Uncover the unknown secrets of millet

Lei dropped his cell phone again.

August 19, 2011, in a Beijing Garage coffee Forum, in the face of netizens "domestic shanzhai goods," The question, Lei took out the mobile phone, publicly demonstrated the fall of the mobile phone. Another two Millet co-founder Li Vanchang, Zhou Guanping sitting beside, is gripped. "The first two slam mobile phone is in the Millet conference on the stage, paved the carpet, one is Lei sit demo." But this time, the garage coffee can be the real marble, Ray is always tall, standing on the fall, the quality of a good phone is also hanging!

Life hangs a line, is at that time the mainstream view of millet in the industry, is also the head of Millet seven founder hangs of an invisible sword. Especially in August 2011 to October, may be the most lei life of the time. He said, "Millet is one of the things I can not lose", will also exert pressure on themselves "lost this life is steadfast." Since August 16, 2011 Lei issued code-named "Rice lattice Machine" the first generation of millet mobile phone, lei and millet encountered a wave-like spit and scold sound, the first 100,000 units "meter machine" success or failure also determines a company's life and death, the most ruthless question is "shanzhai", someone in the online spit: " Millet mobile phone reminds me of Shenzhou computer, Lei remind me of Wu Haijun. Lei's explanation is to slam the phone and perform in all public places. Fall from 1.6 meters height, hit the ground, the battery flew out ... After the crowd exclaimed, the phone still normal boot, no problem.

An unprecedented company, in the unprecedented controversy and spit sound in the production of fever. From miui--rice chat-millet 1--millet 1s--Millet Accessories-Millet youth version-Millet 2--millet 2s--millet box, and rumors of millet TV, millet pad ...

A turning point is April 9, 2013 Rice Noodle Festival, Lei first announced the Millet revenue: 2012, millet sales mobile phone 7.19 million units, to achieve revenue of 12.65 billion yuan, a 1.9 billion tax. True gold and silver figures caused a wide range of shock, but also let millet before the 4 billion dollar valuation really fell on the ground, millet model also triggered a wide range of mobile phone industry. There are also investors that 3 years, the only wrong company is millet.

In fact, the reverse attack of millet makes many people feel incredible, even do not understand, very destroyed three views. This is not a company story, but a new survival law, a use of Internet thinking to transform the traditional enterprise new play. In the face of the big wave of mobile internet, many of the traditional ideas of marketing, management, and products that business schools teach have been overturned overnight, with new patterns and playing styles roaring in a 10 times-fold speed.

Millet is indeed a fortress, 3 of years of barbaric growth is called legend: created a new category of "Internet mobile phone", but also for the Internet to transform traditional industries to provide a Chi industry direction; refresh the growth rate of Chinese Internet companies, 3 years time, sales revenue broke tens of billions; created a new brand model, no money, Even rarely put ads to quickly create a three-tier city are familiar with the brand, through the "enthusiasts mobile phone" positioning, to achieve the Shanzhai, become tied to a line of manufacturers such as Apple, Samsung's "Chinese version of Apple."

Why?

In Jinshan period, Lei mantra is "along the way have you, bitter bit also willing", in the millet period, Lei mantra is "homeopathy". Indeed, the millet gods have the same rate of luck--2010 years to the Golden Age of micro-broad explosions, 2011 to the big wave of smartphone upgrades, and the boom in internet power-generation growth.

However, "standing in the tuyere of the pig" is not 10 times times the real secret of millet growth, in the millet interior, "homeopathy" and the resulting "focus, word-of-mouth, extreme, fast" is the company to achieve the secret weapon of the attack.

Two institutions, half a year, visit nearly hundred millet employees and users, the investigation of millet background and internal logic. We found that in the outside, Millet has a hardware, software, the Internet's Iron triangle, in the interior, Millet also has a little-known secret triangle: flat, user-twisted force field, product scream.

The Mystery of Speed: a little more flat!

