You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 497

Qin Shaoyan looked at Cao Guowei in surprise. The request made by the other party was indeed unexpected.

"Boss Cao, are you serious?" Qin Shaoyan frowned and asked, "You want me to design a product for Sina?"

"I am very serious, Mr. Qin." Cao Guowei smiled bitterly, "I came to visit you with great sincerity."

"In addition to resolving the dispute between the two families, I am here to humbly seek advice."

"Did you find the wrong person to design the product?" Qin Shaoyan said after two seconds of hesitation, "How can I be so worthy? The Internet industry is full of talented people, and Sina is a leader in the industry. The product managers are all experienced experts with a keen sense of the market. Don't they have any solutions that will satisfy Mr. Cao?"

"Mr. Qin is too modest." Cao Guowei said with a smile, "You are a recognized master of Internet product design. From campus network, Facebook, Qvod, YouTube, to Happy Farm and Weibo, each one is an epoch-making product that leads the trend and opens up new fields."

"In the field of Internet product design, Mr. Qin can be called a world-class master."

"Although Sina has a lot of people, most of them are mediocre and not worth mentioning. They can't even copy things well, let alone innovate."

"Which one is better, Mr. Qin, if you add up all the 10,000 product managers in the industry together or compare them to you, any random netizen on the Internet knows the answer."

"Since I already know the answer, why should I go to such great lengths and waste my energy?"

Qin Shaoyan remained silent and looked at Cao Guowei quietly.

I have to say, the other party's flattery is...very good.

"Sina is facing some tough problems right now, and I have no choice but to ask for help from Mr. Qin." Cao Guowei said sincerely, "As long as Mr. Qin is willing to help, I will reward him handsomely."

"Besides the resources that Bo Ji has, if Mr. Qin wants anything else, just let me know. As long as I can do it, I will definitely satisfy Mr. Qin's request."

Qin Shaoyan sighed, "Opening up the blogging business was a bold attempt by Sina, but after investing so many resources, it was ruined by a bunch of good-for-nothings. What a pity."

"It's all my fault for not knowing the right person and trusting Ma Su." Cao Guowei smiled bitterly, "We didn't lose unfairly."

It was indeed his own fault that he was blind. Wang Wei still had some ability, but he just went astray.

And Belinda is just a vase. The PPT looks fancy, but her true colors are revealed when you actually operate it.

"You want to create a platform similar to Weibo, and this idea is not wrong." Qin Shaoyan hesitated for two seconds and said slowly, "This can make full use of the network resources and users accumulated by blogs. If you can smoothly and steadily transplant bloggers and users, you can indeed succeed."

"It's just that Bo Ji was too eager for quick success. He had to do KPIs instead of doing anything else. As a result, the product manager used all kinds of methods to achieve KPIs, causing Bo Ji to fall deeper and deeper into trouble."

"Weibo is a social 2.0 product. It is a social platform in name only, but its core lies in content."

“Weibo bloggers continuously produce high-quality short content to attract users to interact with them. This is its product logic.

“Content platforms require high-quality content, not just any content.”

"For example, Weibo limits the number of words to 140, so text messages can be used to output quickly and efficiently, which improves the efficiency of posting on Weibo. By posting Weibo frequently and accumulating the number of Weibo posts, we can filter out high-quality content."

"In fact, on a platform like Weibo, you only need to post text. Do you know why I also added the picture function?" Qin Shaoyan asked back.

Cao Guowei was stunned. "Isn't it to increase the content richness of the product?"

"This is just one of the points." Qin Shaoyan shook his head. "When designing, Internet product managers need to consider several issues."

"What is the underlying logic of this product? Where is the top-level design? What is the final delivered value? Where is the handle of the process? How to ensure the closed loop of the results?"

Cao Guowei was stunned, blinking his eyes continuously, and a bunch of nouns flooded into his mind.

Although I didn’t understand what Qin Shaoyan said at first, it sounded so reasonable!

That’s why people call him a master of Internet product design. Look at the way he thinks about problems. It’s so comprehensive.

Look at the term they use, underlying logic, top-level design, delivery value... it's more sophisticated than what others say.

"In addition to enriching the product content ecosystem, Weibo has added the picture function, which is deeply co-built with text content, improving user awareness, frequently reaching user pain points, using differentiation as a competitive advantage, and ultimately achieving value coupling." Qin Shaoyan said, then changed the subject, "Mr. Cao, have you heard of the Tumblr platform?"

