Three times Internet undertaking of Shing, a prodigy of Hubei province

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In an Changshoulu office on the island, more than 10 employees are busy working in front of the computer, where the City Alliance game is located. In a separate room in the corner of the office, the reporter saw the nerdy Shing of the City Alliance.

Before that, Shing had created a business network "if neighbor."

In fact, if the neighboring network is already Shing's second start-up, in 1999, he created a management software company------information technology. 5 years later, he left the alliance to create a neighbor. After 3 years in his neighbourhood, he turned his eyes to leisure online.

Talk about their own 3 times entrepreneurial experience, has been known as "Hubei province prodigy" Shing laugh called himself "born stupid, the first two times to start a business is not too successful, so to repeatedly defeated and repeated war." In fact, the first two companies have received international venture capital, the current smooth operation, but Shing's view is, "when you find that the company's changes are too slow, some things are not what they can promote, the best choice is to do something else." ”

"I don't see the chance for rapid growth."

From the Shing, if the neighboring network to the City Alliance, every time entrepreneurship and the Internet, he attributed this to their own professional advantages.

In April 1999, Shing and three other students, who had just graduated from Shanghai Jiaotong University, created an information technology company. It was catching up with the rise and development of the Internet. Shing, however, said, "instead of going to the gold rush with others, we'd better send water to the prospectors." "So, the XOR chose to provide the backend technical service to the website." Soon, as a large number of websites closed, the alliance began to look for new opportunities.

To impress Shing, he went to Chongqing to see a heavy depot, the factory sells dozens of cars a year, but branches all over the country are doing sales and maintenance, because the information is not synchronized, often appear "customer's money has not paid off, frequently to repair" situation, but then there is no good way to solve the off-site inventory, Financial information and logistics management problems.

Shing They put forward for the manufacturers to establish distribution systems throughout the program. After getting good feedback, and the strategic contact with many enterprises, in this process, the idea of making management software for enterprise customers is gradually formed. At the end of 2000, the Alliance won the 2 million-dollar venture capital of Warburg Pincus, becoming one of the earliest projects in the country.

By the year 2004, Shing said he saw something "hard to overcome by his own strength", "if the company's early development depends on the technical leadership, the latter is mainly relying on industry experience and the accumulation of customer resources." The company is now in the field of an industry solution, which is a very competitive field, and it's not easy to get a firm foothold.

In his eyes, unlike a packaged software company such as Ufida and SAP, the Alliance is actually a team making money, not a software that makes money, so "it's not a scalable model." Instead of switching from a human service company to a packaged software company, the alliance must have long-term industry build-up and huge research and development input, "This is not a small entrepreneurial company can do in a short time."

"It's a good business, but I don't see the opportunity for it to grow fast," he said. "I like to see growth and change every day, and the best thing to do is to do it in a different way," Shing said. ”

After leaving the Shing in 2004, he hopes to find a business model that can replicate and expand rapidly. After exposure to various opportunities, he was attracted by the concept of "if the next net".

Shing found that the Internet is not lack of information and content, the only lack of real personal database, and if the neighbor to do is to build a network. He analyzed that the network has two elements, one is the real information of the individual, and the other is the relationship between people. Once the two are combined, they form a network that can create huge value, such as recruiting, headhunting, advertising, making friends and so on. The key is that the network can quickly expand, very much in line with the Shing heart preset standards, so he and the project investment Fangwi "hit", almost did not want to determine the second business direction.

In fact, if the neighbor is borrowed from the largest overseas business network linked in mode. Linked, established in 2003, currently has 19 million users worldwide and has been profitable, charging mode includes advertising and recruiting business.

However, when compared with linked in, the development rate of neighboring is slower. At the moment, the four-Year-old registered user is 1.5 million people, "linked in to do 7 million or 8 million users when a hurdle, its interaction, flow and income are on a level, and if the neighbor to do four years only more than 1 million of users, it can be said that the threshold, There is not enough user base to imitate the overseas business model. Shing said.

