Chapter 1004 Mobile Internet
Not all Internet companies are like Yiguo, holding a large amount of cash to resist the cold winter.
Survival has become the most urgent need of these Internet companies at the moment.
So, a round of bloody Internet layoffs was launched.
For a time, employees of Internet companies were in danger and were always worried when they went to work every day, fearing that they were still typing code in the last second and were called to the office by the leader or HR for a talk in the next second.
Yiguo was no exception under this trend.
In response to this situation, Qin Hao issued a letter to all employees.
The content above is also very simple, clearly telling employees that Yiguo not only has no layoff plan, but also needs to conduct large-scale recruitment due to business development. Employees can get rewards after they have classmates or friends who recommend them to join the company.
Immediately afterwards, a new round of recruitment plans was also announced on the official website of Yiguo.
The employees of Yiguo finally breathed a sigh of relief.
That night, some employees of Yiguo posted on some forums, which caused a lot of heat.
In the general environment where the entire mainland Internet industry is "reducing costs and increasing efficiency" and cutting salaries, companies like Yiguo that not only do not lay off employees but also recruit a large number of employees are simply bizarre.
This makes some employees in other companies who are dissatisfied with the salary cuts ready to move. Some directly take leave to apply for jobs at Yiguo, while others use internal introduction channels through acquaintances.
Therefore, Yiguo's recruitment center often has some very interesting situations. Many applicants find that the people around them are from the same company or even the same department as themselves during chatting. Others take leave to apply for jobs, but end up meeting their leaders. The two look at each other with awkward smiles and pretend not to know each other.
If it were normal times, Yiguo's poaching behavior would inevitably cause dissatisfaction among some peers, but at this time, many companies wish Qin Hao could poach more so that they can pay less compensation.
Of course, Jack Ma doesn't think so. He has accused Qin Hao of poaching a large number of talents from Alibaba with "illegal high salaries" in public several times.
Before Qin Hao opened his mouth to fight back against Jack Ma's accusations, netizens have already scolded him back.
"Good fellow, high salary is illegal, so people working for you are selling their work to you?"
"That's right, Yiguo is not stupid. They poach people with high salary, which means they are worth the price. They offer low salary, but blame them for offering high salary."
"Haha, illegal high salary, I suggest you include this word in the idiom dictionary, it's too classic, let the future generations see the face of contemporary capitalists."
Jack Ma was so angry that he vomited blood, but he could do nothing about it. Alibaba's welfare benefits were originally different from Yiguo's, and now they are laying off employees and cutting salaries. The contradictions are suddenly exposed. Some even resigned as a whole team and went to Yiguo, making it impossible to carry out many projects.
What made Jack Ma most depressed was that even many people in the "China Supply Iron Army" that he "placed high hopes on" jumped to Yiguo. On the one hand, the salary offered by Yiguo was indeed attractive enough, and on the other hand, it was because Yiguo showed a better prospect than Alibaba.
You should know that the valuation of Yigoo in this round of C financing has reached 15.3 billion US dollars. If it can successfully go public on the US stock market in the future, it should not be a problem to double or triple it.
Although there have been internal reports that Alibaba is going to go public on the Hong Kong stock market, it may not be successful, and the market value after listing will hardly reach the height of 15.3 billion US dollars.
One is valued at 15.3 billion US dollars before listing, and the other may not reach 15.3 billion US dollars after listing. The difference is obvious.
However, for Alibaba, after "layoffs and salary cuts", the account book does look much better. Jack Ma is also very clear that this is a life-and-death battle. Once Alibaba falls behind, it will be difficult to keep up with Yigoo.
So Jack Ma began to push for an IPO in Hong Kong.
Just when Alibaba was focusing on its IPO in Hong Kong, Yigoo, under the promotion of Qin Hao, opened up a new business again - smartphones.
At the beginning, many executives and investors were opposed to Qin Hao's plan to make mobile phones.
After all, in 2007, the global mobile phone market was crawling under the shadow of Nokia's dynasty, and even Samsung could only pick up Nokia's leftovers.
