75 or 95?

In my round table discussion at the UPA 2006 conference, the number “75” came up when we were discussing “How to balance the market needs and user needs?” with a group of western and local design professionals. "75" was brought up by one of local designers from a well known site. He said that their company release a product when it is about 75% done and modify it after it is released. This theory got people interested and heavily debated about it. One guy from Baidu told an interesting story about his grand father and the story reflected the opposite opinion of the “75” theory. (This story reminded me that Chinese are smart, strategic and know how to survive. I will tell the story next time.)

Personally, I believe a product should focus on the key values for users. “Experiences” means more than “features”. I agree with Baidu Guo Yu's 先减后加 approch. Build what matters to user first and build the additional features around it later. It provides good balance to obtain users and provide quality services.

Clearly, China is a fast growing and rapidly changing market. In order to acquire users and complete with others, most of the local companies launch product quickly (75%) and fix it later. This strategy works on some of the well known products like QQ. However, in my opinion, this strategy will work only when the company is still small. It will hurt product and damage brand reputation if you are a much mature company. Most of the users have higher expectation on a well known brand. We all know that it takes a village to build a brand.

After working for international company in China for about a year, I understand the 75% does not just mean 75% of the product. It means the system needs to provide the flexibilities for quick response to the users, market and nimble process. This is one of the reasons why international internet companies are suffering in this market.