Back to the prime of life

Chapter 198 Getting Early
Because of Lu Mang's rapid rise to fame, staff expansion became a necessity. Initially, it was half of the 7th floor of the Innovation Building, then the entire 7th floor, and now even the 6th floor has been taken over.

But the pulsego on the 8th floor seemed rather bland.

The instant messaging software Pulsego, one of the three initial marketing points, received a lukewarm response, which discouraged Zhou Shuang.

However, after careful analysis, Lu Changge and his team did not believe that the product itself was the problem. The main limiting factor was actually the insufficient penetration rate of smartphones.

Even if a PC version is developed, its advantage over QQ on PC is minimal.

So the problem here is that they acted a little too early.

Thinking back, early smartphones, apart from Apple, weren't very user-friendly. Even Apple itself only overcame most of its problems with the iPhone 4. As for other off-brand phones, they had a whole host of issues, such as battery life and system lag. And because there weren't many apps available, smartphones didn't offer much in terms of fun.

"...I think we shouldn't get too hung up on user scale. After all, the situation in China is different from that in the US. They released the iPhone back in 2007, and we didn't even have a genuine one to sell here yet. We should stick to our product development approach and iterate and optimize accordingly. Haven't we already planned for that?"

During the internal meeting, Lu Changge encouraged them.

Social products are indeed difficult to develop. Unlike Lu Mang, which can quickly attract consumers with low prices, social products are not as easy to create. On the other hand, with an established giant dominating the market, it would be abnormal if just anyone created a product that seemed poised to disrupt it.

As for the product planning he mentioned, that's an internal confidential project.

Lu Changge had discussed with Zhou Shuang that business operations require a certain rhythm, just like playing cards. You can't throw all your bombs at once; you have to play your cards in a rhythmic way. On the one hand, it's about maintaining the buzz and keeping users excited, and on the other hand, it's about effectively reducing costs. After all, no technical team can develop all the features right away.

Moreover, Lu Changge saved his strongest trump card for last.

For example, the "People Nearby" feature—those who know, know how powerful it is.

As for now, we can start by developing some light and refreshing features like message in a bottle and Moments.

Zhou Shuang clapped her hands and encouraged everyone, "Don't think about it anymore. Let's just focus on making the features for the next version as quickly as possible. This is going to be a long battle anyway."

afterwards,

Lu Changge found Zhou Shuang and talked about another matter.

"...Mini-games?" She was a little surprised. "What mini-games?"

“In the past, older mobile phone systems didn’t produce many apps because the development threshold for third-party applications was high. But things are different now. I’ve observed the situation in the US, and many games that don’t seem that difficult to develop have emerged. You’ll understand if you talk to Shen Mo; all sorts of mini-games.”

"No, making products isn't like dating, where if one doesn't work out, you can just try another the next day."

Lu Changge waved his hands repeatedly, "What are you thinking? I didn't switch because it didn't work out... Tsk, let's put it this way, in social media promotion, the address book is a trump card, right?"

"Yes, Not Bad."

"The same goes for games. Mini-games also have friends, some games even have rankings, and there's even a mechanism for inviting others to play. Perhaps users don't have a strong need for our social software, but as long as they are game users, they are very likely to download and install our social software, which is a niche social field."

Zhou Shuang said, "I understand your idea, and those mechanisms aren't difficult to implement. But these ideas are based on a very difficult premise: we need to develop a sufficiently popular mobile game, which is not as simple as just talking about it."

Lu Changge smiled without saying a word; for him, it was just that simple.

Early mobile games were limited to a few types, such as Plants vs. Zombies, Temple Run, Candy Crush, Fruit Ninja, and so on.

"This time I'll be the product manager myself. You just need to get the tech team up and running."

Zhou Shuang didn't understand why this guy was so confident, but he was the boss, so she just listened to him.

She couldn't sleep that night and spent the whole time at home browsing online comments about Pulsechat on her computer. In fact, because Lu Changge was very famous, the number of downloads was quite large, and the user base quickly exceeded 1.

It's not a technical problem with social media apps; it's an ecosystem problem. To put it bluntly, what's the point if you download it but have no friends to chat with?
As for the comments, they were also polarized.
On the other hand, the niche has already been occupied, leaving no room for newcomers, and there's nothing new or remarkable about it in terms of function.

As promised, the UI design is very simple, the usage logic is also very good, there are no major flaws, and I have disliked that company for a long time, so I am happy to see someone come out to challenge them.

