Recently, many people came to us for advice, wondering why we could develop so many and complex trading platforms with so few people. Now we have 35 people in the product technology department, but we have developed: 7 APPS + 1 operation support platform + 1 data analysis platform, we never pursue crowd tactics, we don’t even have a test engineer, then how do we build such an efficient development team?
Before building a technical team, we need to know what the requirements of B2B business are for the technical team. B2B businesses have their own characteristics, and team requirements are different from other businesses: B2B businesses and products have the following characteristics:
1, B2B business is different from ToC business, the instant turnover is not too large, so the technical challenge of B2B business is not high concurrency, but high business complexity;
2. B2B business emphasizes the cost performance and service of goods. Before large-scale roll-out, the product side does not pursue the ultimate user experience, and even tolerates some small bugs occasionally;
3. In B2B business, customers do not have a strong desire for impulse purchase. They only place orders according to their own business scale, instead of flashy product introduction like Taobao, the order should be as simple as possible.
4, B2B business changes very fast, must be fast iteration, technical staff development efficiency is very high;
OK, these four characteristics, it is the characteristics of our business, we are in a team, some natural and ToC team is different, generally a product technical department has the largest number of teams need four, respectively is: UED, product managers, technology development (including the front end, server, database development, etc.), the tester; See what kind of talents are needed from these roles below:
For the product manager, according to the business characteristics summarized above, it is very important for the product manager to have the following abilities:
1, the product manager has strong ability of logical thinking, because of high complexity of B2B business, such as the entire trading session, from the registration, to the goods distribution, pricing, payment, order, purchasing, logistics, transportation, delivery and after-sales service, the whole business process is very long, involved in many processes and status, if the logical thinking ability is not strong could not speak clearly, It is also impossible to make clear the process and logic of the product, which is a disaster for the subsequent product development.
2. Product managers need strong empathy. For trading platforms, there are many roles. Another example is CRM system product manager. If you do not understand the working environment and psychological characteristics of sales, you can only sit in the office and YY products, and you cannot make good CRM products.
3. Product managers need strong communication and coordination skills. For example, in B2B trading platforms, no matter internal or external products, there will be a lot of trading rules, so they need to communicate with all parties and balance the interests of all parties.
4, the product manager need strong ability of platform construction, B side business more energy on business metrics, business indicators tend to be short and not very long, it will need to think a product manager at this moment, can not only meet the business immediate demand, want to think about the future of the platform, thinking about what kind of data we precipitation, Thinking about what platforms we want to grow in the future and preparing for them;
For technical development, it is usually a group with the largest number of people in the product technical department. If subdivided, the group has the largest number of people in the service side and front-end development. B2B service side developers need to have the following abilities:
1, need strong ability of architecture, the architecture here refers to the ability of business architecture, the above said, B side business high concurrency situation is not much, the difficulty lies in the complex business, senior service side need to take the business model, the relationship between the business entity comb very clear, in the business of ToB, business architects is popular than pure technical architect, For example, technical people who can quickly understand the business, quickly build the technical architecture, and quickly implement it are scarce in every B2B company;
2, need to be in addition to coding ability of database management, operations, project management, and other comprehensive ability, because it is a start-up company, jobs can’t be complete, which requires the programmers are not limited to coding, from system analysis, to code, database management, operations, and even test, is done by the developer, especially start-ups, developers are universal, In this way, the development efficiency is the highest. We develop a product from demand analysis, and it will be released in two weeks, requiring developers to respond quickly.
3, B side development in pursuit of efficiency, developers need to possess solid technical strength and broad horizons, the service side after years of accumulation, a variety of middleware, development tools, relative to the mature, solid technical strength, eyes open, middleware, tools can be used up, can greatly improve the development efficiency;
Similarly, for front-end developers, due to the characteristics of front-end technology, we can summarize the following four abilities:
1. Strong learning ability is required. With the rapid development of front-end in recent years, new solutions are constantly emerging. For example, wechat mini program/public account, all the means to improve efficiency in the toB business scenario need to be actively studied and carefully implemented, which requires the front end to have the ability to adapt quickly, with an open mind to embrace the community’s excellent plan.
