“The gap between NewPay and Alibaba is not only reflected in market value, but also in user recognition.
After entering the 21st century, more and more users have become accustomed to electronic payment, and are accustomed to binding credit cards and electronic payment accounts, and then paying through the electronic payment account.
What's more important is that people seem to have defaulted to electronic payment as NewPay, and NewPay is electronic payment. People will not think of other electronic payment software. When paying, even if it is at the top and NewPay is at the bottom, they will still put the webpage Drag to the bottom, find NewPay and complete the payment.
The gap in market share may be smoothed out, and changing consumer perceptions is the real problem.
NewPay conducted an incentive bonus program during its early promotion. How effective was your incentive bonus program in converting users? After receiving the incentive payment, users did not immediately transfer the money to their bank cards. Instead, they used NewPay as a payment method and always used their registered NewPay account. asked Musk.
Peter Thiel pulled up a memory from more than two years ago and said, “I remember the conversion rate at that time was about 50 percent.
But later, after the launch of Quora electronic payment and Quora gold election, these dormant accounts were gradually activated.
I saw data on this at the end of last year. More than 80% of the NewPay accounts that received incentive payments that year are still using them now. "
There is no way to search for data like this from the outside world, or get it from employees in non-core positions.
Musk’s inner frustration is extremely strong because the number is too low: “Our conversion rate is only 30%, and the statistical caliber only requires users to complete a payment online after receiving the incentive payment.
If the time dimension is lengthened, this number will be even lower. "
Peter Thiel said: “We sometimes face the same dilemma. The marginal effect of pure monetary rewards is particularly obvious. After a certain level, the effect of using incentive payments is very limited.
There are even many users who specially register accounts to defraud incentive funds. Fortunately, we have set a threshold and require a mobile phone number.
Later, we canceled this plan. Now we all use the method of issuing coupons. Users can receive coupons after registering, and the coupons received will be offset by a certain amount after payment is completed.
Moreover, our coupons all specify consumption scenarios. Users can choose from Riot Games, Walmart, catering, and Internet services to select a designated scenario.
After they complete their consumption, we will give them coupons with lower amounts, which will gradually induce users to pay through NewPay, thereby cultivating users' new payment habits.
This mechanism has shown good results in the promotion process. "
These are not trade secrets. As a direct competitor of NewPay, Musk knows all the functional details of NewPay. What a successful entrepreneur knows best is the competing products of his products.
“This set of gameplay can only be used by NewPay. Square also uses a method similar to NewPay, which users don’t recognize at all.
The reason is that they support too few payment scenarios.
I didn’t realize how important the payment scene was until now, but I guess Newman must have realized the importance of the payment scene when he was working on Angry Birds.
It was just a single electronic payment software, and we had no concept of payment scenarios until March 2000.
At that time, we were still thinking about how to provide services to users, a single service built on the Internet. Users could send money through email and the Internet before. At that time, we developed functions similar to Confinity, which meant that users were using handheld computers. At that time, if two handheld computers have infrared ports at the same time, then they can transfer money through it.
These unattractive features took a lot of effort, and we put most of our R&D efforts into them. In fact, looking back now, what we needed to do most at that time was to discuss cooperation with major Internet companies.
To become one of the payment channels for Internet companies, this is truly useful to users. The function of the electronic payment software itself is not important, what is important lies in the scenarios it can be applied to. "
Musk's tone was full of emotion. If Zhou Xin heard this, he would tell him silently: No, the function of electronic payment itself is also very important, but it needs to be based on a sufficient user base.
Peter Thiel also felt very strongly about this: “This is what Newman often said to me when I first took over NewPay. We need to focus on solving user problems, rather than focusing on the product itself.
Helping users solve problems is more meaningful than blindly adding features to the product. "
Peter Thiel had a very rich resume before he founded Confinity. He graduated from Stanford Law School or taught at Stanford Law School, established an investment company on Wall Street, and then founded the electronic payment company Confinity.
He has met many entrepreneurs and product managers. Their potential goal is to help users solve problems, but only Zhou Xin can find the best path.
Because users themselves often don’t know what they want, they only know what they don’t need. What Internet product managers have to do is to concretize users’ abstract needs. The more users a product has, the more difficult it is to do this.
Too many users means that it is difficult to reach consensus, and it is difficult for you to satisfy the vast majority of people. Tencent's core team and the best product managers are responsible for maintaining and upgrading domestic national-level mobile apps in later generations. They are updated and upgraded every year, and the user groups have more and more opinions.
