Startups deal with Giants seven weapons

For today's Chinese Internet industry, many people think the internet is sinister, unfathomable, although China's internet giants do not have Cologne in the series of "Seven Weapons" in the description of the dragon will be so "evil", but people drift in rivers and lakes, will inevitably get knife. When startups meet with Giants, they tend to take these or feminine, or vicious, crackdowns on startups, and here's a discussion:

Invite the product team of the start-up company to communicate or visit

Replicate and launch products with the same positioning

The use of channel advantages of a large number of promotion, occupy the market

A high salary for digging people, undermining team stability

Digging the corner partner, destroying the ecological chain

Break the business model of a start-up company

Crack down on entrepreneurial employees, investors and industry confidence

These are basically the major companies to use their relative start-up funds and resource advantages of the design, specific when to use the means, by the start-up company to do the products and market development stages of the different period of judgment. Judo strategy is the "way" to deal with these means, the need for "surgery." Since 2009, we have gone through all these "weapons" and recorded them here in the hope of reminding other entrepreneurs.

Weapon One: Invite the product team of the pioneering company to communicate or visit

At the beginning of 2009, UC product team also received an invitation from an Internet giant, they want to visit the company, Exchange, I did not understand their purpose, very easily agreed. It was later to be understood that receiving such an invitation meant that your product had attracted the attention of the giant, and that there was only one purpose to invite your team to communicate--look at the team and judge how strong your fighting force was. So if you are an entrepreneurial team, received such an invitation, it is recommended to remember two basic principles, first, the more people higher level of communication between the two more do not participate; Finally, be ready to meet the challenges behind the mano-the giant will soon launch the same product.

Weapon II: The same positioning, replication and launch of products

The next step is for the giant to launch the exact same product. What to do now?

First, don't be afraid to be copied

I think a good product has its own shape, God, pith, most of the plagiarism can only be copied to the first layer, that is, "shape", very powerful team can copy "God", that is, the product user experience and data analysis, and no one can copy the product "pith", that is, the product team owned and endowed with the product culture, spiritual connotation.

Second, correct judgment of product value and competitive advantage

For example, relative to the products such as IM, specific how to judge the strength of their products stickiness. I think the product stickiness is divided into four levels, from the bottom up more and more in-depth, respectively: A, whether the public and high-frequency; B, whether there are valuable accounts and data; C, whether the formation of people/people, people/machine between the grid and Word-of-mouth; D, whether to form strong interaction with the real life, can be converted from the advantages of barriers.

Finally, don't be afraid of product competition

With Big Boss before the fight is to first practice class, so not only to avoid competition, but also consciously choose opponents, with small, medium and even large opponents constantly, temper team, temper products. We often talk about what kind of team we're afraid to fight, the final conclusion is that those who have been through many competitive product team, they have a better courage, better confidence, but is that kind of not really competitive team, was also good, after the big change in the face of pressure, internal management on the short. UC product team once with Navigator, OPERA, 3G and other opponents have to hand over, and finally met the real internet giants, I found that our team is not really nervous.

Weapon III: The use of channel advantages of a large number of promotion, occupy the market

When the giant test for a period of time products and markets, feel ripe will begin to do a large area of promotion, then the promotion of the big, the huge capital investment, often make the venture company raspberry.

Tencent, for example, has three main types of promotional means: first, the use of existing products in a very inexpensive way to carry out extensive and repeated promotion; second, the use of a variety of products, the promotion of coupling, the classic example is the micro-letter and mobile phone QQ account interoperability, as well as mobile phone QQ browser Access Qzone have privileges, etc. is a big company love to use, advertising frenzy bombing.

And another giant Baidu's promotional experience can be for us to learn, first, do localization of innovation to attract more users, such as Baidu Music and Baidu know; second, the establishment of a strong promotion of the alliance system, such as the Baidu Alliance.

UC is a reference to the experience of Baidu, and the Giants are facing the Bureau before the advance layout, the use of UC browser as a portal and platform-type product features, forming a I push others, others push my open loop, in this cycle based on the establishment of the UC extension system. Since 5 and 6 years ago, UC browsers have been one of the most robust application distribution systems on the mobile internet. Interestingly, the application distribution system has been imitated by other internet giants that have moved into the mobile internet industry in recent years.

Weapon four: High pay to dig people, damage team stability

After that, with the market prospect of this product is widely recognized, the competition between the venture company and the giant has entered the all-round competition stage of people, money, management and so on.

