How Qihoo 360 rises from the cracks

Almost overnight, 360 was quietly rising. 360 of "cock silk reverse attack" behavior to make the outside, but the chaotic public opinion, 360 can not help but become a question mark in people's eyes. What exactly makes it possible to survive in the gap and gain market share? I think the answer is six words, not according to the common sense of the card. 360 are often likened to catfish, constantly challenging the vested interests of industry giants. And its eldest brother Zhou also often with "cock silk" image appears, have words must say, vindictive personality, let him be dubbed "red Clothes Cannon" alias.

September 17, 2013 5 o'clock in the afternoon just over, Tencent and Sohu jointly announced that Tencent to Sogou injection of 448 million U.S. dollars, and its Tencent search business and other related assets into the Sogou, after the transaction was completed Tencent 36.5% of the shares. In the near future, Tencent's shareholding rate will increase to about 40%. The last few months the ups and downs of the Sogou sale series finally came to an end. Once the gossip object 360 out. The search market is not calm on the lake, there are countless ripples.

Three days after the Mid-Autumn festival, the Internet smoke again, 360, Sogou fighting, launched a spit war. On that day, Sogou CEO Wang Xiaoquan forward Netizen Micro Bo said, since 19th has received a large number of users across the country to 360 of complaints, said 360 users do not know, the Sogou browser user's default settings to IE or 360 browser, and user manual recovery is invalid. 360 responded quickly, accusing the user of tampering with the browser, saying that the user had the right to know and the right to choose, and blamed Sogou input for inducing binding behavior. The two are the wrong, so far both sides diverging, each other. The incident has developed into a "Rashomon door", and in the Whirlpool, 360 of the search market share from the original 18% to 20%; After a brief fall in the price of Tencent after the third day of the trend.

In China's internet industry, 360 is definitely a wonderful flower. No company is as controversial as it is, yet it can survive and thrive in the "Rashomon gate" incident.

In the August 2005, when Qihoo (360 predecessor) was founded, the internet was already a giant. From birth, 360 must seek space for growth in the gap between mainstream applications. From the provision of free anti-virus software and Jinshan, rising war, to enter the search, and Tencent QQ several rounds of competition for the client "3Q War", and then to Baidu's search war, and the struggle with the Giants, 360 in the Spit and fire in the force.

In March 2011, after the fire with Tencent on the QQ computer Butler, 360 was listed on the NYSE. At that time, 360 of the user volume has reached 300 million.

August 27, 2013 after 2.5, 360 entered the market value of 10 billion dollar company club. The surge in share prices was driven by the 2013 Q2 earnings: 360 company revenues amounted to $152 million, up 108% per cent, net profit of 33.21 million dollars, up 372% per cent year-on-year, surpassing Wall Street expectations.

In comparison, IMO, the joint public, rice chat, happy, everyone, UC ... These once expected good companies are not 360 so lucky, not be bought, is in the development of the Giants squeezed into a corner, suffered setbacks.

360 of "cock silk reverse attack" to make the outside, but the chaotic public opinion, 360 for a question mark. What is it that makes it possible to survive in the gap and gain market share continuously?

The simple answer is that it is likely to turn its success into a flop. 360 are often likened to catfish, constantly challenging the vested interests of industry giants. Its "lead eldest brother" Zhou also often with "cock silk" image appears, have words must say, vindictive personality, let him be dubbed "red Clothes Cannon" alias.

But what else is there?

Lei has a famous saying: "Standing in the tuyere, pigs can fly up." "It means that if you keep up with the tide of the times, you will succeed. Zhou 祎 can't fully agree. He said, the wind is gone, the pig will fall even worse. Only do a good product, let the pig has the true ability, can really foothold.

For the past one months, the global Business Classic has entered 360 to investigate its internal logic and management. We found that in the near-brutal external killing appearances, in the interior, 360 and his "leading brother" Zhou, with a strong spirit of Internet products, this performance in the "grassroots entrepreneurial innovation", "preemptive advantage" and "business to give way to users."

