Since we are both reborn, of course I would choose the rich woman!

Chapter 306: It's all profit no matter what! (6k views, please subscribe)

Before Douyin entered the short video market, many internet companies were already involved.

For example, there's Weishi, the short video app that Tencent suspended last year; Kuaishou, which has already established a solid foundation and gained a foothold in the field of life sharing; and Meipai, which relies on the Weibo ecosystem.

However, the short video sector has not yet demonstrated particularly strong commercial conversion capabilities, which is why Tencent has scaled back its investment in short videos, and Weibo has also not allocated a large amount of resources to the short video field.

However, ByteDance's "Douyin" suddenly experienced a surge in popularity during the May Day holiday in 2016.

Moreover, even after the May Day holiday ended, this trend of traffic growth showed no signs of stopping, prompting the three internet giants, who already had some ideas about the short video sector, to urgently convene a meeting of their senior executives.

However, after the executive meeting ended, Lü Yao did not see the three internet giants take any particularly drastic measures to deal with this surge in traffic.

Lu Yao could never know what happened at the executive meeting or what kind of brainstorming took place. Most of the information he had was pieced together from what he heard after the meeting.

It seems that none of the three internet giants currently have any plans to enter the short video market.

of course.

This may also be a smokescreen released by the three internet giants. On the surface, they have done nothing, but in reality, they may have been making a lot of preparations behind the scenes.

ByteDance in Beijing was not yet a rising internet giant. In terms of intelligence gathering capabilities, the three internet giants almost ignored it, which made ByteDance and even its investors feel uneasy.

Emotions in business are often strange like that.

When you discover a business opportunity and start operating it, you fear that competitors will rush in and seize your market share; but what if, after your business is established, you find that few competitors are following suit, especially not the more successful companies in your field...

You'll start to feel anxious and insecure, afraid that you've taken the wrong path.

This feeling of gain and loss became even more pronounced after the May Day holiday when Douyin's daily active users began to decline rapidly.

So ByteDance in Beijing commissioned Zhang Xiaonan and Lü Yao to coordinate and investigate the situation to see what was going on, whether their strategy was flawed, and whether timely adjustments were needed.

To solve this problem, Zhang Xiaonan flew from Beijing to Shangnan that very day.

Lu Yao arranged for someone to pick up Zhang Xiaonan and bring her to the city. He also arranged a banquet to welcome her back. However, Zhang Xiaonan, who had just arrived, didn't have time to toast with Lu Yao. As soon as she got to her room, she called Lu Yao out for a private talk: "Mr. Lu, although our software was very popular during the May Day holiday, its traffic has dropped sharply recently."

"I can understand that; fluctuations in traffic are perfectly normal."

The recent May Day holiday was a long weekend, and the videos posted were mostly of girls vacationing in tropical waters like Sanya. These girls frequented high-end venues, dressed in very revealing clothes, and with their pretty faces and outstanding figures, it was both unexpected and inevitable that they would become a hit in a short period of time.

It's normal for this surge in traffic to subside after the May Day holiday.

What's abnormal is that this drop in traffic is a bit too dramatic, with daily active users falling by one or two million every day. Coupled with the current indifference from the three internet giants, this has made ByteDance's morale extremely volatile.

Lu Yao sat down comfortably in the smoking room next to the hotel suite, and even took out a cigarette for himself.

During the time Wang Shu was trying to quit smoking, Lü Yao suffered terribly. When he wanted to smoke, he could only eat a lot of tangerine peel pills or other snacks that could distract him and were not a burden on his body.

Now that Wang Shu is pregnant, he's starting to smoke a bit as a form of revenge.

After taking a nice puff, Lü Yao laughed and said, "What's the rush? Although the data has dropped now, it means we need to improve, and there's still a lot of room for progress."

What Lü Yao meant was that our current software still has shortcomings in terms of social and content ecosystems, and there is a lot of room for improvement. As for giving up on this track, that would be a foolish move.

Receiving Lü Yao's affirmation, Zhang Xiaonan felt a little more at ease.

Seeing Zhang Xiaonan's anxious appearance, Lü Yao asked curiously, "This little thing shouldn't be putting so much pressure on you at ByteDance headquarters, right?"

Zhang Xiaonan smiled and said, "Nothing can be hidden from you, President Lü. Yes, before I came, the sentiment in the company's senior management meeting was very mixed. Some people thought that 15-second short videos with music and dance had limited potential and were not as exciting as those from Europe and America."

"Some people think that my proposed cold start solution has led to the current situation, while others think that... it's because the software we developed still has many immature features, which is why we can't retain users."

In other words -

ByteDance's "Douyin" product appeared too early; it should have been further refined.

This is aimed at Lü Yao.

That's why Zhang Xiaonan rushed to Shangnan to find Lü Yao, because Lü Yao is also one of the major shareholders of the "Douyin" app, holding a 16% stake in Douyin.

