The venture capital community is indeed crazy.
For such a long time, everyone has heard various gossips about Makino Technology and Li Mu. Many people have said with certainty: "Don't think about it, Makino Technology will not integrate Series C. Li Mu has long said that, His goal is to go public directly after Series B."
No one doubts this statement.
There is no way, Li Mu is such an incredible and awesome person, everyone has been tortured by him and re-established a new outlook on things.
Although the venture capital circle felt particularly disappointed at not being able to get a foothold in Makino Technology, when they thought about it, everyone was in trouble, so it was balanced.
However, no one expected that such an awesome person would suddenly regret it.
Li Mu held a core-level meeting at Muye Technology, and the first thing he said was to raise Series C. This incident made the big guys in the venture capital circle want to block the door of Li Mu's office with money. As soon as he came out, he took out the check and spoke. Ask: "Master, how much do you want?"
And Li Mu’s subsequent attitude was also very thought-provoking. He didn’t have the attitude of other companies that wanted to raise funds, and he had no plans to visit investors, let alone visit investors. He was not even willing to meet any investors directly, and he asked his subordinates to The person in charge of capital operations came out and conveyed a message to the venture capital circle: Those who are interested in investing in the C round of Makino Technology should bring their own prices.
This gesture is too awesome. Who is not trying to curry favor with other investors when financing? At present, most of China's Internet industry is funded by overseas capital. How did this capital come from? Which sum of money was not made by begging grandpa to sue grandma, patting breasts and bragging? Li Mu said no. The A and B rounds were not underestimated by any employer. Now the C round is even more high-profile.
But there is nothing we can do. Ever since Makino Technology killed Tengxun QQ, it has become the unrivaled presence in the Chinese Internet. In this era when everyone is still peeing and muddy, Li Mu has already played with the mature concept of closed-loop Internet ecology. As the saying goes, a monofilament cannot make a thread. When Internet companies are still weaving monofilaments, Li Mu has already made steel wire ropes and swung them all over the sand.
As soon as the news of Makino Technology's Series C financing came out, the venture capital industry immediately announced that it would enter a state of 24-hour overtime. Now, wanting to invest in Makino Technology is like bidding. You have to quickly study the other party's specific materials, and then submit your own bid. The most important thing is to bid. Quotation, this is so critical. If the quotation is exceeded by other companies, then it will basically say goodbye to Makino Technology completely.
While the entire venture capital industry was preparing intensively, Master Lei was at a loss in Zhu City.
The influence of the beast Makino Technology is too great. It can affect the entire industry with just a little action, which makes him feel extremely uneasy.
He began to think about his current business layout. There was not much room for the software business, and the game business originally had room for imagination. However, Li Mu suddenly came out and poached his core team in the game business. This also meant that the overall progress of the game business It will be greatly affected. In addition, what is more important is not that the core team of Xishanju has been poached, but that Makino Technology has poached them.
Why does Makino Technology want to poach Xishanju people? I definitely have to make my own game.
Now this company has a strong YY ecological chain. If it really wants to make games, it should be unparalleled in the game industry. In that case, how will Kingsoft position its game business next? Should we continue to recruit people and build a team to continue the work, or should we disband on the spot
If we continue to build a team, and people continue to recruit, trial and error, run-in, form team combat effectiveness, and then focus on development, the whole pace is too slow, and the investment is not small. When your own online game comes out, maybe Makino Technology’s online game will also be online. What to do then? How can it be compared with Makino Technology
If they were disbanded on the spot, what else would they pursue? Xishanju is gone; Excellence will either disappear or die, and we can’t keep it anyway; Kingsoft is still left, how can we play with it
The last time I met Li Mu, he said that he was not optimistic about Kingsoft, but more optimistic about himself. Does this mean that he is also prepared to kill software and other software? In that case, where will the future of Jinshan go
The most incomprehensible thing is that Li Mu can produce awesome products faster than making sausages. Every product is so awesome, and the development interval is extremely short. In the future, Kingsoft will really compete with Kingsoft. Why compete with him
Thinking of this problem, Leader Lei felt a little desperate and began to really consider Li Mu's previous invitation to him.
At present, two of Jinshan's three businesses have been abolished by Li Mu, and the prospects are worrying. The so-called good bird chooses its tree to roost. If Jinshan's development cannot be guaranteed, he might as well accept Li Mu's invitation and join his camp.
Immediately, Leader Lei thought of someone.
Mr. Ma, the founder of Tengxun.
He and Mr. Ma had a lot of intersections. When Mr. Ma first started his business, he approached him to try to raise funds for QQ. At that time, Master Lei was not optimistic about his model, but when Tengxun QQ users started to increase, he There was a moment of regret, but then Li Mu's appearance made him feel lucky in his heart. It seemed that his vision was correct. If he thought he couldn't do it, he really couldn't do it...
The reason why Leader Lei thought of Mr. Ma at this time was because he felt that Mr. Ma should be one of the people who knew Li Mu best. After all, he had competed so fiercely with him, and he even thought that he would completely crush Li Mu, a newborn calf. , but unexpectedly, the battle situation was overturned overnight, and Li Mu in turn crushed QQ to the point of stopping maintenance.