"Is the soup hot?" Cao Guowei was stunned for a moment, then shook his head.

"It is a photo-sharing website launched in the United States in the past two years," Qin Shaoyan explained. "Initially, it was positioned to imitate Facebook, but later the founders found their own product positioning after exploration."

"It abandons the cumbersome and complex content on Facebook and turns to a platform that specializes in sharing pictures. The entire UI is also very simple, without any other functions interfering. Users only need to post pictures."

“Interacting with other users is also simple, sharing and commenting are enough.”

"I really like this concise model. It borrows from its picture sharing and adds short Weibo posts to make Weibo content richer."

"About a hundred words of content, with a picture, simple and clear."

"At the beginning, Tumblr developed slowly and was not ideal. Later, they invited a group of Facebook influencers to move in and share various photos every day, including model portraits, selfies, landscape photography, and art works."

"Relying on rich content, Tumblr has gradually expanded and now has 20 to 30 million users. However, these users have strong paying ability, and Tumblr can generate 100 to 200 million US dollars in revenue every year."

Cao Guowei took a deep breath. How could they make so much money with only 20 or 30 million users?

"Many of the influencers I invited from the United States are Tumblr's top bloggers, with hundreds of thousands of fans." Qin Shaoyan glanced at Cao Guowei, "I wanted to copy Tumblr's model, but you guys poached these influencers in advance."

Cao Guowei felt a little embarrassed and depressed.

These internet celebrities are indeed the secret to traffic, but they are also traffic poison. In the beginning, they did bring a large number of users to Sina's "Bo Ji" platform.

However, it was they who started the deviation of Sina’s “Blogger” style, and then it became unstoppable, going further and further, and finally sliding into the abyss of failure.

"These influencers have a huge number of users if they are used properly, but you made the same mistake as Tumblr." Qin Shaoyan looked disappointed. "After Tumblr introduced venture capital, investors kept forcing them to make profits. Tumblr had to take a completely different path. In order to attract users to pay, they started to do erotic things."

Cao Guowei was stunned. Suddenly, this scene looked so familiar. After Qin Shaoyan opened the Tumblr website on his computer, Cao Guowei understood everything at a glance. It was exactly like the previous blog post.

"I feel that moment was exactly like this moment." Qin Shaoyan sighed and looked at Cao Guowei with sympathy.

Cao Guowei frowned, "How can they be so similar?"

"You can't be too eager for quick success. It takes time to polish a product." Qin Shaoyan said seriously, "You can only copy the form of Weibo, but not the essence, so it's inevitable that you will go astray."

"Foreign influencers were used without any restraint, and product managers ignored principles for the sake of KPIs, and finally allowed those influencers to start a marginal trend. Adding the temptation of traffic subsidies, naturally, some people would follow suit, forming a broken window effect."

At this time, Cao Guowei finally figured out where Bo Ji had lost. He had no idea about the positioning of his social product and he was just copying others without understanding how to do it clearly. Wasn't that a wrong path?
Qin Shaoyan changed the subject and said, "Although Tumblr has taken the wrong path, its model is still very good. If it is used properly, it can also be very successful."

"If Sina wants to transform itself, it can follow the model of Tumblr and transform from a long text and picture blog to a simple picture sharing platform, which is simpler than a blog. Tumblr's UI layout can also be used as a reference."

Cao Guowei thought about it and felt that this thing was still too similar to Bo Ji. The impression left by Bo Ji before was not very good. If he made another similar one, it would easily cause misunderstanding.

"This... let me think about it." Cao Guowei thought for a while and shook his head.

Qin Shaoyan was not discouraged. "Since Tang Bure doesn't like it, have you heard of Zhihu?"

"What is Zhihu?" Cao Guowei asked in surprise.

Qin Shaoyan immediately introduced the product with great interest. "Zhihu is the name I gave to this product. Zhihu is a knowledge sharing community that combines Q&A, content production, social interaction, and professional knowledge accumulation. It is an original content platform that gathers high-quality Q&A communities and creators on the Chinese Internet."

“What do you think of this product?”

"Please give me some advice, Mr. Qin!" Cao Guowei immediately put on an expression of humbly seeking advice.

Cao Guowei showed an exceptionally sincere attitude at this time. He felt that Qin Shaoyan, although a competitor before, was really willing to do things for you.

If you are not satisfied with a product, you can immediately come up with another solution.

