The success story of the "Ink Weather" app in Tongzhou

A weather application that was supposed to challenge the National Weather Bureau, the site was also inexplicably sealed, two partners have left. Founder Apartments Golden Plough How to make such a tool application is well known?

Interview | Zhengjiangpo wenting | Wenting

Date of birth: December 30, 1982

Hometown: Shenyang

Education background: Dalian Jiaotong University Graduate

Start-up City: Beijing

Number of startups: 1 times

First business Age: 26 years old

Not long ago, "ink weather," the Ministry of Commerce received a strange call, the other party claiming to be Hunan TV "Day Up" program group, invited the founder of Ink Weather apartments golden plough on the program. The first reaction of the person answering the phone was, "is it a liar again?" Out of politeness, the person symbolically invites the other person to send a letter first.

Unexpectedly, the other side very reliable, not a few days apartments golden Plough ran to the TV station to record the program. This is one of the most popular mobile apps in the TV screen of the Great reunion, and apartments golden plough with the singing bar, popular reviews, Camera360 and other 6 applications of the founder. Before the big show of their products, they gathered in the background chatting to amuse each other, asking each other the number of users now is how much.

Apartments Golden Plough did not say how much their total number of users, he would like to tell others, ink weather now the monthly average number of new users is 200,000. He is sending a signal to the outside world that the weather application is a big market, everyone cares, everyone will use, and ink is the boss of this field, still keep the exciting number of new users.

Some people rated ink weather as "the thing on the lei June" in the eye, while apartments golden Plough grabbed the opportunity before others. While this is still a long way from a massive "monetization", the sheer number of users means there is no limit to what is possible. QQ, 360 on the desktop are attached to the weather Service, and ink weather has completed a round of financing.

I really want to start a business.

December 30, 2008, Apartments Golden Plough 26 birthday, he decided to start a business. At that time, apartments golden Plough was a Symbian engineer, skilled, occasionally write code play, took the International Programming competition awards. He vaguely felt that working is not his ultimate goal, want to start a business, but a uncertain determination. Apartments Golden Plough A list of the pros and cons of entrepreneurship, and constantly solicit opinions from others. Parents disagree that he loses a job with a steady income and his friends disagree, and only his wife is willing to support: "Even if you fail, we can do it again." ”

On the day of the 30th birthday, apartments golden Plough suddenly felt, "I have to start." "He has been thinking about doing the weather." The 2nd night, Apartments golden plough began to nest at home to write programs, has been written to the New Year's 3 o'clock in the morning. The middle friend's telephone unceasingly, has looked for him to sing, has pulled him to the bar, he all writes the procedure The reason one by one rejects. The other side basically a reaction: "You are sick, the New Year's Day to write programs?"

Friends of the online CTO Yue looked at the ink weather demo, the first reaction was not to think the weather can do so beautiful. But apartments Golden Plough said: "I think it's not good enough, a lot of things have not been done, and then released in a few months." ”

In May 2009, the first version of the ink weather was released. When users complained that Symbian's UI was ugly, the ink made the first Symbian version of the dual slide, with an anime effect, much like the later Android system. The effect is very bright, also very save the flow. Similar weather applications require 10K of synchronization at a time, and only 1 to 2K of ink is required. Also, by crawling weather data, ink can support more than 2000 cities at the same time, while other applications cover 500 of the total. But it also buried the hidden dangers of the confrontation between the ink and the weather bureau.

At the time, there was no mobile app store, users found their favorite apps through the forums and then downloaded them to their phone's SD card. Apartments Golden Plough in the Symbian forum in several different areas of the same post, the administrator suspected that the soft text, released not long after it was deleted. Before the post is blocked, some of the forums commonly known as "large" users recognize that this is a good thing, after this part of the people's obligation to spread, the first day of ink on the download of the weather reached 2000. Apartments Golden Plough was so excited that the figure exceeded his expectations.

