This is a tool+social product for college students. College students can not only choose courses, but also let you know the "people with destiny" who take classes together. Surprisingly, when the number of users of this product exceeded one million, there were only four people in the team. How did they do it? Li Tianfang, co-founder of Curriculum Grid, answered this question at the Zhihu. Li Tianfang worked as a software engineer at Microsoft before, and then went to Silicon Valley startups and innovation works. The article is as follows: About millions of users, several friends are right: In the era of mobile Internet, it is not uncommon for a small team or even an independent developer to make millions or even tens of millions of user-level products as long as they find a good starting point, iterate quickly and add a little luck. Our team is so small for two main reasons. First of all, we firmly believe that early league members must find the best and best match. No matter how anxious we are and how many things we can't do, we won't lower our standards. Until a few months ago, only another engineer and I wrote code on the team. He does android, web, chat, and I do backstage, data analysis, and iOS. At that time, the team that made similar products with us was more than twenty or thirty people. If I need to go out for financing or talk about cooperation, the team will not be able to issue a new version for several weeks. In this case, I will still refuse dozens of unqualified interviewers in a row. The team will also question whether I am asking too much, or whether I can recruit a few emergency workers first, but I refused. During this period, investors and founding partners were worried to death by me many times. Actually, I was worried myself at that time. But looking back, I still think my insistence is right. Team culture is self-replicating. What are the first few people like, and what will the whole company look like in the future? Once locked, it cannot be changed. The second reason is actually a serious mistake of mine. I have seen many fairy tales in Silicon Valley, which makes me feel that starting a business should be like others' Instagram, where four or five engineers make a good product and snowball into the arms of big companies. These stories make me think that small teams are the coolest. Not long ago, I realized that the story of Instagram belongs only to Silicon Valley. The entrepreneurial environment in China is very different. There are many stumbling blocks, robbers and hitchhikers along the way. It's dangerous for four or five nerds to go this way. There are also big companies waiting for you on this road, but they often don't have a check in their hands. In fact, for those top entrepreneurial teams, it is not difficult to make a million-level product with only a few people. They choose not to do this because it is not a meaningful goal. As long as the demand can be met, users don't care whether a product is made by 4 people or 40 people. Similarly, investors don't care whether your growth is natural or not, and they don't care if you spend hundreds of thousands a month. Top VC will consider the efficiency and scalability of a team, but there are also many investors who only look at superficial data, listen to stories and pay for it. If I had answered this question proudly a year ago, I would have made the following small team public. But now I think this is not a good thing, and even regret not waking up earlier. In the past few months, we have made many adjustments, and now our team is more complete and powerful than then. Our role model is no longer those Instagram stories, but to build a diverse team that can accommodate both nerds and fighters. (Photo: Screenshot of the product of the iOS version of the course grid) Attachment: Sean from innovation works commented on this team on Zhihu. I think 654.38+00,000 users are not a big number in this era of mobile Internet. Don't need too many people. But the curriculum grid captures several points: 1. The right product. They are adjusted from the plan FM. When planning FM, they have already seen people's need to arrange their own schedules. However, it is too extensive, and everyone has to make all the plans, so it is difficult to concentrate. It is a strong demand and a hard demand for students to make courses. In the Internet age, small is big. 2. Excellent engineer. When innovation works invested in Li Tianfang, he was alone, but we thought he was a super engineer. The work experience of Microsoft, especially Palantir, is enough to prove this point. So, although there are few people, we may be able to treat one as ten. This is not a pure head counting game. 3. The operation is very good. I don't know exactly how to do it, but it is a necessary prerequisite to bring most courses directly to most universities in China. They did it.