At this time, Lei Jun is in the prime of life. Compared with when he founded Xiaomi eight years later, the only thing he lacks now may be a little experience.
Lei Jun originally thought that Zhou Xin came to him because he was interested in Joyo.com, hoping to invest in Joyo.com, and then gave him some advice at the dinner.
In addition to Tencent, there is also a good example that illustrates Zhou Xin's role in a startup company, that is, the merger of Baidu, which has just completed the merger after obtaining permission from the Federal Trade Commission of Amerikan.
Zhou Xin’s investment in Baidu started from the angel round, and from the angel round to the upcoming listing, he did not interfere with the business operations. It is simply an excellent investment case.
Zhou Xin did not interfere with Baidu's operations. This is what Robin himself said in an interview with domestic media before. He also expressed his special thanks to Zhou Xin for standing by him when the board of directors had disagreements.
Judging from the superposition of the two cases of Tencent and Baidu, Zhou Xin is not very good as an investor. When Lei Jun heard Zhou Xin ask him about Mphone, he felt a little disappointed. It turned out that the other party looked down on Joyo.com.
“I have used a very unique product, but it is too slow to log in to Weibo in China, and I feel that it does not reflect enough advantages.
WeChat is a very convenient application. NewPay is very interesting. The QR code is really a very powerful design and has successfully opened up the barriers between online and offline. Originally, the Internet was online, and offline was offline.
Even for e-commerce, it is not a connection between online and offline. It is a model that moves transactions online and then delivers goods offline. It is more like grafting rather than connecting. "
Because WeChat is operated by Tencent, Tencent also built a small local WeChat operating environment in China based on the number of Mphone users in China.
“The ecosystem released by Mphone in the middle of this year is quite interesting, which greatly increases its playability.
Users can download software according to their own needs. In this case, Mphone is actually a bit similar to the concept of a handheld computer. A handheld computer with communication capabilities.
The screen of Mphone is already larger than other mainstream mobile phones on the market, but it is still smaller than that of handheld computers. When I was using it, I kept thinking whether it would be better to use a clamshell design. "
Today's Lei Jun is far less enthusiastic about mobile phones than later generations. He founded Xiaomi because the mobile Internet has shown a very clear development trend.
It's still in its infancy at best, and Lei Jun's idea is just a rough concept based on using the Mphone given to him by a friend. But just this superficial concept can already show Lei Jun's keen sense of electronic products.
Zhou Xin said: “We didn’t design a clamshell because we think the current screen is enough.
If the cover is flipped, the user will need to open and fold one more action. We hope to simplify this action as much as possible.
In the past ten years, handheld computers have mainly focused on office attributes, while Mphone does not emphasize office attributes. We emphasize entertainment attributes more.
To be precise, it is a pan-entertainment attribute, and the office attribute is just its accompanying value.
Weibo and WeChat are both based on text messages. Of course, I also like the emoticons developed by users using the picture function of Weibo. However, these two are still mainly based on text information, and their entertainment level is limited.
It is a kind of information interaction that can meet the shallow entertainment needs of users. After Mphone opened the MOS ecosystem, many game manufacturers began to develop games for Mphone.
Given the limitations of mobile gaming, these Mphone games are much less intense than PC games. Therefore, I emphasize that Mphone will take the path of pan-entertainment in the future.
What is pan-entertainment? With the development of chip technology, the performance of mobile phones will become more and more powerful, and mobile phones can also do what computers can do.
Due to the limitations of communication technology, people cannot watch videos or high-definition pictures on their mobile phones, and there is also a time limit for sending voice messages on WeChat.
These can be solved with the advancement of technology. Mobile phone screens can also be expanded. Expanding to the level of a computer monitor is not realistic in a short time, but it is entirely possible to remove the keyboard and have only one screen.
By that time, computers will become productivity tools, and mobile phones will take on most of the entertainment responsibilities of computers. This is why I mentioned pan-entertainment.
Weibo targets online forums on computers, and WeChat targets instant messaging software, which are then personalized and transplanted to mobile phones.
Other Internet products can gradually be moved to mobile phones. "
Lei Jun didn't quite understand why Zhou Xin kept talking to him about Mphone. He was wondering if Zhou Xin wanted him to help Mphone create a shopping software for mobile phones.
