After entering June, Musical.ly, which moved to the capital to work, suddenly became popular, and it was quite like a self-reliant serf singing.
Yang Lu and Ma Jun both regretted that they had made a loss, they had made a loss.
If we insist on selling the company until this month, we can definitely sell it for tens of millions more, or even more.
After DouShi acquired Musical.ly, Yang Lu and Ma Jun took a week to rest and then brought the team from Shanghai to Beijing.
Zhang Yida rented another office for his team in the building where Douyin Company is located, covering an entire floor, which is dozens of times more spacious than their original incubator.
At the same time, Zhang Yida injected another 100 million yuan into Musical.ly and told the two of them:
Continue to recruit people, especially the technical and operational lines, to slowly fill the entire office floor;
In addition, part of the money will be spent on advertising and operations to completely establish musical.ly's name in North America.
Zhang Yida allocated a full 100 million, but these two people suddenly became rich and had no idea how to spend it.
Yang Lu and Ma Jun were used to living a hard life, so they saved money for Zhang Yida.
With the money, we hired a few operators and technicians in China, totaling only a dozen people.
In addition, we also opened an office in San Francisco, USA, and hired several people to work there.
As soon as the shelves were set up, and before these dozen or so people started working, Musical.ly’s ranking on the Apple Store was rising rapidly.
In April, it was still ranked 1,500. In May, it rose directly to less than 1,000. By June, it had risen to more than 400.
At the same time, this upward trend of more than 100 per week continues.
The Apple Mall ranking has risen, bringing greater exposure and more downloads, and the number of Musical.ly users has skyrocketed.
What's going on? The ranking can't jump up for no reason.
It turns out that all this comes from a small optimization of product functions.
After optimization, users will automatically bring the musical.ly LOGO when sharing videos.
Previously, their team discovered that some users had cropped their logos when sharing videos on Instagram and Twitter.
How is this possible? Prostitution for free is not a good habit.
This seemingly subtle change of "Logo must be included when sharing videos" can allow users to quickly know where the video comes from and which software it comes from.
Therefore, Musical.ly began to become popular in North America and became a well-known Internet celebrity-level product.
Of course, this kind of popularity is mainly among teenagers.
Even Yang Lu and Ma Jun found it incredible. They originally targeted this product at college students and young people in their twenties, but it became popular among teenage high school students...
When it was acquired in April, Musical.ly had only 100,000 registered users.
Two months later, the number of registered users has exceeded one million, and the number of daily active users who play musical.ly every day has exceeded 200,000.
If Zhang Yida came to acquire them now, they would definitely dare to offer a high price of more than 100 million.
Before the 100 million invested by Zhang Yida was put to use, musical.ly took off first...
Regrets are regrets, life has to go on.
They now place all their hopes on the 2% option promised by Zhang Yida.
Zhang Yida asked them to increase the number of daily active users of musical.ly to 1 million, 4 million, or 10 million in the next three years.
They are now working hard towards this goal.
After looking at the operating data submitted by the two, Zhang Yida asked: "Is Musical.ly's Apple store now ranked among the top 500?"
"That's right, Mr. Zhang, our Musical.ly is popular!" Speaking of this achievement, Ma Jun is very proud. Among the products exported overseas, musical.ly is definitely one of the best-performing products.
Zhang Yida nodded, and the acquisition of musical.ly was indeed the right step. If it were delayed a few months, he might not be able to buy it anymore. He asked the two of them again:
"What are your ideas for the next work?"
"Mr. Zhang, didn't you approve 100 million for us? We want to use part of the funds to support a group of Internet celebrities.
If we have internet celebrities on our platform, firstly, we can produce high-quality content and increase user stickiness; secondly, we can attract more people to pay attention and bring more users."
Yang Lu also figured it out. Mr. Zhang gave himself 100 million, didn't he just want him to achieve results?
So why are you hesitating? It’s not your own money anyway.
Spend money to incubate Internet celebrities and increase the daily activity of Musical.ly, so that you can complete the performance bet and get options.
"Okay! Just draw up a charter and follow it.
I have great trust in your abilities."
Zhang Yida also decentralized power to the two of them and only focused on business indicators.
Now Musical.ly is still as popular overseas as it was in its previous life, and the abilities of these two people cannot be overemphasized.
In addition, at Musical.ly, Zhang Yida also sent a CFO. The accounts are still very clear and he will report to Zhang Yida every once in a while.
