Xiaomi Heavy Industry, its first entrepreneurial venture!

Chapter 464 Marketing! (Second Update!)

Lin Bin had long, slender fingers. After extending them in front of Lei Jun, he hooked his fingers again, opening and closing them repeatedly. Finally, he gently rubbed his thumb, index, and middle fingers together, all the while wearing a money-grubbing expression.

Really deserves a beating.

Lei Jun really wanted to beat him up.

But he still didn't hit anyone. Taking a deep breath, Lei Jun calmly nodded:
"We'll talk about it when we get back!"

After saying this, Lei Jun stood up and walked to Lin Yi, placing his hands at his sides with his middle fingers pressed against the seams of his pants. He slowly bent down and said, "President Lin, I, Lei Jun, have no way to repay your help. If you need anything in the future, just let me know, and I will do my best to help you!"

After he finished speaking, he bowed twice, then together with Lin Bin, they gathered up their phones and documents on the table and turned to leave.

Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, I ran into Mao Xiaofei. Before I could even speak, Mao Xiaofei pointed first to the guardhouse:

"Mr. Lei, your people and the remaining dozens of pieces of equipment are all in the guard room."

"Go back and debug it. If you encounter any problems, call me immediately. My phone will be open 24/7, and we will resolve any issues as soon as possible!"

"Thank you!" Lei Jun and Lin Bin thanked Mao Xiaofei and quickly walked towards the guardhouse. Outside the guardhouse, more than a dozen people from Xiaomi Group were guarding two large boxes.

Without even looking, Lei Jun knew that the two large boxes contained the remaining 95 mobile phones in the workshop.

He stepped forward, patted the tops of the two large boxes, and said to the dozen or so people in front of him, "Go back first, and I'll assign tasks when we get back."

The group loaded the boxes onto the car and then drove to the hotel.

Back at the hotel, Lei Jun placed all 100 prototypes on the table, covering the entire table.

Under the watchful eyes of everyone, he and Lin Bin patiently worked to power on all 100 prototype machines.

All the prototype screens lit up and all went to the desktop.

Looking at the lit screen, the group of people from Xiaomi Group smiled, but as they smiled, tears began to stream down their faces, and their smiling faces turned into crying faces.

After they had cried enough, laughed enough, and acted crazy enough, Lei Jun raised his hand and gently patted them.

The applause drew their attention, and under their watchful eyes, Lei Jun began assigning tasks:
"Systems department, I'm allocating 20 prototype machines to you. Your task is to work like crazy on the software and systems, and get both the systems and software working perfectly."

"Testing department, I'm assigning you 50 prototypes. Your task is to wear them out."

"In short, you have to wear out these 50 prototypes, and after you wear them out, you still have to complete the report for me."

“Research department, the remaining 20 prototypes are yours. Divide them into 4 groups, each with 5 prototypes, and send them on a tour around the country.”

"Find people from all over the country, men and women, young and old, let them use the prototype, fill out a questionnaire for 5 yuan, and collect their most direct user experience."

"Especially those young people who dare to break in."

"Finally, the marketing department. Your work will be personally arranged by General Manager Lin Bin."

At this point, Lei Jun took two steps back, handing the scene over to Lin Bin. Lin Bin naturally took over the conversation, waved his hand, and said loudly:
"The marketing department has a lot of tasks. I'll explain it here first, then I'll organize it myself later, and finally I'll hand over the relevant plans to you."

"Your first task is to assign some people to take over the online research work from the research team, and focus on researching a group of users who are exploiting the system online."

"The second task is to create another questionnaire and post it on various forums. The questionnaire should ask consumers what price they expect for a high-performance phone and what they are willing to give up for that price."

"The third task is to create posters, posters for several consecutive days."

"The main image of the poster is our phone's performance parameter table. Put all the phone's parameters on it, and unlock one every day."

"Then below this parameter table is the product price."

"We can't just say the price of this product; we'll have to wait until the launch event."

"So, all the prices listed below the parameters are marked with a question mark for me."

"After all the parameters on the parameter table are filled in, the next day, give me the last digit of the price."