“It is precisely under this top-level design that NewPay can continue to grow rapidly.
We have currently deployed servers in 5 major cities in the United States to meet the needs of users across the United States, and are expected to expand to 10 cities this year.
After the launch of Mphone, the demand for network bandwidth and low latency has become higher. "
After entering 2001, Peter Thiel increasingly felt that joining NewPay was the right choice. The development of NewPay gave him hope of unifying the electronic payment market.
In fact, NewPay has now unified the electronic payment market in the United States, but most countries around the world still have a hesitant attitude towards electronic payments.
Musk said: “This is a slow step, a slow step, and the investors behind it have lost confidence in catching up with NewPay.
Their goal has become to maintain the current second position and compete with NewPay in the blank areas of electronic payment in Europe, Asia and other areas.
However, compared with NewPay, I found a more interesting entrepreneurial direction, which is Weibo.
Weibo is really a very interesting product. The combination of it and Mphone has the effect of one plus one being greater than two.
Since I experienced Mphone, I have to post more than ten Weibo posts every day. I have been having the urge recently to sell my shares to others, resign as CEO, and then build products similar to Weibo. "
This is completely normal. After becoming famous, Musk would be willing to pay a high premium to buy Twitter. The purchase was as easy as buying a toy.
And he himself doesn’t like to make electronic payment software. Musk’s earliest idea was online banking, where users would save money online and then do some banking services.
The problem is that this is something done after electronic payment has become popular. Users are not even used to electronic payment. How can they accept borrowing money and handling some financial services in online banks.
This is not realistic.
Therefore, the development is getting further and further away from what Musk wants to do. Even without NewPay, Musk will hand over the CEO position to Peter Thiel after Confinity and the merger.
As for Weibo, it is so fresh and interesting, and you can receive replies at any time, which immediately ignited Musk's entrepreneurial enthusiasm.
He also wants to make similar products.
After hearing this, Peter Thiel made it clear that he was not optimistic: "I find it difficult.
The main reason why Weibo is successful is that it is an application on mobile phones. If it were an application on a computer, Weibo would be unattractive. "
Musk said: "I know that the advantage of Weibo is that I can open my phone at any time to see other people's replies, @, forwards and likes, but with quora, I can only see the comments brought by users while sitting in front of the computer. feedback.
This kind of timely feedback is a very important point that attracts me to Weibo.
So who said I want to do Weibo on the computer? Naturally, I also want to make applications on mobile phones. In addition to Mphone, there are many mobile phone brands.
I just need to negotiate with one family. "
Peter Thiel said: "It's also difficult.
I heard Newman say that Time Warner had talks with Nokia before, and they hoped to launch a mobile phone with Quora pre-loaded. Engineering prototypes were produced, but in the end it was not launched.
The big reason is that the mobile phone screen is too small, especially the screen of Nokia mobile phone. It is difficult for Quora content to adapt to the screen of Nokia mobile phone.
Unless Nokia develops a large-screen mobile phone specifically for Quora, Nokia made a prototype and then internally evaluated the costs and benefits and decided that it was not worth it. In the end, the cooperation in this area only stayed at the research and development level.
Similarly, if you want to make similar mobile applications, you also need the cooperation of mobile phone manufacturers, which is too difficult to negotiate.
Even quora, a product that has achieved great success on the computer side, has not been able to negotiate. Your mobile phone application has not been tested by the market, and it is difficult for mobile phone manufacturers to bet on you. "
Before the Internet bubble burst, Nokia had a strong desire to cooperate with Time Warner on Quora.
After making an engineering prototype, Nokia discovered that Quora's answers were too long. Even if the phone screen was made the size of a palm, it would still take at least three swipes to read the answer.
This kind of user experience is terrible. Nokia cannot guarantee that users will pay for it. Especially large-screen mobile phones mean high costs, expensive pricing, increased potential risks and increased uncertainty. These two aspects have led to Nokia giving up cooperation. continue to advance.
After the launch of the Mphone, the built-in applications of the Mphone were well received, and there were rumors within Nokia about restarting the Quora mobile phone project.
Musk said: “Quora cannot be promoted because the design of this product is not in line with mobile phone habits.
Have you not noticed that both Weibo and WeChat have restrictions on content?
Users cannot be given too much space to play. Weibo and WeChat also have word limits to ensure user experience and allow users to read the content in one go.
Quora is completely in conflict with this requirement. If Weibo's character limit is followed, users will not be able to get answers through Quora.
So if quora can't succeed, it doesn't mean that the mobile application I want to make can't be successful. "Musk seemed confident.
