Normal startups don’t encounter similar problems so quickly.
The main reason is that Riot Games is developing too fast. The sooner these things are made clear, the better.
For Zhou Xin, he has formulated a complete development strategy for the next three years. The sooner the company's structure is sorted out, the more important it is.
After completing the equity split with the original founder team, Zhou Xin realized a very serious problem, that is, he had no money.
The cash flow of more than ten million US dollars is indeed a lot for personal life or entrepreneurial enterprises.
With ten million dollars, he could live an upper-middle-class life in America just by eating interest.
For a typical startup, a million dollars in angel rounds is considered pretty good.
But compared with the strategy formulated by Zhou Xin, these tens of thousands are nothing.
The current average salary package at major Silicon Valley companies is about US$5,000 a month.
Nowadays, almost any Internet company can be listed on Nasdaq, driving up the salary level in Internet-related industries.
It took until the dot-com bubble burst at the turn of the millennium for things to improve.
To start a business, you need to prepare at least one year's salary of employees, which cannot be used as cash flow.
Lei Jun said in an interview that what he prepared for Rice was the cash flow of three years' salary of all employees as a reserve.
Zhou Xin plans to initially build a structure of three companies with one hundred people, which means that it will cost about six million.
Plus a series of money such as renting servers and purchasing network bandwidth.
Ten million is actually far from enough money.
As electronic communities become increasingly popular, server size has been expanding, and electronic community sections are also expanding rapidly. Moderators, administrators, and reviewers alone are a huge expense.
Regarding payment software, another very important point is that with its resources, it cannot find a bank with enough background to cooperate.
Selling electronic games online through text message verification codes is feasible in this small way by cooperating with the Los Angeles branch of China National Bank.
But when it comes to entering the field of electronic payments, let alone the Los Angeles branch, even China Bank cannot do it.
China National Bank's influence in Amerikan is too weak.
And when Amliken gradually realizes the importance of electronic payments in the future, Huaguo Bank will obviously not be able to help him withstand the pressure behind it.
This matter can be compared to the cooperation between Alipay and Tianhong Fund to launch Yu’e Bao.
Before the launch of Yu'e Bao, Tianhong Fund was an unknown public fund company ranking around 50.
After cooperating with Alipay, it became the largest public fund company and the only public fund company with hundreds of billions of products.
Later, it was acquired and controlled by Ant Financial.
Zhou Xin estimated that at a certain stage, Amerikan would definitely not allow electronic payment to be in his hands.
But then you have to find an influential enough backer behind you, so that when that day comes, you can sell it at a good price.
Isn’t it too much to switch the payment software with the largest market share to AMD?
...
"The rising star
As the American tech industry moves into what some call middle age, it's unlikely that anyone will ever again make as much money as Bill Gates once did. Because there are so many bright minds and investors trying to get a chance at that golden ring.
We have previously taken stock of people who may become the next round of technology billionaires, and some of them have already succeeded, such as Jerry Yang.
Yahoo only went public last year, and its market value has already exceeded the $4 billion mark. With the launch of Yahoo Mail, Yahoo! To become the most valuable and recognized Internet brand in the world.
Today we are not talking about Jerry Yang, but about another Chinese - Newman Zhou.
Newman Zhou's entrepreneurial story is even more legendary than that of Jerry Yang. A year ago, he was just an ordinary college student in China. A year later, he already owned a company in Silicon Valley with a valuation of more than 100 million U.S. dollars. He developed electronics The game has over one million paying users worldwide..."
Since the success of "Angry Birds", some media have paid attention to Riot, mainly video game media.
Their focus is also on the game itself.
Later, the entire gaming industry turned its attention to the payment system behind Angry Birds' unique distribution method.
During this period, Internet media and some print media successively focused on Riot Games.
After the news of Zhou Xin's dinner with Bill Gates was reported by local media in Los Angeles, Zhou Xin began to appear in the media one after another.
It was nearing the end of 1998, and a number of game developers had approached Riot Games and expressed their hope to sell their games through Riot Games channels.
That is, transfer money via bank card and download the verification code via SMS.
These games are mainly games released in the past few years.
Even if a large number of pirated download links flood the Internet after being released in this way, developers are not afraid. After all, these games have passed their prime period of release.
Riot Games’ commission is 20%, which is very conscientious compared to the commission that often starts at 50%.
Of course, there are also game developers who choose to buy their entire online distribution solution.
For example, Relic Software, the "Homeland" they developed this year received great acclaim at the E3 exhibition.
These game developers who would rather take a 20% commission and publish through Riot Games’ channels value the electronic community built by Riot Games.
The electronic community has more than 300,000 active users, which is the fundamental reason for their willingness.
And old games released through Riot Games have been given a new lease of life.
Players who did not buy it for various reasons at that time saw the game in the Riot Games community and many players discussed it every day. However, after that point, it was very difficult to find an offline store where the game was for sale. thing.
At this time, the "news spokesperson" of the forum released a pure online purchase link.
It instantly attracted players who had missed it before.
For users without accounts, the electronic community can also be browsed, but they do not have the permission to post and reply.
After several old games began to come back to life, a large number of game developers approached Riot Games hoping to cooperate with them.
The power of the two-wheel drive of electronic communities and game distribution is gradually emerging.
America's top three media outlets, the New York Times, finally couldn't help but report on Zhou Xin.
At least in the Internet world, Zhou Xin is no longer an unknown figure.
But a rising star.
For Riot Games, there’s a ton of collaboration coming your way.
For Zhou Xin, a large number of investors came to him, hoping to invest in Riot Games.
