Some night in October 2010, Zhang Xiaolong, general manager of Tencent’s Guangzhou R & D department, wrote an email to Ma Huateng. Six or seven people ’s “WeChat” product groups were established more than a month later, and the first one was launched two months later. The beta version welcomes the 100 millionth registered user after 14 months …
Story like this gradually became a household name after WeChat became a super app. Zhang Xiaolong was promoted to be a paranoid “product god”. Ma Huateng got a good name for people to use, especially the phrase “If there is no WeChat, Tencent may have finished playing “, Which directly made WeChat the standard case for the Internet” blitz. ”
If the same scene took place 10 years later, and it took three months to launch the first beta version, Ma Huateng may not have the opportunity to say the words of “heartfelt words”, and the entire Tencent empire may be labeled as unresponsive The label has become a negative textbook of “fast fish eat slow fish” in the eyes of reviewers.
Ma Huateng has a window period of 3 months left 10 years ago, and there may be only 3 days left after 10 years.
01 Opportunities from the “Black Swan”
On January 23, 2020, the fermentation of the pneumonia epidemic caused the movie market to encounter the first black swan in the opening year, and “Aunt”, which was originally intended to be released, was forced to announce its withdrawal.
But the story has not come to an end. A poster of “Ask the people all over the country to watch” Aunt “for free” began to spread on social platforms. With the support of hundreds of millions of Internet users, Xu Yan earned a lot of praise and joy. After a “happy year” in the media, Byte Beat also missed the opportunity to wait for the “Chu Hu” quick hand after the CCTV Spring Festival Gala.
But the biggest thing is not what the byte bounce got, but the fast response when the black swan event happened.
To borrow the quote from Douyin CEO Zhang Nan: “The team went from making a decision, contacting the owner of the film company, negotiating the price, signing a contract, to researching and developing product feature pages, watching stress tests online, and finally putting the movie online It took only 36 hours and most of the work was done online. “
The explanation that can be given is that the reason why byte skipping completes decisions in a very short period of time is due to the aggressive culture of the enterprise itself. Sniper attack on fast hands may be a long-planned strategy. Exclude otherOptions. However, in this special Spring Festival holiday, the fast decision of byte beating is not alone.
The “quarantine” measures derived from the pneumonia epidemic disrupted the broadcast schedule of TV stations. A large number of variety shows that were recorded while broadcasting were forced to postpone recording, and the supply and demand of entertainment products began to unbalance.
Hunan Satellite TV, which has always occupied half of the entertainment variety shows, quickly remedied them and planned and formulated two variety shows in the form of “cloud recording”. The first is “Hey!” what are you doing? “, The program was initiated, recorded and broadcasted in only 50 hours; the other is the” Tian Tian Yun Zhi “talk show hosted by” Tiantian Brothers “, less than 30 hours from recording to broadcasting .
There are also two variety show sponsors. From the broadcast of the two variety shows, in the past two years, the small smart speakers that have been in good contact with Hunan Satellite TV are the total titles of “Sky Cloud Time”. Ming and “Hey! what are you doing? Naming quotient. Some internal Baidu employees said: “It took less than 3 days from the time of communication to learn about the news of the two variety shows, to discuss the executable cooperation plan, to the decision of title sponsorship, and the production of materials and materials.
If the scope of the discussion is further expanded, the “free course” plan of the online education platform, the opening of remote office products to small and medium-sized enterprises, the transformation of some manufacturing industries to produce medical masks, and the resumption of labor and labor of some small and medium enterprises after the Spring Festival. No, it can be regarded as a temporary opportunity created by the Black Swan incident, and it is also testing the efficiency of decision-making and execution of different teams: under the dual stimulation of risk and competition, it is fast becoming one of the soft power of enterprises.
The sudden emergence of the black swan also further proves the fact that the Internet is getting faster and faster, opportunities are fleeting, and the attitude of Internet players waiting for opportunities is not brave.
02 Turnaround under “Depleted Traffic”
The reason why the Internet is becoming faster has to start with “traffic depletion.”
“Flow depletion” is not a new topic, nor does it mean that there is no new flow depression. It is a reconstruction of the way of releasing traffic: when the demographic dividend is still there, the release of traffic is flood-like. Some of the tastes of rain and dew are the most applicable. The view that “the air is coming and pigs will fly” is most applicable; but when the Internet population is gradually saturated, the release of traffic is more and more wavy, with randomness, uncertainty, and often Phenomenal societyEvent correlation.
A direct example. During the epidemic, hundreds of millions of people were quarantined at home, leading to a sharp rise in demand for entertainment products. Variety, movie, game and other related markets will have a wave of traffic peaks. Byte Beat spent 630 million yuan to purchase the copyright of “Aunt”. Hunan Satellite TV launched the two cloud recording variety shows urgently. The naming rights of the two “various gambling” variety shows are undoubtedly the performance of harvesting this wave of traffic peaks.
For such a situation, LinkedIn founder Reed Huffman gave a methodology in his famous “Lightning Expansion”, thinking that innovation in business models should tend to be lightning expansion, that is, When you face uncertainty, give priority to speed over efficiency to achieve rapid growth.
Will quick decisions during the Chinese New Year holidays such as byte beating and small degree be included in the scope of lightning expansion? It can only be said that Reed Huffman’s “Silicon Valley Experience” was only half right.
Blitz is indeed the best method of byte beating. A product invests a lot of resources in the short and medium term, and then uses the product matrix of the headline to conduct drainage, and then achieves the effect of rapid rise. Byte Beat’s strategy in the fields of short video, gaming, remote office, etc. can be classified into this category.