Kent, a former technology director at Baidu, jumped to millet in 2012. In a private occasion, he compared the difference between millet and Baidu, the biggest difference is the speed, millet too fast. "This company can be, there are a lot of management is worth studying place." Startups, sometimes said the pace determines the speed, in the millet I think is the speed of the rhythm, it is because of this fast speed, so you have to adjust the pace of something. ”

Kent says the adjustment, first of all, is flattened. After entering millet, the most curious thing about Kent is that there is no hierarchy in the organization of millet, basically three level, seven core founders-department leader--staff. And it won't make your team too big, and a little bit larger to split into small teams.

"All but seven founders have jobs, others have no jobs, engineers, and the only incentive to get a promotion is to raise the salary," he said. You don't need to think too much about your chores and distractions, and you don't have a team interest in things. For example, millet emphasizes that you should regard other people's affairs as the first thing, emphasizing the sense of responsibility. For example, my code has finished, must be another engineer to check, other engineers busy, but also must first check my code, and then do your own things. Look at other companies, it has a promotion system, everyone will do things for this promotion, will lead to value distortions, innovation for innovation, not necessarily for the user innovation. Other companies to engineers stress that the technology is good, in the millet is not the same, it requires engineers to do this thing well, engineers must be responsible for the value of users. ”

Many companies know the benefits of flattening, but, often a disorderly, had to take the military-style multi-level management. The second thing that Kent had to wonder was: it was so flattened that millet had no KPIs.

Entrepreneurial enterprise work intensity, working time is very long, but like millet such persisted for nearly three years, the staff 6x12 hours work enterprise, basically rare. If I told you that millet maintenance such a job, incredibly never implement the clock-punching system, and millet company has not yet implemented a company-wide KPI Assessment system, you will be shocked?

The first source of flat acceleration is the eight partners of Millet. It used to be seven, Lei is chairman and CEO, Lin is president, Li Vanchang is responsible for millet marketing, Zhou Guanping responsible for millet hardware, Liu De is responsible for the millet mobile phone industrial design and supply chain, Hong Feng responsible for MIUI, Huangjiangi responsible for rice chat, later added a--responsible for the millet box and see Chuan. These partners, in addition to the concept of the same, most of the management of more than hundreds of people's team, more importantly, can be Shidi implementation. From Beijing to the colorful city of Millet company headquarters office Layout can see the organization of millet, a layer of products, a layer of marketing, a layer of hardware, a layer of electricity quotient, each floor by a founder sits, everyone non-interference. Hong Feng said, "the company's business ambitions and capacity, so that it is enough to accommodate so many capable people, we all hope that our entrepreneurial partners in their respective areas of power to be able to do this thing together." ”

Lei's "Little Restaurant Theory" is the core idea underpinning this flattening. Lei said that a lot of people do not understand this, the small restaurant into an unsuccessful sign is there is no one in line, millet why to do a queue of small restaurants? First, this kind of restaurant is the chef is the boss, and the chef every day in the store stare, with a lot of regulars are friends. Second, he has a strong ability to say that it is more important to make the product well than to make more money. Our normal business will be to say, there is a line to engage in two, two more to engage in four, and then engage in chain. The results are distorted by the business, so the good things are getting smaller. So we hope that all of millet in the product line, not when the boss, when the manager. ”

In the interior, they unified consensus for "less work", less to do things to achieve the ultimate, can be fast. In addition to the regular meetings held in Monday, more than 3 years after the establishment of the 7 partners have only opened three collective meetings, such a management system to reduce the level of reporting waste between the time. The most typical example is the rapid response of the 2012-year 815 electric business war. From August 15 10:30 A.M. decided to participate in the electric business war, ready to reduce prices, from the planning, design, development, supply chain only used less than 24 hours to prepare, the next morning 8 points on the line, online after the micro-Bo forwarding volume nearly 100,000 times, sales of nearly 200,000 units.

Lei said: "Millet team is the core reason for the success of Millet. I decided to form a strong team, the first half of the last six months spent at least 80% times to find someone, lucky to have found seven of the cattle Partnership, all technical background, the average age of 42 years old, experience is extremely rich. Three local plus five returnees, from Jinshan, Google, Motorcycles, Microsoft, Turyan, full of entrepreneurial enthusiasm. "Some people would think it was a cliché, but inside the millet, it was a real knife to the action and execution of the gun." is to work with a bunch of smart people, to dig up smart people and do whatever it takes. Millet internal thought, if a colleague is not good enough, it is likely not only can not effectively help the whole team, but it may affect the entire team's efficiency. So in the 2-year Millet founder, the team from 14 people to expand to about 400 people, the average age of the team up to 33 years old, almost all the major employees from Google, Microsoft, Jinshan, Motorola and other companies, with more than 5-7 years of work experience.