Including the shares held by Zhang Xiaonan, General Manager Liang, Liang Yilan, and others, Lü Yao's shareholding in "Douyin" definitely exceeds 34%, giving him veto power over many decisions within Douyin.

Even if it's a decision made by ByteDance, the parent company, Mr. Zhang and Mr. Liang still have to consider the background behind Lü Yao.

Therefore, Zhang Xiaonan's visit this time was both to understand the situation and due to pressure from ByteDance headquarters.

Lu Yao remained seated on the sofa, and said leisurely, "President Zhang, do you still remember the first mini-game that our Guang'an Network Games Company developed in its early stages?"

Zhang Xiaonan was very familiar with the development of many of the companies under Lü Yao's name. She nodded and said, "Initially, the game was very simple, mindless and incredibly fun, which attracted a group of customers. Later, the content of this little game was constantly updated..."

As she was talking, Zhang Xiaonan stopped.

She understood what Lü Yao wanted to say.

For short video apps, which require content accumulation to build a vast information database, the most crucial element is time. A sufficiently long timeframe is needed to accumulate enough information, and only with a substantial accumulation of information can users spend more time using the app and gain a strong user base.

Seeing that Zhang Xiaonan seemed to be deep in thought, Lü Yao continued, "So what we need to do next is not to doubt whether this product is right or wrong, but to continuously enrich and strengthen the product's content."

The 30-second video feature will be launched three months later.

A one-minute video recording feature will be launched next year, but it will require 1000 followers to unlock.

The three- to five-minute video feature will be launched in the second half of next year, allowing content such as movie explanations, knowledge sharing, and story creation to begin appearing in Douyin's content community.

At the same time, it will allow more independent musicians, special effects artists, video transition experts, and other people with unique skills to participate.

This time, Lü Yao offered more content to reassure the team: "We can't just wait for users to join Douyin on their own. We can also go out and search for folk masters with special skills, inheritors of intangible cultural heritage, hermits in the countryside, and martial arts experts..."

"One characteristic of short videos is that they are all-encompassing. Our music beat videos are just the beginning, the first step in content accumulation. We need to take the rest of the steps slowly."

This was Douyin's established development path, so Zhang Xiaonan was very receptive to it.

However, the development directions for short video content that Lü Yao later gave were something Zhang Xiaonan hadn't expected.

Lu Yao didn't mention these things before, but he brought them out now to stabilize morale. Zhang Xiaonan, on the other hand, was limited by the initial product ideas and started thinking of more possibilities every day.

This made Zhang Xiaonan feel that Lü Yao seemed to have a clearer understanding of the future development of "Douyin" than she did.

Lu Yao wasn't surprised at all that Zhang Xiaonan thought that way.

In terms of the amount of time spent using Douyin (TikTok), Lü Yao has used it longer than anyone else in the world today.

This is a super software that will influence billions of people in the future. It's not enough to describe Douyin as a national software. It has achieved something that Tencent, Taobao, and Baidu could not do—it has gone global!
When it comes to benefiting the people, no other software does it as well as TikTok.

Even Taobao, which boasts the slogan "Making it easy to do business and easy to be a boss," is far inferior to Douyin in this regard.

Software that can bring benefits and income to oneself and one's hometown by sharing one's life... Who can compare?
Although Douyin was later filled with all sorts of fake and shoddy products, and streamers who claimed to be helping their families but actually treated their families like dirt, it did indeed bring benefits to many ordinary people at the bottom of society.

It not only broadened their horizons but also opened up channels for them to voice their opinions from the mountains to the outside world.

and so.

The popularity of TikTok is not accidental; it is inevitable.

Kuaishou, which focuses on sharing the lives of people in lower-tier cities, and Douyin, which focuses on sharing the lives of urban white-collar workers, have indeed become the only two strong players in the domestic short video field.

Traditional BAT companies are actually unable to catch up with these two companies.

Ultimately, it's because the managers and product managers at major internet companies have been floating around for too long and have lost touch with reality.

After decades of being bombarded by celebrities, people are no longer interested in the lives of celebrities and are more tolerant. The diverse and vibrant Douyin and Kuaishou are the mainstream of the short video era on the Internet.

Because of this understanding, and with the support of a future-oriented perspective, Lü Yao is full of confidence in the future of Douyin.

of course.

Lü Yao's confidence in Douyin cannot be translated into other investors' confidence in Douyin.

Currently, Douyin's creator incentives, advertising subsidies, and traffic subsidies are burning through money like crazy every day. Under such immense financial pressure, many investors are feeling anxious and uncertain.

So Zhang Xiaonan said, "I know what you're thinking, Mr. Lü, but other investors don't think that way. They need confidence, very strong confidence."