Leader Lei really wanted to have a chat with Mr. Ma before making the final decision and ask him what he thought of Li Mu, what he thought of the future of Makino Technology or Taobao.
Coincidentally, I happen to be in Zhushi, across the sea from Shenzhen City where Mr. Ma is located, and can be reached by boat in an hour.
So Leader Lei asked someone to find out Mr. Ma's mobile phone number and gave him a call.
Since QQ stopped maintaining, Mr. Ma has been researching new products. The field of instant messaging was dominated by Makino Technology. He also decisively gave up the instant messaging category. For a long time, he was dealing with Tengxun Company's The capital issue has finally been sorted out, and it has entered a continued downturn. I have tried to develop other products before, but have never adjusted well, nor have I chosen a good field and direction.
Suddenly receiving a call from Leader Lei, Mr. Ma was quite surprised. Leader Lei’s status in the industry has always been much higher than his. He tried to catch up and almost caught up with him, but he didn’t expect that Li Mu would appear halfway. .
Now Mr. Ma feels that there is a huge gap between himself and Master Lei, and he did not expect that he would take the initiative to call him.
Leader Lei came up and asked, "Mr. Ma, long time no see. What have you been busy with lately?"
Mr. Ma said: "I haven't seen Mr. Lei for a long time. I haven't done much recently. I'm trying to find new product ideas and I'm still working on it."
Leader Lei asked: "Are you still in Shenzhen City now?"
"Yes, always."
Leader Lei said: "I happen to be in Zhushi, not far from you. I have finished the things at hand. I want to ask if you have time. If so, I will go to Shenzhen to meet you."
As soon as Mr. Ma heard this, he immediately said: "If you have time, when will you come over?"
Leader Lei looked at the time and said, "Let's do this. I'll take the boat later. You give me an address. I'll try to get there before six o'clock, and then we can have dinner together."
"Okay Mr. Lei, I will send the address to your mobile phone."
…
Leader Lei took a boat from Zhu City alone and arrived in Shenzhen City in more than an hour. Although Mr. Ma left him an address, considering that the other party was a big boss in the industry, he went to the dock to pick him up.
After the two met, Mr. Ma took a taxi and took Mr. Lei to find a good Chaoshan-style restaurant in Shannan District. After the two sat down, they ordered some food and started chatting casually.
Leader Lei wanted to take Mr. Ma to have a few drinks, but Mr. Ma hesitated for a moment and agreed.
After three rounds of drinking, both of them were a little tipsy, and the chat became more casual.
Mr. Ma asked Master Lei: "When you came to Zhushi, you should have gone to Xishanju, right?"
Mr. Ma is very familiar with the Internet industry and knows that Jinshan has a game studio called Xishanju, which is located in Zhu City.
Leader Lei smiled slightly, nodded, and then sighed: "The core development team of Xishanju was taken over by Makino Technology."
"Makino Technology?" Mr. Ma's expression suddenly became extremely complicated. After a moment, he sighed: "Li Mu is going to play a game!"
Leader Lei nodded and said, "Yes, they have such a good foundation. If there are more good games, the domestic online game market will change drastically."
Mr. Ma gave a bitter smile: "No way, this is the effect of a high-viscosity user group. YY's user viscosity is too high, and the conversion rate is also high. In theory, no matter what Internet product it makes, it has a foundation and a higher starting point than other companies. There’s more than one level.”
Leader Lei smacked his lips and asked Mr. Ma: "How powerful do you think Li Mu is? How long can he maintain this destructive momentum?"
When Mr. Ma heard this question, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He didn't speak for a long time. Then, he sighed and said, "I come from a technical background. I can responsibly say that Li Mu is a perverted Internet genius." , CCTV said that he is the pride of the Internet, this sentence is not an exaggeration at all."
Leader Lei couldn't help but ask: "How to say?"
Mr. Ma spread his hands: "I am the best example. What a great situation QQ was at that time! There were nearly 100 million registered users and tens of millions of actual users. At that time, China's tens of millions of Internet users almost had an average of nearly two QQ accounts. But just Because he failed to see through Li Mu's tactics, he counterattacked after being dragged down. The battle only lasted one round, and QQ was completely defeated."
Leader Lei asked: "QQ failed because of Li Mu's "Happy Farm", right? I don't know much about that product. Is it really that powerful?"
Mr. Ma shook his head: "I want to tell you, Mr. Lei, don't be angry."
Leader Lei nodded repeatedly: "Please tell me."
Mr. Ma said: "Only people who can't see clearly will think that QQ has lost to "Happy Farm", but this is not the case at all. Li Mu originally launched "Happy Farm" in order to cultivate user connections within his product system. . You also know that the most important thing about social networking is connections, and this is even more true for social software. However, the game "Happy Farm" is indeed magical. It is a product that encourages users to constantly add friends, so a period of operation of "Happy Farm" After a while, the personal connections users have developed on it have more than doubled that of QQ.”
