问卷

Before sending it out, try the survey on people who haven’t seen it. You’ll almost always find they get stuck or don’t understand something. You’re not ready to send the survey out until at least three people who haven’t seen it, and are in your target market, can complete it without questions and then explain to you what each question meant. This is no exaggeration: everyone gets surveys wrong.
在发送出去之前，试着在那些没见过它的人身上试试这个调查。你几乎总会发现他们卡住了或者不明白某些地方。直到至少有三个人，他们没见过这个调查，并且处于你的目标市场，能够毫无问题地完成它，然后能向你解释每个问题的意思，你才准备好把调查发送出去。这绝非夸张：每个人都会把调查搞错。

Send the Survey Out

发送调查

You want to reach people you don’t know. You could tweet out a link to the survey form or landing page, but you’ll naturally get respondents who are in your extended social circle. This is a time when it makes sense to pay for access to a new audience.
你想接触到你不认识的人。你可以通过推特发送调查表单或着陆页的链接，但你自然会得到来自你社交圈的人的回应。在这个时候，付费获取新受众是合理的。

Design several ads that link to the survey. They can take several forms:
设计几个链接到调查的广告。它们可以有多种形式：

• Name the audience you’re targeting. (“Are you a single mom? Take this brief survey and help us address a big challenge.”)
• 说出你的目标受众。 （“你是单身妈妈吗？请填写这份简短调查问卷，帮助我们解决一个重大挑战。”）
• Mention the problem you’re dealing with. (“Can’t sleep? We’re trying to fix that, and want your input.”)
• 提及你正在处理的问题。 （“睡不着吗？我们正在努力解决这个问题，并希望得到你的意见。”）
• Mention the solution or your unique value proposition, without a sales pitch. (“Our accounting software automatically finds tax breaks. Help us plan the product roadmap.”) Be careful not to lead the witness; don’t use this if you’re still trying to settle on positioning.
• 提及解决方案或你的独特价值主张，不要做销售宣传。 （“我们的会计软件自动查找税收减免。帮助我们规划产品路线图。”） 小心不要引导证人；如果你还在试图确定定位，不要使用这个。

Remember, too, that the first question you’re asking is “Was my message compelling enough to convince them to take the survey?” You’re trying out a number of different value propositions. In some cases, you don’t even care about a survey—we know one entrepreneur who tried out various taglines, all of which pointed to a spam site. All he needed to know was which one got the most clicks, and he didn’t want to tell anyone who he was yet.
此外，也要记住，你问的第一个问题是“我的信息是否足够有说服力，让他们填写调查问卷？” 你正在尝试许多不同的价值主张。在某些情况下，你甚至不关心调查问卷——我们认识一位企业家，他尝试了各种标语，所有这些标语都指向一个垃圾邮件网站。他只需要知道哪个点击量最高，他还不想告诉任何人他是谁。

You can also use mailing lists. Some user groups or newsletters may be willing to feature you on their page or in a mail-out if what you’re doing is relevant to their audience.
你也可以使用邮件列表。一些用户组或通讯可能愿意在你的页面或邮件中为你做宣传，如果你的所做与他们的受众相关。

Collect the Information

收集信息

When you run the survey, measure your cost per completed response. Do a small test of a few dozen responses first. If your numbers are low, check whether people are abandoning on a particular form field—some analytics tools like ClickTale let you do this. Then remove that field and see if completion rates go up. You can also try breaking up the survey into smaller ones, asking fewer questions, or changing your call to action.
当你运行调查时，测量每完成一次响应的成本。先进行一小部分，比如几十个响应的测试。如果你的数字很低，检查人们是否在某个表单字段上放弃——一些分析工具如 ClickTale 可以让你做到这一点。然后删除该字段，看看完成率是否提高。你也可以尝试将调查分成几个小调查，问更少的问题，或者改变你的号召性用语。

While you’re collecting information, don’t forget to also request permission to contact respondents and collect contact information. If you’ve found a workable solution to a real problem, some of them may become your beta customers.
在你收集信息的同时，别忘了请求联系受访者并收集联系信息。如果你找到了一个可行的解决方案来解决这个问题，他们中的一些人可能会成为你的 Beta 客户。

Analyze the Data

分析数据

Finally, crunch the data properly. You’re actually looking at three things.
最后，正确地处理数据。你实际上是在看三件事。

• First, were you able to capture the attention of the market? Did people click on your ads and links? Which ones worked best?
• 首先，你能否吸引市场的注意？人们是否点击了你的广告和链接？哪些效果最好？
• Second, are you on the right track? What decisions can you now make with the data you’ve collected?
• 其次，你是否在正确的轨道上？你能根据收集到的数据做出哪些决策？
• Third, will people try out your solution/product? How many of your respondents were willing to be contacted? How many agreed to join a forum or a beta? How many asked for access in their open-ended responses?
• 第三，人们会尝试使用你的解决方案/产品吗？多少受访者愿意被联系？多少人同意加入论坛或参与 Beta 测试？多少人在开放式回答中要求获取访问权限？

Statistics are important here. Don’t skimp on the math—make sure you learn everything you can from your efforts.
统计数据在这里很重要。不要吝啬数学计算——确保你能从你的努力中学习到一切。

• Calculate the average, mean, and standard deviation of the quantifiable questions. Which slogan won? Which competitor is most common? Was there a clear winner, or was the difference marginal? • Analyze each quantifiable question by each segment to see if a particular group of your respondents answered differently. Use pivot tables for this kind of analysis (see the upcoming sidebar “What’s a Pivot Table?” for details); you’ll quickly see if a particular response correlated to a particular group. This will help you focus your efforts or see where one set of answers is skewing the rest.
• 计算可量化问题的平均值、均值和标准差。哪个口号获胜了？哪个竞争对手最常见？是否有明显的获胜者，还是差异很小？• 通过每个细分市场分析每个可量化问题，看看你的受访者中的特定群体是否回答不同。使用数据透视表进行此类分析（有关详细信息，请参阅即将到来的边栏“什么是数据透视表？”）；你将很快看到特定的回答是否与特定的群体相关。这将帮助你集中精力或看到哪一组答案正在扭曲其余的答案。

What’s a Pivot Table?

什么是数据透视表？

Most of us have used a spreadsheet. But if you want to take your analytical skills to the next level, you need to move up to pivot tables. This feature lets you quickly analyze many rows of data as if it were a database, without, well, the database.
我们大多数人都用过电子表格。但如果你想将你的分析技能提升到下一个水平，你需要升级到数据透视表。这个功能让你可以快速分析大量数据，就像它是一个数据库一样，而实际上并没有数据库。

Imagine that you have 1,000 responses to a survey. Each response is a row in a spreadsheet, containing a number of fields of data. The first column has time and date, the next has email, and the rest have the individual responses that particular respondents gave. Imagine, for example, that your survey asked respondents their gender, the number of hours per week that they play video games, and their age, as shown in the following table.
想象一下，你收到了 1000 份调查问卷的回复。每份回复在电子表格中是一行，包含多个数据字段。第一列是时间和日期，下一列是电子邮件，其余列是个别人在问卷中给出的具体回复。例如，假设你的调查问卷询问了受访者的性别、每周玩电子游戏的时间以及他们的年龄，如下表所示。

You can simply tally up the columns and see what the average responses were—that people play 8.85 hours a week (as shown in the preceding figure). But that’s only a basic analysis, and a misleading one.
你可以简单地统计各列，看看平均回答是什么——人们每周玩 8.85 小时（如前图所示）。但这只是基本分析，而且是具有误导性的。

More often, you want to compare responses against one another—for example, do men play more video games than women? That’s what a pivot table is for. First, you tell the pivot table where to get the source data, then you specify the dimension by which to segment, and then you set what kind of computation you want (such as the average, the maximum value, or the standard deviation) as shown here:
更常见的是，你想将回答相互比较——例如，男性玩电子游戏比女性多吗？这就是数据透视表的作用。首先，你告诉数据透视表从哪里获取源数据，然后你指定按什么维度进行分段，然后你设置你想要的计算类型（例如平均值、最大值或标准差），如下所示：

The real power of pivot tables, however, comes when you analyze two segments against each other. For example, if we have categories for gender and age, we can gain even more insight, as shown here:
然而，数据透视表真正的强大之处在于分析两个数据段之间的对比。例如，如果我们有性别和年龄的分类，我们可以获得更多的洞察力，如下所示：

This analysis shows that game-playing behavior is more influenced by age than by gender, which suggests a particular target demographic. Pivot tables are a powerful tool that every analyst should be comfortable with, yet they’re often overlooked.
此分析表明，玩游戏的行为比性别更多地受到年龄的影响，这表明了一个特定的目标群体。数据透视表是一个强大的工具，每个分析师都应该熟悉它，但它们经常被忽视。

Build It Before You Build It (or, How to Validate the Solution)

在构建之前先构建它（或者，如何验证解决方案）

With a validated problem in hand, it’s time to validate the solution.
在手头有了经过验证的问题后，就是验证解决方案的时候了。

Once again, this starts with interviewing customers (what Lean Startup describes as solution interviews) to get the qualitative feedback and confidence necessary to build a minimum viable product. You can also continue and expand on quantitative testing through surveys and landing pages. This provides you with a great opportunity to start testing your messaging (unique value proposition from Lean Canvas) and the initial feature set.
同样，这首先从采访客户（精益创业描述为解决方案访谈）开始，以获得构建最小可行产品的必要定性反馈和信心。你也可以继续并通过调查问卷和着陆页进行定量测试。这为你提供了一个很好的机会来测试你的信息（来自精益画布的独特价值主张）和初始功能集。

There are other practical ways of testing your solution prior to actually building it. By this point, you should have identified the riskiest aspects of the solution and what you need people to do with the solution (if it existed) in order to be successful. Now look for a way of testing your hypotheses through a proxy. Map the behavior you want people to do onto a similar platform or product, and experiment. Hack an adjacent system.
在实际构建解决方案之前，还有其他实际的方法来测试它。此时，你应该已经确定了解决方案中最具风险的部分以及你需要人们如何使用解决方案（如果它存在）才能成功。现在寻找一个通过代理测试假设的方法。将你希望人们采取的行为映射到一个类似的平台或产品上，并进行实验。入侵一个相邻的系统。

CASE STUDY |  Localmind Hacks Twitter

案例研究 | Localmind 帮助推特

Localmind is a real-time question-and-answer platform tied to locations. Whenever you have a question that’s relevant to a location— whether that’s a specific place or an area—you can use Localmind to get an answer. You send the question out through the mobile application, and people answer.
Localmind 是一个与地理位置相关的实时问答平台。无论你的问题与哪个具体地点或区域相关，你都可以使用 Localmind 来获取答案。你通过移动应用程序发送问题，然后其他人来回答。

Before writing a line of code, Localmind was concerned that people would never answer questions. The company felt this was a huge risk; if questions went unanswered, users would have a terrible experience and stop using Localmind. But how could it prove (or disprove) that people would answer questions from strangers without building the app?
在编写一行代码之前，Localmind 担心人们永远不会回答问题。公司认为这是一个巨大的风险；如果问题得不到回答，用户将会有极差的体验并停止使用 Localmind。但是，在不开发应用程序的情况下，它如何证明（或证伪）人们会回答陌生人的问题？

The team looked to Twitter and ran an experiment. Tracking geolocated tweets (primarily in Times Square, because there were lots of them there over several days), they sent $@$ messages to people who had just tweeted. The messages would be questions about the area: how busy is it, is the subway running on time, is something open, etc. These were the types of questions they believed people would ask through Localmind.
团队转向了推特，并运行了一个实验。他们追踪了位于时代广场的地理位置标记的推文（因为几天内在那里有很多推文），向刚刚发过推文的人发送了 $@$ 消息。这些消息是关于该地区的问题：有多繁忙，地铁是否准时运行，是否有地方开门营业等等。这些都是他们认为人们会通过 Localmind 提问的类型。

The response rate to their tweeted questions was very high. This gave the team the confidence to assume that people would answer questions about where they were, even if they didn’t know who was asking. Even though Twitter wasn’t the “perfect system” for this kind of test because there were lots of variables (e.g., the team didn’t know if people would get a push notification on a tweet to them or notice the tweet), it was a good enough proxy to de-risk the solution, and convince the team that it was worth building Localmind.
他们对推文中的问题回应率非常高。这给了团队信心，让他们假设人们会回答关于他们位置的问题，即使他们不知道是谁在问。尽管 Twitter 不是这个测试的“完美系统”，因为有很多变量（例如，团队不知道人们是否会收到推文的推送通知或注意到推文），但它是一个足够好的代理来降低风险，并说服团队值得构建 Localmind。

摘要

• Localmind identified a big risk in its plan—whether people would answer questions from strangers—and decided to quantify it.
• Localmind 在其计划中识别了一个重大风险——人们是否会回答陌生人的问题——并决定量化它。
• Rather than writing code, the team used tweets with location information.
• 团队没有编写代码，而是使用了包含位置信息的推文。
• The results were quick and easy, and sufficient for the team to move forward with an MVP.
• 结果快速且简单，足以让团队继续开发最小可行产品。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学到的经验教训

Your job isn’t to build a product; it’s to de-risk a business model. Sometimes the only way to do this is to build something, but always be on the lookout for measurable ways to quantify risk without a lot of effort.
你的工作不是构建产品，而是降低商业模式的风险。有时候，唯一的方法是构建一些东西，但始终要寻找无需大量努力即可量化风险的可衡量方法。

Before You Launch the MVP

在发布最小可行产品之前

As you’re building your bare-minimum product—just enough functionality to test the risks you’ve identified in the Empathy stage—you’ll continue to gather feedback (in the form of surveys) and acquire early adopters (through a beta enrollment site, social media, and other forms of teasing). In this way, by the time you launch the MVP you’ll have a critical mass of testers and early adopters eager to give you feedback. You’re farming test subjects. Your OMTM at this point is enrollments, social reach, and other indicators that you’ll be able to drive actual users to your MVP so you can learn and iterate quickly. This is the reverse Field of Dreams moment: if they come, you will build it.
在你构建最小可行产品时——只需足够的功能来测试你在同理心阶段识别出的风险——你将继续收集反馈（以调查的形式）并获取早期采用者（通过 Beta 注册网站、社交媒体和其他形式的“吊胃口”）。这样，到 MVP 发布时，你将拥有一大批测试者和早期采用者，他们渴望给你反馈。你正在培养测试对象。此时，你的 OMTM 是注册人数、社交影响力以及其他能够驱动实际用户到你的 MVP，以便你能够快速学习和迭代的指标。这是“如果他们来，你就会建”的反向田野梦想时刻：如果他们来了，你就会建造它。

It’s hard to decide how good your minimum product should be. On the one hand, time is precious, and you need to cut things ruthlessly. On the other hand, you want users to have an “aha!” moment, that sense of having discovered something important and memorable worth solving. You need to keep the magic.
确定你的最小产品应该有多好是很难的。一方面，时间宝贵，你需要无情地削减。另一方面，你希望用户能有一个“啊哈！”的时刻，那种发现重要且难忘的东西并值得解决的感觉。你需要保留魔法。

Clarke’s Third Law: Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future, 1961
克拉克第三定律：任何足够先进的技术都与魔法无法区分。亚瑟·克拉克，《未来之像》，1961 年

Gehm’s Corrollary: Any technology distinguishable from magic is insufficiently advanced. Barry Gehm, ANALOG, 1991
Gehm 的推论：任何与魔法无法区分的技术都还不够先进。Barry Gehm，《ANALOG》杂志，1991 年

Deciding What Goes into the MVP

决定 MVP 的内容

Take all of your solution interviews, quantitative analysis, and “hacks,” and decide what feature set to launch for your MVP.
将所有的解决方案访谈、定量分析和“捷径”结合起来，决定你的 MVP 要发布哪些功能。

The MVP has to generate the value you’ve promised to users and customers. If it’s too shallow, people will be disinterested and disappointed. If it’s too bloated, people will be confused and frustrated. In both cases, you’ll fail.
MVP 必须为你承诺给用户和客户创造价值。如果它太浅，人们会失去兴趣和失望。如果它太臃肿，人们会感到困惑和沮丧。在这两种情况下，你都会失败。

It’s important to contrast an MVP with a smoke-test approach where you build a teaser site—for example, a simple page generated in LaunchRock with links to social networks. With a smoke-test page, you’re testing the risk that the message isn’t compelling enough to get signups. With the MVP, you’re testing the risk that the product won’t solve a need that people want solved in a way that will make them permanently change their behavior. The former tests the problem messaging; the latter, the solution effectiveness.
重要的是要对比最小可行产品（MVP）与烟雾测试方法，后者是指你构建一个预告网站——例如，一个在 LaunchRock 中生成的简单页面，上面链接到社交网络。通过烟雾测试页面，你是在测试信息是否足够有吸引力以获得注册。而通过 MVP，你是在测试产品是否能够以一种让人们永久改变行为的方式来解决人们想要解决的问题。前者测试的是问题信息传递；后者测试的是解决方案的有效性。

Circle back with interviewees as you’re designing the MVP. Show them wireframes, prototypes, and mockups. Make sure you get the strong, positive reaction you’re looking for before building anything. Cut everything out that doesn’t draw an extremely straight line, from your validated problem, to the unique value proposition, to the MVP, to the metrics you’ll use to validate success.
在设计 MVP 时，要回访访谈对象。向他们展示线框图、原型和模型。确保在构建任何东西之前，得到你期望的强烈积极反应。去掉所有不能从已验证的问题直接连接到独特的价值主张，再到 MVP，再到你将用来验证成功的指标的东西。

It’s important to note that the MVP is a process, not a product. This is something we learned at Year One Labs working with multiple startups all at a similar stage. The knee-jerk reaction once you’ve decided on the feature set is to build it and gun for traction as quickly as possible, turning on all the marketing tactics possible. As much as we all understand that seeing our name in lights on a popular tech blog doesn’t really make a huge difference, it’s still great when it’s there. But sticking with Lean Startup’s core tenet—build $\hookrightarrow$ measure→learn—it’s important to realize that an MVP will go through numerous iterations before you’re ready to go to the next step.
需要注意的是，最小可行产品（MVP）是一个过程，而不是一个产品。这是我们在 Year One Labs 与多个处于相似阶段的初创公司合作时学到的。一旦确定了功能集，人们的第一反应就是立即构建它并尽快获取用户，并启动所有可能的营销策略。虽然我们都明白在热门科技博客上看到自己的名字并不会带来巨大的影响，但即使有这种情况发生，也仍然是件好事。但坚持精益创业的核心原则——构建 $\hookrightarrow$ 衡量→学习——重要的是要认识到，MVP 在进入下一步之前会经历多次迭代。

Measuring the MVP

衡量 MVP

The real analytical work starts the minute you develop and launch an MVP, because every interaction between a customer and the MVP results in data you can analyze.
真正的分析工作从你开发和发布 MVP 的那一刻开始，因为客户与 MVP 的每一次互动都会产生你可以分析的数据。

For starters, you need to pick the OMTM. If you don’t know what it should be, and you haven’t defined “success” for that metric, you shouldn’t be building anything. Everything you build into the initial MVP should relate to and impact the OMTM. And the line in the sand has to be clearly drawn.
首先，你需要确定最重要的衡量指标（OMTM）。如果你不知道它应该是什么，并且没有为该指标定义“成功”，那么你就不应该开始构建任何东西。你最初构建的 MVP 中的所有内容都应该与该指标相关并对其产生影响。并且必须明确划定界限。

At this stage, metrics around user acquisition are irrelevant. You don’t need hundreds of thousands of users to prove if something is working or not. You don’t even need thousands. Even with the most complicated of businesses, you can narrow things down significantly:
在这个阶段，关于用户获取的指标是无关紧要的。你不需要成千上万用户来证明某件事是否有效。你甚至不需要成千。即使是最复杂的业务，你也可以将其缩小到相当大的程度：

• If you’re building a marketplace for used goods, you might focus on one tiny geographic area, such as house listings in Miami.
• 如果你正在构建一个二手商品市场，你可能会专注于一个很小的地理区域，比如迈阿密的房屋列表。
• The same holds true for any location-based application where density is important—a garage sale finder that’s limited to one or two neighborhoods.
• 任何基于位置的应用，如果密度很重要，都是一样的——一个仅限于一个或两个社区的古董跳蚤市场查找器。
• You might pick one product type for your marketplace test—say, X-Men comics from the 80s—validate the business there, and then expand.
• 你可能会为你的市场测试选择一种产品类型——比如 80 年代的 X 战警漫画——在那里验证业务，然后扩展。
• Maybe you want to test the core game mechanics of your game. Release a mini-game as a solo application and see what engagement is like.
• 也许你想测试你的游戏的核心玩法。发布一个迷你游戏作为独立应用，看看用户参与度如何。
• Perhaps you’re building a tool for parents to connect. See if it works in a single school.
• 也许你正在为父母们开发一个连接工具。看看它在单所学校是否有效。

The key is to identify the riskiest parts of your business and de-risk them through a constant cycle of testing and learning. Metrics is how you measure and learn whether the risk has been overcome.
关键在于识别你业务中最有风险的部分，并通过持续的测试和学习来降低这些风险。指标是衡量和学习风险是否已被克服的方式。

Entrepreneur, author, and investor Tim Ferriss, in an interview with Kevin Rose, said that if you focus on making 10,000 people really happy, you could reach millions later.* For the first launch of your MVP, you can think even smaller, but Ferriss’s point is absolutely correct: total focus is necessary in order to make genuine progress.
企业家、作家和投资者蒂姆·费里斯在凯文·罗斯的采访中说，如果你专注于让 1 万人非常满意，那么后来你可以达到百万级别。对于你的 MVP 首次发布，你可以考虑更小的范围，但费里斯的观点是完全正确的：全神贯注是取得真正进展的必要条件。

The most important metrics will be around engagement. Are people using the product? How are they using the product? Are they using all of the product or only pieces of it? Is their usage and behavior as expected or different?
最重要的指标将围绕参与度。人们是否在使用产品？他们如何使用产品？他们是使用全部产品还是只使用部分？他们的使用行为是否符合预期或有所不同？

No feature should be built without a corresponding metric on usage and engagement. These sub-metrics all bubble up to the OMTM; they’re pieces of data that, aggregated, tell a more complete story. If you can’t instrument a feature or component of your product, be very careful about adding it in—you’re introducing variables that will become harder and harder to control.
没有一个功能应该在没有相应的使用和参与度指标的情况下被构建。这些子指标都汇总到 OMTM 中；它们是数据的一部分，当聚合起来时，会讲述一个更完整的故事。如果你不能对你的产品的一个功能或组件进行仪器化，在添加它时要非常小心——你正在引入将变得越来越难以控制的变量。

Even as you focus on a single metric, you need to be sure you’re actually adding value. Let’s say you launch a new SaaS product, and you assume that if someone doesn’t use it in 30 days, he’s churned. That means it’ll be 30 days before you know your churn rate. That’s much too long. Customers always churn, but if you’re not writing them off quickly, you may think you have more engagement than you really do. Even if initial engagement is strong, you need to measure whether you’re delivering value. You might, for example, look at the time between visits. Is it the same? Or does it gradually drop off? You might find a useful leading indicator along the way.
即使你专注于单一指标，也需要确保你确实在增加价值。假设你推出了一款新的 SaaS 产品，如果你认为有人在 30 天内没有使用它，他就会流失。这意味着你将在 30 天后才知道你的流失率。这太长了。客户总是会流失，但如果你不快速将他们注销，你可能会认为你的参与度比你实际的高。即使初始参与度很强，你也需要衡量你是否在提供价值。例如，你可以查看访问之间的时间间隔。它是相同的吗？或者它逐渐减少？你可能会在这个过程中找到一个有用的领先指标。

Don’t Ignore Qualitative Analytics

不要忽视定性分析

You should be speaking with users and customers throughout the MVP process. Now that they have a product in their hands, you can learn a great deal from them. They’ll be less inclined to lie or sugarcoat things—after all, you made a promise of some kind and now they have a high expectation that you’ll deliver. Early adopters are forgiving, and they’re OK with (and in fact, crave) roughly hewn products, but at the same time their feedback will become more honest and transparent as their time with the MVP increases.
在 MVP 过程中，你应该始终与用户和客户沟通。现在他们手中有了产品，你可以从他们那里学到很多东西。他们不太可能撒谎或粉饰太平——毕竟你做出了一些承诺，现在他们对你有很高的期望。早期采用者很宽容，他们可以接受（甚至渴望）粗糙的产品，但同时随着他们使用 MVP 的时间增加，他们的反馈会变得更加诚实和透明。

Be Prepared to Kill Features

做好淘汰功能的准备

It’s incredibly hard to do, but it can make a huge difference. If a feature isn’t being used, or it’s not creating value through its use, get rid of it and see what happens. Once you’ve removed a feature, continue to measure engagement and usage with existing users. Did it make a difference?
这非常困难，但它可以带来巨大的影响。如果一个功能没有被使用，或者它在使用中没有创造价值，那就把它去掉，看看会发生什么。一旦你移除了一个功能，继续衡量现有用户的参与度和使用情况。有影响吗？

If nobody minds, you’ve cleaned things up. If the existing users protest, you may need to revisit your decision. And if a new cohort of users—who’d never seen the feature before it was removed—start asking for it, they may represent a new segment with different needs than your existing user base.
如果没人介意，你就清理干净了。如果现有用户表示抗议，你可能需要重新考虑你的决定。而且，如果一批新用户——在他们看到功能被移除之前从未见过这个功能——开始要求它，他们可能代表了一个具有不同需求的新用户群体。

The narrowing of your focus and value proposition through the elimination of features should have an impact on how customers respond.
通过消除功能来缩小您的关注点和价值主张，应该会对客户的反应产生影响。

CASE STUDY Static Pixels Eliminates a Step in Its Order Process

案例研究：Static Pixels 消除了其订单流程中的一个步骤

Static Pixels is an early-stage startup founded by Massimo Farina. The company allows you to order prints of your Instagram photos on recycled cardboard. When the company first launched, it had a feature called InstaOrder, which allowed you to order photos directly from Instagram. Massimo believed that InstaOrder would make it easier for customers to use his service and increase the volume of orders. “We built the feature based on pre-launch feedback, and the assumption that users would like it,” Massimo said.
Static Pixels 是由 Massimo Farina 创办的一家早期阶段创业公司。该公司允许您在再生纸板上订购您的 Instagram 照片。当公司首次推出时，它有一个名为 InstaOrder 的功能，该功能允许您直接从 Instagram 订购照片。Massimo 认为 InstaOrder 将使客户更容易使用他的服务并增加订单量。“我们根据发布前的反馈构建了这个功能，并假设用户会喜欢它，” Massimo 说。

The company spent two weeks building the feature—a costly amount of development time for a small team—but after releasing the feature found it wasn’t used much. Massimo said, “Turns out, the feature was confusing people and making the checkout process more complicated.”
该公司花费了两周时间来构建该功能——对于一个小的团队来说，这是一笔昂贵的开发时间——但在发布该功能后发现它使用得不多。Massimo 说，“结果，该功能让一些人感到困惑，并使结账过程更加复杂。”

As Figure 15-9 shows, the first-time ordering process with InstaOrder had an extra step, and that step required going to PayPal to preauthorize payments. The hypothesis was that the feature would be worth the first-time ordering pain, after which ordering would be much easier directly through Instagram. “Convenience was the hypothesis,” noted Massimo.
如图 15-9 所示，使用 InstaOrder 进行首次订购的过程有一个额外的步骤，该步骤需要前往 PayPal 进行预授权支付。假设是认为这个功能值得首次订购的麻烦，之后直接通过 Instagram 订购会容易得多。“便利性是假设，”马西莫指出。

But Massimo and his team were wrong. Not only were orders low, but page views started to drop on the landing page that promoted the feature, and bounce rate was high as well. It just wasn’t resonating.
但马西莫和他的团队错了。不仅订单量低，而且推广该功能的着陆页上的页面浏览量开始下降，跳出率也很高。它根本就没有引起共鸣。

Two weeks after the feature was removed, the number of transactions doubled, and it continues to increase. The bounce rate on the new landing page improved while sign-in goal completions increased.
该功能被移除后两周，交易量翻了一番，并且仍在持续增加。新着陆页上的跳出率有所改善，而登录目标完成率也提高了。

So what did the Static Pixels team learn? “For starters, I think people didn’t transact through Instagram because it’s a very new and foreign process,” Massimo said. “Ordering products via a native social platform interface hasn’t really been done before. Also, I believe that when people are posting photos to Instagram, they aren’t necessarily thinking about ordering prints of that photo.”
静态像素团队学到了什么？“首先，我认为人们没有通过 Instagram 进行交易，因为它是一个非常新且陌生的过程，”马西莫说。“通过原生社交平台界面订购产品以前真的没有做过。此外，我相信当人们向 Instagram 发布照片时，他们并不一定是在考虑订购该照片的印刷品。”

The company lost some development time, but through a focus on analytics—particularly on its key metric of prints ordered—it identified roadblocks in its process, made tough decisions on removing a feature (which it originally thought was one of its unique value propositions), and then tracked the results.
公司损失了一些开发时间，但通过对分析的关注——特别是对其关键指标“订单打印”——它识别了流程中的障碍，就移除一个功能做出了艰难的决定（这个功能最初被认为是其独特价值主张之一），然后跟踪了结果。

Figure 15-9. Which model worked better?
图 15-9。哪个模型更好？

摘要

• The way Static Pixels asked users to buy had too much friction. • A lighter-weight approach, with fewer steps, was both easier to implement and increased conversion rates.
• 静态像素公司要求用户购买的方式过于繁琐。 • 一种更轻量级的方法，步骤更少，既更容易实施，也提高了转化率。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Building a more advanced purchasing system that sacrificed firstpurchase simplicity for long-term ease of repeat purchases seemed like a good idea, but it was premature. This early in the company’s life, the question was “Will people buy prints?” and not “Will we have loyal buyers?” The feature the team had built was de-risking the wrong question. Always know what risk you’re eliminating, and then design the minimum functionality to measure whether you’ve overcome it.
构建一个更高级的购买系统，该系统牺牲了首次购买的简单性，以换取长期重复购买的便利性，看起来是个好主意，但它为时过早。在公司早期，问题应该是“人们会购买印刷品吗？”而不是“我们会有忠实买家吗？”团队构建的功能是在规避错误的问题。始终要知道你正在消除什么风险，然后设计最小功能来衡量你是否克服了它。

A Summary of the Empathy Stage

同理心阶段的总结

• Your goal is to identify a need you can solve in a way people will pay money for at scale. Analytics is how you measure your way from your initial idea to the realization of that goal.
• 你的目标是找到一个可以通过大规模付费方式解决的问题。分析学是如何帮助你从最初的想法到实现这一目标的测量方法。
• Early on, you conduct qualitative, exploratory, open-ended discussions to discover the unknown opportunities.
• 早期，你进行定性、探索性的开放式讨论，以发现未知的机会。
• Later, your discussions become more quantitative and more convergent, as you try to find the right solution for a problem.
• 后来，你的讨论变得更加定量和收敛，因为你试图找到解决问题的正确方案。
• You can use tools to get answers at scale and build up an audience as you figure out what product to build.
• 你可以使用工具来大规模获取答案，并在确定要构建的产品时建立受众。

Once you have a good idea of a problem you’re going to solve, and you’re confident that you have real interest from a sizeable market you know how to reach, it’s time to build something that keeps users coming back.
一旦你对要解决的问题有了很好的了解，并且你确信你有一个可以触及的庞大市场，那就是构建一些让用户持续回来的东西的时候了。

It’s time to get sticky.
是时候粘住了。

EXERCISE |  Should You Move to the Next Stage?

