My 180 days in Silicon Valley

Like many domestic peers, the 3G portal and go desktop are trying to internationalize the market. From May 2012 to December more than half a year, I have accumulated some lessons in the Silicon Valley business model of looking for a partner in the United States to find the number of users to cash in. It is hereby noted that there may be some reference value to the industry partners who are touching stones in the river and approaching the river.

Silicon Valley, where it had to go

For my fellow Internet peers, the glamour of Silicon Valley is not to be said. Not only is it the cradle of global IT and network waves, but it is still making profound changes to the world through the network companies that are spawned in this narrow strip of land. It is normal to speak only of strength and value, without strength and reciprocal value, to be shut out or subjected to outright contempt.

Although we always say that the internet has no national boundaries, its expansion will still be subject to national boundaries/language restrictions. To develop a market in a country and a region, it is often necessary to open a branch in the local area, to introduce people who know the local market, or to find a local partner, but it is still impossible to develop efficient promotion channels at the global level. Amazon's foray into China will take the form of a network of excellence, with Baidu moving to Japan and recruiting in Tokyo. The tree-shaped desktop internet has been subject to language restrictions, so there are few Chinese Internet companies that can really walk into Silicon Valley and the U.S. market. The limitations and differences in language, ideas and technology are obvious and the demographic dividend cannot be a real advantage.

But the mobile internet is different, compared to the desktop Internet, they are a big difference between the user's access to the product and distribution channels of the different. The basic structure of the former is the app application of tool class, which is much less restricted by language. The two most important electronic markets, the APP store and Google Play, handle the most complex global distribution. Developers only need to launch the corresponding language version, the application experience is enough to be recognized by users, marketing and user volume can be a homeopathic. Products like go Launcher can deliver more than 30 language versions in a very short time, at relatively low cost.

Now, go Launcher has 70% overseas users, ranked top 5 of global Android applications, and the entire 3G portal's mobile products also have 200 million downloads, accounting for 1% of all Google io downloads. The internet was unimaginable and achievable on the previous table. However, even so, we have just entered the internationalization of the first step, that has a certain size of foreign users.

After having a sufficient level of overseas users, it is necessary to consider monetization. What are we going to do to make money? How to transform the huge amount of overseas users into commercial value, and truly realize their foothold and development abroad. This is the first reason why we set up offices overseas.

So, Silicon Valley, had to go.

How did I knock on the Silicon Valley door?

With the creation of Facebook and the record of the highest valuations of U.S. companies, Silicon Valley has continued to unleash a wave of innovation. In order to study in the domestic IT industry, there are many "Silicon Valley tourists", many people come to Silicon Valley, visit Google, Facebook, Evernote, Insatgram These companies, visit the incubator here, meet potential partners here. But after several such "sightseeing", it is often found that the harvest is very little. Their "sightseeing" harvest tends to focus on a few things--the Silicon Valley company's offices are tastefully decorated, and the Silicon Valley company programmers are open to work ... This kind of visit can only see the appearance, often because of lack of in-depth communication and understanding, can not understand the true spirit of Silicon Valley and the way they do things, let alone find the opportunity to cooperate with these star companies.

I suggest: Don't take part in a Silicon Valley tour, before you come to Silicon Valley to contact with potential partners here, you might want to do some more understanding and preparation for the company you wish to cooperate with, boldly envision various possible modes of cooperation, and then reach out to the appropriate company, and talk openly to the real person, what I can bring you, I want to ask you for something.

In my current job, the Go desktop as a very large user tool products, more feasible or traffic mode, like a browser, when it becomes a mobile phone on the main entrance, it can convert traffic. Because the Go desktop 70% of users are overseas, so we find partners in the international, not to do the business of Chinese users, but with foreign partners to do business with foreign users. In addition, delineating potential companies as a breakthrough, this is the first step in Silicon Valley to try.

To this end, we contacted some game developers and game Exchange platform in 2012. For example, a company started in game change, through the exchange of games, attracting many developers to advertise on the platform, go desktop with them, is the hope that the amount of advertising wholesale, on our platform to integrate. In addition, we also talked about an application search company Quixey, it and Google Keyword business model, 2013 years will launch the advertising platform, we also want to use on the Go desktop platform for search applications, and to be able to do with the keyword business model cooperation.

So far, our most successful collaboration in traffic mode has been working with get jars, one of the first Silicon Valley companies we've ever contacted.

The get jar turned out to be a cross-platform application distribution market, and later transformed into an ad wall form that was inspired to download as an operating mode. Although the get Jar is in the field later than the originator Tapjoy, Getjar is a respectable up-and-comer in the integral wall industry.

