Millet 7 years: 'Enthusiast' | Lei Jun's 'Counter Strike' | and | 'compromise'

'Our eternal life will not be profit-oriented, will be rice noodles, users as the core.'

Lei Jun reiterated his position on December 19 when he was interviewed by Entrepreneur Magazine, and as of now he has gone through seven years of work with Lei Jun and Xiaomi in his "breath-hold" 2016 shipments of millet decline situation, but also shipments this year, 'Counter Strike', and by the end of the year will be listed frequently next year.

If Lei Jun and millet is a conclusion, and now, perhaps to break the 'itch' seven years, although still positioned as 'startup company', but millet has more than 15,000 employees, compared to the once 'fever' Lei Jun now mentions more words but it is another - 'new products'.

Under the increasingly blurred brand name, on December 16, Lei Jun won a Chinese painting on his 48th birthday, and wrote: 'Plum blossoms come from bitter cold. 'Now it seems that in the' move the Central Plains' approach, in addition to the millet itself, subject to test, and perhaps there was a bowl of millet porridge revolution pioneering heart.

February 24, 2016, millet 2016 spring new conference was held in Beijing, millet CEO Lei Jun officially released the first generation equipped with Snapdragon 820 processor - millet 5. Beijing News reporter Pu Feng photo

November 22, 2011, Lei Jun handheld millet phone first generation

1 first heart

A bowl of millet porridge revolution, carrying 'all the longing'

'Drank a bowl of millet gruel together, and then started to work.'

On April 6, 2010, a start-up company of 14 employees drank bowl of millet gruel in the office, and seven years later, the company came from a dozen or so startups to take the lead in the handset market, with several employees broken Well-known science and technology enterprises million - This is the ceremony to open the history of millet.

In 2012, as the CEO of Xiaomi, Lei Jun disclosed the details for the first time on Weibo, the wording was still 'going to work.' He drank a bowl of millet gruel and started to revolution. 'Two years later, Attendance at a salon, Lei Jun in the 'work' and 'revolution' of the replacement, completed the figure of poor dagger see the type of profile.

'We were thinking about it at the time, and if it did, we would have said that we had never done it before.' "Lei Jun gave his voice to the media on the eve of the release of Xiaomi Mobile Phone 1.

Before the establishment of millet, Lei Jun spent three or four years of 'retirement'.

Jinshan listed in 2007, in the eyes of outsiders, 'listed a company, investing in dozens of companies' Lei Jun became the' winner of life 'but these experiences, but their own summary of' life's table and only two Fart and 'fart and is the minimum card that the mahjong neutralizes, namely the card that wins the least money.

From missing the investment price of 150,000 yuan Zhang Xiaolong, to sell Joyo before the rise of e-commerce, and the brand of Lei Jun and 'card' seems to be one step worse in 2010, the 40-year-old Lei Jun began 'the last time Entrepreneurship: 'born for a fever', later known as slogan, became the Lei Jun and millet conclusion of the 'early mind'.

Lei Jun claims he is 'super mobile phone enthusiasts', with no less than 100 mobile phones, Xiaomi partner also invited all technical backbone.

On the phone's 'fever', Lei Jun burned himself from the user .In the early years, Lei Jun had proposed two core business objectives of millet, one is the user will not be excited for the new product of millet, the second is the user will recommend to friends after use .

2014, millet's co-founder Li Wanqiang wrote the "sense of participation: millet word of mouth marketing internal manual" hot, occupy the Amazon pre-sale total list champion, after the listing and win multiple bookstore monthly list of multiple championship list Lei Jun wrote in the preface: 'No matter how much the company can do in the future, we must make Millet a company that allows users to participate in the same way as a diner. are friends. '

Perhaps because idols are Jobs, Lei Jun hopes to make millet users at the same time become fans of millet - 'rice noodles' from this.

Like Apple, millet sales, taken pre-sale system.New mobile phone will be scheduled to open sales in the millet online, hot models are often sold out soon after the sale, the current round of users did not grab the phone can only wait for the next round Sale and then buy another shortcut is to obtain the millet F code, which is provided by the millet company to millet core users and make a contribution to millet users of the preemptive right, with the F code can be purchased directly millet phone.