As for domestic mobile phone manufacturers, the four major mobile phone manufacturers known as the "China Cool Alliance" can only survive by producing "contract phones" for the three major operators.
All offline mobile phone stores in China basically sell international brands such as Nokia, Samsung, and Sony for a living.
Regarding the concerns of executives and investors, Qin Hao did not make a one-man show, but convened a manager-level executive meeting and also invited representatives of investors to listen.
Qin Hao did not talk nonsense, but took out a mobile phone from his pocket.
"This is the new model that Apple is about to release - iPhone 3G. I asked someone to get an engineering prototype from the United States. On this phone, I saw the future form of the Internet."
"That's the smartphone!"
"Today, we still have to sit in front of the computer desk to surf the Internet, facing a screen of more than 20 inches, and it also has to carry a heavy host, which greatly restricts our freedom to surf the Internet."
"If we can do it, we can surf the Internet easily and without obstacles with just such a mobile phone."
"Just imagine what that would be like. If such a mobile phone is equipped with software like Yiguo, which allows users to easily complete shopping with just a few clicks, what does it mean for Yiguo?"
At this point, Qin Hao deliberately paused to give the executives and investor representatives present time to think.
An investor frowned and said, "But making mobile phones has nothing to do with Yiguo's business. Isn't it urgent for us to defeat Taobao and then go public in the United States?"
His words were recognized by many investors present.
After all, they invested so much money in Yiguo in order to let Yiguo go public in the United States, and then cash out at a high price and leave the market to earn rich returns.
The mobile phone business is a completely unfamiliar field for them, and unfamiliarity means risk.
Qin Hao said slowly: "What about after the listing? How can Yiguo ensure its absolute advantage over its peers? How to build its own moat?"
While speaking, Qin Hao pointed to the iPhone 3G in his right hand again.
"This is the moat of Yiguo."
Venture investors are not tired of risks, but the imbalance between risks and returns. As long as there is enough return, they are willing to try any risk.
Some investors were persuaded by Qin Hao, but some of them reserved their opinions.
As for Yiguo's executives, they were all promoted by Qin Hao, and many of them were his classmates at Peking University and Tsinghua University.
Qin Hao's roommates Gao Feng and Cao Hexiang hold important positions in Yiguo.
Moreover, every decision made by Qin Hao in recent years can be said to be in line with the trend of the times, which is also the most important reason why Yiguo can rise in such a short time.
After the executive meeting, Yiguo's mobile phone R&D department was officially established.
However, for a long time afterwards, most Yiguo employees did not know that their company had such a department.
On the one hand, the mobile phone R&D department was too low-key and had no business exchanges with other departments. On the other hand, it was also because the office of the mobile phone R&D department was not located in the Yiguo headquarters building, but was arranged by Qin Hao in another research building in the Peking University and Tsinghua University Industrial Park.
In a blink of an eye, it was May 12, 2008, and Qin Hao suddenly received a call from Xiao Qianxi.
"I just saw the news, and suddenly remembered that Xie Qiao seemed to have gone there with the people from the publishing house to collect folk songs. I called her many times but couldn't get through..."
Qin Hao comforted her: "Qianxi, don't panic, I have asked the rescue team to go there, Xie Qiao should just have a signal interruption, and I will contact you as soon as the rescue team finds her."
Xiao Qianxi breathed a sigh of relief: "Then should I tell Qin Chuan?"
"It's better to tell him, this stupid boy will do something impulsive."
As a result, what you fear will come true. Qin Chuan disappeared that night, and he must have gone to Tianfu.
However, after experiencing this incident, Qin Chuan, the silly boy, finally got the beauty back, which can be regarded as a fool's luck.
Yiguo also won praise from the market for sending out rescue teams, delivering a large amount of supplies, and making subsequent large donations. Many users even bought a large number of products that they used a lot from Yiguo after seeing some news reports, which caused many of Yiguo's storage and logistics centers to be sold out.
Qin Hao had to stand up and call on users to calm down and not to consume impulsively.
