世．界．之‧窗－向Facebook、Uber創辦人學習 找出產品的關鍵一句話

How do customers talk about your product? How do they (1)spread the word? An article in Inc. magazine "The Art of Describing a Product in One Sentence " discusses the necessity of (A)crafting the one sentence in early stage.

顧客怎麼談論你的產品？他們怎麼讓其他人知道這個產品？Inc.雜誌有篇文章「一句話描述產品的藝術」討論研發初期，爲產品打造出關鍵一句話的必要性。

In a typical word-of-mouth scenario, something (B)triggered your customer to bring up your product. He is very likely to ask the others, "Have you heard about ABC (the product)?" He follows up with a simplified description of how it works, which usually is a single sentence. It'd be great if the description (C)resonates. If not, your customer will explain why they think it's relevant and move on.

口碑行銷的典型情境中，你的顧客因爲某件事而提起產品，他們很可能像這樣問其他人：「你們聽過ABC（產品名）嗎？」接着簡單敘述產品的功能，通常只用一句話。敘述如果引起共鳴，就成功了，沒有引起共鳴的話，顧客會解釋爲什麼自己提起這個產品，然後繼續其他話題。

When researching "how founders of successful startups presented the products before they were well-known", the author found that viral products tend to have a "lead feature" which you can simply describe. In an early interview before Facebook's IPO, Mark Zuckerberg describes Facebook as:"Something where you can type someone's name and find out a bunch of information about them."Simply and practically, Mark Zuckerberg describes the "ability to view profiles of real people," one of Facebook's key features. He didn't talk about 'social networks' or "helping the world to connect to each other."

文章作者研究「成功的新創公司創辦人，都怎麼描述還沒沒無聞的產品」，發現獲得病毒式傳播的產品，都有一個容易描述的「主打特色」。早期在Facebook公開募股前，Mark Zuckerberg在訪問中這樣描述Facebook：「打出一個人的名字，就可以找到一堆他的個人資訊。」簡單又實際地描述了Facebook的關鍵特色-瀏覽一般人的個人檔案，沒有談到「社羣網路」或「幫助世界連結彼此。」

Travis Kalanick, founder of Uber, also described Uber in an 2011 interview as a mobile app where "You push a button and in five minutes a Mercedes picks you up and takes you where you want to go." There is no buzzwords like platform or marketplace. He focuses on just one button and the appealing outcome. Today, it's been simplified to "Tap a button, get a ride."

Uber創辦人Travis Kalanick在2011的訪問中，也將Uber形容做一個手機app，「按個鍵，五分鐘內就有一臺賓士載你到想去的地方。」這段話沒有平臺或交易市集這樣的熱門字眼，重點在一個按鍵帶來吸引人的結果。這句話現在更精簡成：點一下就搞定一趟車。

"The format of both descriptions is the same: 'You do X and Y happens.' X is the input and Y is the output. This input-output pair matches our intuition about how software works. Simplifying the product as a straightforward input and desirable output creates the sense that it's an ingenious idea," says the author. "Facebook and Uber have thousands of features, yet Mark and Travis elevate a single feature above the others, making the product easy to understand, easy to remember, and, most importantly, easy to talk about."

「上述兩句描述他們產品的方法如出一轍：『進行X，Y就會發生。』」X是輸入，Y是輸出，只因爲輸入輸出的概念符合人對軟體運作的直覺。把產品簡化成直接的輸入，和具吸引力的產出，構想就顯得巧妙、獨創。」作者這麼說。「Facebook和Uber的功能何其多，但創辦人只提升了其中一項特色，讓產品易於被理解、被記憶、最重要的是易於被談論。」

The author believes that even the most complicated platform can be simplified with an illustrative lead feature. But if your product is the exception, word of mouth is not the best idea to grow your business. If it's hard for you to describe, it's going to be harder for the customers.（下轉D11）

世界公民，這是商業英語的last mile！

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