Top of the big era

Zhou Buqi put forward a very correct direction, that is, when your strength is poor, don't think too much and aim too high. Just find a successful template and just copy it.

For a long time, the domestic Internet industry has followed the American template and copied it exactly as it was.

Jin Beomxiu is actually quite ambitious.

Now South Korea's largest Internet giant NHN Group, he was one of the two founders back then. Later, due to various reasons, he chose to leave his job and start a business again.

I chose the gaming industry and started several businesses, all of which failed.

Later, I discovered the mobile Internet and achieved great success. With Kakaotalk, a chat product that was popular all over the country, I was invincible.

After this product was made, Jin Fanxiu felt a little elated.

For Internet companies, the Korean market is too small.

He started working on overseas markets.

I'm going through trouble at every turn, and I can't do it at all.

The American Internet model could no longer survive, so it began to learn from the Chinese Internet model and began to transform. It mainly imitated WeChat and began to use Kakaotalk's super traffic effect in South Korea to start the era of whale-swallowing.

When others do something, he will follow suit.

Relying on the strong traffic of Kakaotalk, it quickly wiped out its competitors. He also wanted to learn about China and found out what his neighbor's eldest brother was doing was impressive, so he followed suit and launched a Korean version.

WeChat's model is actually quite friendly. It uses WeChat as the platform and allows many third-party products to join WeChat's open platform. Koreans play more ruthlessly. Kakaotalk does not cooperate with any third party. As long as it is promising, it will end the game personally and let others die.

This is also determined by the size of the market.

The domestic market is huge, and WeChat does not need to do a lot of business in person. It can build a platform and provide infrastructure-level services to other Internet companies, and just take a commission.

Not in South Korea, the market is too small.

If you can't meet Kakao's development needs by just taking commissions, then you have to force yourself to do it yourself. Just like a whale hunting in the sea, it swallows everything as soon as it opens its mouth, including payment, social networking, online banking, taxi hailing, takeout, etc. E-commerce, games, search, live streaming, comics, novels...

Everything you need.

After such a wave of operations, relying on the Korean market with a mere population of 50 million, Kakao finally became an Internet giant with a market value of US$60 billion.

There is no originality at all. It is basically copied one-to-one according to the Chinese model, and it is made even harder and has a stronger monopoly nature.

Zhou Buqi does not recommend Kakao to develop overseas, which makes sense.

At this level, we can just develop it honestly in South Korea!

Overseas markets are interconnected. It is easy to conquer a country but difficult to defend it.

In the previous life, WeChat started overseas business in 2012, focusing on Southeast Asia. By 2014, the number of users in Southeast Asia reached 200 million, making it the social product with the largest user base in Southeast Asia.

What was the result?

When Facebook and WhatsApp arrived, they quickly robbed the market.

There are no walls on the overseas Internet, and users in Southeast Asia can freely connect with users in the United States, Europe, South Korea, Japan, South America and other countries.

Although WeChat has taken off in Southeast Asia, it has no market in other countries.

This results in WeChat being only a regional product and lacking global attributes. If it is just a regional product, wouldn't it be better to choose local products? Don’t you know more about local people’s product habits?

When the global Silicon Valley social giants entered the market, WeChat could only fail in Southeast Asia.

Kakaotalk wants to go to overseas markets, and it’s basically the same.

Except for Koreans overseas who use Kakaotalk, others have no reason at all. If you want to do it, you must be like Helo made by Ziweixing International. The first step is to position English-centered global products and focus on the core markets of Europe and the United States first.

Europe and the United States are highly developed and guiding, and to a large extent represent the trend of the world today.

Unless, like China and North Korea, they can use administrative means to set up a firewall to deny the entry of European and American products; or, like South Korea and India, there are strong right-wing nationalist sentiments, people will emotionally reject imported products and choose localization.

Otherwise, as long as the invasion of mainstream European and American products can be blocked for one, three, or five years, over time, it will inevitably be corroded.

Just like Japan's Internet industry, local companies were quite powerful in the early years, overwhelming Google, Amazon, and eBay. But as time goes by, local power becomes worse and worse. Global products rely on their own strong technology, services and connection attributes to defeat local products sooner or later.

Even the search market, dominated by Yahoo Japan, once beat Google to the ground. After five or six years, Google will overtake it.

Zhou Buqi has been working in the international market for several years and is now considered to have rich experience.

He could accurately judge at once that Kakao would have no chance of leaving Korea. It’s better to just focus on the local market and tap the potential of the local market!