We have long been harassed by headhunters at major internet companies. Sometimes in order to get a UC colleague's mobile phone number, they have a variety of ways. For example, send a courier to the company, and then call the company front desk: "Here is a courier of your company XX, he did not write mobile phone number, you give me." "or the name of a senior executive, to the front desk or a random call to a company employee, said in the field, the need for other colleagues contact." In the best of times, we even have to stop the fixed phone service, or you will hear the "headhunter" calls from the office.

In terms of money, startups are never going to be able to compete head-on with giants. When your core staff begins to be harassed by headhunters, it is recommended that each start-up company, for the core team, the core staff to share and trust should not only stay in the slogan, but must do share value, real Frank to stay, so that the core team will not grow up in the process of lagging behind. The process of headhunting and anti-hunting is long, arduous and saw-sawing, and the longer it has gone, the more calm and stable the employees will be. Fortunately, in the process, UC core staff has been fairly stable, and did not leave our team.

Weapon Five: Digging the corner partner, destroying the ecological chain

In the 2011, several business cooperation departments of UC were under great pressure from an internet giant company. It also requires these partners to choose between two of their fist's IM products and UC browsers, not only by increasing the number of pre-installed items at a premium cost. By the end of the year, however, we found that the vast majority of cooperation was not affected, first of all because the more well-known partners are often less willing to be intimidated, and in the Internet, the giants of the enemy (or potential enemies) is too much.

This shows that when the Giants start to try to destroy your partner eco-chain, on the one hand, can let partners benefit, for example, due to the UC and 91 games open platform, resulting in Tencent to mobile gaming partners to share a proportion of the high number of PCs, and on the other hand, As long as the partners understand that maintaining the existing market balance for them is the best status quo, can maximize market interest.

Weapon Six: destroying the business model of start-up companies

The classic example of undermining the entrepreneurial business model is Microsoft and Netscape. Microsoft is not essentially a bundle to defeat Netscape, he is a free IE browser to completely destroy Netscape's browser software charges business model, leading to the demise of Netscape.

Therefore, whether the business model of entrepreneurship will be easily destroyed, is from the beginning to explore the product business model, must consider the problem. Depends on the relationship between your business model and your competitors, if your business model is included in the business model of the giant, and it is not his core business model, he can damage your business model at the cost of a small amount of damage, which is very dangerous; if you are the same as the core business model of the Giants, Then he can't sabotage your business model, because it can hurt the Giants themselves, but assuming your business model is the opposite of your competitor's business model, the bigger you are, the worse the business model will be, and it may even turn into a giant.

It is undeniable that the Giants take you charge, I will be discounted or even free; you are free, my strategy of paying money is still quite a threat, because he is really in the stage to put up. Therefore, it is suggested that the start-up companies should consider a few points: more prepared food, ready for long-term resistance, because the Giants are often listed companies, can not be long-term paste, for those who have a great impact on the user experience, to adjust and revise the strategy in time;

Here, I would like to add that the best in the previous few years, if there is external capital support, do not often think how to make money, the core consideration of how to serve good users, do the scale. Although some people say "no money is shameful", but it does not matter, the core of this phase is the company to move forward quickly.

Weapons seven: To crack down on entrepreneurial employees, investors, industry confidence

It is a protracted battle to deal with the Giants ' shock to the internal and external confidence of the start-up companies. In the beginning may just have a blog author wrote an article, see decline this industry, see decline This company, look at this product. Later, as competition escalates, some of the mistakes made by the entrepreneurial team during the development period have been magnified at the government level, at the industry level, at the social level, and through channels such as the media. If the entrepreneurial team develops to a stage that can even be listed, it will become a capital-level confidence blow, such as market share fraud, handing blackmail to the stock exchange, and so on.

So when the entrepreneurial team developed to a certain stage, the guerrilla path will not work, the need to the direction of the regular army to evolve, there are designations, to have commissar. Corporate culture, investor relations, government relations and media relations have all become the jobs that entrepreneurs need to consider. It takes a professional person to be responsible for these things, and let the product, research, and other colleagues concentrate on doing their job.

Dragon in seven kinds of weapons "peacock feather" in the article wrote a personal call Qiu Feng Wu, he said: "The real victory, not your weapons, it must use your confidence." No matter how terrible weapons they are, they are not as confident as people. "So in the face of the giants of the seven kinds of weapons, the most important point is not to avoid the illusion of positive competition, but must do a good job in advance team psychological construction and the depth of the layout, only a prepared battle to win." Then, if there is a chance, I would like to speak specifically about courage and confidence.