amaotonovel Chapter 1004 Mobile Internet
Chapter 1004 Mobile Internet
Chapter 1004 Mobile Internet
Not all Internet companies are like Yigoo, holding large amounts of cash to withstand the cold winter.
Survival has become the most urgent need for these Internet companies at the moment.
As a result, a bloody round of Internet layoffs began.
For a time, employees of Internet companies were all in danger and were nervous when they went to work every day, fearing that they would be called into the office for a talk by their boss or HR the next while they were typing code one second.
Yigoo is no exception to this trend.
In response to this situation, Qin Hao issued a letter to all employees.
The above content is also very simple, telling employees clearly that Yigoo not only has no plans to lay off employees, but also needs to conduct large-scale recruitment due to business development. Employees can get rewards if they recommend classmates or friends to join the company.
Immediately afterwards, a new round of recruitment plan was announced on Yigoo’s official website.
Now the employees of Yigoo can finally breathe a sigh of relief.
That evening, some Yigoo employees posted on some forums, which caused quite a stir.
In an environment where the entire mainland Internet industry is engaged in layoffs and salary cuts in an effort to "reduce costs and increase efficiency", a company like Yigoo that not only does not lay off employees but also recruits in large numbers is simply bizarre.
This made some employees in other companies who were dissatisfied with their salary cuts ready to make a move. Some of them directly took leave to apply for jobs at Yigoo, while others used internal introduction channels through acquaintances.
As a result, some very interesting situations often occur in Yiguo's recruitment center. Many applicants find out during chatting that the people around them are from the same company or even the same department as themselves. Others take leave to apply for a job, but end up meeting their own leaders. The two look at each other with awkward smiles and pretend not to know each other.
Under normal circumstances, Yiguo's poaching behavior would inevitably cause dissatisfaction among some peers, but during this period, many companies wished that Qin Hao could poach more employees so that they could pay less compensation.
Of course, Jack Marco doesn't think so. He has repeatedly accused Qin Hao of "illegally paying high salaries" to poach a large number of talents from Alibaba in public.
Before Qin Hao opened his mouth to fight back against Jack Ma's accusations, netizens had already responded on his behalf.
"Wow, high salaries are illegal. Does that mean if someone works for you, they are selling the work to you?"
"That's right. Yiguo is not stupid. They poached people with high salaries, which means they are worth the price. They offered low salaries and blamed them for paying high salaries."
"Haha, illegal high salary, I suggest this word be included in the idiom dictionary, it's so damn classic, let future generations also see the face of modern capitalists."
Jack Ma was so angry that he vomited blood, but he could do nothing about it. The welfare benefits of Alibaba were already somewhat different from those of Yigoo, and now there were layoffs and salary cuts. The contradictions were suddenly highlighted. Some entire teams even resigned and went to Yigoo, making it impossible to carry out many projects.
What made Jack Ma most depressed was that even many of the "China Supply Iron Army" who he had "high hopes for" jumped ship to Yiguo. On the one hand, the remuneration offered by Yiguo was indeed tempting enough, and on the other hand, it was also because the prospects shown by Yiguo were better than those of Alibaba.
You should know that Yigoo's valuation in this round of C financing has reached US$153 billion. If it can be successfully listed 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 plans to go public on the Hong Kong stock market, it may not be successful, and its market value after listing will hardly reach the height of US$153 billion.
One is valued at US$153 billion before it goes public, while the other may not even reach US$153 billion after it goes public. The difference is obvious.
However, for Alibaba, the accounts do look much better after the “layoffs and salary cuts”. 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’s pace.
So, Jack Ma began to push for an IPO in Hong Kong.
Just when Alibaba was focusing all its attention on its IPO in Hong Kong, Yigoo, under the promotion of Qin Hao, once again opened up a new business - 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 make a living by selling mobile phones of international brands such as Nokia, Samsung, and Sony.
Qin Hao did not have a dictatorial approach to the concerns of executives and investors. Instead, he convened a manager-level executive meeting and also invited representatives of investors to sit in.
Qin Hao didn't say anything else, but took out a cell 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 see the future form of the Internet."
“That’s a smartphone!”
"Today, we still have to sit in front of a computer desk to surf the Internet, facing a 20-inch screen and 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 any obstacles with just a mobile phone like this."
"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 would it mean to Yiguo?"
Having said that, Qin Hao paused deliberately to give the executives and investor representatives present time to think.
One 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 just to let Yiguo go public in the United States, and then cash out at a high price and earn huge 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 can it build its own moat?"
As he spoke, Qin Hao once again pointed to the iPhone 3G in his right hand.
“This is Yiguo’s moat.”
Those who do venture capital are actually tired of not the risks, but the imbalance between risk and return. As long as there is enough return, they are willing to try any risk.
Some investors were convinced by Qin Hao, but of course some had reservations.
As for Yiguo’s senior 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 Yigoo.
Moreover, every decision Qin Hao made over the years can be said to be right in line with the trend of the times, which is also the most important reason why Yigoo can rise in such a short period of time.
After the executive meeting, Yiguo’s mobile phone R&D department was officially established.
However, for a long time afterwards, most Yigoo employees did not know that their company had such a department.