Innovation: grass-roots entrepreneurial incubation

Wang Tiejun is the product manager of 360 portable WiFi, who entered the Internet industry in 1998 and is the 16th employee of Sina. After experiencing his own business, Sohu, Gould and other Internet companies, May 2012 Wang Tiejun joined 360. 360 Let my old tree sprout, and the dead wood again every spring. "When we met, Wang Tiejun smiled and said to us that he had found the passion and drive of entrepreneurship as usual."

Portable WiFi is 360 of the first hardware products, this only fingernails size of the U disk, inserted in the notebook computer, after a simple configuration, can send wireless signal.

From June 8 this year began sales to September 1, a short period of 3 months, the product sold 3 million units. And Wang Tiejun's team to now only 5 people, at the beginning is only he and the other half of the people.

"This product is entirely ' bottom-up ' innovation, not a corporate strategy, more like an ' internal entrepreneurship '. Wang Tiejun stressed.

At first, Wang Tiejun and colleagues who were part of the mobile phone assistant team were trying to improve the functionality of the 360 phone assistants. When the study went deeper, they found the problem focused on one point: 80% of the country's users use wired Internet at home, but mobile devices are becoming more and more popular. And when users use routers, often encounter some settings problems, difficult to deal with.

At the 360 internal meeting in March, Wang Tiejun and his colleagues gave Zhou and Xiangdong (360 presidents) The idea of the product and quickly got their approval.

Never made the Wang Tiejun of hardware products, and began to gradually contact the complete process from industrial design to manufacturing. "We have no experience in hardware, that is, from the inside to find a study of industrial design colleagues." "Wang Tiejun The initial team of portable WiFi as" troupes ", and in 360, as long as the project is interesting, the main person in charge can mobilize resources without affecting the normal work. "It's a habit to work overtime here. "he said.

Just 2 months later, the first portable WiFi appeared.

In fact, in 360, there are a lot of startups inside like Wang Tiejun. Many of the products that now seem successful are also started by "troupes". 360 Web site navigation to the company has contributed a very big part of the operating income. Its product manager Hao still remember when the navigation products just started, because the company does not have professional to write GS code programmers, he had to find inside the company 4 background program engineers, "Edge learning with" "independent research and development" to write code. "When a professional technician comes in, we see the code that we wrote in the past is crashing!" Hao smiled and recalled.

Like grassroots entrepreneurs, trying to solve the user's real problem is a 360 innovative feature. At present, 360 according to the product divided into five major business: security products including security guards and anti-virus, security browser products, including search, navigation Web products, as well as mobile phone security guards, mobile phone assistants and other products. But 360 is like an incubator, and each line is broken down into smaller teams of more than 400, of which 50 are large, and only two or three are small.

Xiangdong once said: "The company can not have absolute managers, otherwise there will be zoned site things." "

Zhou and Xiangdong two are technically born. To this day, they are still positioning themselves as product managers, will select a few teams in the company, grasp the direction, at any time, the team on the right track and then let go another new problem team.

Some industry boss ridiculed Zhou said, you are a product manager, do not understand strategy, no tactics. Zhou thought about it carefully and thought it was right. But he is a believer in jobs, believe in product innovation, believe that "small and beautiful" team operation, "I can not do large companies, I also hate large companies, I do not have that shrewd, also do not have that ability, today this company 3000 to 4000 people, I think it is too big, One of the things I've been trying to do lately is to tear it down into a lot of small, beautiful teams, each team is not many people, perhaps several people can also, 50 people can also, each team can be like a small business start-up, can be responsible for a product, can constantly make interesting things. "Zhou said.

The primary source of sustaining 360 grassroots entrepreneurial incubation is Zhou. In his view, this is an important condition to ensure the spirit of innovation. And 360 can succeed, the first point is innovation, subversive innovation. When 360 do security products, the first break the rules of anti-virus charges, is for subversion; then, through free anti-virus, into the navigation and browser industry, relying on traffic to obtain profits, is for the business model innovation. "In the current pattern of the Internet, if you copy, the giant than you have more resources, more than you can copy, you certainly have no chance ..."

