Chapter 20 The Importance of Business Models: The Difference Between Me and Bill Gates

I later learned that Samsung was in a difficult situation at the time, but because of my patent, the market share of karaoke machines rose from about 2% to more than 10%.More importantly, it sold the right to use the patent to Pioneer, and the first patent royalty alone cost $5 million.And in the future, Pioneer will pay another $3 to use the patent once on each of its machines! This business model is also the success of Microsoft when it was first started. At the beginning of 1994, Microsoft launched the famous Windows operating system. At that time, Bill Gates had become the richest man in the world and a frequent visitor to the covers of major magazines.I went to study Gates' business model.I just discovered that in the second half of the 1970s, when Microsoft was just starting out, Gates did not sell the entire product of its MS-DOS operating system to IBM as I did, but only sold the use of the product. License, so that you can get benefits from the other party for a long time.

This is the gap in business thinking between Bill Gates and me when we first started our business.This incident taught me a profound and vivid lesson, which prompted me to change from "doing learning" to "doing business". In 1992, with the arrival of the patent fee for the karaoke scoring device, I received the second piece of good news—after more than a year of visa failures, Xiaolan finally got her visa and came to the United States to reunite with me . During this period, the two of us even worried that we would never see each other.Because although my student visa is indefinite, it will expire once I leave the US.I can't go back to Japan, and she can't come to the United States.For this reason, Xiaolan often cried bitterly on the overseas phone.I even once had the idea of ​​leaving the United States and immigrating to Canada, so that it would be easier for Xiaolan to get a visa.Unexpectedly, on April Fool's Day, April 1, 1992, she went to the US Consulate in Nagoya to apply for a visa again, and it was signed to her at that time.She called me right away, and I was so excited beyond words.

Before, I shared a three-bedroom house with others.After Mrs. came, we moved to a serviced apartment in the Hollywood Hills for $1,200 a month.This is an unimaginable luxury among international students, and it is difficult for people around to understand.But for me, this is a kind of compensation for the suffering that Xiaolan and I have suffered for more than a year. The residence is surrounded by famous Hollywood film companies, and some third- and fourth-rate actors often come in and out of the apartment.When they come to Hollywood to make movies, they often live here for a month or two.Occasionally I go to the street basketball court near my apartment to play, and the people I play with will later appear in new movies, which is very interesting.

After living in a "luxury house", I bought a "fragrant car".A new Japanese-made Mazda 323 cost $10,000.I'm a very nostalgic person.Later, I joined Microsoft and bought a new, better car. I put it in the garage at home and took good care of it.My wife keeps telling me to sell it and I just won't.The performance of Japanese cars is very good, and there is no problem at all on the road.It's more that I have feelings for it.The last time the car was sold was in 2005. Fifth-hand cars also appreciate: the importance of being strong during the entrepreneurial period

The year before I bought the Mazda, I drove a $600 "used car."After the new car is bought, the old car is going to be sold, otherwise it is a waste of resources.I paid a Mexican for $5 to have the car washed, and I took a picture of it and posted it in the school hallway.The words in the advertisement are very simple: the car is very good, and the price is negotiable.An American came and wanted to buy this car.I said: The performance of the car is very good, and I only sold it because I had a new car.I asked him to take it back and drive it for three months without paying. If he thinks it’s good to come back and pay, if he doesn’t feel good, he can send the car back.First of all, suppress him in terms of momentum.He has never heard of this way of selling cars. How can it be used for three months without paying for it? The performance must be very good, otherwise I would not be so confident.He came back after a test drive and said that the car was really good, but he was embarrassed to ask for a price.I said that although the offer is good, I will not counter-offer.He set a price, $900.Not bad, "five-hand cars" have appreciated by 50% after one year of driving.Although this is only a small matter, it can also be seen that:

When starting a business, strength is sometimes important.And it must be remembered that price is never the core competitiveness of an enterprise, and an enterprise should always emphasize the quality of its products. Double Eagle Software Company, Emotional Speed ​​Dating Machine and Photo Stickers After my life settled down, I started a formal business.My main research field is computer software, and I have never given up my dream of making software. In October 1992, I registered my first company, and I named the company "American Double Eagle Software Company" without much thought, which means "a husband and wife are a pair of eagles flying together".

At that time, whether in China or Japan, starting a company was still a matter of high threshold.In the U.S., you can get a formal corporate license by filling out a simple form and paying $100.In the circle of Chinese in Los Angeles, there are only companies engaged in trading and printing, and a high-tech company like mine is the first. The place of registration of the company is the hotel apartment rented by my wife and I.While selling karaoke scoring machines, I met a lot of Japanese people who were doing business in the United States.There was a Japanese company that was very interested in my skills and wanted me to do some software development.He gave me a software outsourcing business worth $120,000, which was the first order the company took.It is in this situation that I can make a profit without losing money and start the operation of the company.The Japanese company promised to continue to cooperate with me after the job was completed.There were two other companies that signed me up to be their independent contractor.Everything went relatively smoothly.

