Reborn in 08, a heretical cultivator starting a business

Chapter 63 The True Core Business of Happy Farm + YouTuan.com

The integrated version of the WeChat PC client can be used for social networking, group buying, and will also be able to launch payment next year!

In this way, all that's needed is to drive traffic to WeChat.

perfect!

In a past life, there was a food delivery war.

Ele.me's market share is only one-third of Meituan's, and it is severely lacking in users.

However, after merging with Taobao and becoming Taobao Flash Sale, it soon became evenly matched with Meituan.

Now, YouTuan and WeChat can do the same thing.

Creating two platforms and launching two clients might not be successful.

But put them all together, concentrate resources and traffic, and push one thing hard!
That's easy.

As for whether competitors will follow suit?
There weren't many problems in the last two years. The mobile internet hadn't even taken off yet, and nobody was optimistic about WeChat, a social networking platform for acquaintances!
In fact, social interaction among acquaintances has existed for a long time.

Renren in 05, Fetion in 07, Kaixin in March 08... these were all social networking sites for acquaintances!
But in recent years, no major companies have followed suit!

why?
Because open social platforms like QQ can grow indefinitely and have a brighter future.

However, social networking platforms like WeChat, which are limited to close relationships, are destined to have a low user base, slow growth, difficulty in monetization, and difficulty in making a profit!

This is the current view of Silicon Valley investors, and also the attitude of all capital.

Why bother with a social networking service based on acquaintances that doesn't seem profitable? It's difficult to even attract investment.

Therefore, no matter how popular social networking sites like Renren, Fetion, and Kaixin are, the BAT giants remain unmoved and instead focus on developing open social networking!
It wasn't until after 2010, when the mobile internet began to develop, that Lei Jun followed up by creating MiTalk.

In 2011, Tencent's peripheral business division, located in Guangzhou, started using WeChat.

But they were not taken seriously at all, and Lao Zhang only had ten people!

Even after WeChat was developed, it was a marginal business that could be shut down at any time and was not valued at all; even Chairman Ma ignored it.

Tencent's top management felt that WeChat was useless and would only divert resources from QQ; many even wanted to shut it down!

Only the Guangzhou R&D branch persisted, and only Lao Zhang himself made efforts.

It wasn't until after 2012, with the rapid development of mobile internet, the explosion of smartphones, and the rapid growth of WeChat users, that Tencent saw the profit potential in social networking among acquaintances and began to pay attention to the WeChat business!
Large corporations all aim to make a profit and don't undertake worthless projects!

To put it bluntly, before 2012, the mobile internet was still in its infancy, and social networking among acquaintances was considered a worthless project by BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) giants.

When Wang Junshan created WeChat in 2008, it focused on social networking among acquaintances, but few people paid attention to it, and some even ridiculed it!

Nobody believes that WeChat will surpass QQ in the future!

Even if you tell people, they'll all think it's a joke, a huge joke!

It's a joke that India can surpass the United States.

Let alone 2008, even in 2013, few people thought WeChat could surpass QQ.

It wasn't until 2016 that Chairman Ma publicly declared that "WeChat is the future of Tencent!"
The explosion of mobile internet and mobile payment is what made WeChat a success.

But in 2008, when the mobile internet was still in its infancy and mobile payment was a distant prospect, Wang Junshan started WeChat without much fanfare.

Tencent won't care.

Capital won't care.

The prevailing view is that social networks among acquaintances have low growth potential, are difficult to monetize, and even a dog wouldn't invest in them!
And that's the opportunity!

When everyone was pessimistic about social networking among acquaintances, Wang Junshan made WeChat a success.

By the time Tencent realized the crisis and started to take it seriously, it was already too late!
Just like short videos, if the BAT giants had known how terrifying Douyin would become, they would have gone all in immediately instead of giving up halfway!

Unfortunately, they missed the boat, and by the time they invested more in short videos, it was too late to catch up.

Similarly, the same applies to social interactions among acquaintances.

It's all about exploiting a time difference!

Once YouTuan, WeChat, and payment are all established, a closed loop will be formed!
Then Future Technology will be firmly established, and it will have the capital to challenge BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) in the future.

More importantly, with the support of WeChat's social network, YouTuan's user stickiness will improve, usage time will increase, and revenue will also increase!
With the support of YouTuan, WeChat can also find a new way to make money and carve out a path in the field of familiar social networking where the future seems uncertain!
The most fatal flaw of social networking among acquaintances is the lack of a profit model, which makes it unattractive to investors. However, when it's bundled with YouTuan, YouTuan becomes WeChat's profit center.