To have subversive innovation, Zhou believe corners. He thinks he does not have a strong strategic layout, but the accumulation of micro-innovation can change the world. Jobs once said the famous words: "Small innovation can change the world." "Zhou is one of the earliest advocates of micro-innovation in China. His three Laws of micro-innovation-"to make the big smaller, to simplify the complex, to make the expensive cheaper," is already the company's product managers credo.

"360 is for people who really want to do something. "This is very different from other big internet companies," says Wang Tiejun. Once an internet company grows, it becomes hierarchical and it's hard to really try something.

This is why Hao chose 360.

Before graduating from college in 2008, Hao a dating site called "Buuuz" with several small partners, a year earlier than the American "Buuz". But at that time SNS has not been in the domestic fire up, the website finally hastily closed. After graduating, Hao won the offer of almost all internet giants such as Baidu and Tencent. The reason for the final choice of salary conditions is not the best 360, because "here is to achieve the basis of self and dream, and not from the most basic job."

"In 360, the least important is education and qualifications. As long as you have a good idea, everyone can be a product manager. We never ask you what school you graduated from, just ask what kind of product you want to do. "Hao said.

However, since starting a business, why not do it yourself, but in 360?

Wang Tiejun Answer, the first is platform resources. 360 of the platform has begun to take shape, there are all kinds of talent and resources can be used, the second brand resources, 360 has been a relatively mature brand, people in the recognition of more easily accepted; third, the user needs more clearly, 360 users have been very concerned about the needs, there is a certain accumulation. Last but not least, 360 is allowed to fail, and the cost of failure is lower than entrepreneurship.

360 The core of the grass-roots incubator innovation is allowing mistakes.

In fact, Zhou the idea of having WiFi at first.

"Because I think I may not have the demand, but if they are willing to try, I encourage them to try." Because we talk about micro-innovation, we should encourage the team to try. In the course of their trial, I felt that since I had done it, I should have done it cool. In fact, I didn't expect this to be so popular with the user, which is also unexpected. "

Zhou think the Chinese people are not without innovation, just afraid of failure, but "innovation must be accompanied by failure, you have 10 of innovation, there are nine failures, one can become, you say nine failed to do not, bet one into, how can this be?" "

360 Grassroots entrepreneurial incubation is a search for new ways to manage Internet companies. But to pay attention to the atmosphere of innovation, we must bear a relatively high rate of failure-Xiangdong once told the media, "the final implementation of the (project) is only One-third." "

"The biggest problem with this entrepreneurial approach is that you have no idea where your goals are." "says Zhaojun, 360 search product manager. "How are your surroundings?" Where are your opponents? It is hard to be like the traditional business has been bullish for three years after the direction and market. "To overcome the uncertainty, we need 360 to try to make mistakes at the fastest speed."

Speed: Preemptive Advantage

Zhao June is 360 old man, from the 3721 era followed the old Week "dry revolution", has been 10 years. According to his own words is "the youth dedicated to the old week."

Although he is responsible for the search is a relatively mature model of the product, but also a lot of updates every day. "If you do the same thing with your opponents in the same field, there is no chance, so we think about how to subvert every day." Although clean, real, do not disturb the user is our big selling point, but the selling point is not enough to support. "

360 Search has been aimed at the industry boss Baidu to surpass, but Zhaojun admitted that "we have in all aspects of experience or there is a gap." However, speed is a 360 advantage. Baidu is said to discuss a product needs a single-day, but in 360, the discussion only takes 10 minutes. discussed, on the line trial and error, according to user data to decide is to stay.

Zhaojun admits there is a bit of risk in the way of this quick trial and error, so try to choose to do it in a small range of forums and microblogs. But in the Internet industry, the first advantage is sometimes the determinant of success or failure.

Product managers, like Zhaojun, are not a minority in 360. 360 Wi-Fi from the end of March had a preliminary idea of the product, by June 8, the product listing only a short period of two months, compared to Baidu's small WiFi early 3 months. Another example, 2010 360 and Tencent "3Q" war, 360 to make "buckle bodyguard" (the product shielding Tencent ads, so that users enjoy the free Tencent fee services. In the subsequent lawsuit against this product, 360 lost. ), from the idea to the implementation took only three weeks. Even the listing, 360 has only been in the 3-month time, the world's fastest.