练习 | 你应该进入下一阶段吗？

Answer the following questions.
回答以下问题。

Stage Two: Stickiness

第二阶段：粘性

Having climbed inside your market’s head, it’s time to build something. The big question now is whether or not what you’ve built is sticky, so that when you throw users at it, they’ll engage. You want to be, as Rowan Atkinson’s Blackadder put it, “in the stickiest situation since Sticky the stick insect got stuck on a sticky bun.” That’s how you make the business sustainable.
在深入了解你的市场之后，现在是时候去构建一些东西了。现在的大问题是，你所构建的东西是否具有粘性，以便当你向用户展示它时，他们会参与其中。你希望像罗温·阿特金森的布莱克阿德所说，“自粘性昆虫斯迪奇粘在粘性面包上以来，最粘的情况”。这就是你使业务可持续发展的方式。

MVP Stickiness

MVP 粘性

The focus now is squarely on retention and engagement. You can look at daily, weekly, and/or monthly active users; how long it takes someone to become inactive; how many inactive users can be reactivated when sent an email; and which features engaged users spend time with, and which they ignore. Segment these metrics by cohort to see if your changes convince additional users to behave differently. Did users who signed up in February stick around longer than those who joined in January?
现在的重点完全在于留存和参与度。你可以查看每日、每周和/或每月的活跃用户；某人变得不活跃需要多长时间；在发送电子邮件时，有多少不活跃用户可以被重新激活；以及参与用户在哪些功能上花费时间，在哪些功能上被忽略。按队列分割这些指标，看看你的改变是否说服了额外的用户改变行为。二月注册的用户是否比一月加入的用户留存时间更长？

You don’t just want signs of engagement. You want proof that your product is becoming an integral part of your users’ lives, and that it’ll be hard for them to switch. You’re not looking for, nor should you expect, rapid growth. You’re throwing things at the wall to test stickiness, not measuring how fast you can throw. And by “things,” we mean users. After all, if you can’t convince a hundred users to stick around today, you’re unlikely to convince a million to do so later.*
你不仅想要参与的迹象。你想要证据证明你的产品正在成为你用户生活中不可或缺的一部分，并且他们很难切换。你正在寻找的，也不应该期望，是快速增长。你是在向墙上扔东西来测试粘性，而不是测量你能扔得多快。而“东西”指的是用户。毕竟，如果你今天无法说服一百个用户留下来，你以后不太可能说服一百万个用户这样做。

Your top priority is to build a core set of features that gets used regularly and successfully, even by a small group of initial users. Without that, you don’t have a solid enough foundation for growth. Your initial target market can be very small, hyper-focused on the smallest subset of users that you think will generate meaningful results.
你的首要任务是构建一组核心功能，这些功能即使被一小部分初始用户定期并成功使用，也是至关重要的。没有这个基础，你就不具备足够稳固的增长基础。你的初始目标市场可以非常小，高度专注于你认为能够产生有意义结果的用户最小子集。

Ultimately, you need to prove two things before you can move on to the Virality stage:
最终，在进入病毒传播阶段之前，你需要证明两件事：

• Are people using the product as you expected? If they aren’t, maybe you should switch to that new use case or market, as PayPal did when it changed from PalmPilot to web-based payment or when Autodesk stopped making desktop automation and instead focused on design tools.
• 人们是否按照你的预期使用产品？如果不是，也许你应该转向新的用例或市场，就像 PayPal 从 PalmPilot 转向基于网络的支付一样，或者像 Autodesk 停止制作桌面自动化，转而专注于设计工具一样。
Are people getting enough value out of it? They may like it, but if they won’t pay, click ads, or invite their friends, you may not have a business.
人们是否从中获得了足够的价值？他们可能喜欢它，但如果他们不会付费、点击广告或邀请朋友，你可能就没有业务了。

Don’t drive new traffic until you know you can turn that extra attention into engagement. When you know users keep coming back, it’s time to grow your user base.
不要在你知道如何将额外关注转化为参与度之前，驱动新的流量。当你知道用户会持续回归时，就是扩大用户群的时候了。

Iterating the MVP

迭代最小可行产品

As we’ve said, the MVP is a process, not a product. You don’t pass Go just because you put something into people’s hands. Expect to go through many iterations of your MVP before it’s time to shift your focus to customer acquisition.
正如我们所说，最小可行产品是一个过程，而不是一个产品。你不会因为把某物交给人们就通过“ go”点。在将注意力转移到客户获取之前，要预期你的最小可行产品会经过许多迭代。

Iterating on your MVP is difficult, tedious work. It’s methodical. Sometimes it doesn’t feel like innovation. Iterations are evolutionary; pivots are revolutionary. This is one of the reasons founders get frustrated and decide instead to pivot repeatedly in the hopes that something will accidentally engage their users. Resist that temptation.
迭代你的最小可行产品是困难而繁琐的工作。它是系统性的。有时它感觉不像创新。迭代是渐进的；转变是革命性的。这就是创始人感到沮丧并决定反复转变的原因，希望某事会偶然吸引他们的用户。抵制这种诱惑。

As you iterate, your goal is to improve on the core metrics that you’re tracking. If a new feature doesn’t significantly improve the One Metric That Matters, remove it. Don’t get caught tinkering and polishing. You’re not fine-tuning at this point; you’re searching for the right product and market.
在迭代过程中，你的目标是改进你正在追踪的核心指标。如果一个新功能没有显著提高“最重要的指标”，就将其移除。不要陷入调整和润色的陷阱。此时你并非在微调；你是在寻找合适的产品和市场。

CASE STUDY  |  qidiq Changes How It Adds Users

案例研究 | qidiq 改变了它添加用户的方式

Qidiq is a tool—for doing really simple surveys of small groups via email or a mobile application—that was launched through startup accelerator Year One Labs. In early versions of the product, a survey creator invited respondents to join a group. Once those respondents had signed up and created an account, they could answer surveys delivered by email or pushed to an iPhone client.
Qidiq 是一个工具——通过电子邮件或移动应用程序对小型群体进行简单调查——它通过创业加速器 Year One Labs 推出。在产品的早期版本中，一个调查创建者邀请受访者加入一个群体。一旦这些受访者注册并创建了一个账户，他们就可以回答通过电子邮件发送或推送到 iPhone 客户端的调查。

Only a small percentage of people who were invited actually created an account and responded. So the founders devised a test: why not act as if the recipient already had an account, send her a survey question she can respond to with a single click or tap, and see what the response rate is like? The act of responding could be treated as tacit acceptance of enrollment; later, if the recipient wanted to log into her account, she could do so through a password recovery.
只有少数被邀请的人实际上创建了账户并进行了回应。因此，创始人设计了一个测试：为什么不假装收件人已经有一个账户，向她发送一个她可以用单击或轻触回答的调查问题，看看回应率如何？回应的行为可以被视为默示的注册接受；稍后，如果收件人想要登录她的账户，她可以通过密码恢复来做到这一点。

The qidiq team quickly changed their application, as illustrated in Figure 16-1, and sent out more surveys to personal groups they’d created. These initial surveys were sent via email alone. The results were striking: response rates went from $10-25\mathrm{\%}$ with the enroll-first model to $70-90\mathrm{\%}$ with the vote-first model. This made the team rethink their plans to develop a mobile application, since mobile applications couldn’t compete with the cross-platform ubiquity and immediacy of email. Maybe email was good enough, and they shouldn’t build their mobile app any more, or port it to Android.
qidiq 团队迅速更改了他们的应用程序，如图 16-1 所示，并向他们创建的个人群体发送了更多的调查。这些初步的调查是通过电子邮件单独发送的。结果令人瞩目：回应率从注册优先模型中的 $10-25\mathrm{\%}$ 变为投票优先模型中的 $70-90\mathrm{\%}$ 。这使得团队重新思考了他们开发移动应用程序的计划，因为移动应用程序无法与电子邮件的跨平台普遍性和即时性竞争。也许电子邮件已经足够好了，他们不应该再开发他们的移动应用程序，或者将其移植到 Android。

Figure 16-1. Don’t let details like account creation get in the way of your core functionality
图 16-1。不要让账户创建等细节妨碍你的核心功能

“By focusing on the key metric of response rate, we were able to avoid the temptation of wasting our energy on the sexier mobile app,” says co-founder Jonathan Abrams. “Because it was the response rate that mattered, it became clear early on that email, while less sexy, was the better strategy for our startup.”
“通过专注于关键指标响应率，我们能够避免浪费精力在更吸引人的移动应用上，”联合创始人乔纳森·艾布拉姆斯说。“因为响应率才是关键，所以很早就清楚电子邮件虽然不够吸引人，但对我们初创公司来说才是更好的策略。”

The metric qidiq was tracking, which was the basis of its whole product, was the number of people who would respond to a question. That was the right metric, and when the team found a product change that moved it dramatically in the right direction, it made them rethink the design of their entire service.
该指标 qidiq 正在追踪的，也是其整个产品的基础，是会回答问题的人数。这是正确的指标，当团队找到一个产品变更能显著将其朝正确方向推动时，他们重新思考了整个服务的设计。

摘要

• The MVP should include the simplest, least-friction path between your user and the “aha!” moment you’re trying to deliver.
• MVP 应该包含最简单、摩擦最小的路径，让用户能够体验到他们试图传递的“啊哈！”时刻。

• Everything is on the table. While you shouldn’t reinvent wellunderstood concepts like an enrollment process with which people are familiar, you should also feel free to ignore them for the sake of a test.
• 所有事情都摆在桌面上。虽然你不应该重新发明人们熟悉的成熟概念，比如注册流程，但也应该为了测试而自由地忽略它们。
• Focusing on a single metric—in this case, survey response rate—let the team tweak every other part of the business, from sign-up to platform.
• 专注于单一指标——在这个例子中是调查回复率——让团队调整业务的每一个其他部分，从注册到平台。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

When you’ve got an MVP, you don’t have a product. You have a tool for figuring out what product to build. By asking an unorthodox question—in this case, “What if users were already registered?”—the qidiq team not only quadrupled response rates, but also avoided a costly, distracting development rathole.
当你有一个最小可行产品时，你没有一个产品。你有一个用于找出要构建什么产品的工具。通过提出一个非传统的问题——在这个例子中是“如果用户已经注册了会怎样？”——qidiq 团队不仅将回复率提高了四倍，还避免了昂贵且分散注意力的开发陷阱。

Premature Virality

过早的病毒式传播

Many startups—particularly in the consumer space—focus on virality first. They implement features and tactics to try to increase user acquisition as much as possible, before really understanding what those users will do. This is common for two reasons:
许多初创公司——尤其是在消费者领域——首先关注病毒式传播。他们在真正了解这些用户会做什么之前，实施功能和策略来尽可能增加用户获取。这有两个常见原因：

• First, the bar for success in a consumer application is always going up. A few years ago, hundreds of thousands of users was considered big. Today, 1 million users is the benchmark, but it’s quickly going to 10 million. That’s a lot of users. Certain categories of product, such as social networks and e-commerce, are ossifying, with a few gigantic players competing and leaving little room for upstarts. • Second, many consumer applications rely on network effects. The more users, the more value created for everyone. Nobody wants to use the telephone when they’re the only one with a telephone. Location-based applications typically require lots of scale, as do most marketplaces and user-generated content businesses, so that there are enough transactions and discussions to make things interesting. Without a critical mass of users, Facebook is an empty shell. Reaching this critical mass quickly is the first step in delivering the anticipated value of the product.
首先，消费者应用的成功标准一直在提高。几年前，几十万用户就算很大了。如今，一百万用户是基准，但很快会达到一千万。这是很多用户。某些产品类别，如社交网络和电子商务，正在僵化，少数巨头竞争，留给新进入者的空间很小。其次，许多消费者应用依赖于网络效应。用户越多，为每个人创造的价值就越大。当他们是唯一有电话的人时，没有人想用电话。基于位置的应用通常需要很大的规模，大多数市场和用户生成内容业务也是如此，这样才有足够的交易和讨论让事情变得有趣。没有足够多的用户，Facebook 就是一个空壳。快速达到这个临界数量是实现产品预期价值的第一步。

As a result, founders of consumer startups and multiplayer games often argue that they need to focus on virality and user acquisition because it will solve all their other problems. But having lots of users isn’t traction unless those users are engaged and sticking around.
因此，消费者初创公司和多人游戏的公司创始人经常争论说，他们需要专注于病毒式传播和用户获取，因为这将解决他们所有其他的问题。但除非这些用户参与其中并留下来，否则拥有大量用户就不是进展。

The results of premature scaling can be disastrous if startups invest all of their time and money into user acquisition, only to watch those users churn too quickly. By the time they go back and try to recover those users, they’re gone. You never get a second chance to have a first enrollment.
不成熟的扩展结果可能是灾难性的，如果初创公司将所有的时间和金钱都投入到用户获取中，然后看着这些用户迅速流失。等到他们回去尝试挽回这些用户时，他们已经消失了。你永远没有第二次机会进行第一次招生。

The Goal Is Retention

目标是留存

The more engaged that people are with your product (and potentially other users of your product), the more likely they’ll stay. By ignoring growth from virality (for now), you can simplify how you decide what to build next into your MVP. Ask yourself, “Do we believe that the feature we want to build (or the feature we want to change) will improve stickiness?” Put the feature aside if the answer is “no.” But if the answer is “yes,” figure out how to test that belief and start building the feature.
人们与你的产品（以及潜在的其他产品用户）的参与度越高，他们就越有可能留下来。通过暂时忽略通过病毒式传播实现增长，你可以简化你决定下一个要构建的 MVP 的方式。问自己，“我们相信我们想要构建（或想要更改）的功能将提高粘性吗？”如果答案是“不”，那就把功能搁置。但如果答案是“是”，那就想办法测试这个信念，并开始构建功能。”

PATTERN Seven Questions to Ask Yourself Before Building a Feature

模式七、在构建功能之前，问自己七个问题

You probably have a long list of feature ideas you believe will improve retention. You need to further prioritize. Here are seven questions you can ask yourself (and your team) before building a new feature.
你可能有一长串你认为能提高留存率的功能点子。你需要进一步优先排序。以下是你在构建新功能之前可以问自己的七个问题。

1. Why Will It Make Things Better?

1. 它将如何让事情变得更好？

You can’t build a feature without having a reason for building it. In the Stickiness stage, your focus is retention. Look at your potential feature list and ask yourself, “Why do I think this will improve retention?”
在没有构建功能理由的情况下，你不能构建一个功能。在粘性阶段，你的重点是留存率。看看你的潜在功能列表，问自己：“我认为这个功能将如何提高留存率？”

You’ll be tempted to copy what others are doing—say, using gamification to drive engagement (and in turn retention)—just because it looks like it’s working for the competition. Don’t. Qidiq ignored common wisdom around the sign-up process and the creation of a mobile app and quadrupled engagement. It’s OK to copy existing patterns, but know why you’re doing so.
你可能会被诱惑去模仿别人正在做的事情——比如说，使用游戏化来提高参与度（进而提高留存率）——仅仅因为竞争对手看起来做得不错。不要这样做。Qidiq 忽视了关于注册流程和移动应用创建的普遍智慧，并将参与度提高了四倍。复制现有的模式是可以的，但要明白你为什么要这样做。

Asking “Why will it make it better?” forces you to write out (on paper!) a hypothesis. This naturally leads to a good experiment that will test that hypothesis. Feature experiments, if they’re tied to a specific metric (such as retention) are usually easy: you believe feature X will improve retention by Y percent. The second part of that statement is as important as the first part; you need to draw that line in the sand.
问“为什么它会变得更好？”会迫使你（在纸上！）写出一个假设。这自然地引出了一个良好的实验来验证这个假设。如果功能实验与特定的指标（如留存率）相关联，它们通常很容易：你认为功能 X 将使留存率提高 Y%。这个陈述的第二部分和第一部分同样重要；你需要划定那条界限。

2. Can You Measure the Effect of the Feature?

2. 你能衡量功能的效果吗？

Feature experiments require that you measure the impact of the feature. That impact has to be quantifiable. Too often, features get added to a product without any quantifiable validation—which is a direct path toward scope creep and feature bloat.
功能实验要求你衡量功能的影响。这种影响必须是可量化的。很多时候，功能被添加到产品中而没有任何可量化的验证——这是导致范围蔓延和功能膨胀的直接途径。

If you’re unable to quantify the impact of a new feature, you can’t assess its value, and you won’t really know what to do with the feature over time. If this is the case, leave it as is, iterate on it, or kill it.
如果你无法量化新功能的影响，你就无法评估它的价值，而且你也不会真正知道如何长期使用这个功能。如果是这种情况，就保持现状，迭代它，或者砍掉它。

3. How Long Will the Feature Take to Build?

3. 这个功能需要多长时间来构建？

Time is a precious resource you never get back. You have to compare the relative development time of each feature on your list. If something is going to take months to build, you need good confidence that it will have a significant impact. Can you break it into smaller parts, or test the inherent risk with a curated MVP or a prototype instead?
时间是一种宝贵的资源，你永远无法再得到它。你必须比较列表中每个功能的相对开发时间。如果某件事需要几个月来构建，你需要有很好的信心，它将产生重大影响。你能把它分解成更小的部分吗？或者用精心策划的最小可行产品或原型来测试固有的风险？

4. Will the Feature Overcomplicate Things?

4. 这个功能会使事情变得过于复杂吗？

Complexity kills products. It’s most obvious in the user experience of many web applications: they become so convoluted and confusing that users leave for a simpler alternative.
复杂性扼杀产品。这在许多网络应用程序的用户体验中最为明显：它们变得如此错综复杂和令人困惑，以至于用户会转向更简单的替代品。

“And” is the enemy of success. When discussing a feature with your team, pay attention to how it’s being described. “The feature will allow you to do this, and it’d be great if it did this other thing, and this other thing, and this other thing too.” Warning bells should be going off at this point. If you’re trying to justify a feature by saying it satisfies several needs a little bit, know that it’s almost always better to satisfy one need in an absolutely epic, remarkable way.
“和”是成功的敌人。当与团队讨论功能时，注意它是如何被描述的。“该功能将允许你这样做，如果它还能这样做，还有这个，还有那个。”这时就应该警铃大作。如果你试图通过说一个功能能在一定程度上满足几个需求来为其辩护，要知道，几乎总是比以绝对出色、卓越的方式满足一个需求要好得多。

One mobile analytics expert for an adult-content site told us his rule for new features is simple: “If you can’t do it in three taps with one hand, it’s broken.” Knowing your user’s behavior and expectations is everything. Having feature complexity get in the way of the real testing you need to do around your market, customer acquisition, and retention is extremely painful.
一位成人内容网站的手机分析专家告诉我们，他对新功能的规则很简单：“如果你用一只手在三次点击内无法完成，它就是有问题的。”了解你的用户行为和期望至关重要。让功能复杂性妨碍你真正需要围绕市场、客户获取和留存进行的测试，这是极其痛苦的。

5. How Much Risk Is There in This New Feature?

5. 这个新功能的风险有多大？

Building new features always comes with some amount of risk. There’s technical risk related to how a feature may impact the code base. There’s user risk in terms of how people might respond to the feature. There’s also risk n terms of how a new feature drives future development, potentially setting you on a path you don’t want to pursue.
开发新功能总是伴随着一定的风险。存在技术风险，即新功能可能对代码库产生的影响。存在用户风险，即人们可能如何响应该功能。还存在风险，即新功能如何驱动未来的开发，可能会把你引向你不想追求的道路。

Each feature you add creates an emotional commitment for your development team, and sometimes for your customers. Analytics helps break that bond so that you can measure things honestly and make the best decisions possible, with the most information available.
你添加的每个功能都会给你的开发团队带来情感上的承诺，有时也会给你的客户带来承诺。分析有助于打破这种联系，以便你可以诚实地衡量事物，并做出最佳决策，利用所有可用的信息。

6. How Innovative Is the New Feature?

6. 新功能有多具创新性？

Not everything you do will be innovative. Most features aren’t innovative, they’re small tweaks to a product in the hope that the whole is more valuable than the individual parts.
你所做的一切并不都是创新的。大多数功能都不是创新的，它们只是对产品的微小调整，希望整体比各个部分更有价值。

But consider innovation when prioritizing feature development; generally, the easiest things to do rarely have a big impact. You’re still in the Stickiness stage, trying to find the right product. Changing a submit button from red to blue may result in a good jump in signup conversions (a classic A/B test), but it’s probably not going to turn your business from a failure into a giant success; it’s also easy for others to copy.
但在确定功能开发优先级时，要考虑创新；通常，最容易做的事情很少能产生重大影响。你仍然处于“粘性”阶段，试图找到合适的产品。将提交按钮从红色改为蓝色可能会带来良好的注册转化率提升（一个经典的 A/B 测试），但它不太可能将你的业务从失败转变为巨大成功；而且它也很容易被其他人复制。

It’s better to make big bets, swing for the fences, try more radical experiments, and build more disruptive things, particularly since you have fewer user expectations to contend with than you will later on.
与其说是做出大的赌注，大胆尝试，进行更多激进的实验，并构建更具颠覆性的东西，尤其是考虑到你比后来要面对的用户期望更少。

7. What Do Users Say They Want?

7. 用户声称他们想要什么？

Your users are important. Their feedback is important. But relying on what they say is risky. Be careful about over-prioritizing based on user input alone. Users lie, and they don’t like hurting your feelings.
你的用户很重要。他们的反馈很重要。但仅依赖他们所说的是有风险的。要小心不要仅仅基于用户输入就过度优先级。用户会撒谎，而且他们不喜欢伤害你的感情。

Prioritizing feature development during an MVP isn’t an exact science. User actions speak louder than words. Aim for a genuinely testable hypothesis for every feature you build, and you’ll have a much better chance of quickly validating success or failure. Simply tracking how popular various features are within the application will reveal what’s working and what’s not. Looking at what feature a user was using before he hit “undo” or the back button will pinpoint possible problem areas.
在 MVP 阶段优先开发功能并非一门精确的科学。用户的行为比语言更有说服力。为每个你构建的功能确立一个真正可测试的假设，你将更有可能快速验证成功或失败。仅仅跟踪应用内各种功能的受欢迎程度就能揭示哪些功能有效，哪些无效。查看用户在点击“撤销”或返回按钮之前使用的是哪个功能，就能精准定位可能存在的问题区域。

Building features is easy if you plan them beforehand and truly understand why you’re doing something. It’s important to tie your high-level vision and long-term goals down to the feature level. Without that alignment, you run the risk of building features that can’t be properly tested and don’t drive the business forward.
如果你事先规划好功能并真正理解为什么要做某事，那么构建功能就很容易。将你的高阶愿景和长期目标与功能层面相结合非常重要。没有这种一致性，你就有风险构建出无法有效测试且不能推动业务发展的功能。

CASE STUDY How Rally Builds New Features with a Lean Approach

案例研究：Rally 如何以精益方法构建新功能

Rally Software makes Agile application lifecycle management software. The company was founded in 2002 and has pioneered a number of Agile best practices. We spoke with Chief Technologist Zach Nies about how the company continues to successfully build its products.
Rally Software 制作敏捷应用生命周期管理软件。该公司成立于 2002 年，并开创了多项敏捷最佳实践。我们与首席技术官 Zach Nies 交谈，了解该公司如何继续成功构建其产品。

Establishing a Company Vision

建立公司愿景

Everything at Rally starts with a three- to five-year company vision that is refreshed every 18 months. The entire company aligns around the vision, which is the first waypoint in turning a big, distant goal into something more attainable. This longer-term vision becomes a key input into annual planning each year. Zach says, “When we were younger and smaller we didn’t bother looking three years into the future, but it’s an important part of the process for a company of our size.”
Rally 的一切都始于一个三到五年的公司愿景，每 18 个月更新一次。整个公司围绕愿景团结一致，这是将一个遥远的大目标转化为更可实现目标的第一站。这个长期愿景成为每年规划的关键输入。Zach 说：“当我们还年轻且规模较小时，我们不会费心展望三年后的未来，但对于我们这样规模的公司来说，这是一个重要的过程。”

Annual planning is initially done by a small group of executives. Zach calls this the first iteration. The output of the initial planning is a draft corporate strategy, which provides a clear, concise picture of Rally’s performance gaps and targets, reflections, and rationale for the year. The executive team also identifies three or four high-level places where they believe the company needs to focus action to accomplish the annual vision. “This work creates a draft of ideas to bring back to Rally for reflection,” Zach says. “They provide a summary of what the executive group saw as critically valuable to address in our upcoming year.”
年度规划最初由一小群高管进行。Zach 称这为第一轮。初始规划的输出是一份草案公司战略，它清晰地、简洁地描绘了 Rally 的性能差距和目标、反思和理由。高管团队还确定了三个或四个他们认为公司需要集中行动以实现年度愿景的高层次领域。“这项工作为 Rally 带回了一份反思的草案，”Zach 说。“它们总结了高管组认为在我们即将到来的年份中至关重要的内容。”

The second iteration of annual planning takes the form of departmental annual retrospectives. Rally uses an approach called ORID (Objective, Reflective, Interpretive, Decisional) from The Art of Focused Conversation by R. Brian Stanfield (New Society Publishers).* Zach says:
第二次年度规划的迭代形式是部门年度回顾。Rally 使用 R. Brian Stanfield 的《专注对话的艺术》中提到的一种名为 ORID（目标、反思、解释、决策）的方法。Zach 说：

This process invites insights from all employees, and provides a valuable narrative about the past, present, and future. From each ORID within each department, we learn about completed work, the current work in progress, planned work, specific annual metrics, the implications for the coming year, and the overall mood for the year. Kids are learning machines, but adults need structured reflection to learn; this process provides that structure.
这个过程邀请所有员工提供见解，并为过去、现在和未来提供了宝贵的叙述。从每个部门的每个 ORID 中，我们了解到已完成的工作、当前进行中的工作、计划中的工作、具体的年度指标、对来年影响的启示以及全年的整体氛围。孩子们是学习机器，但成年人需要结构化的反思来学习；这个过程提供了这种结构。

Both the executive planning and the ORIDs feed into the next step of the annual planning process: gathering 60 people from the company in a highly-facilitated meeting to clearly articulate the vision for the year and align around how to accomplish it.
执行规划和 ORIDs 都会输入到年度规划过程的下一步：召集公司 60 人在一个高度促进的会议中，清晰地阐述年度愿景，并围绕如何实现它进行对齐。

Developing a Product Plan

制定产品计划

The product team is actively involved in defining the company’s annual strategy. A big part of this is aligning the directions of the company and product. The product team focuses on answering the question “Why?” above everything else. “The articulation of why we’re doing something, and always questioning our focus, rallies everyone around one compelling vision, company, and product, and creates a vital emotional connection with our customers,” Zach says. “Only once we understand ‘why’ can we really look at ‘what’ and ‘how’.”
产品团队积极参与制定公司的年度战略。其中很大一部分是协调公司及产品的方向。产品团队专注于回答“为什么”这个问题。扎克说：“阐述我们为什么要做某事，并始终质疑我们的重点，能够团结所有人围绕一个引人入胜的愿景、公司和产品，并为我们客户提供至关重要的情感联系。” “只有当我们理解‘为什么’后，我们才能真正考虑‘什么’和‘如何’。”

Now Rally is ready to dig into product. While this process may seem like a lot, it’s very iterative and Lean. The company goes through a build $\hookrightarrow$ measure→learn cycle at several levels before getting to the point where it’s actually developing features.
现在 Rally 准备深入产品。虽然这个过程看起来很多，但它非常迭代和精益。在开发功能之前，公司会在多个层面上经历构建 $\hookrightarrow$ 测量→学习循环。

Deciding What to Build

决定要构建什么

Feature development begins in earnest with deciding what to build and how to build it. Rally has an open, but process-oriented, way of making feature decisions. Each quarter, employees submit short proposals for changes to the company’s product direction. These proposals come from anyone in the organization, but are typically highly influenced by interactions with customers.
功能开发从决定要构建什么以及如何构建开始。Rally 以开放但以流程为导向的方式做出功能决策。每个季度，员工都会提交关于公司产品方向更改的简短提案。这些提案来自组织的任何成员，但通常受到与客户互动的高度影响。

Zach says:
Zach 说：

We include almost everyone who does product-managementtype work in the decision-making process, including product marketing, product owners, engineering managers, sales leadership, and executives. It may seem like this is quite a bit of process, but the benefits of everyone’s input and alignment far outweigh the 10 or so hours a quarter we spend running the process. We find strong alignment enables great execution.
我们几乎让所有做产品管理类型工作的人都参与到决策过程中，包括产品营销、产品负责人、工程经理、销售领导以及高管。这可能看起来流程很多，但每个人的输入和一致性的好处远远超过了我们每个季度花大约 10 个小时来运行这个流程的时间。我们发现强烈的一致性能够实现出色的执行。

Rally doesn’t release software, but instead “turns features on for users and customers.” Most features have a toggle that allows Rally to turn them on or off for specific customers. This allows the company to roll out code to progressively larger groups of users, generating feedback from early adopters while mitigating the risk of exposing problems to a lot of customers.
Rally 不发布软件，而是“为用户和客户开启功能”。大多数功能都有一个开关，允许 Rally 为特定客户开启或关闭它们。这使公司能够逐步向越来越多的用户发布代码，同时从早期采用者那里获得反馈，同时降低向大量客户暴露问题的风险。