Early start-up, millet company for a long time can not openly millet company's real goal, as the 2010 before and after a seemingly do Android app company, want to recruit the top talent of the difficulty imaginable. Lei said: "If you can't recruit people, just because you are not devoting enough energy." "Lei spends more than half of his time on recruiting people every day, and the top 100 employees will meet and communicate in person lei each employee." At that time, it was especially difficult to recruit good hardware engineers. Once, a hardware engineer was invited to the Millet company interview, the hardware engineer is very senior and excellent, but he did not entrepreneurial determination, the future of Millet also some doubt, millet company up and down, began to "interview" This engineer, several partners turn and he exchanges, to the last, The engineer was moved by this attitude and felt very tired as he had been "interviewed" for exactly 12 hours. Finally, the engineer said: Well, I have no strength, or promise you forget!

In the internet world, millet once had two tags: dozen chicken blood, 6x12, also be demonized into "fire pit". Hong Feng once complained to Lei, this 6x12 scare away a lot of excellent engineers. "A lot of job seekers ' wives feel like they're not going to come back with the old bus, but you have to admit that he has a good effect. That is to say, really to millet people, are really working people, he wanted to do something, so very enthusiastic. Millet came to work smart, technology first-class, have combat power, have the enthusiasm to do one thing, such staff made out of the product is destined to be first-class. ”

Millet to employees of another stealth incentive is the honor of the fans bring, this is millet vermicelli culture has a unique chemical role. When the millet mobile phone just came out, the millet staff to the restaurant to eat, others saw the millet mobile phone said: "Where do you get this phone?" Why can't we always get it? Sometimes the waiter in the restaurant even the boss is going to come out and say give me a bar, I this meal will give you a free or later you come to discount. And one more joke, once, the management of the OEM manufacturers and the Millet partners said that all of our workers have a request to be able to meet? All the workers want to buy a millet phone. These people are doing the mobile phone every day how can buy the millet mobile phone massively, ask why. The reason for the workers is that since I made the millet mobile phone, I think I am important, because no matter is the seven elder aunt eight will call: I heard you are doing millet mobile phone, can you get me a set. This feeling is very cool.

Another source of millet speed is a transparent benefit-sharing mechanism. Millet company just set up when the implementation of the full shareholding, full investment plan. Millet's first 56 employees invested a total of 11 million dollars from their own pockets--and invested about 200,000 dollars each. Millet inside there is a "dowry" of the jokes, as a millet company initiated one of the 14, the only female staff small tube, undertook the millet company start-up from the human resources to the administration, from the logistics to the front desk all the work. She even sold her dowry in order to invest in millet. Of course, this part of the dowry is now sky-high. This is also a philosophy of millet company: to share benefits with employees, as much as possible to share benefits.

Ask Li Vanchang: Some people say millet is good at brainwashing?

Li Vanchang: "Impossible, we have been mixed for so many years of rivers and lakes, how can this thing happen?" These people are often experienced by Google Microsoft these big companies, they are ten years 20 years of work experience, you say he can be brainwashed? Is that we give enough in return, one is the salary we are the mainstream; the second is that there is really a lot of room to rise on the options, and there are some internal buybacks in our company every year. The third is that the team does sometimes have a lot of pressure, but he will feel a strong sense of satisfaction, many users will try to chase him, For example, long live an engineer. ”

Flat, work clock is also based on Millet believe that excellent people themselves have a strong driving force and self-management ability. "The way to set management is not to trust, our employees have the urge to do the best things, the company has such a product belief that management becomes easy." ”

Of course, it all stems from a premise, growth rate. In other words, speed is the best management. "The person is reliable", but also relies on "the matter to be reliable" to prove. In fact, many people see the wrong millet, it is "people reliable", "things are not reliable."

A group of people who are good at writing software and doing internet, how to sell mobile phones with real knives and guns?

