Top of the big era

That morning, Zhou Buqi made an appointment with the two Ma bosses from Alibaba and Penguin to sit down and chat.

The topic first revolved around Alibaba, which was about to go public.

They all went to express their congratulations.

Alibaba is now very impressive. The current domestic e-commerce market has exploded, which has greatly increased Alibaba's revenue and future potential. Many people in the market even believe that once Alibaba goes public... then Alibaba is likely to surpass Ziweixing and become the company with the highest market value in China.

And Alibaba's industry status and leading role are far beyond the comparison of Ziweixing, Baidu, and Penguin.

This is not the size of the company, nor the influence of the entrepreneur.

It is a kind of demonstration.

There are many directions for these large Internet companies in China to succeed, but the model is similar, that is, traffic first and products later.

If an Internet company does not have a traffic channel, even if it has a good product, it will often be eliminated by the market.

The most typical traffic channels are, of course, search and social.

For example, QQ.

Penguin has dozens or hundreds of products, all of which have achieved very good results. However, in the early years, the company was in a daze. It just made a chat software, but had no idea what this chat software was used for or how to make money.

Even the founding team did not understand. It was just a kind of "luck" that made this product and stepped on the password of traffic.

After having the traffic advantage of QQ, Penguin's subsequent development was in full swing and it was out of control.

Baidu was similar. Relying on the strong traffic of the search business, it quickly established a complete set of Baidu product ecosystems and became another powerful Internet giant in China.

Even Ziweixing is the same.

Ziweixing's real breakthrough was not the campus network or the friend network, but the micro-point security guard.

Micro-point security guard does not make money. The real meaning is that it can quickly enter thousands of households across the country with security as the entry point. Then relying on the micro-point security guard as a breakthrough, it opened up the traffic of thousands of households, which led to the subsequent explosion of a series of products.

The road to success for the first-tier Internet companies, including Sohu, NetEase, YY, and iQiyi, is based on traffic. First, they have traffic, and then they rely on traffic to make products.

This has become the "template" of the domestic Internet.

It seems that if you want to make an Internet product, you must first have traffic!

If a product has no traffic, no matter how well you do it, you can't succeed.

How many entrepreneurs died here. They developed a very good product, but they didn't have traffic. In the blink of an eye, they found that the industry giants had copied their products, and then relied on the strong traffic import to make the copycat products successful.

This will make many people feel discouraged.

It feels that the road to entrepreneurship is blocked.

Because there are only so many "traffic entrances" on the Internet, and now they have basically been divided up by the three major entrances of Baidu, Ziweixing, and Penguin. If other companies don't have traffic entrances, doesn't it mean that they will never be able to turn around?

Young entrepreneurs will be indignant and hate monopoly.

Some more "mature" entrepreneurs chose to compromise and bow to the giants, either by joining Baidu, relying on Penguin, or getting strategic investment from Ziweixing.

But there is one company that is different.

That is Alibaba.

Alibaba did not start with traffic, but with products.

Other companies first have traffic. They first do some messy things to get traffic, just like Weidian Security Guard, YY Voice, and shared bicycles. They can not make money, but they must get the traffic entrance.

With traffic, we can talk about the subsequent commercial development and the normal operation in the future.

Without traffic, don't talk about anything!

Only Alibaba is different. Alibaba makes products and wins by products... In the past so many years, Alibaba has always had a strategic crisis, that is, it lacks traffic sources, so it has to cooperate with many large companies with traffic.

After the product is completed, it will try to win more external traffic by relying on the product.

Unlike the strategic structure of other giants, Alibaba's business line is built on products and starts from products. Other companies are different. They are built on traffic and start from traffic first.

Which way is better?

From the perspective of success rate, of course, it is better to start from the perspective of traffic.

But for many small companies and entrepreneurial teams, they have no traffic. If they don’t want to succumb to the giants, then Alibaba is more representative. Alibaba started with products, successfully broke through the traffic bottleneck, and became a world-class enterprise. This will form a kind of demonstration and role model power for many small companies and entrepreneurial teams.

It can be said that Alibaba’s success is a new school in the domestic Internet industry.

Alibaba, which follows the product route, has a much more difficult road to success than those Internet companies that follow the traffic route. It has encountered more crises, setbacks, hidden dangers and pain than other Internet companies such as Ziweixing, Baidu, and Penguin.