Measuring Progress

衡量进展

Underneath Rally’s feature development process, the company is focused on measurement. “We have an internal data warehouse in which we record everything from server/database kernel-level performance measurements to high-level user gestures derived from HTTP interactions between the browser and our servers,” says Zach. The goal is to make sure the team can measure feature usage and performance. “When we develop a feature our product team can form theories about how much usage warrants further development of that feature,” Zach says. “As we are toggling on the feature we can compare our theories to actual data. Because the data includes both usage and performance information, we can quickly understand, in real time, the impact a feature is having on the performance and stability of our production environment.”
在 Rally 的功能开发流程中，公司专注于测量。"我们有一个内部数据仓库，其中记录了从服务器/数据库内核级别的性能测量到从浏览器和我们的服务器之间 HTTP 交互中得出的高级用户手势等所有内容，" Zach 说。目标是确保团队能够测量功能的使用和性能。"当我们开发一个功能时，我们的产品团队可以对多少使用量证明该功能需要进一步开发形成理论，" Zach 说。 "在我们开启功能时，我们可以将我们的理论与实际数据相比较。由于数据包括使用和性能信息，我们可以快速实时地了解一个功能对生产环境性能和稳定性的影响。"

Learning Through Experiments

通过实验学习

Even with such a deep level of planning and an all-inclusive approach to product development, Zach still says that the company is careful not to “blindly build features based on internal or customer requests.” Instead, it runs experiments to learn more.
即使有如此深入的规划和对产品开发的全盘方法，Zach 仍然说公司小心地不为"基于内部或客户请求盲目构建功能"。相反，它运行实验来学习更多。

According to Zach, every experiment starts with a series of questions:
根据 Zach 的说法，每个实验都从一个系列的问题开始：

• What do we want to learn and why?
• 我们想学什么以及为什么？
• What’s the underlying problem we are trying to solve, and who is feeling the pain? This helps everyone involved have empathy for what we are doing.
• 我们试图解决的根本问题是什么，以及谁在承受痛苦？这有助于所有参与人员对我们所做的事情产生同理心。
• What’s our hypothesis? This is written in the form: “[Specific repeatable action] will create [expected result].” We make sure the hypothesis is written in such a way that the experiment is capable of invalidating it.
• 我们的假设是什么？这以“[具体的可重复行动]将创造[预期结果]”的形式书写。我们确保假设以实验能够证伪的方式书写。
• How will we run the experiment, and what will we build to support it?
• 我们将如何运行实验，以及我们将构建什么来支持它？
• Is the experiment safe to run?
• 实验是否安全运行？
• How will we conclude the experiment, and what steps will be taken to mitigate issues that result from the experiment’s conclusion?
• 我们将如何得出实验结论，以及将采取哪些步骤来缓解实验结论所产生的问题？

• What measures will we use to invalidate our hypothesis with data? We also include what measures will indicate the experiment isn’t safe to continue.
• 我们将使用哪些数据指标来验证我们的假设？我们还包括哪些指标将表明实验不安全，无法继续进行。

In a three-month period, over 20 experiments were run to learn exactly what would satisfy users in a critical part of the user interface. Rather than guessing, this was a disciplined process of discovery. This area of the user interface was a focus because refining it was a major part of the product vision for the year , and directly supported one of Rally’s corporate goals for the year.
在三个月内，进行了 20 多次实验，以了解用户界面关键部分究竟需要满足哪些需求。这并非猜测，而是一个严谨的发现过程。该用户界面部分是重点，因为改进它是一年产品愿景的重要组成部分，并直接支持了 Rally 公司当年的一个企业目标。

摘要

• Data-driven product direction starts at the top, and it’s an iterative, methodical process.
• 数据驱动的产品方向始于高层，并且是一个迭代、系统性的过程。
• Everything is an experiment, even when you have an established product and a loyal set of customers.
• 即使对于拥有成熟产品和忠实客户群的情况，一切也都是一个实验。
• It takes extra engineering effort to be able to turn on and off individual features, and to measure the resulting change in user behavior, but that investment pays off in reduced cycle time and better learning.
• 能够开启和关闭单个功能，并衡量由此导致用户行为的变化，需要额外的工程工作，但这项投资在缩短周期时间和更好的学习方面得到了回报。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Rally has taken measurement to the next level. In a way, Rally is two companies—one making lifecycle management software, and one running a gigantic, continuous experiment on its users to better understand how they interact with the product itself. This requires a lot of discipline and focus, as well as considerable engineering effort to make every feature testable and measurable, but it’s paid off in less waste, a better product, and a consistent alignment with what customers want.
Rally 将测量提升到了新的水平。在某种程度上，Rally 是两家公司的结合——一家公司开发生命周期管理软件，另一家则在持续地对其用户进行实验，以更好地理解他们如何与产品本身互动。这需要大量的纪律性和专注力，以及相当大的工程努力来使每个功能都变得可测试和可衡量，但它带来了更少的浪费、更好的产品以及与客户需求的一致性。

How to Handle User Feedback

如何处理用户反馈

Customers have something in common with entrepreneurs—they’re liars too. They don’t lie intentionally, but often they forget how your product really works or what they were doing in the product.
客户和企业家有共同点——他们都是骗子。他们不是有意撒谎，但经常忘记你的产品是如何工作的，或者他们在产品中做了什么。

Many of the reviews for personal banking app Mint give the product one star, saying, “Warning! This product will try to collect your banking information and connect to your bank account!” as shown in Figure 16-2. But that’s what Mint is for.
个人银行应用 Mint 的许多评论给该产品打了一星，说：“警告！该产品将尝试收集您的银行信息并连接到您的银行账户！”如图 16-2 所示。但这就是 Mint 的用途。

Figure 16-2. Warning—banking app may want your banking details
图 16-2. 警告—银行应用可能需要您的银行详细信息

If you’re the product manager, you might be tempted to ignore this feedback, but what it’s really telling you is that your marketing and product descriptions aren’t working, bringing down your product ratings and reducing your addressable market.
如果您是产品经理，可能会想忽略这些反馈，但这实际上在告诉您的是，您的营销和产品描述没有起到作用，从而降低了产品评分并减少了潜在的市场。

Customers may give you feedback you don’t like. Just remember that they don’t have the same mental model you do, they aren’t in your target market. They often lack training to use your product properly.
顾客可能会给您一些您不喜欢的反馈。请记住，他们没有您相同的思维模型，他们不在您的目标市场中。他们通常缺乏正确使用您的产品的培训。

We’ve already seen some of the cognitive biases demonstrated by interview subjects. Existing users suffer from similar biases. They have different expectations and context from you. You need to view their feedback with that in mind.
我们已经看到了一些面试对象所表现出的认知偏差。现有用户也受到类似的偏差影响。他们有不同的期望和背景，你需要考虑到这一点来审视他们的反馈。

For one thing, user feedback suffers from horrible sampling bias. Few people provide feedback when they have a predictable, tepid experience. They reach out when they’re ecstatic or furious. If they’re feeling aggrieved, you’ll hear from them.
首先，用户反馈存在严重的抽样偏差。当人们有可预测的平淡体验时，很少有人会提供反馈。他们只在感到极度兴奋或愤怒时才会联系你。如果你感到被冒犯，你会听到他们的声音。

What’s more, they don’t know their value to you. They may feel entitled to a free product because that’s how you’ve positioned your SaaS offering, or to free breadsticks because that’s how you’ve priced your buffet. You know their value to your business—they don’t. To each unhappy user he or she is, they’re the most important person in the world. And he or she has been wronged or celebrated.
此外，他们不知道自己对你的价值。他们可能会因为你的 SaaS 产品定位而觉得应该免费使用，或者因为你的自助餐定价而觉得免费的小面包条是理所当然的。你知道他们对你的业务价值——他们不知道。对每个不满意的用户来说，他们觉得自己是世界上最重要的人。他们要么被冒犯了，要么被庆祝了。

Finally, customers aren’t aware of the constraints and nuances of their problems. It’s easy to complain about US television programming not being available overseas; it’s unlikely that those complaining are aware of the intricacies of foreign currency exchange, censorship, and copyright licensing. They want their problem solved, but they have little insight into how to solve it the right way.
最后，客户并不了解他们问题的限制和细微之处。抱怨美国电视节目在海外不可用很容易；但那些抱怨的人很可能不了解外汇兑换、审查和版权许可的复杂性。他们想要问题得到解决，但他们很少了解如何正确地解决它。

Laura Klein is a user experience (UX) professional and consultant, as well as the author of UX for Lean Startups (forthcoming from O’Reilly), part of the Lean Series along with this book. She writes a great blog called Users Know. You should read her post, “Why Your Customer Feedback is Useless,” in its entirety.*
劳拉·克莱因是一位用户体验（UX）专业人士和顾问，也是《精益创业的用户体验》（即将由奥莱利出版社出版）一书的作者，该书是精益系列的一部分，包括这本书。她写了一个很棒的博客，叫做 Users Know。你应该阅读她的文章《为什么你的客户反馈是无用的》，全文阅读。

To improve how you interpret feedback, Laura has three suggestions:
为了改进你如何解读反馈，劳拉有三点建议：

• Plan tests ahead of time, and know what you want to learn before you get started. “A big reason that feedback is hard to interpret is because there’s just too much of it, and it’s not well organized or about a particular topic,” says Laura. “If you know exactly what you’re gathering feedback on, and you’re disciplined about the methods you use to gather it, it becomes very simple to interpret the responses.”
• 提前计划测试，并在开始之前知道你想学到什么。“反馈难以解读的一个大原因是反馈太多，而且组织得不好，也不是关于特定主题的，”劳拉说。“如果你确切地知道你在收集反馈的内容，并且你在收集反馈的方法上很自律，那么解读回答就会变得非常简单。”
• Don’t talk to just anybody. “You should group feedback from similar personas,” says Laura. “For example, if I ask a Formula 1 driver and my mom about how they feel about their cars, I’m going to get inconsistent responses.” Balancing feedback like that is very difficult because it’s from such different types of people. “Figure out who your customers are and focus your research on a particular type of person.”
• 不要和随便什么人谈论。劳拉说：“你应该把来自相似人物的反馈分组。”例如，如果我问一位一级方程式赛车手和我的妈妈关于他们对汽车的感觉，我会得到不一致的回答。”平衡这种反馈非常困难，因为它来自这样不同类型的人。“找出你的客户是谁，并将你的研究集中在某一特定类型的人身上。”
• Review results quickly as you collect data. “Don’t leave it all until the end,” Laura notes. “If you talk to five people for an hour each over the course of a few days, it can be really hard to remember what the first person said.” Laura recommends having someone else in each session, so that you can debrief with that person after and pull out the top takeaways from the session.
• 在收集数据的同时快速回顾结果。“不要都留到最后一刻，”劳拉指出。“如果你在几天内与五个人每人交谈一个小时，那么你可能会很难记住第一个人说的话。”劳拉建议在每个会议中都有另一个人，这样你可以在会议后与那个人进行总结，并提取会议中的主要收获。

The reality is, users will always complain. That’s just the way it goes. Even if people are using your product, you have good engagement metrics, and your product is sticky, they’re still going to complain. Listen to their complaints, and try to get to the root of the issue as quickly as possible without overreacting.
事实上，用户总会抱怨。这就是现实。即使人们在使用你的产品，你的参与度指标很好，你的产品很粘性，他们仍然会抱怨。倾听他们的抱怨，并尽快找到问题的根源，不要过度反应。

The Minimum Viable Vision

最小可行愿景

The minimum viable vision is a term coined by entrepreneur and Year One Labs partner Raymond Luk. He says, “If you’re trying to build a great company and get others involved, it’s not enough to find an MVP—you need an MVV, too.”
最小可行愿景是由企业家和第一年实验室合伙人雷蒙·卢克提出的。他说：“如果你正在努力建立一家伟大的公司并吸引他人参与，仅仅找到一个最小可行产品是不够的，你还需要一个最小可行愿景。”

A minimum viable vision (MVV) is one that captivates. It scales. It has potential. It’s audacious and compelling. As a founder, you have to hold that huge, hairy, world-changing vision in one hand, and the practical, pragmatic, seat-of-the-pants reality in the other. The MVV you need in order to get funding demands a convincing explanation of how you can become a dominant, disruptive player in your market.
最小可行愿景（MVV）是引人入胜的。它可以扩展。它具有潜力。它是大胆而引人入胜的。作为创始人，你必须一手拿着那个巨大、棘手、改变世界的愿景，另一手拿着实际、务实、凭直觉的现实。为了获得资金，你需要一个令人信服的解释，说明你如何成为市场的主导者和颠覆者。

Here are some signs that suggest you’ve got the makings of an MVV:
以下是一些迹象，表明你拥有一个最小可行愿景的雏形：

• You’re building a platform. If you’re creating an environment in which other things can be created, this is a good sign. Google Maps was just one of the many mapping tools available, alongside MapQuest and others, but Google made it easy to embed and annotate those maps, leading to thousands of mashups and clever uses. It quickly became the de facto platform for entry-level geographic information systems (GIS), and all those annotations made its maps even more useful. You have recurring ways to make money. It’s one thing to take money from someone once, but if you can convince that person to pay every month as well, you’re onto something. Just look at Blizzard’s revenues from World of Warcraft: purchase of the paid desktop client is a fraction of the money the company makes compared to revenue from \14.95$ per month subscriber fees.
• 你正在构建一个平台。如果你正在创建一个可以让其他事物被创造的环境，这是一个好迹象。谷歌地图只是众多可用的地图工具之一，与 MapQuest 和其他工具并列，但谷歌让嵌入和标注这些地图变得容易，从而导致了数千个混搭和巧妙的用途。它很快成为了入门级地理信息系统（GIS）的法定平台，而所有这些标注使其地图变得更加有用。你有持续赚钱的方式。从某人那里拿钱一次是一回事，但如果你能说服那个人每月也付费，你就走对了路。看看暴雪从魔兽世界获得的收入：购买付费桌面客户端的钱，与每月 14.95 美元的订阅费收入相比，只是其中一小部分。
• You’ve got naturally tiered pricing. If you can find ways for customers to self-upsell, as companies like 37Signals, Wufoo, and FreshBooks have done, then you can hook your users on basic features and tempt them with an upgrade path that adds functionality as they need it. This means you’ll not only add revenue from new users, but from existing ones, too.
• 您拥有自然分层定价。如果您能找到让客户自我升级的方法，像 37Signals、Wufoo 和 FreshBooks 这样的公司已经这样做了，那么您可以在用户基本功能上吸引他们，并诱惑他们通过增加功能来升级。这意味着您不仅会从新用户那里获得收入，还会从现有用户那里获得收入。
• You’re tied to a disruptive change. If you’re part of a growing trend— people sharing information, mobile devices, cloud computing—then you’ve got a better chance of growth. A rising tide floats all boats, and a rising tech sector floats all valuations and exits.
• 您与颠覆性变化紧密相连。如果您是正在增长的趋势的一部分——人们分享信息、移动设备、云计算——那么您更有可能实现增长。涨潮时所有船只都会浮起，而技术行业的涨潮也会使所有估值和退出都浮起。
• Adopters automatically become advocates. Just look at the classic example of online marketing—Hotmail. A simple message appended to every email invited the recipient to switch to Hotmail. The result
• 采用者自动成为倡导者。只需看看在线营销的经典案例——Hotmail。每个电子邮件末尾附加的简单信息邀请收件人切换到 Hotmail。结果

was an exponential growth rate and a huge exit for the founders.* An expense management system like Expensify makes it as easy as possible to add others to the approval workflow, because this is a vector for inherent virality.
是指数级增长率，并为创始人带来了巨大的退出。像 Expensify 这样的费用管理系统尽可能容易地将其他人添加到审批工作流程中，因为这是一个内在的病毒式传播向量。

• You can create a bidding war. If you’ve got a solution that several industry giants will want, you’re in a great place. While big companies can build anything given enough time, they’ll buy you if you’re stealing their sales or if your product helps them sell dramatically more easily. Beverage giants like Pepsico, Cadbury-Schweppes, and Coca-Cola regularly buy out promising incumbents, like Odwalla, Tropicana, Minute Maid, RC Cola, and others, knowing they can make back their investment easily through their existing supply chains.
• 你可以制造竞价战。如果你有一个解决方案，几家行业巨头都会想要，你就在一个很好的位置。虽然大公司只要有足够的时间就能建造任何东西，但如果你的产品正在窃取他们的销售额，或者帮助它们更容易地销售，他们会购买你。像百事公司、好时-施贵宝和可口可乐这样的饮料巨头经常收购有前途的现有公司，如奥多尔瓦、 tropicana、 分钟麦和 RC 可乐等，知道他们可以通过现有的供应链轻松收回投资。

• You’re riding an environmental change. We don’t mean the Green movement here. In strategic marketing, environmental forces include everything you’re subject to in your business ecosystem, such as government-mandated privacy laws or anti-pollution regulations. If you’re building something that everyone will be forced to adopt (such as a product that complies with soon-to-be-signed health or payment privacy legislation), you’ve got a promising exit and a chance to take over the sector.
• 你正乘着环境变化的东风。这里的意思不是绿色运动。在战略营销中，环境力量包括你业务生态系统中的一切，例如政府强制执行的隐私法或反污染法规。如果你正在构建一个每个人都将被迫采用的东西（例如一个符合即将签署的健康或支付隐私立法的产品），你就有一个有希望的退出机会，并有机会接管该行业。

• You’ve got a sustainable unfair advantage. There’s nothing investors like more than unfairness. If you can maintain an unfair advantage— lower costs, better market attention, partners, proprietary formulae, and so on—then you can scale your business to a degree where it’s interesting to investors. But be careful: outside of government-mandated monopolies, few advantages are truly sustainable in the long term.
• 你拥有可持续的绝对优势。投资者最喜欢的就是不公平。如果你能保持这种绝对优势——降低成本、更好的市场关注度、合作伙伴、专有配方等等——那么你就可以将你的业务扩展到足以吸引投资者的程度。但要小心：除了政府强制的垄断之外，很少有优势能在长期内保持可持续性。

• Your marginal costs trend to zero. If as you add users your incremental costs go down—so that the nth customer costs almost nothing to add—that’s a great place to be. You’re enjoying healthy economies of scale. For example, an antivirus company has fixed costs of software development and research that must be amortized across all customers, but the addition of one more client adds only a vanishingly small cost to this total. Businesses that can grow revenues while incremental costs stay still or decline have the potential to grow massively overnight.
• 你的边际成本趋于零。如果你在增加用户的同时，你的增量成本会下降——以至于第 n 个客户几乎不需要什么成本——那你就处于一个很好的位置。你正在享受健康的规模经济。例如，一个杀毒软件公司有必须分摊给所有客户的软件开发和研究固定成本，但增加一个更多客户对这个总成本只增加了微不足道的成本。那些能够在不增加或减少增量成本的情况下增长收入的业务有潜力一夜之间大幅增长。

• There are inherent network effects in the model. The phone system is the classic example of a business with a network effect: the more people who use it, the more useful it becomes. Network-effect businesses are wonderful, but they often have a two-edged sword: it’s great when you have 10 million users, but you may be deluding yourself about how easily users will adopt the product or service, and it’s hard to test the basic value with a small market at first. You need a plan for getting to the point where the network effects kick in and become obvious.
• 该模型具有固有的网络效应。电话系统是具有网络效应的典型商业案例：使用它的人越多，它就越有用。具有网络效应的企业很棒，但它们往往是一把双刃剑：当你拥有 1000 万用户时，这很棒，但你可能会高估用户采用产品或服务的容易程度，并且在小市场初期很难测试基本价值。你需要一个计划，以到达网络效应开始显现的阶段。

• You have several ways to monetize. It’s unlikely that any one payment model will work, but if you can find several ways to make money from a business—one obvious one, and several incidental ones—then you can diversify your revenue streams and iterate more easily, improving your chances of success. Quick note: AdWords and selling your analytical data probably aren’t enough.
• 你有几种方式可以盈利。不太可能有一种支付模式能行得通，但如果你能从一项业务中找到几种赚钱的方式——一个明显的和一个或几个偶然的——那么你可以多样化收入来源，更容易迭代，提高成功的几率。快速笔记：AdWords 和出售你的分析数据可能还不够。

• You make money when your customers make money. Humans are, at their most basic, motivated by two things: fear and greed. While that might seem a bit cynical, it’s how we evolved. In business, fear means things like costs and risks, and if you reduce risks or cut costs, that’s nice—but it’s not compelling. Customers will often rationalize away the risk and pocket the savings. But if you make money from greed (or, as it’s known in the business world, revenues) then the customer will likely split the winnings with you. Products that boost revenues are easier for people to believe in—just look at lotteries and get-richquick schemes versus savings plans and life insurance. Eventbrite and Kickstarter know this.
• 当你的客户赚钱时，你才能赚钱。人类最基本的是由两种东西驱动的：恐惧和贪婪。虽然这可能有点愤世嫉俗，但这正是我们的进化方式。在商业中，恐惧意味着成本和风险，如果你降低风险或削减成本，那很好——但这并不引人注目。客户通常会合理化风险，而将节省的钱装进自己的口袋。但如果你从贪婪（在商业世界中，它被称为收入）中赚钱，那么客户可能会与你分享胜利的果实。提高收入的 产品更容易让人相信——只需看看彩票和快速致富计划与储蓄计划和人寿保险的对比。Eventbrite 和 Kickstarter 就知道这一点。

• An ecosystem will form around you. This is similar to the platform model. Salesforce and Photoshop are good examples of this: Salesforce’s App Exchange has thousands of third-party applications that make the CRM (customer relationship management) provider more useful and customizable, and Photoshop’s plug-in model added features to the application far more quickly than if Adobe had coded them all itself.
• 将会围绕你形成一个生态系统。这与平台模式类似。Salesforce 和 Photoshop 是这方面的好例子：Salesforce 的 App 交换中有数千个第三方应用程序，这些应用程序使 CRM（客户关系管理）提供商更加有用和可定制，而 Photoshop 的插件模式比 Adobe 自己编写所有功能更快地增加了应用程序的功能。

In the end, you have to be audacious. You need to understand how your company can become a Big Idea, something that’s truly new, and either widely appealing to a broad market or a must-have for a well-heeled niche.
最后，你必须要有远见。你需要明白你的公司如何能成为一个伟大的想法，一些真正新颖的东西，要么广泛吸引广大市场，要么是富裕小众市场的必需品。

The Problem-Solution Canvas

问题-解决方案画布

At Year One Labs, we developed a tool called the Problem-Solution Canvas to help our startups maintain discipline and focus on a weekly basis. It’s inspired by Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas, but focused on the dayto-day operations of a startup. We used it to home in on the key one to three problems the startups were facing. It allowed us all to agree on those problems and prioritize them.
在第一年实验室，我们开发了一个名为问题-解决方案画布的工具，以帮助我们的初创公司每周保持纪律和专注。它受到阿什·莫利亚的精益画布的启发，但专注于初创公司的日常运营。我们用它来集中关注初创公司面临的关键一至三个问题。它让我们所有人都能就这些问题达成一致并确定优先级。

It was fairly common for founders to incorrectly prioritize the key issues at hand. It’s not surprising; startup founders are juggling a ton at once, wearing hats stacked to the sky like crazed circus performers, and as we well know, they’re a bunch of liars (but we love ’em just the same!). As mentors and advisors, we knew that a big part of our job—where we could provide significant value because of our detachment—was to guide entrepreneurs back to what was most important.
创始人经常错误地确定关键问题的优先级。这并不令人惊讶；初创公司的创始人在同时处理很多事情，像疯狂的马戏团表演者一样堆满了各种帽子，而我们很清楚，他们是一群骗子（但我们仍然爱他们！）。作为导师和顾问，我们知道我们工作的一大部分——也是我们能提供重大价值的地方，因为我们保持距离——是引导企业家回到最重要的事情上。

The Problem-Solution Canvas is a two-page document. Like a Lean Canvas it’s divided into a few boxes. On a weekly basis we’d ask founders to prepare a Problem-Solution Canvas and present it. The canvas became the focal point for our status meetings, and it was extremely helpful for keeping those meetings productive.
问题-解决方案画布是一份两页的文档。就像精益画布一样，它被分成几个方框。每周，我们会要求创始人准备一份问题-解决方案画布并进行展示。这个画布成为了我们状态会议的焦点，对于保持会议的效率非常有帮助。

Figure 16-3. If you filled in this page every week, what would you learn?
图 16-3。如果你每周都填写这一页，你会学到什么？

The first thing you’ll notice is the title: The Goal Is to Learn. This is important, because it reminded the entrepreneurs about what they were setting out to do. It wasn’t about building “stuff.” It wasn’t about adding features. It wasn’t about getting PR, or anything else. Learning was the measure of success.
你首先要注意的是标题：目标是学习。这一点很重要，因为它提醒了企业家他们要做什么。这不是关于构建“东西”。这不是关于添加功能。这不是关于获得公关或任何其他事情。学习是成功的衡量标准。

Next, founders would fill in a brief update on their current status, focusing on the key metrics (qualitative and/or quantitative) that they were tracking. Notice how small this box is compared to the others.
接下来，创始人会简要更新他们的当前状态，重点是他们正在跟踪的关键指标（定性和/或定量）。注意这个方框与其他方框相比是多么小。

The Lessons Learned box is a quick bulleted summary of key learning. The title says “and Accomplishments” because we wanted to give entrepreneurs a place to brag—at least a little bit. Not surprisingly, they’d include some vanity metrics in here and we wouldn’t spend a lot of time on them. The “On track: Yes/No” benchmark is designed as a test of intellectual honesty. Can entrepreneurs really come clean on what’s going on, good and bad? If so, we could be much more valuable.
经验教训框是一个关于关键学习成果的快速项目符号总结。标题写“和成就”，因为我们想给创业者一个地方来炫耀——至少有一点。毫不奇怪，他们会在这里包含一些虚荣指标，我们也不会花很多时间在上面。“是否按计划进行：是/否”基准是作为对智力诚实的测试。创业者真的能坦诚面对正在发生的事情，好坏吗？如果是这样，我们就能更有价值。

Finally, we asked entrepreneurs to list the top problems they were facing at that moment. At most they would include three problems prioritized in order of importance. This section of the Problem-Solution Canvas often elicited the most debate, but it was always healthy and critical for resetting everyone’s goals and expectations.
最后，我们要求创业者列出他们当时面临的主要问题。最多他们会包括三个按重要性排序的问题。在问题-解决方案画布的这一部分经常引发最多的争论，但它总是健康且批判性的，有助于重置每个人的目标和期望。

With the problems now well understood, along with the startup’s current status, we’d move to the second page of the canvas, shown in Figure 16-4.
在现在对问题有了很好的理解，以及创业公司目前的状况下，我们会进入画布的第二页，如图 16-4 所示。

Problem #1: [put name of it here]
问题 1：[在这里填写问题名称]

Figure 16-4. We’ve all got problems—but can you pick just three?
图 16-4。我们都面临问题——但你只能挑三个。

In this section, the founders re-list the problems and include hypothesized solutions. These solutions are hypothesized because we don’t know if they’ll work. These are experiments that the founders will run in the next week. We always asked them to define the metrics they’d use to measure success (or failure) and draw a line in the sand. If engagement was the most important problem, they had to include possible solutions they’d experiment with to increase engagement, define the metric (e.g., $\mathrm{\%}$ daily active users), and set a target. What’s the problem, how do you propose to fix it, and how will you know if you succeeded? That’s the core of the Problem-Solution Canvas.
在这一节中，创始人重新列出了问题，并包括了假设的解决方案。这些解决方案是假设的，因为我们不知道它们是否有效。这些是创始人将在接下来一周内进行实验。我们总是要求他们定义将用来衡量成功（或失败）的指标，并划定一条界限。如果参与度是最重要的问题，他们必须包括他们将要实验的可能解决方案来增加参与度，定义指标（例如，每日活跃用户数），并设定目标。问题是什么，你建议如何解决，你将如何知道你是否成功？这就是问题-解决方案画布的核心。

For us (as mentors and advisors), it was an extremely valuable exercise. The Problem-Solution Canvas is also useful for internal decision making. It sits a level below the Lean Canvas, focusing on very specific details in a very specific time period (one to two weeks).
对我们（作为导师和顾问）来说，这是一个非常有价值的练习。问题-解决方案画布也适用于内部决策。它位于精益画布的下一层，专注于特定时间段（一到两周）内的非常具体的细节。

CASE STUDY VNN Uses the Problem-Solution Canvas to Solve Business Problems

案例研究：VNN 使用问题-解决方案画布解决商业问题

Varsity News Network (VNN) is an early-stage startup based in Michigan. Ben met one of the founders there, Ryan Vaughn, when speaking at a conference in 2012. The company’s platform makes it easy for athletic directors to manage social communication, creating hyper-local media coverage about athletics at their high schools. The goal is to leverage that awareness creation into ongoing financial and emotional support for high school sports.
Varsity News Network (VNN) 是一家位于密歇根州的早期创业公司。Ben 在 2012 年的一次会议上遇到了公司的创始人之一 Ryan Vaughn。该公司的平台使校际运动主任能够轻松管理社交沟通，为他们的高中体育活动创建本地化的媒体覆盖。目标是利用这种意识创造来为高中体育提供持续的资金和情感支持。

Ryan was introduced to the Problem-Solution Canvas and started using it immediately with his board of directors. “We had just raised financing and had to solve a number of key business problems very quickly,” said Ryan. “We used the Problem-Solution Canvas to get all our board members on the same page, focused on what we had to do in order to move forward.”
Ryan 了解到问题-解决方案画布，并立即开始与他的董事会一起使用它。“我们刚刚筹集了资金，必须迅速解决一些关键的商业问题，”Ryan 说。“我们使用问题-解决方案画布让所有董事会成员达成一致，专注于为了向前推进我们需要做的事情。”

VNN followed a Lean process, particularly in the beginning of the company in order to determine its value proposition and how that tied into producing content about high school sports. The company remains Lean today, testing and iterating each new feature or initiative it launches, measuring effectiveness and value creation.
VNN 遵循精益流程，特别是在公司初期的价值主张的确定以及如何将其与关于高中体育的内容制作联系起来。该公司至今仍保持精益，测试和迭代它推出的每个新功能或计划，衡量效果和价值创造。

Still, Ryan was concerned that his board wouldn’t embrace the ProblemSolution Canvas. He said, “The Lean Startup process has not been widely adopted in the Midwest yet, but our board had been exposed to the methodology, which helped speed up our initial progress with the canvas.”
然而，里安仍然担心他的董事会不会接受问题解决方案画布。他说：“精益创业流程在中西部还没有被广泛采用，但我们的董事会已经接触过这种方法，这有助于我们快速推进画布的初始进展。”

VNN used the canvas for a few months, during a critical time of problem solving. The result was that everyone involved stayed focused on the major tasks at hand. Through the Problem-Solution Canvas, VNN validated a number of its core assumptions and designed a scalable growth model involving direct sales. This allowed it to prove enough of its business to start generating revenue and plan for a second round of financing.
VNN 使用画布几个月，在解决问题的一个关键时期。结果是，所有参与的人都专注于手头的重大任务。通过问题-解决方案画布，VNN 验证了其许多核心假设，并设计了一个可扩展的增长模型，涉及直销。这使其能够证明足够的业务以开始产生收入并计划进行第二轮融资。

Figures 16-5 and 16-6 show an example of one of its canvases.
图 16-5 和 16-6 展示了其中一个画布的示例。

MAY PROBLEM/SOLUTION DASHBOARD

可能的问题/解决方案仪表板

Figure 16-5. VNN spends some time on introspection
图 16-5. VNN 花费了一些时间进行内省
Figure 16-6. Knowing how much you can sell, and the size of the market, matters a lot
图 16-6. 了解你能卖多少以及市场规模有多大非常重要

Problem #1: We still don't know what 1 full-time rep can sell in a month
问题 1：我们仍然不知道一个全职销售代表一个月能卖多少

Problem #2: We don't know the market for sport-specific websites
问题 2：我们不知道运动特定网站的市场

VNN VARSITY NEWS NETWORK

VNN 大学新闻网络

摘要

• Having raised funding, VNN used the Problem-Solution Canvas to communicate with its board of directors in an effective manner. • The canvas helped the company iterate to revenue and position itself for additional financing.
• VNN 在获得融资后，使用问题-解决方案画布以有效的方式与董事会进行沟通。• 画布帮助公司迭代到收入，并为其争取到额外的融资做好准备。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Never underestimate the power of getting everyone on the same page—literally. A single sheet of consistent information that forces all stakeholders to be succinct and to agree really helps clarify and define a problem, particularly in a fast-changing environment.
不要低估让所有人站在同一页上的力量——字面意义上。一张一致的资料，迫使所有利益相关者简洁并达成一致，确实有助于澄清和定义问题，尤其是在快速变化的环境中。

A Summary of the Stickiness Stage

粘性阶段的总结

• Your goal is to prove that you’ve solved a problem in a way that keeps people coming back.
• 你的目标是证明你以一种让人们持续回来的方式解决了问题。
• The key at this stage is engagement, which is measured by the time spent interacting with you, the rate at which people return, and so on. You might track revenue or virality, but they aren’t your focus yet.
• 这个阶段的关键是参与度，它通过人们与你互动的时间、人们返回的频率等来衡量。你可能追踪收入或病毒式传播，但它们目前不是你的重点。
• Even though you’re building the minimal product, your vision should still be big enough to inspire customers, employees, and investors— and there has to be a credible way to get from the current proof to the future vision.
• 即使你正在构建最小化产品，你的愿景也应该足够大，足以激励客户、员工和投资者——而且必须有一个可信的方法，从当前的证明到未来的愿景。
• Don’t step on the gas until you’ve proven that people will do what you want reliably. Otherwise, you’re spending money and time attracting users who will leave immediately.
• 在你证明人们会可靠地做你想要的事情之前，不要踩油门。否则，你是在花钱和时间吸引那些会立即离开的用户。
• Rely on cohort analysis to measure the impact of your continuous improvements as you optimize the stickiness of your product.
• 依靠队列分析来衡量你持续改进的影响，同时你正在优化产品的粘性。

When your engagement numbers are healthy and churn is relatively low, it’s time to focus on growing your user base. Don’t run out and buy ads immediately, though. First, you need to leverage the best, most convincing campaign platform you have—your current users. It’s time to go viral.
当你的参与数字健康且流失率相对较低时，就是时候专注于扩大你的用户群了。不过，不要马上就买广告。首先，你需要利用你拥有得最好、最有说服力的活动平台——你现在的用户。是时候病毒式传播了。

EXERCISE #1 |  Should You Move to the Next Stage?

