Hugelive's North American headquarters has two locations.
In San Jose, Silicon Valley, Yao Yuan bought a building from Yahoo that can accommodate 1,000 people. It is mainly used as a workplace for technical personnel.
The other is near Hollywood, with two buildings and a studio used as a place for daily operations and filming.
Yao Yuan and Yu Jiajia first went to San Jose for a tour, and then arrived in Hollywood the next day.
"Girard!"
"Yao!"
At the entrance of the building, Yao Yuan shook hands cordially with a white bearded man named Jason Girard, the former CEO of the video website Hulu.
Hulu is a video website created by NBCUniversal and Rupert Murdoch's News Corporation in 2007. It did not go well in the early days and it was considered for sale last year.
But this does not mean that Girard's abilities are not good, but that the founders' thinking has not changed yet, and they are afraid that the website will grow and take away the profits of their traditional film and television, so they refuse to provide resources.
Under this circumstance, Girard also added 1 million paying users to the website last year, which is an outstanding performance.
So with the help of American shareholders, Yu Jiajia poached Gilard and became the CEO of Hugelive North America. His promise was to give people to people, money to money, and resources to resources.
"Jiajia!"
After greeting Yao Yuan, Gilard pronounced Jiajia's name accurately, and the pronunciation was quite pure. Yu Jiajia shook his hand in disgust, and the back of the other person's hand was covered with hair.
It felt like rolling on the carpet with a celebrity for once...which celebrity?
Yu Jiajia suddenly became distracted.
"I thought you would come during the Golden Globe Awards, but unfortunately I didn't see you. I've seen your wheat grains, and your operation model is truly unique!"
"It was our Spring Festival and I needed to spend time with my family."
"Oh, of course, I know there is a saying in China that says, 'There are three ways to be unfilial, the worst is not having an offspring'!"
What the hell?
Girard may have wanted to praise Yao Yuan for his filial piety, but the quote was not quite right. Yao Yuan chuckled and went upstairs together.
Along the way, Girard was active and kind, and kept getting close to him. Yu Jiajia was amazed: Who said Americans don't care about the world? Who said the United States is not a society of people? Do you think those rich people all started from scratch?
When we got upstairs, we took a tour first. There were not many employees at the moment and it seemed a bit empty.
Finally we arrived at a small conference room.
"The largest paid streaming media in the United States today is Netflix, with 22 million members; the second is Amazon, with 2 million; and the third is Hulu, with 1.5 million!"
"The gap is so big?" Yao Yuanqi asked.
"Netflix started with DVD rentals. It has a very good user base and is the easiest to convert. The paid price platform is unified, and the basic fee is US$9 per month. In addition, there are packages and the like, so I won't go into details."
"Netflix is also our biggest rival. They entered the South American market last year, providing Portuguese services in Brazil, Spanish videos for Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, etc. But you know that the network construction in South America is very poor, and Netflix still has
In pioneering."
Girard said: "Hugelive was only launched in December last year and there is no paid service yet. With our huge film library and publicity, we already have 6 million monthly active users.
According to preliminary surveys, we hope to develop 600,000 paying members for "Black Robe Picket" - this is a relatively ideal situation."
"600,000 is so little?" Yu Jiajia asked.
"How little?"
Girard was very surprised and said: "Our foundation is very weak. The old movies and TV dramas in the film library represent nothing. Users want to watch new movies, and this is just a drama. No one can guarantee that there will be works they want to watch in the future. Hua
Many people will feel that they have lost money to watch 8 episodes of the TV series."
"What if the price is favorable?" Yao Yuan asked.
"This is the result after I include the discounts," Girard said.
"..."
Yao Yuan fell into thinking.
Historically, Netflix will launch the original series "House of Cards" with an investment of US$100 million in 2013, directed by David Fincher and starring Kevin Spacey.
It was a huge success and started the glorious story of Netflix.
Why these two people?
Because Netflix's big data has calculated that there are millions of people who like both David Fincher and Kevin Spacey. In other words, if they are included in a work, these millions of people are the guarantee.
Yao Yuan is also working on this kind of big data, but Hugelive has been online for too short a time, has too few users, and the data collected is not convincing enough.
He understands all the reasons, but 600,000 yuan is obviously not satisfactory to him. How can he increase it... Huh?
Yao Yuan blinked, leaned forward, and asked, "Are you considered a user in Hong Kong?"
"???"
Gilard was stunned when asked, and said inexplicably: "Yao, I am the person in charge of North America!"
"Oh, but it doesn't matter... What I want to say is that the 3.5 million Internet users in Hong Kong are all Hugelive users. If "Black Robe Picket" implements payment, at least 500,000 people will be willing to pay."
“The conversion rate is so high?”
Girard was startled.
"Wow, Hong Kong audiences like to watch Western films the most!"
Yu Jiajia praised.
"Netflix has a strong foundation in the United States, and now it has entered South America. We will not compete with it in South America. We have our own advantageous areas, Asia! Especially East Asia with a population of 800 million, and Southeast Asia with a population of 600 million..."
"How is it possible that East Asia only has a population of 800 million, while China alone..."
"If you can't enter the mainland, don't think about it!"
Yao Yuan interrupted Gilard and continued: "Both Netflix and Amazon must first develop European and American users. What we have to do is to seize share before they enter the Asian market.
The United States and Asia are advancing together, followed by Europe!"
He clarified the development direction of Hugelive.
Immediately afterwards, some further research was conducted on the publicity strategy of "Black Robe Picket", and it was in the afternoon that Yao Yuan and his party left.
…………
Night, hotel.
After Yao Yuan and Yinyin finished talking on the phone, they collapsed on the bed with their laptops in their hands and started fast forwarding to catch up on the drama "Black Robe Pickets" with Chinese subtitles.
Traditional superheroes save the world, but this show is exactly the opposite.
Nazi Germany developed a drug called "Compound No. 5" during World War II. Well, Nazis are old villains. In modern society, a company mass-produces superheroes by injecting drugs into ordinary people.
They were created like idol stars, but in fact they were sanctimonious and brought harm to the world. And the families of several of the victims formed a black-robed picket team to fight against these superheroes...
Just promote it as usual in North America. The website has just been launched, and it is still an original series, focusing on word-of-mouth. When the second season comes, the situation will be much better.
You cannot compare the United States and China.
The growth of Chinese users is like a rocket. How many users are there in the United States?
Netflix, Disney, and Amazon have a global presence, and at their peak, they only have 200 million paid members, of which only 34 million are in the United States. However, Tencent and iQiyi can each have over 100 million paid members domestically.
It’s so easy to make money!
Yao Yuan's expected goal is to have 2 million paid members of Hugelive this year, which will be roughly divided into two, half in North America and half in Hong Kong.
The key to Hong Kong is that we can't just promote dramas, we have to promote websites and connect the websites with the local film and television industry so that they can continue to watch Western movies in the Internet age...