Interview record: seven cattle business

Seven cows, a cloud storage start-up that was founded in mid-2011, is determined to build China's Amazon S3. Recently, seven cattle co-founder and CEO Xu Xiwei received an interview with Sohu it, he revealed that the angel investor is Jingwei venture.

Before starting a business, Xu Shiwei has worked in Jinshan and Shanda in storage. In Jinshan, he was in 2000, presided over the development of WPS, as WPS Office 2005 first Floor architect, as well as the former Jinshan technical director, 2006 led the establishment of a Jinshan storage laboratory. In 2009, he joined the Grand Innovation Institute, the main storage area, Shanda network disk is its launch of the project.

As he prepares to start his business from a grand exit, several investment agencies have offered to express their willingness to invest. "Although they are very optimistic about our business, but the efficiency of the gap is very far away from the latitude and longitude, and did not talk to Jingwei so feel." According to his recollection, then and Jingwei within a few days to finalize the investment relationship. "Latitude and longitude in the implementation of efficiency is clearly an outlier in the investment community." ”

However, at the beginning of the team, because the core technical backbone have done a network disk, out of thinking inertia, seven cattle first to do is actually a user-oriented network disk product "Q-Disk", from the development to the online only a few months time. However, in the process of network development, Xu Xiwei and the team are also repeatedly thinking about the company's clear positioning.

"In what way can we be unmatched?" Should it be an app that is directed towards the end user, or an enterprise-oriented infrastructure service that can solve a broader problem, even though the end user cannot directly perceive it? And after an internal, open discussion, he and his team realized that what they were best at was the creation of a technology service, so they identified seven as an enterprise-oriented storage service provider, allowing customers to concentrate on refining the core values of their products.

"Do network disk, the most is an icing on the cake of things, but do cloud storage services, but can give some enterprises play a timely role." "In his view, data management will be the biggest problem for most companies in the big Data age, and seven of cows want to build China's Amazon S3," he said.

As a start-up enterprise, under the go-between of the investor, seven cattle is lucky to obtain the first customer (a photo-sharing application of the Jingwei investment). After a year of groping, seven cows have gradually opened the market situation. "There are now dozens of companies using our cloud storage services. "The official website shows that seven of cattle customers include camera 360, E-text messages, MiG 365, weico+ and so on." He explained that the seven-cow business model is basically consistent with Amazon's S3, charging for usage, so each additional customer is a real billing user. "The company's revenue is growing steadily as the number of customers grows and the volume of data per customer grows." ”

He also set goals for the team for the 200 clients at the end of the year. "From the current development situation, to achieve this goal is not too difficult." "(Text/He Feng)

The following is a transcript of the interview:

About the team

Sohu It He Feng: Please talk about the original intention, why do you want to do China's Amazon S3?

Xu Xiwei: I have long observed these trends: data generation is getting easier, users are getting used to the online use of personal data, and social networking sites and applications are increasingly reliant on rich media. Coupled with the massive user base of the domestic Internet, I am very sure that data management will be the biggest challenge facing most companies. These trends will naturally breed a breakdown service category that helps all companies manage their data. We hope to become the forerunner of this subdivision industry in China.

Sohu it: Please talk about the team. Why not continue with the consumer-level cloud storage market?

Xu Xiwei: The core technical backbone of our team have done the network disk, for example, the Grand network disk is the project I personally initiated. Do Q disk This product, it should be said that the inertia of the team. In fact, we do this product is also particularly fast, the development of the network is usually at least more than a year, and we within a few months to overcome all technical problems and online product beta version.

Now the market is usually called the consumer-level cloud storage. In my opinion, this classification is not very accurate. A network disk is a personal user-oriented app based on cloud storage. From the product point of view, the network disk and the mailbox and online photo albums should belong to the same classification, belong to the category of SaaS. In the process of doing the web, we continue to think about the positioning of the company: in what way can we achieve unparalleled? Should it be an app that is directed towards the end user, or an enterprise-oriented infrastructure service that can solve a broader problem, even though the end user cannot directly perceive it? After many candid discussions within the team, we realized that we were best at building technical services, so we identified seven of them as enterprise-oriented storage service providers. By cloud computing, we should have jumped from SaaS to IaaS. Half a year, we also recognize that doing a network disk, the most is a matter of icing on the cake, but do cloud storage services, but can give some enterprises to play a timely role, so that these enterprises can concentrate on refining their products of the core value.