After a pause, Mr. Ma continued: "There was a statistical result at that time. The per capita number of friends for registered users of QQ was 82, but the per capita number of friends for registered users of "Happy Farm" exceeded 200... "
Leader Lei said: "In this way, the main reason is still because of "Farm"."
"No." Mr. Ma shook his head and said: "No matter how well-connected the users of "Happy Farm" are, it is just a game, and QQ is an instant messaging software. There is no direct competition between the two parties, and of course QQ will not directly fail. The reason why QQ failed is that it lost to YY! When YY was first launched, the overall quality was too strong, and it was simply an era ahead of me. The interface design is much better than QQ, and the user experience is not on the same level. Things, and what’s even more powerful are the new product features, which are simply amazing. The most powerful one is the YY group, which has a fatal blow to QQ.”
"Did you know that on the night YY went online, after Happy Farm's user connections were directly transplanted to YY, the YY group immediately became popular. A maintenance supervisor of my company heard in the YY classmate group that night that his ex-girlfriend was in Yanjing, I bought a train ticket to go to Yanjing that night, and later I heard that I had joined Makino Technology. You said that after YY, a product that is ahead of QQ in all aspects, was launched, it transplanted users’ accumulation on "Happy Farm" with zero threshold. How could I hold on despite my huge network of contacts and crushing QQ in all aspects? Moreover, I realized later that it wasn’t until YY was launched that I fully understood Li Mu’s true purpose of making “Happy Farm”. “Happy Farm” was his attempt to defeat The product I developed, before YY was launched, had been playing the role of sneaking through Chencang."
Leader Lei suddenly realized that he had never paid much attention to the field of instant messaging. This was the first time he heard about the details today.
At this time, Leader Lei couldn't help but sigh: "This young man is really not simple... Any software developed by Jinshan is a big project that is time-consuming and labor-intensive. It only takes a year to start, but Li Mu has produced many products in more than a year." , I can’t imagine how he achieved it.”
Mr. Ma laughed at himself, took a sip of wine, and said: "Before most companies want to develop a piece of software, they must first establish a project, and then the product department must come up with a framework and requirements. After repeated discussions, everyone has finalized the entire requirements. The design department is responsible for the visual presentation, and the technology development department must repeatedly think about how to solve every requirement of the product. This kind of thing is far from being successful at one time. It requires constant trial and error and constant testing. If you make a mistake, you have to start over.”
“When technology and testing have finally solved all the requirements with great efforts, the product may suddenly change requirements or put forward new requirements, so they have to develop and test again, and so on. "
"In addition, technology development also faces the pressure of overall operation. Where there are bugs, incompatibilities, and which pieces of code are too cumbersome, we should solve them when we encounter bugs, debug when we encounter incompatibilities, and find ways to streamline them when we encounter cumbersomeness. repeatedly."
"Because of this, the development cycle is very long, but it is not the case with Li Mu. His development team is so efficient that it is unimaginable. For ordinary companies to do development, it is equivalent to walking thousands of kilometers and often taking wrong roads and detours. In Li Mu, There, you can always fly directly and fly to your destination quickly and accurately in a straight line.”
As a person who has actually done development, Mr. Ma knows very well that during the development process of a product, most of the energy is actually spent on trial and error and error correction. This is why there will be a lot of jokes about software development on the Internet in later generations. Popular jokes for each position.
For example: Design always wants to kill product managers and project managers who constantly put forward new suggestions for modifications to their works;
For example: Technology always wants to kill product managers who put forward requirements, because they always change the requirements temporarily after they have completed their development, making their previous work useless;
For example: there is always a kitchen knife next to the technical keyboard. When the product comes to change the requirements, the technical person will either directly chop him to death, or put the knife on his neck and question him: "You said, what the hell is this?" Is this the last time I’ve changed my requirements?”
Because he understood how serious the internal friction was, Mr. Ma truly admired people like Li Mu.
Leader Lei did not have as deep an understanding of technology as he did, but when he heard how highly he praised Li Mu's high efficiency, he couldn't help but ask him: "Then how does Li Mu's company achieve such high development efficiency?"
Mr. Ma sighed softly and said: "I was curious before, so I asked about it later. Later I learned that the product development process at Makino Technology and Taobao is completely different from other companies."
Leader Lei asked: "What do you mean?"
Mr. Ma said: "Other companies rely on collision, discussion, research and experimentation. But at Makino Technology and Taobao, Li Mu is the only product manager. He always gives the product architecture and then makes the most direct suggestions to each department. His orders: design, how do you do it; technology, how do you do it; support, how do you do it, after everyone hears it clearly, just do it strictly according to what he said. And the most important thing is, just do what he said , it will definitely work. This is the most scary thing about him. This person’s sensitivity to the product and the accuracy of his control are simply unbelievable. What is he not a genius?"
Mr. Lei's heart skipped a beat and he said, "Is it so powerful?"
Mr. Ma shrugged and smiled bitterly: "That's how powerful it is."
(End of chapter)