See through the complex world and solve decision-making problems.
A variable is a node;
The causal chain is a line segment.
But the line segment has a head and a tail, and the energy passes from beginning to end, and it is over. So what if we also connect the end and the beginning with a causal chain to form a closed loop?
This constitutes a "cycle". Compared with line segments, rings have completely different characteristics, and they will constantly strengthen themselves and adjust themselves.
In this lesson, we will learn reinforcement cycle, which is the most powerful structural module in this system. This is also the core part of system dynamics theory, so you might as well listen to the manuscript several times.
A friend asked me: Runzong, how do you train your writing ability? Five Minutes Business School has written more than 600 classes in two seasons and published 18 books. How did it do it?
I said: Actually, it's all because of "luck".
In primary school, like most of my classmates, I didn't like writing. How interesting mathematics is. Composition, hehe.
Once, I happened to see an essay entitled "My Tenth Birthday" in the primary school newspaper, so I wrote one on a whim. I wrote everything. Don't waste it I gave this article to my Chinese teacher.
Then, my Chinese teacher did something that I will never forget: read this article aloud in class and praised me.
God, do you know how I felt? I like to eat five chicken legs and 10 ice cream. In fact, I found a little fun in writing.
Because of fun, I began to write often, so my writing ability gradually improved. There is a causal chain of "writing interest-(+) → writing ability".
The improvement of my writing ability has made my articles more recognized, which in turn has enhanced my writing pleasure. From the causal chain of "writing ability-(+) → writing pleasure", a closed loop is formally formed. This is the "enhanced cycle".
What is an enhanced loop? Because the fruit is strengthened, the fruit in turn strengthens the cause, forming a ring, and the ring is strengthened, which is the "enhanced ring."
Imagine you are talking into the speaker with a microphone. Between the microphone and the speaker, a "loop" is formed, which is enhanced in turn. Your gentle voice, amplified circularly, turned into a sharp "howl" in a few seconds, which made everyone cover their ears. This is the power of the "enhanced loop".
Writing pleasure and writing ability, once closed to form a "strengthening loop", will be out of control.
Junior high school began to write poems and gave them to beautiful internship teachers; In high school, I contributed to the newspaper and got the first payment in my life; University, writing papers and starting to print books; After work, open blogs, write explosive articles and spread them all over the network; Then, start writing a book, one, two, three, four; Then, a series of columns, Liu Run 5 Minutes Business School. ...
Stop. Rewind. If you rewind all this, you will return to a scene: on a sunny afternoon, a smiling Chinese teacher reads a composition to the whole class. Her casual reading activated a child's "reinforcement circuit".
The same is true of the business world. The most important task of the CEO of a startup company is to find his own enhancement loop, and then try his best to promote the loop and make the company stronger in a circle.
For example, Tencent's socialization. The more users, the more valuable it is to other users; The more valuable, the more users. Cycle after cycle. This is the "social enhancement ring".
For example, Ali's e-commerce The more buyers, the more willing sellers are to sell things; The more sellers, the more willing buyers are to buy things. Cycle after cycle. This is the "enhanced cycle of e-commerce".
For example, Baidu search. The more pages are included, the more users come to search; The more users come, the more advertisers there are; The more advertisers, the more web pages. Cycle after cycle. This is the "search enhancement cycle".
The structural module "enhanced cycle" is so powerful. You can't wait to build your own reinforcement cycle. So, what should we pay attention to before determining and building the enhanced loop? Have you thought about the following three points?
First, find your own flywheel.
1994, a deep thinker, decided to start a business. On paper, he wrote down some variables that must be faced when starting a business:
Customer experience;
Flow;
Suppliers;
Low cost structure;
The price is lower.
So what brings the customer experience? The price is lower. Everyone wants to buy more and better goods at lower prices. What brought the lower price? Low cost structure. Only when the cost is low can the price be low. What brings about a low-cost structure? Scale effect. Buy more goods from suppliers. How can I buy more goods from suppliers? Huge traffic, enough users. What brings huge traffic? Better customer experience.
Something interesting happened. Starting from the customer experience, through the continuous strengthening of the causal chain, it finally returns to the customer experience itself, and a closed-loop "enhanced loop" emerges from the paper:
Deep thinkers really began to push this "reinforced loop" to rotate faster and faster, and finally became a high-speed flywheel. This profound thinker is the founder of Amazon: Jeff Bezos.
Amazon has achieved great success today. Even Facebook executives came out to make funds, and they all bought Amazon instead of Facebook. Why? He said: Because Amazon's success is model-driven, and Facebook is user behavior-driven. The Amazon model will be more successful after it is successful, and user behavior has been changing, and Facebook will never be safe.
Small success depends on cleverness, and great success depends on strengthening circulation. Find your own flywheel.
Second, determine the first driving force
Today, pushing any variable in the boost circuit is accelerating the flywheel. But back to the beginning? Chicken or egg first? What is the first driving force?
Consumers must benefit.
In 2003, Taobao was established. Taobao's "e-commerce enhancement cycle" means that the more buyers, the more sellers; The more sellers, the more buyers. However, at the beginning, should buyers or sellers be promoted first?
Taobao decided to promote buyers first.
So they launched Alipay. 1) The buyer sends the money to Alipay; 2) The seller delivers the goods; 3) The buyer confirms the receipt of the goods; 4) Alipay pays the money to the seller.
This process gives the buyer supreme power. As long as you don't confirm the payment, the money is your own. Buyers have grown rapidly because they have relieved their worries.
But is this system perfect? Of course not. Buyers are not all "good people". Will a buyer cheat the seller of the goods by saying that the goods were confiscated when they were clearly received?
There must be. However, reassuring buyers is more important than reassuring sellers. The latter problem will be solved later.
Start with the buyer, then the seller, then the buyer, then the seller, and so on. Taobao has rapidly grown into the largest e-commerce platform. Taobao chose the right "first driving force".
Third, make unremitting efforts.
Amazon's "flywheel effect" is very famous in recent years, and many people are learning it, but why is there no second Amazon so far?
Because it's useless to push the flywheel all day. A week, a month or a year is not enough. Amazon has been pushing for 25 years.
In the past 25 years, in order to give consumers "lower prices", Amazon turned against booksellers and signed contracts with the author himself; It is a great risk to launch "Prime Member" for "low price"; Amazon itself is very stingy, or for "lower prices."
After 25 years of unremitting promotion, you can only marvel at the speed of Amazon flywheel.
Abstract:
What is an "enhanced cycle"?
Because the fruit is strengthened, the fruit in turn strengthens the cause, forming a cycle, and the cycle is strengthened. This is the "enhanced cycle".
However, you should pay special attention to the fact that the so-called "reinforcement cycle" is only a closed cycle that logically reinforces each other. The examples I cited are all positive reinforcement of the cycle, and the vernacular is getting better and better; You may be familiar with the word "vicious circle", that is, the negative reinforcement cycle, which is getting worse and worse. In short, the judging feature of "strengthening cycle" is "getting worse …".
When building an enhanced loop, you should clearly consider three points:
Find your own flywheel;
Determining a first driving force;
Keep pushing.
For thousands of years, people have given countless names to the ups and downs caused by the "strengthening loop". Religious scholars call it "Matthew effect", economists call it "winner takes all", financial experts call it "compound interest effect" and Internet companies call it "exponential growth". But behind these gorgeous phenomena like fireworks, there is the same infrastructure module: enhancement circuit.
Next lecture, we will learn the twin brother of "enhanced loop": regulating loop.