At this time, apartments golden Plough has been a part-time business, using rest time to take care of ink weather. He resigned to Symbian in September. The boss was surprised: "Do you want to start a business?" the company is very good to you, and sent you to study abroad. Apartments Golden Plough said: "I am very grateful, but I really want to start a business." ”

When he came out of Symbian, apartments golden Plough was like a bare-metal-with no office, only two college students were his partners. Because he initiated, so apartments golden plough a little more shares, as the CEO, each month to pay himself 3000 pieces of wages, every day at home, in the morning to write code, has been written to midnight. Nonetheless, he "still quickly gained 20 pounds".

Apartments golden plough love to dress up, but let him have no money to buy clothes. "I haven't bought any new clothes in a year, I've worn them before, and life is simple. I belong to the kind of more love consumption, the pressure of a big I would like to buy things. Credit card will be decompression, sometimes go out to buy a few clothes, will brush off thousands of pieces. ”

In May 2010, the Ink weather released the first version of Android. That's when the whole team was only 5 people. "We are optimistic about Android, but also the iphone, but no technician, only Android people, we do Android." Later I really can't bear to find the iphone version of the people, we learn it. Apartments Golden Plough said that until May 2, the iphone version of ink was introduced.

The ink weather is burning. The first to find the door to cooperate is the Tiger map. Very simple, as long as the ink in the weather to promote the tiger map, the user every successful download paid 6 dollars a month, there are eight thousand or nine thousand dollars. Apartments Golden Plough laughed, they are passive type, at home to do products, have a certain reputation, attract each other to cooperate. Up to now, more than 100 applications have been spread through the ink weather. Adidas has launched brand advertising in the "Clothing Index" feature.

Investor radar also appeared, some big-names VC have to find apartments golden plough chat ink. 2009, a famous international VC Find them, apartments golden plough very happy, think the other side has investment intention, "fart on the ground to go." But apartments Golden Plough introduction project in less than two minutes by the other side interrupted: "You do not, don't do it, No." We have a company here, it's a good project, you go. "Later, the other side has looked for apartments golden plough two or three times, he each time is happy and goes to despair, each other each time is in the role of headhunting."

At the beginning of 2010, Xianfeng Huaxing's Chen Kozhan wanted to invest in "everyday sounds", but the other party had already invested. In disappointment, every day the founder Huang said, "I know a good project called ink weather, you can talk about." "At that time apartments golden Plough had seen a lot of investors, in a state of hesitation and confusion, he saw Chen Kozhan."

The first meeting on both sides chatted well, and Chen Kozhan clearly told apartments Golden Plough, they want to vote. The next day, the two sides on the price, signed an agreement. As for the investment amount, it is apartments golden plough and the other side repeatedly grind out. "It's just the same as bargaining with the street." Maybe we're not too good at bargaining with others on the street, but financing a bargain is hundreds of thousands of, and then slowly consulting to 2.5 million. ”

In the next 2011 years, ink weather has won a grand million Yuan investment, 2012 was the third round of financing, because the news was not formally released, so investors and the amount is not disclosed.

Seal Station, Disband

Apartments Golden Plough began to get excited when the daily active user of the ink weather reached 10,000. At that time, they did only seven or eight months, still on the Symbian platform. Not only did the excitement disappear without turning to the Android platform, but it became more intense. "I didn't think we could reach the top 10 on Android, the ink weather in Symbian is not up to the top ten. We started late in Symbian, but we started early on the Android market. ”

Apartments Golden Plough that it was the ink that made the plate bigger than the weather. Earlier than their weather-pass had committed Sina, while ink weather kept a new increase of 200,000 users per month. However, the variable also comes with it. Apartments Golden Plough has not yet had time to celebrate the success of a phased victory, has suffered the biggest difficulty since the start-up--pc Ink Weather official website was closed and the founding team disband. What's more, these two things happen almost at the same time.

In early May 2011, Yue, the CTO of the online group, was married. In the morning he opened the computer, landing QQ, apartments Golden Plough's head in a flash. He opened the dialog box and was startled by what apartments golden Plough said. "I may have to leave the ink." Yue asked the reason, apartments golden Plough only briefly said a few words, probably with the partners, opinions not unified, the struggle and so on. He comforted the apartments golden plough a few words and went to get married.

