Although many people fail in tool-making entrepreneurship, there are still money-making opportunities as long as we accurately identify needs and rapidly iterate. For example, the author has been making tools for three years. Although there are failed projects, there are also projects that have dug out the real needs of customers and generated good cash flow.
Doing tools is easier than doing business. Compared with directly doing C-end business, making tools is slightly easier. Doing C-end business has high requirements for individuals and teams and faces great competitive pressure. For example, there are many e-commerce sellers, but only a handful of people do e-commerce platforms; there are many internet celebrities, but there are few short-video and live-streaming data analysis tools; there are many private-domain sellers going bankrupt, while store-opening and group-buying tools are growing. If you have money, you can try making tools first.
Making tools requires less investment. Relatively speaking, making tools saves more in terms of personnel, funds, development, and requirements. For example, to make an e-commerce platform, in addition to development strength, we also need to handle issues such as merchants, customers, after-sales service, and marketing; while making tools is relatively simple.
Capture precise and high-frequency needs. When making tools, we need to discover real needs and not just decide to make something based on casual listening and looking. The needs should not only be real but also be checked for whether they are high-frequency. The author once developed functions for users and worked overtime for more than a month. As a result, users only used it once or twice and it didn’t bring much commercial value.
Small needs can also make money. Although everyone hopes that tool products will be used by hundreds of millions of people, some tools for small needs can also make money. Case 1: Some people make WeChat group live streaming and group synchronization software. Charging 39 or 69 yuan per group, etc., they can earn tens of millions of yuan in annual income. Case 2: There are small tools that allow users to directly send voice, text, graphics, pictures, reports, and set up payment. It is simpler than publishing paid articles on official accounts.
Find industry spokespersons. When promoting tools, promoting to small B-end is easier than promoting to 2C. In the early stage, resources should be put on important channels and users to set benchmarks and make models. Because everyone in various fields learns from the top. If one enterprise does well, others will follow and use it. When the author’s product was in cold start, one customer brought thousands of people to use and pay.
Make money as soon as possible. Whether making large software or small software, serving large customers or small customers, we should realize monetization as soon as possible. Dare to charge users and refuse free-riding users. If a tool product cannot be monetized immediately, it will be very difficult later.
The speed of product iteration determines the speed of enterprise’s making money. Whether a tool is easy to use and whether users will use it only depends on the product. If the product is not good, everything else is in vain. A good product with fast iteration speed and response speed that exceeds user expectations will make money faster and faster.
