These entrepreneurial projects often fall into the pit of "false demand".
But first of all, we must understand that pseudo-demand is not without demand. This moment may not be an opportunity for its development, or it may be that its market is not so big. It is more likely that this demand has solved some problems of users, but it is not a real "pain point" for users to continue to pay for it, but a "strong demand".
This is a real pit for entrepreneurs.
Nothing is more disappointing than trying hard but not satisfying the users. But when they continue to burn money to subsidize the market in order to acquire users, it is difficult to increase the loyalty of users. Once they lose their capital support, they can only fall into a desperate situation. But unfortunately, on the road to entrepreneurship, such "pits" are the most. Last year, when the capital winter came, a long list of deaths of entrepreneurial projects was the annotation of this phenomenon.
So, how many such "pits" have been or are still being used by us as a way out? After analysis, those sub-sectors that were born in the capital bubble and some worrying ones want to break out, but they still lack the environment of temperature, time and demand. Entrepreneurs may also make their own judgments to avoid falling into more "pits".
On-site car wash/maintenance
False demand index: ★★★★★★★
Recommended entrepreneurship index: ☆.
In 20 14, door-to-door car washing began to break out. A large number of startups have flooded into this seemingly low-threshold field, excitedly preparing to subvert the traditional car wash market. However, after more than a year, door-to-door car wash platforms such as Jiyi Car Wash, E Car Wash and Kung Fu Car Wash have closed their door-to-door businesses, announced their closure or embarked on the road of transformation.
Car home maintenance is similar to car washing. Bopai Automobile Maintenance, with a valuation of 600 million US dollars and a series B financing of 654.38+08 million US dollars, officially declared bankruptcy in April this year, which made the industry feel sorry for it.
Many entrepreneurs used to think that from door-to-door car washing and maintenance to automobile aftermarket, it can even be gradually extended to automobile consumption, automobile insurance, used car trading and other businesses, and this will be a market of tens of millions. But after the bubble burst, many people began to realize that there were some problems in this field.
Door-to-door car washing always needs a suitable venue. However, in the actual service scenario, it is difficult to standardize and guarantee the service quality. There are often situations where sewage is nowhere to be discharged, garbage is littered everywhere, and even property intervention is needed. On the other hand, we also need some necessary tools and equipment. Traditional car washes and 4S shops have professional equipment to serve users, but once on-site service is needed, the quality of the equipment brought by these car washes and technicians cannot be guaranteed. And if the company is willing to equip these car washers and technicians with high-quality tools and equipment, it will be a big capital investment.
Similarly, this is by no means just what users need. In car washing, users can not wash for a long time, and they can not wash in thunderstorm weather. In order to cultivate the habit of "door-to-door car washing", we can only rely on low-cost subsidies. In such a market, it is impossible to cultivate the loyalty of users.
And door-to-door maintenance, not only has the same problem, but also is less frequent than car washing. Even if you seem very familiar with the automobile market, you can learn from it.
Delivery of drugs to your door
False demand index: ★★★★★
Recommended entrepreneurship index: ★
In May of 20 14, the State Food and Drug Administration of the United States clearly stated that "Internet drug operators should sell prescription drugs by prescription according to the requirements of drug classification management regulations", which conveyed the signal to the industry that e-commerce platforms can sell prescription drugs. At that time, O2O was hot, so a wave of door-to-door drug delivery companies mushroomed.
But this year, medical e-commerce has begun to decline. The drug delivery service was suspended on May 18 1 hour. Soon after, "medicine is fast and good" issued an announcement, and officially stopped the e-commerce drug delivery business in Beijing on June 6. At the same time, although Dangdang Express Medicine did not stop delivering medicine, it launched Chinese medicine service as early as last year 10 and began to transform.
"Sending medicine" is of course a good thing, and it also meets the needs of some users. However, some medical e-commerce practitioners have analyzed that it is difficult for startups to deliver medicines at home for a long time. The biggest reason is that the medical industry has a threshold, which is by no means accessible to the Internet. In the absence of pharmaceutical business qualifications, sending medicine O2O is just a wedding dress for others, and it cannot guarantee its own profit.
At the same time, from the perspective of policies and regulations, there are no relevant policies and regulations for medical e-commerce in China. For a long time, many medical e-commerce companies have illegally sold prescription drugs online. At the beginning of June this year, China Food and Drug Administration stopped three online drug sales pilot platforms, which made "drug fast and good province" stop the e-commerce drug delivery business.