2, need strong ability of project cooperation, fresh B2B flow path, the link is very long, each node can produce the products, with a new business concept behind these products, and this App, different front-end engineer is likely to be involved in, when involved in the business cooperation by party/design/product/service side also is different, Effective communication between the front end and the partner is needed to quickly understand the interaction patterns of products and the business path behind them, so as to effectively discover and promote problems in the project.
3. Cross-terminal programming and experience optimization ability. Different terminals mean different physical devices and use scenarios, as well as different user groups. Host environment, layout principle, system specification, interface ability are also different, this would require the front end have understanding of different, not only in programming skills, robustness, across the server-side component reuse has good practice above, at the same time for the real end user interaction mode and experience have more accurate judgment, the front is the closest to the user on the user experience group, Because the front-end’s job is to output the experience in code.
4. Creative engineering infrastructure. Although community tools are constantly innovating in terms of engineering guarantee and online operation stability, new wheels are overlapping old wheels without systematic schemes, especially ReactNative, which was launched in 2015 as the main technology stack for small dishes, and even small programs are even lacking in this aspect. This requires front-end engineers to make use of node. js, a handy tool, to quickly develop tool systems suitable for toB engineering scenarios within and outside the team and up and down the business flow, so as to ensure front-end r&d efficiency and online product experience.
When we sorted out the core competencies required by these core roles, we started to find people. For startups, finding people is very, very difficult, usually in several ways:
1, kill familiar, the first batch of technical personnel, mostly through their own past work experience or circle, because at the beginning of the company nothing, only each other’s trust, put the people around you first go over it, our first batch of product technical personnel, mostly “kill familiar” to;
2. Recruitment with personal influence. As the person in charge of the product technology Department, I need to have a certain influence outside.
3, recommend, use all the resources around to help you recommend talents, whether it is to do business or marketing friends, in their side may have the talent you want.
4, outside, early is difficult, small company reputation, and even a lot of people don’t come in for an interview, or say here for an interview will be stood you, this is normal, the first year we met an engineer to even on the along while class just sneak out of the situation, because the first day to just the company will stand, CEO scare about you), but when people come in for an interview, If it feels good, becomes “the detective + BD” job interview, a good engineer, have 4, 5 offer very normal, in the second half of the interview, will your BD work, speak, speak team, about prospects of the company, it will be his choice of one of the key factors, a good interviewer is also a good sales;
All things are difficult before they are easy, once the company running up slowly, the company has the fame, also slowly established industry status, at this stage, can increase the company’s PR and technology PR, organize industry meeting, establish the influence of the technology, the recruitment will be relatively easy to some, various warrior will slowly close to you.
About how to set up efficient raw B2B platform, because of the large contents, also is very complex, unable to give you an article, this article is just beginning, the following will be divided into several articles from industry present situation, the situation of business and product overview, technical team building, the server-side technology platform, the front-end development, such as multiple dimensions to tell, We will be more than three years in the B2B field of the precipitation of core products and technology platform to open, hope that more people in the industry can have a deeper understanding, less detdetments, hope to help you, the distribution of this series of articles is as follows (will continue to update) :
1, “How to build an efficient FRESH B2B platform (B2B technology sharing the first article)”
2, “Song Xiaocai how to enter the fresh B2B market (B2B Technology sharing second)”
3, “fresh B2B platform product system iteration (B2B technology sharing third chapter)”
4, “fresh B2B how to build an efficient technical team (B2B technology sharing fourth chapter)”
5, “how to build fresh B2B technology system from 0 to 1 (B2B technology sharing fifth chapter)”
6, song Xiaocai technology how to deal with the rapid change of fresh B2B business (B2B technology sharing sixth chapter)
7, “fresh B2B technology platform front-end team how to build (B2B technology sharing seventh)”
8, Song Xiaocai about “Ability” design and Thinking (B2B Technology Sharing chapter 8)
9. Design and Thinking of Service Separation (B2B Technology Sharing chapter 9)