Du Wei said that the British girl didn't reply to her messages all day long, and she didn't reply to her email or MSN. She was probably focused on being a backpacker and hadn't taken time to surf the Internet.
Li Mu also knew that it was useless to be impatient, so he asked her to let nature take its course. Now she can only wait for the other party to come online before establishing contact.
In addition to the MP3 player, Li Mu has many things to keep busy with.
The first is YY.
Within a week of going online, YY users exceeded 50 million, and the growth rate is still very fast.
Unlike QQ’s so-called over 100 million users, YY’s user activity level is too high.
Today's QQ has a large number of overlapping accounts and zombie users. A considerable number of people have two or more QQ accounts, and a considerable number of people rarely log in, with the average login frequency even exceeding a week.
In other words, except for some possible overlapping accounts, the current 50 million users of YY are almost all highly active users of the Internet.
According to synchronized data provided by Happy Farm, 41 million of the 50 million YY users have bound Tieba and Happy Farm IDs, which means that there are more than 40 million highly active users.
Forty million people brought not only the popularity of a software, but also a large cash inflow of value-added services. In just seven days, YY's value-added services attracted more than 100 million.
Makino Technology’s calculation specialist believes that based on the current user base, YY’s current monthly revenue capacity in value-added services should be around 200 million yuan. Now many manufacturers are actively contacting Makino Technology’s business personnel, hoping to get When they came to the quotation list of YY promotional resources, they hoped to place advertisements on YY. Li Mu did not agree. His instructions were very simple. YY would not accept any advertisements for the time being.
The news that Makino Technology does not accept advertising soon spread in the industry. There are not many fools in the Internet industry. Li Mu does not want the money sent to his door. It is not because he is arrogant or because he does not care about money, but because he believes He pays more attention to user experience than money.
There are rumors that QQ just sells advertisements in dialog boxes, and its monthly income can exceed 10 million. Judging from the huge user base and display effect of QQ, it is worth the price, or even more. This is why Tencent One of the reasons why training has never needed financing is because it is really good at using existing resources to make money.
Li Mu feels that if YY's dialog box imitates QQ and has several constantly flashing and changing horizontal banner advertisements, the impact on the user experience will be too bad. It's fine when there is only one company in the market, and users have no choice. But when there are competitors in the market, Li Mu is not willing to do this kind of thing.
Therefore, Li Mu told Makino Technology’s business department that as long as QQ’s daily active users were more than 300,000, YY would not consider accepting advertising.
This statement was directly conveyed by the commerce department to merchants interested in advertising on YY, which immediately caused an uproar in the Internet industry.
Some people say that Makino Technology is too arrogant, but some people think that this is the best choice; some people say that Makino Technology's competitive methods are too rough, and some people think that this method is the most effective way.
Li Mu's words are equivalent to the requirements that Liu Edong made to the book team in order to suppress Dangdang when he established Jingdong's book department: the book and audio-visual department is not allowed to earn a penny of gross profit for the company within three years, or it is not allowed to earn a penny for five years. Money net profit, otherwise the entire department will be fired.
Liu Edong's meaning is very simple, and it is the same as what Li Mu is releasing now, that is: I can kill my competitors without making any money!
There is no mercy in the shopping mall. In the past few years, the domestic Internet competition was about who looked better and who was easier to use. Now Li Mu is competing about: who can survive longer when hungry, and who can live longer after being stripped naked and thrown into the snow. Live longer. This is the model of Internet competition in the next few years. For today's Internet people, it is already cruel in a way that they have never experienced. If the Internet waits another ten years, the competition methods will be even more cruel and evolve. Cheng: Everyone takes out all their money and scatters it to see who can attract more people to grab it, and whoever can scatter it for a longer time will win. Of course, when the competition reaches this level, in the end both sides will basically win. If you can't bear it any longer, you put away your swords and guns, make peace with each other, put all your belongings together, stop throwing away money, and start extracting money from users together.
Recently, Tengxun has been in turmoil and chaos due to the birth of YY. Originally, it could only watch the loss of users without any solution. Now Li Mu suddenly said such a sentence, which made the entire company even more confused. A layer of haze.
Li Mu's arrogance deeply hurt the entire company, but what really pierced their hearts was the naked reality.