The user population of medical supplies also limits the market size of medical e-commerce. For ordinary people, the frequency of drug demand is very low; Frequent drug buyers are often concentrated in patients with chronic diseases or the elderly, while the use of medical e-commerce is far from their real life. This door-to-door drug delivery service focuses on "delivery speed", but for consumers, the quality and efficacy of drugs are their most concerned issues. However, the drug delivery service cannot provide professional drug consultation. According to media reports, in the hottest days in Beijing, the number of orders for quick drug delivery can reach 7,000, which is a good performance for delivering medicine to O2O. However, compared with the take-away platforms such as Hungry and Meituan, it is still far from it.
Shangmen beauty industry
False demand index: ★★★★
Recommended entrepreneurship index: ★
Influenced by the lazy economy, the beauty industry O2O field was warmly welcomed by the capital in 20 15, and it rose at the same time. In addition to 58 and public comments, there are also startup companies such as Beaver House and Dudu Manicure. But now, most American startups have not found a clear profit model.
For most users, the door-to-door beauty industry is still not their rigid demand. On-site beauty industry projects are also seriously restricted by factors such as safety, service quality and price. Even in first-tier cities, many users will still be discouraged, and it is more difficult for third-and fourth-tier cities to form a market.
Moreover, in the American industry project, the relationship between customers and technicians is very strong. Once customers and technicians go online, the platform no longer provides subsidies for profit, so what are the reasons why customers and technicians stay on the platform?
For a startup company, unless you have as many resources as Mr. Diao and strong marketing ability, it is difficult to make a difference in the field of home beauty industry.
Tutor O2O
False demand index: ★★★★
Recommended entrepreneurial index: ★★
Not long ago, in half a year, we had raised 65.438+0.5 billion yuan of "Ask him to teach", and announced that we would completely abandon O2O business and transform into a child custody service. Founder Chen Yuanhe once said that one of the reasons for the transformation is that user value is difficult to precipitate and cannot be completed in a short time.
It is not unreasonable to ask him to teach transformation. As early as last September, the tutor O2O platform "the teacher came" announced that the B round of financing failed and the project stopped operating.
Behind all kinds of storms, it is reflected that the tutoring O2O industry is also facing many business logic problems.
Whether tutor is just needed or not, the problems that tutor platform has to face are: education is a non-standardized product, and excellent teachers are scarce resources. Then, how does the tutor platform ensure the ability and morality of teachers, and the time and quality of their services on the platform? In China, children's safety and education have always been parents' greatest concern. Choosing a tutor depends more on the introduction of acquaintances. Once parents and teachers are online, they can not only establish long-term cooperative relations with these teachers, but also introduce "business" to these teachers one after another. At this time, how to keep parents and teachers on the platform?
At the same time, how to realize it is also a difficult problem. In theory, these tutoring platforms can only be realized by charging students or teachers, but once the platform charges parents or teachers, what is the difference between it and offline intermediaries? At this time, parents will only care about which intermediaries have powerful teachers, and teachers will only care about who can bring him high income. What does the mentor platform take to compete with offline intermediaries at this time?
Virtual reality observation room
False demand index: ★★★★
Recommended entrepreneurship index: ★
20 16 is called the first year of VR. VR technology has gradually penetrated into games, entertainment, real estate and other industries. Obviously, major real estate developers are very concerned about this. Vanke, Greenland, contemporary real estate and other enterprises have begun to introduce VR technology into many projects to create VR model rooms as a marketing tool to attract consumers. In addition, some teams have started to start businesses in the real estate +VR field.
It is true that VR viewing has many benefits. Meet the needs of different places to see the house, so that buyers can see the house as if they are there, and they can change and browse houses with different room types and decoration at will. However, in real life, buyers often ask another question when experiencing the cool VR viewing technology: Where is the physical model room?
It can be seen that buyers can't make a decision to buy a house just by the effect of VR viewing. More often, VR viewing is just a marketing gimmick and promotion means of enterprises, which can never replace the offline scene of buyers' on-the-spot viewing.
There is a simple reason. The ultimate goal of VR viewing is to promote the behavior of buying a house. For most ordinary consumers, buying a house is a high consumption behavior that may spend most of their savings, and they will be very cautious about it.
In the actual process of buying a house, buyers should not only consider the room type, but also care about the geographical location and surrounding conditions of the house. In addition, the inevitable thing about VR viewing is that it is not the same as the actual situation of the house. Due to the different configurations of VR glasses, buyers will see different house scenes, and given that VR technology can also have a powerful "beautification" function, how can buyers trust developers? The quality and environment of the house still need to be actually touched and felt, and VR viewing can only be "looking".
Perhaps with the development of VR technology, VR house viewing can realize the business model when it can meet more requirements of consumers in the future, but it seems a little early now.
Of course, this does not necessarily mean that these needs should not be met. Perhaps, with the progress of science and technology and the development of the times, many demands will be realized. But for start-ups, starting from an industry with higher frequency and higher conversion rate seems to be a better choice.