How can we encourage Alibaba’s employees to persist in the face of huge difficulties? This requires the encouragement of values, ideals, beliefs, struggles, blessings, and the creation of a value system for Alibaba people with a sense of superiority.

Just like JD.com must resist outsourcing, it must stick to the value of "brotherhood".

JD.com is also a product route.

If there is no firm and cohesive value belief to support it, it will not work at all. Resisting outsourcing is not only Liu Qiangdong's choice, but also the only way for JD.com to succeed. Once he gives up "brotherhood" one day, JD.com's crisis may follow.

Most of the technology giants in Silicon Valley started with product routes, so the slogans everyone shouts are ideals and the future, and they are all about changing the world.

From this perspective, Boss Ma can also be more popular abroad.

His corporate philosophy is more widely accepted in Europe and the United States.

Zhou Buqi asked Boss Ma, since your corporate philosophy is idealistic, why did Alibaba still recruit so many outsourced employees? How to understand this? Since Alibaba is moving closer to Silicon Valley giants, why doesn't Alibaba refuse outsourcing like Silicon Valley technology companies?

Boss Ma said: "This is related to national conditions."

Zhou Buqi was immediately amused by him.

Boss Ma said: "Our economy is developing too fast. Those big companies in Silicon Valley have been developing for many years. Although Alibaba was established very early, it was more about accumulation in the early years. The real explosive success has only been in the past five or six years. Our development time is too short. We have achieved the development achievements that Silicon Valley giants took many years to complete in a very short time. We must take some temporary measures."

"Temporary?"

Zhou Buqi understood what he meant.

Boss Ma said: "Yes, it is a temporary measure. In our corporate management, a very important principle is to recruit slowly and lay off quickly. Layoffs must be fast. Once a decision is made, it must be implemented quickly. The faster the better, otherwise there will be changes. Recruitment should be slow, and there must be full and comprehensive considerations to prevent hiring the wrong person."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "Well, hiring the wrong person is more serious than not hiring anyone."

Boss Ma smiled and said: "That's it, so recruitment should be slow. Google, Amazon and other big American companies can start recruiting from the beginning of their business, and they are recruiting globally. This has been going on for many years, and an excellent talent system has long been established. Come here, just patch up every year. It's not possible in China. First, the growth is too fast. The growth rate of business is much faster than the recruitment rate. "

After a pause, Boss Ma continued: "There is also a shortage of talents in China in the past few years. Some talents are also in foreign companies, which makes us Internet companies lack a systematic talent system. In recent years, the domestic Internet industry has been recognized, and more and more high-level talents have recognized us. We are at least ten years behind the Silicon Valley giants in talent construction, but we keep pace in business development. "

"Really."

Zhou Buqi has learned a new perspective.

From Xiang Shuwen to He Yang, then Meng Houkun, Guo Pengfei, Li Yanhong, to the current Boss Ma, everyone really has a different perspective. Boss Ma's perspective is obviously much higher than that of Boss Li.

Boss Ma said: "Since the human resource structure in the company is not perfect enough, we can only rely on human resource leasing to solve some employment needs. However, I believe this is just a stopgap measure. "

"Stopgap? "

Zhou Buqi smiled, but he didn't believe it at all.

Boss Ma said: "As long as we are given enough time to recruit people we need, I believe that the model of human resource leasing will disappear in the future. At least it should not exist in Alibaba."

Zhou Buqi snorted: "Once the hole is opened, it will be difficult to close it! It is easy for you to say now, but it may not be easy in the future. When the dam breaks, if you can't plug it in the first time, then don't think about plugging it again in the future."

"Huh?" Boss Ma was very curious, "You want to close it? You want to solve this problem of human resource outsourcing?"

Zhou Buqi "That's what I mean!"

"Okay, go do it." Boss Ma was very happy, "If you do it well, I will learn from you. Well, you should do this! You are already in this position, so you should do something that matches your position. You should stand up and set an example for our domestic counterparts! And let those foreigners see that domestic Internet companies are not all sweatshops."

Zhou Buqi said with a smile: "You still know it's a sweatshop?"

Boss Ma sighed, "Don't talk without any hesitation, every family has its own problems."