Lei: Illustration of UCWeb pain and happy entrepreneurial story

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Last Saturday, I saw the premiere of Yong's new program, "Yong Le Hui", and invited the guest to be the founder of the New Oriental School. Yong asked Mr Yu, entrepreneurship is hard? "Entrepreneurship must be fun," he said. "It's all about making things happen, and if you feel bitter, you'll never succeed."

The heart is so. Paste UCWeb Liang Jie in October 16, 2008 company strategy conference on their four years of entrepreneurial story.

UCWeb Entrepreneurial Story Liang Jie

The beginning of a dream

UCWeb was founded by me and He Xiaopeng two people. We are students of the computer Department of the University of South. Although we both study computer, but the character is very different. Xiao Peng is Hubei people, the mind is flexible, like to play games, I am a native Cantonese, honest, like to edit the program.

After graduation, we all entered the Asia letter company Guangzhou Branch work, belongs to the same research and development team. We have developed a large-capacity e-mail system, is the company's flagship products, occupy the entire market share of 40%, the famous 21CN, China net and other sites are our customers. March 2000, the company successfully listed on the Nasdaq, and our research and development team is recognized as the best research and development team of Asia letter.

This leads us to believe that our technology does make a difference in the world. At the same time, I and Xiao Peng also germination of the idea of entrepreneurship, we hope to be like Google, to make amazing technology products.

Mobile Internet is inconvenient

Time back to 2004, after repeated discussions, we finally chose the direction of mobile Internet. I and Xiaopeng are super nets worms, always want to surf the internet, so, we began to use mobile phone Internet. But at that time WAP website content is too few, and mobile phone operation is very slow, very inconvenient. We feel that we need a better browser software so that we can easily access the WWW web page on the phone.

So we decided to make a tool of our own. We gave her a name, called Ucweb,ucweb, which is the abbreviation for your can web, meaning: "You can access the Internet anytime, anywhere." We hope that with UCWeb, everyone can "put the internet in their pockets". Well, I and Peng think, "This is a great idea!"

So we quit our job and started our careers.

Second, painful and happy entrepreneurial process

The UCWeb of "cloud computing"

After a large half-year of research and Development, in October 2004, we launched the first public version of UCWeb. Once the product is launched, it has been welcomed by users, completely relying on the user's Word-of-mouth legend, we in the first month has developed more than 5,000 registered users.

At that time, the most popular mobile phone model is Nokia 6610, the screen is very small, computational power is very low, and the quality of wireless network is far worse than the present. In order to solve the problem of mobile phone terminal computing capacity, think of a good way, is through the mobile phone terminal and network server mixed operation technology to solve this problem.

Later, when Google released the "cloud computing" strategy, we are very happy, we and Google think of a go, "cloud" thinking, as early as 2004 has been applied to ucweb products. At the time, 2 companies around the world were using a client-server architecture to make mobile browsers, a Canadian reqwireless, a company that has now been bought by Google and a ucweb in China.

Moved 6 times in two years.

In March 2005, we officially registered the Guangzhou Motion View Company. It should be said that the entrepreneurial process is exciting, but at the same time, entrepreneurial environment is also very difficult.

I remember that in the first year or so, we didn't have a fixed office space, we just borrowed from a friend's place to work, so we often needed to move from one place to another. We used to carry machines at night and move from one place to another, and I was very impressed. From entrepreneurship to now, our office space in Guangzhou has been relocated 6 times. The illustration was drawn in the context of the entrepreneurial environment.

Those in the "cloud" operation of the server, are I and Xiaopeng in the computer City savings pc, even test phone is in Guangzhou second-hand market Amoy back. I and Xiaopeng 3 years have not taken wages, life is very frugal. What sustains us is the user's approval of UCWeb and the rising number of users.

We're going to survive.

From 2005 to 2006, 2 years of time, we have been improving the browser technology, the product's function and quality have been greatly improved. The team has also grown to more than 10 people.

But because of the financial constraints, we have been afraid to make greater personnel expansion, there is no money to buy new servers and terminal equipment, the company is facing severe survival pressure.

In order for the company to survive, we decided to implement a "war-fighting" strategy to provide corporate customers with mobile browsing technology services, with project income to raise the company.

In the spring of 2006, we conducted 5 months of repeated technical tests at China Mobile Group and China Mobile Research Institute, and finally defeated all the rivals, including IBM, and won the China Mobile Mobile Office System project. Using our technology to help China Mobile company achieve the goal of mobile office.

