The venture capital circle was indeed crazy.
For a long time, everyone had heard all kinds of rumors about Makino Technology and Li Mu. Many people said with certainty, "Don't even think about it. Makino Technology will not be financing Series C anymore. Li Mu has long said that his goal is to go public directly after Series B."
No one doubted this statement.
It couldn't be helped. Li Mu was such an incredible person. Everyone had been tortured by him to re-establish a new worldview.
Although the venture capital circle felt particularly disappointed that they couldn't get a foothold in Makino Technology, when they thought about how no one had a chance in this matter, they felt better.
However, no one expected such an amazing person to suddenly go back on his words.
Li Mu held a core meeting in Makino Technology, and the first thing he said was financing Series C. This matter made these big shots 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 a check and asked, "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 finance, and he had no plans to visit investors. Not to mention visiting investors, he was not even willing to meet any investors directly. Moreover, he asked his people in charge of capital operations to deliver a message to the venture capital circle: Those who are interested in investing in Makino Technology's Series C, bring a price.
This attitude was too amazing. Which other people did not curry favor with investors when they financed? As far as the current situation was concerned, most of the Hua Xia Internet industry's capital was from overseas. Where did this capital come from? Which capital did not come from begging grandpa and grandma, patting their chest, and bragging? Li Mu was not one of them. He did not bow down to any investors in Series A and Series B, and now he was even more high-profile for Series C.
However, there was no other way. Ever since Makino Technology killed Tengxun QQ, it had become the first Internet company in Hua Xia. In this era where everyone was still wet and muddy, Li Mu had already perfected the concept of a mature closed loop of the Internet ecosystem. As the saying goes, a monofilament does not make a thread. When Internet companies were still weaving a monofilament, Li Mu had already made a steel wire rope and thrown it all over the sky.
As soon as the news of Makino Technology's Series C financing came out, the venture capital industry immediately declared a 24-hour overtime state. Investing in Makino Technology was like bidding. They had to quickly study the other party's specific materials and come up with their own bids. The most important thing was the bid price. This was too crucial. If the bid price was overshadowed by other companies, it would basically say goodbye to Makino Technology.
While the entire venture capital industry was busy preparing, Lei Jianguo was also at his wits' end in Zhuhai City.
The influence of Makino Technology was too great. It could affect the entire industry with just a little move. This made him feel extremely uneasy.
He began to think about his current business layout. There was not much room for the software business. Originally, there was a lot of room for imagination in the game business. However, Li Mu suddenly poached his core team in the game business. This meant that the overall progress of the game business would be greatly affected. In addition, the core team of West Mountain Residence was not poached, but the move of Makino Technology to poach them.
Why did Makino Technology poach people from West Mountain Residence? It must be to make its own games.
Now that this company had a strong YY ecosystem chain, if it really wanted to make games, no one in the industry could compete with it. In that case, how should Golden Mountain position its next game business? Should it continue to recruit people, build teams, or disband on the spot?
If it continued to build teams, constantly recruit people, trial and error, break in, and then focus on development, the whole pace would be too slow, and the investment would not be small. By the time its own MMORPG was released, maybe Makino Technology's MMORPG would also be released. What should it do then? How could it compete with Makino Technology?
If it disbanded on the spot, what future would it have? West Mountain Residence was gone; Zhuoyue was either gone or dead; anyway, it could not be kept; only Golden Mountain Software was left. How could it play?
The last time he met Li Mu, he said that he was not optimistic about Golden Mountain, and was more optimistic about himself. Did this mean that he was also preparing to make anti-software and other software? If that was the case, where would Golden Mountain go in the future?
The most incomprehensible thing was that Li Mu's speed of making awesome products was even faster than making sausages. Every product was so awesome, and the development interval was especially short. If he really fought with Jinshan in the future, how could Jinshan compete with him?
Thinking of this problem, Lei Jianguo felt a little hopeless. He began to seriously consider Li Mu's invitation.
At the moment, two of the three businesses of Golden Mountain had been destroyed by Li Mu, and the future was bleak. As the saying goes, a good bird chooses a good tree to nest in. If the development of Golden Mountain could not be guaranteed, he might as well accept Li Mu's invitation and join his camp.
Immediately, Lei Jianguo thought of a person.
Tengxun's founder, Boss Ma.
He had a lot of interaction with Boss Ma. In the beginning, Boss Ma had just started his business and tried to seek financing from him. At that time, Lei Jianguo was not optimistic about his model, but when Tengxun's QQ users began to increase, he had a moment of regret. However, the appearance of Li Mu made him feel lucky. It seemed that his judgment was still accurate. If he felt that Li Mu could not do it, then he really could not …
The reason why Lei Jianguo thought of Boss Ma at this time was that he felt that Boss Ma should be one of the people who understood Li Mu the best. After all, they had competed so fiercely, and he even thought that he would completely crush Li Mu, the newborn calf. However, he did not expect that the situation would be reversed overnight. Li Mu, in turn, crushed QQ to the point that it stopped maintaining.
