Top of the big era

Weishu is an office collaboration software that pursues digital online office in the new era. This concept is very good and is also a cutting-edge direction in the world.

In the past, Microsoft's office series products did very well from a product level and were definitely the first in the world in this field. But from a conceptual point of view, it is already lagging behind.

The functions of the office series products are so powerful that many functions require strong computing power to implement, such as some arrangement algorithms of Excel tables. Not to mention that smartphones cannot implement them. Ordinary home computers do not have such powerful processors.

Therefore, this requires a new concept - cloud computing.

The most complex calculations are completed in the cloud, and the terminal is just a platform for sending and receiving signals. This can effectively solve this problem and handle very complex problems on mobile phones.

Microsoft's layout for cloud computing is currently focused on this direction.

However, Microsoft focuses on computers and ignores smartphones.

Zhou Buqi is a technical novice. If he had experience in his previous life, he would not be able to provide much guidance for the cloud computing industry. But this life has not been in vain. He is constantly asking scientists for relevant questions and learning continuously.

He knows the general direction of the future world.

Therefore, when studying, you can draw inferences from one instance and make the most correct choice. It can be said that under the guidance of Zhou Buqi, Ziweiyun is definitely the number one in the world in terms of strategic choices and product concepts, and is far ahead of all competitors in the initial stage.

However, there is no problem with the strategy and concept, but it does not mean that he can also understand the details of the product. Not to mention that Boss Zhou doesn’t understand, even domestic experts in the cloud computing industry lack relevant experience and are making progress step by step through trial and error.

Once the domestic exploration is clear, it is estimated that Silicon Valley giants will have already carved up the world's territory.

Fortunately, Kurian is a veteran in the software industry.

Kurian said: "I found out that Weishu is free."

"It will be free in the early days. Later, as the number of users increases and the product matures, it will gradually shift to paid services."

"That was the first mistake."

Kurian shook his head.

Zhou Buqi recognized Weishu's free promotion concept, and was surprised at the moment and asked: "What's wrong?"

Kurian said: "Weishu is a B-side product. C-side products and B-side industries have different business formats. Free will make it difficult to generate user stickiness, and free will also lead to blurred product boundaries, resulting in product In most cases it is difficult to meet users’ customized needs.”

This was a bit too vague, and Zhou Buqi didn't quite understand, "Be more detailed."

Kurian said: "There are conceptual differences between C-end products and B-end products. C-end products are more free and rely on traffic to sell ads to make money. B-end products should reduce advertising as much as possible and rely on the product itself. Make money. For the B-end business, the sooner commercialization is achieved, the more conducive to the development of the enterprise and even the industry. The continuous payment rate of users is the core competitiveness of B-end products."

"Oh, oh!" Zhou Buqi understood, shook his head and laughed, "This is a different philosophy caused by different national conditions."

The domestic B-side software market has not developed at all. Pirated software is everywhere and the ability to pay is poor.

There is a free version, why use the paid version?

Weishu is a B-end product, but its development in China is also promoted in accordance with the concept of C-end products. It will be operated for free at first and will be free for all individuals, enterprises and institutions to use.

First increase the user scale and stabilize the basic number of users.

By being free, we can cultivate users’ usage habits.

Then we will slowly launch paid functions on the free software to guide users to subscribe to the paid version with better experience and more powerful functions.

But developed countries such as Europe, the United States, South Korea and Japan have different ideas.

Making software products is ultimately about making money.

For product operations, free users are negative assets. They will not pay for the product, but will only increase the operating cost of the product and reduce product profits.

Instead of doing this, it’s better to charge as soon as you come up!

Or try it for up to 1 month, and then turn on the charging mode, which only serves paying users. Free users please leave. All the operating costs provided to free users are used for marketing.

This is actually human nature, relying on giving up costs to bind users.

The same two products, one free and one paid. Users will not generate any loyalty for free products, even if they enjoy the service without spending a penny; only services that require payment will touch their hearts and make them loyal.

It's like playing a game. After playing a free game for 3 days, I gave up. I spent 100 yuan to recharge a paid game and played it for three days. You can’t just give up. You have to play it even if you insist. Maybe after playing for ten days and a half, you discovered the beauty of this game and kept playing. .

Another example is chasing girls.

The biggest way to keep a girl from leaving you is to continuously accumulate the cost of giving up. On a physical level, I took her first kiss, took her first time, and even took some private photos. On the material level, ask her for gifts, love breakfast, flowers, shoes, watches, belts, and pillows, and ask her to spend money for herself.

The more she gave, the more she couldn't live without him.

