Chapter 22 Hammered to Death

Yao Kun, on his part, acknowledged Cao Shen's doubts about the internal strife of the management team.

However, he has not completely given up. After all, he has been following this project for a long time, and his inclination is already relatively high.

Now the denial is not only a denial of this project, but also a denial of his investment in the past few months.

It's like falling in love. If you invest too much, even if you find that the other party has problems, if it is not a devastating problem, you will continue to comfort yourself, there are shortcomings here, but there are advantages in other places.

For example, if this H.264 decoding chip of Xinyuan Semiconductor can sell well! Selling to explosions!

After all, the consumer electronics market is still very large.

Smart TVs based on the Ant operating system are now in the process of replacing traditional TVs, and there is great potential in the future.

In addition, the Ant Pad is now gaining momentum.

This is the outlet!

Besides, it's an internal conflict.

First, as an investor, I may be able to mediate.

Second, after two rounds of financing, the three founders have a total of 57.6% of the shares, and each person has an average of 19.2% of the shares.

If the situation is really unreconcilable, it is not without precedent that investors unite to drive out individual founders.

Driving them all out is not unprecedented.

As for the technical research and development capabilities, it now seems that the main reason for the product delay is internal strife, not the real lack of skills. If this is the case, it will make people feel more at ease.

Internal strife, after all, can be dealt with.

So, Yao Kun is concerned about these problems, but they are not fatal.

If the system does not settle, Cao Shen can only continue to complain.

He was a little depressed and even doubted whether Yao Kun would not eat chicken.

Oh, yes, there is no chicken game these days.

I must make one in the future!

Let everyone experience the lethality of a full team of internal strife.

In his previous life, Cao Shen liked to eat chicken very much, but he was not good at it.

But there are professional companions, so he is not afraid at all. When playing with others, he just follows behind to loot and pick up heads.

Once, Cao Shen was careless and ordered three ace war gods to play with him, and they were all anchors.

I thought it was a sure win!

Three ace players with small accounts playing this diamond game together is just a win without effort!

With three ace players, I felt so cool that I could do anything.

As a result, I just laughed.

Three people, all three wanted to command, and no one was willing to obey!

So the three anchors who started live broadcasting started arguing during the live broadcast, then cursed each other, and then the fans started to fight.

Finally, one anchor threw a bomb and blew up the three people.

Oh, no, Cao Shen died directly because he was a weak player with low health.

The one who threw the bomb didn't help at all, and started to taunt until he taunted the remaining two anchors to death.

As a sponsor, Cao Shen also directly harvested a wave of titles of "rookie sponsor" and "sand sculpture sponsor".

An unforgettable game experience...

So, comrade Yao Kun, don't think that you can mediate everything just because you are the sponsor.

Cao Shen closed his eyes and threw away the memories of paying for trouble.

Since internal strife is not an option, all they can do is complain about the performance:

"Mr. Liu, since you are in charge of sales, I would like to ask you about your sales strategy for this H.264 decoder chip?"

Finally, they stopped nagging about team issues and asked questions about Liu Tao, the supervisor. He took a deep breath:

"We plan to enter the smart TV market first and cooperate with top brands. With successful cases of cooperation with brands, it will be easier to promote it."

"Oh, which top brands do you plan to cooperate with, Mr. Liu?"

"We have always maintained a good relationship with Innovation Group. We have been communicating with them during the development of the H.264 decoder chip. They also have high expectations for this chip.

Once our sample comes out, if there are no problems, the first one will be Send it to Innovation Group, and work with them to develop smart TVs with the Android operating system.

In addition, we have a good relationship with TGM, Hailu, Tianxin, and Changcai, and we will work with them to develop the whole machine. "

"Why does Mr. Liu think that top brands will use the chip products made by your startup?

This is a risk for them..."

"Mr. Cao, it's like this.

Our chips use the 130nm process, which has advantages in power consumption, performance and price.