Similar to Baidu ’s wolf culture, Baidu was also the second echelon brand in the smart speaker market in 2018, but quickly expanded its market in the form of price subsidies, consolidating its three-point relationship with Ali and Xiaomi The pattern of the world. Later, the company focused on the smart speakers with screen, and actively adjusted the product system and R & D rhythm. At the same time, after the outbreak of the new pneumonia, it was the first time to launch “100 million educational resources” to seize the online education market.
But the conclusion of “prioritizing speed over efficiency” does not seem to apply.
According to data disclosed by AppAnnie, between January 24 and January 30, Byte Beat’s Douyin Volcano Edition, Watermelon Video, Today ’s Headline, Douyin Short Video, and Today ’s Top Speed Edition have all entered In the App Store’s top 10 free charts, watermelon videos even topped the list for consecutive days. Compared with the 1 billion red envelopes of the fast-moving CCTV Spring Festival Gala, the movie copyright of 630 million yuan may still be one step higher.
According to the ratings data of CSM59 City, the “Sky Cloud Time” aired every Monday to Thursday at 19:30, starting on February 10.The ratings for this period ranked first on TV, and the ratings on February 13 were second only to the “Focus Interview” at the same time; another “Hey!” what are you doing? “The ratings for the first broadcast on February 7th also won the first place in the same period. A small focus on the marketing strategy of the head TV variety does not look like a temporary intention.
The fast pace of the Internet has changed not only the speed of corporate decisions, but also the organizational forms that affect the correctness of decisions.
03 The era of “entrepreneurial giants”
There is often a phenomenon in marketing: When a hot event occurs, it is often a startup company with an incomplete organization system that catches the “wind,” and the performance of the industry “big Macs” is relatively slow.
I still remember during the 618 in 2019, Su Hua and Cheng Yixiao, the founders of Kushou, wrote in an internal letter to employees:
We are no longer the fastest team. As we grow up, our muscles begin to become weak and our response becomes slower. Our connection perception with users is weakening … loosely The attitude of organization and Buddhism is that “slow company” is becoming our label.
The wording of this inside letter is not harsh, and it points out a new rule of the Internet world: “slow companies” may be a red flag to be eliminated. Even giants such as WeChat who have been promoted to the altar are no exception. For example, the WeChat video number that was swiped on the screen some time ago. The transition from the video circle of friends to short videos may be understood as Zhang Xiaolong’s “restraint”. Hesitation will inevitably increase the cost of cultivating users’ habits. It is unclear whether Tencent will miss the wave of short videos, but it is not practical to snipe the vibrato and fast hands.
If you compare, WeChat is already a giant in the traditional sense, but Byte Beat, Quick Hand, Meituan, Xiaodu, etc. are “entrepreneurial giants”.
The core difference is the organizational form, whether to maintain the agility of the startup company.
“Central Taiwan” is one of the most popular technical terms in 2019. It can be traced back to the strategy of “big, middle, small front desk” proposed by Ali in 2015. The inspiration was actually from a small company called Supercell in Finland. Created a powerful technology platform, and then let a lot of small teams to develop games.
It’s just Supercell.The revelation is not limited to the technical architecture, but also the management structure. Supercell divided the team of 300 people into several small teams of 5-7 people. The function of the CEO is to support and integrate resources. In this way, the cost of trial and error will not be too high, the time and direction can be adjusted and changed in a timely manner, and the grasp of the “fighter” is more agile. Such a disruptive organizational structure may not be perfect, but handing over decision-making power to the team is an experience worth learning from, and it is also the difference between giants and entrepreneurial giants.
As Ren Zhengfei discovered in 2016 when he discovered strategic opportunities for networks and data centers, he said in an internal speech: “We must dare to gather power, intensive investment, and saturated attacks in this period of strategic opportunity window opening. . Poop up, tear it apart, develop in depth, expand horizontally. “
There is no shortage of giant companies on the market who have learned from Huawei’s experience, but it is “entrepreneurial giants” who can use the “saturation attack” idea in a normal way. For example, in the face of the opportunity of short video, Byte Beat made a variety of products such as Douyin, Watermelon Video, and Volcano Small Video; in the sponsorship of the New Year’s Eve Party at the beginning of the year, Xiaodu Smart Speaker took a breath to occupy Hunan Satellite TV and CCTV. , Jiangsu Satellite TV and Dongfang Satellite TV; the fast hand chooses 1 billion funds to bet on CCTV Spring Festival Gala, and is also harvesting Spring Festival Gala traffic with the idea of saturation attack …
It is not that “saturation attacks” are the most effective means of expansion, but it is the only way to find opportunities in uncertainty. After all, you want to launch “saturation attacks” in a short time. The indispensable element is also the external manifestation of the management mechanism’s rejection of bloatedness and complexity.
At least when the “black swan” becomes the norm, the “entrepreneurial giant” may be the best living state.
04 write at the end
When Zhang Xiaolong saw a new opportunity from Kik in 2010, the Internet product cycle was still “in years”, iOS and Android were niche products, and the Symbian S60 platform had almost stagnated its evolution, even if it was running. Slower and not too far away from competitors.
In 10 years, the Internet’s infrastructure has moved from the PC era to the mobile Internet to the era of 5G-led intelligence. The product cycle has been shortened to “days as a unit.” The world is no longer deterministic. The probability is also getting higher and higher. Whether it is the so-called Internet giant or the unicorn favored by capital, the most dangerous thing is precisely the behavior of industry leaders, which has lost its sensitivity to “fighters”.