Dialogue Zhang: Why switch from mobile internet to bicycle business?

Perhaps for a long time to come, when most people mention state digital, it is still the founder of this separation. After all, Zhang is one of the most active faces in the company's history of more than 10 years.

Zhang is another famous "literary youth" in the business world that is passionate about success or failure. He was born in Shaanxi, long a face of the Qin people, once had long hair, love bicycles, the Universal Youth Hotel Band and writing.

November 22, 2013, after a long trek of 10 years, Zhang and his college classmate Deng, Chang together, the long Bang Digital sent to the Nasdaq. They call themselves the world's first mobile internet-listed company, and their products-based on Android's go desktop-are much more popular overseas than in mainland China. They also have ambitions to occupy one of the mobile internet portals.

2014, after a long period of entanglement and thinking, Zhang decided to choose a new venture, claiming to be the reason: too fond of bicycles, to do something about the machinery that was born in the last century. After months of in-house brewing and consultations, the resignation was announced shortly after the Beijing time of October 20, and soon after the city opened Monday. State's shares have not been outstanding since the IPO price of 11.22 U.S. dollars, and now only seven Yuan, Zhang resignation news announced this day, the share price fell 3%, to 7.51 yuan. Zhang's departure may not be the only source of short-term pressure on its share price, and just a few days ago state announced restructuring and layoffs and abolished about 100 jobs in its portal business, accounting for 12% of its total workforce.

Zhang received an interview with Tiger sniffing and the financial World magazine, talk about why he left, what he wanted to do, what he did, what he had to say about his years of partner Deng, the mobile internet, and his feelings for state digital-he still said "our company" and "our company" without hesitation.

Why did you leave?

If you knew what I was going to do, I might feel natural.

I want to be a bike. What to do now is not to be said. The direction is clear, but it is not yet time to speak.

This thing (state digital) has always been the core of his (Deng). So many years we have been very good, but also cooperated for so many years. But at one stage. I think it's a crossroads for me.

The reason I chose was not to turn my attention away from the bike. I like it so much, I think it is more and more charming.

I also said in the farewell letter, I do not know is a bit exaggerated, I said I do not want to love the bicycle in vain. I love it, not only I ride it to travel, indulge in its details or anything, I want to do something for it. This may be my attitude towards life, I like a thing I do for it to do something, this is really love.

Why move from a trendy mobile internet to an ancient object like a bicycle?

I'm not going to be a traditional bike company. This can't be said much now. The bike has a history of 129 years, I recently booked a few cars, now has 14 bicycles. I think from the mechanical age, it developed the level and height, and the camera, watch, like, to the same stage of the process. But what is the point if you want to be a Rolex in the watch industry?

Is this a sudden decision?

Decisions occur naturally. When you finally think about something, it seems like a lot of conditions are being fermented, and the end result seems to be designed, but it happens naturally. Originally really did not think, the earliest bike, write books, promote the company, around the bicycle friends are also many, but really have this determination, is this year to make the decision, feel a lot of things are ripe.

I often think about this question.

In "Short Flight", I talked a lot about the uncertainty of life. Your choice at some point is absolutely uncertain and accidental. I have said a word, like a torrent of water, a stream from the mountains just down, its direction is constantly changing, but will eventually remit into the sea. I constantly reflect on the reasons behind each of my choices, is not the real life creed. I am such a person, still want to do something to, or want to make some changes in life, or want to go forward bravely. I don't want to stop.

For state, certainty is certainly more than something uncertain.

In state, Yu Qiang is the core of the people, but also the most important one. The direction of the (company) is determined by him. I'm very optimistic about him.

When to tell Deng and his reaction

We've known each other for more than 20 years, and we've really been friends for the longest time. I was with him at the beginning of the year, that is, some time after the spring festival began to talk about this topic. At first he was silent for half a day. We know each other too well. Yu Qiang treats People's attitude, his philosophy of life, the first principle is freedom. He will respect your choice, for him, you must have the right. So he never said he wanted to block. But he will quickly think about how the real thing can be solved: how the company deals with these things.

I know this farewell, many people are difficult to understand. In the company's division of labor, the products are COO, the internal management is the Chang to tube, I am the foreign business cooperation, brand and investors, basically large business cooperation, negotiations are my leading. Yu Qiang is not a very talkative person, he is the product direction.

I leave may be difficult to accept many people, but on the contrary I think the most acceptable is the margin strong, because he believes that the choice of people are free, are based on your own heart to choose, absolutely can not force themselves, as he did pioneering business. He'll think I can't afford to let people do that.