"Then, by the same token, don't release the price of the second to last, third to last, and fourth to last items. We need to reveal that price at the press conference."

"The fourth task is for you to find a few people to play the role of an insider, to cross-dress, and to frantically spread rumors and misinformation on various forums."

“Every few days, the insider will release a little bit of information, saying that it’s inside news they’ve obtained, and then they’ll frantically confirm our configuration and slowly bring up the price.”

"When the time comes, cancel the account and run away."

“The anti-Lei Jun faction is constantly jumping around and cursing Lei Jun.”

"Just say he's a loser. He was so arrogant when he fought Microsoft back then, but he never succeeded."

"Later I tried other websites, which sounded impressive, but I still never actually did them."

"I still can't do a good job with mobile phones."

"If you can do a good job, you can eat all sorts of random stuff on the spot."

"In short, you just have to keep stomping on it."

"have you understood?"

Lin Bin shouted the last sentence, and with his voice, the employees present knew that this General Manager Lin was not joking, but serious.

The marketing department staff, in particular, shifted their gaze from Lin Bin to Lei Jun, giving him an apologetic smile followed by a sly grin.

Once the task instructions were given, these employees immediately threw themselves into their busy work.

…………

Liao Xiaojun is a post-80s generation. His father used to be the director of an electrical appliance factory. Later, the factory was not doing well and underwent reform and restructuring, so his father took over the factory.

As the new century began, while others were still struggling to make ends meet, he started using computers, mobile phones, and other things that ordinary people couldn't access.

Therefore, he knows far more than the average person.

His favorite places to hang out are various online forums.

On these forums, he can show off his abilities and family background at minimal cost.

Besides showing off, he would occasionally do other things on the forum.

For example, deleting posts.

On the first day of the new year, as usual, he went to the JiFeng forum to see if any experts had released new third-party ROM resources.

Meanwhile, let's see if any idiots have bricked their phones again.

The webpage opened, and I pressed F5 twice in quick succession to refresh the page.

On the pinned page, he didn't see any updated ROM resources from experienced users, nor did he see any help requests from newbies.

Instead, I saw a very outrageous post.

[Insider Leak! The first high-performance smartphone prototype in China has been unveiled, featuring a unibody frame, a removable stainless steel back cover, and a high-performance battery supplied by Xiaomi Heavy Industry Group, boasting unparalleled battery life!]

Upon seeing this outrageous title, Liao Xiaojun subconsciously pressed F5, refreshed the page, and the post was still there.

Out of curiosity, he clicked on the post.

The first page of the post contains a photo of the supposedly high-performance prototype mentioned by the insider. The photo is somewhat blurry, and judging from the angle, it was likely taken secretly through a gap in the crowd.

Under the lens, the so-called performance phone lay there quietly. Judging from the luster it reflected, it should have used a brushed stainless steel process, while the metal frame reflected a cold, hard fluorescence, which was indeed metal.

Looking at the phone's appearance, Liao Xiaojun could only describe it with two words: rounded and pleasing to the eye.

It is a phone that has never appeared on the market before.

When he tried to scroll down further, the post suddenly disappeared.

The screen suddenly switched to a new post.

Seeing this, Liao Xiaojun was already used to it. As a veteran of the forum, he naturally knew that someone had deleted the post.

So he casually took a screenshot and threw it into the QQ group, quickly asking as he typed, "Who deleted the post?"

"I only had someone take the test after my uncle called!" the chat group admin replied with an "ok," and his profile picture immediately went dark.

going offline.

Looking at the dimmed profile picture, Liao Xiaojun felt like the cat that had stolen some fish, always failing him at crucial moments.

He rubbed his head in frustration and began searching for relevant information on various forums.

Soon, he found what he wanted to find on the neighboring iOS community website, iFeng.com.

A brand new post.

[A seemingly unknown mobile phone manufacturer's first attempt, possibly a formidable rival to the iPhone.]

The post title was a bit of a mouthful, but after reading it, Liao Xiaojun immediately clicked on it and saw another photo in the post.