Marketing Mystery: User twist field!

2011 The end of May, began to prepare millet mobile phone release, Li Vanchang took down the marketing task of millet mobile phone. For the sake of conservatism, Li Vanchang designed a 30 million marketing plan, mainly one months of the National core road sign program, which is the early First World War to become famous means. For the goal of making 1 million handsets, 30 million is already a very small marketing expense. 1 million 2000 Yuan mobile phone value of 2 billion, the general company will be at least 2%-3% marketing fees, according to this calculation, millet in the marketing cost should be more than 50 million. However, the marketing plan was soon lei "shot dead". Lei to Li Vanchang said: "You do MIUI time did not spend a penny, do mobile phone can also this?"

Li Vanchang is Lei Jinshan Kibaki, has been Kingsoft general manager, he to Millet after the first task is responsible for MIUI, Lei said "Alli, can not spend the MIUI do 1 million". Was revolt, Li can only choose the past in Jinshan proved the most effective, the least money means: through the forum to do Word-of-mouth. In the early days of MIUI, Li Vanchang team World Bubble Forum, looking for senior users, several people registered hundreds of accounts, every day in some well-known Android forum to fill in the ads, after the number of the number to continue to irrigation. Finally pulled 1000 people, from which 100 as a super user, participate in MIUI design, research and development, feedback and so on. These 100 people are also the ignition of the MIUI operating system, the source of millet vermicelli culture and the special methodology of its user experience. Pure Word-of-mouth, the second week 200 people, the third week 400 people, the fifth week 800 people, a little bit of growth. Recently, the number of MIUI users is 17 million. Later, on the April 9, 2013 Millet Noodle Festival, millet specially released a special to thank the 100 hardcore fans of the micro-film, named "100 Dream Sponsors", their name one by one projection to the big screen, expressed their gratitude to them. At that moment, many of them were in tears.

In the "0 budget" premise, Li Vanchang first established the Millet Mobile phone forum, the middle of 2011, for reference MIUI Forum, mobile phone Forum quickly established. In the Millet forum, there are several core technology sectors: resource downloads, beginners, millet College, and later increased the lifestyle of the PLATE: Cool play help, hand-shot, popcorn and so on.

The forum is the new marketing of Millet stronghold, the current total number of users 7.07 million, Daily post volume 120,000, total posts 110 million, is a small portal size. Unlike other technical forums, the Millet forum has a strong offline activity platform "with the city". The idea stems from the experience of Li Vanchang "Car Club", he found that Chinese people buy mobile phones and car behavior is very similar, will first bubble forum, participate in offline activities. Currently covering 31 provinces and cities, the city will spontaneously engage in activities. Millet officials will be in different cities every two weeks to hold "millet with the city", according to the background analysis of which city users how much to determine the order of the city will be held in the forum posted after the user registration, each event invited 30-50 users to the scene and the engineer to do face-to-face communication.

Under "0 budget", the second point that Li Vanchang exerting force is Weibo. The first thing to look forward to is the role of customer service, but later found that the propaganda effect of Weibo is beyond imagination. Millet can quickly attract the public's attention in the microblogging platform, this is related to the background of the Millet team itself, Li Vanchang is a designer and product manager born, is a photography enthusiast, the early marketing team are product managers born, able to quickly understand the micro-blog on the image, video as the element of the event-type spread point, At the same time as the product as a fine operation.

Forum and micro-blog marketing is also a lot of conventional weapons, but, millet but basically give up the traditional TV ads, outdoor advertising and other strong channels, the Forum + microblogging and other new marketing tools into a lethal weapon. Millet playing is "only for the enthusiasts", seemingly a niche brand, but the fact is that it has become a three or four-line city users are familiar with the popular brand. What's with millet?

Millet marketing has axes, in fact, is forced out.

The first is to axe new marketing as a strategy. Not an experimental plot, but a main battlefield. Because there is no budget, can only choose the means of social marketing. Very lucky, Millet met a big downwind, 2010 is just a micro-broad eruption, millet quickly seize this opportunity, and become the brand's main strategy. From the organizational structure of the millet network, you can see this strategic focus, millet network of new media team has nearly hundred people, millet Forum 30 people, Micro Bo 30 people, micro-letter 10 people, Baidu, QQ space, such as 10 people.