'For the first time, it consciously infuses the logic of the fan economy into the entire process of a product from research and development to sales. The strategy is clear and the path is complete. The fan economy and the general brand momentum are similar and in fact not a single grade Exists. "Luo Zhenyu believes that this is the millet mobile phone industry in China the most important innovation.

"Participation Feeling," the hot, just walking millet all the way to the silhouette.

In 2011, Xiaomi handsets were officially launched. At the end of the same year, Xiaomi won 90 million U.S. dollars in financing and valued at 1 billion U.S. dollars. In June 2012, Xiaomi completed more than 200 million U.S. dollars of financing and valued at 4 billion U.S. dollars. In August 2013, Xiaomi Valued at 10 billion U.S. dollars, Lei Jun was appraised as China's economic man of the year in December; February 2014 American business magazine Fast Company released the list of the world's 50 most innovative companies, millet column third, April millet surpass Apple occupies the top Baidu mobile phone brand list.

In November 2015, Xiaomi released Red Rice Note 3, and Lei Jun thought for two months about the phone's advertising slogan, ending with "All My Longing."

2 questioned

'Out of control' supply chain: sales plummeted and frequently 'was hit porcelain'

Misfortune deserved, "fever" for three years, 'questioned' followed.

In early 2014, millet ushered in the biggest since the founding of a public relations crisis - millet 3 Unicom version of the phone broke the 'change-door' incident.

Waiting for 4 months finally get the phone in kind users found that millet earlier publicity in the phone use Qualcomm Xiaolong 800 series processors from the MSM8974 AB platform was replaced by cheaper and relatively weak performance of the MSM8274 AB platform.

In response, millet company explained by propaganda, the use of the name is not rigorous, and promised a full refund.Xiaomi's explanation failed to return the user's understanding.With the purchase of the phone user accused millet without the user's knowledge of the change Hardware, the final intention to deceive whitewashing for the lack of strict negligence, and angrily said that they have changed from rice noodles to 'black rice.' Some analysts believe that the 'change-door' is millet in the supply chain management ineffective circumstances To help make profits of the move.

This became the precursor to millet's difficult situation in the ensuing two years 2015 and 2016.

In 2015, Huawei, OPPO and other domestic handset manufacturers emerged, and their prices and technologies became more and more transparent. Under the Red Sea market, the neglect of Xiaomi's supply chain began to be exposed. Later, many analyzes attributed this to one of the causes of the two-year millennium millet millennium.

As the birth of the Internet companies millet, since the birth of it to take online sales, that is, there is no physical store in Xiaomi, the user to buy mobile phones and other products from Xiaomi official website at the same time, Xiaomi to complete the quick start light asset profit model, meaning that Xiaomi did not own Of the factories, all of which are handed over to the suppliers, resulting in a lack of control over the supply chain. "Lei Jun's microblogging shows that in 2014 and 2015, he spent a lot of time visiting suppliers in different parts of the world and pushing manufacturers to introduce more automation equipment.

Lei Jun did not realize at that time, the complexity of the mobile phone industry needs production and marketing integration.

Shipment of millet dropped for the first time in the third quarter of 2015 compared with the same period of last year. In 2016, the shipment of millet smartphone dropped by 36% from a year earlier and its market share dropped from 15.1% in 2015 to 8.9%.

Lei Jun began to become somewhat silent on social media. The monthly number of microblogged releases dropped from over 200 in 2015 to about 50 or 60 in 2016. In the first quarter of 2016, millet fell out of the top five in global shipments , Lei Jun released a microblogging about the theory of flying pig: 'standing on the outlet, the pig will fly. I quote this sentence is to illustrate the essence of entrepreneurial success is to find the outlet, taking advantage of it.' He referred to 'potential' From "The Art of War, Military Strategy" - Good command of the people who create the "potential", like the pebble from the very steep hill roll down the same, ferocious.

After this quarter, Lei Jun began to personally battle.

From May 2016 onwards, Lei Jun succeeded Xiaomi co-founder and supply chain leader Zhou Guangping, direct management of mobile phone product development and supply chain, said he has confidence in the timely delivery of mobile phones. Xiaomi ecological chain founder of purple technology Zhang Feng also joined millet as vice president of supply chain in 2016.

