Facing the top students from Harvard and MIT, Li Mu's confidence was particularly contagious. He walked slowly on the stage, calm and full of aura, and started his first career on the world stage. A public appearance.
Li Mu said with a smile: "As you know, I started to create several companies one after another during the summer before going to college. Fortunately, one or two of them developed quite well. Now we have We have already expanded the business of one of the companies from China to the United States and to the global market. What is even more fortunate is that we now have more users around the world and a broader space for development, which means that we need to bear The responsibility will be even heavier.”
The audience burst into applause again. Li Mu spoke in a humble tone, using luck to downplay his success, and then using responsibility to explain success. He immediately won further favor and recognition from the tens of thousands of college students in the audience.
"The first project I worked on was a music sharing website. At that time, there were many similar websites in China's Internet industry, and everyone was providing a variety of music listening and downloading services, but I was doing my own thing. When I was building a music website, I once seriously considered a question: If I were to do such a project, what would be my advantages compared with others.”
"I thought at the time, if I could find my unique advantage, then this project could be tried. On the contrary, if I could not find the advantage, then such a project attempt would be meaningless, and at best I could just become a part of the crowd. I After careful and in-depth thinking, I believe that my unique advantage is actually my deeper respect for users."
"At that time, all the music and audio-visual websites on the market only focused on traffic and advertising revenue. They did not study the page, UI, or user experience. They only studied how to use the already messed up page. Add more online advertising to achieve the effect of increasing income, so I decided not only to make an advertising-free music and audio-visual website, but also to make a more beautiful music and audio-visual website to give users a better experience and give users More respect."
“When my music website was finally launched, my efforts quickly bore fruit. All the users who had used my products quickly settled down and became my loyal users. The reason for this is very simple. Respect, just like you prefer restaurants with good taste, good environment, and lower prices.”
"At that time, many people were questioning my music + website. They felt that it was too stupid for me to get so much traffic but not monetize the traffic. But I felt that directly monetizing it was like It is the first industry to reap what you sow. The resource utilization rate is too low, and the loss during the conversion process is too great, which will have a huge impact on the user environment of the entire product."
"So I changed my mind. I have users, but I don't necessarily have to force them to see ads to earn income. I can import them into my next product and let them become my more in-depth users, so I I created a page product called Tieba. It is a minimalist style BBS, but the biggest difference is that I allow users to use any legally permitted keywords as a basis to build a BBS unique to this keyword. This product made me successful. I brought in users from music websites, but I still didn’t choose to advertise this product because I thought I could find a better way to monetize it;”
"At that time, the operating costs of the two-page product were already relatively high. Fortunately, I got financing at that time, but financing is like the living expenses your parents give you. It will be spent one day, so you have to do it. The reason is to prepare for a rainy day before the money is spent;"
"So, under the great pressure to monetize, I created a page Flash*** called "Happy Farm", which is the predecessor of "Paradise Town". Later, "Happy Farm" brought great benefits to the company. We have generated huge cash income, and at the same time, we have also been wildly sought after by users. After users imported all their connections in life and on the Internet into "Happy Farm", we launched YY. Using these users' connections, after YY went online It immediately became the most popular product in the Chinese Internet market, and these are what made Makino Technology what it is today."
It was the first time for students from Harvard and MIT to hear Li Mu talk about his entrepreneurial journey. In just a few minutes, Li Mu explained the ins and outs of the development of Makino Technology and its context, which amazed all the top students in the audience. .
Although Li Mu's development history is frighteningly fast, it is like a chain that was quickly built. Although it takes a short time, every link is there, and every link is extremely solid.
After the applause, Li Mu continued: "The reason why Makino Technology is what it is today is due to the fact that when I came up with the idea of a music website, I did not just keep it in my brain or on paper, but actually put it into practice. Take action.”
"It is precisely because I took the first step and built that music website that I pushed myself step by step to where I am today. If I had just thought about this idea in my head, I might still be sitting in the People's Government In college classes, I received less than a hundred dollars a month from home for living expenses, and studied and lived in a big city nearly a thousand kilometers away from my hometown.”
