Reinventing the Millennium

After the dinner, colleagues were very happy because the marketing director announced the sales volume semi-publicly. IDG, Today Capital, and Shenxin Technology, which invested in Yike, also made appointments the next day to formally discuss the company's development.

The moon was shining brightly, and two cars carried the company's shareholders back to the same community. The new lovers went home. Su Wei had a phone call to make at home, and Fang Zhuo visited Yu Hong's newly decorated home and talked about market channels.

"What does my decoration style look like?" Yu Hong and Su Wei renewed their relationship and became neighbors as promised. The house Zhou Xin bought is also in the unit next door. "Tea, juice or coffee?"

"Let's drink tea to relieve the hangover." Fang Zhuo walked around and was surprised to find a small wine cabinet, "You don't have an average drinking capacity, but you still do this?"

"This is called arty." Yu Hong disobeyed herself and made two cups of tea.

Fang Zhuo took the tea cup and said jokingly: "Looking at you asking me this, I thought it was such good tea, but I ended up packing two tea bags to soak it. Also, if your house is to be demolished and renovated, you can't live in it immediately, right?" It needs to be ventilated to disperse the odor.”

"I can't live here. I'll just sleep at Vivina's house at night. I'll redecorate her house after everything is over here. Then she'll live at my place." Yu Hong said proudly, "Isn't it convenient?"

Fang Zhuo: "..."

Convenient indeed.

"I saw that you and Xiong Xiaoge were chatting for a long time at night, like good friends we haven't seen for many years." Yu Hong walked to the balcony to admire the neon lights at night, and said casually, "You people are really annoying sometimes. Nothing to say."

"How can an investor and an entrepreneur have an overnight grudge? Even if he holds a grudge, I don't hold a grudge. We all have the same interests." Fang Zhuo sat on the sofa and took a sip of tea. "Tonight's dinner is not too formal. He actually flew directly from the capital to participate, which is already a huge honor."

"What did you say?" Yu Hong asked.

Fang Zhuo organized his language a little and reported to the marketing director: "He believes that Yike's business in the United States should be developed in the long term. It should not only sell hardware, but also develop software. This will help tell stories to Wall Street, and there is hope for landing in the future. Nasdaq.”

Yu Hong turned around: "How did you decide? What about China? Do you need to use software?"

"I discussed foreign music software with him because the U.S. market is destined to solve the problem of music copyright in mp3 format. By then, it will also have profit expectations, but it is different in China. There is no such foundation in China." Fang Zhuo judged, " The maturity levels of the two markets are different. We can do it domestically, but we can’t make money directly through software. We can only improve the moat of hardware.”

Yu Hong understood the meaning and said in surprise: "Do you think foreign software has a lot of profit potential?"

"It's quite big. Lao Xiong and I have the same judgment on this point. However, we must invest more in the early stage and license more songs." Fang Zhuo stood up and walked to the balcony, "I have always said that Sony's Walkman lags behind The tide of the times.”

"This wave of the times is Internet music, digital music."

"Ipod and M1 are hardware products for this kind of music carrier. When more and more users use this product, hardware-based digital music will inevitably develop in a complementary manner."

"The fruits of this musical development need to be harvested through software."

Yu Hong digested it for a while and said with a smile: "Then what is there to hesitate about?"

Fang Zhuo answered honestly: "Because I just wanted to make two stinky money from the beginning."

Yu Hong was stunned.

She thought for a second and suddenly understood, laughing until she was out of breath.

"Long-term development will prevent you from making that bad money, right?"

Fang Zhuo said plausibly: "Yes, who would have thought that Ipod does not support Microsoft's system? As soon as I saw the news, I wanted to run to pick up the money, but now Lao Xiong said that he would resist it from behind. How could I not hesitate to make more money than I planned?"

He looked at the night sky and sighed: "Those are apples."

Yu Hong said disapprovingly: "What's wrong with Apple? Doesn't Apple buy its hardware from various manufacturers and put it together? Its products are no better than ours. The only thing is that it has an additional iTunes to manage music."

Fang Zhuo knew that the two of them didn't know the same thing about Apple.

In a sense, Director Yu's understanding is correct.

Seeing that he remained silent, Yu Hong continued: "Qian, IDG's Xiong Xiaoge expressed his support for you, products, M1 is selling, P1 is making plans and debugging, people, brothers are all following you, I don't think you should hesitate .”

Fang Zhuo laughed "haha" twice and suddenly said: "Brother Yu, look into my eyes."

Yu Hong looked sideways and stared into Fang Zhuo's eyes generously: "Why are you looking at your eyes?"

"Uh." Fang Zhuo stuttered inexplicably, "Well, um, have you met Zhou Xin's girlfriend today?"