The current mainstream H.264 decoding chip still uses the 180nm process. "

Yao Kun nodded, which is one of the reasons why he chose SMIC Semiconductor, which uses a more advanced manufacturing process than mainstream products.

Although smart TVs do not require high power consumption, the advantages can be seen when used on pads.

And using 130nm means that the chip is smaller and the product can be made thinner.

Consumer electronics are extremely sensitive to price. Although a chip is less than two US dollars, it is equivalent to a product that is nearly 80 yuan cheaper at the terminal.

In the consumer electronics market, especially in the knockoff market, every penny counts, not to mention the "big bucks" of one or two US dollars!

And using the successful cases of brand manufacturers as endorsements is a sales strategy that he agrees with.

"Well," Cao Shen nodded: "Directly cooperate with brand manufacturers, have you completed the overall solution? Can manufacturers use it directly and sell it after putting on a shell?"

Liu Tao pondered for a moment:

"Because the chip has not been taped out, the overall solution has not been made yet.

And we will work with brand manufacturers on future solutions. They have experience in making products, and we have a deeper understanding of chips.

I believe that the cooperation between the two sides can make innovative products that are different from others and gain the favor of users in the market."

Cao Shen felt that Mr. Liu was really a very romantic person.

I really thought that I could make something, but that's not right.

Whatever it is, as long as you spend time and energy, you will definitely make it in the end.

In a few hundred years, humans may be able to make warp spacecraft.

But the problem is that the time cost is too high.

Using competitors' chips, you can start trial production in two months, ship in three months, and go into mass production in four months.

Your company is still completing chip documents, modifying parameters, and adding instruction sets in three months.

It may not be trial production in five months.

By the time you can make a product, your competitors have already started selling the next wave.

There are only three peak sales seasons for consumer electronics in a year: May, September and October, and the holidays from Christmas to the Spring Festival.

All new electronic products are basically released in these three periods.

If you miss one, you will lose one-third of your annual revenue.

Cao Shen was anxious for him and asked again:

"What does Mr. Liu mean? You don't have any solution manufacturers to cooperate with now?"

Liu Tao waved his hand very confidently:

"It is not necessary to cooperate with solution manufacturers now.

We can work with brand manufacturers to come up with solutions and make products, and this direct sales method provides better service.

We will send technical engineers and field application engineers to directly settle in the brand manufacturers and solve any problems at any time.

As long as we do a good job in the cases of cooperation with large companies, we will not have to worry about it in the future."

When Liu Tao mentioned the solution manufacturers, his tone and expression were very disdainful, as if he was giving them a reward.

Indeed, in the early 21st century in his previous life, many American semiconductor companies were still very arrogant to domestic customers, picking and choosing, and making all kinds of demands.

But with the rise of the domestic consumer electronics industry, the Americans gradually came to their senses and changed their attitudes towards domestic customers.

After all, the saying that whoever gives you milk is your mother is true everywhere.

But Liu Tao was obviously a little slow in his mentality, and he still regarded himself as an executive of an internationally renowned semiconductor company, with a sense of superiority.

He also felt that he was a well-known large company with awesome technology and products and endless resources.

He looked down on the channels, ignored partners, and did not pay attention to the distribution of benefits.

In the end, it was easy to become a lonely person, and he could only sell the goods himself. In the end, he found that the brand, resources, financial strength, and human resources were not enough.

After being beaten by reality, he could only shout: The world is against me!

Cao Shen laughed. This is really out-of-touch arrogance, and it's safe!

He was sure that Liu Tao had never made a complete product himself!

And Cao Shen had rich experience in being whipped!

From a chip to a complete product, there are a lot of troubles in it.

First, you need to make a motherboard, put a lot of components on it, and design it reasonably, and efficiently solve a series of power consumption, electromagnetic interference and other problems.

Generally, this motherboard needs to be repaired at least three times before it will not report problems.