The number of people who truly understand this product is relatively small; they are those who actually use smartphones and know that Chatter has already achieved some success in the United States.

They would post on the internet that 'Lu Changge is aiming at the next internet era, and Pulsechat's user experience on smartphones far surpasses that of mobile QQ'.

Of course, some people don't understand this, saying it's still the same as sending messages. But the counter-arguments are also sharp, pointing out that QQ on mobile is too bloated, and smartphones have limited memory, so Plush Hat is a better choice if you want a chat application that can handle both tasks.

Zhou Shuang was somewhat moved when she saw this, and it gave her more confidence. Yes, their company was aiming for two years from now. The advantages were not yet apparent, but they firmly believed in the future trend. Naturally, they had not made a mistake in this matter.

It's always better to get things done early than late!

As for those debates, some of them will eventually slide into irrational situations, such as: Chinese Internet products are all copied from the United States. The same products are popular in the United States, so just wait to copy them in China!

Others argue that at least Lu Changge is trying to make money from foreigners, which is better than those who only know how to hide in the domestic market, right? A bunch of people only know how to copy foreign products, how many of them actually have any real ability?

……

……

"When investing in the internet sector in China, there are two questions that are always asked. Mr. Lu, do you know what those two are?"

"do not know."

"The first question is, which American product is your project benchmarking against?"

In May, Lu Changge met Xu Huiya from Titanium Capital, whom he had met in Beijing, in Jiangzhou. She was the woman who had overheard him and Xue Lei talking at the next table.

Both of them were very interested in Lu Changge, but their respective companies had different levels of influence. Xue Lei had reported to Lu Changge several times but hadn't given him any concrete figures. However, Xu Huiya had already made arrangements, and Titanium Capital had confirmed an investment of no less than $450 million in Lu Mang Company.

Such a financing performance in 2009 is certainly thanks to its recent remarkable performance.

As for the question at hand, Lu Changge really didn't know. "I haven't met with many investment institutions, or perhaps they haven't asked me yet, so no one has asked me this question. What about the second one?"

"Secondly, what if BAT (Baidu, Alibaba, Tencent) set up a project team and completely copy your product? What are you going to do?"

Lu Changge thought about it carefully and said, "These are indeed two very important questions. President Xu is indeed an industry insider; otherwise, he wouldn't have asked these two questions."

"No need to be polite. This is a gift for your agreement to our investment. Mr. Lu can think carefully about how to answer these two questions."

Thank you. It's a pleasure doing business with you.

These smaller organizations only saw the potential of Luman, but showed little interest in the broader prospects of pulsego, which is probably why people can't make money beyond their understanding.

"Mr. Lu, are you free next week? Shall we go to Shanghai?"

Lu Changge asked, "What is it?"

“From the moment we decided to invest, we were in this together, so we will provide additional assistance. Next week in Shanghai, our general manager will meet with an entrepreneur in the e-commerce industry. You can sit down together and exchange ideas; perhaps some new insights will emerge. Of course, this is also to help me make an informed decision.”

Having just reached a preliminary cooperation agreement, Lu Changge agreed to give them face.

"no problem."

However, he still plans to suppress the news about Lumang receiving investment, because the advertising hype is still going strong, and he'll wait until things calm down a bit before releasing it.

The investment of nearly five million US dollars, although less than Vancl's Series A funding, is actually quite good, considering that Vancl is an established entrepreneur, while he is relatively new and his company's revenue is lagging behind.

Regardless, this is still 4000 million RMB, and it only represents 12% of the shares. By extension, Lu Changge is the boss of a company valued at 3.3 million RMB.

At this stage, his business focus will begin to change again. Perhaps Chen Nian of Vancl is still thinking about how to expand and is rushing headlong down the road of expansion, but Lu Changge understands that this company is not making products, but making brands. Clothes and shoes with the Lu Mang brand are different from others. Only in this way can this company have the right to survive and make a profit.

The most direct beneficiaries of this help are naturally these well-connected investors. Since they want to help him, Lu Changge was quite straightforward and asked, "President Xu, do you know any managers who are very good at building clothing brands? Preferably someone with a lot of experience."

Upon hearing this question, Xu Huiya realized that Lu Changge had a clear vision for the company and could only succeed by having a clear understanding of the future. Moreover, they had previously discussed in detail the company's survival logic and profit model; otherwise, they wouldn't have invested so much money.

"Do we need to start preparing so early?"

Lu Changge grinned and said, "Even the ordinary old men in our village know that you have to repair the roof on a sunny day; it'll be too late if it rains."

(End of this chapter)