Yu Hong was very surprised how the topic turned to this, and nodded: "I saw her, she's a pretty girl."

"I heard from Teacher Xiao Su that Zhou Xin is already thinking about getting married. Do you think this is too soon?" Fang Zhuo said.

"That's a bit fast." Yu Hong said thoughtfully and with high emotional intelligence, "Zhou Xin has a very... down-to-earth personality."

Fang Zhuo said hesitantly: "His girlfriend, I think she's not that innocent. Well, that's my impression."

Yu Hong paid attention. She felt that the boss judged people very accurately: "What should I do? If I ask about personal feelings, is it too lenient? If I don't ask, what if Zhou Xin suffers a loss like you said? "

Fang Zhuo had no experience in dealing with this, so he hesitated.

"Don't worry, I'll ask the people in the team later. They sometimes have weird skills." Yu Hong took the initiative to take over the job.

"That's okay." Fang Zhuo breathed a sigh of relief. He really felt that it was not easy for him to intervene.

Yu Hong turned around and brought her tea cup over. After taking a few sips of tea, she felt more energetic and full of work motivation because she hadn't seen Fang Zhuo for a long time. She started talking about channel construction in Guangdong Province and other work.

We chatted like this for more than half an hour. The moon became brighter and the stars became sparser.

"It's late." Fang Zhuo raised his head.

"Okay, I'll meet you tomorrow. Oh yes, I'll pick up the car tomorrow evening." Yu Hong said simply.

Fang Zhuo looked at the time on his watch and asked, "You are not in Shanghai during this period. Why are you in such a hurry to pick up the car?"

"Weiwei can also drive it." Yu Hong said seriously, "I'm not very good at riding a motorcycle now. I have to worry about the company's image. Come on, I'm going next door. Don't inhale the poisonous gas from the decoration materials here."

Fang Zhuo hesitated for a while and wanted to suck it for a while longer.

However, after Yu Hong drank the tea in the cup, she felt that it was about the same. Some issues on the channel still needed to be sorted out and left to talk about at the meeting tomorrow. She once again made a sound to chase people away and considered going next door to talk to her best friend about other things.

Fang Zhuo was a little expecting Ai Ai to leave. When he was standing in the elevator, he heard the sound of Su Wei's house opening and closing...

What a dedicated marketing director...

She supports herself so much and cheers herself up so much, what else does Apple have to be afraid of?

The worst possible outcome is to return to the domestic market and ensure harvests despite droughts and floods.

Fang Zhuo returned to his home and fell asleep a little drunk. His last thought when he closed his eyes was - those were apples.

…

"No problem, I have confidence. I am very confident in competing with Apple. Our products are excellent."

At the meeting the next day, Fang Zhuo did not expect that in addition to Xiong Xiaoge, senior officials from IDG's U.S. headquarters would also come. When asked about the competitive situation with Apple, he gave such a statement.

"In the next six months to one year, we will have a broader user base."

"At the same time, our product lines are also richer than the other's."

"Mr. Miller, the model I have now is the mid-range product that we plan to vigorously expand into the US market."

"Once it has good market feedback, music management software based on Microsoft systems will also be available."

"Our Yike is a company with a technical team of hundreds of people, and is the enterprise with the most software development capabilities in China."

What Fang Zhuo is holding is the 128M P1 that has not yet been modified. Oh no, according to the decision, its current name is J1, but Miller, who is affiliated with the IDG headquarters and flew from Xiangjiang, has no doubts. He just has technical capabilities. I asked a little bit about what happened.

"As far as I know, Yike was founded not long ago?" the white man asked in English.

Fang Zhuo did not wait for the interpreter brought by the executive to speak, and answered directly: "But another company under my name has developed a medical service system across the entire China, and a considerable number of Yike's staff came from there. , has rich experience in Internet application development.”

Miller looked at Xiong Xiaoge next to him, who nodded bravely.

Miller thought for a moment and said: "We are not interested in hardware things, and we are not the only ones. Pure hardware is unattractive in the United States, even Steve Jobs' Ipod. According to our observation, Ipod is not attractive." There wasn’t much of a reaction.”

Fang Zhuo replied without hesitation: "That's because the price of Ipod is relatively high, and it is too niche for its own computer system. M1 is different. We position M1 and P1 as mass consumer products."

"Furthermore, Ipod channels have not been widely spread. Its products are only launched on a small scale in New York Wal-Mart, and more of them are in its own stores. We are different. In just two weeks, M1 has been launched on Kroger. 17,000 units were distributed.”

"Mr. Miller, please note that this is the sales volume brought about when our publicity is still relatively limited. I think the prospect of this kind of hardware is still quite broad."