Then, you need to run the system, which is prone to various bugs, some of which you can't explain no matter how hard you check.

This kind of inexplicable is more confusing than ordering a cup of milk tea takeaway for your girlfriend, and she suddenly gets angry.

Although there is now an Android operating system, it can be used for free.

However, it is not installed directly. You have to tailor and optimize this operating system according to the actual product characteristics.

You will also find that after your chip is connected to other chips and runs on the system, various "running scores" cannot reach the theoretical value. Then take it back and modify it, or find a way to optimize it.

In the end, after experiencing various beatings, the product was made with bumps and bumps.

But the product may not be easy to use, and it will report frantic bugs under various operations of users.

Liu Tao is too confident in his team's ability to make complete products.

Chip R&D and electronic complete product R&D are two completely different lines. You can't do the other if you know one.

It's like you are a farmer, and the rice, tomatoes, and even chickens you raise are all very good.

You know the ingredients very well.

But this doesn't mean that you can make a good plate of tomato fried rice!

In addition, Liu Tao has overly romantic expectations for the R&D level of complete machine manufacturers.

Although complete machine manufacturers have so-called research institutes, most of their products are actually ready-made overall solutions provided by solution companies, which are slightly modified and put on a shell before being sold.

The chip manufacturers who cooperate with the research institute to make products must be very mature chip manufacturers, and their products have been verified by large-scale shipments.

All kinds of technical documents are complete, all kinds of bug solutions are fully loaded, and there are a large number of mature cases.

In short, no matter what problem you encounter, they have ready-made solutions. After all, they are experienced drivers who are familiar with road conditions and have rich postures.

And most importantly, they provide turnkey solutions, commonly known as turnkey solutions, so that the research institute can make complete machine products without too much effort.

The turnkey solution was originally developed by a company called MediaTek. This thing can greatly reduce the R&D threshold of the whole machine and achieve rapid product launch.

With this model, MediaTek once swept the copycat machine market.

Anti-wolf machine, eight-speaker machine, marquee machine, rocket machine, ultra-long standby machine...

It can be said that solution companies are an indispensable part of the electronics industry.

Whenever a chip company launches a new product, it will go to the brand manufacturer to promote it crazily.

But more importantly, they will find a solution company to work together to develop the overall solution, so that the sense of presence can be turned into goods and money.

In the field of consumer electronics, there are many solution companies, but no large-scale companies.

The fundamental reason is that consumer electronics are diverse, and there are no super-large-scale brand manufacturers among them.

MP4, learning machine, preschool machine, children's camera, Android Pad...

Even for TV, although there are big brands, there are too many models below, and the shipment volume of a single model is not large at all.

This leads to the fact that after working hard to make an overall solution, the shipment volume cannot be increased.

In addition, the replacement of consumer electronics is extremely fast. You just made this solution, sold the goods for three months and collected some money, and then it is time to make a new product.

You are busy all day long, working non-stop, but the income can only cover the labor cost.

There must also be solution companies in the mobile phone field, and this field can be big because their downstream, mobile phone brand manufacturers, are not small in scale.

Upstream, mobile phone baseband chip companies have high technology and patent thresholds and are also large in scale. A company can occupy a large market with a chip to make a set of solutions, without repeatedly developing new solutions.

If you make mobile phones on a small scale, you can only play with copycat phones.

As the price of brand mobile phones gets lower and lower, copycat phones are no longer glorious in the era of smartphones.

The large orders from these big mobile phone customers allow an overall solution to produce a lot of goods and make a lot of money.

Huawei, Xiaomi, OPPO... Many models of mobile phones of these companies are actually made by solution providers.

A-share Wingtech Technology started out as a mobile phone solution provider, and later played a famous acquisition of a snake swallowing an elephant.

With a valuation of 34.7 billion yuan, it acquired the internationally renowned semiconductor company Anshi Semiconductor.

