Chapter 611 Living in His Shadow
ByteDance, a company known as the APP factory.
This company has created multiple apps and has a very flexible organizational structure and resources.
ByteDance CEO Zhang Yiming once told the media about his idea of running a company: Develop a company as a product.
In 2014, he received a $100 million investment from Shunwei Capital and RedShan Capital.
At that time, ByteDance's company valuation was only US$500 million.
By 2016, the valuation had soared to US$11 billion!
You have to know that at this stage of ByteDance and Tik Tok have not yet taken off and are still in the cold start stage.
Its terrifying strength can be seen from this.
When Zhang Yiming received the call from Lei Jun, he was stunned for a moment.
When the other party mentioned the word "Youqu", Zhang Yiming was stunned for even longer.
The reason is simple.
——I feel like I’m living in the shadow of Youqu!
In other words, living in Cheng Zhu's shadow!
As early as 2014, Zhang Yiming mentioned his idea of entering the short video industry to a number of company executives and the financial backers behind the scenes.
After a heated discussion, we found that some major players are already gaining momentum in the market. The number of daily active users of Penguin's Weishi, Weibo's Miaopai and Meipai have all reached hundreds of thousands, and they are all developing well.
We have temporarily lost the initiative.
So, why not take another look?
"Wait and see." This was Zhang Yiming's final attitude.
There is no way. Now Penguin and Weibo are both developing short videos. How can we compete with them?
The latter is easier to deal with, as they don’t think Weibo’s Meipai and Miaopai are anything to be afraid of.
The key is still Penguin, one of the three giants of BAT!
In front of the penguin's natural traffic pool, everyone is a grandson!
Once Pony Ma starts to invest heavily in Weishi and attract traffic, I wonder if you can handle it!
And, the same thing.
In a certain field, once one of the two horses enters the market, venture capitalists will be more cautious when investing money, and if you want to raise funds, the difficulty factor will soar.
This is the feeling of oppression brought by the giants!
Therefore, Zhang Yiming waited and watched for another half a year.
Let’s just focus on our [Headlines]!
However, he still had some evil intentions.
Because both he and ByteDance feel that there are several major pain points in the short video apps currently on the market.
These pain points will become our strengths in the future.
Until Youqu came into being!
Zhang Yiming and others downloaded and played for a while: "???"
Wow, it has everything we could think of!
Damn, we didn’t expect it to have this feature!
This is exactly the upgraded version of the app we wanted to make internally, my god!
At that moment, Zhang Yiming's heart that was maintaining a wait-and-see attitude was half dead.
Why did only half die?
Because ByteDance’s products have never been produced alone but by a team, they are called the "Toutiao system".
Once it starts making short videos, ByteDance will launch two apps at once. They are not competitors, but they can work together for mutual benefit.
Zhang Yiming even thought of a name.
“One is called Huoshan Video, and the other is called Douyin!”
"The former should be named more down-to-earth, while the latter should be named more trendy!"
After seeing Youqu, he felt that there was no way he could make it on Douyin and he had lost the opportunity again!
He didn't know why this college student named Cheng Zhu had such a good understanding with his team.
"If Youqu is not an upgraded version of our Douyin and is more comprehensive, I would suspect that there is a traitor." Zhang Yiming repeatedly thought this in his mind.
Later, he watched Youqu achieve quite brilliant results in the [cold start phase] little by little.
More importantly, anyone with a discerning eye can feel that this APP has a high user stickiness.
If nothing unexpected happens, the ratio of the total number of registered users to daily active users will be a pretty impressive figure!
This made Zhang Yiming secretly upset.
"If, I mean if."
“If we had taken the lead in making TikTok”
"Oh!" Mr. Zhang let out a long sigh.
There was another thing that made him even more frustrated.
That is because Penguin dislikes the poor monetization ability of short videos, which has led to the gradual marginalization of Weishi within Penguin.
The giant that entered the game first took a halftime break, damn!
Maybe I will withdraw from the competition!
This made that voice appear in Zhang Yiming's mind again.
"If, I mean if."
After receiving the call from Mr. Lei, Zhang Yiming quickly understood the other party's intention.
He wanted to discuss the fun of pomelo with himself.
As for Youqu, who had taken the lead, he did not deliberately belittle him for missing the opportunity, and his answer was quite pertinent.
But he felt that Cheng Zhu's mechanism was not particularly good.
"Although Youqu and Kuaishou are not direct competitors, it does not have any defensive products," said Zhang Yiming.
This was the worst place for him.
For example, [Volcano Video], which ByteDance originally planned to launch together, is a defensive product targeting Blockbuster.