Especially the second core business that YouTuan.com is about to launch!
That way, you can better make grand promises and tell stories!

Capital might just change the prejudice against social interactions based on acquaintances!
However, this is not enough. We need to add another traffic entry point to continuously drive traffic to the WeChat desktop platform!
For example, they could include the wildly popular social mini-game "Happy Farm".

Angry Birds is a personal phenomenon; it can bring new users to WeChat, but it can't keep those new users engaged or encourage them to continue using WeChat.

Happy Farm, on the other hand, is an interactive game for a group of people, and the core fun is stealing each other's crops.

In order to steal virtual crops, users will actively invite people around them to register for WeChat and grow crops together.

After all, if you don't plant them and he doesn't plant them, whose plants am I supposed to steal from?
It's worth mentioning that although "Happy Farm" is called "Happy Farm", it was not developed by Kaixin.com.

It was developed by the Shanghai Five Minutes Company!
Inspired by the Facebook game Farm Town, it incorporates a vegetable-stealing gameplay element.

In July 2008, the game project was initiated, initially with a team of only five people.

The name will be Happy Farm in August!
The core gameplay will be implemented in September.

In November, it was launched on Renren.com's gaming platform through an advertising revenue-sharing model, and quickly spread among students.

In January 2009, after logging into Kaixin.com, its daily active users soared to five million. Office workers set alarms to play the game, and it completely went viral!

In February, a fake version of Kaixin.com was created, launching a "Happy Farmer" game...

Later, Happy Farm was integrated with QQ Zone, but with too many QQ users, Happy Farm couldn't handle it and frequently lagged.

Five Minutes Company sold the entire Happy Farm platform on QQ to Tencent for 300 million!
Tencent acquired the exclusive license to develop QQ Farm, which was launched in May and had over 5 million users by the end of the year.

Quickly wipe out a bunch of knock-off farm games and Happy Farm.

……

The Happy Farm project will only be approved next month, and named the month after that.

Wang Junshan could have used the resources at his disposal to finish it and launch it several months earlier!

At the same time, the development of WeChat 1.0 must be started immediately.

We only offer basic social features and a WeChat farm system!

As for YouTuan.com, it doesn't need to be fully integrated in the initial stage.

Instead, it was made into a module of WeChat and accessed via a hyperlink to a webpage.

This will greatly shorten the development time, and WeChat 1.0+ Happy Farm will be launched in August!

Time waits not for us!

Wang Junshan immediately went to the R&D department and convened a strategic deployment meeting.

Deploy all the WeChat development work.

However, the traffic-generating effect of "Angry Birds" is not as good as that of "Happy Farm," and the operation with a mouse is probably not as good as that with a touch screen, so it is best to put it aside for the time being.

Once the iPhone 3G goes on sale, we'll immediately start developing the iOS version of Angry Birds!
Then, Wang Junshan called Tang Jinghe over:
"President Tang, we still need top-tier developers. We can poach more people from big companies. Salary is not an issue."

“Okay, boss.” Tang Jinghe replied, then changed the subject:
"There's another problem. Summer vacation starts in a month, and our campus group buying will definitely have to stop then. How are we going to get through August?!"

Wang Junshan smiled: "This is another reason why I invited you here: YouTuan.com's true core business—vertical e-commerce group buying!"

That's right, campus group buying was just part of Wang Junshan's strategy to make his first fortune.

It's not that Meituan Select was really going to be fully implemented in 2008.

This is not realistic.

Campus group buying can leverage the advantages of universities having a closed and concentrated student body, a large number of laptop users, and centralized delivery to achieve next-day delivery, which is no problem and profitable.

However, the residential areas outside the school are not enclosed or concentrated, the number of orders is too small, the users are too scattered, and the cost of next-day delivery is too high, so it is simply impossible to promote it at present.

Unless YouTuan gains significant brand recognition and a large user base by the end of the year, it will be able to pilot community group buying in urban areas of economically developed second-tier cities.

It would be difficult in other places, and it would be even more unrealistic to promote it on a comprehensive scale.

However, for vertical e-commerce group buying, the group-buying model, and direct logistics delivery, there are no obstacles!
(End of this chapter)