Chapter 11 Who is the miracle of Tencent?

Our young Internet heroes have found their position in the game between the official standard and the business standard.Compared with the traditional industry, this industry is too new. It is not possible for everyone to stick to and persist in an ideal that is not profitable at the beginning. Ma Huateng is one of the earliest Internet users in China. When he was in college, he was very addicted to Huiduo.com. During that period, he met many friends. Later, most of these people grew up to be big men in the Chinese Internet arena. Ding Lei , Qiu Bojun met at that time.In those youthful years, apart from being young, there was also the confusion unique to that age.When Ma Huateng once mentioned Ding Lei, he said: "When we drank beer with Ding Lei back then, we were still wage earners, and we didn't know what the future would be like. Ding Lei's subsequent success gave me a lot of inspiration. As long as you do it, you may succeed. .”

In November 1998, Ma Huateng registered Shenzhen Tencent Computer System Co., Ltd. in Shenzhen.A few months later, Ma Huateng and his colleagues developed an instant messaging tool with a Chinese interface - OICQ.However, this chat tool, which became popular all over the country and created huge wealth for Tencent, was very common at that time. There were Chinese instant messaging software such as PICQ and CICQ on the market, but none of them opened up the market and there were not many users.A seemingly unintentional move, let Ma Huateng see the future development direction of Tencent. One day in the first half of 1999, Ma Huateng suddenly decided to put the OICQ software on the Internet for free download and use by netizens.Soon, OICQ was favored by college students and was all the rage on university campuses.Then OICQ took the campus as the center and spread rapidly among white-collar workers.In the first online best-selling novel published in November 1999, it describes the story of two young people who have never met but really love each other. The opportunity for them to meet is OICQ, an instant messaging tool on the Internet.The best-selling of this book among college students and white-collar workers played a role in fueling the downloads of OICQ.

According to Wang Juntao, a good friend of Ma Huateng and the president of 6688, "The reason why OICQ has become a tool that people like is related to the implicit nature of the oriental people. Everyone likes to communicate with others, but they are not used to meeting strangers face to face. Communicate casually. OICQ has completely solved this problem, allowing all people to hide behind the computer and talk easily, creating a communication culture that has never been seen in the past 5,000 years. More importantly, Ma Huateng noticed this keenly, With his deep understanding and extraordinary intuition, he has been grasping the improvement that OICQ needs to make in this cultural process. In the past 10 years, OICQ has become more suitable for Chinese people than any other computer instant messaging, and it is more suitable for Chinese men, women and children Habits and likings have become a basic tool for daily communication. To be able to do this, I think, has something to do with Ma Huateng himself not leaving the Internet.”

In a way, Tencent OICQ (later renamed QQ) has changed the way people interact and exchange information in China.Tencent has also changed the way Chinese people connect and communicate. Some people who don't use QQ will be called "soil".Morgan Stanley, a well-known international business organization, stated that Tencent QQ has become a cultural phenomenon in the mainland, and QQ numbers have represented the virtual identities of mainland youths, which are as important as mobile phone numbers and email addresses.As described at the beginning, Ma Huateng also used this popular method to achieve his own love. He said: "For me, OICQ is not a job, but a hobby. My wife and I met through QQ, but she also No idea who I am. I'll just say I'm an engineer."

The popularity of QQ among college students and white-collar workers has defeated competitors such as PICQ and CICQ.However, with the massive increase in the number of QQ users, just the monthly hosting fee of several thousand yuan per server has made the weak Tencent unable to straighten up, let alone buy new servers. "Web pages, system integration, program design... Dare to take on any business", as Ma Huateng himself said, the expectation at that time was very simple, to keep the company alive.Ma Huateng and his partners encountered a lot of embarrassment and confusion in order to keep the little guy QQ alive.The money from other projects can’t support it at all, bank loans seem even more impossible, and the “number of users” cannot be used as credit for loans. They want to find someone to invest in, but they can’t find it.It may be hard to imagine that when Ma Huateng and his partners are not generating any profits, they will continue to invest the money they earn into a business that does not make money.This is incredible in traditional industries.

Of course, this is not just the confusion of Ma Huateng in 1999. In the Internet field, everyone is facing such a problem.At that time, there was a popular saying in the industry, "In the field of the Internet, it is indeed difficult for you to see clearly. This field is so new that even the laws of value and business laws are brand new and even anti-traditional." In this regard, Walter, the editor-in-chief of "Time" magazine The evaluation of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos seems to be used as an interpretation of this sentence: "He (Bezos) tried to rely on growth rate, not profit to build a company. This sounds incredible. , but this idea, for better or for worse, has undoubtedly changed the entire economic model in 1999.” Bezos himself speaks of this vaguely and confidently: “People believe passionately in the promise of the Internet and e-commerce. The future, so they invest more or less with this belief. We are convinced that it must be a big mistake to focus on short-term profits. At the same time, of course, we must also focus on long-term profits.” Understand From this point, we can understand why all Internet companies, including the famous YAHOO, Amazon, etc. at that time, lost money like a competition.You can also understand Ma Huateng's persistence in distress in the early days of his business.