Whether it is content, tone, or user composition, the positioning of [Huoshan Video] is almost the same as that of Kuaishou.
In fact, ByteDance currently attaches more importance to Volcano Video.
If we really want to enter the short video industry, we will focus on [Huoshan] and supplement it with [Tik Tok].
Upon hearing this, Lei Bushi nodded slightly.
He knows ByteDance’s usual “style of play” and likes to play “group fights”.
But what Zhang Yiming said makes sense.
After chatting for a while, Zhang Yiming smiled and asked, "Are you planning to invest in Youqu?"
"I definitely have this idea." Mr. Lei did not hide it.
After Zhang Yiming received a positive answer, he suddenly had an idea.
"Can you take our Byte with you as well?" he suddenly asked.
This sentence really stunned Lei Jun.
How come it has become a team investing money?
"I think ByteDance has many natural advantages in investing in Youqu."
"For example, we have Toutiao, right?" Zhang Yiming began to talk.
ByteDance is not a giant company today.
He knew very well that Cheng Zhu would definitely not be short of financing targets.
Therefore, all he could do was to take advantage of Mr. Lei's offer.
Everyone is not optimistic about short videos, but I am really optimistic about its prospects!
I won’t be willing to not get involved in the short video field!
The time came to December 22nd.
Cheng Zhu has already communicated with Shunwei Capital and has also made several phone calls to Shunwei CEO Xu Dalai.
Currently, old friends RedSummit Capital and Principal Capital both want to invest in Youqu.
Add Shunwei Capital to the mix and it’s more than enough!
But in today's phone call, he heard something very unexpected.
"Mr. Cheng, have you heard of ByteDance? It's the one known as the APP factory, the one from Toutiao."
"It's the same as your Youqu, it also has an algorithm system."
The simple content left Cheng Zhu silent.
Byte, how could I not know this?
After his conscience pricked slightly, he said calmly: "Well, I definitely know the bytes."
"Zhang Yiming, CEO of ByteDance, is also very interested in Youqu. He has been paying attention to the short video field for two or three years and has a deep intention to cooperate with Youqu."
Very good, Cheng Zhu was silenced again.
What the hell is this?
Byte wants to invest money in me?
Ouch! Wait, wait! Byte wants to invest money in me, hiss, Byte, hiss——!
Cheng Zhu took his cell phone and began pacing around the office.
He was seriously thinking about the feasibility of this matter.
"If I remember correctly, ByteDance has made up its mind to develop Huoshan Video."
"If, we follow the normal path of our previous life..."
Due to the butterfly effect caused by his rebirth, he is not sure what ByteDance’s current thoughts and attitudes are.
But he did not expect that Zhang Yiming would actually send him a financing application.
Damn, that's interesting.
But Cheng Zhu didn't say anything too final, he just said: "Boss Xu, I'll think about it."
"Okay, if you don't mind, I'll give Zhang Yiming your contact information first. You can meet or talk on the phone first?" Xu Dalai was still quite enthusiastic.
Because he is also very optimistic about ByteDance's future.
"Hmm," the dog man groaned, and then said, "That's fine."
After the call, he opened the small refrigerator in the office and took out a can of ice cola.
After Cheng Zhuyi sat down in his boss chair, he lifted his feet and put them on the table.
Then, he drank the happy water and fell into deep thought.
Are bytes useful to him at the moment?
That must be of some use.
First of all, ByteDance has always been a pioneer in algorithm systems.
Secondly, [Toutiao] does a really good job.
However, these are not the focus for Youqu at this stage.
After thinking for a long time, Cheng Zhu felt that it was indeed necessary to communicate with Zhang Yiming.
He mainly wanted to make one thing clear.
“Does ByteDance still attach great importance to the [Huoshan Short Video] project internally?”
This is the most important thing!
Half an hour later, Cheng Zhu received a call from Zhang Yiming.
"Hello, Mr. Cheng, it's me, Zhang Yiming."
"Hello, Mr. Zhang."
After the two exchanged a few pleasantries, Zhang Yiming got straight to the point.
He first started talking about his "fate" with short videos.
"Actually, last year, no, at the end of the year before last, we at ByteDance had already thought about making short videos," Zhang Yiming began to talk.
Cheng Zhu knew that this person was not the type to talk a lot.
He was able to say so much in one breath, it seems that he really wants to make a short video.
“Mr. Cheng may not believe it, but your Youqu is at least 80% similar to the music short video APP that our team wanted to develop at the beginning!” Zhang Yiming said.
Cheng Zhu: “I believe it.”
"Ah?" Zhang Yiming was stunned for a moment.
Ouch, the rhythm suddenly got messed up and I suddenly don’t know how to chat anymore!
