Chapter 826 A Difficult New Beginning

Chapter 328 A Difficult New Beginning

He cares so much about Google, so naturally he can't ignore his own son. Of course, the most important company in the United States is NEXTDOOR.

Buchanan has mixed feelings recently. The development of the NEXTDOOR website has been very smooth. So far, it has covered major large and medium-sized cities in the United States, and at least one-third of the households. The development of the neighboring country of Canada has been put on the agenda.

On the other hand, this fast-growing website is still not profitable so far. The advertising revenue of each sub-site is often only enough for the sub-site's operating expenses. Most of the huge R&D and operating expenses of the headquarters come from the company's pure investment.

At present, NEXTDOOR belongs to its boss 100%, that is to say, all these funds come from the boss's personal pocket.

Feng Yiping was called the richest man in China by the Chinese media. Buchanan knew about it. However, he was a little embarrassed by those figures. From his point of view, the wealth of the boss disclosed by the Chinese media was definitely only a small part.

Because the wealth there comes from the two listed companies of the boss, and NEXTDOOR, long before the listing of those two companies, has already started to operate, and began to invest a large amount of cash. The hardware, the investment of the month, is no lower than the price of the boss's Gulfstream.

Since its inception, the sum has exceeded 300 million US dollars, which is close to the sum of the funds raised by the two companies of the boss, and the investment in the park under construction has exceeded the total funds raised by the two companies of the boss. Close to $400 million.

He was very puzzled that with such a large-scale investment, the young boss neither wanted money from venture capitalists nor raised money from banks, so he sometimes wondered, could it be that the boss's account has been lying with a large sum of money? funds, so there is no need to consider other means of financing?

If this speculation is true, wouldn't it mean that my boss, who has not yet graduated from university, should have been the richest man in their country long ago?

His conjecture is also close to the truth. Most of the income from shorting 911 is still sleeping on the account. Under such circumstances, how can there be any need for financing?

When he received Feng Yiping's call, Buchanan was testing the company's upcoming new section from the user's point of view, which is the most important section to improve the company's profitability - the group buying section.

"Hi Feng, we all hope that you can come to the United States soon, at least temporarily away from your capital," this is the similar persuasion that Feng Yiping has heard when talking with the United States recently.

Even when Jobs spoke on the phone, the first thing he said was the problem, not work.

"Thank you for your concern. Don't just look at the scary data. Our government's measures are very powerful. From the overall trend, the spread of SARS is being effectively contained step by step. As long as we pay more attention to it, we don't have to worry about it at all. question."

Although from the bottom of his heart, he has a lot of opinions on the government's dereliction of duty and absence in the early days, and he will complain a few words when chatting with Xiao Zhijie and Wang Changning, but in front of these American friends and employees, Feng Yiping has always been very concerned about his country. Very sure.

As the old saying goes, children don't think their mothers are ugly.

"How about the trial run of the group buying section?" Feng Yiping didn't want to dwell on that issue, and asked directly about work.

"Very good. After repeated tests, there is no problem. The technical department has also upgraded and expanded our server, and the stress test is also very successful. We are already negotiating cooperation with some well-known companies, just the first few orders, which ones should we choose?" Commodities, there are many different opinions,”

"I'm looking for you because of this matter. I just contacted Jobs. He supports Pixar's "Finding Nemo", which is scheduled to be released at the end of the month, as the first business of our group buying website,"

"Really?" Buchanan's voice rose at least two octaves.

Pixar, an animation film production company born out of Lucas's Industrial Light and Magic Animation Studio, has created one shining miracle after another since it came into the hands of Jobs. "Toy Story 1" launched in 1995 sold for $192 million. became the box office champion in the United States that year, and won a box office of 360 million US dollars worldwide.

The last "Monsters, Inc." had a global box office of $562 million!

In short, these animated feature films produced by Pixar and released by Disney are already the most popular animated films in the United States and the world.

Moreover, this kind of group buying project is very compatible with NEXTDOOR's family-based users, and it is really the best choice for the first shot of group buying.

"Yes, Jobs himself agrees, but because Disney is in charge of distribution, you have to go to Los Angeles to discuss specific matters with Michael Eisner,"

"Eisner? I've had a few meetings with him and he's a tough guy," Buchanan said.

"This may be my speculation, but I can probably hear from Jobs' words that although Pixar and Disney have cooperated for so many years and have been very successful, the relationship between him and Eisner does not seem to be so harmonious, so we will talk about it. You must pay attention to this point when talking about Jobs, it may only have the opposite effect, "

Obedient and listening, Feng Yiping could tell from Jobs' comments and titles to Eisner in a few words that he was quite unimpressed with that guy.

Of course, there are too many people who don't catch a cold with Jobs. Back then, it would be unthinking to scold Bill Gates.

"I understand, I will prepare well,"

…………

Disney Headquarters in Burniebank, Los Angeles, "Mr. Eisner, it's time to make an appointment with Mr. Buchanan from NEXTDOOR," the secretary reminded Michael Eisner over the phone.

"Let the people from the publishing department go to the conference room first, and say that I have important matters to deal with at the moment, and I will be 20 minutes late," Eisner gave a brief order.

He is not targeting Buchanan, he is venting his anger, because NEXTDOOR was introduced by that guy Jobs.

Since the beginning of the year, Disney has been negotiating with Pixar on the renewal of the contract. In 1997, Disney and Pixar reached a new agreement, agreeing that the two parties will jointly produce 5 animated feature films, share the cost of film production, jointly own the film copyright, and share the box office. As well as peripheral income, of course, as the publisher, Disney will share a part of the distribution fee. At the same time, as the leader in the animation industry, Disney's box office share is also higher than that of Pixar.

