The entrepreneurial Story of campus blog

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In the winter of 2002, a sophomore student in China University of Science and Technology was not studying in the study room, but sitting in front of the computer in the library room, he was attracted by a novelty--this is the blog. He felt strongly that this kind of convenient, novel information dissemination, the form of communication is worth popularizing. Since the graduate student in the school for him with Mt (Movable-type) set up a blog, he began to devote himself to research, gradually, so that most people can have their own blog, set up a blog Service site idea clear up. Guo Xiaorei himself spent 2 00 yuan, buy the server and domain name, in 2002 December he was so single-handedly put Blogbus erected up.

Almost at the same time, far away in Hangzhou, there is also a person has been demonstrated by the students of the site shocked. Just graduated from the eyes of the Hu is still reading the new season of the development of the Web site, business school in the brain inspired by the flash, he quickly and called a friend, formed into a group of three people. Jihua to develop technology, Hu light for operations management, and other friends for content management, November 2002, China Blog Network was born. Initially the trio also rented their own servers to maintain the site in their spare time. From the beginning, Hu's light did not blog as a play, he vaguely felt that the blog has a commercial future.

Blogbus and BLOGCN have been developing for about a year and have changed a lot. Blogbus is only the mouth, registered users have grown to thousands of, but Blogbus is Guo Xiaorei a person purely by interest, which makes many problems difficult to solve. Thousands of registered users will not be able to load his space, but to buy a new server is more money, a sophomore student, he not only has no money and never thought to use blogbus to make money; maintenance of the site to take up a lot of his time, delayed his study; nearly a year of site maintenance depend on him alone, the mood gradually tired down. Guo Xiaorei finally published a message on the Internet in September 2003, "Everyone help me think about how to develop blogbus, I am tired, no mood improvement, no money for a good server, no time to care ...". Subsequently, Guo Xiaorei to 5000 yuan to the price of Blogbus sold to his company at that time, he went to continue blogbus development. Although afterwards feel a little pity, but the Guo Xiaorei without the burden feels relaxed many. Blogbus's campus business has come to an ending.

July 2003, BLOGCN established Hangzhou Blog Information Technology Co., Ltd. according to Huzhiguang's business plan. Although the company was first established only four people, is still using their own money and spare time to maintain, when the user increased server bandwidth is not enough time, Hu light to find a way to lend a friend to support the server. We see that until now there are still many blog sites is only a personal site, but BLOGCN early to register the company's practice has become a necessary condition to attract foreign venture capital later.

At this time, there is a blog site in the quiet Rise, August 2003 Zhou Peng in Wuhan founded in October, he blogdriver,2003 the site to a later on the development of Blogdriver has a significant impact on the hands of a person is Pandahai. Pandahai at that time in the United States of Texas reading, from then on he began to blur the night and Day of life, with the telephone, Email, MSN and the other side of the Earth, Wuhan Blogdriver team to discuss how to improve the Blogdriver technical framework. Doctoral students in the reading of the Pandahai, around the people are shouting entrepreneurship, he also in the United States with friends to set up a company-differential technology, at this time he could not simply the blog as a personal hobby, when he just took over Blogdriver, has begun to plan, for him to go all out to remote management of the "virtual team" Register for a company.

In the 2004, BLOGCN and Blogdriver were fully grown, but also encountered problems. The increasing number of users with financial difficulties, the original server is difficult to load hundreds of thousands of of users, while renting or buying more servers and bandwidth need to invest. Huzhiguang is relying on the server to lend to friends to support BLOGCN, and Pandahai in the United States with friends set up a company for Blogdriver to raise some money, but also lost Uuzone company to give the server and bandwidth support. While the individual users in the middle of the blog to publish prohibited content, and such as blog hosting of non-commercial organizations, not to the relevant government departments of timely notice, almost at the same time encountered a shutdown.

Frustrated and isolated insistence, they realize that blogging operators must look for a commercial path to survive. Huzhiguang said "blog business model is still groping, because the blog as a new thing can not be used for reference precedent, so we are groping." But BLOGCN's groping has been in parallel with financing. July 2004 IDG Technology Venture capital (IDGVC) saw the prospect of a blog in the domestic application of the bright future, but also to BLOGCN's three-person team full of confidence, injected them the first venture capital, Huzhiguang said "the amount is greater than the blog of China's 1 million U.S. dollars." They also plan to have a second round of financing by the end of the year.