练习 #1 | 你应该进入下一阶段吗？

1. Are people using the product as expected?
   人们是否按预期使用产品？

• If they are, move to the next step. • If they aren’t, are they still getting enough value out of it, but using it differently? Or is the value not there?
• 如果他们按预期使用，就进入下一步。• 如果他们不按预期使用，他们是否仍然从中获得足够的价值，但使用方式不同？或者价值根本就不存在？
2. Define an active user. What percentage of your users/customers is active? Write this down. Could this be higher? What can you do to improve engagement?
2. 定义活跃用户。你有多少比例的用户/客户是活跃的？写下来。这能更高吗？你能做些什么来提高参与度？
3. Evaluate your feature roadmap against our seven questions to ask before building more features. Does this change the priorities of feature development?
3. 对照我们提出的七个问题评估你的功能路线图。这会改变功能开发的优先级吗？
4. Evaluate the complaints you’re getting from users. How does this impact feature development going forward?
4. 评估你从用户那里收到的投诉。这会如何影响未来的功能开发？

EXERCISE #2 Have You Identified Your Biggest Problems?

练习 #2 你是否已经确定了你的最大问题？

Create a Problem-Solution Canvas. This should take no more than 15–20 minutes. Share your canvas with others (investors, advisors, employees) and ask yourself if it really addresses the key concerns you’re facing today.
创建一个问题-解决方案画布。这应该不超过 15-20 分钟。与别人（投资者、顾问、员工）分享你的画布，并问问自己它是否真的解决了你今天面临的关键问题。

Stage Three: Virality

第三阶段：病毒式传播

In 1997, venture capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson first used the term viral marketing to describe network-assisted word of mouth.* The firm had seen the power of virality firsthand with Hotmail, which included a vector for infection in every email—the now-famous link at the bottom of a message that invited recipients to get their own Hotmail account.
1997 年，风险投资公司 Draper Fisher Jurvetson 首次使用“病毒式营销”一词来描述网络辅助的口碑传播。该公司通过 Hotmail 亲眼见证了病毒式传播的力量，Hotmail 在每封电子邮件中都包含了一个传播媒介——如今著名的在消息底部邀请收件人开设自己的 Hotmail 账户的链接。

Decades earlier, Frank Bass, one of the founders of marketing science, described how messages propagated out in a marketplace.† His 1969 paper, “A New Product Growth Model for Consumer Durables,” explained how messages trickle out into a market through word of mouth. At first, the spread starts slowly, but as more and more people start talking about it, spread accelerates. However, as the market becomes saturated with people who’ve heard the message, spread slows down again. This model is represented by a characteristic S-shape known as the Bass diffusion curve, shown in Figure 17-1.
几十年前，营销科学的创始人之一弗兰克·巴斯描述了信息如何在市场中传播。他在 1969 年的论文《消费品新产品增长模型》中解释了信息如何通过口碑逐渐传播到市场。最初，传播速度较慢，但随着越来越多的人开始谈论它，传播速度会加速。然而，当市场中的已听过信息的人越来越多时，传播速度又会再次减慢。这个模型由一个特征性的 S 形曲线表示，称为巴斯扩散曲线，如图 17-1 所示。

Figure 17-1. Three certainties: death, taxes, and market saturation
图 17-1。三个确定无疑的事情：死亡、税收和市场饱和

When researchers compared the spread of Hotmail to the predictions from Bass’s model, they found an almost perfect fit.
当研究人员将 hotmail 的传播与 Bass 模型的预测进行比较时，他们发现几乎完美匹配。

In the Virality stage, it’s time to focus on user acquisition and growth, but keep an eye on your stickiness too.
在病毒传播阶段，是时候专注于用户获取和增长，但也要关注你的粘性。

• There’s a risk that you build virality and word of mouth at the expense of engagement. Perhaps you’re bringing in new users who are different from your earlier adopters, and as a result they don’t engage with the product. Or maybe your unique value proposition is getting lost in your marketing efforts, and your new users have different expectations from earlier ones.
• 你可能会为了病毒传播和口碑而牺牲参与度。也许你吸引的新用户与早期采用者不同，结果他们不参与产品。或者也许你的独特价值主张在营销工作中丢失了，而新用户的期望与早期用户不同。
• Be careful that you haven’t moved on from stickiness too soon. If you’re investing in adding users, but your churn is high, you may not be getting a good enough return on investment. Premature growth burns money and time, and will quickly kill your startup.
• 小心不要过早地放弃粘性。如果你在增加用户方面投资，但你的流失率很高，你可能没有得到足够的投资回报。过早的增长会烧钱和时间，并会迅速扼杀你的初创公司。

The Three Ways Things Spread

事物的三种传播方式

Virality is simply users sharing your product or service with others. There are three kinds of virality:
病毒式传播就是用户将你的产品或服务分享给其他人。有三种病毒式传播方式：

• Inherent virality is built into the product, and happens as a function of use.
• 内在病毒式传播是产品本身就具有的，是使用功能的一部分。
Artificial virality is forced, and often built into a reward system.
人工病毒式传播是被强制的，通常被设计在奖励系统中。
• Word-of-mouth virality is the conversations generated by satisfied users, independent of your product or service.
• 口碑病毒传播是指满意用户之间产生的对话，与你的产品或服务无关。

All three matter, but should be treated as distinct forms of growth and analyzed in terms of the kind of traffic they bring in. For example, you may find that artificial virality brings in plenty of drive-by traffic, but inherent virality brings in engaged customers who actually turn into revenue.
三个因素都很重要，但应被视为不同的增长形式，并根据它们带来的流量类型进行分析。例如，你可能会发现人为的病毒传播会带来大量的过路流量，但固有的病毒传播会带来真正转化为收入的参与度高的客户。

Inherent Virality

固有病毒传播

Many products have inherent virality. When you use TripIt, you share your travel plans with colleagues, which they can view better when signed in; when you use Expensify, you forward expense reports to others for approval; when you use FreshBooks, your customers view their electronic invoices on the site.
许多产品都具有固有病毒传播性。当你使用 TripIt 时，你会与同事分享你的旅行计划，他们登录后可以更好地查看；当你使用 Expensify 时，你会将费用报告转发给他人以供批准；当你使用 FreshBooks 时，你的客户可以在网站上查看他们的电子发票。

This is the best kind of virality. It feels genuine, and the recipient is motivated to start using the product or service. It’s like an epidemic. It’s not voluntary. It’s not something that you opt into doing or experiencing, it just happens.
这是最理想的一种病毒式传播。它感觉非常真实，接收者有动力去开始使用产品或服务。这就像一场瘟疫。它不是自愿的。你不会选择去做或去体验它，它就发生了。

Artificial Virality

人工病毒式传播

While inherent virality is best, artificial virality can be bought. Parts of Dropbox are inherently viral—users share files with colleagues and friends—but the company isn’t afraid to compensate its users. It offers additional storage for tweeting or liking the product, and rewards users for helping it to acquire new customers. The rapid growth of the service happened because of existing users trying to convince friends to sign up so they can grow their free online storage capacity.
虽然内在的病毒式传播最好，但人工的病毒式传播是可以购买的。Dropbox 的一些功能是内在具有病毒性的——用户与同事和朋友分享文件——但公司并不害怕补偿用户。他们为推特或点赞产品提供额外的存储空间，并奖励用户帮助他们获取新客户。该服务的快速增长是因为现有用户试图说服朋友注册，以便他们可以增加免费的在线存储容量。

Artificial virality comes from incentivizing existing users to tell their friends. Done right, it can work well—as Dropbox has shown—but it can also be awkward and feel forced if done poorly. You’re essentially building self-funded marketing activities into the product itself, sometimes at the expense of legitimate functionality.
人工病毒式传播来自于激励现有用户告诉他们的朋友。如果做得好，它可以运作得很好——就像 Dropbox 所展示的那样——但如果做得不好，它也可能显得尴尬和强迫。你本质上是在产品本身中构建了自筹资金的营销活动，有时甚至以牺牲合法功能为代价。

Word-of-Mouth Virality

口碑病毒式传播

Finally, there’s natural word of mouth. Harder to track, it’s also extremely effective, because it amounts to an endorsement by a trusted advisor. You can see some of this activity by simply monitoring blogs and social platforms for mentions of your startup—and when you see one it’s a good idea to engage with the endorser, find out what made him share your product or service, and try to turn that into a repeatable, sustainable part of the viral growth strategy.
最后，还有自然的口碑传播。更难追踪，但也极其有效，因为它相当于一个可信赖的顾问的推荐。你可以通过简单地监控博客和社交平台中对你创业公司的提及，来看到一些这种活动——当你看到这样的提及时，最好与推荐者互动，了解是什么让他分享你的产品或服务，并尝试将其转化为可重复、可持续的病毒式增长策略的一部分。

You may even want to use tools like Klout or PeerReach to try to score the impact that those who are discussing you can have on awareness of your product or service, since their rankings act as a proxy for a person’s ability to spread a message.
你甚至可能想使用像 Klout 或 PeerReach 这样的工具来尝试评估那些讨论你的人对产品或服务认知的影响力，因为他们的排名可以作为一个人传播信息能力的代理。

Metrics for the Viral Phase

病毒阶段的指标

Measuring your viral growth turns out to be really important if you don’t want to pay for customers. The number you’re after is your viral coefficient, which venture capitalist David Skok sums up nicely as “the number of new customers that each existing customer is able to successfully convert.”*
如果你不希望为顾客付费，那么衡量你的病毒式增长就显得非常重要。你需要关注的是病毒系数，风险投资家大卫·斯科克将其总结为“每个现有用户能够成功转化的新顾客数量。”

To calculate your viral coefficient:
要计算你的病毒系数：

1. First calculate the invitation rate, which is the number of invites sent divided by the number of users you have.
   首先计算邀请率，即发送的邀请数量除以你的用户数量。
2. Then calculate the acceptance rate, which is the number of signups or enrollments divided by the number of invites.
   然后计算接受率，即注册或入学数量除以邀请数量。
3. Then multiply the two together.
   然后将两者相乘。

Table 17-1 shows sample math for a company with 2,000 customers who send 5,000 invitations, 500 of which are accepted.
表 17-1 显示了拥有 2,000 名客户的公司发送 5,000 份邀请，其中 500 份被接受的具体计算示例。

Table 17-1. Sample math for a viral coefficient calculation
表 17-1。病毒系数计算示例

This might seem overly simple, because in theory, that quarter of a customer will, in turn, invite another $25\mathrm{\%}$ of a customer $(6.25\mathrm{\%}$ of a customer), and so on. In reality, as David points out, it’s unlikely that users will continue to invite their friends as time goes by—instead, they’ll invite those friends who they think are relevant and then stop inviting, and many of those they invite will have the same groups of friends. The invitation roster will get saturated.
这可能看起来过于简单，因为理论上，那四分之一的客户会邀请另一个四分之一的客户，以此类推。但实际上，正如大卫指出的那样，用户不太可能随着时间的推移继续邀请他们的朋友——相反，他们会邀请那些他们认为相关的朋友，然后停止邀请，而他们邀请的人中，许多人会有相同的朋友群。邀请名单会变得饱和。

There’s another factor to consider here: cycle time. If it takes only a day for someone to use the site and invite others, you’ll see fast growth. On the other hand, if it takes someone months before she invites others, you’ll see much slower growth.
在这里，还有另一个需要考虑的因素：周期时间。如果某人只需一天就能使用网站并邀请其他人，你会看到快速增长。另一方面，如果某人需要数月才能邀请其他人，你会看到更慢的增长。

Cycle time makes a huge difference—so much so, David feels it’s more important than viral coefficient. Using sample data from a worksheet he created, David underscores this in one of his examples: “After 20 days with a cycle time of two days, you will have 20,470 users, but if you halved that cycle time to one day, you would have over 20 million users!”
周期时间差异巨大——如此之大，以至于大卫认为它比病毒系数更重要。他使用了他自己创建的工作表中的样本数据，在其中一个例子中强调了这一点：“在周期时间为两天的 20 天内，你将拥有 20,470 名用户，但如果将周期时间减半为一天，你将拥有超过 2000 万名用户！”

Bass’s equations took many of these factors into consideration when he was trying to explain how messages propagate out into a marketplace and how customers gradually adopt innovation.
当 Bass 试图解释信息如何在市场中传播以及客户如何逐渐采用创新时，他的方程式考虑了这些因素。

Ultimately, what we’re after is a viral coefficient above 1, because this means the product is self-sustaining. With a viral coefficient above 1, every single user is inviting at least another user, and that new user invites another user in turn. That way, after you have some initial users your product grows by itself. In the preceding example, we could do several things to push the viral coefficient toward 1:
最终，我们追求的是病毒系数大于 1，因为这意味着产品是自我维持的。当病毒系数大于 1 时，每个用户至少邀请另一个用户，而这个新用户又邀请另一个用户。这样，在你有一些初始用户后，你的产品就会自行增长。在之前的例子中，我们可以做几件事来推动病毒系数接近 1：

• Focus on increasing the acceptance rate.
• 专注于提高接受率。
• Try to extend the lifetime of the customer so he has more time to invite people.
• 尝试延长客户的寿命，以便他有更多时间邀请人们。
• Try to shorten the cycle time for invitations to get growth faster.
• 尝试缩短邀请周期时间，以更快地实现增长。
• Work on convincing customers to invite more people.
• 努力说服客户邀请更多的人。

Beyond the Viral Coefficient

超越病毒系数

Treat the three kinds of viral growth differently. Each of them will have different conversion rates, and users who come from each kind of growth will have different engagement levels. That’ll tell you where to focus your efforts.
将三种类型的病毒式增长区别对待。每种类型的转化率都不同，并且来自每种类型增长的用户参与度也不同。这将告诉你应该在哪里集中你的努力。

The metrics that matter in the virality phase are about outreach and new user adoption. While the most fundamental of these is the viral coefficient, you can also measure the volume of invites sent by a user, or the time it takes her to invite someone.
在病毒传播阶段，重要的指标是推广和新增用户采用。其中最基本的是病毒系数，但也可以衡量用户发送邀请的数量，或者她邀请他人的时间。

For companies selling to an enterprise market, where click-to-invite virality isn’t the norm, there are other metrics that might work better. One is the net promoter score, which simply asks how likely a user is to tell his friends about your product and compares the number of strong advocates to those who are unwilling to recommend it.* It’s a good proxy for virality, because it suggests customers who will act as references, refer you business, or be quoted in marketing collateral.
对于面向企业市场的公司，点击邀请病毒传播不是常态，可能存在其他更合适的指标。一个是净推荐值，它简单地询问用户向朋友推荐产品的可能性，并将强烈支持者的数量与不愿推荐的人进行比较。这是一个很好的病毒传播代理指标，因为它表明将作为参考的客户、推荐业务或被引用在营销材料中的客户。

Virality doesn’t play a key role in every business. Some products are just not naturally viral, and hardly any are wildly so. Much has been made of getting a viral coefficient above 1—in other words, getting every user to invite at least one other user. This means, in theory, you can grow forever.
病毒传播并不是每个业务的关键因素。有些产品天生就不具有病毒性，很少有产品是极其病毒性的。人们一直强调获得高于 1 的病毒系数——换句话说，让每个用户至少邀请一个其他用户。理论上，这意味着你可以无限增长。

Unfortunately, a sustained viral coefficient above 1 is a Holy Grail for startups.
不幸的是，持续高于 1 的病毒系数是创业公司的圣杯。

That doesn’t mean you should ignore virality; rather, it means you need to treat it as a force multiplier that will make your paid marketing initiatives more successful. That’s why the Virality stage comes before the Revenue and Scale stages: you want to get the biggest bang for your marketing buck, and to do so, you need to optimize your viral engines first.
这并不意味着你应该忽视病毒式传播；相反，这意味着你需要将其视为一个放大器，使你的付费营销活动更加成功。这就是为什么病毒式传播阶段先于收入和规模阶段：你希望以最小的投入获得最大的回报，而要做到这一点，你需要首先优化你的病毒式传播引擎。

CASE STUDY Timehop Experiments with Content Sharing to Achieve Virality

案例研究：Timehop 通过内容分享实现病毒式传播

Jonathan Wegener and Benny Wong started Timehop in February 2011 as a hackathon project. The original product—built in a single day and called 4SquareAnd7YearsAgo—aggregated your Foursquare check-ins and sent them to you in a daily email from one year ago. It was a fun way of looking back at where you had been each day last year. The project got a lot of attention, and after a few months of watching organic growth, the founders decided to focus on it full-time. They rebranded as Timehop and raised \1.1$ million in financing from venture and angel investors.
乔纳森·韦格纳和本尼·王于 2011 年 2 月作为黑客马拉松项目启动了 Timehop。最初的产品——用一个星期内建成并称为“4SquareAnd7YearsAgo”——聚合了你的 Foursquare 签到信息，并将它们发送给你，每天发送一年前的信息。这是一种有趣的方式，让你回顾去年每天去过的地方。该项目引起了广泛关注，在观察了几个月的有机增长后，创始人决定全身心投入该项目。他们重新命名为 Timehop，并从风险投资家和天使投资人那里筹集了 110 万美元的融资。

The founders spent most of their time at the beginning focusing on engagement. Luckily for them, people were hooked on the product, and it showed in the core metrics. “We consistently saw $40\mathrm{\%}$ open rates on our emails, and still do,” says Jonathan. “So we knew we had a sticky, engaging product that people cared about.”
创始人最初将大部分时间用于关注用户参与度。幸运的是，人们对产品非常着迷，这一点在核心指标上得到了体现。“我们一直能看到电子邮件的打开率，现在也是如此，”乔纳森说。“所以我们知道我们有一个粘性高、吸引人的产品，人们很关心它。”

Proving that Timehop was an engaging product was essential, but so was proving that engagement led to retention. “People have been on Timehop for close to two years without ever getting bored and leaving,” says Jonathan. “Originally we tracked open rates, unsubscribes, and content density [how many users get emails each day because they did something a year ago] religiously, but all of that’s in very good shape.” It was time to change their One Metric That Matters.
证明 Timehop 是一个吸引人的产品是至关重要的，但证明用户参与度能带来留存同样重要。“人们已经在 Timehop 上待了近两年，从未感到无聊而离开，”乔纳森说。“最初我们严格追踪打开率、退订率和内容密度（有多少用户因为去年做过某事而每天收到电子邮件），但现在这些指标都非常好。”是时候改变他们的“关键指标”了。

That engagement and retention gave the founders the confidence they needed to tackle the next big challenge: growth. “We saw through pixel tracking in emails that $50\mathrm{\%}$ of emails were being opened on iOS devices,” says Jonathan. “That led us to focus on a mobile app, which is also a better tool for encouraging growth through sharing.”
用户参与度和留存给了创始人他们所需要的信心，让他们能够应对下一个重大挑战：增长。“我们通过电子邮件中的像素追踪发现， $50\mathrm{\%}$ 的电子邮件在 iOS 设备上被打开了，”乔纳森说。“这促使我们专注于开发移动应用程序，这也是一个更好的工具，可以通过分享来促进增长。”

While people do share Timehop emails, email itself is not truly social. People received emails, but they didn’t share them. Since Timehop wants to build what Jonathan describes as a “social network for your past,” the move to mobile helps to encourage social behaviors. In fact, mobile users share 20 times more than email-only users. But it still wasn’t enough.
虽然人们会分享 Timehop 邮件，但电子邮件本身并不真正具有社交性。人们收到了电子邮件，但他们并没有分享它们。由于 Timehop 想要建立乔纳森所描述的“你的过去社交网络”，转向移动端有助于鼓励社交行为。事实上，移动端用户分享的频率是仅使用电子邮件用户的 20 倍。但这仍然不够。

“All of our focus right now is on sharing,” says Jonathan. “The metric we’re watching is percent of daily active users that share something. We don’t focus on the viral coefficient right now—we know it’s below 1— and we want to track numbers that are closer to what people are doing in our app.” The company is now experimenting and testing rapidly to see if it can significantly improve this number. It builds fast and focuses on learning and tracking results. And it has a line in the sand: “We’d like to have at least $20-30\mathrm{\%}$ of our daily active users share something on a daily basis,” Jonathan says.
“我们目前所有的关注点都在分享上，”乔纳森说。“我们关注的指标是每日活跃用户中有多少比例的人进行了分享。我们目前不关注病毒系数——我们知道它低于 1——我们想要追踪更接近人们在我们应用中实际行为的数字。”该公司现在正在快速地进行实验和测试，看看是否能够显著提高这个数字。他们快速构建并专注于学习和追踪结果。他们还有一个明确的界限：“我们希望至少有 $20-30\mathrm{\%}$ 的每日活跃用户每天进行一次分享，”乔纳森说。

Timehop cares only about growth through virality (and using sharing of content as the primary mechanism for encouraging that virality). “All that matters now is virality,” says Jonathan. “Everything else—be it press, publicity stunts, or something else—is like pushing a rock up a mountain: it will never scale. But being viral will.”
Timehop 只关注通过病毒式传播实现增长（并将内容分享作为鼓励这种病毒式传播的主要机制）。“现在重要的是病毒式传播，”乔纳森说。“其他一切——无论是媒体宣传、公关活动或其他什么——都像推一块石头上山：它永远无法扩展。但病毒式传播可以。”

摘要

• Timehop’s founders turned a one-day hackathon project into a real company when they saw consistent, organic growth and significant engagement. • After seeing that $50\mathrm{\%}$ of users opened up daily Timehop emails on an iOS device, the founders built a mobile application. They also changed their OMTM from engagement and retention to virality. • The founders are focused almost exclusively on content sharing, and increasing the percentage of daily active users who share content, in an effort to create sustainable growth in their user base.
• Timehop 的创始人将一个为期一天的黑客马拉松项目变成了一家真正的公司，当他们看到持续、有机的增长和显著的参与度时。 • 在看到 $50\mathrm{\%}$ 的用户在 iOS 设备上每天打开 Timehop 邮件后，创始人建立了一个移动应用程序。他们还改变了他们的 OMTM，从参与度和留存转变为病毒式传播。 • 创始人几乎完全专注于内容分享，并增加每日活跃用户中分享内容的百分比，以在用户群中创造可持续的增长。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学到的经验教训

Understanding how people use your product can provide key insight into what direction to go and how to move from one stage to the next— for example, from stickiness to virality. Focusing on a metric like viral coefficient may be too high level; instead, look for the actions within your product that drive virality and make sure you’re measuring those properly and have lines in the sand that you’re targeting.
了解人们如何使用你的产品可以提供关键洞察，帮助你确定前进的方向以及如何从一阶段过渡到下一阶段——例如，从用户粘性过渡到病毒传播。专注于病毒系数等指标可能过于宏观；相反，你应该寻找产品中驱动病毒传播的具体行为，并确保你正确地衡量这些行为，并设定明确的目标。

Instrumenting the Viral Pattern

仪器化病毒传播模式

Hiten Shah’s ProductPlanner site was a tremendously valuable source of acquisition patterns.* From enrollment processes to viral email loops to friend invitations, the site catalogued dozens of customer acquisition workflows and would suggest metrics for each stage of the process. For example, Figure 17-2 shows the email invite loop for Tagged.
Hiten Shah 的 ProductPlanner 网站是一个极具价值的获取模式来源。从注册流程到病毒式电子邮件循环到邀请朋友，该网站记录了数十种客户获取工作流程，并为每个流程阶段提供了建议指标。例如，图 17-2 展示了 Tagged 的电子邮件邀请循环。

Figure 17-2. Email invite loops have a simple set of steps and metrics to track
图 17-2。电子邮件邀请循环有一套简单的步骤和指标需要跟踪

While ProductPlanner is no longer available—its founders are focusing on KISSmetrics instead—you can design patterns of your own using this model, then quickly see what metrics you should be tracking within a process. Then you can instrument the viral loop you’ve built, see where it’s collapsing, and tweak it, edging your way toward that elusive coefficient of 1.
尽管 ProductPlanner 已经不再可用——其创始人们正专注于 KISSmetrics ——但你可以用这个模型来设计自己的模式，然后快速看到在流程中你应该追踪哪些指标。接着你可以对你的病毒式循环进行监控，发现它的崩溃点，并进行调整，逐渐接近那个难以捉摸的系数 1。

Growth Hacking

增长黑客

Most startups won’t survive on gradual growth alone. It’s just too slow. If you want to grow, you need an unfair advantage. You need to tweak the future. You need a hack.
大多数创业公司不会仅仅依靠渐进式增长而生存。这太慢了。如果你想要增长，你需要一个不公平的优势。你需要调整未来。你需要一个黑客。

Growth hacking is an increasingly popular term for data-driven guerilla marketing. It relies on a deep understanding of how parts of the business are related, and how tweaks to one aspect of a customer’s experience impact others. It involves:
增长黑客是一个越来越流行的术语，指的是数据驱动的游击队营销。它依赖于对业务各部分之间关系的深刻理解，以及调整客户体验的一个方面如何影响其他方面。它包括：

• Finding a metric you can measure early in a user’s lifecycle (e.g., number of friends a user invites) through experimentation , or, if you have the data, an analysis of what good users have in common
• 通过实验找到一个用户生命周期早期可以衡量的指标（例如，用户邀请的朋友数量），或者，如果你有数据，分析优秀用户有哪些共同点
• Understanding how that metric is correlated to a critical business goal (e.g., long-term engagement)
• 理解该指标与关键业务目标的相关性（例如，长期参与度）
• Building predictions of that goal (e.g., how many engaged users you’ll have in 90 days) based on where the early metric is today
• 基于早期指标当前情况，建立对该目标的预测（例如，90 天内你将有多少参与用户）
• Modifying the user experience today in order to improve the business goal tomorrow (e.g., suggesting people a user might know), assuming today’s metric is causing a change in tomorrow’s goal
• 修改今天的用户体验以改善明天的业务目标（例如，建议用户可能认识的人），假设今天的指标导致了明天目标的变化

The key to the growth hacking process is the early metric, (which is also known as a leading indicator—something you know today that predicts tomorrow). While this seems relatively straightforward, finding a good leading indicator, and experimenting to determine how it affects the future of the company, is hard work. It’s also how many of today’s break-out entrepreneurs drove their growth.
增长黑客过程的关键是早期指标（也称为领先指标——今天你知道的可以预测明天的事情）。虽然这看起来相对简单，但找到一个好的领先指标，并通过实验来确定它如何影响公司的未来，是艰苦的工作。这也是当今许多突破性企业家推动增长的方式。

Attacking the Leading Indicator

攻击领先指标

Academia.edu founder Richard Price shared stories* from a recent Growth Hacking conference† at which several veterans of successful startups shared their leading indicators.
Academia.edu 创始人理查德·普莱斯分享了最近一次增长黑客会议*上的一些成功创业公司老兵的领先指标故事。

• Former Facebook growth-team leader Chamath Palihapitiya said a user would become “engaged” later if he reached seven friends within 10 days of creating an account. Josh Elman, who worked at Twitter, said the company had a similar metric: when a new user follows a minimum number of people—and some of those follow back—the user is likely to become engaged. In fact, Twitter has two kinds of users: “active” ones who’ve visited at least once in the last month, and “core” ones who’ve visited seven times in the last month.
• 前 Facebook 增长团队负责人查玛斯·帕利哈皮蒂亚说，如果一个用户在创建账户后 10 天内邀请了七位朋友，他后期会变得“参与”。曾在 Twitter 工作过的乔什·埃尔曼说，该公司也有一个类似的指标：当新用户关注一定数量的人——其中一些人也回关时——用户可能会变得参与。事实上，Twitter 有两种用户：“活跃”用户（在过去一个月至少访问过一次）和“核心”用户（在过去一个月访问过七次）。
• Onetime Zynga GM Nabeel Hyatt, who ran a 40-million-player game, said the company looked at first-day retention: if someone came back the day after she signed up for a game, she was likely to become an engaged user (and even one who paid for in-game purchases). Hyatt also underscored the importance of identifying One Metric That Matters, then optimizing it before moving on to the next one.
• 曾任 Zynga 公司总经理 Nabeel Hyatt，管理过拥有 4000 万玩家的游戏，他说公司关注首日留存率：如果有人注册游戏后第二天还回来，她很可能成为活跃用户（甚至可能购买游戏内道具）。Hyatt 还强调了识别“关键指标”，然后优化它，再转向下一个指标的重要性。
• Dropbox’s ChenLi Wang said the chances that someone becomes an engaged user increase significantly when he puts at least one file in one folder on one of his devices.
• Dropbox 的陈丽王说，当他在一个设备的文件夹中至少放一个文件时，成为活跃用户的机会会显著增加。
• LinkedIn’s Elliot Schmukler said the company tracks how many connections a user establishes in a certain number of days in order to estimate longer-term engagement.
• LinkedIn 的 Elliot Schmukler 说，公司追踪用户在一定天数内建立的联系数量，以估计长期参与度。

User growth isn’t everything, however. You may be trying to hack other critical goals like revenue. Josh Elman told us that early on Twitter focused its energy on increasing feed views because it knew its revenue would be tied to advertising—and that advertising could happen only when a user looked at her Twitter feed. Number of feed views was a leading indicator of revenue potential even before the company hit the Revenue stage.
然而，用户增长并非一切。你可能试图通过黑客其他关键目标来提高收入。Josh Elman 告诉我们，早期 Twitter 集中精力增加信息流浏览量，因为它知道收入将与广告挂钩——而广告只能在用户查看她的 Twitter 信息流时发生。信息流浏览量是收入潜力的领先指标，甚至在公司达到“收入阶段”之前也是如此。

What Makes a Good Leading Indicator?

