Cartoon economy in cartoon

Now the Chinese in the end for comics more love ? The cartoon app that emerged in the second half of 2013 may be able to reflect the market's strong interest and strong demand for comic-book applications. After the camera, a cartoon application in last November again seized our sight, its name is called "Face Meng."

"Face" is a cartoon based on the bright color and cute image of the animation of the application. Users are free to choose between men and women, and then they can make comic picture free. Users can choose their own facial features, hairstyles and clothing accessories as long as they slide through their fingers.

Guo Lei is one of the face- Meng founders This said, "in the last few days, Xi president of the time to go where a group of comics caused a strong response from netizens, let us more firmly believe that people like comics, the demand for comics is relatively high." There is a very large comic market. "

2013 began, the domestic picture application appears to revive, has "crazy guess", "Magic Diffuse Camera" and "Baidu Magic Map" and so on, a short period of time to obtain a large number of downloads, the domestic user for the application of pictures and cartoons of the needs of the self-evident, however, It remains to be seen whether these picture-class applications will ultimately solve the short-lived problem.

How to excavate cartoon economy

Disney has created one of the most successful "cartoon aspiration Empire", Disney's thousands of popular cartoon characters for Disney's continuing interest has long been far more than the cartoon itself, dolls, souvenirs or Disney amusement park is the Disney culture brought by the huge cartoon economic chain.

In the Internet world, such examples are not a few, for example, "Angry Birds" and Japanese and Korean Instant Messaging tool line, are the use of cute cartoon characters, popular in the world.

For the newly established "Face Meng Company", also have their own ideas for the future.

Guo Lei said that now "face Meng" is mainly to provide users with the production of cartoon Avatar, from the end of November last year, has more than more than 1 million of the download volume. "Our user activity is not very high, but the spread is very wide, users of the demand for comics there are many can be mined and satisfied with the space." Guo Lei told Tencent Technology.

In addition to helping users make avatars, "face-Meng" also imagines Bitstrip (a Facebook cartoon app) that helps users use comics to send their status.

"The future we hope that based on the user's own cartoon image, the development of hand tour." "Guo Lei revealed. "Face Meng" also plans to access social accounts, so that users can freely splicing each other's photos, play games and so on.

5 Good partners in the amateur entrepreneurial program

Guo Lei said that at present the team has only 5 founders, after the Spring festival in 2014, the other four founders all quit, and Guo Lei together wholeheartedly into the entrepreneurial process.

Guo Lei met with 4 other founders at a competition called "Entrepreneurship Weekend" the 2 founders, including Guo Lei, came from Tencent, one from Hong Kong, a designer with his own studio, another from Taiwan, and 5 young people from different places because of their common interest in comics, especially the King of pirates. , optimistic about the mobile end of the cartoon demand, in July 2013 began to learn while doing development "face Meng."

"Several of us used to be web-side, and the development of Android and iOS was all about learning from scratch," he said. "Guo Lei said.

Guo Lei admits that domestic picture applications generally have short life-cycle problems, but Guo Lei believes that comic applications that can capture several key roles will have a longer appeal to users.

In fact, Line's success has proven a pattern of grabbing several major cartoon characters to make a fortune and keep the user sticky. Only for "Face Meng", the most important cartoon characters are users themselves.

How to resist competition and risk

Although there are currently only 5 people, Guo Lei that "face Meng" Such applications are more difficult to be replicated by other companies. "Cartoon painting style and material accumulation is the two most important barrier, for other companies, to choose a better cartoon style, or accumulate more good material is not an easy thing." ”

"Face Meng" online less than 4 months, a day to receive feedback from many users, such as "face Meng" can not choose hair color, can not do a photo, the background is not complex and so on. Guo Lei thinks, these user experience all needs the cartoon application every bit the user exchange and accumulates, only then can guarantee a good user experience.

"Although we have a lot of ideas about the future version, we want to be able to do better when we launch the new version, to ensure that the function is more perfect, the user experience is also more fluent." "Guo Lei said.

At present, "Face Meng" has got the first angel investment, although the amount is small, but for Guo Lei and his team, is enough.