Cheng Zhu added with a smile: "In fact, [Toutiao] has also given our team some inspiration to some extent, so I believe it."
"Oh, so that's how it is. Hahaha." Zhang Yiming laughed dryly.
Sometimes, age can become a barrier to communication.
He felt that Cheng Zhu was so much younger than him, so it was normal that communication would sometimes get stuck.
The two continued their in-depth conversation, and Cheng Zhu also asked Zhang Yiming why he had not yet launched the short video project.
In the end, the answers he got were also those obvious answers.
"In fact, everyone knows that text is destined to be inferior to video. Even Weibo cannot do this. Therefore, Weibo is actively transforming and expanding both internally and externally on the platform," said Zhang Yiming.
"Now, there are nearly a hundred short video apps on the market."
“But I always feel that only Kuaishou and Mr. Cheng’s Youqu are on the right track.”
"Of course, you two are not competitors at the moment."
When Cheng Zhu heard that he had raised his hand, he prepared to strike back.
Just as he was thinking about his speech, there was a knock on the office door.
“Come in!” he shouted, and saw Shen Qingning push the door open.
Then, Cheng Zhucai said to Zhang Yiming on the phone: "Mr. Zhang, please wait a moment. I will sign first."
The temperature has dropped now, and Shen Qingning is wearing an off-white coat today.
The girl with legs is a natural clothes hanger, with a typical model figure.
The coat on her body actually highlights her height.
Cheng Zhu also noticed that she seemed to have changed her hair color, which was now more suitable for winter.
After signing, he raised his palm and pressed it downwards twice, indicating that she should sit in the office for a while.
Then, he continued to communicate with Zhang Yiming.
With his repeated preparations, the two soon talked about [Volcanoes].
In order to express his sincerity in cooperation, Zhang Yiming did not play any tricks to avoid any unpleasantness in the future.
He said directly and frankly: "Whether Mr. Cheng is willing to let us participate in this round of financing, we have already made a decision within ByteDance to launch Volcano at the beginning of next year."
Cheng Zhu was satisfied when he heard this.
But he said, "Well, from Mr. Zhang's description, Volcano and Youqu don't seem to be competing products. Volcano is more like competing with Blockbuster."
He could sense that the ByteDance team probably felt that the work done by Blockchain was not very good.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t dare to make a little volcano video.
"Well, but this matter must be discussed in advance." Zhang Yiming replied.
"Okay, I will think carefully about the follow-up in-depth cooperation." Cheng Zhu stated.
"good."
After the two communicated a few more words on the phone, they arranged a time for a face-to-face meeting and then ended the call.
After Zhang Yiming put down his phone, he only thought:
"If, I mean if."
"If we can really invest in Youqu and then start up Huoshan, it won't be that much different from the original plan?"
At this stage, Zhang Yiming really thought so.
In fact, no matter how optimistic he is about short videos now, he dare not imagine that one day in the future, the world will be dominated by short video apps, and they will not only dominate the country, but the world!
People's ambitions grow step by step. When they suddenly expand, it is called a dream.
On the other side, inside the office.
Chen Qingning looked at Cheng Zhu with some curiosity and asked, "Is it about Youqu's financing?"
"Yeah." He looked at Ningning and asked, "Do you know Byte? The one with [Headline]?"
"Yes, I know."
“Just now, the boss of ByteDance wanted to participate in the financing of Youqu, but he also planned to create a short video app.”
Shen Qingning frowned slightly when she heard this.
"Don't worry, it won't do any harm to Youqu. On the contrary, his Volcano, as a counterpart to Block Hand, can also provide me with some defensive effects."
"The volcano won't be that big of a deal. I can just swallow it up later. It's a perfect complement to each other." The dog man directly expressed his true thoughts.
——Use him and then kill him!
Upon hearing this, the arrogant girl immediately said, "You don't have to tell me this."
She wasn't being deliberately arrogant at this time, she just felt burdened.
She is only in charge of Yuzucha now, and the company Yuzuqu has nothing to do with her at all.
Cheng Zhu has been talking too much now, and it is not appropriate for her to listen to what he is saying.
"It's so funny. You can tell the difference quite clearly." Cheng Zhu joked.
Hearing this, Shen Qingning couldn't help but think of Lin Lu, whose birthday was about to come. Recently, he had been chattering in her ear about how he planned to celebrate his first anniversary with Cheng Zhu.
"We have to make some clear distinctions." Chen Qingning raised her cold eyes and looked at Cheng Zhudao.
(ps: Ask for monthly ticket~
Today is Foxy's birthday, happy birthday to your big fat ass~)
(End of this chapter)
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