Xiangdong that 360 of this rapid response is characteristic of the company's own genes. "We started off with security products. Do antivirus will be quickly updated, every day there are new viruses, trojans out, must be the first time to eliminate, otherwise do not good products. "But Zhaojun that this trait comes from two founders-" Old Zhou is a simple, straightforward person. He and Lao Qi both think that rapid response, iterative update is more suitable for the Internet. "

Flat management is the guarantee of rapid response. As mentioned earlier, 3,600 lines of business were divided into 400 small teams. Each small team can report directly to Zhou and Xiangdong. As long as you really touch the needs of users, whether you are an ordinary programmer, or interns can find two people to communicate directly.

In 360, we rarely receive business cards. Zhaojun said: "The least important thing here is the position." It's too much to be seen up and down. You make a product and you come out. Do not good products, immediately be ' demoted ' down. "

Can react quickly also because 360 is a rather young company. The average age of the entire company is only 27 years old and motivated.

360 Web site Navigation Hao is only 27 years old this year. Before taking over the site navigation, Hao was a team member of 360 Search and development. 360 Search online before, there is a long time can not open the content and objectives of the work. Every day, Hao and his team are "off" in a conference room for research and development, tired of sleeping in the next room for a while, hungry have a full-time master cook to eat. The whole two weeks of work and sleep, almost broke all contact with the outside world.

360 search on the line that day, Hao and team brothers are crying, but also feel that all the pay value. On line one week, 360 search gained 10% of the market share.

In the Internet world, 360 is also known as the overtime company. Taxi drivers who often live in the Wangjing area know that 360 overtime is the latest. After 11 o'clock every night, a number of taxis stop at the door of the 360 building.

No forced overtime, flexible working hours, 360 employees where the chicken blood?

Xiaodong, vice president of marketing PR, says the culture is endogenous and has a founder character. Zhao June also thinks so. In his eyes, "Old week and old Qi are terrible!" He said: "Old Zhou found that the problem is about to respond, often at one or two o ' clock at night to decorate a phone." So does old Qi. He used to work in the Xinhua news agency, to stay on standby for 24 hours. I worked with him for about 8 years, often reporting directly to him, even in the middle of the night, as soon as the phone rang and he picked it up, and only once a year it was like sleeping, and the rest of it was especially sober. "

In Xiaodong's view, 360 is still a "cast" company. In ancient times, "outlaws" is a contract of life and death that must be signed when the Alliance is formed. With this contract, we will share the same destiny, honor and disgrace. 360 of corporate culture is like a stealth "cast", will inspire everyone.

Of course, 360 of the "investment" is also reflected in its benefit-sharing mechanism. Zhou often in the company said "ownership", to the company has a sense of responsibility, the product has a sense of responsibility, is not complete "brainwashing."

Zhou has said many times that startups should make their interests public and transparent, at least 30% as employees, and should design an option pool for those who join later in the venture to share.

360 when the establishment of 40% of the shares for employees, although diluted to 22.3% before the IPO, but its staff share in the Internet company is still the highest, and more than the largest shareholder, chairman Zhou personally held 21.5%.

The 360 listing once again proves that the internet is a rich industry. After the listing, 360 employees to the option, enough to achieve more than 100 more than 30 million Yuan millionaire, a net worth of millions of employees is more than 300, and the total number of employees before the listing is 800.

In addition, 360 also set up an option pool that accounts for 5% of total equity. The goal is to make late entrants also have the opportunity to share the company's growth, to ensure that 10, 20 years later, there are options issued to employees, Zhou called the Plan "evergreen plan."

For this project, Zhou and the entrepreneurial team have had a lot of disagreements with the investors. Because the "evergreen tree" plan, the equivalent of annual issuance, for investors is bad. Because the stock of an additional, most of the time to fall, and also the annual automatic issuance, set a rigid requirements, so investors will not do. But week's attitude was very tough: if you do not, we will not be listed.

This equity mechanism makes 360 of employees proud. So far, the share of employees is 24%, still the highest in internet companies.