In order to increase the user base, if the neighbor in the early 2006 attracted the Shing and Haina Asia 10 million U.S. dollars in venture capital, but after the financing, the number of users bottlenecks did not get a breakthrough, which is the reason for the CEO to leave the position again. Although if the adjacent to meet the "rapid expansion" conditions, but has been burning money for more than three years, let Shing feel "relatively hung."

"I don't know how long it will take for the population to grow and the money model will be clear, at least as a business," he said. He said to reporters.

After absorbing the first two experiences, Shing's third venture will focus on online games that both cover the country and make money instantly.

Incorporation of "local" alliance "gathering"

If the business model on the Internet is not yet clear, the profit-making effect of the entertainment sector is immediate. Thus, the City Alliance game which was established last July became the new pursuit of Shing.

Before this, he has carefully studied the game market, found that the game is divided into large-scale online games and leisure games two categories. At present, the large-scale net swims the market "already is a piece of Red Sea", the domestic has some 200 to do the large-scale net swims the company, among them 10 companies can account for more than 80% market share, another 190 companies are in the loss state. In addition, the production cost of large games is very high, "like Hollywood blockbuster", to occupy the market must hit the money, this kind of investment is not a small company can bear, and from the former "only from Korea to introduce a few games run" era has passed.

Compared to large online games, Shing more optimistic about leisure games, he believes that the field of casual gaming can make large companies, "there are more than 2 million online QQ is a good example." Unlike QQ, the City alliance pursues a localized casual game, in which the local rules of chess and Mahjong are run in every city. In Shing's view, "providing a local product is more attractive than providing a public product."

"According to our platform statistics, the proportion of people playing local casual games and public version games is 2:1," Shing told reporters that at the moment, there have been several domestic companies to do local games, like City tour, winger Chess, and so on, the size of a slightly larger online at the same time 100,000, smaller on dozens of people, "it turns out these companies are living well ”。 But such platforms are mostly regional, and market space is far from being developed. What the City alliance has to do is to fill in the blanks first and then expand to the whole country. For now, the City Alliance has signed 4 provincial cooperation frameworks, covering nearly 10 cities.

Apart from geographical coverage, another difference between the city Alliance and the industry is the partnership with local operators. Shing told reporters that many game companies in the development of the market when the use of local partners, once a sufficient number of users to establish an independent toll channel, the partner "kicked", did not explore the long-term value of operators, in fact, "to the later opportunity."

Shing's idea is to establish a long-term partnership with local franchisees, so that some landing services such as recharge, and prizes can be implemented. The City Alliance business model is, the company provides the game and the marketing plan, the local franchisee pays the contribution to carry out the promotion, the City Alliance does not accept the franchise fee, when the game produces the income and the franchisee divides into half.

Every place, Shing will ask a few questions, including the local number of broadband users, how many Internet cafes, per capita consumption, competitors, and so on, he has a complete set of marketing programs.

No brand, more powerful?

Interestingly, the City Alliance offers a franchise operation and technical authorization, and there is no unified brand, each place of the game by the local franchisee named. For example, the City Alliance in Tonghua is become "Big Mouth chess", in Jingdezhen became "China Game", the game player may not be aware of the City Alliance system.

Shing Frankly, the City Alliance is characterized by localization, so he proposed the strategy of brand decentralization. "It must be a very earthy thing to do so that users are more receptive." On the other hand, the franchisee is also more steadfast, because the brand control right in the hands of the franchisee.

This raises another question: What if franchisees skip the City alliance after a while and choose to work with local software companies? Shing is not worried, he believes, other software companies are limited to the local, and the city Alliance can cover the country, the Alliance platform can be docking, Once the local 500 users and the large platform docking up, then all kinds of roaming services, interactive friends and other consumption produced. This is not what local software companies can do.

Still, the City alliance has an obvious "mishap". If the coverage to hundreds of cities, it means that the company to manage hundreds of products, which for the "best one CD sold without a few copies" of the software company is undoubtedly a big taboo. In addition to the technology and product challenges, this unprecedented model has yet to be tested, "although the point of the cloth is already making money."

Even so, does the absence of an independent brand affect the reputation of the city Alliance itself? Shing did not have a definitive answer, admitting that it was an attempt, but he was confident of the results, as it turned out that "at the moment the local brands have a high degree of recognition and loyalty".