Replication 360, the United States Mito to foreign countries, millions of users surrounded by

Recently, some readers have told us that a team called "Toolwiz" is being copied to foreign countries by 360, Mito and other products, such a move has attracted a good millions of of users. I contacted the Singapore team of 3 people and conducted a simple remote interview.

The team name Toolwiz (Chinese name magic tool or Rabbit Guardian), founded in Singapore last September, mainly developed a Windows platform free software. There were only 3 people in the first team: Team leader James has been a security company in Europe for many years to develop security software, specializes in kernel application development; another two members are twins, suffering from natural hemophilia, but also because of physical reasons not to learn, homeschooling, good at graphics and image development.

Toolwiz Care's 3-person team in the last six months released 12 Windows platform software products, in their own words, the core product of a similar domestic 360 security guards, another similar to the United States Mito, they called "Toolwiz Care" and "Toolwiz P Retty Photo ". Among them, Toolwiz Care has reached millions of downloads abroad. At present, 20% of all their products are from Russia, 10% from South America and 10% from Indonesia and Vietnam. The United States and France and Germany are each around 30%, and from China's users only 1%. If only Toolwiz Care this product, 50% of the users are from the United States.

All of their products are in a pure free mode (without ads, no value-added services, no bundling), a free model that has sparked controversy in some markets in the US and Europe, but has been slowly embraced by users for a long time. The team told me that in the process, if you receive a user email complaining about a feature, they will give a new version within 3 days. In Southeast Asia, South America and Eastern Europe, free culture is easy to accept.

In these controversies, Toolwiz assembled many volunteers from around the world to translate the software into different languages for free and to spread to different countries. Some volunteers joined the team, making the core now more than 10 people, plus more than 40 volunteers, who are distributed around the world to form what they call "Self service" mode. The volunteers around the world provided them with a variety of information and materials, and also collected a lot of user feedback.

Since the software is free of charge, they were prepared for a long period of time without income,

The first start-up funding was a patchwork of things that were used primarily to buy server space and provide basic services to users, and at first basically the entire team was 0 paid at work. But now they have received financial support from the Singaporean government. The team told me that, in fact, there are a lot of investors or donors who are looking for them, but they are rejected because they say they want to do something meaningful. Why choose Windows Platform, not IOS or Android platform

Many developers now look at Apple's IOS and mobile internet platforms such as Google's Android, while Toolwiz has opted for a traditional Windows PC platform. James says the main reason is that he felt the European security collar when he worked in Europe.

Domain "heavy steps"-ignore the user's needs, develop slow response, profit as the core, etc., he wants to do something different.

But after research, they found that in the overall development trend of the Internet, domestic (mainland China) is now basically synchronized with the United States. The domestic mobile internet is almost as good as the development of the United States, but in Indonesia and other Southeast Asian countries, many places are still popular in the function machine, and many parts of India are still buying the first PC, so they think that there are still many opportunities in the Windows field. And their biggest advantage is to do in Singapore, Singapore radiation Southeast Asia, in Europe and America have a good reputation.

Face the challenge: close to the user, advocating Word-of-mouth, every Monday edition, mail will be back, small steps run

Before setting up the Toolwiz team, they have done a lot of analysis to the personal software market in Europe and America,

It is considered that there is a great demand in the field of system cleanup and optimization acceleration and image processing. In particular, System Cleanup optimization accelerated This field, the market has a large number of scareware (scareware), the software on the user's computer scan a bunch of false problems, and then induce users to buy. There are a lot of fake freeware, they put some features free, then claim to be free software, while locking some of the core features, in the name of free software to feed the market, and finally let users to the blocking features to pay for upgrades.

Toolwiz Take "Product Free + service free" completely free mode, a lot of European and American users are not accustomed to, there are many with doubts,

Even some are in a mood of resistance, because they doubt what they rely on to survive, and think they will charge slowly later, but the Toolwiz team slowly dispel those doubts.

The team told me that from the date of its inception, James has adhered to several principles:

Close to the user, advocating Word-of-mouth, every Monday edition, mail will be back, small steps run. In addition to the daily development time, James will continue to reply to Daily Mail from all over the world, and will quickly reflect the user's proposals in the new version, which I said above the 3 days to give a new version. I knew it myself, and he replied to my email the day I e-mailed James. Technology can be a long-term foothold

In addition to providing good service, the Toolwiz team believes that only technology can be a long-term foothold in the market, in the Windows family of software, they have done some technical work:

* Time still function allows system garbage to automatically disappear after system reboot

Generally speaking, Windows users think that the system will be used for a long time to have garbage, and then need to clean. Toolwiz's Toolwiz Care products provide "time still" function, so that the user's system can be cured at any time, so that the system garbage in the system after the restart automatically disappear, so that users can use the new system every day, eliminating the trouble of cleaning garbage.

* Curing the system dormant state

The Windows system hibernate (hibernation) feature allows users to quickly boot from hibernation, and the Toolwiz team extends the system's curing function to hibernation, solidifying the hibernation state, allowing each computer to start in 20 seconds. Now the Toolwiz team has turned this product (Toolwiz Bhorm) into open source, and they say the product has been used by U.S. set-top box companies to use in tens of thousands of sets of set-top boxes. * Repair with the help of a nearby computer

In general, when our computer poisoning or problems, basically rely on their own computer anti-virus software to antivirus or repair. Toolwiz a bold expansion of the user's habits, developed the Toolwiz Remote back product, when a computer is injured, you can use it next to the computer to help repair the computer. The team told me that this feature has been negotiated with a number of companies, including DELL, and that remote system rescue and repair will be implemented in the future.

In addition, when Facebook acquired Instagram this year, they soon developed a new Mito-like product Toolwiz pretty Photo in 2 months, and designed nearly hundreds of filters for the product, as well as skin acne, whitening, slimming body, Super puzzle, intelligent lighting and other functions.

However, as I mentioned earlier in the article, the domestic readers believe that the toolwiz of these products and models, mainly for reference to replicate domestic 360 and the United States and other products, and then through the promotion abroad to obtain the current results. But anyway, I believe that some of their practices and promotional methods are worth reference.

About the future

When it comes to the future, the Toolwiz team still wants to make products with a non-commercial heart, saying that the current money is enough for their basic life and not going to get the investors ' money. And after Christmas, will release several IOS products, these products will combine the public welfare into LBS, they believe that the mobile Internet in addition to making friends and other functions, there are more and charitable, public union opportunities, they also hope to practice their dreams in this way.

In our chat interview, they have always stressed that Singapore is a very popular place for volunteers. They also intend to go on the current road, not commercial.

Click here to view a list of products developed by the Toolwiz team