On the contrary, if she doesn't give anything when she is in love, and she has been treated several times physically, there will be nothing left to give. There is no bleeding at all in terms of finances, but relying on boys to bear everything like a licking dog will definitely not end well.

The less she pays, the lower the cost of giving up, and she can easily kick the licking dog away.

If boys want to chase girls, they can even make many girls chase them collectively. The core key is to turn themselves into expensive "paid products" so that they can pay the cost of the relationship, instead of turning into "loyaltyless" Free product”, discard it like worn out shoes.

Kurian said: "B-end products do not require personal payment. They are purchased by governments and enterprises and handed over to employees for use. Because payment is not a personal behavior, the cost is not so important. B-end users will pay more attention to the security of the service. Reliability and empowerment. However, the free model has hidden dangers, which will increase the operating costs of service providers and create a mixed situation in the industry."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "You're right, but China and the United States have different national conditions. Weishu still needs to be divided into two teams to be responsible for it. The mainland business is handled by the mainland team, and you can sort out the overseas business according to your requirements. Do it with a paid model.”

Kurian said: "Well, you should still pay. C-end products focus on user experience, while B-end products focus on sales capabilities. From cloud computing to collaborative office, an elite sales team is needed."

Zhou Buqi felt a bit dumbfounded.

This is the same as selling health care products. Get a group of highly eloquent salespeople to go to universities, governments, government agencies, and major companies to sell your own software... It feels like it has become a traditional industry.

It’s really not Internet at all.

However, this is considered an industry practice. World-class software giants such as Oracle, Adobe, and SAP often need to have two ace teams, one is the product team, and the other is the sales team, both of which are indispensable.

C-end products can rely on Internet marketing to attract users, but it is difficult for B-end products.

Ordinary people have no say in the choice of B-end products. They can only use what the dean of the college or the general manager of the company buys.

In other words, for products such as cloud computing and collaborative office software, the effect of advertising is relatively limited. It is more necessary to send excellent salespeople to talk to these CEOs, presidents, general managers, principals, and deans. , to demonstrate to them the superiority of their own products and to convince them.

Kurian also said that this type of software products are mainly sold in four modes, ranked from high to low importance, namely -

First, the direct sales model is to organize your own sales team and let them sell your own products in the market.

Second, the distribution model is to find powerful distributors and let them help sell as agents, and then you can get 20%-40% sales commission.

Third, the drainage model.

This is normal Internet thinking.

When users use Yahoo, MSN, Google and other products, they can be directed to their own products to complete payment. Drainage tools can also get 20%-40% sales commission.

4. Advertising model.

Build a brand through advertising. Once the brand is established, when a company needs to use cloud computing services or collaborative office software, it will proactively purchase its own products.

Zhou Buqi couldn't say anything.

For this style of play, Ziweixing's team has no relevant experience at all. They can only let professional people do professional things, trust Kurian and let him do it.

This is not over yet. Kurian just talked about differences in sales concepts, and then talked about product concepts.

"What is the product positioning of Weishu? What is its purpose? Is it for platform construction or to connect users? Or is it tool construction?"

"What do you think?"

Zhou Buqi was confused and could only ask questions.

Kurian said: "I think these three directions need to be present, but they cannot be concentrated in one product. This is self-contradictory. Just like some people always talk about how fast, easy and economical it is, this is an impossible utopia. Fantasy. If you have more, you can’t be fast, and if you are good, you can’t save. If it is for mass connection, product design cannot be too complicated. If it is for platform construction, it means that there will be many interfaces, and the design cannot be too simple. If It’s just an office tool, so it needs to have some special functions that others can’t do.”

Zhou Buqi always boasted that he was the best product manager at Ziweixing, but now his secret was exposed. Faced with such a cutting-edge topic, he felt powerless and could only ask, "What do you think should be done?"

Kurian said: "Weishu has many functions, the design is very complex, and the document function is also amazing. The OKR performance appraisal system under development is also really amazing. Therefore, I think Weishu can be a powerful tool of its own." Platform products. Just like... just like Amazon, it has both self-operated products and third-party stationed products.”

After saying this, Zhou Buqi was enlightened.

Well, that’s okay!

He considered it this way at first.

Weishu has some very competitive features, just like Amazon’s self-operated products. At the same time, Weishu also provides many APIs to provide ports for other office software. In this way, other financial software, personnel software, stock software, and data analysis software can be connected to Weishu.

Weishu is equivalent to a platform. Users purchase third-party software services through Weishu, and Weishu can take a commission from it. Just like Amazon wants to take a commission from the transaction volume of third-party stores.

However, there is still a question.

What is this mass connection he is talking about?

Boss Zhou is too embarrassed to ask!