Lei Jianguo wanted to have a chat with Boss Ma before making a final decision. He wanted to ask him what he thought of Li Mu and what he thought of the future of Makino Technology or Taobao.
Coincidentally, he was in Zhuhai City, across the sea from Boss Ma's Shenzhen City. He could reach there in an hour by boat.
Therefore, Lei Jianguo found someone to inquire about Boss Ma's mobile phone number and called him.
Ever since QQ stopped maintaining, Boss Ma had been researching new products. The field of instant messaging was dominated by Makino Technology, so he had decisively given up on the category of instant messaging. For a long time, he had been dealing with the capital problems of Tengxun Company. It was not easy for him to get a clear idea, but he had entered a continuous downturn again. He had tried to develop other products before, but he had not adjusted his state, nor had he chosen a good field and direction.
When he suddenly received a call from Lei Jianguo, Boss Ma was quite surprised. Lei Jianguo's status in the industry had always been much higher than his. He had tried to catch up, and he had almost caught up with him. However, he did not expect Li Mu to appear out of nowhere.
Now, Boss Ma felt that there was a huge gap between him and Lei Jianguo. He did not expect Lei Jianguo to take the initiative to call him.
Lei Jianguo asked when he came up, "Boss Ma, long time no see. What have you been up to recently?"
Boss Ma said, "Long time no see, Boss Lei. I haven't been doing anything recently. I'm looking for a new product idea. I'm still thinking about it."
Lei Jianguo asked, "Are you still in Shenzhen City?"
"Yes, I've been."
Lei Jianguo said, "It just so happens that I'm in Zhuhai City. It's not far from you. I've finished the things at hand. I wanted to ask if you have time. If you do, I'll go to Shenzhen to meet you."
When Boss Ma heard this, he immediately said, "I have time. When will you come?"
Lei Jianguo looked at the time and said, "Well, I'll go by boat later. Give me an address. I'll try to get there before six o 'clock, and then we'll have dinner together."
"Okay, Boss Lei. I'll send the address to your mobile phone."
…
Lei Jianguo took a boat from Zhuhai City alone and arrived in Shenzhen City in more than an hour. Although Boss Ma left him an address, considering that Lei Jianguo was a big shot in the industry, he went to the dock to pick him up.
After the two met, Boss Ma took a taxi and took Boss Lei to a good Chaoshan restaurant in Shannan District. After the two sat down, they ordered some food and chatted casually.
Lei Jianguo wanted to ask Boss Ma to have a few drinks. Boss Ma hesitated for a moment and agreed.
After three rounds of drinking, both of them were a little drunk, so they chatted more casually.
Boss Ma asked Lei Jianguo, "You went to Xishan Residence when you went to Zhuhai City, right?"
Boss Ma knew the situation of the Internet industry very well. He knew that Jinshan had a game studio called Xishan Residence, which was in Zhuhai City.
Lei Jianguo smiled slightly, nodded, and then sighed softly, "The core development team of Xishan Residence has been wiped out by Makino Technology."
"Makino Technology?" Boss Ma's expression suddenly became extremely complicated. After a moment, he sighed, "Li Mu is going to make a game!"
Lei Jianguo nodded and said, "Yes, they have such a good foundation. If they have a good game, then the domestic online game market will be greatly changed."
Boss Ma smiled bitterly, "There's no other way. This is the effect of a highly loyal user group. The user loyalty of YY is too high, and the conversion rate is also high. In theory, no matter what Internet product he makes, he will have a better foundation than other companies. The starting point is more than one level higher."
Lei Jianguo smacked his lips and asked Boss Ma, "How capable do you think Li Mu is? How long can he maintain this kind of momentum? "
When Boss Ma heard this question, he took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He did not speak for a long time. Then, he let out a long sigh and said, "I came from a technical background. I can responsibly say that Li Mu is an abnormal Internet genius. Central TV said that he is the pride of the Internet, and this is not an exaggeration at all."
Lei Jianguo could not help but ask, "What do you mean?"
Boss Ma spread his hands. "I'm the best example. QQ had such a good situation. It had nearly 100 million registered users and tens of millions of actual users. At that time, Hua Xia had tens of millions of netizens. On average, there were nearly two QQ accounts per person. But because she could not see through Li Mu's tricks, she was held back by him and then counterattacked. After one round of the war, QQ was completely defeated."
Lei Jianguo asked, "QQ failed because of Li Mu's Happy Farm, right? I don't really understand that product. Is it really that good? "
Boss Ma shook his head. "Don't be angry if I say something, Boss Lei."
Lei Jianguo nodded repeatedly. "Please say it."
