From tools to platforms, only one step--top 360 vice President Li

Absrtact: If there are more concerned about desktop applications or overseas application market situation of children's shoes, recently should be APUS Launcher this name is not unfamiliar. Online three months, APUS Launcher in more than 30 countries in the Google play Store personalized list ranked first, 50

If there are more attention to desktop applications or overseas application market situation of children's shoes, the recent should be APUS Launcher this name is not unfamiliar. Online three months, APUS Launcher in more than 30 countries in the Google play Store personalized list ranked first, 50 countries ranked top 5.

While some in the industry are starting to speculate on what the APUS is, 36 of Krypton and APUS have made contact. We had a visit to the APUS team to get a thorough understanding of all aspects of the desktop product, including, of course, the story of its founder, Li, the top 360 vice president.

From May decided to leave business, to June set up a good team, July products on the first week after the user broke the million, September users broken 30 million and has nearly 8 million DAU ... After 360 ups and downs in 5 years, Li left the process of creating APUS, it seems that also exudes the characteristics of 360 companies: fast, rapid, strong execution.

resigned to start a business only because he wanted to do things purely

As a result of creating 3721 channel market and marketing network and known as "the father of channel marketing" Li, from the 3721 period and Zhou knot deep roots. 09, he was Zhou persuaded to join 360 responsible for wireless services, from scratch to do a single foot wireless. Outside the Li was rumored to have been removed from the wireless in 11, and half a year later returned to the wireless helm, in more than 1 years the number of users of mobile phone defender from tens of millions of to 400 million, and for some reason to be transferred overseas. In this conversation, Li admits that he has had a great deal of ups and downs in 360 years, but is reluctant to talk about it too much. He only uses "just want to do things" to answer "why to leave 360 of his own business" this question.

Li said that he is actually a very advocating pure people, hope that both life and work can be simple. "To tell the truth, I now have a lot of ideas and practices, are in the 360 days of learning," Li speech to hear his feelings and gratitude to 360, "but, 360 developed to the present stage and scale, has not given me a very pure environment to do things. This is actually the case of any big company. In fact, to a certain extent, I am a special dislike of ' brain ' people, is particularly yearning for pure and simple bar. Now out to do things, do the boss, indeed more than when the pressure of senior executives, but the complexity is low, a lot of factors need not be considered, as long as their own products and companies to do it. ”

choose the direction, never thought of the mobile internet outside the domain

Since joining 360 in 09, Li is in charge of 360 of the wireless service until last year. In those years, Li witnessed and participated in the whole process of the rise of mobile internet, the whole period of explosive growth.

"In fact, I have witnessed the whole history of Internet development in China," explaining why his venture chose to move the internet, Li said, "I started in 1999, experienced the process of China's Internet, also witnessed the development of mobile Internet, the whole development of the distance or see more clearly." In the 360 years, most of the time is also doing mobile, so in fact, when considering what I should do, the beginning of the decision to do mobile internet. ”

overseas is the blue sea, China's internet is probably the world's most fierce competition in the Internet

APUS desktop may not be very popular at home, but as the data at the beginning of the article shows, APUS Desktop is doing very well in overseas markets. Why is APUS targeting overseas markets? Li's judgment is that, compared with so many internet companies in the country to break the head of the market phenomenon, overseas market opportunities are greater, competition is also smaller.

"China's internet is now feared to be the world's most fiercely competitive internet, with dozens of hundred companies competing for any service." In fact, China's smartphone market is about 6, 700 million users, so many companies crowded here to fight, the overseas, I think today, overseas Android phone users close to 3 billion, and at least two-thirds of the market is below the Chinese market level. Brazil, India and many of these populous countries are still using the first Android phone in their lives, which may be 256M or 512M. The need for these users to organize, clean, and accelerate these basic features is great. ”

In addition, Li also analyses why the big blue Sea has been around for a long time, but it has not been filled by large companies in the more developed markets:

"I often tell people that in the next 3-5 years, the global Internet landscape will become three: the US internet, the Chinese Internet, other Internet--the Internet in China is beginning to become stronger." In my opinion, that large overseas market that is below the Chinese market level, only the Chinese company can serve well. Why can't Americans do it? American culture is too strong, isolationism and self-appreciation, like to promote their own things around the world, do not want to localize the lower level of the market. Chinese are not the same, Chinese are very good at and willing to do micro-innovation and localization. ”

"Overseas, many people think that as long as a simple translation of the text of the application into the local language can be, in fact, you need to be very aware of what each place needs, and then do a lot of localization optimization", speaking of the overseas market situation, Li is very confident, "even if only translation, Maybe a lot of teams don't do well. Because English is such a popular language, all in the world have a variety of different slang usage, light translation is not, you need to sink to each market to understand the needs of users. ”

cultural adaptability and psychological adjustment--the factors that Chinese team must overcome abroad

Li's grasp of the overseas experience comes from his last year in charge of overseas business in 360. He said that in order to study overseas markets, he had traveled in dozens of countries in 1 years, including many developed countries in Europe and the United States, and he saw the very heavy market of Latin America and the world. "Being robbed directly on Brazilian street, bathing in India with dirty water, and infecting your eyes, I've been through this before." The reason why China's large internet companies have not been successful abroad is attributed to "cultural adaptability" and psychological debugging, "the senior members of many large domestic companies have poor cultural adaptability." In addition, they do not want to go overseas to really sink to feel the market, sent out are also unable to make decisions of grass-roots staff, resulting in the company's cultural adaptability is poor. So you will see that the first Chinese companies to succeed overseas are companies that do not do much at home, even those that are forced to go out at home, and the decision makers of these small companies are doing a good job of adjusting their psychology abroad. And we, due to the experience of overseas in 360, I have put forward the psychological adjustment completed, this is our current overseas one of the biggest advantages. ”

"Of course, the small companies that have a little bit of success overseas have their drawbacks," he said. They are in order to earn money, survival before choosing overseas, pay attention to profit, which led to their view of the pattern is not enough. "The meaning of the words, Li to APUS's view of the pattern is still very confident."

Use minimalist thinking to help users organize messy Android desktops

First determine to do the mobile Internet, and then choose the overseas market, then why start with desktop products?

Li that the desktop is the user and mobile phone interaction between the most important interface, but also the user contact the most interface. Android's openness has made it quickly occupy much of the smartphone market, but it has also brought a lack of experience to the user: poor integrity and ecological chaos. Unlike IOS, Android has both desktop and menu "Two face" design, and also increases the user's understanding of the mobile phone, the cost of using the phone. As a result, a desktop application that helps users clean up the desktop and improve operational efficiency is quite attractive to Android users. Of course, high-end models or boutique manufacturers may have their own optimization of the customized Android system.

Now that you want to do the desktop, how do APUS reflect its differences with other desktop applications? Li that other desktop applications on the market are completely different from APUS's.

Apus intended to be "Swift", is one of the smallest birds in the world, flying technology is very superb. That's why the Li team APUS Launcher naming Products--the three features that the product highlights are small, fast, and simple.

The entire application is small, only 1 trillion points (also for the overseas market of the Solo desktop volume of 5 trillion, go desktop has more than 10 megabytes). In the experience process, APUS response speed is also indeed slightly faster than other products. and "simple" is embodied in the function and design: In addition to resolving the user to use the desktop of several basic requirements, APUS in the function is quite restrained, will not give users a great burden of the feeling; design style followed by a minimalist approach. Li that other desktop applications may not grasp the real needs of the users, "many of the desktop applications for overseas markets are doing very gorgeous, do landscaping, do flashy functions, but in fact, user needs are not necessarily here." Low-end mobile phone configuration is already low, if also the desktop is very large, occupy the running memory, then put the cart before the horse; on the other side, high-end users do not actually pursue "gorgeous", they pay more attention to product simplicity. Desktop tools should help users better use mobile phones, do not disturb users. ”。

Desktop is just the surface, APUS behind is a product matrix, and an "application market"

For APUS, the "desktop" is actually just a form of representation, which is actually a product matrix. Based on the use of mobile phone for the user to solve the basic problems of acceleration, cleaning, power optimization and other functions, are integrated in the desktop. Each of these features solves a certain aspect of the target group that is just needed, and consolidation on the desktop makes the user experience easier and simpler. However, the mere ability to address Android's user base needs is not APUS's imagination.