He is generally very confident, except for things like NewPay that are beyond human power.
After Peter Thiel finished chatting with Musk, he went to Zhou Xin the next day: "Newman, I heard that Musk is willing to sell his shares. Can we consider acquiring his shares?"
Zhou Xin asked: "Peter, what do you think about it?"
Peter Thiel said: “Whether it is from an antitrust perspective or a market perspective, it is impossible for us to monopolize the entire electronic payment market.
Internet companies and retailers cannot accept that there is only one electronic payment company. The only choice in the electronic payment field on the market is NewPay.
Therefore, it is necessary to have a competitor, and for now, it will play this role. Considering this, we can acquire a small amount of shares for the purpose of venture capital.
In addition, you can keep track of trends at any time.
The current valuation on Wall Street is US$500 million. With the development of the electronic payment market in the future and the establishment of the second position in market share, the valuation of US$500 million is obviously a serious underestimate.
Therefore, purchasing part of the shares can provide us with a large investment income. "
This is just like in the early years, IBM asked Intel to do some personal computer CPU business that they did not want to do, and then acquired some shares of Intel.
In Peter Thiel's vision, they can also hand over some marginal businesses to avoid monopoly accusations.
After being accused of monopoly, the price to be paid is far more painful than support.
Zhou Xin said: "I think it's okay, you go and talk about it."
After walking around the company according to management, Zhou Xin went to Silue Semiconductor to talk to Hu Zhengming.
Different from the later era when Silue Semiconductor was acquired by Cadence, and Hu Zhengming went to TSMC as the chief technology officer after the acquisition, Zhou Xin participated in the financing of Silue Semiconductor, and investing US$100 million in Silue Semiconductor was just like playing games.
Just to prevent EDA design software from being monopolized by Cadence, the money is worth investing.
What's more important is that Hu Zhengming did not go to TSMC, which can effectively slow down TSMC's technological progress.
Zhou Xin is now trying every means to lure Hu Zhengming to Xinxin Semiconductor.
With Hu Zhengming gone, Xinxin Semiconductor and even the entire semiconductor industry in Zhangjiang Science and Technology Park have a helmsman at the helm.
Hu Zhengming has this ability and qualifications. Compared with Guan Jianying, if Hu Zhengming returns to China, he will be able to bring back more engineers.
"Professor, are you looking for me?" Zhou Xin asked.
Hu Zhengming thought to himself that he, as a student, had never given him any worries. The worry here did not mean that he was not worried about his studies, but that he always did some big things, which shocked him and at the same time vaguely made him feel uncomfortable. Confused.
"Newman, come and sit down. The phone works very well. Congratulations on your success again.
My friends who have used Mphone all think it is a good enough product. The only drawback is that it is a bit expensive.
Especially for students, your senior brothers and sisters in our laboratory have all expressed the same idea, that is, the price of Mphone is too expensive, so that even if they want to support you, they cannot afford it.
Maybe they just want me to use laboratory funds to buy a few iPhones for them to use. "
Hu Zhengming made a few jokes and then got straight to the point: “I’m very curious about how Mphone’s chip is designed.
I have known Lao Guan for so many years, but he definitely does not have the ability to achieve a 500MHz operating speed using a 130nm process.
If Lao Guan had this level, he wouldn't be kicked out. Any chip design company would treat him as a guest.
Especially this is a mobile chip. ARM's 1020E core is also a 130nm process and only runs at 325Mhz.
How does the Mphone chip named A1E achieve a running speed of 1Ghz using only 130nm process? "
What Hu Zhengming is most concerned about with Mphone is its technology. Other technologies are within the scope of his understanding. Only on the chip, 130nm can achieve a running speed of 1GHz, which is somewhat like Zenith star technology.
Zhou Xin said: "Professor, do you know why it is named A1E?
Because there are four products in front of him, including A1A, A1B, and A1C, the running speed of the first four products has gradually increased from ARM's 268MHz to the current 500MHz.
This is the process of technological evolution.
Just because Uncle Guan doesn't have this level of expertise doesn't mean that China doesn't have the talent to design this chip. Just considering that this is a business secret, it is not convenient to disclose it to you.
If you are willing to join Xinxin Technology, then you can see the complete IC design drawing and the evolution path of the entire design idea. "
Around the ARM1020E core, Samsung has developed a series of chips. In 2002, based on Alpha CPU technology, Samsung redesigned the ARM1020E into the Halla chip. This laboratory product achieved a 130-nanometer process technology and reached peak operating speed. Up to 1.2GHz.