The second axe is to do the service. Customer service is not a shield, customer service is marketing. Millet Forum is this kind of service strategy stronghold, Micro Bo, micro-letter and so on have the function of customer service. Millet in the micro-blog clothing has a rule: 15 minutes quick response. To this end, also specially developed a customer service platform to do specialized processing. In particular, micro-blog, whether the user's suggestion or spit slot, soon there are millet's staff to reply and answer, many users feel surprised.

Millet also has a universal customer service concept, encourage people to use the real way close contact with users. Starting with Lei, you will spend one hours a day replying to comments on Weibo. Including all the engineers, whether the timely reply to the Forum post is an important indicator of job evaluation. According to statistics, the Millet Forum added 120,000 daily posts, after the content of the screening and classification, there are substantial content of the post about 8,000, on average, each engineer to reply to 150 posts per day. The engineer's feedback will have a status after each post, such as included, is being resolved, resolved, validated, is equivalent to a simple version of the bug solution system. Users can clearly know what the ID of the engineer in the solution, when it can be resolved, there is a sense of attention.

The third axe is a big fan. Microblogging marketing is inextricably linked, the most important hand is the fans. The secret weapon of Millet's fans is event marketing. Millet on Weibo on the first event to do marketing is "I am a mobile phone," starting from Lei, the launch of mobile phone control sun out of their own playing mobile phone, probably attracted 800,000 people to participate. The highest forwarding volume is "Sina Weibo on the sale of millet mobile phone 2", Sina Weibo is also the highest 2012 forwarding record-keeping, forwarding 2.65 million times, up to 370,000 fans.

The most influential case is "Millet Mobile phone Youth Edition". May 18, 2012, Millet released a simple version of mobile phones, pricing 1499, limited to 150,000 units, the main campus crowd. In order to achieve the goal of 150,000 sales, micro-bo marketing early one months to start preheating, Millet started a very strange theme called "150 grams of youth." "All the material is the campus illustration, for example, playing basketball, over the wall, cheating on the exam, and then a series of such content spread, did about one months, so in the beginning of many of our users inside he is baffling, so he said this why call 150 grams of youth. "150 grams is actually the weight of the youth version of Millet, the box is written inside there are 150 grams of youth, gimmick full."

The climax is a micro-video of seven partners in Millet, when "Those years we chased the girl" is fire, Lei and other seven partners to take a series of posters and videos, the equivalent of a group of old men's collective selling Meng, the topic is full. In order to stimulate forwarding, millet under a ruthless recruit, this trick in all the events of millet marketing, is a prize to send the millet mobile phone, was 3 days mad send 36 millet mobile phone. The final victory is, "Millet youth version" micro-bo forwarding volume 2.03 million, up fans 410,000.

Relying on this kind of pull vermicelli means, millet in micro-letter is also brilliant. More than 1 million fans in 4 months. For micro-letter positioning, millet early also confused period, and then clearly positioned for customer service. This also with the micro-letter product form has a relationship, micro-letter keyword recovery mechanism, is suitable to create self-service customer service platform. The amount of information that small Mi Misin receives every day is 30000, daily backstage automatic reply quantity 28000, daily processing message Volume 2000. Specially developed a technical background, some important questions feedback will be transferred to the artificial customer service.

Li Vanchang Interpretation of the cooperation of several marketing channels: "Forum or our user base, some depth of user precipitation or through the forum will be completed, after all, in micro-Bo and micro-letters you can provide a limited way, with the management of the database is also a problem." For micro-blogging, I think Weibo itself is a media, on the basis of customer service management, there will be a lot of natural advantages of this marketing communication. In terms of micro-letters to this day, we are more of it as a customer service tool to use, has not wanted it as a marketing tool, because it itself is a private circle. ”

Thus, Millet also established a fan matrix. Millet Forum has more than 7 million, millet mobile phone, millet company and other products Weibo fans have 5.5 million, millet partner plus staff of the microblog fans have 7.7 million, micro-letter 1 million. These tens of millions of can be reached, fine operation of the fans, supporting the marketing myth of millet, such as: August 16, 2011, the release of Millet Baidu Index of the day to soar to 280,000; September 5, 2011 Millet mobile phone first-round booking 34 hours more than 300,000 units; December 18, 2011 The first round of open purchase 3 hours to sell 100,000 units, February 16, 2012 Millet mobile phone 2 days 920,000 people to participate in snapping up, April 6, 2012 Rice Festival 6 minutes 05 seconds sold 100,000 millet mobile phone.