Pandahai for Blogdriver Planning Company in early 2004 registration success, and BLOGCN different, he walked is a path of mergers and acquisitions. Pandahai's Ph. D. In the United States is not available until May this year, and the first requirement of all financing is that he return home immediately, so from last November to the 6 months of this year, he could not get the financing, this six months is very critical, the domestic blogbus, BLOGCN have been getting financing, At the moment Blogdriver is already in a passive situation, when he is eager to find a partner, blogger China founder Xingdong found him. Pandahai and Xingdong were invited at the May 2004 China Digital Future Conference in the United States, and Xingdong nearly 1 million of venture capital soon after returning home. November, Blogdriver second edition of the background development completed, the new development of the function is very powerful, the bug has been modified, the problem has been resolved, Pandahai think, blog dynamic technology, and blog China is good at propaganda good media, rather than the blog China as a strong opponent, as a friend powerful joint. January 2005, blog power to change shares in the way into the blog in China, people to merge, blog China's users will migrate to the blog dynamic writing backstage.

The blog operators who have been invested with money still have to deal with how to make money and how to make the investment return. BLOGCN hope that he can gradually change the "Internet is free" concept, embark on the road of charging. They plan to use the "user experience" as a capital to launch fee-based services, Huzhiguang said, "The site now because there is enough money, so the server and bandwidth are constantly increasing, the function is also increasing." So we will be able to provide users with the best function and the most stable service. ”

In the blog business model is not clear, blog power is also exploring other ways. After the acquisition of the blog Power of nearly 2 million yuan monthly income from advertising, while the other part of the income from the consultation, although not related to the concept of the blog itself, but become one of their income support. They set up "Internet Labs" to advise other companies about their experience and forecasts of the Internet.

However, compared to the domestic blog operators encountered problems, the development of foreign countries to be much smoother, business organizations have long been aware of the value of the blog. As early as February 2003, Google successfully acquired the 5-Year-old Pyra Labs Company and received his blogger.com website. Google's market capitalisation quickly exceeded 50 billion U.S. dollars, and led blogger.com further development. Six apart announced the acquisition of Live Journal in January 2005, and the acquisition also made Six apart the world's largest commercial blogging service provider. Six apart has more than 1 million paid subscribers, and excellent technical architecture movable type provides the ultimate charging model for powerful functionality. It became a model for commercialization of blogging services after acquiring a second round of August capital 6 million last October.

We see that Blogbus, BLOGCN, Blogdriver, the three major blog technology and service providers are the founding of a strong campus color. We can't help but wonder why businesses are not aware of the business opportunities. Huzhiguang that it is not surprising that many of the best internet-based applications are not first created by commercial organizations. Blogbus's Guo Xiaorei said: "I think because the commercial organization is the first purpose of interest, and students are doing because of interest, blog is a representative." ”

Pandahai is also deeply aware of this when he is running around looking for investment. "Businesses focus on the application of the general direction, and many of the application details in the Internet are not being noticed," he said. The blog was initially a student, a journalist interested in it, and the business organization would not invest in it without seeing the business prospects of the blog. And the blog has not developed to a certain scale, we do not realize its real value. And Pandahai himself, only from the blog's own value, just want to make a good thing so that everyone can use, such a simple idea to start, can be blog moved. Even in the early 2004 when talking about investment, Pandahai repeatedly explained to investors the meaning of the blog, investors still think that the concept of blog is a personal homepage, but the personal homepage is packaged into another concept. "Blogging is a culture, and it takes a long process to make people realize it's finally accepted." "Pandahai said.

We can see that many foreign excellent business, technical ideas are from schools, foreign enterprises are also better at discovering the commercial value of these ideas, but also in the operation of the commercialization to establish a more formal process, but in China, this is still relatively scarce. Huzhiguang said: "I personally do not encourage campus entrepreneurship, I think students on campus entrepreneurship is very immature, with the resources are not enough." "China's commercialization of time is too short, the commercialization process has not formed a consensus, students have fresh ideas and enthusiasm, but must face, is the ideal and business reality gap." At the same time, the commercialization of the blog is also inevitable, in the "Fresh Application" and "profitable" dual enthusiasm driven, always should firmly believe that: commercialization is indeed conducive to the optimization of resources and efficiency. Anyway, these three different campus blog entrepreneurial story is still very useful value.