In November 1999, the tenth month since the launch of QQ, the number of registered users has exceeded 1 million, which Ma Huateng never expected.That is, in that month, Tencent only had more than 10,000 yuan in its books, and it could not even pay the salaries of the staff.In this predicament, someone suggested that Ma Huateng sell this little popular software. This time, Ma Huateng chose to persist, "No matter how good a project is, it is like that treasure map with hidden dangers. Except for hard work, no one will send you there. that place." During the most difficult period of Tencent, Ma Huateng and his entrepreneurial team worked day and night in a simple office, doing some tasks that were usually "not taken seriously".The purpose is just to earn a little money, and then invest in the "bottomless pit" of QQ.They worked so hard just to allow more netizens to download QQ from the Internet for free, and then use it for free; but Tencent has to pay a considerable amount of server hosting fees to the Communications Bureau.

Of course, in this process, Ma Huateng has extraordinary bad luck and good luck.His bad luck was that when he wanted to sell QQ for 1 million, no one took over the offer; his good luck was that because he didn't sell QQ, he realized his dream of Tencent empire in the future.If he hadn’t seen his old friend Ding Lei get venture capital, the overwhelmed Ma Huateng would have sold QQ for 600,000 yuan in the end, but Netease’s venture capital made Ma Huateng realize that there are other ways to play the Internet, and also made Ma Huateng aware of QQ. Can "play" to create a larger space, "We decided to 'raise' it ourselves."Ma Huateng once again embarked on the road of financing everywhere. After several twists and turns, Ma Huateng found IDG in the United States and Yingke Digital in Hong Kong. At the beginning of 2000, the two companies decided to invest a total of US$2.2 million in Tencent, and then each took 20% of the shares.

When Ma Huateng was no longer in distress, entrepreneurs such as Wang Zhidong, Zhang Chaoyang, Ding Lei, and Wu Ying on the Hurun wealth list in 2000 had become wealth upstarts. "Red capitalists" and "officials who go to sea" are completely different.They are so young, so fresh, and have nothing to do with "Original Sin".But before they had time to breathe, the winter of the Internet came.In the entire bleak atmosphere, a number of Internet companies froze to death, and 8848 was frozen to death at that time; in that winter, Sina resisted, and in the spring, Wang Zhidong became an investor for all shareholders and investors. A reason, a victim.Several companies listed on Nasdaq, such as Sina, Sohu and Netease, have plummeted along with the Nasdaq market, and have been hovering below $5 for many years.However, NetEase was suspended by Nasdaq due to false financial reports and fell to 60 to 70 cents. Sohu's stock price was below 1 US dollar for several consecutive days.

Fang Xingdong, who has been engaged in IT reviews for many years, has witnessed the entire history of China's Internet development. When talking about the industry disaster in 2000, he has a particularly deep memory. "New economy, bubble, money burning, misappropriation of money, free, loss, etc., a few extremely simple words can conclude the passion and hard work of thousands of young people, and also eliminate the rich connotation An unprecedented new technological revolution is crucified palely on the cross. It neither fully and objectively reflects the positive and negative aspects of this wave, nor can it reflect the pain and ecstasy we have paid.” It is in such an industry that giants cannot When avoiding difficulties, Ma Huateng's situation is even more difficult.

In early 2001, China Mobile launched the "Monternet" service.Monternet adopts the "20-80% account" agreement (20% for telecom operators and 80% for Internet content providers) through mobile phones.Tencent had close to 100 million registered users at the time, but suffered from the lack of charging channels.Tencent opened the mobile QQ business, developed fee-paying members, and launched more value-added services for fee-paying members.For a while, Tencent became the backbone of Monternet. In good times, Tencent accounted for 70% of the business share of Monternet content providers.By the end of 2001, Tencent finally achieved positive cash flow. Ma Huateng was not the only one who was rescued. By the second half of 2002, the performance of the three major portal websites, Sina, Sohu and NetEase, had also risen successively, and their stock prices had also risen step by step.After a brief farewell, the heroes of Zhiben returned to the Fortune Club.What happened later became a matter of course. In June 2004, Tencent was officially listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange. Tencent became the first Chinese Internet company to be listed on the main board of the Hong Kong Stock Exchange.In fact, although Ma Huateng's victory has many chances, it also has some inevitability. "He is a dedicated person," is how the industry described Ma Huateng.In the Internet industry where hot spots circulate within three to five months, Tencent has been doing one thing for the first five years—improving and standardizing QQ services.Ma Huateng is also quite proud of this. He believes that the focus has enabled Tencent to accumulate technology; he believes that Chinese users are very picky. "Ma Huateng is actually the biggest product manager of Tencent. He has positioned himself as the chief product designer of Tencent for a lot of time. He will try out all the products or services of Tencent, and then ask questions. He feels very good about this aspect. Genius.” Tencent insiders said so.Perhaps because of this, Tencent has created many firsts in the industry in the exploration of instant messaging business models: advertising on QQ is the first way Tencent came up with to make money; QQ show is also a very good idea of ​​Ma Huateng; It is Tencent's fourth idea that the first company has the guts to propose a .com jointly operated with a telecom operator; the transfer of agency rights for brand derivatives.