However, in 2013, when the 360 moved to the new building in Jiuxianqiao, Beijing, Zhou began to get a little worried. He feared that the company's initial rapid growth would become slack because of its environmental superiority.

Not only Zhou, Xiangdong also sit still. Xiangdong's office is on the 15 floor, sitting in the high place every day, but in his heart, he can't see anyone. He had been able to shout at a meeting in 10 minutes, and now he hadn't been here for 15 minutes. Feeling the seriousness of the problem, he simply asked a few large business units downstairs to leave him a seat to facilitate his office.

Moreover, with the rapid development of 360, from Baidu, Sohu, Sina and other Internet companies to join more and more staff, how to keep 360 of the original rapid response characteristics, is Zhou and xiangdong to face the problem.

"The user teaches": The business gives way to the user

Into the 360 building and into Zhongnanhai there is a point is the same, that is the door to see the first thing is to "serve the person" five characters.

Many people may find this ironic, and in the eyes of some, 360 have been seen as a proxy for deceiving users and "raping" the public.

In this respect, Xiangdong admits: "In fact, we are most concerned about the user." "From the point of view of Qi, every step of the 360 development is from the user's point of view, like the discovery of the new continent, is a gradual process."

"We feel that users need a safe entrance, they do a free 360 antivirus." Later, despite the 360 free, there are still many traps on the Internet. If you are looking for a Web page, the starting point or the wizard is not safe, you will also encounter problems. So we think the Internet users need a security portal, we do a safe navigation. But to provide users with safe navigation is not enough, users also need content security. Because Trojans not only take away your things, but also leave your message when you look at the content. To solve the problem of content, we naturally think of open platform. After the open platform opened, our world opened. Because we become a portal, can bring traffic to the platform, the platform can bring revenue. As a meritorious minister, we can share revenue with our partners, so we form a business model. "

Zhaojun revealed that, in fact, from the late 3721, Zhou is particularly concerned about the user experience, then made a 3721 assistant, there are 360 safety and health of the embryonic. To 360 after the formal establishment, but also will "not harm the user experience" as the company's Tiantiao.

He said, take user privacy as an example: 360 has a privacy department, all uploaded products have to go through this department audit, determined that there is no possibility for the industry to have questions before uploading. Even the industry-standard method of doing statistics (a way to record downloads) requires Zhou to personally sign the approval.

Another example, the launch of 360 cloud disk, a start is the free capacity of each account 36G, but later found that the real need for the user 36G is not enough, plus the major sites have launched various types of cloud disk, Zhou on the pen unlimited free.

There are 360 search, medical advertising is the search industry is very important customers, because it is difficult to distinguish between true and false, 3,601 law does not answer. In order to protect the user experience, the search ads, but also to ensure that the left of the maximum of only 3, the right up to 8.

"One more ad would be a lot more money!" Zhao June some regrets said, but old Zhou said to control our desire. Let the business give way to the user. "

The reason to be so concerned about the user experience is because of Zhou's values: "For me, the so-called 10 billion market capitalisation is really a cloud." Yahoo also once on the hundreds of billions of market value, also once fell to the original one-tenth, these things are not solid, the most solid one is the product, one is able to obtain user recognition, there is a huge user base. "

He believes that as long as there is a huge user base, we will be able to find a reasonable business model. "Products in the business community, the user is the most realistic, you want to give users a product, give users a reason to solve what problems, create what value, why use this product, this is ça." "

Because of this, Zhou 祎 dare not want to clear profit model when, will kill into the safe market do free anti-virus. Also because of this, let 360 in the industry giants do not see clear direction, get the opportunity to develop, become China's Internet client control provider. For the future platform to get the opportunity.

In the actual operation Zhou pays special attention to the first line user's response. Often in the space of business trip, in the airport, the hotel's computer to help install 360 products. Then take a note to record the problems and feelings that appear. Return to the company, immediately open product problem solving. He felt that in the public environment of the airport and the hotel, the state of the computer was more real and complex, and it was more helpful to understand the performance and problems of the product.

In order to make the product managers also "grounding gas." At first, 360 required all product managers to go to the Internet café every month. Later, under the leadership of Xiangdong, 360 established a particularly large department-operations center. Zhaojun is now the head of the department.