什么构成了一个好的领先指标？

Good leading indicators have a few common characteristics:
好的领先指标有几个共同的特点：

• Leading indicators tend to relate to social engagement (links to friends), content creation (posts, shares, likes), or return frequency (days since last visit, time on site, pages per visit).
• 领先指标通常与社会参与度相关（如好友链接），内容创作（帖子、分享、点赞），或返回频率（上次访问以来的天数、网站停留时间、每访问页面数）。
• The leading indicator should be clearly tied to a part of the business model (such as users, daily traffic, viral spread, or revenue). After all, it’s the business model that you’re trying to improve. You’re not just trying to increase number of friends per user—you’re trying to increase the number of loyal users.
• 领先指标应与商业模式的一部分有明确的联系（如用户、每日流量、病毒式传播或收入）。毕竟，你试图改进的是商业模式。你不仅仅是在增加每个用户的“好友”数量——你是在增加忠诚用户的数量。
• The indicator should come early in the user’s lifecycle or conversion funnel. This is a simple numbers game: if you look at something that happens on a user’s first day, you’ll have data points for every user, butif you wait for users to visit several times, you’ll have fewer data points (since many of those users will have churned out already), which means the indicator will be less accurate.
• 指标应在用户生命周期或转化漏斗的早期出现。这是一个简单的数字游戏：如果你关注用户第一天发生的事情，你将拥有每个用户的数据点，但如果你等待用户访问几次，你将拥有更少的数据点（因为许多用户已经流失），这意味着指标将不太准确。
• It should also be an early extrapolation so you get a prediction sooner. Recall from Chapter 8 that Kevin Hillstrom says the best way to understand whether an e-commerce company is a “loyalty” or an “acquisition”-focused organization is to look at how many second purchases happen in the first 90 days. Rather than wait a year to understand what mode you’re in, look at the first three months and extrapolate.
• 它还应该是早期的外推，以便你更快地获得预测。回想一下第 8 章，Kevin Hillstrom 说，了解电子商务公司是“忠诚度”还是“获取”导向的最佳方法，是查看在 90 天内发生的第二次购买次数。与其等待一年来了解你所处的模式，不如查看前三个月并进行外推。

You find leading indicators by segmentation and cohort analysis. Looking at one group of users who stuck around and another group who didn’t, you might see something they all have in common.
你通过细分和队列分析来发现领先指标。通过查看一组坚持留下来的用户和另一组没有留下来的用户，你可能会发现他们都有共同点。

Correlation Predicts Tomorrow

相关性预测明天

If you’ve found a leading indicator that’s correlated with something, you can predict the future. That’s good. In the case of Solare, the Italian restaurant we described in Chapter 6, the number of reservations at ${\mathfrak{s}}_{\mathfrak{p}.\mathrm{m}}$ . is a leading indicator of the total number of customers who dine on any given night—letting the team make last-minute staffing adjustments or buy additional food.
如果你发现了一个与某个事物相关的领先指标，你就可以预测未来。这很好。在我们在第 6 章中描述的意大利餐厅 Solare 的例子中， ${\mathfrak{s}}_{\mathfrak{p}.\mathrm{m}}$ 预订数量是任何给定晚上就餐顾客总数的领先指标——让团队能够进行最后一刻的人员调整或购买额外的食物。

UGC site reddit has been fairly public about its traffic and user engagement—after all, it derives revenue from advertising, and wants to convince advertisers it’s a good bet.* About half of all visits to the site are logged-in users, but these users generate a disproportionate amount of site traffic. Reddit’s engagement is good. “Almost everyone who makes an account comes back a month later,” says Jeremy Edberg. “It’s a couple of months before people stop coming back.”
UGC 网站 Reddit 相当公开地披露了其流量和用户参与度——毕竟，它从广告中获利，并希望说服广告商这是一个好的投资。该网站大约一半的访问者是登录用户，但这些用户产生了不成比例的网站流量。Reddit 的参与度很好。“几乎每个注册账户的人都会一个月后回来，”杰里米·埃德伯格说。“人们停止回来的时间是在两三个月之后。”

Is there a leading indicator in reddit’s site traffic? Table 17-2 compares logged-in users (those with accounts) to anonymous visitors by the number of pages they view in a visit.
Reddit 的网站流量中是否存在领先指标？表 17-2 比较了登录用户（那些有账户的人）和匿名访客在访问中查看的页面数量。

Table 17-2. Reddit’s page views for logged-in versus non-logged-in users
表 17-2。Reddit 的登录用户与非登录用户的页面浏览量

This data suggests that loyal, enrolled users—those who return each day to the site and have an account—view a higher number of pages per visit. Is that high number of page views by a first-time visitor a leading indicator of enrollment?
这份数据表明，忠诚的注册用户——那些每天返回网站并拥有账户的用户——每次访问查看的页面数量更高。那么，新访客的高页面浏览量是否是注册的领先指标？

Causality Hacks the Future

因果关系预测未来

Correlation is nice. But if you’ve found a leading indicator that causes a change later on, that’s a superpower, because it means you can change the future. If a high number of page views on a first visit to reddit causes enrollment, what could reddit do to increase the number of page views, and therefore increase enrollment? This is how growth hackers think.
相关性很好。但如果你找到了一个导致后期变化的领先指标，那你就拥有了超能力，因为这意味着你可以改变未来。如果 Reddit 新访客的页面浏览量高导致注册，Reddit 可以做些什么来增加页面浏览量，从而增加注册量？这就是增长黑客的思维方式。

Recall from Chapter 2 what Circle of Friends founder Mike Greenfield did when he compared engaged to not-engaged users—and found out that many of the engaged users were moms. Whether or not someone was a mother was, for Mike, a market-focused leading indicator of that person’s future engagement. He could decide how many servers to buy in six months’ time based on how many moms signed up today. But what really mattered was this: he could target moms in his marketing, and change the engagement of his users dramatically.
回忆一下第二章中，社交圈创始人迈克·格林菲尔德是如何比较参与和不参与的用户的——他发现很多参与的用户都是妈妈。对于迈克来说，是否是母亲是他未来参与度的市场导向领先指标。他可以根据今天有多少妈妈注册来决定六个月后购买多少服务器。但真正重要的是：他可以在营销中针对妈妈，从而显著改变用户的参与度。

Mike’s hack was market-related, but growth hacks come in all shapes and sizes. Maybe it’s a change in pricing, or a time-limited offer, or a form of personalization. The point is to experiment in a disciplined manner.
迈克的技巧与市场相关，但增长技巧各种各样。也许是价格变动，或者是限时优惠，或者是某种个性化形式。关键是要以 disciplined 的方式做实验。

Product-focused growth hacks—what Chamath Palihapitiya calls “aha moments”—need to happen early in the user’s lifecycle in order to have an impact on the greatest number of possible users. That’s why social sites suggest friends for you almost immediately.
产品导向的增长技巧——查马特·帕利哈皮蒂亚称之为“啊哈时刻”——需要在用户生命周期的早期发生，以影响尽可能多的用户。这就是为什么社交网站几乎立即为你推荐朋友。

You can use promotions and experiments to try to identify a leading indicator, too. Music retailer Beatport ran a Cyber Monday promotion to maximize total purchases. A week before the holiday, it sent all its customers a $10\mathrm{\%}$ discount code. Those customers who purchased something with the code were then sent a second, personalized code for $20\mathrm{\%}$ off. If they used that code, they were sent a final, one-time-only, time-limited code for Cyber Monday that gave them $50\mathrm{\%}$ off their purchase. This approach increased purchase frequency, and encouraged customers to max out their shopping cart each time.
你也可以使用促销和实验来尝试识别领先指标。音乐零售商 Beatport 运行了一个网络星期一促销活动，以最大化总购买量。在假期前一周，它向所有客户发送了一个 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 折扣码。使用该代码购买商品的客户随后会收到一个个性化的 $20\mathrm{\%}$ 折扣码。如果他们使用了那个代码，他们还会收到一个最终、一次性且有时间限制的网络星期一折扣码，可以享受 $50\mathrm{\%}$ 的购买折扣。这种方法增加了购买频率，并鼓励顾客每次都尽可能装满购物车。

While we don’t have data on the effectiveness of the campaign itself, it’s clear that the company now has a wealth of information on who will respond best to a promotion and how discounts relate to purchase volume—and it’s made its loyal customers feel loved as well.
虽然我们没有关于该活动效果的数据，但很明显，该公司现在对哪些顾客最能响应促销活动以及折扣与购买量之间的关系有了丰富的信息——同时它也让忠诚顾客感受到了关爱。

Growth hacking combines many of the disciplines we’ve looked at in the book: finding a business model, identifying the most important metric for your current stage, and constantly learning and optimizing that metric to create a better future for your organization.
增长黑客结合了我们在书中探讨的许多学科：找到商业模式、确定当前阶段最重要的指标，并不断学习和优化该指标，为组织创造更好的未来。

A Summary of the Virality Stage

病毒式传播阶段的总结

• Virality refers to the spread of a message from existing, “infected” users to new users.
• 传播性是指信息从现有的“感染”用户传播到新用户。
• If every user successfully invites more than one other user, your growth is almost assured. While this is seldom the case, any word of mouth adds to customer growth and reduces your overall customer acquisition costs.
• 如果每个用户都成功邀请超过一个其他用户，你的增长几乎可以保证。虽然这种情况很少发生，但任何口碑传播都会增加客户增长并降低你的整体客户获取成本。
• Inherent virality happens naturally as users interact with your product. Artificial virality is incentivized and less genuine. And word of mouth, while hard to create and track, drives a lot of early adoption. You need to segment users who come from all three kinds of virality.
• 内在传播是用户与你的产品互动时自然发生的。人工传播是激励性的，不太真实。而口碑传播虽然难以创造和跟踪，但驱动了很多早期采用。你需要区分来自这三种传播类型的用户。
• In addition to viral coefficient, you care about viral cycle time. The sooner each user invites another one, the faster you’ll grow.
• 除了病毒系数，你还关心病毒周期时间。每个用户邀请另一个用户越快，你的增长就越快。

• As you grow in the Virality and Revenue stages, you’re trying to find leading indicators of future growth: metrics that can be measured early in a user’s lifecycle that predict—or, better yet, control—what the future will be.
• 随着你进入病毒传播和收入阶段，你试图寻找未来增长的先行指标：可以在用户生命周期早期测量的指标，这些指标可以预测——或者更好的是控制——未来将会发生什么。

When you’re growing organically from referrals and invitations, you’ll get the most out of every dollar you spend acquiring customers. It’s time to focus on maximizing revenue, and pouring some of that money back into additional acquisition. It’s time for the Revenue stage.
当你通过推荐和邀请有机增长时，你会从每一美元的客户获取中获益最大。现在是时候专注于最大化收入，并将其中一些钱再投入到额外的获取中了。现在是收入阶段的时候了。

EXERCISE Should You Move On to the Revenue Stage?

练习：你应该进入收入阶段吗？

Ask yourself these questions:
问自己这些问题：

• Are you using any of the three types of virality (inherent, artificial, word of mouth) for your startup? Describe how. If virality is a weak aspect of your startup, write down three to five ideas for how you could build more virality into your product. • What’s your viral coefficient? Even if it’s below 1 (which it likely is), do you feel like the virality that exists is good enough to help sustain growth and lower customer acquisition costs? • What’s your viral cycle time? How could you speed it up?
• 你的创业公司是否在使用三种类型的病毒传播（固有、人为、口碑）？描述一下。如果你的创业公司的病毒传播是一个薄弱环节，写下三到五个想法，说明你如何在产品中增加病毒传播。• 你的病毒系数是多少？即使它低于 1（这很可能是），你觉得现有的病毒传播是否足够帮助维持增长和降低客户获取成本？• 你的病毒周期时间是多久？你如何能加快它？

What are the segments or cohorts of users who do what your business model wants them to do? What do they have in common? What can you change about your product, market, pricing, or another aspect of your business to address this as early as possible in their customer lifecycle?
哪些用户群体或用户群会做你的商业模式希望他们做的事情？他们有什么共同点？你可以在产品、市场、定价或你业务的另一个方面做出哪些改变，以便尽早解决他们在客户生命周期中的问题？

Stage Four: Revenue

第四阶段：收入

At some point, you have to make money. As you move beyond stickiness and virality, your metrics change. You’ll track new data and find a new OMTM as you funnel some of the money you collect back into acquiring new users. Customer lifetime value and customer acquisition cost drive your growth, and you’ll run experiments to try to capture more loyal users for less, tweaking how you charge, when you charge, and what you charge for. Welcome to the Revenue stage of Lean Analytics.
在某个时刻，你必须赚钱。当你超越粘性和病毒式传播后，你的指标会发生变化。你会追踪新的数据，并找到一个新的核心指标，将你收集的一部分资金重新投入到获取新用户上。客户终身价值和客户获取成本驱动你的增长，你会进行实验，试图以更低的成本获取更忠诚的用户，调整你收费的方式、时间以及收费的内容。欢迎来到精益分析的营收阶段。

The goal in the Revenue stage is to turn your focus from proving your idea is right to proving you can make money in a scalable, consistent, selfsustaining way. Think of this as the piñata phase, where you beat on your business model in different ways until candy pours out.
营收阶段的目标是从证明你的想法是正确的，转变为证明你能够以可扩展、持续、自给自足的方式赚钱。你可以把这个看作是击鼓传花阶段，通过不同的方式打击你的商业模式，直到糖果流出。

Some startup advocates recommend charging for the product at the outset. This depends on several factors, from churn to cost of acquisition to the kind of application you’re building. But there’s a difference between charging up front and focusing on revenue and margins. In the earlier stages, it’s OK to run the business at a loss, or to give away accounts, or to issue refunds, or to let highly paid developers field support calls. Now, that has to change. Now, you’re not just building a product—you’re building a business.
一些创业倡导者建议从一开始就为产品收费。这取决于几个因素，包括客户流失率、获取成本以及你所构建的应用类型。但收取费用和关注收入与利润之间存在着区别。在早期阶段，亏损运营、免费提供账户、退款或让高薪开发人员处理支持电话都是可以接受的。现在，情况必须改变。现在，你不仅仅是在构建产品——你是在构建一个商业。

Metrics for the Revenue Stage

收入阶段的指标

Measuring revenue is easy enough, but remember that while raw revenue might be going “up and to the right,” revenue per customer is a better indicator of actual health. It’s a ratio, after all, and there’s a lot more you can learn from it. For example, if revenue is going up but revenue per customer is going down, it tells you that you’re going to need a lot more customers to continue growing at the same pace. Is that doable? Does that make sense? The ratio helps you focus on making real decisions for your startup.
衡量收入并不难，但要记住，虽然原始收入可能呈“上升且向右”的趋势，但每位客户的收入是衡量实际健康状况的更好指标。毕竟，这是一个比率，你可以从中学到更多。例如，如果收入在增长但每位客户的收入在下降，这表明你需要更多客户才能继续以同样的速度增长。这是可行的吗？这是有道理的吗？这个比率帮助你专注于为你的创业公司做出真正的决策。

As a result, you’ll be looking at click-through rates and ad revenue, or conversion rate and shopping cart size, or subscriptions and customer lifetime value—or whatever brings in money. You’ll be comparing this to the cost of acquiring new users faster than they churn—because the net addition of visitors, users, and customers you can monetize is your growth rate.
因此，你会关注点击率、广告收入，或者转化率和购物车大小，或者订阅和客户终身价值——或者任何能带来收入的指标。你会将其与获取新用户的成本进行比较，因为新用户、用户和可盈利客户的净增加量就是你的增长率。

You’ll also work hard at getting pricing right, balancing the highest price with the most paying customers. And you’ll be experimenting with bundles, subscription tiers, discounts, and other mechanisms to determine the best price.
你还会努力确定好价格，在最高价格和最多付费客户之间找到平衡。你还会通过实验捆绑产品、订阅层级、折扣和其他机制来确定最佳价格。

The Penny Machine

偷窃机器

An entrepreneur walks into a maple-paneled boardroom just off the 280, glances around the table at the well-groomed investors gathered there, and reaches into a large leather bag. She pulls out a strange machine, roughly two feet high by one foot wide, sets it carefully on the table, and plugs it in.
一位企业家走进一间位于 280 号公路旁、装饰着枫木面板的会议室，环顾桌旁那些衣着光鲜的投资者，伸手进一个大皮包里。她拿出一个奇怪的机器，大约有两英尺高、一英尺宽，小心地放在桌上，然后插上电源。

The room is expectantly quiet.
房间里安静地期待着。

“Does anyone have a penny on them?” she asks. The general partner raises an eyebrow as one of the junior staff members hands over a faded copper piece.
“谁身上有分币？”她问。合伙人扬起眉毛，一名初级员工递过一枚褪色的铜币。

“Now watch.”
“现在看。”

The entrepreneur inserts the coin into the top of the machine and pulls a small lever. There is a low-pitched whirring, followed by a pause, and then a shiny new nickel tumbles into the small shelf at the bottom of the machine.
企业家将硬币插入机器顶部并拉下一个小杠杆。低沉的嗡嗡声过后，短暂的停顿，然后一枚闪亮的新五分硬币从机器底部的浅架中滚落下来。

The only sound in the room is the ventilation system, cooling the warm Palo Alto air.
房间里只有通风系统的声音，正在冷却温暖的帕洛阿尔托空气。

“That’s a neat trick,” says the silver-haired general partner, straightening up in his seat and grinding his brown Mephistos into the hypoallergenic rug beneath him. “Do it again.”
“那是个巧妙的技巧，”银发合伙人直起身子，把他的棕色梅菲斯托碾磨在身下的防过敏地毯上。“再试一次。”

The staffer hands her another coin. She slides the second penny into the top of the machine, and again pulls the lever. Out slides another nickel.
工作人员又递给她一枚硬币。她把第二枚便士滑入机器顶部，再次拉起杠杆。另一枚五分镍币滑了出来。

“You’ve got a bag of nickels in there,” accuses a slightly disheveled technical analyst, somewhat defensively. “Open it up.”
“你那里有一袋五分镍币，”一个略显凌乱的技术分析师有点防御性地指责道。“打开它。”

Wordlessly, the entrepreneur releases a small clasp on the side of the machine and swings it open. Within are a series of tubes and wires, but nowhere is big enough to conceal nickels. The analyst looks mildly offended, but the general partner is on the edge of his seat as she closes the machine back up.
无声无息中，创业者拉动机器侧面的一个小钩，将其打开。里面是一系列管子和电线，但没有地方足够藏一枚五分硬币。分析师看起来有些不悦，但普通合伙人则坐得笔直，在她把机器关上时。

“How many pennies can I put in there per hour?” he asks.
“我每小时能放多少枚分币进去？”他问道。

“It takes five seconds to cool down, so you can insert 720 pennies an hour. That’s \36$innickelsforaprofitof$$28.80$an hour, with a margin of$80$ .”
“它冷却需要五秒钟，所以你每小时可以放 720 枚分币。那是 36 美元，80%。”

The general partner leans back in his Aeron chair and gazes out across the highway, into the Woodside hills. He pauses for a minute. “Can I put nickels into it?” he inquires.
普通合伙人向后靠在他的 Aeron 椅子上，望向高速公路，进入伍德赛德山。他停顿了一分钟。“我能放五分硬币进去吗？”他询问。

“I’ve tried it with dimes. It works. Produces neatly folded dollar bills. I haven’t tried anything more than that yet, but I’m hoping it will handle fives,” replies the entrepreneur.
“我试过用那个了。它管用。能整齐地折叠美元钞票。我还没试过比这更复杂的，但希望它也能处理五元钞票，”创业者回答道。

“How many can you make and run at once?” asks the partner, oblivious to the rest of the room.
“一次能做多少个？能同时运行多少台？”合伙人问道，对房间里的其他人浑然不觉。

“I think we can have 500 machines running around the clock. They cost \30,000$ apiece and take two months to make.”
“我认为我们可以让 500 台机器全天候运行。它们每台成本 30,000 美元，制造需要两个月。”

“One more question,” says the partner, “and I think we have a deal. Why can’t someone else build one?”
“还有一个问题，”合伙人说，“我想我们就可以成交了。为什么别人不能造一个？”

“I have intellectual property protection on the core mechanism, and I’ve signed an exclusive agreement with the US Mint to be the only producer of legal currency.”
“我对核心机制拥有知识产权保护，并且我与美国铸币厂签订了独家协议，成为唯一合法货币的生产商。”

Of course, this isn’t a real venture capital pitch. But it’s as close to perfect as one can get. We can learn a lot from the penny machine, and it’s a great metaphor to get startup CEOs thinking like investors.
当然，这并不是一个真实的风险投资提案。但它尽可能地接近完美。我们可以从分币机中学到很多东西，它也是一个很好的比喻，让创业公司的 CEO 们像投资者一样思考。

The penny machine has an obvious money-making ability: you put in money, and more comes out. People understand what a penny is. While no business is as clear-cut as the penny machine, every CEO needs to make his business model as straightforward as possible, particularly to outsiders, so it’s painfully obvious why the venture will yield revenues.
分币机有一个明显的盈利能力：你投入钱，就会有更多的钱出来。人们知道什么是分币。虽然没有任何业务像分币机那么简单明了，但每个 CEO 都需要让他的商业模式尽可能简单，特别是对局外人来说，这样就能痛苦地意识到为什么这个风险投资会产生收入。

The entrepreneur had reasonable answers to key questions: how big can the business grow, how good can the margins get, and what kinds of barriers to entry does it have?
创业者对关键问题给出了合理的答案：这个业务能有多大，利润率能有多好，以及它有哪些进入壁垒？

The presenter engaged the audience, and let them help her tell the story. They were smart people who asked the questions she wanted, and she showed them that she’d anticipated their questions by providing slightly more detail than they asked for without going into too much depth.
演讲者吸引了观众的注意力，并让他们帮助她讲述故事。他们是有智慧的人，问了她想问的问题，她展示了她预期能们的问题，提供了比他们要求的稍微多一点的信息，但没有深入过多细节。

There was no need for a detailed technical explanation at this stage. Later, the investors would certainly go over the technology carefully to ensure that it wasn’t illegal, immoral, or outright trickery. But this meeting wasn’t about that. Opening the machine up served as a simple proof that everyone in the room understood well enough.
在这个阶段，没有必要进行详细的技术解释。稍后，投资者肯定会仔细研究技术，以确保它不是非法的、不道德的，或者纯粹的欺骗。但这次会议不是关于这个的。打开机器只作为一个简单的证明，房间里每个人理解得足够好。

The entrepreneur didn’t set a valuation. She gave the investors all the details they needed to form one of their own, based on revenue potential, margin, costs, and so on. They could also calculate the working capital needed to fund the creation of the machines, based on cost and time, as well as return on investment.
企业家没有设定估值。她向投资者提供了所有他们需要的信息，以便他们根据自己的收入潜力、利润率、成本等自行形成估值。他们也可以根据成本和时间计算所需的营运资金，以资助机器的创建，以及投资回报率。

Startup CEOs seeking venture capital would do well to remember the penny machine. It’s a good way to ensure you’re thinking like a venture capitalist. Every time your pitch strays from the simplicity of this meeting, it’s a warning sign that you need to go back and tighten it up.
寻求风险投资的初创公司 CEO 们应该记住“分币机”。这是一种确保你像风险投资家一样思考的好方法。每当你演讲偏离这种会议的简单性时，它就是一个警告信号，表明你需要回去把它收紧。

Penny Machines and Magic Numbers

分币机与魔法数字

This isn’t just an entertaining metaphor for entrepreneurs preparing to pitch. Think of your company as a machine that predictably generates more money than you put into it. Measuring the ratio of inputs to outputs tells you whether you have a good machine or a broken one.
这不仅仅是一个有趣的比喻，用于准备演讲的企业家。把你的公司想象成一个可以预测地产生比你投入更多的钱的机器。衡量投入与产出的比率告诉你，你有一个好机器还是一个坏机器。

In 2008, Ominture’s Josh James suggested one way to understand how a SaaS company is doing, and to decide whether it’s time to step on the gas or to reconsider the business model.* It’s pretty simple, really: look at the return on investment of your marketing dollar. In a SaaS company, you spend money on sales and marketing in the hopes that you’ll sign up new customers. If all goes well, the following quarter your revenues will have increased.
2008 年，Ominiture 的 Josh James 提出了一种理解 SaaS 公司表现的方法，并决定是时候加速还是重新考虑商业模式了。这真的很简单：看看你的营销美元的投资回报率。在 SaaS 公司中，你花在销售和营销上的钱，希望签下新客户。如果一切顺利，下一个季度你的收入将会增加。

To measure the health of the machine, divide how much you changed the annual recurring revenue in the past quarter by what it cost you to do so. You need three numbers to do this calculation:
要衡量机器的健康状况，将过去一个季度中年度经常性收入的变动量除以你为此所花费的成本。进行此计算需要三个数字：

• Your quarterly recurring revenue for quarter $x(\mathrm{QRR}[x])$ • Your quarterly recurring revenue for the quarter before $x(\mathrm{QRR}[x-1])$ • Your sales and marketing expense for the quarter before $x$ $⟨\mathrm{QExpSM}[x$ – 1])
• 第 0 季度的季度经常性收入 • 第 1 季度的季度经常性收入 • 第 2 季度之前的销售和营销费用]

If you don’t have quarterly sales and marketing spending, you can take the annual spending and divide it by four. This also helps smooth out spikes in marketing spend or seasonal shifts, since not all the sales you get this quarter are a result of last quarter’s sales efforts—some may have benefitted from previous quarters.
如果你没有季度销售和营销支出，你可以将年度支出除以四。这也有助于平滑营销支出或季节性波动，因为本季度获得的所有销售额并不都是上季度销售工作的结果——其中一些可能受益于前几个季度。

The formula looks like this:
公式如下：

If the result is below 0.75, you have a problem. When you pump money into the machine, less money comes out. That’s a bad thing for this stage of your business, because it means there’s a fundamental flaw in your business model. If the result is better than 1, you’re doing well—you can fund your growth with the proceeds, funneling revenue increases back into the machine to increase sales and marketing spend.
如果结果低于 0.75，你就有问题。当你向机器投入资金时，流出的资金更少。这对你的业务现阶段来说是个坏情况，因为它意味着你的商业模式存在根本性缺陷。如果结果高于 1，你做得很好——你可以用收益来资助你的增长，将收入增长再投入机器以增加销售和营销支出。

Finding Your Revenue Groove

找到你的收入节奏

At this stage in your startup, you’ve got a product that users like and tell other users about. You’re trying to figure out the best way to monetize the product. Recall Sergio Zyman’s definition of marketing (more stuff to more people for more money more often more efficiently) using. In the Revenue stage, you need to figure out which “more” increases your revenues per engaged customer the most:
在你创业的这个阶段，你有一个用户喜欢并向其他用户推荐的产品。你正在试图找出最佳的盈利方式。回想塞尔吉奥·齐曼对营销的定义（为更多的人提供更多的产品以获取更多的金钱，更频繁、更高效），在收入阶段，你需要找出哪个“更多”能最大程度地增加每个参与用户的收入：

• If you’re dependent on physical, per-transaction costs (like direct sales, shipping products to a buyer, or signing up merchants), then more efficiently will figure prominently on either the supply or demand side of your business model.
如果你依赖于物理的、每笔交易的成本（比如直接销售、将产品运送给买家或注册商家），那么效率将突出地体现在你商业模式或供应或需求的一侧。
• If you’ve found a high viral coefficient, then more people makes sense, because you’ve got a strong force multiplier added to every dollar you pour into customer acquisition.
• 如果你发现了一个高病毒系数，那么吸引更多人是有道理的，因为你为每一美元的客户获取投入增加了一个强大的乘数效应。
• If you’ve got a loyal, returning set of customers who buy from you every time, then more often makes sense, and you’re going to emphasize getting them to come back more frequently.
• 如果你拥有一批忠诚且经常回购的客户，那么提高回购频率是有道理的，你将重点放在让他们更频繁地回来。
• If you’ve got a one-time, big-ticket transaction, then more money will help a lot, because you’ve got only one chance to extract revenue from the customer and need to leave as little money as possible on the table.
• 如果你是一次性大额交易，那么更多的资金将非常有帮助，因为你只有一个机会从客户那里获取收入，并且需要尽可能少地留下未开发的收入。
• If you’re a subscription model, and you’re fighting churn, then upselling customers to higher-capacity packages with broader features is your best way of growing existing revenues, so you’ll spend a lot of time on more stuff.
• 如果你采用订阅模式，并且正在应对客户流失，那么将客户升级到具有更广泛功能的更高容量套餐是增长现有收入的最佳方式，因此你将花费大量时间在提供更多内容上。

Where Does the Money Come From?