Lu Yao laughed: "Then go back and tell those investors who lack confidence that I will buy their shares at 10% of their original investment price, and they can exit safely."

Zhang Xiaonan was speechless.

If shareholders were to withdraw on a large scale, how would the outside world view them? How would Douyin proceed with its development?

Zhang Xiaonan pouted and said, "Oh, Mr. Lü, don't be angry."

Lü Yao laughed and said, "I'm not angry. This isn't just something I said in anger. I'm very serious."

Douyin will grow into a super internet giant with a market value of over two trillion yuan in the future. Its influence on the internet will crush BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) with an absolutely dominant posture. If it weren't for the suppression from the mainland and the domestic pressure, its valuation would be even more terrifying.

Overseas, its influence may even gradually shake the positions of Twitter and Facebook.

The period of Douyin's development slump was only before 2017... If you want to acquire a large number of shares in Douyin and gain more influence, the period before 2017 was the best opportunity.

When Lü Yao was studying abroad, Douyin (TikTok) had only been launched in September 2016. For the first six months, its operation was lukewarm at best. It wasn't until 2017, thanks to Yue Yunpeng's (Xiao Yueyue's) Weibo repost, that more casual netizens noticed the app. Afterwards, Douyin's operations seized the opportunity, employing various marketing strategies such as red envelope giveaways, celebrity endorsements, viral song marketing, pre-installed channel pushes, launching challenge features to generate more revenue for users, sponsoring hip-hop and rap shows, and leading fashion trends among young people.

By the end of 2017, Douyin had surpassed 1.5 million daily active users.

By May 2017, daily active users had already exceeded 70 million.

By then, domestic and even international capital will be begging ByteDance to invest.

But by then, it will be difficult to continue investing.

Because Douyin has no plans to go public in the future... the only way to acquire some shares is to buy them from other shareholders.

Simultaneously.

This move was also a setup by Lü Yao for ByteDance's current shareholders. With morale so low, Lü Yao boldly stated that acquiring shares was the best way to stabilize morale.

But given Lü Yao's character and past achievements, there are bound to be shareholders in ByteDance and Douyin who don't trust him and might think this is a ploy by Lü Yao to provoke them.

This way, they would tentatively sell some of their shares to Lü Yao...

Lü Yao, of course, accepted it all.

These are all high-value assets that will yield hundreds or thousands of times the return in the future!

Therefore, regardless of whether ByteDance and Douyin's investors believe in Lü Yao, Lü Yao is guaranteed to make a profit from this move.

Meeting Lü Yao's firm and earnest gaze, Zhang Xiaonan was a little at a loss: "But...Mr. Lü, do you have enough funds?"

Lu Yao laughed: "The thing you don't need to worry about the least is money. You can ask Sister Jian to confirm this. If all else fails, I can borrow some money from Sister Jian."

Investing in Douyin now is definitely the time with the greatest future returns.

Zhang Xiaonan's initial purpose in coming to Shangnan was to inquire about the three internet giants through Lü Yao, and also to prepare a report to be submitted to the shareholders' meetings of Douyin and ByteDance.

But Lü Yao didn't seem to be cooperating with her work; instead, he directly passed the problem on to her shareholders' meeting.

Zhang Xiaonan was still a little incredulous: "So... I'm just going to report it like this?"

Lü Yao nodded and said, "That's right."

With Mr. Zhang's algorithm, Zhang Xiaonan's operations, and Lü Yao's vision for the future, there's no reason why it shouldn't be a hit.

Lü Yao was very confident about this.

This series of actions completely baffled Zhang Xiaonan.

She even found the welcome banquet that Lü Yao had prepared tasteless.

She didn't know what kind of expressions the shareholders and executives would have if she went back and said that to the shareholders' meeting and executive meeting.
After sending Zhang Xiaonan back, Lü Yao didn't rest either.

Although he knew that Douyin would become popular, and that the current cooling down was just a side effect of the cold start, Douyin's sudden emergence was still due to Lü Yao's involvement, and the release date was brought forward by almost half a year.

What if the butterfly effect he caused really kills TikTok...

That would be a lot of fun in the future.

So after sending Zhang Xiaonan back to her hotel to rest, Lü Yao still called Liang Yilan.

Liang Yilan's family originally ran an advertising alliance business, which has always evolved with the times. Recently, with Lu Yao's involvement, Liang Yilan's advertising alliance company, "Qiangli Engine," has begun to gradually gain momentum.

Neihan Duanzi, Toutiao, and even Huoshan Video under ByteDance have started to connect with Liang Yilan, causing her business volume to surge.

This can be considered a win-win situation for all three parties.

As an advertising intermediary, Liang Yilan reaped substantial profits as her business boomed.

The platform ByteDance also gained more users and traffic, and made some money as a result.

Users of ByteDance's platform also gained more benefits.