Zhou Buqi said: "If a company's overseas business cannot gain a foothold in the United States and the European Union at the same time, then it is difficult for such a business to have long-term value, and the transnational model can only be a short-term model. Kakaotalk is now going overseas... You are right. , there are many blank markets now, and Silicon Valley giants have not yet entered the market. But so what? When European and American giants enter the market, Kakaotalk will not have any chance."

Jin Fanxiu actually has a different opinion, but he can't say much.

Seeing that he seemed unconvinced, Zhou Buqi said calmly: "Back then, NHN Group invested US$100 million to acquire 50% of the shares of Lianzhong, our country's gaming platform company. What was the result?"

"very bad."

Jin Beomxiu was very embarrassed.

Depend on!

Which pot won’t be opened?

Back then, Kim Beom-soo started out with games, and later merged with search company Naver to form NHN Group. After forming the new group, Jin Fanxiu continued to be in charge of the game business.

At that time, he was the one who led NHN's acquisition of 50% of Lianzhong's equity for US$100 million.

It ended badly.

Originally, Lianzhong was the largest chess and light game platform in China. After NHN entered the market, Lianzhong soon failed and suffered a huge investment failure.

Jin Beomxiu left NHN, in addition to his own pursuits, a very important reason was that the business was marginalized, which was the consequence of the failure of the investment in Lianzhong.

Zhou Buqi glanced at him, "Why do you think the investment in Lianzhong failed?"

"Three reasons." This can be regarded as a turning point in Jin Fanxiu's life. He has long concluded, "First, he is not accustomed to the local environment; second, he pursues short-term profits too much; third, QQ is too competitive."

Zhou Buqi smiled and said: "Actually, there is only one reason, that is, QQ is too strong. Without QQ, Lianzhong would still be the largest chess and card game platform."

Jin Fanxiu meant to compliment, "There is no QQ, but Helo. Helo's game lobby is also quite good."

Zhou Buqi said: "Helo is imitated by QQ. It is actually a model. There was a time when this kind of chess and card game hall was very popular, but there was no competitor like QQ and Helo. Even people like Lianzhong , has achieved the absolute first place in the country, as long as QQ enters the market and launches the QQ game lobby, Lianzhong will have no chance and will only be dead."

Jin Fanxiu took a deep breath and said, "Yes, QQ has the broadest user base."

"It's traffic."

"Well, traffic."

"You are Korean. I don't know how much you know about the development of the Internet in China over the years. In my opinion, our country's most successful Internet product and the best product operation model is QQ. It is different from any other in the world. Compared with other Internet products, QQ is world-class."

Jin Fanxiu was very surprised, "Where is Ziweixing?"

Zhou Buqi said frankly: "To a certain extent, the model developed by Ziweixing is basically a disguised imitation of QQ. They are all commercial realization based on user relationships, and they are all designed around traffic. .Whether it is the early school network, friend network, or Micropoint Antivirus and Micropoint Security Guard."

"Yeah, traffic."

At this moment, Jin Fanxiu felt a sense of enlightenment.

Obviously, this guy has been playing games for the past few years and still lacks a deep understanding of the real Internet traffic method.

Kakaotalk has been so successful in South Korea. In just over a year, it has grown to 12 million users. Judging from South Korea's Internet infrastructure and consumption power, it is estimated that by this time next year, Kakaotalk may have more than 30 million users.

Basically, it can dominate the Korean social market.

You know, Kakaotalk is a highly used product that can replace SMS services.

This is the killer of traffic.

With such a strong user relationship, this is the biggest Internet asset. Why can’t you do what you want to do?

Jin Fanxiu is still at a loss about the next development plan.

Fortunately, behind him stands a great revolutionary mentor-Zhou Kes.

Zhou Buqi pointed out: "I have been paying attention to the development of Kakaotalk, because this is not a simple social product, but a strategic product with unlimited imagination."

"Well, just like QQ!"

Jin Fanxiu felt like it was dawn.

Zhou Buqi said: "Yes, it's QQ. What is the largest game platform in South Korea now? NHN? You can look back at the case where QQ defeated Lianzhong. At least on the mobile side, Kakaotalk can monopolize the mobile game platform."

Jin Fanxiu didn’t know much about QQ, but he had some knowledge of the development history of Ziweixing. He said: “Not only can it be a game platform, but it can also use the strong traffic of Kakaotalk to produce information flow news like Toutiao. Social media platforms like Weibo. There are also live broadcast services, and, by the way, there is also quick login! Quick login will become Kakaotalk’s long-term core competitiveness.”

Zhou Buqi smiled and said, "The big idea is right. If you have time, you can learn more from QQ and find new project and product inspiration from Ziweixing."