钱从哪里来？

For many services that charge a recurring fee, you need to decide if you’re charging everyone, or just premium users. A freemium model may work, but it’s not always a good thing—particularly if free users cost you money, and if you can’t naturally distinguish the paid version of your service with tiers that a regular user will naturally encounter, such as number of projects or gigabytes of storage.
对于许多收取定期费用的服务，你需要决定是向所有人收费，还是只向高级用户收费。免费增值模式可能有效，但不总是好事——特别是如果免费用户会给你带来成本，并且你无法自然地区分你的付费服务版本，例如项目数量或存储的吉字节。

One variant on freemium is pay-for-privacy, where the content your users create is available to everyone unless they explicitly pay to keep it to themselves. SlideShare uses a variant of this. While the site does make money from advertising, it also charges users for a premium model where the content they upload isn’t available to everyone. Now that they’re part of LinkedIn, they’re also subsidized by that company’s business model.
免费增值模式的一个变体是付费隐私，即你的用户创建的内容对所有人可见，除非他们明确付费才能将其保留给自己。SlideShare 使用这种模式的变体。虽然该网站通过广告赚钱，但它也为付费模式收费，用户上传的内容不会对所有人可见。现在他们已经是 LinkedIn 的一部分了，他们也被该公司的商业模式所补贴。

If your users all pay, then you need to decide if you’ll have trial periods, discounts, or other incentives. Ultimately, the best revenue strategy is to make a great product: the best startups have what Steve Jobs referred to as the “insanely great,” with customers eager to give them money for what they see as true value.
如果你的用户都付费，那么你需要决定是否提供试用期、折扣或其他激励措施。归根结底，最好的收入策略是打造一款优秀的产品：最好的初创公司拥有史蒂夫·乔布斯所说的“疯狂地伟大”，客户愿意为他们所认为的真实价值付费。

If none of your users pay, then you’re relying on advertising, or other behind-the-scenes subsidies, to pay the bills.
如果你的用户都不付费，那么你依赖的是广告，或者其他幕后补贴来支付账单。

Many startups blend several of the six business models we’ve seen to form their own unique revenue model. They then find ways to pour that revenue into their own mix of virality and customer acquisition, investing some amount of their income into growth.
许多初创公司将我们看到的六种商业模式中的几种结合起来，形成了自己独特的收入模式。然后他们找到方法将收入投入到他们自己的病毒传播和客户获取中，将一部分收入投资于增长。

Customer Lifetime Value $>$ Customer Acquisition Cost

客户终身价值 $>$ 客户获取成本

When it comes to turning revenues into additional customers, the most basic rule is simple: spend less money acquiring customers than you get from them.
当谈到将收入转化为更多客户时，最基本的原则很简单：花在获取客户上的钱要少于他们带来的收入。

That’s hugely oversimplified, because you really want to spend only a fraction of your revenue on acquisition if you’re going to keep the lights on, hire in anticipation of growth, spend money on research, and generate a return on investment.
如果要维持运营、为增长做准备招聘、进行研发并产生投资回报，你真正希望将收入的很小一部分用于获取客户。这大大简化了问题，因为如果要做到这些，你只能花费收入的很小一部分来获取客户。

The CLV-CAC math also needs to reflect the fact that there’s a delay between paying to acquire customers and those customers paying you back. Any investment or loans you take aren’t just paying for you to get to breakeven, they’re also paying for the anticipated revenue from customers.
CLV-CAC 的计算也需要反映出从获取客户到客户回报之间存在的时间延迟。你获得的任何投资或贷款不仅是为了达到盈亏平衡，也是为了获得客户预期的收入。

Balancing acquisition, revenue, and cash flow is at the core of running many business models, particularly those that rely on subscription revenue and paying to gain customers. As you play with the numbers to strike that balance, there are really four variables you work on:
平衡获取客户、收入和现金流是许多商业模式的核心，尤其是那些依赖订阅收入和付费获取客户的商业模式。在你调整数字以实现这种平衡时，你实际上是在处理四个变量：

• The money in the bank at the outset (i.e., your investment)
• 初始时银行里的资金（即你的投资）
• The amount of money spent on customer acquisition each month
每月用于客户获取的资金数额
• The revenue you bring in from users
用户带来的收入
• The rate of churn from users
用户流失率

Get the math right. Take too much, and you dilute your ownership; take too little, and you run out of cash simply because your users pay you over time but you have to acquire them up front.
数学要算对。要太多，你会稀释你的所有权；要太少，你会因为用户是分期付款给你，但你必须提前获取他们而现金短缺。

CASE STUDY  |  Parse.ly and the Pivot to Revenue

案例研究 | Parse.ly 和转向收入

Parse.ly makes an analytics tool that helps the Web’s big publishers understand what content is driving traffic. It was first launched in 2009 out of Philadelphia’s Dreamit Ventures as a reader tool for consumers to find stories they’d like. A year later, the company changed its approach: since it knew what a reader might like to read next, it could help publishers suggest content that would keep readers on the site for longer. And in 2011, it changed again, this time offering reporting tools to publishers who wanted to know what was working. The current product, Parse.ly Dash, is an analytics tool for publishers.*
Parse.ly 开发了一款分析工具，帮助互联网的主要发布者了解哪些内容在推动流量。它最初于 2009 年在费城的 Dreamit Ventures 推出，作为消费者发现他们喜欢的故事的阅读工具。一年后，该公司改变了它的方法：既然它知道读者可能想读什么，它可以帮助发布者建议内容，让读者在网站上停留更长时间。2011 年，它再次改变，这时它为想要知道什么有效的发布者提供报告工具。当前的产品 Parse.ly Dash 是一款为发布者提供的数据分析工具。

While Dash is a successful product today, the company had to abandon its earlier work in its search for a sustainable business model. “It was very hard for us to shift away from our consumer newsreader product. That’s because all the metrics were actually quite positive,” says Mike Sukmanowsky, Parse.ly’s Product Lead.
虽然 Dash 今天是一个成功的产品，但该公司为了寻找一个可持续的商业模式，不得不放弃它早期的工作。“我们很难从我们的消费者新闻阅读器产品上转移过来。那是因为所有的指标实际上相当积极，”Parse.ly 的产品负责人 Mike Sukmanowsky 说。

“We had thousands of users and the product was growing rapidly. We were written up in top technology press like TechCrunch, ReadWriteWeb, and ZDNet. The product worked and we had a million ideas for how to improve it even further. However, it was lacking one critical metric for any growing business—revenue. We ran tests and surveys, and learned that though our users loved Parse.ly Reader, they didn’t love it so much that they’d be willing to pay for it.”
“我们拥有数以千计的用户，产品也在迅速增长。我们的产品被顶级科技媒体如 TechCrunch、ReadWriteWeb 和 ZDNet 报道过。产品运行良好，我们甚至有上百万个想法来进一步改进它。然而，对于任何成长型业务来说，都缺少一个关键指标——收入。我们进行了测试和调查，发现尽管用户喜欢 Parse.ly Reader，但他们并不愿意为此付费。”

The founders had plenty of code, but no revenue, and costs were growing. Mike attributes part of this to the focus that startup accelerators have on rapid prototyping, often at the expense of customer development. “One of the challenges of an accelerator is that they are so productfocused (ship it quick) and pressure-oriented (two months to demo) that a lot of our customer development had to happen parallel to product development. And, in fact, some of the biggest questions were answered after shipping our first version.”*
创始人有很多代码，但没有收入，成本却在不断增长。Mike 将部分原因归咎于创业加速器对快速原型设计的关注，往往以牺牲客户开发为代价。“创业加速器的一个挑战在于，它们非常注重产品（快速推出），并且压力很大（两个月内要展示），因此我们的客户开发必须在产品开发的同时进行。事实上，一些最大的问题是在我们发布第一个版本后才得到解答的。”*

Once the company had decided to change business models, it stopped development on the reader entirely. While the new offering was built from scratch, it leveraged much of the technology and many of the architectural lessons learned from the first product. Now a direct sales team sells its current offering, using a trial period for evaluation, and then charging a monthly fee.
一旦公司决定改变商业模式，它就完全停止了阅读器的开发。虽然新的产品是从头开始构建的，但它利用了第一款产品中的大量技术和许多架构经验教训。现在，一个直销团队销售其当前产品，使用试用期进行评估，然后收取月费。

As you might expect from an analytics firm, the Parse.ly team collects and analyzes a lot of data. In addition to using Dash themselves, they rely on Woopra for engagement and to arm their sales team, Graphite for tracking time-series data, and Pingdom for uptime and availability.
从一个分析公司可以预期，Parse.ly 团队收集和分析大量数据。除了自己使用 Dash，他们还依赖 Woopra 进行参与度分析并武装他们的销售团队，Graphite 用于跟踪时间序列数据，以及 Pingdom 用于监控运行时间和可用性。

As the company iterated through various business models, the metrics it tracked changed accordingly.
随着公司迭代各种商业模式，它所跟踪的指标也随之变化。

“For Parse.ly Reader, our core metrics were new signups and user engagement. We would pay close attention to how many signups per day we were getting based on our press write-ups and how many logins per day we were getting from user accounts,” says Mike. “In the Parse.ly Publisher Platform, we focused entirely on number of recommendation impressions served, and click-through rate of our recommendations. We still pay close attention to these metrics for users of our API.”
“对于 Parse.ly Reader，我们的核心指标是新注册用户和用户参与度。迈克说：“我们会密切关注基于我们的新闻稿每天有多少新注册，以及用户账户每天有多少登录，” “在 Parse.ly 发布者平台上，我们完全专注于推荐展示的数量和推荐点击率。我们仍然密切关注这些指标，用于我们的 API 用户。”

For the current reporting product, the company tracks a broader set of metrics, including:
对于当前报告产品，公司跟踪更广泛的指标，包括：

• New signups per day for trial accounts
• 每日试用账户的新注册
• Conversion rate on the signup flow and account activation process
• 注册流程和账户激活过程的转化率
• Number of active users (seats) per account and account invitation activity
每个账户的活跃用户数量（座位）和账户邀请活动
• User engagement (based on Woopra data)
用户参与度（基于 Woopra 数据）
• API calls in Graphite
Graphite 中的 API 调用
• Website activity in Google Analytics
Google Analytics 中的网站活动
• Tracked page views and unique visitors across all the sites running within the network of monitored sites
• 跟踪了所有运行在监控站点网络中的站点的页面浏览量和独立访客数

Since its software is installed on a number of sites, it also tracks data for those sites, including the average number of posts published, average page views, and top referrers. And it tracks fundamental business metrics—head count, customer count, server count, revenue, costs, and profit.
由于其软件安装在多个站点上，它也跟踪这些站点的数据，包括发布的平均帖子数、平均页面浏览量和顶级推荐来源。它还跟踪基本的业务指标——员工人数、客户数量、服务器数量、收入、成本和利润。

In the end, Parse.ly had to make some painful decisions despite the apparent success of a consumer business. It didn’t test the monetization of its initial product, even though that was one of the riskiest aspects. But when, before its second pivot, it spent time talking to its enterprise customers about the dashboard, the answer was clear: “We’d show them proof of concepts of the analytics tool we could deliver to them, and they began to clamor for the insights we
 were proposing,” recalls Mike. “They cared more about the prospect of this tool than the recommendations we were providing.”
最终，尽管消费者业务看起来很成功，Parse.ly 还是不得不做出一些痛苦的决策。它没有测试其初始产品的货币化，尽管这是风险最高的方面之一。但在第二次转型之前，当它与企业客户谈论仪表板时，答案很明确：“我们会向他们展示我们能够交付给他们的分析工具的概念验证，他们开始渴望我们提出的洞察力，” Mike 回忆道。“他们更关心这个工具的前景，而不是我们提供的建议。”

摘要

Even if you have healthy growth in an important dimension (like user count or engagement), it’s not worth much if you can’t convert it to money and pay the bills.
即使在某个重要维度（如用户数量或参与度）上取得了健康增长，但如果无法将其转化为收入来支付账单，那也毫无价值。
• Pivoting the business changed the OMTM immediately.
• 业务转型立即改变了 OMTM。
• Every company lives in an ecosystem—in this case, of readers, publishers, and advertisers. It’s often easier to pivot to a new market than to create an entirely new product, and, once you’ve done so, for the market to help you realize what product you should have made in the first place.
• 每家公司都生活在一个生态系统中——在这个案例中，是读者、出版商和广告商。与创造一个全新的产品相比，转向新市场通常更容易，一旦你这样做，市场将帮助你认识到最初应该开发什么样的产品。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Recognize that being able to make money is an inherent assumption of most business models, but that to de-risk the model you need to test it early. Be prepared to radically change, or even shut down, parts of your company in your quest for revenue.
认识到赚钱是大多数商业模式的一个固有假设，但要降低风险，你需要尽早测试这个模式。准备好在追求收入的道路上彻底改变，甚至关闭公司的一部分。

Market/Product Fit

市场与产品契合

Most people’s first instinct when things aren’t going incredibly well is to build more features. Hopefully we’ve demonstrated that this isn’t the right approach, because the likelihood that any one feature is going to suddenly solve your customers’ problems is very small.
当事情进展不顺利时，大多数人第一反应是增加更多功能。希望我们已经证明这不是正确的做法，因为任何一个功能突然解决客户问题的可能性非常小。

Instead, try pivoting into a new market. The assumption here is that the product isn’t the problem, it’s the target customer. In a perfect world, you’ve validated the market before building anything, but mistakes happen, and in some cases you’re not starting at step one of the customer development process and don’t want to throw away everything you’ve built. It may be easier to change markets than products.
相反，尝试转向新的市场。这里的假设是产品不是问题，而是目标客户。在理想的世界里，你在构建任何东西之前已经验证了市场，但错误会发生，而且在某些情况下，你并不是从客户开发过程的第一步开始，也不想扔掉你已经构建的一切。改变市场可能比改变产品更容易。

Many startup founders discover Lean Startup at a specific point in their growth: they’ve built a product and it has a bit of traction, but not enough to be exciting. They’re facing a difficult decision. Should they continue on the current path or change something? They’re looking for answers. They’re searching for ways to build more traction and they’re not ready to give up. This is common for bigger companies and intrapreneurs as well: they have something in the market, but it’s not at the scale they want and they’re looking for ways to increase growth rate or market share.
许多创业者在成长过程中某个特定时刻发现了精益创业：他们已经开发出产品，并且取得了一些用户基础，但还不够令人兴奋。他们面临一个艰难的抉择。是继续当前的道路还是改变一些东西？他们正在寻找答案。他们正在寻找增加用户基础的方法，并且还没有准备好放弃。这对于更大的公司和内部创业者来说也很常见：他们在市场上拥有一些东西，但它没有达到他们想要的规模，他们正在寻找增加增长率或市场份额的方法。

Instead of building new features or rebuilding from scratch, try pointing your product at a new market. We think of this as market/product fit instead of product/market fit, because you’re trying to find a market that fits your existing product. This also applies to changing your business model, which is a completely reasonable approach to finding scale. Again, it’s market/ product fit because you’re changing a market variable (the business model) and keeping the product static (or relatively so).
与其构建新功能或从零开始重建，不如尝试将你的产品指向一个新的市场。我们认为这是市场/产品匹配，而不是产品/市场匹配，因为你试图找到一个适合你现有产品的市场。这也适用于改变你的商业模式，这是一个完全合理的发现规模的方法。同样，这是市场/产品匹配，因为你改变了一个市场变量（商业模式），而保持产品静态（或相对静态）。

Here are some suggestions for taking an existing product and finding a new market.
以下是一些建议，用于将现有产品找到新市场。

Review Your Old Assumptions

审视你的旧假设

Look back at the old assumptions you had about the markets you were going after with the product. If you didn’t have any assumptions around why a particular market would work, now is the time to do a postmortem on that and use the benefit of hindsight. Why didn’t it work? What’s holding back traction in the market? Are the pain points you’re solving genuinely painful enough to the markets you were going after?
回顾一下你过去关于产品目标市场的旧假设。如果你没有关于为什么特定市场会成功的任何假设，现在是时候对那个进行事后分析了，并利用后见之明。为什么它没有成功？是什么阻碍了市场的进展？你正在解决的问题的痛点是否真的足够让目标市场感到痛苦？

Now look at markets related to those you tackled previously. What do you know about these markets? What makes these markets similar or different from the ones you went after?
现在看看你之前处理过的市场相关市场。你对这些市场了解多少？是什么让这些市场与你之前追求的市场相似或不同？

Going out and doing problem interviews in new markets will help you figure out if your product is going to solve painful enough problems. You should be able to compare what you hear from new markets with the hindsight analysis you have of your existing customer base.
前往新市场进行问题访谈将帮助你确定你的产品是否能够解决足够痛苦的問題。你应该能够将你从新市场听到的内容与你对现有客户群的后见之明分析进行比较。

Begin a Process of Elimination

开始排除法过程

You’ll be able to drop some markets and/or business models pretty quickly. For example, a freemium model requires a huge base of prospective customers. Lincoln Murphy does a great job of laying out the math on addressable market size in a presentation entitled The Reality of Freemium in SaaS.* One of his big conclusions: without a huge potential market and a number of other factors, freemium just doesn’t work.
你将能够快速放弃一些市场和/或商业模式。例如，免费增值模式需要一个庞大的潜在客户群。林肯·墨菲在题为《SaaS 中免费增值的现实》的演示文稿中很好地阐述了可寻址市场规模的数学问题。他的一项重大结论是：如果没有一个巨大的潜在市场和其他一些因素，免费增值模式就是行不通的。

Understanding the mechanics of various markets and business models helps you triangulate the combinations that work best.
了解各种市场和商业模式的机制有助于你确定最佳组合。

Deep Dive

深入研究

When you’ve identified potential new markets and a prospective business model, it’s time to do a deep dive and get into the full swing of customer development. Speak with 10–15 prospects in each market to validate your assumptions around their problems. This may feel like a slow process— after all, you have a product ready to sell—but the effort will be worthwhile, because you’ll avoid going into markets that aren’t a good fit.
当你确定了潜在的新市场和预期的商业模式后，就该进行深入研究，全面投入客户开发了。在每个市场中与 10-15 位潜在客户交谈，以验证他们围绕问题的假设。这可能会让你觉得过程缓慢——毕竟你已经有产品可以销售了——但这个努力是值得的，因为你将避免进入不适合的市场。

In parallel, you can also take a broader approach and look to reach customers at scale, using landing pages and advertising to gauge interest. But don’t skip steps and ignore the problem interviews completely.
同时，你也可以采取更广泛的方法，通过登陆页面和广告来大规模接触客户，以了解他们的兴趣。但不要跳过步骤，完全忽略问题访谈。

Find Similarities

寻找相似之处

When looking at a market at this stage, you need to narrow it down and go niche. Using “size of company” as your metric for market definition isn’t good enough. We see this all the time, but SMBs (small and medium businesses) are not a market; the category’s just too broad.
在这个阶段，当你观察一个市场时，你需要将其缩小并专注于细分市场。使用“公司规模”作为市场定义的指标是不够的。我们经常看到这种情况，但中小企业（SMB）不是一个市场；这个类别太宽泛了。

Look for important similarities between companies inside of a broadly defined market. Industry is a good place to start. But also consider geography, how they purchase products, what they’ve recently purchased, budgets, industry growth, seasonality, legislative constraints, and decision makers. All of these factors help define a true market you can go after quickly.
在一个广泛定义的市场中，寻找公司之间的重要相似之处。行业是一个很好的起点。但也要考虑地理位置、他们如何购买产品、他们最近购买了什么、预算、行业增长、季节性、法规限制和决策者。所有这些因素都有助于定义一个你可以快速瞄准的真实市场。

Pitch the product you have, but don’t feel obligated to pitch it exactly as it works today. Simultaneous with your efforts to find the right market and business model, you need to envision how the product will change and be repackaged. This isn’t a complete rebuild that will take huge amounts of effort, but there’s no reason you can’t pitch a modified version of your existing product based on what you’ve learned about your new target market.
推销你的产品，但不必感觉必须按今天的样子来推销。在你努力寻找正确的市场和商业模式的同时，你需要想象产品将如何改变和重新包装。这不是一个需要巨大努力的完整重建，但没有任何理由你不能基于你对新目标市场的了解，推销你现有产品的修改版本。

Essentially, your existing product is the MVP, and hopefully it suffices as the MVP and doesn’t require major change. A few nips and tucks are all that’s needed—and suddenly customers are thrilled with the speed with which you’ve delivered the product.
本质上，你的现有产品就是 MVP，希望它足以作为 MVP，并且不需要进行大的改变。只需要做一些小的调整——突然间，客户对你交付产品的速度感到非常满意。

Finding a new market for an existing product is difficult. And the reality is that there may not be a market for the product you have, and you’ll be moving into a much more substantial pivot or a complete redo. But before you get to that stage, stop, pull back, and look for a customer base that will pay you for what you already have. To succeed at this, you need to remain committed to the Lean Startup process and customer development, but you can start part-way through the process instead of going completely back to square one.
为现有产品寻找新市场是困难的。而且现实是，你拥有的产品可能根本没有市场，你将需要进行一个重大的转变或完全重新开始。但在你到达那个阶段之前，停下来，退一步，看看是否有愿意为你已有的产品付费的客户群。要成功做到这一点，你需要坚持精益创业流程和客户开发，但你可以从流程的一部分开始，而不是完全回到原点。

The Breakeven Lines in the Sand

破产线上的界限

Revenue is not the only financial metric that matters. You want to be breakeven—meaning your revenues exceed your costs on a regular basis. Driving toward profitability may not be the right thing to do—you may be focused on another metric, such as user acquisition. But it’s irresponsible not to think about breakeven, because if there’s no way you can ever get there, you’re just burning money and time.
收入不是唯一重要的财务指标。你希望达到盈亏平衡——这意味着你的收入经常超过你的成本。追求盈利可能不是正确的事情——你可能专注于另一个指标，例如用户获取。但考虑盈亏平衡是不负责任的，因为如果你永远无法达到这一点，你就是在浪费金钱和时间。

This means looking at business metrics such as operating costs, marginal costs, and so on. You may discover that it’s a good idea to fire a segment of your customers because of the drain they represent on the business—this is particularly true in B2B startups. With that in mind, here are some possible “gates” you may want to use to decide if you’re ready to move to the Scale stage.
这意味着要关注业务指标，例如运营成本、边际成本等。你可能会发现，由于某些客户对业务的消耗较大，解雇他们是一个好主意——这在 B2B 初创公司中尤其如此。考虑到这一点，以下是一些你可能想要使用的“门槛”，以决定你是否准备好进入“扩展”阶段。

Breakeven on Variable Costs

变动成本盈亏平衡

As a startup, you’re probably spending more on growth than you’re making on revenue, particularly if you’ve taken funding and aren’t bootstrapping the business from your own resources. Your investors don’t want to own part of a breakeven company—they want shares that pay back multiples on a lucrative acquisition or IPO.
作为一家初创公司，你很可能在增长上的支出比收入多，特别是如果你已经获得了融资而不是依靠自己的资源来启动业务。你的投资者不希望拥有一家盈亏平衡的公司——他们想要能够带来丰厚收购或 IPO 回报的股份。

If the money you make from a customer exceeds the cost of acquiring that customer and delivering the service, you’re doing well. You may be pouring money into new features, recruiting, and so on—but each customer isn’t costing you anything.
如果你从客户那里获得的收入超过了获取该客户和提供服务的成本，那么你做得很好。你可能会将资金投入新功能、招聘等方面——但每个客户都不会给你带来任何成本。

Time to Customer Breakeven

客户盈亏平衡时间

A key measurement of successful revenue growth is whether the customer lifetime value exceeds the customer acquisition cost. But this is useful for strategic budgeting, too. Imagine a company where customers spend \27$duringtheir11monthsofactivity,anditcosts$$14$ to acquire them, as shown in Table 18-1.
衡量成功收入增长的一个关键指标是客户终身价值是否超过客户获取成本。但这对于战略预算也很有用。想象一家公司，客户获取成本为 27 美元，如表 18-1 所示。

Table 18-1. Working out how long a customer takes to pay you back
表 18-1。计算客户多久能还清你的钱

If you’re relying on this revenue to grow, you’ll need some money. This is a good time to fire up a spreadsheet and start playing with numbers: you now know you need 5.7 months’ burn to keep the company running.
如果你依赖这笔收入来增长，你需要一些钱。这是一个启动电子表格并开始玩数字的好时机：你现在知道你需要 5.7 个月的燃烧来维持公司运转。

EBITDA Breakeven

EBITDA 盈亏平衡

EBITDA—earnings before income tax, depreciation, and amortization— is an accounting term that fell out of favor when the dot-com bubble burst. Many companies used this model because it let them ignore their large capital investments and crushing debt. But in today’s startup world, where up-front capital expenses have been replaced by pay-as-you-go costs like cloud computing, EBITDA is an acceptable way to consider how well you’re doing.
EBITDA（税前、折旧和摊销前利润）是一个会计术语，在互联网泡沫破裂时已不再流行。许多公司使用这个模型，因为它让他们可以忽略巨大的资本投资和沉重的债务。但在当今的创业世界中，随着前期资本支出被云计算等按需付费成本所取代，EBITDA 是一种考虑你表现的好方法。

Hibernation Breakeven

冬眠盈亏平衡

A particularly conservative breakeven metric is hibernation. If you reduced the company to its minimum—keeping the lights on, servicing existing customers, but doing little else—could you survive? This is often referred to as “ramen profitability.” There’s no new marketing spend. Your only growth would come from word of mouth or virality, and customers wouldn’t get new features. But it’s a breakeven point at which you’re “master of your own destiny” because you can survive indefinitely. For some startups, particularly self-funded ones, this may be a good model to use because it gives you a much stronger negotiating position if you’re seeking financing.
一种特别保守的盈亏平衡指标是休眠。如果你将公司缩减到最小——保持灯亮，服务现有客户，但几乎不做其他事情——你能生存吗？这通常被称为“拉面盈利”。没有新的营销支出。你唯一的增长将来自口碑或病毒式传播，而客户将不会获得新功能。但在盈亏平衡点，你将“掌握自己的命运”，因为你可以无限期地生存下去。对于一些初创公司，尤其是自筹资金的初创公司来说，这可能是一个很好的模式，因为它在你寻求融资时能给你一个更强的谈判地位。

Revenue Stage Summary

收入阶段总结

• The core equation for the Revenue stage is the money a customer brings in minus the cost of acquiring that customer. This is the return on acquisition investment that drives your growth.
• 收入阶段的核心公式是客户带来的收入减去获取该客户的成本。这是推动你增长的获取投资回报率。
• You’re moving from proving you have the right product to proving you have a real business. As a result, your metrics shift from usage patterns to business ratios.
• 你正从证明你拥有正确的产品转变为证明你拥有一个真正的企业。因此，你的指标从使用模式转变为商业比率。
• Think of a business as a machine that converts money into greater sums of money. The ratio of money in to money out, as well as the maximum amount of money you can put in, dictates the value of the business.
• 将企业视为一台将钱转化为更多钱的机器。钱进钱的出，以及你能投入的最大金额，决定了企业的价值。
• You’re trying to figure out where to focus: more revenue per customer, more customers, more efficiencies, greater frequency, and so on.
• 你正在试图确定重点：每客户的更多收入，更多客户，更多效率，更高频率等等。
• If things aren’t working, it may be easier to pivot your initial product to a new market rather than starting from scratch.
• 如果事情不顺利，可能更容易将初始产品转向新市场，而不是从头开始。
• While your goal is to grow, you should also keep an eye on breakeven, because once you can pay your own bills you can survive indefinitely.
• 虽然你的目标是增长，但也应该关注盈亏平衡点，因为一旦你能支付自己的账单，你就可以无限期地生存下去。

Once revenues and margins are within the targets you’ve set out in your business model, it’s time to grow as an organization. Much of what you’ve done by hand must now be done by other people: your employees, sales channels, and third parties. It’s time for the Scale stage.
一旦收入和利润达到你在商业模型中设定的目标，就该作为组织进行扩张了。你现在必须由其他人来手工完成许多事情：你的员工、销售渠道和第三方。现在是规模阶段。

Stage Five: Scale

第五阶段：规模

You have a product that’s sticky. You’ve got virality that’s multiplying the effectiveness of your marketing efforts. And you have revenues coming in to fuel those user and customer acquisition efforts.
你有一个粘性产品。你有了病毒式传播，正在增加你的营销工作的有效性。而且你有收入来支持那些用户和客户获取工作。

The final stage for startups is Scale, which represents not only a wider audience, but also entry into new markets, a modicum of predictability and sustainability, and deals with new partners. Your startup is becoming part of a broader ecosystem, in which you’re a known and active participant. If the Revenue stage was about proving a business, the Scale stage is about proving a market.
创业的最后阶段是规模，它不仅代表更广泛的受众，还包括进入新市场、一定程度的可预测性和可持续性，以及与新合作伙伴的交易。你的创业公司正成为更广泛生态系统的一部分，你是一个知名和积极的参与者。如果收入阶段是为了证明一个业务，那么规模阶段就是为了证明一个市场。