Boss Ma said, "Only people who can't see through it will think that QQ lost to Happy Farm. But that's not the case at all. Back then, Li Mu brought out Happy Farm to cultivate user connections within his product system. You also know that the most important thing in social media is connections. This is even more so for social media software. But Happy Farm is really a magical game. It is a product that encourages users to continuously add friends. So after Happy Farm was in operation for a period of time, the number of connections that users have developed in it has nearly doubled that of QQ."
After a pause, Boss Ma said, "At that time, there was a statistical result. The average number of friends registered on QQ is 82, but the average number of friends registered on Happy Farm is more than 200 …"
Lei Jianguo said, "In that case, the main reason is still because of Happy Farm."
"No." Boss Ma shook his head and said, "No matter how strong Happy Farm's users' connections are, it is a game and QQ is an instant messaging software. There is no direct competition between the two, so QQ will not directly fail. And the reason why QQ failed was because it lost to YY. When YY was first released, its overall quality was really too strong. It was simply a generation ahead of me. The interface design was too much better than QQ, and the user experience was also on a different level. What was even more amazing were the new product functions. It was simply amazing. The most powerful one was the YY group. It was a fatal blow to QQ. "
"Did you know that on the night YY was released, the user network of Happy Farm was directly transferred to YY, and YY immediately exploded in popularity. One of my company's maintenance supervisors heard from his classmates in YY that his ex-girlfriend was in Beijing, so he bought a train ticket to Beijing that very night. Later, I heard that he even joined Makino Technology. Say, after YY, a product that is completely ahead of QQ, was released, it transplanted the users' accumulated connections from Happy Farm with zero barriers, crushing QQ in all aspects. How could I withstand it? Moreover, it was only after YY was released that I completely understood Li Mu's real purpose in creating Happy Farm. Happy Farm was a product that he developed to defeat me. Before YY was released, it had always been playing the role of a hidden stunt. "
It was only then that Lei Jianguo realized. He had never paid much attention to the field of instant messaging. This was the first time he had heard of such details.
At that moment, Lei Jianguo could not help but sigh. "This young man is really not simple … any software developed by Golden Mountain is a big project that is time-consuming and labor-intensive, and it usually takes a year to start. Yet, Li Mu has come up with so many products in just a year. I can't imagine how he achieved it."
Boss Ma laughed at himself, took a sip of wine, and said, "Before most companies develop a software, they first have to establish a project. Then, the product department has to come up with the framework and requirements. Everyone has to discuss the requirements repeatedly. After the requirements are finalized, the design department is in charge of the visual presentation, and the technical development department has to repeatedly think about how to solve every requirement of the product. This kind of thing is far from successful in one go. It requires continuous trial and error, continuous testing, and if it's wrong, they have to start all over again.
"When the technical and testing departments finally solve all kinds of requirements with great effort, the product may suddenly change requirements or raise new requirements. So, they have to develop, test, and repeat.
"In addition, technical development also faces the pressure of the overall operation. Where there are bugs, where there are incompatibilities, which section of code is too cumbersome, they have to solve the bugs when they encounter them, debug when they encounter incompatibilities, simplify when they encounter cumbersome code, and so on.
"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 simply unimaginable. When we ordinary companies do development, it is equivalent to walking thousands of kilometers, and we often take the wrong path and take detours. With Li Mu, we always fly directly to the destination."
As a person who had really done development, Boss Ma knew very well that in the development process of a product, most of the energy was spent on trial and error and correcting mistakes. This was also why there were a lot of popular jokes on the various positions of software development on the Internet in the future.
For example: Design always wants to kill the product managers and project managers who constantly come up with new ideas for their work;
For example: Technology always wants to kill the product managers because they always change the requirements at the last minute after their development, making their previous work useless;
For example, there was always a kitchen knife placed next to the technical keyboard. When the product came over to change the requirements, the technical staff would either chop it to death or place the knife on its neck and question it, "Tell me, is this the last f * cking time to change the requirements?!"
Because he understood how serious the internal friction was, Boss Ma really admired people like Li Mu from the bottom of his heart.
Lei Jianguo did not have a deep understanding of technology, but when he heard him praise Li Mu's high efficiency so much, he could not help but ask him, "How does Li Mu's company achieve such high development efficiency?"
Boss Ma sighed softly and said, "I was also curious in the past, so I specially inquired about it later. Later, I found out that the product development process in Makino Technology and Taobao is completely different from other companies."
Lei Jianguo asked, "What do you mean?"
Boss Ma said, "Other companies rely on luck, discussion, research, and trial, but in Makino Technology and Taobao, Li Mu is the only product manager. He is always the one who gives the product architecture and then gives the most direct orders to the various departments: Design, what do you do; technology, what do you do; support, what do you do. After everyone listens clearly, they just need to do what he says. And most importantly, as long as they do what he says, it will definitely succeed. This is the most frightening thing about him. This person's sensitivity to the product and precision of control are simply unimaginable. If he is not a genius, then what is he?"
Boss Lei's heart skipped a beat and he said, "Is he that amazing?"
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