Our cooperation content is: Go desktop charges are sold in Google Play, but not all users are willing or have an account to spend money to buy. This allows users to gain points on the Get jar platform through other applications on the download platform in exchange for the Go desktop theme. When the user downloads other apps for the points, the app developer pays a fee for the Get jar, which is used to break into the go table. This makes the go desktop a good complementary symbiotic relationship with get jars. Get jar to help us increase the source of revenue, go desktop with sufficient number of users for the advertising wall to bring users.

The general direction of cooperation has, but the specific difficulty lies in: The face of many different countries and regions of the coverage, the use of different areas of user habits, both sides of the background how to closely combine, how to make full use of traffic, especially in technology how to carry out deep docking. To this end, we have done a lot of hard work to improve and optimize. In the process, the Get Jar is constantly upgraded, and the Go desktop revenue is growing.

The Go desktop is already one of the world's largest partners in get jar, and the 3G portal earns millions of dollars from this collaboration.

Due to the cooperation with get Jar, Tapjoy also proactively found us in the near future, hoping to seek cooperation.

Partnering with Get Jars is the first step on the Go desktop to truly enter the Silicon Valley threshold.

In addition, in addition to these "traffic patterns", other potential partners, we will be targeted to visit. For example, for the international user's mobile security experience and consideration, the GO desktop is launching a safe version of each language, so will plan to work with foreign anti-virus software companies. In addition, the Go desktop also has a note class widget Plug-ins, so also in contact with the Evernote cooperation.

It is normal to be discriminated against, how to defeat it?

In the months of San Francisco, it is a deep sense that Silicon Valley sees China as a start-up company with tinted glasses. The other important reason for Chinese entrepreneurs to get rid of "plagiarism" is that the huge differences in volume between the two markets make it hard for Chinese companies to believe the data. For example, before we visited Google in May 2012, they were examining us, deciding whether or not to talk, and at one time thought we were "malware", otherwise it was hard to explain how much of the download was possible.

The number of Chinese entrepreneurs, even if they are successful at home, is hard to imagine in Silicon Valley because they are usually 10 times times the size of similar companies in the United States. For example, American products say, "I have a very good user size, about 5 million", but the Chinese products casually out of a company will say, "I have tens of millions of users." So when Chinese entrepreneurs come to Silicon Valley and describe their numbers, people here don't think you're much taller than other companies, and Silicon Valley thinks all Chinese companies say the same number, which is tens of millions of to 100 million, and they habitually divide by 10. The real data that Chinese companies can actually recognise in Silicon Valley is millions of to 10 million.

In addition, Chinese companies and Silicon Valley enterprises to deal with digital, product thinking and ideas are not the same. For example, some Silicon Valley companies do not see the new users as the first appeal, then you want to go with it to change the flow of it said it is not attractive, it is to see its users in three months the number of return.

Similar differences are not necessarily who must be wrong, emphasis on communication and communication, change each other.

The Chinese company has another easy in the Silicon Valley wall situation is, the domestic application product relies heavily on the promotion, the homogeneity is serious, the difference is small, who voice is big, who platform is good, who money enough, who succeeds. Therefore, the importance of marketing promotion is sometimes more than the value of the product itself. But that's not always going to work in Silicon Valley, where product leadership is the way to go.

Through these months of continuous contact and cooperation with these enterprises, I feel that to eliminate their prejudices, an important means is to try to get to know and cooperate with good companies. You only have to deal with good companies, others will treat you as a good company, recognition of your strength and value. In other words, it's better to work with Facebook, Evernote and Flipboard to make sure that your user quality, flow data, and product experience. As long as the two sides of the product once cooperation, each other will bring the flow of each other and other aspects of data attention. The data will tell the partners what kind of company we are. At this time, they again to the third company to endorse you, say a word for you, really will be more than their own time to speak more than a hundredfold.

Once open the breach, this will be a virtuous circle. Facebook, for example, proactively found us in September 2012, looking for a combination of Go desktop and Facebook in terms of user systems, sharing, like, and so on, which is now operational.

Second, you have to think like the locals. That is, to think about the dollar's business in dollars, and not to convert dollars into renminbi to calculate costs and benefits, but to figure numbers.

Now the 3G portal sends me to the United States. Getting a work visa in the United States is not difficult, but a year from now the U.S. government will have to see if you're creating jobs locally, so we'll definitely recruit a small team of three to four people in 2013 to continue to promote a variety of local business activities, some directly related to income, and some pure marketing. 2013, our revenue target here is 2 million dollars.

Now, there are a lot of active China Mobile internet companies and entrepreneurs here. Last time, I met Csdn's Liu in a café and in the bathroom.