The Hole in the Middle

中心空洞

Harvard professor Michael Porter describes a variety of generic strategies by which companies compete.* Firms can focus on a niche market (a segmentation strategy), they can focus on being efficient (a cost strategy), or they can try to be unique (a differentiation strategy). A local, gluten-free coffee shop focuses on a specific customer niche, Costco focuses on efficiency and low costs, and Apple focuses on branded design and uniqueness.† Some companies have different focuses for supply and demand—Amazon, for example, is ruthlessly efficient on backend infrastructure from suppliers, and brand-heavy on differentiating for demand.
哈佛大学教授迈克尔·波特描述了公司竞争的各种通用策略。企业可以专注于利基市场（一种细分策略），专注于高效（一种成本策略），或者尝试独特（一种差异化策略）。一家本地无麸质咖啡店专注于特定的客户利基市场，Costco 专注于效率和低成本，而苹果专注于品牌设计和独特性。一些公司在供应和需求方面有不同的侧重——例如，亚马逊在供应商的后端基础设施上毫不留情地高效，而在需求方面则侧重于品牌差异化。

Porter observed that firms with a large market share (Apple, Costco, Amazon) were often profitable, but so were those with a small market share (the coffee shop). The problem was companies that were neither small nor large. He termed this the “hole in the middle” problem—the challenge facing firms that are too big to adopt a niche strategy efficiently, but too small to compete on cost or scale. They need to differentiate themselves to survive the midsize gap, and then achieve scale and efficiency.
波特观察到，拥有较大市场份额的公司（苹果、Costco、亚马逊）通常很盈利，而那些市场份额较小的公司（咖啡店）也很盈利。问题在于那些既不大也不小的公司。他将此称为“中心空洞”问题——即那些规模太大以至于无法高效地采用利基策略，但又太小以至于无法在成本或规模上竞争的公司所面临的挑战。它们需要差异化自己以跨越中型差距，然后实现规模和效率。

This is why the Scale stage is so critical. It’s the last test before you’ve identified and quantified all of the risks in your startup. It’s where you find out what you’ll be when you grow up.
这就是扩展阶段如此关键的原因。它是你识别并量化创业公司所有风险前的最后一个测试。在这里，你会知道你将来会是什么样子。

Metrics for the Scale Stage

扩展阶段的指标

This stage is where you look beyond your own company. If you focus too early on competitors, you can be blinded by what they’re doing, rather than learning what your customers actually need. But by now, you have enough of a groove to look outside. You’ll find that it’s a crowded world, where you’re competing with everyone for attention.
在这个阶段，你需要超越自己的公司。如果你过早地关注竞争对手，你可能会被他们所做的事情所迷惑，而不是学习你的客户实际上需要什么。但现在，你已经有了足够的经验去关注外部。你会发现，这是一个拥挤的世界，你正在与所有人竞争注意力。

We’ve known that getting enough of the right kind of attention was going to be a problem for three decades. In 1981, cognitive scientist and economist Herbert Simon observed that we live in an information age, and that information consumes attention—in other words, attention is a precious commodity, and its value grows as we’re flooded with more and more information. In this stage, you’re checking whether analysts, competitors, and distributors care about you as much as your core group of initial customers does. Getting attention at scale means your product or service can stand on its own, without your constant love and feeding.
我们已经知道，在过去的三十多年里，获得足够的正确类型的注意力将是一个问题。1981 年，认知科学家兼经济学家赫伯特·西蒙观察到，我们生活在一个信息时代，信息消耗注意力——换句话说，注意力是一种宝贵的商品，随着我们被越来越多的信息淹没，它的价值也在增长。在这个阶段，你正在检查分析师、竞争对手和分销商是否像你的核心初始客户一样关心你。在规模上获得注意力意味着你的产品或服务可以独立存在，而不需要你持续的爱和喂养。

In the Scale stage, you want to compare higher-order metrics like Backupify’s OMTM—customer acquisition payback—across channels, regions, and marketing campaigns. For example: is a customer you acquire through channels less valuable than one you acquire yourself? Does it take longer to pay back direct sales or telemarketing? Are international revenues hampered by taxes? These are signs that you won’t be able to scale independent of your own organizational growth.
在扩展阶段，您希望比较高阶指标，如 Backupify 的 OMTM——客户获取回报率——在不同渠道、地区和营销活动中。例如：通过渠道获取的客户是否不如自己获取的客户有价值？直接销售或电话营销的回报周期是否更长？国际收入是否受到税收的阻碍？这些都是您无法独立于自身组织增长进行扩展的迹象。

Is My Business Model Right?

我的商业模式是否正确？

In the Scale stage, many of the metrics you’ve used to optimize a particular part of the business now become inputs into your accounting system. Data like sales, margins, and customer support costs now help you project cash flow and understand how much investment you’ll need.
在扩展阶段，许多用于优化业务特定部分的指标现在成为会计系统的输入。销售、利润和客户支持成本等数据帮助您预测现金流，并了解您需要多少投资。

Lean tends not to touch on these things, but they’re important for bigger, more established organizations that have found their product/market fit, and for intrapreneurs trying to convince more risk-averse stakeholders within their organization. Even though you may not be “Lean” in the strict sense of the word, you may still have to pivot in order to operate at scale.
精益方法通常不涉及这些内容，但对于已经找到产品/市场契合点的大型、成熟组织以及试图说服其组织内风险规避型利益相关者的内部创业者来说，这些内容很重要。即使您可能不是严格意义上的“精益”，为了实现规模化运营，您可能仍然需要转型。

Consider, for example, a product sold through direct sales. If you try to introduce the product to channels, those channels may not be equipped to sell and support the product. Your own support costs go up; returns or abandonment from channel-sold customers climbs. What should you do?
例如，考虑一种通过直销销售的产品。如果你试图将产品引入渠道，这些渠道可能没有能力销售和支持该产品。你自己的支持成本会增加；渠道销售客户的退货或放弃率也会上升。你该怎么办？

One approach is to change the market the channel serves. You could handle high-touch customers with consulting needs through direct sales, but offer a simplified version that’s less customizable to the channel. Or you could try changing the markets at which your channel is aimed—focusing on government sales, or buyers in higher education, who are better able to serve themselves.
一种方法是改变渠道服务的市场。你可以通过直销处理需要咨询的高接触客户，但为渠道提供更简单、不太可定制的版本。或者你可以尝试改变渠道瞄准的市场——专注于政府销售，或高等教育买家，他们能够更好地自我服务。

These might not seem like Lean pivots, but they’re done with the same kind of discipline and experimentation that informed your earlier product and pricing decisions.
这些可能看起来不像精益转型，但它们与你的早期产品和定价决策所依据的纪律和实验方法一样。

If you’re in a good business, you’ll soon have an ecosystem of competitors, channel partners, third-party developers, and more. To thrive, you need to claim your place in this market and establish the kinds of barriers to entry that maintain margins in the face of competition. At this point, you’ve moved beyond the Lean Startup model, but that doesn’t mean you’ve stopped obsessing over iterative learning.
如果你身处一个良好的商业环境中，很快就会有一个由竞争对手、渠道合作伙伴、第三方开发者等组成的生态系统。为了繁荣发展，你需要在这个市场中占据自己的位置，并建立维持利润的进入壁垒。此时，你已经超越了精益创业模式，但这并不意味着你停止了对迭代学习的执着。

Scaling is good if it brings in incremental revenue, but you have to watch for a decrease in engagement, a gradual saturation of the initial market, or a rising cost of customer acquisition. Changes in churn, segmented by channels, show whether you’re growing your most important asset—your customers—or hemorrhaging attention as you scale.
扩张是好的，如果它能带来增量收入，但你必须警惕参与度下降、初始市场逐渐饱和或客户获取成本上升。按渠道划分的流失率变化，显示了你是正在扩大你最宝贵的资产——你的客户，还是随着扩张在流失注意力。

CASE STUDY Buffer Goes from Stickiness to Scale (Through Revenue)

案例研究：Buffer 从粘性到扩张（通过收入）

Buffer is a startup that was founded in 2010 by Tom Moor, Leo Widrich, and Joel Gascoigne. Joel kick-started Buffer because of a pain he was experiencing: the difficulty of posting great content he was finding regularly to Twitter. Solutions already existed for scheduling tweets, but nothing as simple and easy to use as what Joel was looking for, so he joined forces with Tom and Leo, and they built Buffer.
Buffer 是一家成立于 2010 年的初创公司，由 Tom Moor、Leo Widrich 和 Joel Gascoigne 创立。Joel 启动 Buffer 是因为他遇到了一个痛点：他经常发现的优质内容在 Twitter 上发布的难度。当时已经存在一些用于安排推文的解决方案，但没有什么像 Joel 所期望的那样简单易用，所以他加入了 Tom 和 Leo，他们一起创建了 Buffer。

Unlike most companies in the social software space, they decided to charge customers right off the bat. Joel had two assumptions: that the problem was painful enough for people, and that they would pay. Taking a very Lean approach, the trio built and launched the app and had their first paying customers in seven weeks.*
与大多数社交软件领域的公司不同，他们决定从一开始就向客户收费。Joel 有两个假设：这个问题对人们来说足够痛苦，他们会付费。采取非常精益的方法，这三人构建并推出了这款应用，并在七周内获得了第一批付费客户。

For Buffer, their One Metric That Matters was revenue. As Joel says, “We were constrained by our situation: track record and location [being based in New Zealand] made it a challenge to seriously consider raising funding, and I had no funds to dip into and was working full-time for other clients. This meant the most important metric was revenue, since I needed to grow the revenue in my spare time to a position where I could quit my existing work.”
对于 Buffer 来说，他们的关键指标是收入。正如 Joel 所说，“我们的情况有限制：缺乏业绩记录和位于新西兰的地理位置使我们难以认真考虑筹集资金，而我也没有资金可以动用，并且正在为其他客户全职工作。这意味着最重要的指标是收入，因为我需要在业余时间将收入增长到一个可以辞去现有工作的水平。”

Joel and his team decided to go with a freemium approach (which they still have today), so along with the all-important metric of revenue, they were looking at other metrics around signups, activation, and conversion. “Early on, the most important metrics were activation, retention, and revenue,” says Joel. “I think good metrics here are the signs of a solid product. Revenue mattered the most because I was literally calculating how many users we’d need based on our conversion in order for me to quit my work. As soon as we hit that amount, we grew faster, and shortly after hitting ‘ramen profitability’ we jumped on a plane to San Francisco, went through the AngelPad incubator, and raised our seed round.”
乔尔和他的团队决定采用免费增值模式（这一模式至今仍在使用），因此除了至关重要的收入指标外，他们还在关注注册、激活和转化等其它指标。“早期最重要的指标是激活、留存和收入，”乔尔说。“我认为好的指标是产品稳固的迹象。收入是最重要的，因为我是根据转化率来计算需要多少用户才能让我辞职。一旦达到这个数量，我们就发展得更快，在达到‘拉面盈利’后不久，我们乘飞机去了旧金山，参加了 AngelPad 孵化器，并完成了种子轮融资。”

Joel shared some numbers with us:
乔尔与我们分享了一些数据：

• $20\mathrm{\%}$ of visitors create an account (acquisition).
• $20\mathrm{\%}$ 的访客创建账户（获取）。
• $64\mathrm{\%}$ of people who sign up become “active” (which the founders define as posting one status update using Buffer).
• $64\mathrm{\%}$ 的人注册后成为“活跃”状态（创始人定义为使用 Buffer 发布一条状态更新）。
• $60\mathrm{\%}$ of people who sign up come back in the first month (engagement/stickiness).
• 前 $60\mathrm{\%}$ 个月内注册的用户中，有多少人会再次回来（参与度/粘性）。
• $20\mathrm{\%}$ of people who sign up come back (are still active) after six months (engagement/stickiness).
• 注册后六个月内，有多少人仍然活跃（参与度/粘性）。

Their conversion is between $1.5\mathrm{\%}$ and $2.5\mathrm{\%}$ from free to paid. Joel uses cohort analysis to measure these results, and says that Buffer sees a similar result to what Evernote has, where over time more users convert into paying customers. “For example, for the cohort of users who signed up in February 2012, $1.3\mathrm{\%}$ upgraded in their first month using the product,” says Joel. “After six months, $1.9\mathrm{\%}$ of the same cohort is paying customers.”
他们的转化率在 $1.5\mathrm{\%}$ 和 $2.5\mathrm{\%}$ 之间，从免费用户转为付费用户。乔尔使用队列分析来衡量这些结果，并表示 Buffer 看到的结果与 Evernote 类似，随着时间的推移，越来越多的用户转化为付费客户。“例如，对于 2012 年 2 月注册的用户队列， $1.3\mathrm{\%}$ 在使用产品的第一个月内升级，”乔尔说。“六个月后，同一队列中的 $1.9\mathrm{\%}$ 已经成为付费客户。”

Once these numbers became clear and consistent, and revenue got to the point where Buffer was profitable, Joel felt it was time to make the switch and focus on acquisition. This was a big shift from proving the product and its stickiness at a small scale to trying to grow at a much faster pace. “For starters, we realized that personally, it would be most satisfying if we could make Buffer a very widespread service with millions of users,” says Joel. “Then we checked our churn, because we know that it’s vital before focusing on acquisition.” Joel’s target was below $5\mathrm{\%}$ , and in fact Buffer’s churn hovers around $2\mathrm{\%}$ , so, the team doesn’t invest a lot of time trying to improve it, which gives them the comfort to focus on acquisition.
一旦这些数字变得清晰且一致，并且收入达到 Buffer 盈利的程度，Joel 觉得是时候转变并专注于获取用户了。这从在小规模上证明产品及其粘性转变为尝试更快地增长，是一个巨大的转变。“首先，我们意识到，如果能让 Buffer 成为一个非常普及的服务，拥有数百万用户，那对我们个人来说将是最有成就感的，”Joel 说。“然后我们检查了我们的流失率，因为我们知道在专注于获取用户之前，这是至关重要的。”Joel 的目标是低于 $5\mathrm{\%}$ ，事实上 Buffer 的流失率徘徊在 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 左右，所以，团队不会投入大量时间试图改善它，这让他们有信心专注于获取用户。

Buffer is also profitable, which gives them the flexibility to push acquisition, try new channels, and not burn cash or be forced to raise more capital. Before finally deciding to focus on acquisition, they did look at other metrics. Joel says, “We could probably double our conversion to paying customers if we worked hard on it, but that requires focus just like anything else. And that can come later, because what we want the most is to have a huge user base.”
Buffer 也盈利，这让他们有灵活性去推动用户获取，尝试新渠道，并且不烧钱或被迫筹集更多资本。在最终决定专注于用户获取之前，他们确实考虑了其他指标。乔尔说：“如果我们努力的话，也许可以将付费客户转化率翻倍，但这需要专注，就像任何事一样。而且这可以稍后再来，因为我们所最想要的是拥有庞大的用户群。”

The company is now in growth mode, trying new channels and focusing on user acquisition—but it still keeps an eye on conversion and revenue. Joel points out, “We measure the funnel of our new channels to ensure that they still convert to paying customers.”
公司现在处于增长模式，尝试新渠道并专注于用户获取——但它仍然关注转化和收入。乔尔指出，“我们衡量新渠道的漏斗，以确保它们仍然能转化为付费客户。”

摘要

• Buffer used revenue early on as a measure of stickiness; the founders’ goal wasn’t to generate tons of revenue and scale, but to generate enough to prove they had a legitimate, scalable business. • Buffer runs ongoing cohort analysis to assess changes it’s making in its product as well as in its marketing initiatives. • When it proved its product was sticky, it moved its focus to acquisition and how to acquire more users at a low cost.
• Buffer 早期使用收入作为粘性的指标；创始人的目标不是产生大量收入和扩展，而是产生足够的收入来证明他们有一个合法的、可扩展的业务。 • Buffer 进行持续的队列分析，以评估其在产品以及营销计划中所做的变化。 • 当它证明其产品具有粘性时，它将重点转移到用户获取以及如何以低成本获取更多用户。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

Reality counts. Your choice of when to focus on revenue may be dictated by realities of your industry or your economic climate. If you prove that early users will pay for the initial offering in sufficient numbers, you not only have clear proof that you’ve found a good market, but you also have much more freedom to grow and evolve on your own terms. Combine revenue and engagement, and you know if your product has enough long-term value to be scalable. When you get to that point, you can start to scale acquisition.
现实很重要。你何时专注于收入可能由你的行业现实或经济气候决定。如果你证明早期用户会以足够的数量为初始产品付费，你不仅找到了一个良好的市场的明确证据，而且还拥有更多自由来按自己的条件成长和发展。结合收入和参与度，你知道你的产品是否有足够的长期价值来扩展。当你达到那个点时，你可以开始扩展获取。

By now, you’re a bigger organization. You’re worrying about more people, doing more things, in more ways. It’s easy to get distracted. So we’d like to propose a simple way of focusing on metrics that gives you the ability to change while avoiding the back-and-forth whipsawing that can come from management-by-opinion. We call it the Three-Threes Model. It’s really the organizational implementation of the Problem-Solution Canvas we saw in Chapter 16.
到目前为止，你已经成为一个更大的组织。你担心更多的人，做更多的事情，用更多的方式。很容易分心。因此，我们想提出一种专注于指标的方法，它能在避免来自意见管理的来回摇摆的同时改变。我们称之为“三三模型”。它实际上是我们在第 16 章看到的“问题-解决方案画布”的组织实施。

PATTERN |  The Three-Threes Model

模式 | 三三模型

At this stage, you probably have three tiers of management. There’s the board and founders, focused on strategic issues and major shifts, meeting monthly or quarterly. There’s the executive team, focused on tactics and oversight, meeting weekly. And there’s the rank-and-file, focused on execution, and meeting daily.
在这个阶段，你可能有三层管理层。有董事会和创始人，他们关注战略问题和重大转变，每月或每季度开会。有执行团队，他们关注战术和监督，每周开会。还有普通员工，他们关注执行，每天开会。

Don’t get us wrong: for many startups, the same people may be at all three of these meetings. It’s just that you’ll have very different mindsets as a board than you will as the person who’s writing code, stuffing boxes, or negotiating a sale.
别误会：对于许多初创公司来说，同一个人可能参加这三个会议中的所有会议。只是作为董事会成员和你作为编写代码、打包或谈判销售的人，你的心态会非常不同。

We’ve also found that it’s hard to keep more than three things in your mind at once. But if you can limit what you’re working on to just three big things, then everyone in the company knows what they’re doing and why they’re doing it.
我们还发现，一次很难记住超过三件事。但如果你能把你要做的事情限制在三个大事上，那么公司里的每个人都知道他们在做什么以及为什么这么做。

Three Big Assumptions

三个重大假设

In your current business model, you have some fundamental assumptions, such as “people will answer questions,” or “organizers are frustrated with how to run conferences,” or “we’ll make money from parents.” Some of these may be platform assumptions too: “Amazon Web Services are reliable enough for our users.”
在你当前的业务模式中，你有一些基本的假设，例如“人们会回答问题”，或者“组织者对如何举办会议感到沮丧”，或者“我们将从父母那里赚钱”。其中一些也可能是平台假设：“亚马逊网络服务对用户来说足够可靠。”

Each assumption has a metric associated with it, and a line in the sand. This is your big bet. These are the cells in your spreadsheet that you obsess over as a board. They’re what you look at to see if you can make payroll, or how much investment you’re going to need, or whether the marketing campaigns are bringing in more than they’re costing, or whether your business model is hopelessly, fatally, doomed.
每个假设都有一个相关的指标，以及一个分界线。这是你的重大赌注。这些是你作为董事会成员所痴迷的电子表格中的单元格。它们是你查看是否能够支付工资，或者需要多少投资，或者营销活动是否带来的收益超过成本，或者你的商业模式是否彻底、致命地注定失败的地方。

Assumptions like these shouldn’t change more than once a month (unless you’re in an accelerator program or have an artificial time constraint). They certainly shouldn’t change that often when you’re at the Scale stage; that kind of thrashing dulls momentum, like pumping the tiller on a sailboat. Changing fundamental assumptions around your business model may require board approval, and will likely alienate your customers and bewilder your employees unless properly communicated. The board and your advisors should be involved in the assumptions at the Scale stage.
像这样的假设一个月不应改变一次（除非你参加加速器项目或有人为设定的时间限制）。在规模阶段，它们当然不应该改变这么频繁；这种反复会消磨势头，就像在帆船上反复操舵一样。改变商业模式的基本假设可能需要董事会批准，并且除非适当沟通，否则可能会疏远客户并让员工感到困惑。在规模阶段，董事会和你的顾问应该参与这些假设。

These three assumptions should leap off the page of your Lean Canvas if you’re doing it right. Of course, if you change business models entirely, you’ll have another big three assumptions because you now have another canvas.
如果你做得正确，这三个假设应该跃然纸上，出现在你的精益画布上。当然，如果你完全改变商业模式，你将会有另一个“三大假设”，因为你现在有了另一个画布。

Each month, the three assumptions should be communicated to the entire organization. The executive team is responsible for validating or repudiating them at the next meeting.
每个月，这三个假设应该传达给整个组织。执行团队应在下次会议负责验证或否认它们。

Three Actions to Take

采取三个行动

At the executive level, you need to define the tactics that will make the big assumptions happen. The whole company should know them, and it’s the executive team’s job to break each of them down into three actions that can happen this week.
在高管层面，你需要定义能够使重大假设得以实现的具体策略。整个公司都应该了解这些策略，而高管团队的任务是将每一个策略分解为本周可以完成的三个行动。

For each board-level assumption, what three tactical actions are you taking to get those metrics to move in the right direction? These may be product enhancements or marketing strategies that you think will make the product better. They’re your feature roadmap and your marketing campaign for the week. They’ll change regularly. You need to survey, test, and prototype quickly to approve or kill things. It’s like a scrum in Agile.
对于每个董事会层面的假设，你正在采取哪三个战术行动来使这些指标朝着正确的方向发展？这些可能是你认为能够改进产品的产品增强功能或营销策略。它们是你本周的功能路线图和营销活动。它们会定期变化。你需要快速进行调查、测试和原型设计，以批准或淘汰项目。这就像敏捷开发中的 Scrum 一样。

While there’s a lot of latitude for executives to try to move the needle, they have to report back to the founders and board at the end of the month. This keeps them from straying too far from the prescribed business model—striking a balance between innovation and predictability that’s needed for later-stage companies.
虽然高管有很大的自由度来尝试推动进展，但他们必须在月底向创始人和董事会汇报。这可以防止他们偏离规定的商业模式——在创新和可预测性之间取得平衡，这是后期公司所需要的那种平衡。

Three Experiments to Run

要运行的三个实验

On a daily basis, the company is performing individual tasks to try to complete the tactical actions. Anyone in the company can run a test—from speaking with customers to tweaking features to running a survey to conducting a pricing experiment—provided it’s documented beforehand and the results contribute to the week’s actions. The test is the only indicator of what you’re doing right or wrong. It’s done daily, and it’s like a sprint in Agile.
每天公司都在执行单个任务，试图完成战术行动。公司里的任何人都可以运行测试——从与客户交谈到调整功能，到运行调查到进行定价实验——只要事先有记录，并且结果有助于本周的行动。测试是你做得对还是错的唯一指标。它每天进行，就像敏捷中的冲刺一样。

For each of those actions, what three tasks are you performing? What three experiments are you running? How will you choose the winner? This is execution, discussed with the action owner every day. Again, this means a wide range of flexibility at the ground level, while introducing a degree of structure.
对于这些行动，你正在执行哪三个任务？你正在运行哪三个实验？你将如何选择赢家？这是执行，每天与行动负责人讨论。这再次意味着在基层有很大的灵活性，同时引入了一定程度的结构。

Finding Discipline as You Scale

随着规模扩大，找到纪律性

Discipline is key to success in a larger, later-stage startup, particularly in the furious heat of execution. You can’t thrash wildly in search of inspiration— you have investors, employees, and expectations. But at the same time, you need the latitude that made you agile and adaptive in the first place.
在更大、更后期的创业公司中，纪律性是成功的关键，特别是在执行的激烈竞争中。你不能疯狂地寻找灵感——你有投资者、员工和期望。但与此同时，你也需要让你一开始就敏捷和适应的灵活性。

Know, clearly, what assumptions underpin your fundamental business model. Then, with the approval of stakeholders, change one of them. Hand that change to the executive team: which features do you think will improve that basic assumption? Plan out your daily activities to test those features: have conversations with customers, run surveys, create a segment that tests the new code, try mockups. This combination of agility and methodical precision is what distinguishes great startups from stalled ones.
了解支撑你基本商业模式的核心假设，然后，在利益相关者的批准下，改变其中一个。把这个改变交给执行团队：你认为哪些功能会改善这个基本假设？规划你的日常活动来测试这些功能：与客户交谈，进行调查，创建一个测试新代码的细分，尝试模型。这种敏捷性和严谨性的结合是区分优秀创业公司和停滞不前的公司的关键。

It’s almost a cliché at some tech events to ask, “What’s your latest pivot?” This is horrible. Plenty of disenchanted founders say, “I’m pivoting” when they should be saying, “I’m a confused idiot with ADHD!” Avoid the “lazy pivot.” Without a plan, it’s just flapping in the wind. Discipline makes everyone accountable to one another.
在一些科技活动上询问“你最近的转变是什么？”几乎成了一种陈词滥调。这很糟糕。许多失望的创始人说“我在转变”，但他们应该说“我是一个有注意力缺陷障碍的糊涂蛋！”避免“懒惰的转变”。没有计划，它只是在风中扑腾。纪律使每个人都对彼此负责。

A Summary of the Scale Stage

扩张阶段的总结

• When you’re scaling, you know your product and your market. Your metrics are now focused on the health of your ecosystem, and your ability to enter new markets.
• 当你扩张时，你了解你的产品和市场。你的指标现在集中在生态系统的健康和进入新市场的能力上。
• You’ll look at compensation, API traffic, channel relationships, and competitors at this stage—whereas before, these were distractions.
• 在这个阶段，你会关注薪酬、API 流量、渠道关系和竞争对手——而之前，这些只是干扰。
• You need to understand if you’re focused on efficiency or differentiation. Trying to do both as a way of scaling is difficult. If you’re efficiencyfocused, you’re trying to reduce costs; if you’re differentiation-focused, you’re increasing margins.
• 你需要了解你是专注于效率还是差异化。试图同时以这两种方式扩展是困难的。如果你专注于效率，你是在降低成本；如果你专注于差异化，你是在提高利润。
• As you grow, you’ll need to have more than one metric at a time. Set up a hierarchy of metrics that keeps the strategy, the tactics, and the implementation aligned with a consistent set of goals. We call this the three threes.
• 随着你成长，你需要同时关注多个指标。建立一个指标层次结构，使战略、战术和实施与一套一致的目标保持一致。我们称之为“三个三”。

You never really leave the Scale stage, although as your organization becomes more and more like a “big company” you may find yourself having a hard time innovating. Congratulations—you’re now an intrapreneur, fighting the status quo and trying to change things from within. As we’ll see in Chapter 30, innovating from within has some unique challenges. But first, let’s combine your business model and stage to find the metrics that matter to you right now.
你永远不会真正离开“扩展”阶段，尽管当你的组织变得越来越像一家“大公司”时，你可能会发现自己很难创新。恭喜——你现在是一名内部企业家，在内部与现状作斗争，试图从内部改变事物。正如我们将在第 30 章看到的，从内部创新有一些独特的挑战。但首先，让我们结合你的商业模式和阶段，找到对你现在重要的指标。

Model + Stage Drives the Metric You Track

模型+阶段决定了你追踪的指标

The core idea behind Lean Analytics is this: by knowing the kind of business you are, and the stage you’re at, you can track and optimize the One Metric That Matters to your startup right now. By repeating this process, you’ll overcome many of the risks inherent in early-stage companies or projects, avoid premature growth, and build atop a solid foundation of true needs, well-defined solutions, and satisfied customers.
Lean Analytics 的核心思想是：通过了解你的业务类型以及所处阶段，你可以追踪和优化当前对你创业公司最重要的指标。通过重复这个过程，你将克服早期公司或项目中的许多风险，避免过早增长，并在真实需求、明确解决方案和满意客户的基础上建立坚实的基础。

Figure 20-1 shows these Lean Analytics stages, along with the “gates” you need to clear to move to the next phase and some of the metrics that will indicate when you’re ready to move forward.
图 20-1 展示了 Lean Analytics 的阶段，以及你需要通过的一些“关卡”才能进入下一阶段，以及一些指标将表明你准备好向前推进。

Now that you know your business model and your current stage, you’re in a good position to pick a few metrics that will help you make it to the next stage of growth. Table 20-1 gives you some examples of what things matter to a particular model as it grows.
现在你知道了你的商业模式和当前阶段，你处于一个良好的位置来选择一些指标，帮助你达到增长的下一阶段。表 20-1 给你提供了一些特定模型在增长时重要的示例。

Once you’ve identified the metrics you should worry about, your next question is clear: what should I be trying for, and what’s normal?
一旦你确定了应该关注哪些指标，你的下一个问题就清晰了：我应该追求什么，什么才是正常的？

We decided to find out.
我们决定弄清楚。

Figure 20-1. Where are you today? What will it take to move forward?
图 20-1。你今天在哪里？向前迈进需要什么？

Business model
商业模式

Business model
商业模式

Table 20-1. What metrics matters depending on your business model and stage
表 20-1。什么指标取决于你的商业模式和阶段
Business model
商业模式

P A R T T H R E E :
第三部分：

LINES IN THE SAND

界限

You know your model, your stage, and even what metric matters most to you right now. But what’s normal? Unless you have a line in the sand, you don’t know if you’re crushing it or being crushed. We’ve collected data from startups, analysts, and vendors to try to paint a picture of what’s typical. Your mileage will vary—but at least you’ll know what mileage looks like.
你知道你的模型，你的阶段，甚至对你目前最重要的指标。但什么是正常的？除非你有界限，否则你不知道你是击败了它还是被击败了。我们从初创公司、分析师和供应商那里收集了数据，试图描绘出典型的样子。你的里程会有所不同——但至少你会知道里程看起来像什么。

Success is not final, failure is not fatal: it is the courage to continue that counts. Sir Winston Churchill
成功不是终点，失败也不是末日：重要的是继续前进的勇气。温斯顿·丘吉尔爵士

C H A P T E R 2 1
第 21 章

Am I Good Enough?