"You see, on the one hand, it costs the family two thousand dollars a year, and on the other hand, it makes back hundreds of millions of dollars a year, so everyone should now understand how important it is to put the ideas in your mind into action."
There were constant applause, laughter, whistles and shouts from the audience. Although Li Mu spoke very relaxedly, everyone deeply understood the importance of "action" from his words. Before this, although countless people had talked to them I have thought about this before, but no one is as convincing as Li Mu.
When the applause gradually stopped, Li Mu added: "Whether it is in developed countries, developing countries, or poor and backward countries, every young person like us is the most energetic and imaginative. Help people, under the influence of age advantage and hormones, our energy is strong, and our brains are running almost 24/7. Various ideas are being born in everyone's mind all the time, and there must be many of them interesting. Ideas are valuable ideas, but they are just ideas. If we don’t take action, then no matter how good the idea is, it will not bring any help to you or this society in the end. You will still be you, sentimental and whimsical. "
After a burst of knowing laughter, Li Mu continued: "One day last year, when I was studying at Renmin University, one of my roommates said to me that he really hoped to find a part-time tutoring job. He came to work-study program, but he did not make any progress through the traditional way of posting small advertisements. At that time, he was helpless because his family was not in a good situation. He urgently needed to pay part of the tuition and living expenses by himself. He was thin and the only way he could think of was He was working as a part-time tutor, so he thought of this idea and tried to put it into action, but due to practical reasons, he could not find a suitable landing opportunity."
"At that time, an idea suddenly came to my mind. In China, parents are extremely eager to find good tutors for their children who are about to take the college entrance examination; and students like my roommate who can be admitted to Renmin University are themselves It represents his rich experience and knowledge reserve for the college entrance examination. Since this market has sufficient supply and demand, why can't my classmate find an employer?"
All the college students in the audience held their chins and stared at Li Mu without blinking. They had completely entered into Li Mu's rhythm. They listened to what Li Mu said and thought about every question Li Mu asked while telling them. Looking forward to Li Mu announcing his answer.
Immediately, Li Mu paused and said with a smile: "I couldn't understand it at first, but then I figured it out. The supply and demand in the market are very strong, but it is difficult for both supply and demand to successfully trade. So the biggest problem is, It is the lack of a transparent and efficient link between supply and demand.”
"So, an idea came to my mind. Since I have already entered the Internet industry, why not use the Internet's advantage of connecting the world to solve the supply and demand problem of tutors between parents of candidates and college students? The day I thought of this idea , I immediately took action. I locked myself in my room and organized an online platform for hiring tutors. I asked all college students who wanted to be part-time tutors to register as users of this platform and let them add their schools, Majors and college entrance examination scores are published, so parents can choose the most suitable and customized tutor for their children on this platform."
"For example, if someone's son wants to get into Yenching University, then instead of finding some middle school teachers to tutor him, it would be more direct and effective to find a student who has just been admitted to Yenching University, and the freshman will be the same as the students who are about to take the college entrance examination. The students are almost the same age, and there are smoother and more efficient communication channels between them. Not only will the direction of learning be corrected to the maximum extent, but the efficiency of learning will be greatly improved."
"Moreover, online trading has many benefits. I can let students from prestigious universities like you bid openly and get more generous salary returns for them."
"In a short period of time, I built this platform. To make it easy to remember, I registered a purely digital domain name for it, and then led many of my classmates to visit every university and every school in Yanjing. Promotion was carried out in a residential area, and soon, 3321 became popular throughout Yanjing.
Through 3321, tens of thousands of college students have successfully found part-time tutoring jobs and received generous remuneration far beyond their imagination. Among them, the bidding price of a class hour for top college students exceeded one hundred dollars.
In China, an ordinary worker works 180 hours a month and can only earn an average salary of less than US$300. This remuneration of more than US$100 per class hour represents his part-time salary, which is far more than His family's earning capacity.
Yesterday, his parents were still struggling to support him in his studies. Today, he can pay all the expenses for his studies through part-time tutoring, and at the same time, he can create more income to subsidize his parents. "
"In one year, our 3321 service scope has covered all undergraduate colleges and universities in China. Millions of college students are working as part-time tutors on 3321. The monthly platform revenue has exceeded US$500 million. !”
(End of chapter)