On the one hand, the mobile phone R&D department is too low-key and has no business interactions with other departments. On the other hand, the mobile phone R&D department’s office is not located in the Yiguo headquarters building, but is arranged by Qin Hao in another research building in the Beiqing Industrial Park.
In a blink of an eye, it was May 08, 5, and Qin Hao suddenly received a call from Xiao Qianxi.
"I just saw the news, and suddenly I remembered that Xie Qiao seemed to have gone there with the publisher to collect materials. I called her many times but couldn't get through..."
Qin Hao comforted her, "Qianxi, don't panic. I have already asked the rescue team to go there. Xie Qiao should just have a signal interruption. I will contact you as soon as the rescue team finds her."
Xiao Qianxi breathed a sigh of relief: "Should I tell Qin Chuan?"
"It's better to tell him. Who knows what this stupid boy might do if he gets impulsive."
As a result, what you fear will come true. Qin Chuan disappeared that night and must have gone to Tianfu.
However, after experiencing this incident, the silly boy Qin Chuan finally got the girl he wanted. It can be said that silly people have good fortune.
Yigoo also won wide acclaim in the market for sending a rescue team at the first time, transporting a large amount of supplies, and making subsequent large donations. Many users even bought a large number of products they used a lot from Yigoo after seeing some news reports, causing many of Yigoo's storage and logistics centers to be sold out at one point.
This forced Qin Hao to step forward and call on users to remain calm and not make impulsive purchases.
Unfortunately, it was of no use. Users' enthusiasm for buying remained unabated, so Yigoo's purchasing department had to work overtime to carry out purchases. The machines in many cooperative factories were almost broken down, and they still could not keep up with the consumption speed of users.
This wave alone brought Yigoo more than 6 million new users, and sales in June and July alone exceeded 7 billion yuan.
According to Liu Qiangdong, the couriers of JD Logistics are running out of work on their tricycles as there are a large number of packages that cannot be delivered every day. Fortunately, many users buy things just to support JD.com's good deeds and do not pay attention to the delivery speed at all. They have no complaints if the delivery is slow.
It was not until August, when the Olympic Games opened, that the trend eased somewhat. However, Yiguo's market share had already stabilized, occupying half of the entire mainland e-commerce field. The remaining half was divided among Taobao, Eachnet, Dangdang, Joyo Amazon, and PaiPai.com.
Among them, Taobao's market share has been hovering around 30%, and the number of users has exceeded million, making it the biggest competitor of Yiguo.
Of course, Jack Ma disagrees with this statement. In several interviews with the media, 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 Yigoo's market share had exceeded half. Jack Ma left the scene with a dark face, leaving the host confused.
Just one month after the end of the Olympics, some media suddenly received an invitation letter from Yigoo. What they didn’t expect was that the invitation letter from Yigoo read: You are sincerely invited to attend the global launch of our company’s first smartphone.
Mobile phone? Smart phone?
The media were a little confused. Before this, they only paid attention to Yigoo.com. When did they come out with a mobile phone?
However, considering that Yiguo covered the travel expenses, the media still sent reporters to the press conference for interviews. No matter what, Qin Hao is still very popular, and if they can interview him afterwards, this trip will be worth it.
That evening, in the largest venue of Beijing's 798 Art Center, Qin Hao appeared on the podium after a flash of spotlights.
"Welcome everyone present to attend such a boring press conference."
The scene suddenly burst into laughter.
After Qin Hao laughed at himself, his face straightened up: "However, I believe that after the press conference, you will feel as honored as I do to witness this piece of history."
At first, the reporters present thought that Qin Hao was bragging, but after they saw the actual smart phone in Qin Hao's hand under a beam of light, 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 much so that many people believed that designs like Nokia's were beautiful.
However, all this was completely overturned after they saw the "MOSS" mobile phone in Qin Hao's hand, a product with a narrow frame, only the thickness of a thumb, and so exquisite that it looked like a work of art.
It turns out that mobile phones can be so exquisite?
The appearance alone made the reporters and audience present excited.
However, they soon discovered 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 an exclamation.
It turns out that mobile phones can be operated like this?
The press conference was very short, but the sensation it caused lasted for a long time, and the reason was very simple.
The "MOSS" mobile phone is so popular that long queues form in Yigoo's offline stores early on, because it is impossible to get one online and it is often sold out in less than five minutes after it goes on sale.
Even though the price of "MOSS" is as high as 6888 RMB, it still cannot change users' enthusiasm for buying it. Many people even raise the price to 8000 to buy it, and it is still hard to get one.
You have to know that this was in 2008, when most people's monthly salary was only around yuan. It took four months' salary to buy a domestic mobile phone, which was unimaginable in the past.
But the "MOSS" phone did it.
Qin Hao also made a stunning transformation from an Internet upstart to a technology giant thanks to his amazing performance at the press conference. Even the central media reprinted the press conference many times.
While cooking pancakes, Xu Lin and Xie Qiao were looking at Qin Hao's newspaper and were shocked.
"I knew Lao Qin was awesome, but I didn't expect him to be this awesome."
"Yeah, we were all talking about the Internet before, but now we are looking forward to the mobile Internet. I feel like I am almost out of touch with the times."