However, in 2005, Zhou Lei, who was born with a rebellious attitude, founded his own SNS website-Friends, which provided a platform for social activities to release information.
Life after work
What is a threesome? Is it a popular American TV series? If you log on to the website of Friends, you will find that its meaning is extremely rich and extensive. "My off-duty life, this is the slogan of our website." Zhou Lei said.
Before introducing "friends", we must first clarify another concept-"SNS". The so-called S N S refers to socialnetworkingservices, which is a very popular concept in the era of WEB2.0, and can be expressed as "social networking service" in Chinese.
"I used to be an office worker myself. I had nothing to do after work every day, but I am a young man. It is not a problem to stay at home all the time." Zhou Lei used to be a typical IT white-collar worker who came home from work every day. The unchangeable life made his lively nature uncomfortable.
"This is the initial motivation to create a six-person website, but I didn't expect it to be so big." In order to solve his loneliness, Zhou Lei founded a six-member party, but he never thought it would get out of hand.
"Friends" is a social service website for urban white-collar workers. Here, every office worker can find a suitable circle of friends, and more importantly, he can participate in various offline activities. For example, go hiking, play tennis and enjoy cherry blossoms on weekends.
Judging from the current situation, in terms of services for high-end white-collar workers, "friends" have occupied the main position in the Beijing market, and many white-collar workers basically participate in amateur leisure activities every week through this website. "The website has a high degree of user loyalty, and many people regard it as home, which is one of the important driving forces to support me to make this website bigger and stronger." Zhou Lei said.
"I don't think a friend is a dating site. Making friends is not the purpose of friends. Making friends is the result and by-product of users using this website. A few days ago, two members got married and invited me to be a guest. Let me speak. He said that they met at a drama club with a party of six people, and now they are married, so they should thank me. In fact, a friend's party is not a matchmaking website, but a social service website. We pay attention to activities, but members may form partners, couples and so on. Through activities, this is a natural result. " Perhaps only Zhou Lei himself can explain the essence and true meaning of "six links".
The next major internet channel
"Friends" is such a website: it is a community dating website specifically for urban white-collar workers. After logging in, anyone can join the activities of communicating with others.
"This is the most complicated SNS website in China at present." Zhou Lei said.
Why do people need such websites? This question is enough to write a book, but Zhou Lei's answer is simple: "SNS will be the form of the latest generation portal."
Anyone who has been online has seen what the first generation portals are like, such as Sina, hao 123 and so on. However, the first generation of portals can't meet people's demand for accurate positioning of information, so the second generation of portals appeared, which is a search engine represented by Google and Baidu. The weakness of the second generation portal is the lack of interactivity. People often care not about what they should know, but what people around them know.
"For example, if you go to a restaurant and the waiter asks you what you want to eat, you might order kung pao chicken. When you go to another restaurant, you may not order like this. When you see a thick menu, you may ask the waiter to recommend a dish to you, or you may ask the waiter what a white-collar worker like you wants and what a handsome guy like you wants. " Zhou Lei said.
"This is another way to retrieve information, which is different from Google's sorting method. The way to socialize is that you want to know what information your friends care about recently, what music they want to listen to and what movies they want to watch. On the surface, this is a slight change, but in fact it may be a revolutionary change. " Zhou Lei further explained.
As a result, social networking sites came into being, which is a new main channel of the Internet, that is, a new popular application. According to Zhou Lei's analysis, there were no more than five real main channels of the Internet in the past decade, including mail, IM, BBS and so on. Social networking sites are the next main channel of the Internet.
"If social networking sites must use the word portal, it is everyone's portal. Everyone is a portal to you, and everyone opens a new window for you to see the world. If you enter a social networking site, you will enter another person's world, and you will know what activities he has recently participated in and what new feelings he has. " Zhou Lei said.
In the United States, Microsoft has also invested heavily in the large-scale social service website "facebook". "I think Microsoft is optimistic about the potential of similar' SNS' websites as third-generation portals." Zhou Lei said.
