Internet newspaper: The birth of an internet newspaper reinventing the newspaper

"I've been recruiting, but it's hard to get people who are reliable. "When this was said, the question-and-answer community knew that CEO Zhou Yuan was sitting in a conference room called" approval ", and that the next door" against "Conference room (from the well-known" endorsement "," opposition button ") was conducting an interview.

"Five hundred square meters of sunshine Loft, south of the Universe center, north to see the Olympic Park, Qinghe surrounded by the subway along the pharmacy supermarket Ktv, Summer Park, the girls around." Come to the interview today and go to work next week. Stop writing endless Code/change/request/write the hand of the document, Rush bag to join. "The advertised ads are on Twitter for a few months, with a lot of applicants and few suitable candidates."

Zhou Yuan not conceal his perfectionism tendencies, from recruiting to products, he prefers to spend a lot of time grinding, rather than rushing to launch products like other entrepreneurs. This makes the outside world feel "slow".

The first official published works have been in this way for more than a year. Not long ago, "entrepreneurship, we are talking about what?" quietly listed, by the United Citic Press published jointly. This pioneering guide, with "know friends" online exerting force, once boarded Amazon bestseller list.

From how to choose the direction of entrepreneurship, to choose partners, from how to find investment, how to launch products, management team, detailed 103 entrepreneurial topics, all from the knowledge of the collective wisdom of users.

Zhou Yuan is a man of great thirst for knowledge. After graduating from his master's degree in computer science from Southeast University, he went to Shanghai to do supermarket software development. Since then he has been a journalist for three years, and in 2008 he resigned his business.

First taste of the public to publish

On the December 18, 2013, we know what we are talking about when we started our business on the Internet. "Publication of the public plan, a quota of 1000 people, each cost 99 yuan to become the book" Joint publishers ", the cover book has its own signature of the Collector edition books.

Know that before this event did not do too much preheating, just in the "Youth" column on a notice article, did not expect to cause a lot of interest in the powder, together to participate in the publication of the experiment. Activities on the line less than 10 minutes, 1000 of the public raised places were robbed. Even the known co-founder, COO Huang did not help friends Rob success.

The 99,000 items are all used for publication of the first edition books. Printed on the personal name of the book to the collection of books sent to the hands of people, someone in the know sigh: "Know what is the sale of books, this sell is clearly a sense of honor and belonging." ”

On the topic of entrepreneurship, it is actually known that the first batch of users to discuss a lot. "There are a fair number of good answers to these questions that have not been centrally seen on the internet," Zhou Yuan said. "As early as 2012, there was a good idea that users would put forward an entrepreneurial guide," he said. Thinking of the complexity of publishing, Zhou Yuan a bit afraid to touch.

Until last year, Zhou Yuan felt it was time to give back to the founders. But after all, publishing is not an internet company is good at things, so Zhou Yuan decided to use the Internet way to do a book.

Zhou Yuan, based on his entrepreneurial experience over the past 5 years, has developed a framework for the book, including the problems he has encountered in his venture. After that, by the members of the editorial board to find out the appropriate answer to the content, after roughly three large adjustment, the topic from the initial 500, through the knowledge of the user point of praise or objections to the way to select 103 entrepreneurial topics. Among them, about 30% of the topic is from the field of knowledge to Daniel Manuscripts, as a supplement to the content of books.

For publishers, Citic Press, the online selection helps them simplify the traditional publication of the selection of the argument and the process of inviting the manuscript. Because of the participation of 5 million of fans, market research, manuscripts writing in the knowledge has been basically done. Left to the publishing house will be left late editing, printing and distribution can not be completed by the Internet work.

In fact, entrepreneurial guidance this kind of collection is not good to sell. However, there is no warm publicity on the traditional media, by virtue of knowledge in the social dimension of the promotion, "entrepreneurship, we know what to talk about?" in the Amazon a release pre-sale, boarded the pre-sale list first.

Know the user Deng Wen Bo left such a book review: "Many ordinary entrepreneurs misunderstanding-chicken blood, more susceptible to emotional agitation." That's why I never read entrepreneurial books: These books are often not about changing your life, it's about changing the world, but they never tell you what to do, even if they tell, and there's no such thing as a copy of a celebrity biography. ”

In Deng Wenbo's view, the value of knowing the book is that given enough detail, whether successful or unsuccessful, he solved many of the answers that entrepreneurs could not find elsewhere: how to evaluate projects, how to look for venture capital, how to recruit, how to get cold start, which is the hardest for entrepreneurs, A person who really does things will know the value of these experiences.