Therefore, Liang Yilan's cooperation with ByteDance has been very pleasant recently. At the same time, as Douyin is a new product launched by ByteDance, Liang Yilan has also invested a lot of money in it.

In addition to her family's connections in the advertising business and in both government and business circles, Liang Yilan's family has a wide range of businesses. Internet companies, especially short video content platforms, definitely need to figure out how to make a business profit model before they even start.

In other words, these types of software platforms will definitely come into contact with advertisers.

Since we can't get specific information about the three BAT companies from official channels, we can get a sense of their reactions from other related fields.

Once the call connected, Liang Yilan's charming and melodious voice came through the phone: "It's rare, Mr. Lü, that you would take the initiative to call me."

Lü Yao smiled and said, "You're a busy person, so I don't want to bother you usually."

Liang Yilan understood Lu Yao's polite words, but she didn't intend to give him a way out: "What are you saying? If you say the word, Mr. Lu, I can come back immediately even if I'm overseas, all fresh and clean, waiting for you to come find me."

"Oh dear~ But Mr. Lü, you've been incredibly busy lately. With the arrival of your precious baby, you probably haven't had time to pay attention to me for a while."

Lü Yao and Liang Yilan didn't play cards together very often.

Although Liang Yilan was indeed beautiful and had a great figure, Lu Yao had never lacked women in his past and present lives, so he didn't have a particularly deep impression of Liang Yilan's card skills.

However, Liang Yilan was deeply impressed by Lü Yao's card skills.

Young is good.

This was a thought that would always come to Liang Yilan whenever she thought of Lü Yao.

Lu Yao didn't dwell on these issues with Liang Yilan and asked directly, "Have you heard about ByteDance's recent launch of Douyin?"

Liang Yilan: "Yes, there was a small surge during the May Day holiday, but the recent data seems to be declining."

Lu Yao said, "That surge in data was a combination of favorable timing, location, and people. It's expected that it will fall after the May Day holiday. However, other internet companies and big companies don't seem to be making any moves. Have you heard anything from your side?"

Liang Yilan paused for a moment on the phone, then said, "I haven't heard any specific rumors, but before you called, I also contacted other colleagues in the advertising industry, and none of them received any calls to discuss cooperation."

"My family has some connections in major internet companies, and after inquiring, they were all vague, basically saying 'it's hard to say.'"

What is difficult to say?
That means these major internet companies may or may not produce short video content.

The timing and resources are uncertain.

In short, I'll take another look.

This could be misleading, or it could be the truth.

However, based on Lü Yao's experience, the three internet giants actually have completely different attitudes on this matter.

Tencent attempted to create a short video content platform as early as 2013. At its peak, Weishi had 4500 million daily active users. Although it was abandoned due to product strength and ecosystem issues, it would not be difficult for Tencent to restart the project.

of course.

Weishi itself didn't have the potential to become a viral sensation.

However, a company as large as Tencent would certainly not make a simplistic response. With the support of a future-oriented perspective, Lü Yao knew that when Douyin's daily active users exceeded 50 million, Tencent not only revived Weishi, which had already withdrawn from the competition.

They have also launched several short video tracks with different positioning, such as "Food Videos", "Quick Videos", and "Yoo Videos".

This is also a consistent strategy of penguins to "raise venomous insects".

Under Tencent's nurturing strategy, "Video Accounts," which were later embedded within WeChat and supported by its social ecosystem and algorithms, truly survived and have the potential to become like Douyin.

Among the current three internet giants, only Tencent's response strategy is the most aggressive. Perhaps Tencent also realizes that the future of short video platforms will impact Tencent's core "social ecosystem".

Apart from the most aggressive Tencent, the other two internet giants responded rather slowly, or even sluggishly.

Among the three giants, Baidu was still the first to react, respond, and deploy its resources. However, as always, despite all the actions Baidu took, the final results were the weakest.

After Baidu's Douyin campaign became a hit during the Spring Festival, it launched Nani short videos in 2017, later renamed Huopai, but failed due to a lack of social media DNA.

After 2020, the company shifted to a combination of search and short videos, which can be considered a pragmatic transformation.

However, Baidu still has no place in the short video market.

In contrast.

Alibaba's response was rather unique.

It chose to invest directly in Douyin, but after realizing that it could not control Douyin through investment and could not provide funding for its own e-commerce system, it finally decided to take a differentiated route through Taobao Live. Later, when Douyin built its own e-commerce system and cut off external Taobao links, the cooperation between the two companies was declared over.

Based on all the information available so far...

Penguins are still their biggest rival.

But don't panic.

Tencent is currently too eager for quick success. It may not be able to complete its internal adjustments and hone its skills until after 2020. Then, relying on the "algorithm plus social" strategy, it will take six years to develop before it can compete with Douyin.

(End of this chapter)