In the afternoon, Yue married back, apartments golden plough again on QQ told him: "The site was closed." ”

In fact, at the time, apartments Golden Plough's two partners had gone away at the end of 2010, leaving only one of them as CTO. The day before the wedding, Yue also met apartments golden Plough and his CTO. At lunchtime, apartments golden Plough asked Yue, the online CTO of the friend, "How strong are You now? How many people do you have?" Yue know, apartments golden Plough to his CTO already very dissatisfied, feel the other side work not hard. That day, the present CTO did not speak.

Apartments Golden Plough knew that there was a problem between them. "One is the division of labor is not clear, there are people on the direction of the product is divided, and even a lot of behavior may be uncomfortable with each other." Different ideas, like management companies, I think the company should be engaged in such characteristics, they may have other ideas. ”

The impression of apartments golden plough is mild and quiet, but to the product, he admits he is very strong. For example, this color is not very good, the text should be placed, these questions, he is very insistent his opinion. Products are also a place where partners are prone to disagree.

"It was a long time and it broke out. It's hard to communicate, it's hard to communicate and we can't work together anymore. "Apartments golden Plough said.

The time of the outbreak was Yue's wedding day, and the company was reportedly turned upside-down. They began to discuss how to separate, only the apartments golden plough on the QQ to Yue said the sentence "I may have to leave the ink." But the end result is that the other side has left.

For the founding team of the disband, every day the founder Huang said: "They were relatively young, there is no partnership experience." Perhaps the apartments golden plough way is not particularly appropriate, because he is the CEO, will use a few more tough methods to deal with, and did not really go to let others achieve the state of convincing. When the 2nd partner left, I found that he was not the same as before, very generous, but also tolerant, even if it is wronged, but also to properly solve the matter. ”

Apartments Golden Plough, an engineer-born, admits that management has been the biggest challenge he's faced since starting a business. "I used to work with machines and entered" a ", he returned a" 2 "; but everyone you input to him is not the same as what he returned. "After the dissolution of the founding team, he also began to consciously seek breakthroughs in management experience, such as learning to manage employee expectations. And in the recruitment process, as long as there are some hesitation, he will choose to give up.

Compared to the rapid resolution of the partner problem, the site was not so smooth, but also accidentally involved in the "case".

To be realistic, the main function of ink is not to provide users with specific features, it's true territory in the app. But apartments golden Plough dare not despise the reason of being blocked, he thinks this must be the central Weather Bureau to engage in the ghost. Because at first, the ink grabbed the weather data from the Internet, and the meteorological Bureau came to ask for a payment of $ hundreds of thousands of a year. It was also a big expense for ink that was not profitable at the time and didn't raise money. As a result, the requirements of the Meteorological Bureau were shelved.

But now that the site is sealed, apartments golden plough judgment should be with the weather bureau. He called the other person to confirm the closure of the matter, the other side incredibly said: "You do not behave according to the rules, indeed we do." "Helpless, apartments golden Plough repeated repeatedly to negotiate with the Meteorological Bureau to pay authorization."

In fact, the official ink by the lunar affair with the Meteorological Bureau has no relationship, is someone in the forum issued a messy violation of content caused. Because apartments golden plough in the Internet Data Center (IDC) for the record of the phone after several moves have been no longer, nor received a warning from IDC.

About 3 months later, the site resumed operations and the lengthy licensing talks with the weather bureau progressed slowly. After several setbacks, contacted a new media department, get the offer. Apartments Golden Plough was prepared to cut the bargain, if not really can buy. But unexpectedly, the other side suddenly did not sell. The reason is that ink has a competitive relationship with the weather bureau, and the other side has a plan to do it, and it has been marketed. Lasted more than a year, the last ink to find the Beijing Meteorological Bureau, get the weather data authorization.