But there are also users that this is a positioning in the "Hot Pot Chowder" book, to not try to start a novice, there will be a vision of expansion, but the depth of nutrition is not much.

For Zhou Yuan's knowledge, this publication, numbering 001, is a successful experiment, "there will certainly be more to try." "Zhou Yuan said.

"The idea we started with the Daily News was ' reinventing the newspaper '. "Zhou Yuan described the product as" a super printer "

To invent a newspaper again

What the Internet people think of it is the company that the media founder. Zhou Yuan previously had three years of it journalist experience, co-founder Huang has served as chief editor of Sohu Financial channel.

Zhou Yuan is a man of great thirst for knowledge. After graduating from his master's degree in computer science from Southeast University, he went to Shanghai to do supermarket software development and live the standard Code farming life. Until the Spring Festival home, he turned over the old book to the "IT manager World", he was shocked by the internet world, he couldn't wait to give the magazine a resume, and then came to Beijing. He wanted to know what these people were doing and talk to them.

During his three years as a journalist, he has contacted many internet entrepreneurs and various marvellous entrepreneurial models, and in 2008, he decided to resign his own business, "I can not verify that these people say true or false, only to try." "Zhou Yuan said.

The first venture, Zhou Yuan set up a company called Meta Search to provide E-commerce companies with search data analysis. More than a year later, 1.3 million yuan investment to recover only 170,000, the first venture to failure. Zhou Yuan reflection, "did not sink to the user, do not know the user needs of the pain point where." ”

The source of knowledge is the collective blog apple4us,2007 years by the "global entrepreneur" reporter Zhang launched, by Huang, Zhou Yuan and other friends amateur spontaneous writing, discussion and analysis of the latest foreign technology industry, from Apple dynamic, extended to the Internet product design, industry trends and network culture. Later, Zhou Yuan, Huang These core members have been invited to some of the writers who have not met, and slowly accumulated nearly 40 authors.

A handful of professional people are really much like the Silicon Valley question and answer community Quora. Zhou Yuan, the first to fail, was inspired by Quora, who had been working in an innovative factory in Huang, to do a meta-analysis of the old team to do a Chinese version of the question and answer community.

For the past two years, the community has been professionally maintained in the form of an invitation to register, and most of the people in the community who are members of the Internet are from the Internet industry.

After the opening of the Register in March 2013, we know that there has been a great development in the wider topic area. Although the Internet is still the subject of the main areas of knowledge, but because of other industry practitioners and public users to join, it internet practitioners have been diluted to 10% of users, financial, legal, health, medicine and even the field of life and other related topics have been greatly expanded.

In the May 2013, the "slow" knowledge of the new movement, the release of a news application-know the daily, it is natural to associate with Zhou Yuan as a media background, "we began to know the daily idea is to ' reinvent the newspaper." We find that not all people need the community to read. On the other hand, the demand for reading on mobile phones is very strong. ”

Zhou Yuan described the product as "a super printer." The printer prints a "newspaper" every day, with a knowledge of 10 fishes questions and answers in the community, most of which are popular with current events. Then, knowing that the weekly, monthly magazine has been rolled out, it has been read more, watercress and Kindle stores. Know how to create a way of reading on the Internet.

Many users who are aware of the daily newspaper in turn are registering the community and forming a kind of feedback to the community to make sure that it continues to progress in a reverse fashion.

Zhou Yuan, who says he is a severe perfectionist, is not satisfied with the current daily interface and function. In 2014, he revealed, the plan was not to launch any new products, but to continue polishing existing products. April, there will be new movements in the daily newspaper.

If you know it's an internet newspaper, how does it make money? The outside world is always worried about itself. Two years ago, a lot of users to know the idea: you can get involved in publishing, web games, Peak Forum, recruitment, and even marriage. In addition to publishing, Zhou Yuan still wants to keep the purity of knowing. He said many times in the interview that it was too early to talk about profitable earnings, and he did not change the idea of beginner: knowing that quality, precipitation information would continue to be produced, and that valuable information and people were linked.