Directly caused the market value of Wingtech Technology to soar from 3.58 billion when it went public through a backdoor listing to 180 billion.

And Liu Tao and his gang have obviously been in the United States for a long time and do not understand the core gameplay of domestic electronic product development.

Thinking that their technology is awesome, they ignore the rules.

This is obviously not okay.

Even Intel will be courteous and ask solution providers to produce boards, and even ARM, which does not make chips but only IP, will have a good relationship with solution providers.

You, Liu Tao, are you going to roll up your sleeves and do it yourself?

After so many years of development in China, everyone has become accustomed to the routines. Do you really think you are better?

Competitors directly sell to major customers, solution manufacturers, and channel distributors, sharing the pressure layer by layer, and together expanding the consumer electronics market, integrating the originally fragmented market, and increasing shipments.

Your family, fighting alone, also chose the Hard mode...

Cao Shen is now very sure that the system is indeed fine, it clearly knows the future results!

A little excited, it's going to be released!

Cleared his throat:

"Mr. Liu, I wonder which research institute under the Innovation Group Research Institute you are cooperating with?

As far as I know, Innovation Group does ship a lot of TV sets every year, about 6 million units.

But smart TVs equipped with the Android operating system are just starting now, with shipments of about 700,000 units last year.

Although the number seems okay, there are 16 models, developed by eight R&D teams.

Each model only has a volume of tens of thousands of units.

Your chip is a new product, and Innovation Group will definitely not give you a main model. At most, it will be a marginal model to test the waters.

And in the past, the dark horse with the largest shipments in history only sold 40,000 units a year.

According to your current situation, from chips to products, and then to It takes at least six months from small batch testing to mass production of the whole machine.

To be on the safe side, you certainly cannot cooperate with only one project team of one company, and calculate it based on seven people for each project.

You are opening five brand manufacturers at the same time. If you open ten projects, that means 70 people will be deployed.

This will also involve the R&D engineers at your headquarters. They have to develop new products and provide technical support for old products. If you don’t add people, the pressure is not small. ”

Liu Tao nodded: "There is pressure. Our headquarters will allocate 20 R&D investments to the product support group and recruit 20 new people to the new codec chip R&D side."

Cao Shen stretched out his hand, counted his fingers and began to calculate for Liu Tao, mainly for Yao Kun:

"Your H.2Cortex-A8 CPU, I will assume that you can sell it at 10 US dollars per piece in mass production, and the gross profit margin will be 40%, which is 28 yuan per piece.

The company now has two floors and about 100 employees.

There are many companies making video codec chips now. There are three companies in the science park where you are. Technology R&D personnel are already scarce and everyone is scrambling for them. The overall industry salary level has increased by more than 30% compared to 2008.

Including the company part of five insurances and one housing fund, your total employee costs in the past two years would be 50 million.

In the next six months, we will be in the stage of cooperating to make complete products, and there will be no income.

And you still need to recruit 90 people, so the total is about 200 people. The cost per month is 6 million, totaling 36 million.

For tape-out, packaging and testing, I’ll give you a cost of 10 million, which comes to a total of 96 million. I won’t calculate other operating, leasing, marketing, and sales expenses for you.

You need to sell 3.5 million chips to cover the investment.

From now on, you will have to sell at least 214,000 pills every month to feed these people. This does not take into account that as time goes by, market competition becomes fiercer and your gross profit margin decreases.

Next year, the total domestic smart TV shipments are expected to be only 8 million units.

According to Moore's Law of Semiconductors, this chip will be replaced in 18 months.

Your tape-out time was delayed by eight months, and the development of the complete machine was delayed by another six months.

Therefore, I am extremely optimistic, assuming that the highlight moment of your chip will last for a year.

With 3.5 million units, you account for half of the entire smart TV market.

I wouldn’t even dare to write like this in a novel.

And your last MPEG-2 shipped less than 70,000 units in two years.