Although QQ has begun to develop group functions and personal cartoon show functions, but according to this trend, before they have developed the functions, QQ's daily active users have dropped to less than one million people. Now, although the company still has several large Ten million, but the income is constantly declining, and it will soon be unable to make ends meet. If it reaches that point, it will not be far from bankruptcy.
While a group of senior executives were thinking hard about countermeasures, representatives of the South African MIH Group rushed to the Shenzhen Stock Exchange from Hong Kong. They held 33% of Tengxun's shares and were really anxious.
At present, Tengxun's equity structure is still very simple. The team accounts for about 60%, MIH Group accounts for 33%, and the remaining 7% is in the hands of IDG.
However, the team's 60% equity is relatively dispersed, and even Mr. Ma himself cannot reach such a high ratio of 33%. Therefore, the company's real major shareholder now is MIH.
Historically, MIH has always had more trust and tolerance for Tengxun than ordinary investment companies. They have had a very firm belief in Tengxun's future from the beginning, which is why they grew their children from the Li family, the richest man in Hong Kong. It took away 20% of Tencent's shares, and took away the remaining shares from IDG, and has always held shares. Except for the listing, MIH has never taken the initiative to reduce its holdings of Tengxun's shares.
But... this was a fucking past life after all.
In this life, Li Mu has been working hard and sneaking into Chencang, digging such a big hole for QQ. Seeing that QQ is about to fall into the abyss, MIH can't sit still.
Their representative, a white man named Dean Cooper, arrived in Shenzhen City to interview Mr. Ma and made a suggestion: QQ must immediately give up profits and sacrifice profits in exchange for users. If you look at money, the more you look at money, the longer you will live. Therefore, MIH’s suggestion is: stop all advertising cooperation, give away value-added services such as QQ membership for free or offer discounts at very low prices, or think of other ways to give back to users. In short, it is all to bring closer the previous intimacy between QQ and users;
Mr. Ma gave his own answer based on the suggestion made by Dean on behalf of MIH.
"Mr. Dean, to be honest, I am willing to give up profits temporarily to compete with Makino Technology, but Tengxun and Makino Technology are different. All of Tengxun's current income comes from QQ, while Makino Technology's income comes from Happy Farm. Now YY only gave up the income from commercial advertising, but did not give up the income from value-added services. If Tengxun stopped all value-added services and advertising business, then the tens of millions on the books alone would be enough to To support it for half a year, a huge team needs to be maintained, a large number of servers and supporting bandwidth services need to be provided, and the company's other miscellaneous expenses are also a large sum of money. Without income, it really can't last long."
Dean said: "Mr. Ma, this is also an issue I want to discuss with you this time. We at MIH are not willing to watch QQ fall. Therefore, we are willing to increase our holdings of Tengxun shares at this stage. We are already working with IDG communicated and took over 7% of their shares. We are also willing to acquire another 20% of Tengxun shares from you and your team at a more reasonable valuation. However, we have one requirement, that is All acquisition funds must be reserved for Tengxun’s subsequent operations, and you and your team are not allowed to cash out.”
With that said, Dean added: "Of course, in order to show our MIH's determination to tide over the difficulties with you, we are willing to add an additional 20% of the acquisition price to Tengxun, and all of it will be used for operations."
MIH's meaning is obvious. They don't want to let QQ be defeated by YY and make the shares in their hands worthless. They want to get some more money to give it a try. If they want to lose, they will lose more. But if Teng If you take the training, then MIH will make a lot of money from this investment! This is what venture capital is all about!
If Tengxun was prosperous and prosperous, it would be almost impossible to get the 7% shares from IDG or get more shares from the founding team. Even if it was possible, it would have to be extremely high. The cost of the premium is enough, but now in this critical moment, there is a lot of room for the price of share transactions to be suppressed. Even if the price cannot be suppressed too hard, at least the premium can be wiped out.
Mr. Ma hesitated for a moment. If we don’t carry on with the current situation with Makino Technology, QQ may die. If QQ dies, all our efforts will be in vain. The little money on the books will be used to pay severance packages to employees and shareholders. After spending money, there is basically nothing left, which means that I actually have no way out. If I stay defensive, in the end the company will be disbanded, the most I will get is a few million and I will leave. If I take the initiative to attack, in the end I will get nothing at most. It's just that you can't get a penny for being laid off. From this point of view, you have to fight hard to be willing to accept it.