He also know that I am interested in too much, like a thing, is like a great, want to all people like, always have such a fanatical impulse. He thinks you like bicycles so much, and it's good for you to do something about it.

No matter how big a matter, as long as it is your personal decision, he will ask you a question: Do you want to do? If you say I think well, he won't ask. You want to say more to him, he is willing to give you advice, but he will not ask. This is his different from a lot of people, he felt to say, you will tell me, why do I ask you, we are such a good friend, do not need to persuade Ah, persuasion ah, and so on.

The reaction of the board

One months ago, I began to communicate with the directors of the board. I each one of each meet to talk about, to get everyone's understanding, otherwise others will feel, you how, the company will have any problems, your relationship is not bad. Yu Qiang will also make a phone call to the director.

Each director's judgment is different. Some people think that I should have done it by myself long ago. Some people will say, there should be a stage, the company just listed, can the team build a more comprehensive time to go.

In business, there are rules, and some decisions are not necessarily exhaustive. I will also feel very uncomfortable, the key is emotionally speaking, very heavy, because this is your more than 10 years in doing a thing, and you do in sidelines, now you suddenly said to go ... I feel bad about myself.

Personal level, who gave you advice

I'll ask two people for advice. One is the yang of IDG. He is indeed like a teacher. Yang is a veteran of the investment community and he sees a lot of things. He is very patient and willing to take the time to communicate with me. In addition, I am a very personal friend, he is not in our industry, is an artist.

Yang will give me some advice from the perspective of doing things. He was a bit more understanding of me at the beginning, and I'm sure someone like me will end up doing something.

The other artist friend said, the bike is like me. There's a reason you're in agreement with something. I think this is a very happy thing to say.

The stock price is the highest 32 yuan, now less than 8 yuan. Does the board think the timing sucks?

Most people might think so, but the people on the board have seen too much and they've been doing it for so long. Stock prices are just anytime things. They know about the company, knowing that the most important thing about the company is that the product is done, the team is built, the building is solid, and then there is more commercialization. In the long run, the company as long as its core is good (no problem). Our company has been through so many tests of life and death that I estimate that a lot of people think our company is going to die before and after 2010. This company, as long as there is margin strong in, there are product capabilities in the other do not worry, the share price will certainly come back.

I know the characteristics of the team too well and I knew what the company would be like.

I am still the second largest shareholder in this company and will be a member of the company for the rest of my life.

In fact, I will never leave this company. No matter what happens to the company, give me a call and I'll do it for him.

How to make this decision

In terms of creating a new thing, I think the time period of life is really not very long. So I really have the kind of feeling that waits. I have a strong sense of anxiety. There seems to be something calling me in front. But on the other hand the mission to the company has not yet been completed. At this stage I am very entangled.

Once chatting with friends, why do you do these things?

Writing books, cycling, and doing some cultural things, I'm still a little bit more than the average person. But the company is an institution, with a fast 1000 people of the scale, you have to be responsible for it, so often is quite split.

Then my friend asked me, why do you have to do those things? What are you for? For the name, for the benefit or other, oneself finally must let oneself understand.

I said, I just can't let myself in vain love these things. You really love this thing, you must do something for it, do not do not count. Really did things that is proof.

So I have to prove that I really love these things.

In addition to bicycles, I also love the Internet, but also love literature. What do you think I can do in literature? I have always stressed that I only write a book, but I may have some other forms of creation, actually have been thinking for several years, but did not find the right opportunity to get it out. The internet I have done two times, the first failure is very miserable. The second time, although still in a development stage inside, but it is also a listed company. The company still has more than 100 million dollars in cash, and hundreds of millions of users worldwide, though its market capitalisation is low. The stock is staged, I don't worry. And Yu Qiang is there, there will be no problem.

I'm a man of action, I'll do it when I think of it.

is to do something for the bike. It's going to be kind of fun.

I've been wasting so much time on it. People in the industry will joke that you are a professional cyclist, amateur do mobile internet.

Now it's really going to be my main business. People say I do not do the job, now I put this "do not do" side of the sideline into Zhengye good.

These days this sentence has been in my mind inside: You really love something, you still have to do something for it, I do not want to love the bicycle in vain.

I love the company too, but it's at a stage. People's fate will continue to appear this intersection, quite entangled.