我足够好吗？

One of the biggest questions we wanted to tackle with Lean Analytics is “what’s normal?” It’s something we get asked all the time: “How do I know what’s a normal or ideal value for the metrics I’m tracking? How do I know if it’s going well or not? Should I keep optimizing this metric, or move on to something else?”
Lean Analytics 试图解决的一个最大的问题是“什么才是正常的？”我们经常被问到：“我如何知道我正在追踪的指标的正常或理想值是多少？我如何知道它是否进展顺利？我应该继续优化这个指标，还是转向其他事情？”

At the outset, many people cautioned us against trying to find a typical value for a particular metric. After all, startups are, by definition, trying to break the rules, which means the rules are being rewritten all the time. But we think it’s important to try to define “normal” for two big reasons.
在一开始，许多人告诫我们不要试图找到一个特定指标的典型值。毕竟，创业公司从定义上就是在打破规则，这意味着规则一直在被重新定义。但我们认为尝试定义“正常”有两个重要原因。

First, you need to know if you’re in the ballpark. If your current behavior is outrageously far from that of everyone else, you should be aware of it. If, on the other hand, you’re already as good as you’re going to get—move on. You’ve already optimized a key metric, and you’ll get diminishing returns trying to improve it further.
首先，你需要知道你是否在正确的方向上。如果你的当前行为与所有人相比都远远超出，你应该意识到这一点。另一方面，如果你已经做得和你能做的一样好了——那就继续前进。你已经优化了一个关键指标，再试图进一步改进它只会得到递减的回报。

Second, you need to know what sport you’re playing. Online metrics are in flux, which makes it hard to find a realistic baseline. Only a few years ago, for example, typical e-commerce conversion rates were in the $1-3\mathrm{\%}$ range. The best-in-class online retailers got a $7\mathrm{\%}$ conversion rate, because they had offline mindshare or had worked hard to become the “default” tool for purchase. These numbers have changed in recent years, though, because people now consider the Web the “default” storefront for many purchases. Today, pizza delivery companies have extremely high conversion rates because, well, that’s how you buy pizza.
其次，你需要知道你在玩什么运动。在线指标在不断变化，这使得找到现实的基准变得困难。例如，几年前，典型的电子商务转化率在 $1-3\mathrm{\%}$ 范围内。最好的在线零售商获得了 $7\mathrm{\%}$ 的转化率，因为他们拥有线下市场份额，或者努力成为购买的“默认”工具。然而，近年来这些数字发生了变化，因为现在人们将网络视为许多购买的“默认”店面。今天，披萨配送公司的转化率非常高，因为，嗯，这就是你购买披萨的方式。

In other words: there is a normal or ideal for most metrics, and that normal will change significantly as a particular business model goes from being novel to being mainstream.
换句话说：大多数指标都有一个正常或理想值，并且当特定的商业模式从新颖变为主流时，这个正常值将发生显著变化。

CASE STUDY WP Engine Discovers the $2\mathrm{\%}$ Cancellation Rate

案例研究 WP Engine 发现 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 取消率

WP Engine is a fast-growing hosting company specializing exclusively in hosting WordPress sites.* Successful entrepreneur and popular blogger Jason Cohen founded the company in July 2010. In November 2011, WP Engine raised \1.23,4$ in financing to accelerate growth and handle the ongoing challenges of scaling the business.
WP Engine 是一家快速成长的托管公司，专门托管 WordPress 网站。成功的创业者和知名博主 Jason Cohen 于 2010 年 7 月创立了该公司。2011 年 11 月，WP Engine 筹集了 \1.23,4$ 资金以加速增长并应对持续的扩展挑战。

WP Engine is a service company. Its customers rely on WP Engine to provide fast, quality hosting with constant uptime. WP Engine is doing a great job, but customers still cancel. All companies have cancellations (or churn), and it’s one of the most critical metrics to track and understand—not only is it essential for calculating metrics like customer lifetime value, but it’s also an early warning signal that something is going wrong or that a competing solution has emerged.
WP Engine 是一家服务型公司。其客户依赖 WP Engine 提供快速、高质量的托管服务，并保持持续的在线状态。WP Engine 工作得很好，但客户仍然会取消服务。所有公司都有客户流失（或称客户流失率），这是最关键的指标之一，需要跟踪和理解——不仅对于计算客户终身价值等指标至关重要，而且也是一个警示信号，表明公司内部可能出了问题，或者出现了竞争对手的解决方案。

Having a cancellation number isn’t enough; you need to understand why people are abandoning your product or service. Jason did just that by calling customers who cancelled. “Not everyone wanted to speak with me; some people never responded to my calls,” he recalls. “But enough people were willing to talk, even after they had left WP Engine, that I learned a lot about why they were leaving.” According to Jason, most people leave WP Engine because of factors outside of the company’s control (such as the project ending where hosting was needed), but Jason wanted to dig further.
仅知道客户流失的数字是不够的；你需要了解人们为什么放弃你的产品或服务。Jason 正是这样做，他通过电话联系那些已经取消服务的客户。“不是每个人都愿意和我交谈；有些人从未回复我的电话，”他回忆道。“但足够多的人愿意交谈，即使他们已经离开 WP Engine，我也学到了很多关于他们离开的原因。”据 Jason 所述，大多数人离开 WP Engine 是因为公司无法控制的因素（例如，需要托管服务的项目结束），但 Jason 还想进一步挖掘。

Having a metric and an understanding of the reasons people were leaving wasn’t enough. Jason went out and found a benchmark for cancellation rate. This is one of the most challenging things for a startup to do: find a relevant number (or line in the sand) against which to compare yourself. Jason researched the hosting space using his investors and advisors. One of WP Engine’s investors is Automattic, the company behind WordPress, which also has a sizeable hosting business.
拥有一个指标并了解人们离开的原因还不够。Jason 主动去寻找了一个取消率基准。这对初创公司来说是最具挑战性的事情之一：找到一个相关的数字（或分界线）来与你进行比较。Jason 利用他的投资者和顾问研究了托管领域。WP Engine 的一家投资者是 Automattic 公司，该公司是 WordPress 的背后公司，并且也拥有一个规模可观的托管业务。

Jason found that for established hosting companies, there’s a “best case scenario” benchmark for cancellation rate per month, which is $2\mathrm{\%}$ . That means every month—for even the best and biggest hosting companies around—you can expect $2\mathrm{\%}$ of your customers to leave.
Jason 发现对于成熟的托管公司来说，每月取消率的“最佳情况”基准是 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 。这意味着每个月——即使是最好、最大的托管公司——你都可以预期 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 的客户会离开。

On the surface, that looks like a huge number. “When I first saw our churn, which was around $2\mathrm{\%}$ , I was very concerned,” Jason says. “But when I found out that $2\mathrm{\%}$ is pretty much the lowest churn you’ll get in the hosting business, it changed my perspective a great deal.” Had Jason not known that this is simply a fact of life in the hosting industry, WP Engine might have invested time and money trying to move a metric that wouldn’t budge—money that would have been far better spent elsewhere.
从表面上看，这个数字看起来很大。“当我第一次看到我们流失率，大约是 $2\mathrm{\%}$ ，我非常担心，”杰森说。“但是当我发现 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 在主机行业中几乎是最低的流失率，我的观点发生了很大的变化。” 如果杰森不知道这是主机行业的一个简单事实，WP Engine 可能会浪费时间和金钱试图改变一个无法改变的指标——这些钱将远远比花在其他地方更好。

Instead, with a benchmark in hand, Jason was able to focus on other issues and key performance indicators (KPIs), all the while keeping his eye on any fluctuation in cancellation rate. He doesn’t rule out the possibility of trying to break through the $2\mathrm{\%}$ cancellation rate at some point (after all, there can be significant value in reducing that churn), but he’s able to prioritize according to what’s going on in his business today, and where the biggest trouble spots lie, all while keeping an eye on the future success of the company.
相反，有了基准，杰森能够专注于其他问题和关键绩效指标 (KPI)，同时密切关注取消率任何波动。他并不排除尝试打破 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 取消率的可能性（毕竟，减少这种流失可以带来巨大价值），但他能够根据当前业务情况以及最大的问题所在来优先处理，同时关注公司的未来成功。

摘要

• WP Engine built a healthy WordPress hosting business, but losing $24\mathrm{\%}$ of customers every year concerned its founders. • By asking around, the founder discovered that a $2\mathrm{\%}$ per month churn rate was normal—even good—for that industry. • Knowing a good line in the sand allowed him to focus on other, more important business objectives instead of trying to overoptimize churn.
• WP Engine 建立了一个健康的 WordPress 托管业务，但每年失去 $24\mathrm{\%}$ 的客户让其创始人担忧。• 通过询问周围的人，创始人发现每月 $2\mathrm{\%}$ 的客户流失率在该行业是正常的——甚至可以说是好的。• 了解一个良好的界限让他能够专注于其他更重要的业务目标，而不是试图过度优化客户流失率。

Analytics Lessons Learned

分析学经验教训

It’s easy to get stuck on one specific metric that looks bad and invest considerable time and money trying to improve it. Until you know where you stand against competitors and industry averages, you’re blind. Having benchmarks helps you decide whether to keep working on a specific metric or move on to the next challenge.
很容易沉迷于一个看起来不好的特定指标，并投入大量时间和金钱试图改善它。直到你知道自己相对于竞争对手和行业平均水平的地位，你才是盲目的。拥有基准可以帮助你决定是否继续努力改善特定指标，还是转向下一个挑战。

Average Isn’t Good Enough

平均值还不够好

The Startup Genome project has collected key metrics from thousands of startups through its Startup Compass site.* Co-founder Bjoern Lasse Herrmann shared some of the metrics he’s gathered about an “average” startup. They serve as a sobering reminder that being average simply isn’t good enough. There’s a line in the sand, a point where you know you’re ready to move to the next KPI—and most companies aren’t anywhere near it.
启动基因组项目通过其启动指南网站收集了数千家创业公司的关键指标。联合创始人 Bjoern Lasse Herrmann 分享了一些他收集的关于“平均”创业公司的指标。它们作为令人警醒的提醒，表明平庸根本不够好。有一条分界线，一个你知道准备好进入下一个关键绩效指标（KPI）的点——而大多数公司都远远没有达到那里。

Consider this: if you get your churn rate below $5\mathrm{\%}$ —ideally as low as $2\mathrm{\%}$ —each month, you have a reasonably sticky product. Bjoern’s average is between $12\mathrm{\%}$ (for indirectly monetized sites) and $19\mathrm{\%}$ (for those that monetize directly from users)—nowhere near good enough to move to the next stage.
想想看：如果你每个月的流失率低于 $5\mathrm{\%}$ ——理想情况下低至 $2\mathrm{\%}$ ——你就有了一个相当粘性的产品。Bjoern 的平均值在 $12\mathrm{\%}$ （对于间接盈利的网站）和 $19\mathrm{\%}$ （对于那些直接从用户那里盈利的）之间——现在还远远不够进入下一阶段。

Furthermore, consumer applications have a nearly 1:1 CAC to CLV ratio. That means they’re spending all the money they make acquiring new users. As we’ve seen, you’re doing well when you spend less than a third of your customer revenue acquiring new customers. For bigger-ticket applications (with a CLV of over \50\mathrm{K}$) things are less bleak, with most companies spending between$0.2$and$2$ of CLV on acquisition.
此外，消费者应用程序的 CAC 与 CLV 比率几乎为 1:1。这意味着它们花所有的钱来获取新用户。正如我们所看到的，当你将获取新客户的成本低于客户收入的第三分之一时，你就做得很好。对于大额交易应用程序（CLV 超过$50,000，获取成本占 CLV 的 0.2%至 2%）。

Startup Compass has some great comparative insight, and we encourage you to use it to measure yourself against other companies. But realize that there’s a reason most startups fail: average is nowhere near good enough.
Startup Compass 提供了一些很好的比较性见解，我们鼓励你用它来衡量自己与其他公司的差距。但要意识到，大多数创业公司失败的原因是：平均表现远远不够好。

What Is Good Enough?

什么才是足够好？

There are a few metrics—like growth rate, visitor engagement, pricing targets, customer acquisition, virality, mailing list effectiveness, uptime, and time on site—that apply to most (if not all) business models. We’ll look at these next. Then, in the following chapters, we’ll dig into metrics specific to the six business models we’ve covered earlier. Remember, though, that while you might turn immediately to the chapter for your business model, there’s always some overlap and relevant metrics in other business models that should be helpful to you. So we encourage you to look at what’s normal for other business models, too.
有几个指标——比如增长率、访客参与度、定价目标、客户获取、病毒传播、邮件列表效果、系统稳定性和网站停留时间——适用于大多数（如果不是全部）商业模式。接下来我们将讨论这些指标。然后在接下来的章节中，我们将深入探讨我们之前介绍过的六种商业模式特有的指标。记住，尽管你可能立刻会翻到适合你商业模式的章节，但其他商业模式中总有一些重叠且相关的指标对你有帮助。所以我们鼓励你也要看看其他商业模式的正常情况。

Growth Rate

增长率

Investor Paul Graham makes a good case* that above all else, a startup is a company designed to grow fast. In fact, it’s this growth that distinguishes a startup from other new ventures like a cobbler or a restaurant. Startups, Paul says, go through three distinct growth phases: slow, where the organization is searching for a product and market to tackle; fast, where it has figured out how to make and sell it at scale; and slow again, as it becomes a big company and encounters internal constraints or market saturation, and tries to overcome Porter’s “hole in the middle.”
投资者保罗·格雷厄姆*很好地论证了，最重要的是，一家初创公司是为了快速成长而设计的。事实上，正是这种成长将初创公司与其他新企业，如鞋匠店或餐馆区分开来。保罗说，初创公司会经历三个不同的成长阶段：缓慢阶段，组织在寻找要解决的产品和市场；快速阶段，它已经 figured out 如何进行规模化生产和销售；再次缓慢阶段，当它成为一家大公司，遇到内部限制或市场饱和，并试图克服波特的“中间空洞”。

At Paul’s startup accelerator, Y Combinator, teams track growth rate weekly because of the short timeframe. “A good growth rate during YC is $5-7\mathrm{\%}$ a week,” he says. “If you can hit $10\mathrm{\%}$ a week you’re doing exceptionally well. If you can only manage $1\mathrm{\%}$ , it’s a sign you haven’t yet figured out what you’re doing.” If the company is at the Revenue stage, then growth is measured in revenue; if it’s not charging money yet, growth is measured in active users.
在保罗的初创公司加速器 Y Combinator，团队每周都会追踪增长率，因为时间跨度短。他说：“在 YC 期间，良好的增长率是每周 $5-7\mathrm{\%}$ 。” “如果你能达到每周 $10\mathrm{\%}$ ，你做得非常出色。如果你只能达到每周 $1\mathrm{\%}$ ，这意味着你还没有搞清楚自己在做什么。” 如果公司处于收入阶段，那么增长率以收入来衡量；如果还没有开始收费，增长率以活跃用户来衡量。

Is Growth at All Costs a Good Thing?

成长是否不惜一切代价都是好事？

There’s no question that growth is important. But focusing on growth too soon is bad. We’ve seen how inherent virality—that’s built into your product’s use—is better than artificial virality you’ve added as an afterthought. A flood of new visitors might grow your user base, but might also be detrimental to your business. Similarly, while some kinds of growth are good, other kinds aren’t sustainable. Premature scaling, such as firing up the paid engine before you’re sticky, can exacerbate issues with product quality, cash flow, and user satisfaction. It kills you just as you’re getting started.
毫无疑问，增长很重要。但过早关注增长是坏事。我们已经看到，产品使用中固有的病毒性——比作为事后想法添加的人工病毒性更好。大量新访客可能会扩大你的用户群，但也可能对你的业务有害。类似地，虽然有些增长是好的，但其他增长是不可持续的。过早的扩展，比如在你还没有粘性之前启动付费引擎，可能会加剧产品质量、现金流和用户满意度方面的问题。它在你刚开始的时候就会杀死你。

Sean Ellis notes that growth hackers are constantly testing and tweaking new ways of achieving growth, but that “during this process it is easy to lose sight of the big picture. When this happens, growth eventually falls off a cliff.” †
Sean Ellis 指出，增长黑客在不断地测试和调整实现增长的新方法，但在“在这个过程中很容易迷失大局。当这种情况发生时，增长最终会从悬崖上掉下去。” †

He goes on to say, “Sustainable growth programs are built on a core understanding of the value of your solution in the minds of your most passionate customers.” As we saw in Chapter 5, Sean’s Startup Growth Pyramid illustrates that scaling your business comes only after you’ve found product/market fit and your unfair advantage. In other words: stickiness comes before virality, and virality comes before scale.
他接着说，“可持续增长计划建立在对你解决方案在你最热情的客户心中的价值的核心理解之上。”正如我们在第 5 章所见，肖恩的创业增长金字塔表明，只有在你找到产品/市场契合度和你的不公平优势之后，你才能扩大你的业务。换句话说：粘性先于病毒性，病毒性先于规模。

Most Y Combinator startups (and most startups, for that matter) focus on growth before they hit product/market fit. In some cases this is a necessity, particularly if the value of the startup depends on a network effect—after all, Skype’s no good if nobody else is using it. But while rapid growth can accelerate the discovery of product/market fit, it can just as easily destroy the startup if the timing isn’t right.
大多数 Y Combinator 的创业公司（以及大多数创业公司）在达到产品/市场契合度之前就专注于增长。在某些情况下这是一种必要性，特别是如果创业公司的价值取决于网络效应——毕竟，如果没有人使用它，Skype 就没什么用。但虽然快速增长可以加速发现产品/市场契合度，如果时机不当，它也可能轻易摧毁创业公司。

Paul’s growth strategy is also a very B2C-biased way to look at the world. B2B organizations have a different flow, from a few early customers for whom they look like consultants, to later-stage customers who tolerate a more generic, standardized product or service. Growing a B2B organization prematurely can alienate your core of loyal customers who are helping to build your business, stalling revenue and eliminating the referrals, case studies, and testimonials needed to grow your sales.
保罗的增长策略也是一种非常偏向 B2C 的方式来看待世界。B2B 组织有不同的流程，从少数早期客户，他们看起来像顾问，到后期的客户，他们容忍更通用、标准化的产品或服务。过早地发展 B2B 组织可能会疏远那些帮助建立你业务的忠实客户，导致收入停滞，并消除增长销售所需的推荐、案例研究和客户证言。

This is a universal problem, best described by the technology lifecycle adoption model, first proposed by George Beal, Everett Rogers, and Joe Bohlen,* and expanded by Geoffrey Moore:† it takes a lot of work to move from early adopters to laggards as the product becomes more mainstream and the barriers to adoption fall.
这是一个普遍存在的问题，最好由乔治·比尔、埃弗雷特·罗杰斯和乔·博伦*首次提出的，并由杰弗里·摩尔扩大的技术生命周期采用模型来描述：当产品变得更加主流，采用障碍降低时，从早期采用者转变为落后者需要大量工作。

Bottom Line

要点

As you’re validating your problem and solution, ask yourself whether there are enough people who really care enough to sustain a $5\mathrm{\%}$ growth rate—but don’t strive for that rate of growth at the expense of really understanding your customers and building a meaningful solution. When you’re a prerevenue startup at or near product/market fit, your line in the sand should be $5\mathrm{\%}$ growth for active users each week, and once you’re generating revenues, they should grow at $5\mathrm{\%}$ a week.
在验证你的问题和解决方案时，问问自己是否有足够多的人真正关心到足以维持 $5\mathrm{\%}$ 的增长率——但不要为了追求这个增长率而牺牲真正理解你的客户和构建一个有意义的解决方案。当你是一个接近收支平衡或已经达到产品/市场契合的初创公司时，你的底线应该是每周 $5\mathrm{\%}$ 的活跃用户增长率，一旦你开始产生收入，它们就应该每周增长 $5\mathrm{\%}$ 。

Number of Engaged Visitors

参与访问者数量

Fred Wilson says that across Union Square Ventures’ portfolio companies, there’s a consistent ratio for engagement and concurrent users.‡ He says that for a web service or mobile application:
弗雷德·威尔逊说，在联合广场风险投资公司的投资组合公司中，参与度和并发用户数之间存在一个一致的比率。‡ 他表示，对于一个网络服务或移动应用程序：

• $30\mathrm{\%}$ of registered users will use a web-based service at least once a month. For mobile applications, $30\mathrm{\%}$ of the people who download the app use it each month.
• $30\mathrm{\%}$ 的注册用户将至少每月使用一次基于网络的 服务。对于移动应用程序， $30\mathrm{\%}$ 下载应用程序的人每月使用它。
• $10\mathrm{\%}$ of registered users will use the service or mobile app every day.
• 每日将有 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 名注册用户使用该服务或移动应用。
• The maximum number of concurrent users will be $10\mathrm{\%}$ of the number of daily users.
• 并发用户数的最大值将是每日用户数的 $10\mathrm{\%}$ 。

While it’s a huge generalization, Fred says this 30/10/10 ratio is consistent across a wide variety of applications, from social to music to games. Getting to this stage of regular use and engagement is a sign that you’re ready to start growing, and to move into the Virality, Revenue, and Scale stages of your business.
虽然这是一个巨大的概括，但弗雷德说这个 30/10/10 比率在各种应用中都很一致，从社交到音乐到游戏。达到这种常规使用和参与阶段是一个信号，表明你已准备好开始增长，并进入业务的病毒传播、收入和规模阶段。

Bottom Line

概括

Aim for $30\mathrm{\%}$ of your registered users to visit once a month, and $10\mathrm{\%}$ of them to come daily. Figure out your reliable leading indicators of growth, and measure them against your business model predictions.
目标是让 $30\mathrm{\%}$ 的注册用户每月访问一次， $10\mathrm{\%}$ 的用户每天访问。找出你可靠的成长指标，并将它们与你的商业模式预测进行对比。

Pricing Metrics

定价指标

It’s hard to know what to charge. Every startup makes money from different things, so there’s no easy way to compare pricing across companies. But you can learn some lessons from different pricing approaches.
很难知道该收取多少费用。每个创业公司赚钱的方式都不同，所以没有简单的方法来比较不同公司的定价。但你可以从不同的定价方法中学习一些经验。

A fundamental element of any pricing strategy is elasticity: when you charge more, you sell less; when you charge less, you sell more. Back in 1890, Alfred Marshall defined the price elasticity of demand as follows:
任何定价策略的一个基本要素是弹性：当你提高价格时，销量减少；当你降低价格时，销量增加。早在 1890 年，阿尔弗雷德·马歇尔就定义了需求的价格弹性如下：

The elasticity (or responsiveness) of demand in a market is great or small according as the amount demanded increases much or little for a given fall in price, and diminishes much or little for a given rise in price.*
市场中需求的弹性（或响应性）是很大还是很小，取决于在给定价格下跌的情况下，需求量增加得多还是少，以及在给定价格上涨的情况下，需求量减少得多还是少。*

Unlike Marshall, you have the world’s greatest pricing laboratory at your disposal: the Internet. You can test out discount codes, promotions, and even varied pricing on your customers and see what happens.
与马歇尔不同，你拥有世界上最好的定价实验室：互联网。你可以测试折扣码、促销活动，甚至对客户进行差异化定价，看看会发生什么。

Let’s say you’ve run a series of tests on the price of your product. You know that when you change the price, you sell a certain number of items (see Table 21-1).
假设你进行了一系列关于你产品价格的测试。你知道当你改变价格时，会卖出一定数量的商品（见表 21-1）。

Table 21-1. How changing price affects sales
表 21-1。改变价格如何影响销售

When we chart the resulting revenues, we get a characteristic curve (Figure 21-1). The best pricing is somewhere between \11$and$$12$ , since this maximizes revenues.
当我们绘制由此产生的收入时，我们得到一条特征曲线（图 21-1）。最佳定价在 11 美元和 12 美元之间，因为这样可以最大化收入。

REVENUE CURVE

收入曲线

Figure 21-1. Aim for the top of the curve
图 21-1。目标是曲线的顶端

If all we’re hoping for is revenue optimization, this is the optimal price point. But revenue isn’t everything:
如果我们只希望进行收入优化，那么这是最佳价格点。但收入并非一切：

• Price yourself too high, and you may lose the war. Apple’s FireWire was a better communications technology, but Apple wanted to charge to license its patents, so USB won.* Sometimes charging too much can stall a market.
• 定价过高，你可能会输掉这场战争。苹果的 FireWire 是一种更好的通信技术，但苹果想要收取专利许可费，所以 USB 胜出。*收费过高可能会停滞市场。
• If you experiment with your users and word gets out, it can backfire, as it did for Orbitz when the company recommended more expensive products to visitors using Macs.
• 如果你尝试对你的用户进行实验，而且消息传开了，可能会适得其反，就像奥瑞特（Orbitz）公司那样，当它向使用 Mac 的访客推荐更昂贵的商品时，就出了问题。
• If you charge too little, you’ll arouse suspicion from buyers, who may wonder if you’re up to no good or you’re a scam. You may end up devaluing your offering in customers’ eyes.
• 如果你收费过低，你可能会引起买家的怀疑，他们可能会怀疑你是否有不良企图或者你是一个骗局。你可能会在客户心目中贬低你的产品价值。

• If you charge too much, you may slow down the much-needed viral growth or take too long to achieve network effects that improve your product’s functionality. • Some things—like healthcare—you can sell at nearly any price; others, like bottled water, sell more when a price boost increases perceived quality, as Pellegrino and Perrier will happily tell you. • If you make your pricing tiers simple, you’ll see better conversions. Patrick Campbell, co-founder and CEO of pricing service Price Intelligently, says that based on his data, companies with easy-to-understand tiers and a clear path up differentiated pricing plans convert customers at a much higher rate than companies with complicated tiers, features that aren’t always applicable, and hard-to-follow pricing paths. • Products that “fly under the radar” and don’t need a boss’s approval convert at a much higher rate, because expensing something is easier.
• 如果你收费过高，可能会减缓急需的病毒式增长，或者需要很长时间才能实现提升产品功能的网络效应。• 有些东西——比如医疗保健——你几乎可以按任何价格出售；而另一些东西，比如瓶装水，当价格上涨会提高感知质量时，销量会更好，正如佩莱格里诺和佩里埃会很乐意告诉你的那样。• 如果你让你的定价层级简单，你会看到更好的转化率。定价服务 Price Intelligently 的联合创始人兼 CEO 帕特里克·坎贝尔说，根据他的数据，拥有易于理解的层级和清晰差异化定价计划路径的公司，比拥有复杂层级、功能不一定适用以及难以理解的定价路径的公司，转化客户的速度要高得多。• 那些能“在雷达之下飞行”且不需要老板批准的产品，转化率会高得多，因为报销某物更容易。

Neil Davidson, joint CEO at Red Gate Software Ltd and author of Don’t Just Roll the Dice (Red Gate Books), says, “One of the biggest misconceptions around pricing is that what you charge for your product or service is directly related to how much it costs you to build or run it. That’s not the case. Price is related to what your customers are prepared to pay.”
Red Gate Software Ltd 的联合 CEO 尼尔·戴维森，也是《别再掷骰子》一书的作者，说：“关于定价的最大误解之一是，你收取的产品或服务的价格与你建造或运营它的成本直接相关。事实并非如此。价格与你的客户愿意支付什么有关。”

CASE STUDY Socialight Discovers the Underlying Metrics of Pricing

案例研究：Socialight 发现定价的潜在指标

Socialight was founded in 2005 by Dan Melinger and Michael Sharon, and sold to Group Commerce in 2011. The idea came from work Dan was doing in 2004 with a team at NYU focused on how digital media was changing how people communicated.
Socialight 由丹·梅林格和迈克尔·沙伦于 2005 年创立，并于 2011 年出售给了 Group Commerce 公司。这个想法源于丹在 2004 年与纽约大学一个团队合作的工作，他们专注于数字媒体如何改变人们的交流方式。

This was in the early days of social networking: Friendster was the dominant social platform. Socialight’s first incarnation was as a destination social network for Java-enabled mobile phones, which were considered the pinnacle of mobile app technology at the time. People could place “sticky notes” around the world, and then collaborate, organize, and share them with friends or the community as a whole.
那是社交网络的早期：Friendster 是主流的社交平台。Socialight 的最初形态是一个面向支持 Java 的手机的目的地社交网络，在当时被认为是移动应用技术的顶峰。人们可以在世界各地放置“便利贴”，然后与朋友或整个社区合作、组织和分享它们。

Back then, Dan wasn’t focused on pricing, but shortly after launching Socialight, the founders realized that power users were looking for different feature sets based on how they were using the product. “The mobile software market was starting to mature, along with locationbased services and devices like iPhones,” said Dan. “We also started getting approached by companies that wanted to pay for us to build and host mobile and social apps for them.”
以前，Dan 并不专注于定价，但在 Socialight 上线后不久，创始人意识到高级用户根据他们使用产品的不同方式在寻找不同的功能集。“移动软件市场开始成熟，连同基于位置的服务和像 iPhone 这样的设备，”Dan 说。“我们还开始被一些公司 approached，他们希望付费让我们为他们构建和托管移动和社会应用程序。”

This started the company’s pivot from B2C to B2B. It built an API to let others build their own applications, and then built a more advanced mobile app-maker product. This achieved good traction, with over 1,000 communities built atop it.
这开始公司将业务从 B2C 转向 B2B。它构建了一个 API，让其他人可以构建自己的应用程序，然后构建了一个更高级的移动应用程序制作产品。这取得了良好的势头，在其上构建了超过 1,000 个社区。

As Socialight moved into the B2B space, it launched a three-tiered freemium business model. The two paying tiers were called Premium and $\mathrm{Pro}$ , and cost \250$and$$1,000-95,500$per month, respectively. The main difference between the Premium and Pro offerings was the amount of involvement Socialight had with those customers—at$$1,000-95,500$ per month, Socialight was very involved with lots of hours invested per month to work with customers.
当 Socialight 进入 B2B 空间时，它推出了一种三层免费增值商业模式。两个付费层称为 Premium 和 $\mathrm{Pro}$ ，每月费用为 250 $and$ $1,000-95,500 $permonth,respectively.ThemaindifferencebetweenthePremiumandProofferingswastheamountofinvolvementSocialighthadwiththosecustomers—at$ $1,000-95,500$ ，Socialight 参与其中，每月投入大量时间与客户合作。