Unfortunately, it was useless. Users' enthusiasm for purchasing did not diminish at all, so Yiguo's purchasing department had to work overtime to purchase. Many cooperative factories' machines were almost out of stock, but they still couldn't keep up with the consumption speed of users.
This wave alone brought Yiguo more than 20 million new users, and sales in June and July alone exceeded 20 billion yuan.
According to Liu Qiangdong, the couriers of JD Logistics were almost exhausted from tricycles, and a large number of packages could not be delivered every day. Fortunately, many users bought things just to support Yiguo's good deeds, and they didn't pay attention to the delivery speed at all. They had no complaints if the delivery was slow.
It was not until August, when the Olympic Games opened, that the trend was somewhat eased. However, Yiguo's market share had stabilized, occupying half of the entire mainland e-commerce field, and the remaining half was divided by Taobao, eBay, Dangdang, Joyo Amazon, and Paipai.com.
Among them, Taobao's market share has been hovering around 30%, and the number of users has exceeded 60 million, making it Yiguo's biggest competitor.
Of course, Jack Ma disagrees with this statement. In several media interviews, Jack Ma said that Alibaba's only competitor is itself, and other companies do not pose a threat to Alibaba.
Later, when he was interviewed by central media, the host reminded him that Yiguo's market share had exceeded half. Jack Ma left the scene angrily with a black face on the spot, leaving only the host with a confused face.
Just one month after the Olympic Games, some media suddenly received an invitation letter from Yiguo, and what they didn't expect was that Yiguo's invitation letter said: Sincerely invite you to attend the global launch of our company's first smartphone.
Mobile phone? Smart?
The media were a little confused. Before that, they only paid attention to Yiguo.com. When did they make a mobile phone?
However, considering that Yiguo paid for the travel expenses, the media still sent reporters to the press conference for interviews. No matter what, Qin Hao was still very popular. If they could interview him afterwards, the trip would be worth it.
That night, in the largest venue of Beijing 798 Art Center, Qin Hao appeared on the podium after a flash of spotlights.
"Welcome everyone present to such a boring press conference."
There was a burst of laughter at the scene.
After Qin Hao laughed at himself, his face turned serious: "However, I believe that after the press conference, you should be as honored as me to witness this history."
At first, the reporters present thought Qin Hao was bragging, but under a beam of light, they saw the real smart phone in Qin Hao's hand, and no one questioned his words anymore.
In 2008, Nokia was still the undisputed giant in the mobile phone industry.
Nokia also once influenced the aesthetics of mobile phones, so that many people believed that designs like Nokia's were beautiful.
However, all this was completely overturned when they saw the "MOSS" mobile phone in Qin Hao's hand, which had a narrow frame, was only the thickness of a thumb, and was exquisite like a work of art.
It turned out that mobile phones could be so exquisite?
The appearance alone made the reporters and the audience present excited.
However, they soon found that they were too excited too early, because when Qin Hao began to demonstrate the actual machine, almost every step of the operation would cause a burst of exclamations.
It turned out that mobile phones could be operated like this?
The press conference was very short, but the sensation it brought lasted for a long time, and the reason was very simple.
The "MOSS" mobile phone was so popular that long queues formed in Yiguo's offline stores early, because it was impossible to grab it online, and it was often sold out in less than five minutes after it was sold out.
Even if the price of "MOSS" was as high as 6888 yuan, it still could not change the enthusiasm of users to buy it. Many people even increased the price to 8000 to buy it, and it was still hard to get a phone.
You have to know that this was in 2008, when most people only earned about 2,000 yuan a month. It would cost four months' salary to buy a domestic mobile phone, which was unimaginable in the past.
But the "MOSS" mobile phone did it.
Qin Hao also relied on his amazing performance at the press conference to transform from an Internet upstart to a technology giant. Even the central media reprinted the press conference many times.
While cooking pancakes, Xu Lin and Xie Qiao looked at Qin Hao's newspaper and were amazed.
"I knew that Lao Qin was awesome before, but I didn't expect him to be so awesome."
"Yeah, we were discussing the Internet before, but now we are looking forward to mobile Internet. I feel like I can't keep up with the times."