In charge, Lei Jun in the mobile phone department, supply chain, millet network sales team were set up specialized staff planning coordination department, by the 100-person collaborative team to help him coordinate the entire production and supply system joint operations.

The second quarter of this year, Xiaomi global shipments back to the world's top 5. 'No mobile phone company in the world after the decline in sales can be successfully reversed, except Xiaomi.' Lei Jun said at the conference.

Even so, the quality of millet questioned from time to time there.

On June 14 this year, Lei Jun forwarded a netizen microblogging on the millet 6 mobile phone will soon be overwhelmed by the navy's negative news, with only one word punctuation: 'alas ......' This is the Lei Jun, the quality of millet reply many Weibo, the most short one, microblogging saved 4666 comments.

In how to treat Lei Jun this microblogging know almost ask questions, received more than 1500 answers, netizens speculated that the purpose of the behind Lei Jun, millet 6 is not to discuss the existence of quality problems.

The next day, Lei Jun released a new microblogging, 'Millet 6 has recently been a variety of touch porcelain, all kinds of black, why?


3 compromise

From 'fun' to 'make up short,' Millet's transformation

In August of this year, Lei Jun analyzed the plight that millet was caught in the past two years. Apart from the vicious competition and management challenges, he mentioned another point: focus on the online market and missed the offline tide of computer exchange in county and township markets.

Xiaomi is not without a line store in Xiaomi phone available at the end of 2011, it has opened in the north and Guangzhou and Shenzhen and other cities in 7 millet home service stations, providing products from mentioning, sale, city gathering and other services, but does not support users buy.

However, 'Fever' became the main landing point for the function of the Millet House at the time.

In the initial design of Lei Jun, the millet house is not only a platform for demonstrating and experiencing millet products, but also a fixed place for millet enthusiastic users to communicate offline, and the atmosphere of 'play' is very important. Plan to install the automatic millet machine at the millet home film free stickers for the rice, loaded with laser engraving machine free of charge for rice flour cell phone lettering. In addition to fun, Lei Jun Millet House valued another point is good service - to sea fishing as an example, the details Specific to each millet home to be equipped with drinking fountains.

Why did not support the purchase of millet House when the first shop?

Tang Xin, an Internet independent analyst, attributes it to the difference in Xiaomi's business ideas: 'At the time, Xiaomi positioning was still in the role of a product display, brand enhancement, sales or alignment, and online traffic is becoming more and more expensive , Offline becomes a more appropriate sales channel.

The same goes for 'fever' millet 'pre-sale system', which has become another interpretation of the lack of channel capacity.

Wang Xi, who had been using three millet phones for a long time, has never had a cold snap on the millet phone, and her trick is to buy a model that does not grab the F code (preemption right) The millet 6 with a high version is also seen at the time of purchase to buy back home.Industry observer Hong Shibin that this is 'hungry marketing.'

'If the goods are always sufficient, the user will not necessarily buy, but when the user wants to buy can not buy, the commodity in a strong position, users will want to buy more.' Business analyst Li Chengdong said.

It seems Tangxin, millet to take this approach is the core background of millet does not have a strong channel capabilities, 'Millet's defects so that it must rely on online products to make momentum', 'relatively simple and crude'.

Shipment of millet dropped for the first time in the third quarter of 2015. In September of the same year, the first millet shop in Xiaodian district of Beijing's Haidian started to purchase all Xiaomi products in-store and gradually extended to other millet homes.

Millet House, an open sales was interpreted as the millet has been sold through the Internet officially go offline .In 2016, millet home shop planning speed, from 2016 mid-year plans to open 200 within two years, by the beginning of 2017 Plan to open at least 200 this year, open 1000 within three years.

Lei Jun later rated the Millet House as a "bigger strategic breakthrough" in the process of reversing the millet - which can make offline retail stores with electricity supplier costs. According to the official data of the Millet, the current Milo House has reached 270,000.

This is not without risk.

In contrast to Xiaomi's single sales channel, it is the accumulation of offline channels accumulated by its rivals over many years. "Compared to the rivals OPPO and vivo which have tens of thousands of hundreds of thousands of stores under BBK, Xiaomi has no advantage online. If you compare the online and offline sales to two legs that support the sales channel, Xiaomi is walking on one leg by the line and the line is still at a stage from 0 to 1. Hong Shibin so judge.