For example, in the very successful first "Cars", the box office share ratio between Pixar and Disney was actually a huge gap of 15:85. Although it was adjusted later, Disney always took the lead.

How can a character like Jobs accept such an unequal treaty? Moreover, Pixar now far surpasses Disney in terms of the production level of animated feature films, especially in the production of 3D animated feature films.

According to the agreement, this "Finding Nemo" is the last feature film of the cooperation between the two parties. With the previous success, Jobs proposed a condition that made Eisner's nose angry: in the new contract, Pixar independently develops and enjoys exclusive animation. For all the income, he only gave Disney 10% of the distribution fee, and this distribution right was only for five years. At the same time, he also asked Disney to give up the copyright of all Pixar animations.

This is almost a replica of the harsh cooperation conditions in 1995, no, it should be more stringent, but the partners have been reversed.

Eisner is also a guy with great personality, and his career is equally dazzling and outstanding. After the old Disney, he took over the Disney kingdom and developed a company with a market value of only 2 billion US dollars to the present A business empire with a market capitalization of over US$30 billion!

He thinks that in the entertainment industry, at least in the animation industry, he has more say than Jobs, the latecomer. Jobs' request of such a condition is an insult to Disney and an insult to himself.

So, today, Buchanan, to put it bluntly, is the fish in the pond whose innocents were harmed.

However, as a former politician, such small tricks had no effect on Buchanan at all. In the conference room, his description of the group buying section of his website had already deeply attracted the employees of Disney's distribution department.

"We have covered all large and medium-sized cities in the United States, with more than 30 million active registered households. If we want to promote this movie to so many households, how much manpower, material and financial resources will we consume by the usual means in the industry?

Whether it is advertising on TV, newspapers, or in theaters, the duration is limited, but as long as you join the group buying section of our website, that is 24 hours a day, as long as the user clicks, you can always see it.

Moreover, our users are all based on families, which happen to be the target customer group of this film, so, I think, this is the best way to recommend,"

Seeing that the guys in the publishing department were nodding, Eisner, who stopped outside, quickly walked into the conference room, "We also have our own website,"

"Hi Buchanan, long time no see!"

"Hi Mr. Eisner!" Buchanan warmly shook hands and then hugged the guy who had left him for twenty minutes, "Thank you very much for giving us this opportunity,"

"Hehe, we also have our own website," Eisner sat down and repeated what he had just said.

"Your company's website is also very well-made," Buchanan boasted casually, "but, for people outside of Disney, it is just a window for everyone to know about your company. I boldly say that every day you log in to the website Yes, most of them should be internal employees of your company, right, and our NEXTDOOR has tens of millions of users who log in every day,"

"Jane seems to be a registered user of your website." Jane is his wife. "I've also been on it a few times. There is a review section about movies on it. The design is good. When can I buy movie tickets on it?"

"This section has not been officially listed yet, but it has been prepared for a long time, because this is the first time we have created an online group buying, and many companies are already negotiating with us, hoping to become the first user of this section, the effect is sure You can't go wrong, and it's very memorable.

You know that our chairman is a special advisor to Apple, so he is very happy to give this first opportunity to "Finding Nemo", "

Inevitably, we still have to talk about Jobs.

In fact, Feng Yiping chose "Finding Nemo" as the first choice for group buying because he also wanted to use this movie, which has received a lot of attention and must be a big success, to increase the popularity of his group buying section.

"Feng, right? That's a man with a good eye. Where is he now?"

"Still finishing school at home,"

"And I hope to meet him, but our movie will be released on the 30th, and various promotional work has already been carried out effectively. This event is free!"

"Your company has arranged for the release of the other several films in the fall. "Finding Nemo" is the first time to be released during the highly competitive summer vacation. I think there is no harm in doing enough publicity, right?" Because of the first A great deal, Buchanan also did a lot of prep work.

"As for the fee, yes, we can consider waiving it all," he said with a smile, throwing out a heavy condition.

"Oh, then I think I can be a guinea pig for NEXTDOOR, what do you think?" Eisner asked his subordinates with a smile.

It's okay to have opinions on Jobs, but business is business, and he can definitely distinguish this point. Moreover, why not use free publicity?

"Mr. Eisner, you didn't listen to the previous introduction, so you may not know that group buying mainly uses discounts to attract users. Therefore, regarding this group buying, we hope that the ticket price at any time will be the original ticket price." 20% off the price,"

"The average ticket price this year is $6.03, that is, for every ticket sold on your website, we need to pay $1.206. If 1 million tickets are sold, that's a discount of 1.26 million dollars. If it's 10 million tickets, then We have to pay nearly 12.61 million, hehe, Buchanan, are you free? Are you helping us, or are you lowering our income?" Eisner looked at Buchanan with a smile,

"Because of the good relationship between the two parties, we decided that in the first five days when the group buying section goes online, we will only launch the project "Finding Nemo". We don't have much confidence in 10 million copies, but 5 million copies should not be a big problem. "

"The box office of the previous few films has not been less than 300 million US dollars. What is the expenditure of more than 5 million US dollars? Moreover, Mr. Eisner, the film has not yet been released, but 5 million movie tickets have been sold. How much will this lead to? I think, in terms of publicity, it should be no less than the sensation caused by the box office exceeding 50 million on the first day, "

Why do film companies pay attention to the box office on the first day and the box office in the first week? Because that will drive more audiences into the cinema.

"Moreover, such a new model and such a topical event will definitely attract media reports, so at least it will have a double publicity effect,"

This is Buchanan's last reason, and if Eisner still doesn't agree, then he really has nothing to do.

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