In other words, moving Joyo.com to mobile phones, but Alibaba can do this, so why should we look to Joyo.com?
Mphone's online store has been launched for some time, and products like Prince of Persia have received a lot of praise from users.
More and more games are beginning to be released on the Mphone. Some are successful games on other mobile phones and are transplanted to the Mphone. Some are original games from game manufacturers and are released on the Mphone.
Originally, consumers would have thought that the $599 price tag was too expensive, but when the entire Mphone ecosystem gradually became richer, it would be difficult to see complaints about the Mphone being too expensive on consumer-led online forums.
On the contrary, everyone began to think that Mphone was very cost-effective. Although it was expensive, it was worth the price.
The cooperation between Mphone and iPod was not successful. The Apple Music Store had a very large number of downloads at the beginning. Because users who like the design language of Mphone have a certain overlap with loyal fans of Apple. Apple itself is also an Internet company with a long history.
Therefore, there are a considerable number of users who own both iPod and Mphone. After the release of iPod, these users have downloaded the Apple Music Store, which is iTunes, on Mphone.
But they found that the Bluetooth transmission function between iPhone and iPod consumes too much power.
Originally, the Mphone can be used for about 10 hours, which can support the use throughout the day. Originally, battery life was the most criticized point of Mphone. If you use the Bluetooth transmission function, this time will be reduced to 5 hours.
Before the release of the Bluetooth 4.0 standard, Bluetooth transmission was extremely power-consuming.
So that only a few users will use the Bluetooth transmission function of Mphone.
“The industry likes to call mobile phones like Mphone Internet mobile phones. I have neither denied nor admitted this.
In my opinion, the accurate definition of the concept should be a smartphone. Why do we say intelligence? Because with the development of mobile phone chips, mobile phones also have powerful computing power and can approach the concept of intelligence.
For example, in the future, mobile phones will have voice assistants. I only need to tell it what I want to do through voice, and it will automatically set the alarm clock for me, put my schedule into the corresponding app, and help me read emails, etc. wait.
These require a powerful CPU to do. The mobile phone chip of Mphone is 500Mhz. From the perspective of power consumption and performance, it has exceeded the performance of the first few generations of Pentium processors.
If the limitations on it were not completely released due to power consumption considerations, its performance could be close to that of a Celeron processor. "
Zhou Xin finally said: “In the past, handheld computers promoted the development of mobile chips, and mobile phones were simply used as communication tools.
With the success of Mphone, more and more mobile phone manufacturers will enter the field of smartphones, and mobile phones will promote the development of mobile chips in the next ten, twenty years or even longer.
The market size of mobile phones is far larger than that of handheld computers. People can live without handheld computers but cannot live without mobile phones. Therefore, mobile chips will also usher in a period of explosive growth amid such fierce competition.
Mobile phones will be able to do more and more things. "
After Zhou Xin finished speaking, Lei Jun applauded: "It's a very logical deduction. If the chip of a mobile phone can be as powerful as a computer and other technical problems can be solved, then the mobile phone will become a market no less important than that of computers.
Even bigger than a computer. "
Zhou Xin said: "Yes, we have a set of data. Before the Mphone App Store was launched, more than 15% of Mphone users used their Mphones for longer than their computers every day.
After the Mphone store went online, this proportion doubled, which means that more than 30% of users now use Mphone for a longer period of time.
This is an amazing transformation. Because Mphone is still at a very superficial stage. And the vast majority of Amerikan Mphone consumers have pretty good financial resources.
Having good financial resources means that there is a high probability that they will need to use computers in their work. For these users, they begin to use mobile phones more frequently than computers.
The development of smart phones in the future will far exceed people's imagination. "
Lei Jun was thinking, Zhou Xin told him so many future prospects, could it be that he wanted him to make a mobile phone?
Let him be in charge of Mphone's business in China?
As for asking him to go to Silicon Valley, Lei Jun has never thought about it. Putting aside his plastic English, Lei Jun has no qualifications in the mobile phone field, not to mention that most of Matrix's senior management team are from Nokia and Motorola. If he goes, he won't be able to convince the public at all.
Zhou Xin said: "Seeing such a future, I need to find a more potential manager for Matrix. In my opinion, you are the best candidate."