Although you said that you have a good relationship with every customer, but with a shipment volume of 70,000 pieces, it seems that the relationship is not enough.

Is it because you always shake hands and don’t shoot...

I very much doubt whether your sales capabilities can support shipments of 3.5 million units.

Therefore, yours is not a B-round project at all. This is an angel project with a luxurious team and "I have an idea"!

What is an angel project? It’s not about the price-to-earnings ratio, it’s about the price-to-earnings ratio!

It’s time to wake up from your dream. It has been two years since the last round of financing. You have received a total of 70 million yuan, and your income is basically zero.

As soon as you settle the accounts like this, your company will immediately run out of money!

Can I still pay next month’s salary? "

Senior Liu couldn't stand it any longer. It was difficult for him to raise money this time, and he finally met Yao Kun, who didn't know much about it. He felt that he had been deceived.

As a result, a dead boy suddenly jumped out!

After all the chaos, the key is, damn, the person is right!

Although I have rich experience and a glorious background, I am unable to refute it now.

Beat the old master to death with random punches, eh!

Cao Shen finally concluded:

"Mr. Liu, I feel that rather than starting a business, you are more like returning to China to retire with a halo.

Look at your office decoration, it’s just one floor, you can’t buy it for two million, so you installed two floors. "

Tap on the table with your hands:

“Such a big solid wood table is not cheap.

Your secretary carrying the tea cup looks like a well-trained life assistant.

Also, looking at your face, you must be playing golf a lot.

This game lasted four to five hours and cost five to six thousand yuan. The life of starting a business was quite pleasant.

If you insist on entertaining clients, let me give you a suggestion.

There are many customers in consumer electronics. Do you know why there is an industry in Dongguan, which is very close to the village, that is so popular?

People don't like to play golf.

Slow and take your time.

Domestic entrepreneurship is hard work and time is spent.

Your American rhythm is too casual and a bit acclimatized. "

【Ding! Congratulations to the host, you have received the reward!

Life extension by 89 days!

The account balance increased by RMB 1.05 million, calculated as 3% of the recovery of investment losses. 】

Finally, the sound of nature is here!

An unpleasant confrontation finally ended.

Cao Shen couldn't die for the time being, so he planned to use the system to cause edge friction.

Is this a chip industrial park? I’m here to take a gamble!

After leaving Xinyuan Semiconductor's office, Mr. Liu's face was very dark. He didn't even want to see the customer away, so he just made a phone call to escape.

With excitement, Yao Kun took over the task of seeing off guests and sent Cao Shen to the door of the building.

Holding Cao Shen's hands tightly:

"Mr. Cao, you are so awesome!

Hit the nail on the head and enlightened me!

Brother, if it weren't for you, I would have almost paid for it, and the money would have been wasted.

When I look at projects in the future, brother, you must help me check them. "

If it weren't for lunch or dinner time, Yao Kun would have wanted to drag Cao Shen to have a big drink!

Cao Shen nodded businesslikely and looked outside.

He just watched Zhang Beixin scratching his head and pacing back and forth in front of the car.

Cao Shen walked over and saw, oh, he was caught.

There were cars parked in front and behind, just a punch away.

Zhang Beixin looked embarrassed when she saw Cao Shen coming:

"I parked behind this Jetta and went to the restroom. When I came back, there was a Jetta parked behind me. I tried to see if I could move out..."

I tightened my hands, could this car be pushed horizontally?

Yao Kun also followed over, and when he saw it, he was happy:

"No, no, no, no, I know the owner of the Jetta in front of me. Mr. Liu is a good driver. I'll call him and ask him to come down and move."

Cao Shen scratched his neck:

I can't tell, the old man is still an experienced driver.

But this Jetta is totally unlike his style. With his status and style, even if the company is in trouble, he should at least arrange an A6 for himself, and it should come with a driver!

I started to doubt myself. Did I make a mistake?