Operations center More than 100 people a day to maintain 360 of the QQ customer base, forums, micro-blog, micro-mail and other user communication channels. Any comments from the user will be answered within one hours by the operations department. If 3 users at the same time reflect the same problem within one hours, the operations department sees it as a product "accident" and "accident" must provide for 24 hours to resolve the problem.

Unlike other Internet companies operating centers, 360 of operations centers are not only aiming to improve customer satisfaction and reduce complaints, but also to organize detailed reports and summaries in tens of thousands of user feedback per day, to identify "pain points" for users and to communicate them to research and development departments. As a result, 360 of the operating department is also known as the "spit department" by other departments within the company.

When the operation of the "slot" has been recognized by the Product manager, the Operation department will also play the role of "thruster", pushing the product to improve. "So the people at the operations center are the ones that the product managers don't want to see, and follow the product manager every day." Zhao June smiled and said.

In fact, 360 of the "slot department" is not limited to operations centers. In 360 internal through the regular session of some products PK will. Two members of the team sat together and commented on each other's products. This PK will sometimes be as warm as interventions, often do not give any face, slashing to scold (this may come from the personality of Zhou), this let from Baidu, Sohu and other companies to new people feel incredible. But it is said that, fortunately, the bottom line has been well protected.

360 the foothold of internal spit comes from the understanding of "small white" users. 360 There is a famous saying: "Think like little white, act like an expert." "Zhou's understanding of the product is designed to provide services to the" smallest white "computer user, as well as to require simplicity and clarity when introducing the product.

Wang Tiejun has experienced a "little albino" process of doing a portable wifi.

To solve the problem of Internet setting, Wang Tiejun think the most direct way is to add a line between the PC and mobile phone to achieve automatic setting. But after consulting hardware friends, Wang Tiejun found that "smart line" ideas need to change the line of "thin" shape, increase the weight of the line, so that consumers in the use will increase the cost of carrying, so the idea of a U disk suddenly emerged in the mind.

Later, he and the team in wireless WiFi based on the idea of "finger fly map", "linkage game" and more than 10 functions.

They told the idea to Zhou and Xiangdong, and although the concept of the product was affirmed, many of the additional ideas they were proud of were chopped off by Zhou 祎, retaining only the original features.

"Can you introduce your product to the customer in one sentence? If not, the customer will not listen to you say the second sentence." "Zhou said.

"What kind of value can you bring to the user?" He asked.

Zhou 祎 has inherited his understanding of the product, like the simple design, the ultimate experience. "A product can solve the user 1-2 pain point is successful." Zhou said to Wang Tiejun, "What's the use of so many functions?"

In the end, 360 of portable Wi-Fi is folded into the "Plug and Play free internet artifact". 360 The success of Wi-Fi in the market also makes this temporary research and development team, with a longer term goal, the recent 360 Wi-Fi upgrade version will soon be available, in addition to adding new features, will be in color, styling on the innovation.

The development of the 20, China's Internet PC field in the world has been clear-the search market was occupied by Baidu, the electricity market was Ali occupation, the instant messaging market was occupied by Tencent, the security sector occupied by 360.

However, the mobile internet sector is surging, who can occupy the first opportunity in this wave of waves, will be able to laugh, and who in this wave behind, may be doomed to perdition.

While a lot of people are looking forward to 360 of the next 10 billion dollars, perhaps Zhou is still worried about the safety of 360.

Xingdong, a prominent internet commentator, says 360 is still in the middle of a gap. In the future, in the PC field, even if the 360 search to subvert the status of Baidu will not be an overnight event. And in the mobile Internet field, although 360 already has the handset Guardian and the handset assistant two heavy product, but in the future will have a subversive security product to replace 360 security status to be unpredictable.

September 26 News, Tencent's product line overall adjustment. After the adjustment of Tencent mobile business will focus on security and browser products, and 360 to form a targeted confrontation situation.

Zhou said: "The so-called people who can bet on the trend, when you do, this thing most people do not feel." "He said he was no more predictable than anyone else, and the only thing he could do was to look at users more and explore their needs."