Q disk can most vividly reflect the advantages of our cloud storage services. Although due to the positioning of the change, we will not go to other network disk manufacturers like the old way to do more and more bloated network disk function more and more complex, but the combination of seven Neu Yun Storage service development, continuous deep into the most essential function of the network, is the management of documents.

About customers

Sohu it: How did the first customer talk about it?

Xu Xiwei: The first customer to obtain some accidental, but also more real reflects our technical strength. At that time we just decided that our new positioning, is exerting the force for enterprise-oriented cloud storage products to build. When Jingwei's investors contacted us that another company they were investing in was looking for the right cloud storage service, it was suggested that we communicate first. We immediately arranged to fly to the city where the other company is in the interview, Next is the other side from their point of view of seven of cattle products to do a series of performance, functional testing, which also contains a series of other cloud storage with the domestic comparison, and finally completed in January from the early contact to the contract signed. It also means that finding a good investor is really important and can give you a lot of valuable resources.

Sohu it: Can you talk about target customers? How many existing customers? What is the customer's digital target this year?

Xu Xiwei: Seven cattle cloud storage as an IaaS level of basic services, with considerable universality. Internet applications with data management requirements, such as those discussed previously, can use our services. There are now dozens of companies using our cloud storage services. This year our focus will still be on building services, but we also have a target of 200 customers. From the current development situation, to achieve this goal is not too difficult.

Sohu it: Can you talk about server deployment? And ChinaCache, the tide is how to cooperate with the way?

Xu Xiwei: Seven Cow cloud storage architecture is a global service architecture that is highly scalable and flexible. That is to say, where our customers need us, we can quickly place the server cloth. At present we have covered the main areas in the country, are choosing the right partner to cover several major foreign locations.

There are a lot of domestic units and enterprises have a variety of resources, we can help them to use the cooperative operation of the way to activate resources, to create a winning ecological environment. At present, such a cooperative model is still very popular.

About patterns

Sohu it: What is the business model? Does the company currently have revenue?

Xu Xiwei: Our business model is basically the same as the Amazon S3, which is to charge for the amount of usage. Unlike the free mode, every customer we add is a real charge user, so there is no problem with conversion rates. The company's revenue is growing steadily as the number of customers grows and the amount of data per customer grows.

About financing

Sohu it: Can we talk about the story of the investment in the seed of Jingwei Chong, how much is the amount? How do investors evaluate projects and teams?

Xu Xiwei: At that time I was ready to venture out from the grand, there are many investors on the initiative to find me. Before the Jingwei, we have also seen several investment institutions, although they are very optimistic about our business, but the efficiency of the gap is very far away from the warp, and did not talk to Jingwei so feel. The efficiency of jingwei in execution is obviously an anomaly in the investment world. We identified the investment relationship within a few days. Then our cooperation has been very harmonious. Jingwei has always been very trusting of us and has basically not interfered with our day-to-day operations.

Sohu It:a round financing progress? How big do you want to melt?

Xu Xiwei: At present, all of our focus is on how to better improve the product and with quality customers to reach cooperation. We want to talk about facts and figures directly when financing.

About competition

Sohu It: Enterprise Cloud storage Service is not a giant's business? What are the difficulties of providing an enterprise-class cloud storage service as a start-up enterprise?

Xu Xiwei: Any business, it's hard to be a big or entrepreneurial business. Giants usually have their own advantages, but they have their own problems to solve. Cloud storage is just saying that it is possible to promote resources now that startups are actually slightly inferior to those giants. As we said above, one of the criteria for deciding whether to rise in this blue sea is the technology of your business. So for the start-up enterprises, to do a good job of enterprise cloud storage services, must be in the technology and service innovation is solid enough, flexible enough.

Sohu It: There are rumors that Amazon will provide S3 services in China, another cool disk this year also open platform access to more apps, the enterprise-class cloud storage market will become the Red Sea?

Xu Xiwei: That's a good thing. It would be better for us all to develop this new field than to struggle alone. The biggest challenge facing the public cloud storage service is not competition, but how to cultivate the enterprise's usage habits and how to cultivate the trust of the cloud storage service provider.

We have gained a number of heavyweight customers to demonstrate the market space for public cloud storage services and the availability of customers. Industry Division of Labor Cooperation is irreversible trend, and data storage will create a group of professional data hosting service providers. We have absolute confidence in this trend.