But in the millet-style marketing of the trader Li Vanchang, he has another word: Users distort the field, so that users have a deep sense of participation. The warp field is a term in Star Trek, where aliens build a new world through extreme spiritual power. Apple employees used the "Reality distortion field" to describe jobs.

It can also be said that rice noodles through the ultimate spiritual power to build the world of millet. In the millet internal research, whether it is products, technology, marketing, operations, rice noodles as the first driving force.

Millet constructs a user-twisted force field pyramid, the tower base is a vast number of users. They are involved in the activities of millet, micro-credit, event marketing and so on, but a strong follower group.

The middle of the pyramid is the rice noodles, which is a key group. Another big reason for the success of Millet is the support of strong and loyal rice noodles. At the beginning of the establishment of millet, Lei made three, one of the most important point is "to make friends with rice noodles."

How can "and rice noodles to make friends" to implement, not an empty words?

In this respect, millet learning is the seabed fishing. is to turn it into a culture, to become a kind of full of behavior, and even give a line to power. For example, Millet gave a first-line customer service a lot of rights, in the user complaints or bad times, customer service right according to their own judgment, the gift of foil or other small accessories. In addition, Millet also attaches great importance to human services. There has been a user call to say that they buy millet is to send customers, customers get the phone to go to their own foil, this is too much trouble. So in the distribution, millet customer service in order to add a film, the user quickly feel the sweet millet.

It is hard to imagine, in the millet last year 7 million mobile phone sales, bought two to four units of repeat purchase accounted for 42%. Li Vanchang said: "The psychology of being a friend is, if you this problem is your friend to come to you to solve the words, what would you do?" Then of course you can solve to him immediately resolved, can not solve also to find ways to help him solve. Millet all the way down, if you can do the maintenance of a good 1 million or 2 million of users, these users are really recognized us, the brand loyalty, recognition is very strong, in fact, enough, do not think too much. ”

Hunger Marketing was once a unique phenomenon produced by millet vermicelli. In Beijing, for some time, can get a millet mobile phone has become a "path" symbol. In the rice noodles, Millet stumbled made an "open purchase" action, every Tuesday, the last week of Friday in the online booking, is tantamount to the purchase of the eligibility. Such an "open purchase" even produced a huge brand communication power, Millet marketing team found that the weekly open purchase can cause the Millet Baidu index into 5 times times or even 10 times times the growth. There is also a special channel called F Code, is actually a special contribution to the user an invitation code, equivalent to preemptive right.

The top of the pyramid is an enthusiast who can participate in decision-making. Millet Forum has a mysterious organization-honor Development Group, referred to as "Rong group son", this is the highest level of fans. "Rong group son" can be tried in advance of unpublished development version, and then the new system evaluation, identify the new version is good or bad, and even have the right to say to the whole community: "Rong group son" Think this is a rotten board, we do not upgrade. When Rong group son decided that some problems if not to get rid of the decision for Rotten board, Millet engineers will be particularly nervous, feel particularly embarrassed, and then take action to solve the problem as soon as possible.

Rongzul even participates in the development of some top-secret products, such as Miui V5. MIUI in charge of Hong Feng: "A lot of communication is two-way, need to give user power." Like the petition office, if the user feel that there is no effect on the advice, as time passes he will not open his mouth. He can be motivated only when he feels he's doing something that will make you feel bad. In advance to the wing group trial V5 new version is also to bear a lot of leaks risk, but we can not offend users, so we chose about 10 users, these users in the ' wing group ' inside the character is time-tested, they are our users inside the Standing Committee. When you really trust the user, the user will also trust you, in the end, this is a community nurture problem. Since its inception in the second half of 2011, the wing group has not seen any leaks.

This is how the awful rice noodles create a powerful twisted field. But the source of this twisted field is the product.