Lei Jun was shocked. He really didn't expect Zhou Xin's purpose to be this, "President Xin, I'm honored to be chosen by you. I also think that an excellent company like Matrix is a good opportunity.
But I don't have the confidence to do this well. I don't know anything about mobile phones, let alone smart phones.
Smartphones are a completely new concept. This is the first time I have heard of it from you. Before, I only knew the concept of Internet phones. I am afraid I will live up to your expectations. "
After working at Kingsoft for almost his entire career, and now starting his own business, Joyo.com, there is no need for Lei Jun to go into the muddy waters of Matrix.
The salary will definitely be higher than what he is now as a senior manager at Kingsoft, but it also means leaving his comfort zone and entering a completely unfamiliar field.
From language to social networks to work, everything needs to be readjusted.
As a self-made entrepreneur, Lei Jun does not have many original sins compared to other entrepreneurs. He can be said to be a first-class human being.
Reason told him that there was no need to go and he shouldn't go, but through Zhou Xin's description just now, he could feel that this would be another huge opportunity comparable to the Internet revolution, and Lei Jun's brain had already begun to get excited.
Of course, Lei Jun cannot be so easily occupied by emotional judgments.
Zhou Xin said: “Because you are the most suitable, and the suitable here is not the one based on experience, but the one based on ability.
Not knowing much about mobile phones is sometimes not a bad thing, because smartphones are meant to subvert the previous concept of mobile phones. It will be a brand new product, completely different from the past.
Therefore, I don’t want to look for senior executives from the traditional mobile phone industry. Matrix’s current senior management team has too many people from traditional mobile phone manufacturers. I don’t need to recruit another senior executive from Nokia or Motorola.
Your past abilities made me realize that you are the perfect candidate. "
Zhou Xin's subtext is actually that your future abilities make me think you are the best candidate.
"You don't have to worry about lack of experience, because you will join Matrix as the vice president of Matrix at the beginning. Seamus will also serve as CEO for a period of time. He will retire completely in about two to three years. After he retires, you will Take full control of the Matrix.
Of course you need to prove that you have this ability. It's not enough for me to be optimistic about you.
But I'm sure you're totally fine. "
Lei Jun asked curiously: "President Xin, we have never dealt with each other, and we even have some indirect competitive relationships.
Tencent is also making office software, which overlaps with Kingsoft Software's business scope. Where did you hear about me and think so highly of me? "
Before starting Xiaomi, Lei Jun could only be said to be an outstanding entrepreneur in the Internet field, and his status was far incomparable to that of later generations.
Therefore, under this premise, Lei Jun was very curious as to why Zhou Xin was so confident that he was the most suitable candidate.
Zhou Xin said: “Emerging investors in China will profile and analyze every entrepreneur they meet and continue to track each other’s situation.
In the internal evaluation system of emerging investments, your comprehensive ability can be ranked among the top three.
You can see that we have already done a complete background check for you, and based on this, we think you are the most suitable candidate. "
Zhou Xin thought to himself: Shiqiang, I have no choice but to take the blame for me.
However, emerging investment will indeed create a profile for each entrepreneur, and then both objective numbers and subjective evaluations will be included. Investment manager A and investment manager B have met entrepreneur C respectively, so both A and B will write down their evaluation and judgment of C in the internal system. And the two of them cannot see what others have written.
This is also to ensure the accuracy of judgment. As the general manager of Jinshajiang Venture Capital, Zhu Xiaohu has invested in Didi, Ele.me, ofo, etc., and has a large number of successful cases.
He invested US$10 million in ofo, and then sold it to Alibaba and Tencent for US$3 billion. But what he regrets most is not investing in ByteDance or Zhang Yiming.
Why? He later said in an interview that he did not vote for Zhang Yiming because he did not feel aggressive from Zhang Yiming and thought he did not have enough enterprising spirit.
In order to avoid similar situations, Emerging Investment has developed an entrepreneur management system to continuously track the situation of entrepreneurs, and every investment manager who has been in contact with the entrepreneur must give his or her own subjective evaluation.
As for why Lei Jun ranks among the top three in the Entrepreneur Comprehensive Index of Emerging Investments, this is purely a temporary compilation by Zhou Xin.
Got it done yesterday!
(End of chapter)