Because of this decision, I have not slept well for a long time, often wake up early. I this person actually life quite regular, General 12 point, a little sleep, eight o'clock in the morning get up, activity the body then work, 9:30 to the office. But at that stage of my decision, I woke up early in two or three months and sat in the courtyard in a daze until dawn. Recently I do not want to think about it at night, just watch the fun, you know what I see? "Friends". But I see friends, I think, they are together for ten years and then separate. Just think about it and make yourself embarrassed.

Is it a good time to start a new business? A lot of people are talking about bubbles.

I don't really care about this stuff. Value and price are not the same, the so-called "bubble" is about the price of the problem, but I am going to do the things that I first judged to be valuable things, so it's the price of how much I am not so concerned about.

is the time ripe for business? Of course I'm going to judge, but I don't judge them the same way. The capital market has its ups and downs, but the industry change is linear, has been moving forward, you can not wait. I think it is the most important time for the bicycle industry, after more than 100 years of history, in industry, technology and so on has developed very mature, need to a new stage, need a change.

I can't wait for the capital market to match it. I really don't care that much.

Finally what it looks like, maybe later when I'm going well again. But it's not that I developed a bicycle app or a bike shop, I designed a bike or something like that, not that simple.

This market is much bigger than you think.

Reaction from colleagues

Our colleagues know that I have to go, one night very late, a colleague sent me a sentence, he said: A father farewell to his own son, there are always outsiders can not understand the reasons. He asked me, what about the pictures you had in the hallway? I replied that my colleagues ' reproaches made me happy.

I have been in this company for so many years, have not used the two sides of the new printing paper, are printed on the front side of the wastepaper, in the back to write things. Most of the time I travel to fly the latest flight, because I am afraid of delaying colleagues meeting. Every year, many of the clothes of my colleagues ' annual meeting are designed according to my ideas. Every activity, I take everyone to ride a bike. Leaving the office at night, I will turn off the lights in an office office. This is always the case, I am too deep in the feelings, too much care about everything here.

All of these things ... But people always have the time to say good-bye, you have to accept such a thing.

I'm a man of my own. State is a collective, I also in the collective inside or more obedient. My personality side of the show, because I am more tolerant margin, the team is also more tolerant of me. But I think I am a person who is too self.

Others will feel that I am relatively free and easy, but in the company, I have very good time concept of people. I will be able to communicate more easily outside, but I am really a little tough inside the company. Or in terms of the way things are, I'm actually a very intense person. So in state this team for so many years, I really feel that people are really special to me.

Now is to forgive me once again, let me become a more self person, to do things I like.

The harvest of the past 11 years

It lets me know that building a team of like-minded people is fundamental to doing anything. And then tell me to be a realistic idealist, or an idealistic realist. From doing a thing itself, realism and idealism have to have, at least from my judgment and methodology of values. State is an ideal realist, so it is in the vagaries of the mobile internet world, after undergoing earth-shaking changes, can survive and go public. These two points are very important to me. What I do behind my back should be the most important thing.

Let's talk about some Deng.

Yu Qiang will never kill. It's true. I know the industry may also have someone criticized him, said his style is not bold or what kind of, but the margin is particularly strong, is not killed. I don't think he'll ever get killed. Toughness, I really think I can not use a material to metaphor him. He just can't die, he just has a way, this is the most powerful.

We are classmates. Some people of college students or middle school students that kind of relationship between the blood relationship. For example, you and your brother even dozen badly beaten, if others bully your brother, you still carry a piece of brick to rush up, this is blood. 18 years old entered the university, first grade, I with Yu Qiang, Ying Ming live a dormitory, after three years we are next door, every night chatting together, to the lawn to drink. It is one of the most easy to trust other people when the dormitory, good friends to talk about the ideal, talk about life views, tell you exciting things. Every night.

Freshman, we two people also sold a down jacket to try to do something. In the winter two people carrying a few big bags on Changan Street walk. We both think of it as a drill, which is to control costs and not take taxis. Hands carrying bags, Bloodshot came out, we play to see who carry longer some. It was winter in Beijing in December. After all that, you two are friends for life. With Ying Ming (Chang, State Digital COO) is also the case, the university when the clothes button off is to help nail. The relationship is too close.

We were hit by the internet when we were in college, think the internet is like faith, this is what we should do when we are young, we should do something, just like Yahoo-the internet idol is Yahoo.

We all know that I and Yu Qiang are good friends, we all think that freedom is the most important thing in life. But on the other hand, we are completely different people, who are a little bit closer to us. He only looked at Jin Yong's martial arts, I was always reading some useless books. I like the music, he won't like it. I like bicycles and travel. He goes to the Maldives every year. There's a difference between us.