Later, Samsung successively developed commercial chips based on this laboratory product, such as the S3C2410 with a 0.18 micron process and a running speed of 268MHz, and the S3C2443 with a 130nm process and a running speed of 533MHz.
2443 is an upgraded version of 2410, mainly used in the field of handheld computers. Later, the CPU designed by Samsung for the first generation iPhone had a main frequency running speed of only 422MHz. The running speed of 90nm process was not as fast as that of 130nm, and it used a relatively backward architecture.
In other words, the chip used by Mphone comes from Samsung’s technology seven years later, the commercial version of chip 2443 designed in 2007.
The chips Samsung uses for its own mobile phones run about 30% faster than the chips it provides for iPhones using the same manufacturing process.
This is also one of the important reasons why subsequent iPhones must insist on self-developed chips, so as not to be kidnapped by chip design manufacturers.
Zhou Xin continued: “Our laboratory chips are already capable of operating at 130nm and 1.2GHz.
If it weren't for cost issues, Mphone wouldn't be able to use such a good chip, and we could just use the latest chip.
The chip named A2 is planned to be launched in the next generation of Mphone. "
Hu Zhengming's eyes lit up when he heard this. For a scientist, what attracts him most is the technology itself, not the treatment.
To put it bluntly, for scientists at this level, the salary offered by any company is similar, such as Texas Instruments, TSMC, Intel, AMD, etc. As long as Hu Zhengming wants to go to the industrial world, the prices offered by these semiconductor companies are very different.
Zhou Xin has never been able to convince Hu Zhengming. The key is that China does not have much to attract Hu Zhengming at the technical level.
It is no problem to go to China to give academic lectures, and it is no problem to recruit PhDs from China, but there is a problem when going to work in China.
Moreover, Zhou Xin also hoped that Hu Zhengming would stay in Zhangjiang, which was even more difficult for Hu Zhengming to accept.
Hu Zhengming pointed at Zhou Xin and said helplessly: "Now you are talking about business confidentiality to me.
I know you want me to go to Zhangjiang and help you fix the situation in Zhangjiang. Lao Guan can't manage alone there. He may be able to manage two companies, or three, but semiconductor companies are developing in clusters. He can do it. Less than.
In fact, I have never done this before, so why are you so sure that I can do it?
To put it bluntly, I have been hanging out in academia for most of my life, and my own business management is very average. "
Hu Zhengming knew very well what Zhou Xin wanted because we had talked about it too many times.
Going to China was a complete adventure for Hu Zhengming.
Because what Zhou Xin wanted him to do was to identify companies with potential from a technical perspective and then invest in these companies.
After investment, we need to support these companies from a technical perspective. For example, companies that make photoresist should help them find outstanding people in this field, and then give them a list and contact information for the company to contact. Hu Zhengming if necessary You may have to go out in person to see if you can recruit talents.
Although what Zhou Xin and Hu Zhengming said is that he only needs to check the overall situation, and what needs to be done can be done by people he thinks can do it, and he does not need to do it himself.
Only technical research and development needs to be done by Hu Zhengming himself.
Including business management, you can find professional managers to manage it. Hu Zhengming only needs to be responsible for decision-making.
But these are all things after land reclamation. Now going to Zhangjiang is land reclamation. During the land reclamation, it was not enough for one person to be used by two people. One person had to be used as three people.
Hu Zhengming has never thought about whether it is necessary to return to China to work hard at his age.
TSMC's Zhang Zhongmou was also persuading him to become chief technology officer of TSMC.
Compared with Xinxin Technology, TSMC is much more mature and has a very detailed division of labor. He only needs to do a good job in overall technical control, and then use TSMC's resources to do some research that interests him.
Hu Zhengming has been wavering.
Zhou Xin said: “Isn’t there really nothing we can do about it?
I tried to find a way to bring everyone around me who had some experience in semiconductors back to Zhangjiang.
Judging from the results, Uncle Lin did a good job at Xinxin Lithography Machine, and Uncle Guan also managed the development of Xinxin Technology well.
Including my previous entrepreneurial experience in the Internet field, it also proves that I have a good eye for people.
Therefore, I believe that I will not be wrong in teaching you either. "
After thinking about the price of $599, the 1Ghz chip is still unreasonable.
Although the 130nm process is technically possible, the cost will be very high. If it is a 1Ghz chip paired with 1GB of memory, the price of US$599 cannot guarantee a 40% profit.
So I changed the chip's operating speed to 500MHz.
(End of chapter)