At the beginning, the company was in my home, and later moved to a large three-bedroom apartment.Rent is cheap at $1500 per month.The entrepreneurial environment in the United States is really good.The first three employees of the company are all my friends, and they are also excellent talents among the local overseas students.One is from the University of Science and Technology of China, which ranked first in Shaanxi Province and second in the country in the college entrance examination.One is a talented student in the Computer Department of Tsinghua University.The other one is from Zhejiang University, who is recommended to Tsinghua University to study for a master's degree.Later, the company developed to more than 20 employees, but the core technical team is still these three people.I'm a product salesman, a software designer, and I'm in charge of finance and personnel.A typical small boss of a private enterprise.

Why did I become the bottleneck of the company's development The biggest problem I encountered when starting a business was not understanding management.At that time, everything in the company was in my hands.Although I also have some small managers, but in fact I don't listen to them at all, and all the big decisions are made by myself.I am the director of the technical department, I am the director of the marketing department, I am the manager of the HR department, and I am the manager of the financial department... First, it is impossible for me to know so much, and I am not professional at all.Second, I made all the decisions, and the company slowed down.This made me a bottleneck in the development of the company.But I was worried about the people below. I felt that others were not as experienced as I was in doing things, and I was not as good at grasping the overall situation as I was, and I always refused to delegate power.Others are not developed, capable people leave, and new ones are recruited, and the company falls into a vicious circle that is difficult to grow.

But the sad thing is that at that time, I still thought I knew management, and I was always puzzled when faced with the difficult development of the company. The mystery of enterprise architecture: the reason why private enterprises are not big It is a common problem that China's private enterprises are not big enough.The mystery of this is the lack of enterprise architecture. Like the situation when I started my business, many companies are always managed according to the personal charm of the boss.The bosses of some enterprises lack personal charm, and the management effect can only reach 10% or 20%.The bosses of some companies are very charismatic, and they can achieve 80% or even higher management effects in the entrepreneurial stage.Because of this, many Chinese entrepreneurs are very superstitious about personal charm, but in fact, the maximum limit that personal charm can manage a company is 200-300 employees.When the company grows bigger, personal charm cannot cover all the employees of the company, and the company suddenly went downhill.Therefore, only through architectural management can enterprises be scalable.

The first software independently developed by Double Eagle is related to love and marriage, and it is extraordinary.At that time, personal computers had just appeared multimedia functions. I used the "camera" and "recording" functions as tools to make a street dating game console for men and women in the traditional Japanese "blind date" mode.Help young men and women to make friends successfully through the "emotional matching game software" in the machine. If "camera" and "recording" are technological innovations of personal computers, my "emotional speed dating machine" is an innovation in application.Focusing on the theme of love, the three programs of family entertainment games, seeking friends, and personal audio-visual self-appreciation have been combined into one, which has brought huge market and economic benefits. This kind of game machine stores in advance the photos, personal information and friend-seeking conditions of 500 men and women.Players only need to put in 500 yen coins, and the software will immediately search for a match, providing three options. Players can leave a message for the selected partner and leave their own contact information.After a few days, you can throw another 500 yen coin to check whether the other party has read the message, and whether he also left a half sentence to express it, and see if you can continue to communicate. This "street speed dating machine" became the hottest and most popular interactive game in Osaka instantly after it was released on the market, bringing a strong impact to the Japanese game software market.In the past, game software was a dialogue between human and machine, but my software realizes the dialogue between human and human.This is a major breakthrough. In addition, as a fan of imagination, I invented another well-known software product - photo stickers.The concept of photo stickers was derived when I was making a speed dating game console.Because the photos of the paired man and woman needed to be printed, and later I felt that just printing out was not enough, so I took a piece of sticky paper and printed it out and pasted it on the pencil case. This product is a photo sticker. My thoughts at the time were mainly aimed at the children's market.After making this product, I was very excited and wanted to find a foreign company to invest in production.But the feedback I got said that the technical content of this thing is too low.In desperation, I had no choice but to find the Japanese company that initially provided me with software outsourcing business.They were very interested, and at the cost of giving me another software outsourcing business worth 500,000 US dollars, they bought the patented invention rights of the photo stickers. Double Eagle has also developed many other products, all of which are related to my major.One of the products is an intelligent robot, similar to a small toy, used to be placed at the door of various companies.In this robot, I set up a sensor.From 8 a.m. to 9 a.m., the robot will say "good morning" if someone passes by.It also says things like "the weather is nice" and "hope you're in a good mood" if you respond. From 9 o'clock to 12 o'clock, I designed another set of words, such as "You are going out", "Welcome to our company" and so on.There is a thermometer in its belly, and it can also make weather forecasts.If you ask it what the temperature is today, it will tell you what it is.If the air humidity is high, it will say "it may rain tomorrow, so bring an umbrella", which is very warm.