A regret

My only regret in our company is that because I like to record, I have to take a photo of three of us each year, and we invite big-shot photographers to take pictures for us, because I have a lot of friends with photographers. But then a few years because too busy, forget it. There are some activities on the film, but I always feel that the expression is not like the three of us, I just want to be formally into the shed to take a photo of our three people. It took years, but then it was too busy ... And the Yu strong actually is to cooperate with me, is you say clap on clap, but this thing wants everybody to gather together to gather for a long time.

I once counted and changed 15 personal offices. The first thing I do in a new office every time is to put a photo. There are no pictures of my family, there are three of us on my desk. Our family are also good friends.

Passion for Mobile internet

I only have a stronger passion than before. Because the internet is infiltrating every aspect. For example, the internet used to live in the brain, and now it enters your entire body and enters it in full. Like a person walking into the sea of that feeling, regardless of food and clothing to live, it will be fully into your life.

The internet is gradually expanding and penetrating in different fields. This gives us a little chance of creating. I would definitely stand on this angle and do whatever else I do. If I go to the fields now, I will do it by Internet. The internet has too much room for imagination.

At the earliest time of university, we wanted to be Yahoo, because Yahoo is brand-new, internet, at that time Yahoo also is the most cow. Start a business, we want to be sure to have enough users, in fact, we did not choose the direction of Yahoo. At the beginning of the information, is the first time the user has no other things, we can only choose it. We have been trying to do products, in the era of Nokia we have made a lot of cases, from streaming media, music to input method, and so on, everything. But then really confused, also do not know that things will change later: is the first from the terminal produced a lot of changes, and then happened behind the various.

The understanding of the Internet, I and Yu Strong is not the same. Yu Qiang is from the product level to think about the problem, I have been concerned about the trend. When I graduated from college, I watched "Wired" and looked at KK. Later why I want to introduce KK's book, is also this reason. Including my recently written mobile phone thinking mode, or looking at the trend of things to see more. I think some of my trends are fairly early. KK's articles were written in the last century, but when we introduced it into China, people would feel that there was someone so forward-looking. I agree with him, I have been very agreeable to him in the last century.

I think from the understanding of the Internet, I saw these things change very early. But that's not to say how I am, but there are actually many people around the world who have such imagination in this field. But some people think too far, do it when they fail, because you are too advanced. It's a gradual process, 1.1 points, just as everyone knows that attention has shifted to the Internet, but television and paper media organizations occupy a much larger share of the market than Internet organizations. It takes time to change from a business perspective.

Business is a real validation process, it is a progressive process. The trend of things many people can see. I went to a Microsoft lab in 2006, where many of its labs were forward-looking, but it was not commercially available at the company level.

Saw the trend of mobile internet very early, but did state take the chance?

This I think has the opportunity, the ability and the stage question. If you say you haven't been caught, only UC and we are companies that survive and have a profitable business model in the market. If the expectation is to do the micro-letter today, then I did not do, I am really sorry. But our two companies are alive, we are listed, UC is merged. The other ... Are dead. All but the two of us died, not survived.

We are the first mobile internet company to be listed globally. Everyone will feel that there are many opportunities, a certain chance to seize the company is a little bigger, (so to speak) that must have been missing some. But that opportunity, you did not catch, maybe it does not belong to you.

There is a real problem of wrestling in business. There's always a comparison, it's a real problem, you have to admit it. And there will always be people bigger than you. Like Baidu's success? Some people will say that Baidu is not good, or not as successful as Google, right? It's just so weird. Business standards are always rising. If you fail, you have nothing to do, no one to ignore you, and no one black you. If a company is sold, others will say, "No, your company is sold, and the problem is that too many companies are not yet sold." Really endless. So I think people should have their own standards. Of course you did not do like Google, don't say Google ... I am not afraid of what others say, always have a stage report card.

At this stage, from the perspective of the business level, of course, I do not meet my expectations. But itself is still very good, I think I am very happy, I also realized a basic commitment, is with my best friend to do something, we tried, there is a result.

You come across a lot of things, but you don't really love much. I still think about doing something to prove my love in this thing that we really love. On the internet in China, although I did not do a company like micro-letter or Alibaba, but we are China's first mobile internet company, we are the first to bring products to the world's companies, this is my mark. I think that's what I do for the mobile internet, I love it and I do something.

I love literature. I also wrote a book, "Short Flight", although probably now many people easily understand it as an entrepreneur's make-up, but I think it still has a little literary book.

As for the bicycle, I love it so much that I have to do something for it and make it different since then, which is why I make the decision.