The white man adjusted his glasses, looked at the numbers displayed by the Asian, and felt that it was necessary to revise his opinion.

He discussed with Xiong Xiaoge in a low voice, nodded, and motioned for Fang Zhuo to continue.

What was originally supposed to be an internal product and market seminar within the company has now turned into a lobbying meeting for Yike to describe its prospects to IDG.

Miller is a VP one level above New York's Smith. He was originally in Xiangjiang and flew directly to Shanghai after listening to Xiong Xiaoge, president of China Region, talk about China Apple.

Judging from the mainstream view of the US market in the past two years, the direction of consumer goods hardware has no future. Even though the Internet bubble still has a shadow, everyone is just more cautious in expressing optimism and investment.

Miller is here today more interested in hearing the software story than the hardware profits, even if the latter view has changed slightly.

There were many people sitting in the conference room, including Wang Fengyi of Shenxin who was worried about the situation, Xu Xin of Capital Today who was concerned about the situation, Xiong Xiaoge, president of IDG China, Yike's product director, vice president of supply chain, marketing director, and human resources director, as well as Three people from IDG America transferred from Xiangjiang.

Fang Zhuo's more detailed explanation of the cost, profit, and channels of the product series did not receive any more response. While drinking water, he observed that Xiong Xiaoge's expression was a little urgent, and the three white people headed by Miller were a little disappointed.

He thought for a few seconds and began to change his mind.

“In addition to product performance, software construction is of course essential.”

"It's just that we believe that its development needs to be fully observed after the product is launched and the market response and user feedback are fully observed."

Fang Zhuo said these two sentences in Chinese, and then he was afraid that the translation could not translate his words, so he described it directly in English: "In the next year, we will rely on the laying of hardware products and the development capabilities of the technical team to make a music The in-depth co-construction of software aims to create a closed loop of ecological content and bring common value to the company and customers."

"In the future, we will also add value in different scenarios, extend service links, and at the same time deeply meet user needs, and also work with musicians to deeply penetrate the industry and establish a lasting influence on users."

Miller's eyes slowly lit up. Well, this is what it smells like.

Fang Zhuo organized the language and said: "Our underlying logic is to open up the barriers between the Internet and hardware and create a new industry ecosystem. The top-level logic is to focus on user perception and fully demonstrate differentiation."

"The highlight is the carrier, the advantage is the link, and the methodology is to use combination boxing to achieve platform standards."

"Music software is not just about managing music, it is also a digital platform in the future."

It's just a few sentences, but in order to describe it clearly, Fang Zhuo extended a lot of explanations.

Not to mention the few people in the conference room who didn't understand English, even Xiong Xiaoge was confused. What does this mean? Why haven't you heard Fang Zhuo say this before?

However, Miller was full of appreciation and was even the first to applaud.

"Fang, very good, you are a very good CEO." He said, "I think you have a very clear idea about the construction of the software ecosystem. In your words, that is..."

"From a high position." Although Miller's pronunciation is not standard, it is enough for others to understand.

Xiong Xiaoge suddenly doubted his professional ability.

Miller continued: "I think IDG and Yike have a basis for cooperation."

The IDG in his mouth does not refer to the China District, but the U.S. headquarters.

"Thank you Mr. Miller, I also think that Yike's development in the United States needs IDG's help, and this help will definitely bring huge returns." Fang Zhuo said.

Miller nodded in agreement.

After both parties reached a wonderful consensus, the rest of the conversation became easier.

Just like before going to New York last time, Fang Zhuoyang had great expectations for Smith from IDG. This world-famous investment institution has a huge relationship that can bear such expectations.

Investment matters cannot be decided in one go, but cooperation intentions and resource assistance can be discussed happily, especially regarding software copyright authorization. Miller said there is a lot of room for mediation here.

For half a day in the morning, the two parties completed friendly business discussions. Miller still needs to see more market performance before making a decision on investment, but this is already a benefit beyond Xiong Xiaoge's expectation.

"Mr. Fang, you have a very high position." Xiong Xiaoge used Miller's words to evaluate what he heard today.

"Mr. Xiong, this is Internet thinking. Obviously, Mr. Miller's thinking resonates with mine. He thinks Yike has a good story." Fang Zhuo said seriously.

Xiong Xiaoge shook his head: "What about software development?"

"Like Apple, maybe we can also ask Microsoft for help. Do you think my speech on the Internet today will be appreciated in front of Microsoft?" Fang Zhuo asked.

Xiong Xiaoge had a Chinese-style caution about things he didn't understand well, and just said: "It sounds very advanced, but I don't understand it."

Fang Zhuo smiled and said: "It seems that Microsoft will definitely appreciate it, but we still have to do incremental work first."

Continue coding.