From the project, the company earns some money, and the money is quickly taken to the server. Because our users are growing so fast.

It's not easy to get financing

In order to solve the financial problem thoroughly, we began to look for venture capital actively. Spent more than six months of time, with a lot of VC have made exchanges, but ultimately did not reach an investment agreement. At that time, I and Xiaopeng only found that financing ah, really not as easy as the internet said. Technology itself is not the only decisive factor, to be recognized by VC, but also need a clear business strategy and ability to complement the business team.

Third, meet the Blessed people

In the process of looking for VC investment, we know Yu.

At that time, Yongfu is a vice president of Lenovo Investment to visit our company, see me and small Peng handed up the business card, the title is "deputy General Manager", he was very confused, thought for a while to ask: "Who is the general manager?" Maybe he suspected there was a boss behind us, huh?

In fact, because I and Xiao Peng are technical origins, we think that the company should be bigger, the future will need to introduce more appropriate management personnel, we need to find a CEO partner, so, we are not the CEO of two, second, this also facilitates external business cooperation, encounter bad decision things, can talk to customers. Need to go back and talk to the boss.

Since we met Yongfu, we often communicate with each other to discuss the direction of company development. Yongfu has a very global vision, some of the problems we seem to be very confused and embarrassed, he is always able to find the root of the problem, to clarify the way to solve the problem. These suggestions are of great help to us.

However, our communication with Yongfu is very long. After more than half a year of communication, we finally got the initial investment intention of Lenovo investment. Lenovo Investment decision-making conference is held November 20, 2006, according to Lenovo investment process, when I and Xiaopeng flew to Beijing from Guangzhou, in the first one hours of the decision-making meeting, we and Lenovo Investment decision-making Committee of all members, the last face-to-face exchanges.

After I and Xiaopeng finished the final statement of the case, we left the venue, Lenovo investment in closed-door decision-making meetings. Peng and I did not directly back to the hotel, we came to the Lenovo investment on the first floor of the Western restaurant waiting for results. Because at that time the company account has no money, we are very much pressure, hope to have a good result. We have been waiting for 4 hours, at night seven o'clock, Yong Fu came to the first floor of the Western restaurant, three people did not eat, Yongfu came when very frustrated, he said: "A vote of the difference, did not pass."

Everyone was so frustrated that they couldn't say a word. Silent for a while, Xiao Peng said the first sentence is:

"Yongfu, would you like to join us?"

Yong Fu did not add to think: "Well, we do together!"

Everyone's mood immediately got up, ordered dinner, and discussed a lot of development planning and funding issues.

After dinner, Yongfu immediately call Regunle Total, about the night to meet chat UCWeb project things.

A few days later, Yongfu on the feedback that Regunle always readily agreed to invest in us.

No doubt, when we put Yongfu into a brother, UCWeb has a like-minded, capable of complementary business team.

Four, we found the "organization"

Ray's total investment, for UCWeb, is a historic turning point.

December 2006, I remember very clearly. At the first meeting to discuss future business planning, Ray made an important suggestion: "Give up the enterprise market and focus on the individual market"

At that time, the company after more than a year of hard work, has made a breakthrough in the enterprise market, the annual stable technical services revenue reached the tens. Abandoning these real income is clearly a painful decision for us, but in order to concentrate all our energies on the most valuable market, the team accepted the proposal and quickly transferred it to a partner. Will originally put into the enterprise market research and development backbone transferred to UCWeb products.

In the following time, Ray always spent a lot of energy, with our team, clear the company's goals and direction. He gave us such a request: "Strengthen the background management system, the implementation of quantitative operation, the UCWeb to create the most perfect products."

Under the guidance of the General Thunder, Yongfu and we soon set up a market and operations team, built a quantitative operating platform, and set up a Beijing company, the company's staff expanded to nearly 200 people.

At the same time, the company's business development is very smooth, in the nearly two years after the total investment in Lei, UCWeb's user volume has been surprisingly increased by 25 times times.

July 2007, with the help of Lei, the company successfully completed the B round of financing, the introduction of well-known VC investment institutions Morningside and investment, the company's value in 8 months value-added more than 10 times times. The development of UCWeb into the fast lane.

It should be said that every entrepreneurial team has its own dream, our dream is: to make every cell phone in China to use the UCWeb, everyone can "put the Internet into the pocket." We are trying to step closer to the dream.

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