APUS really want to do is to the desktop and application market seamless integration, to achieve "desktop is the market." How to achieve it?

First, APUS will intelligently help users create individual categories on the desktop and automatically categorize the application icons on the desktop into folders. In the top column of the folder interface, all the folder names are sorted out in order, if you need to jump from one folder to another folder, the user can move directly to and from the sliding interface to switch, do not need to return to the desktop reset click.

and the desktop products into the application of the market method, rely on the folder. In each folder, there will be a "people around" application list, for users to recommend other popular apps for this category. Users click on a recommended application, will jump to the mobile phone in the application market in the download page, you can download the application directly.

This feature gives this desktop product the function of "application market" and is more direct and simple than the traditional application market. Users in the day-to-day use of mobile phone can browse to the application information, and each folder itself is intelligent classification of good, users and then save in the application of the market to select a category of steps. In addition, users have a much higher frequency of using folder functions than general market applications, meaning that these recommended applications are exposed to a lot of opportunities and are more attractive to application developers. It can be said that in a so lightweight desktop tool to build such an imaginative platform, APUS only one step.

However, APUS still has a lot of minor problems. First of all, in my trial, there are several applications that are not automatically categorized into folders, somehow. (and detect the desktop has scattered applications, APUS will push notifications to remind users to manually organize.) ）

In addition, the application recommendation function within the folder is not good enough for me to experience. Probably because I've installed enough mainstream apps on my own, most of the apps that APUS recommend to me don't seem to have much quality. And, although the recommended application is said to be "around the people using" the application, but according to my visual, a lot of recommendations in front of the application I almost no one around.

I talked to APUS, who is in charge of the market, and explained that APUS is not a lot of users in China because of its focus on overseas markets. Therefore, in order to collect enough data to support the smart recommendation of the application, in the country, this "around" may refer to a larger range, such as a district or a town, rather than "an office" such a range.

Despite the experience I experienced at home, it is quite interesting that the APUS desktop is embedded in the folder application recommendation. If there is sufficient user capacity and data to support this function overseas, can recommend enough high-quality applications for users, I believe it will be very imaginative.

in addition to making products, APUS also set up a fund: to invest 360 employees and the Chinese team for overseas markets

Initially, my impression of APUS was: a lightweight desktop application. When we learned that APUS was using the recommended method in a folder, we found that he was an application platform. And behind this platform, in fact, APUS also set up a fund.

APUS fund mainly cast two types of projects: 1, from 360 out of the Employee Entrepreneurship Project, 2, for overseas market projects.

After 5 years in charge of wireless and overseas 360, Li gave me the feeling that there seemed to be a lingering 360 shadow. Perhaps it is the recognition of the 360 values, so that Li want to do a 360-employee start-up projects for the fund bar.

"Why are you so supportive of the 360 team?" What are the qualities of these people? ”

"Affection is an aspect." In addition, in the 360 years, the people still know very well. Even if I don't recognize you, you tell me which business you are in charge of, and I can probably know how you work. It helped me a lot to judge. If the most common trait of 360 employees, it may be that the execution is strong. ”

and APUS investment overseas team, should say more natural some. Because it is also doing overseas market, and has "desktop is the market" platform characteristics, APUS certainly want to become the Chinese team and the bridge between overseas markets. "We are bullish on overseas markets, and we hope to help our teams in the Chinese market to go out to sea," he said. In addition, some companies are gradually becoming aware of the need to do overseas, but can not. And we can also provide a lot of experience and resources to help these teams to complete the psychological adjustment and information symmetry process. ”

Finally, on the financing of APUS, Li revealed that the current has completed more than 100 million yuan in the first round of financing, but the details and VC information, temporarily inconvenient to disclose.