However, if you agree to MIH's request and MIH takes 7% of IDG, plus 20% of its own team, then the shareholding ratio will reach an astonishing 60%. By then, MIH will have absolute control, and the company will still be able to return to the company. Are you in control
Mr. Ma thought for a moment and said to Dean: "Let's talk about the specific financing ratio and valuation slowly and in detail. My idea is that if we can negotiate a ratio and price that is acceptable to both parties, then we will First sign a memorandum, and then we set a warning line for the book funds. If the funds reach the warning line, we will transfer the equity according to the terms signed in the memorandum."
For Mr. Ma, he has never been in such a mess since he started his business. Since mid-2001, he has led QQ to continue to climb high with high spirits. Just when he was satisfied, he did not expect that Makino suddenly appeared. Technology has given him a blow in the head. Although this blow is very painful, if he gives up his position as the company's major shareholder now because of the immediate pain, it will obviously be difficult for him to accept it. However, he also understands that if he waits until If he really couldn't hold it any longer and tried to transfer the shares, the valuation would definitely drop horribly at that time, so he hoped to negotiate the ratio and price now, and then wait until he couldn't bear it any longer before accepting it.
Both Dean and MIH also expected that the Jockey Club would make similar requests. Dean had already received MIH's instructions before coming. Their main purpose this time was to help Teng Xun tide over the difficulties, and at the same time ensure that his previous investment would not be compromised. They will waste time, so if Mr. Ma doesn't want to transfer the shares so early, they won't force it. Everything will focus on solving the problem. Since Mr. Ma now wants to set the terms first, and then leave it to him to think about it. , MIH will naturally not add insult to injury.
So, Dean said: "In principle, I can accept your proposal, but I have to report the specific terms of the memorandum to the group before I can reply to you."
Mr. Ma nodded, relaxed a little, and said: "It doesn't matter, Mr. Dean, we are old acquaintances, and we are comrades on the same front. I will arrange for you to live in Shenzhen City for the next few days. The details are Let’s communicate slowly.”
Dean said: "No problem, I will stay in Shenzhen City for the next few days."
After a pause, Dean continued: "Mr. Ma, this is just the first point. This time I am here, the group has another suggestion that I would like to convey to you."
Mr. Ma said hurriedly: "Please tell me."
Dean said: "We have also studied YY of Makino Technology. Based on the opinions of some of our analysts, we hope that QQ can also put more effort into product development. It is best to find new breakthroughs in products immediately. To be honest, , we feel that if QQ only imitates the functions of YY, it will definitely die. Now we can only develop new products with all our strength and strive to catch up with YY in the product itself to reverse this situation."
Mr. Ma pursed his lips and nodded heavily.
He didn't think so, but if a new product suddenly had to be developed, everyone would turn a blind eye and want to use a new product to reverse the situation, which meant that the new product must be powerful enough. Where can I find one in a short time? An idea for a powerful new product
At this moment, Guo Haiming suddenly slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "Mr. Ma, do you still remember that you had a very powerful idea about chess and card games? You said at the beginning that if there was such a The game lobby, directly integrated into our QQ, can kill Lianzhong instantly... "
Mr. Ma suddenly stood up, really stood up from his chair.
He was only reminded of this by Guo Haiming. In fact, he had an awesome product idea a few months ago. At that time, he wanted to imitate Lianzhong and build a QQ game hall, but because he had QQ, a powerful instant messaging software, Now, users and their friends can be seamlessly transferred to the QQ game lobby, and chess and card games can be used to enhance the stickiness of QQ users.
It's a pity that I was too confident about the situation at the beginning and allocated most of my technical development strength to Guo Haiming to build QQ fishery!
When he thought of this, Mr. Ma felt very regretful. At first, he thought that after Guo Haiming killed Happy Farm, he would then go all out to build a QQ game hall. However, he did not expect that things would step by step reach this bullshit stage!
The third update is here. Today I have updated more than 10,000 words. I just want to thank all the book lovers who have subscribed to this book, rewarded this book, voted for this book, and voted for this book monthly. Are you okay? You will be the motivation for Bu Ge to continue to move forward unswervingly. No matter how busy he is at work, Bu Ge will try his best to update and repay everyone. Thank you very much!
(End of chapter)