Hong Shibin believes that compared with online and offline channels, it increases hard costs such as rent and decoration. At the same time, millet will face more pressure with rivals such as OPPO and vivo, which have a wider coverage of stores.

4 transformation

Test the water two yuan, in the 'national goods' and 'fever' wandering between

After the completion of the switch from business to business, after walking millet 7 years, the transition problem is difficult to avoid.

For a long time, Lei Jun always positioned Xiaomi as a start-up company, but at this time, the "start-up company" has over 15,000 employees and has been expanding its user base. The niche group of 'enthusiasts' is no longer applicable.

In August 2016, when Xiaomi launched Red Rice Pro, it launched the propaganda label of 'national mobile phone'. For the first time in millet marketing history, it invited three endorsement stars - Wu Xiu-bo, Liu Shi-shi and Liu Hao-ran, Goddess', 'national learning younger brother' title, with a view to triggering the maximum user resonance.

Wei, a 24-year-old 'rice noodle', uses rice 6, but she said the next cell phone might not consider millet anymore, and now the rice is bought immediately after returning to work in China this year, almost purely for support.

Although the initial enthusiasts and innovative spirit to attract their own, but frankly frankly, in addition to millet phone can not access the company mail, another important factor is that she felt millet's brand image has been blurred, can not find the sense of belonging to the user, 'such as CUP directly to millet pay the user image projected into student groups'.

Compared to 'fever', Lei Jun on millet, referred to more and more one word is 'new domestic products'.

In a recent article by Internet critic Hong Bo, when talking about Lei Jun's model worker, "(model worker) also has the meaning of being boring, boring, having no spare time and hobbies." For millet, the popular The same is true of the contradiction between 'feverishness' and 'niche.'

'Now millet is already a big business, more resources, but also more fetters at the same time fun and fever need to always walk in the forefront of the industry, leading the industry trend, it is difficult to do.' Tang Xin Told reporters.

In the face of many competitors with domestic products, millet how to find the brand memory point?

By chance, Lei Jun aimed at the young market.

In April 2015, Xiaomi held a press conference in India. Lei Jun made a speech in English and was assessed as 'disgraced' by Wang Sicong in the English language. Lei Jun said at the conference that 'are you ok' has become a golden sentence. Soon netizens use Lei Jun's voice as a material clip out of the song called "Lei Jun first song" song video "followed by thunder always wave! Are you OK!" Posted in the B station, the video quickly sought after, as of now The video playback total more than 8 million.

As the leading youth culture community in China, most of B station (Bilibili) comes from user-generated or original video and currently has more than one million active video creators.With entrepreneur's name as the key word in B station search, Lei Jun Probably the most relevant video, the largest amount of play one of these videos are mostly netizens according to Lei Jun video entertainment editing again.

B station and the quadratic element represented by it became the New World of Xiaomi Marketing.

Millet company registered a B station account, release some of the company's original video products and Lei Jun's entertainment to the video, for example, Lei Jun Quotations and ancient poems mix and match "Lei Zongjiao you read ancient poetry"; millet millet 5 millet Max2 other products Lei Jun will also live in B station.

In February of this year, millet opened the first new machine red rice Note 4X chose the second virtual idol Hatsune Miku as the spokesperson, in addition to also launched a special Hatsune tone color version of the limited set, starting in the B station, the first round of buying a second sold out.

Product marketing, millet secondary layout also involves venture capital field.

According to statistics from IT Orange, a third-party commercial information service website, Xiaomi has so far invested in 25 companies in the field of culture and entertainment, second only to investments in the hardware sector and 10 companies in the gaming sector. By the end of this year, Japanese animation "Voice of the shape" released in the country, which is responsible for the domestic announcement of Pan-Pan Entertainment that is invested by millet technology.

'For the second user, with the second element of cell phone marketing, before basically in a blank state, while the second element of the user already has a certain size and spending power, B station users and millet target users should have a certain spending power, etc. Coincidence degree. "For the first mobile phone manufacturers involved in the second dimension marketing, Tang Xin millet marketing affirmed the marketing ideas, but she also suggested that this may also lead to some of the original millet users that do not match their position and turn to other brands.

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