Entrepreneurship: a bit legendary
Zhou Lei has built a rare spiritual home for urban white-collar workers, but who can understand the bitterness behind his entrepreneurship?
"I think I am very lucky today, and there are some legendary factors in it, because I have magically come over on the road of starting a business more than once." Zhou Lei said.
Zhou Lei and his "friends" did have some legendary experiences.
"In fact, I think the Internet encourages entrepreneurship. No industry has ever had so many entrepreneurial opportunities as the Internet. And I am personally more suitable for starting a business, because I have learned a lot from other internet entrepreneurs. I saw them make a small company bigger at that time. When working in Alibaba, we worked at Ma Yun's home. " Zhou Lei said.
Zhou Lei, who was naturally restless, also embarked on the road of entrepreneurship under the "stimulus" of Ma Yun.
"I originally wanted to be an activity engine, because I thought it would win everyone's trust. SNS is just a tool, which will play a very important role in the application of the actual activity engine. I think it can solve the credibility problem of interpersonal communication. "
Although Zhou Lei has a mature idea, the process of putting it into practice is very difficult. First of all, a big question is: how can I make my website known? Zhou Lei thought of planning a press conference. However, money has become an insurmountable hurdle.
"When we made this website, the office was only 10 square meters, just me and my assistant. We have to hold a press conference for 300 people and rent a castle of 65,438+10,000 a day. "
As a result, Zhou Lei successfully held a press conference in the castle with only 3000 yuan, and it was a whole day.
"I admit that I have a little luck. The situation at that time was at the end of March, and the castle was in the off-season and wanted to find some opportunities to promote itself. So I told the person in charge of the castle that we would hold a press conference here and invite many media to participate, which would be of great benefit to the promotion of the reputation of the castle. Finally, they agreed to lend us the castle for one day. Now it seems incredible. Many big companies hold new product launches in castles and spend millions of dollars a day. " Zhou Lei said excitedly.
The success of renting a castle has some luck, but this is far from the whole of Zhou Lei's entrepreneurial experience. There are still many dangerous situations on his way.
"The worst thing is that once the capital chain is broken. It's almost the end of the month, and the company's account only has 1200 yuan. What do you need to spend? The salary of employees, the cost of servers ... in short, it is a lot, but in the end it has survived. " How do you carry it? Zhou Lei just laughed. He just said: "Any entrepreneur must have experienced similar situations on his entrepreneurial road, including when Ma Yun founded Alibaba and ran out of money. This is a compulsory course for entrepreneurship, but it is not a bad thing. "
Not a "hero", but a "warrior"
Why start a business? Does everyone have to start a business? What's the difference between entrepreneurs and migrant workers? Zhou Lei has thought about all these questions. He is a passionate entrepreneur, but he never lacks rational and calm thinking about the process itself.
"I used to be an excellent migrant worker. Both Alibaba and Sina have been recognized, but this is not the same as starting a business at all. When I am a migrant worker, I am only responsible to my superiors, and it is enough to complete the tasks assigned to me by my superiors; When I was an entrepreneur, I had many things to consider. My responsibility is very important. I am responsible for this company, I am responsible for the products, I am responsible for all employees, I am responsible for my customers, and most importantly, I am responsible for myself. " Zhou Lei said.
This is the best time and also the worst time ―― Dickens' famous words are interpreted as an era full of opportunities and traps in the network age.
"Any Internet entrepreneur who wants to succeed, the most important thing is to start from his most familiar field and pay attention to the customer experience. Every successful Internet entrepreneur will inevitably succeed in the field that he is most familiar with and most empathetic. " Zhou Lei said.
"I don't want people to call me an entrepreneurial hero. I'm not there yet. I prefer the title of' entrepreneurial warrior'. " Zhou Lei said while staring at the computer. At this time, his subordinates are also working hard, all young people, while listening to music, trying to provide the best online community dating service in China.
"Entrepreneurship is hard, but the sense of accomplishment that matches it can't be brought to you by any job. As long as you choose to start a business, you are successful. " Zhou Lei's tone is unusually firm.