This photo, and the one I saw not long ago, seem to be of the same prototype.

However, the shooting angle is different. This photo shows the back of the prototype, and the image is clearer.

In the clear photo, a distinct mark can be clearly seen on the phone where it was seized.

MI
After looking closely at the logo, Liao Xiaojun closed his eyes and racked his brains for a long time, but he couldn't recall any manufacturer with such a logo.

Scrolling down with the mouse wheel, after scrolling through more than ten floors, I finally saw the new post from the original poster.

[I just heard from a friend that this phone is manufactured by Xiaomi Group, a company that was only established a few months ago.]

Their boss is also an acquaintance of ours; he's Lei Jun from Kingsoft.

[It is said that after his failed startup at Joyo.com, he spent a long time looking for other opportunities before finally deciding to get into the mobile phone business.]

This is their prototype! The only downside is that it's their first time doing this kind of work, and they're not quite aware of the importance of secrecy.

To be fair, the phone's design is quite good, and they've used high-quality components. Other manufacturers will probably copy the design if they see it.

Liao Xiaojun dragged the mouse, placed the cursor in the chat box, and typed just two words when the computer screen suddenly froze, and then began to reconnect.

The connection lasted for about 30 seconds.

When Liao Xiaojun logged back into the website, he found that nothing was there.

No posts, no screenshots...

Frustrated, he rubbed his head and randomly clicked on a post where someone had turned an apple into a brick and was asking for help online.

After thoroughly mocking those who were constantly on their phones in the post, Liao Xiaojun exited the webpage, refreshed the page, and a post was manually pinned to the top of his screen.

[Will Lei Jun's latest entrepreneurial venture be successful?]

Lei Jun, male, as is well known, amassed millions of dollars at a young age and later joined Kingsoft to organize a fight against Microsoft. Unfortunately, they misjudged their opponent.

Microsoft's treatment of them was like an adult punishing a child; simply announcing that it would be free was enough to utterly defeat them, making them too afraid to act in public again.

[Later they created Joyo.com, which then failed.]

I have very little faith in his sudden foray into mobile phones.

[It'll probably fail again this time. I wonder how much money they'll be able to take.]

Liao Xiaojun was about to reply to the post, but unfortunately, the post was blocked just as he was about to type.

Seeing one post after another being blocked made Liao Xiaojun feel like an idiot. He sighed, picked up his bag, and went out to find his best friend next door and go out for some fun.

As soon as I exited the webpage, the QQ group suddenly exploded with activity.

Messages kept scrolling by, and the speed at which they refreshed was dazzling.

Finally, Liao Xiaojun found the source of all this.

A photo of a promotional poster.

He was just wondering what was so interesting about a promotional poster when a glance out of the corner of his eye revealed something was wrong.

Because there were two things on this poster that he had just seen not long ago.

One is the company logo on the poster.

The other one is that phone.

This poster is a parameter graph; the first page, which has been expanded, shows CPU information.

[Qualcomm Snapdragon S3!]

Below several parameters are four strings of question marks, and in front of these four question marks are two words clearly written:
[Price!]

After carefully examining the composition of the poster, Liao Xiaojun suddenly realized that he was actually somewhat tempted.

I'm actually tempted by a domestically made mobile phone.

This is not scientific, not scientific at all.

In his pursuit of scientific knowledge, he continued to search for relevant information on various websites.

Meanwhile, the initiators of these forums were already arguing in the same chat group.

“I think this thing will definitely fail. Look at what Lei Jun has done all these years. He has basically accomplished nothing.”

"You're absolutely right, but they're financially independent."

"He accomplished nothing!"

He's financially independent!

"Alright, stop arguing. What do your manufacturers have to say?"

"What nonsense! iPhone is the best in the world, iOS is invincible, all those damn Android phones are garbage."

"I don't need to ask you! What about you guys at BBK? I saw the leaks from those insiders, and this performance phone basically blows other manufacturers' phones with similar configurations at the same price point out of the water. You guys aren't doing anything about it, are you?"

(End of this chapter)