From tools to communities

The ink-weather outbreak was unexpected for everyone. Huang admits: "At first I saw apartments golden plough do the product, looks very beautiful, operation is also very smooth, but did not think of ink weather can grow to a tens of millions of of the user volume, become the first of the Weather class brand. I didn't see it at the time. ”

Even apartments Golden Plough himself also a bit of drums: "I think the weather is a relatively small application, although the public demand, but compared to ucweb or every day, call through, I feel at least the second-line products." ”

If you summarize the characteristics of the weather application, it is not difficult to imagine why ink weather will have an explosive growth. First, this is something that meets the needs of the public, compared to singing and Instagram's narrow-audience service. Second, users must be networked to use this product, Symbian era has a lot of good software, do not need to be networked to use, but can not interact with users. Third, the user's frequency is very high, every day will be concerned about, a day may be updated several times.

This is the reason why apartments Golden Plough chose the weather to start a business. He had thought about making coupons and thought that he didn't have the ability to do it. and ink weather to do now, apartments golden plough feel there is no shortcut to say, "Basic is to rely on a version of the release of new features to accumulate a reputation." He hates to brush the list.

Ink weather is accumulating a huge user base Yes, the question is how to scale out? A lot of people have been nagging at his ears, the weather there is no business model, no imagination space. Apartments Golden Plough Also in the tangled confusion, then believed. In March 2010, he began to try other directions, a go desktop similar to the 3G portal. Apartments Golden Plough has only one purpose, to bring the existing more than 10 million users to the part, and then to become present. He was enthusiastic about the project for at least half a year. But the team was not very stable and the project eventually miscarried. Yue said: "Fortunately not done, this is gratifying to celebrate." For now, it seems that the weather is likely to have its own business model. ”

The ink weather is exploring its own ways, as mobile-side tools are flocking to social trends. They have a new UGC version of Android, the user by shooting their location of the real weather, uploaded to the client, forming a real China. This is also the apartments golden plough to compensate for the lack of interactivity before the weather application, for example, push weather warning is the normal service, but users often look at the switch off, without any interaction.

To the user, everyone is a weather broadcaster is also a share, can predict inaccurate weather correction, and even accurate to specific locations, such as Beijing international trade. The incentives to share photos with users are now spiritual, expressed through the number of fans and the number of shares they share.

In apartments Golden Plough's view, when the number of users and activity is to a magnitude, the way and scale of monetization will naturally go up. For example, Adidas chose to work with ink, which is an endorsement of the ink brand exposure. and apartments golden plough that mobile app monetization is likely to be linked to the extent to which the mobile Internet is recognised throughout the market.

In addition, ink may refer to the business model of Japan Weather News Corp. (Weather News). This is the world's largest non-governmental meteorological company, founded in 1970. It has been listed on the Nasdaq and retreated to the Tokyo Stock Exchange. The company provides disaster prevention and meteorological services to all walks of life, and the forecast period and service items are set according to user requirements. The commercial performance will ask it to predict whether the weather is conducive to performance and so on. They have a branch in Beijing, have been actively contacted ink, seek cooperation.

At the end of 2009, Sina was the trustee to find apartments golden plough, opened a price, want to collect ink. Apartments Golden Plough's first reaction was: do we have so much value? Everyone gathered together to discuss, think later can make it more valuable, decided not to sell. After receiving the rounds of financing, apartments golden Plough was less interested in selling the company. Is it possible to go public with a mobile tool? Apartments Golden Plough's answer is, "It's all there is." ”

Related reading:

Question: What is your motivation for starting a business?

Apartments Golden Plough: I want to do a meaningful, very bull thing, just like jobs said about changing the world, I want to change people's way of life.

Question: As a young entrepreneur, what do you think is the biggest challenge in the entrepreneurial process?

Apartments Golden Plough: internal management. For me as an engineer, the greatest challenge is to get along with people.

Question: How do you describe your position in the management of your company or team?

Apartments Golden Plough: I'm the CEO, the captain.

Question: Who is the entrepreneur you admire in your heart?

Apartments Golden Plough: jobs, the domestic word is Zhou Hongyi.

Question: Can you describe the state of your life after "successful business" in your mind?

Apartments Golden Plough: I'm going to do these things.

The success story of the "Ink Weather" app in Tongzhou