Reborn multinational giant

Today is the famous 315 Consumer Rights Day in the country, and it is also a well-known "holiday" in the country. On this day of each year, a large number of companies are uneasy, for fear that they will be on the list of CCTV 315 evening party and become public opinion and national criticism. Objects and goals.

The Internet industry, although it is an emerging industry in the new era, is no exception, including Baidu, Alibaba’s Taobao, etc., have been blacklisted by 315, especially Alibaba Taobao, which is mainly based on e-commerce business, is basically selected. Yes, when it comes to news such as fake and shoddy, consumer rights protection, Ali's Taobao will always be brought out and said.

Fortunately, Huizhong’s current business does not involve these industries that are prone to disputes with consumers. Therefore, Fang Zhe is also leisurely. On such a day, he talked with NetDragon’s chairman Liu Jiande about the acquisition of 91 Assistant. And related products.

To most ordinary people in China, NetDragon is an unfamiliar company. This company was established in 1999. Its main business involves several industries such as online games, mobile Internet and online education. It is a game consulting website well known by players. 17173 and the online game "Magic Domain" are the products of this company.In 2003, 17173 was acquired by Sohu for 20 million US dollars.

Just like most people know that Mt. Everest does not know about Qiaogori and Kangchenjunga, as an Internet company in the second or third echelon of the Internet industry, this company is not well known to most people, but Baidu acquired 91 The assistant did make the company's reputation soar and made a lot of limelight.

91 Assistant is worth so much money, and indeed because at that time, it has already seized the top spot in the domestic third-party application distribution market. From this point, it can also be seen that its parent company, NetDragon, is indeed quite a company. The established company can lay out the mobile Internet ahead of the three giants of the Internet industry bat. The vision of this company leader is indeed extraordinary.

Nowadays, the domestic application distribution market has just emerged, and most people have not even noticed or even knew that there is such an industry. Therefore, 91 assistants, which were bought at a low price of 100,000 yuan, have now taken up the domestic field. Top spot.

According to the data investigated by Fang Zherang’s staff, there are currently only 40 million smartphone users in China, and most of them are users using the Nokia Symbian system. Yes, Symbian is actually a smartphone. The operating system, but because of Nokia's death and reluctance to enter, the good situation was occupied by iphone and Android.

There are more than 3 million iPhone users. The Android system was only released in October last year. However, because the major domestic Chinese Kulian manufacturers have begun to cooperate with operators, Sony Ericsson, Samsung, LG and others have also entered the market. Basically, they have begun to carry the Android system, so there are more than 5 million domestic users who use the Android system.

In this context, 91 Assistant has registered nearly one million users, and firmly grasps the top spot in domestic assistant applications. However, although the number of users is not small, this product does not It doesn't make money. So far, NetDragon and 91 Assistant product manager Xiong Jun have not found a suitable monetization method.

The best way to monetize this type of product in future generations is actually to control the application distribution channel and import a certain application or game through traffic to achieve monetization, but this effect is not very obvious now that there are just over a million users. Moreover, NetDragon and Xiong Jun did not have such thoughts and ideas.

Although it has not found a profit model, since the number of users of this product is growing, NetDragon has no reason to cut it off. At the beginning of this year, NetDragon also set up a wireless business unit specifically responsible for mobile Internet-related businesses, including research and development. Android and other products.

"Mr. Liu, what do you think of my proposal?" Fang Zhe asked NetDragon Chairman Liu Jiande who was leaning on his chair and smoking.

Huizhong is now a large company. Therefore, whether it is to talk about cooperation with others or invest in acquisitions, it is handled according to the hidden rules of the industry. Before coming, Huizhong’s investment department has contacted NetDragon and confirmed NetDragon's intention, the investment department got the answer is that the price is right and can be considered.

Therefore, Fang Zhe took his subordinates and rushed over by plane to meet with Liu Jiande, the chairman of NetDragon. As long as they reached an agreement, the more specific details of the acquisition would be handled by the people below.

Huizhong’s price tag for NetDragon is 5 million yuan, which packs 91 assistants and all associated products and their entire project team. This price is not low in Fang Zhe’s view.

First of all, this product was originally bought by NetDragon for 100,000 yuan. Although it has been operating in the company for more than a year and has accumulated nearly a million users, this product is not profitable. In addition, this product It is more of Liu Jiande's playful investment. Because he has not made money, he does not pay much attention to it. He just thinks that since this product can attract so many users, it must be valuable.

This is also the product thinking of the Internet industry. Regardless of what this product does, even if a product is useless, as long as it can accumulate a sufficient number of users, it is valuable.

Liu Jiande was born in the 1970s, an American sea turtle. The major he studied at university is the same as Fang Zhe’s "brother-in-law" Zuo Ruichao. It is biology and one of the most difficult majors to find a job. When he was in the United States, He founded a software sales company with his cousin Liu Yuan. By selling software, the brothers made the first pot of money. After returning to China in 1999, he founded NetDragon.

Now, his brother Liu Yuan is the CEO of NetDragon, responsible for the specific business and daily operations of NetDragon, while Liu Jiande is in charge of the company's strategic planning and grasping the company's overall development direction.

The 91 assistant that Huizhong wants to acquire this time is a small project invested and acquired by Liu Jiande by chance.

In 2007, Apple released the iPhone. As a sea turtle studying abroad, Jiande Liu is naturally concerned about this. Although the iPhone has not yet entered China, it has already accumulated many users and fans in China, but it is also because the iPhone has not officially entered China. All iPhones In the process of using iPhone, parallel users have various problems such as trouble in managing and downloading software, trouble in upgrading jailbreak system, etc.

Because of this, when Liu Jiande heard that an assistant software that helped users manage mobile phone software and upgrade the jailbreak system appeared on the Internet, he became interested and spent 100,000 yuan, including the producer of this software, Xiong Jun, all. I packaged and bought the company.

A few days ago, his subordinates told him that there was a company called Yanjing Huizhong that was interested in acquiring 91 Assistant and its production team. With a businessman's mentality of making money, Liu Jiande also agreed to the other party's willingness to meet and talk.