Seeing the Unseen

CHAPTER 7Product

Everyone in a tech company needs to think like a product manager.

—Anonymous Chinese internet participant

SO FAR WE HAVE discussed leadership, people, and organization, all of which are core capabilities and competences a tech company in China needs to have in order to grow while withstanding tough competition.

Eventually, all these will need to be translated into products that customers use and pay for. Product is the last piece of our POP-Leadership jigsaw, and interestingly, the part that Chinese internet companies are most confident about in their journey overseas, for some good reasons.

Many Chinese internet products have withstood the test: as of January 2021, WeChat, Tencent's popular social app, has 1.09 billion daily active users; 630 million users have transacted on Meituan's food delivery and other platforms over the past year; and more than 600 million people use TikTok's Chinese version Douyin on a daily basis; Alipay supports more than 1 billion users and 80 million merchants.

Not only the demand but also the fickleness of Chinese consumers have forced these products to evolve constantly. Even some of the smaller tech products, through competition in their own niche sectors, have evolved to be globally competitive.

The product we describe here is not only the tangible offerings, but also intangible services and business models. It is the central vehicle for the companies to interact with the users, deliver value to them, and meanwhile capture ...