Qin Shaoyan explained in detail, "Zhihu mainly uses the question-and-answer format. Users ask questions, and then invite certain users to answer the questions, or other users can take the initiative to answer if they are interested."

“User interaction within the community is achieved through question-and-answer methods, and a knowledge graph is constructed through a tree-like structure of “question-answer”. Users are both knowledge consumers and producers, forming a “knowledge crowdsourcing” ecosystem, building a UGC ecological closed loop with user-shared content, and forming a self-sustaining system for generating content.”

"Its social driving mechanism is to form a 'knowledge social network' through interactive behaviors such as following relationships, liking/collecting/commenting, etc., and use social recognition, such as setting up excellent authors and creation rewards, to encourage users to create content."

“At the same time, we need to tap into the long-tail effect of high-quality content accumulated within the community, transform fragmented knowledge into structured content, and create a ‘content compounding effect’.”

“The underlying logic is a user sharing and social model based on question and answer to create a knowledge network. The top-level design is to build a knowledge economy that integrates content, identity and scenarios. The ultimate value delivered is knowledge payment.”

Qin Shaoyan looked at Cao Guowei, "How is it? What do you think of this product I mentioned?"

"Uh..." Cao Guowei came back to his senses with a confused look on his face, "Could you please explain it more clearly, Mr. Qin?"

"I'll write a PPT for you later." Qin Shaoyan said casually, "After thinking about it, I think this thing is most suitable for you Sina."

"From the perspective of content production logic, it is all user-generated, relying on individual creators to output their opinions, experiences or professional knowledge. Isn't it that bloggers are outputting their own knowledge when they write articles?"

"It's just that bloggers choose the content they output, while Zhihu determines the scope of content through the way users ask questions."

"Just like blogs, Zhihu is also easy to establish the personal brand reputation of bloggers, directly shaping the author's authority through the quality of content, and then converting it into traffic."

"Through the leadership of top authors and bloggers, we will create a Q&A community where elites gather for paid knowledge."

Cao Guowei was delighted. "Listening to your words is worth ten years of reading! You are worthy of being President Qin."

Zhihu sounds really suitable for Sina now. It can directly utilize the top bloggers and directly turn them to the Zhihu community.

Qin Shaoyan waved his hand, pondered for two seconds and said, "Of course, you will need to supplement the details yourself, especially how to convince the board of directors."

"After all, they are more concerned about market size, growth potential, business model, competitive barriers, etc. You should find a way to solve this part."

"No problem. With President Qin's instructions, these are more than enough." Cao Guowei excitedly held Qin Shaoyan's hand and shook it vigorously.

"Actually, I think a picture-sharing forum is more suitable for you guys." Qin Shaoyan suggested, "Why don't you consider it?"

"Well, I'll weigh this." Cao Guowei smiled and said perfunctorily, "Whether it's Tuba or Zhihu, we need to consider it comprehensively."

In fact, he has already ruled out the option of Tuba in his heart. If an incident like the "Bo Ji" incident happens again, Sina may never be able to recover.

"Then when your product is launched, be sure to invite me." Qin Shaoyan said with a smile.

"Sure, sure." Cao Guowei agreed with a smile, "We will deal with the blogger's matter soon, and we will also properly hand over the remaining users and bloggers."

"Okay, okay." Qin Shaoyan felt happy. Boji invested directly and swallowed up its biggest competitor. Weibo took off immediately and there would be no rivals from now on.

Qin Shaoyan picked up the phone and called Xiong Xiaoge, "Boss Xiong, Sina has surrendered, the Weibo war is over!"

"What?!" Xiong Xiaoge was stunned for a moment, then asked in disbelief, "Surrender? Surrender what?"

"Sina's CEO Mr. Cao just left my office. We had a long talk and they are willing to withdraw from the competition for Weibo-like platforms." Qin Shaoyan said with a smile, "And they promised to give all of BlogJing's resources to us Weibo."

Xiong Xiaoge was stunned for two seconds and then he was ecstatic, "Great! I knew you could do it, Boss Qin. I didn't expect you to defeat your opponent in such a short time. Awesome!"

"Thank you very much," Qin Shaoyan said modestly, "Weibo is such an excellent product. It's only a matter of time before it wins."

Xiong Xiaoge thought about it and felt that something was wrong. "Why would Sina be willing to hand over the resources of Boji?"

"What's the price?"

(End of this chapter)