Zhang Yida injected 100 million into Musical.ly's account. It has been almost two months now, and he has only spent one or two million.
Zhang Yidaguan and the two of them are not people who spend money lavishly. If they want to spend a large amount of money now, they should report to themselves first.
There are not many people who are capable and know how to advance and retreat. As long as they do well in business in the future, Zhang Yida will naturally not treat them badly.
"Okay, Mr. Zhang. Regarding incubating Internet celebrities and creating stars, I have a somewhat immature plan. Let me tell you first.
musical.ly currently has three plans for star-making:
First, an outdoor tour was held in 20 cities in the United States, and Internet celebrities on the platform were gathered to perform offline and sell tickets;
Second, the United TV Station drafts and transports Internet celebrities on the platform;
Third, jointly record company auditions, promote record company newcomers, and jointly launch a wave of "mobile star-making" movement."
Yang Lu thought very clearly that although musical.ly is now becoming popular, its foundation is not yet stable.
By cultivating Internet celebrities and creating stars, continuously producing high-quality content, increasing the influence of the platform, and forming a cultural circle, this is a good strategy to consolidate the foundation.
“The plan sounds good, but there aren’t any internet celebrities with enough fans on musical.ly right now, right?
When the platform has ten to eight internet celebrities with millions of followers, it won’t be too late to start this plan.
Now we still have to focus on our platform itself, the number of registered users, the number of daily active users, promotion and operations, and the production of high-quality content are the current focus."
The plan proposed by Yang Lu is actually quite good, but it is not suitable for the current Musical.ly.
The focus of the current work is still to attract users. Zhang Yida understands this very clearly.
If the number of users is not enough, how can the incubated Internet celebrities be famous?
I guess I won’t be able to sell tickets for offline performances, and I won’t get any favorable conditions from cooperation with TV stations and record companies.
To strike iron, you need to be strong yourself.
"Well, Mr. Zhang, you are right. Then let's slow down this plan for now. Our development focus this year should be on user acquisition and retention!"
Although Yang Lu wanted to develop musical.ly as soon as possible, he also knew that this plan was indeed a bit too hasty, so Zhang Yida immediately gave in as soon as he hammered it.
…
Under the guidance of a group of technical experts at musical.ly, the second-generation test version of DouShi APP was finally released.
The 25 million acquisition money was not in vain. In addition to the two talents Yang Lu and Ma Jun, it also attracted a group of technical experts.
This group of technology experts is very powerful, and a few of them have created musical.ly, which is popular in the United States.
Zhang Yida asked them to communicate with a group of technical staff on Douyin and conveyed some of musical.ly’s R&D concepts and functional structures.
Soon, DouYu's technical staff found the correct method and produced a second-generation test version that made Zhang Yida quite satisfied.
After Zhang Yida tested it for a while, he finally nodded and approved this version and said to product manager Zhang Lan:
"This version is much better than the last one, please arrange it to be launched as soon as possible!"
"Okay, I'll make arrangements right away."
Zhang Lan was very excited and thought: It’s not easy! After struggling for more than half a year, Mr. Zhang finally agreed.
At the same time, she also saw Zhang Yida's brilliance.
At first, when Zhang Yida acquired musical.ly, she had some objections.
I think it is simply not worth spending tens of millions to acquire a small company with less than 10 people.
As a result, this unworthy small company in her eyes sent several technicians to DouVi. With their help, they quickly produced this version that satisfied Mr. Zhang.
Not only was Zhang Yida satisfied, she also tested it herself and found that it was indeed much better than the previous version.
In addition, she also heard: This small company called musical.ly has become popular in the United States, with registered users exceeding 1 million.
Although one million users is not many, considering that this is the United States, with a population of only 300 million people, proportionally, it is equivalent to an APP in China with four to five million users.
Moreover, this product is an overseas product. It is produced by a Chinese team and operated in the United States. I am afraid it will be more difficult to achieve results than operating it domestically.
At the same time, Zhang Lan also felt a sense of urgency.
Zhang Yida poached her from Toutiao, obviously intending to reuse her.
She has always led and managed the research and development work of DouShi APP.
Now that the development is completed, her focus will shift to promotion and operations.
In Zhang Yida's arrangements, she can see that: Yang Lu and Ma Jun are responsible for overseas musical.ly; she, Zhang Lan, is responsible for domestic DouShi.
In the future, the CEO of the group should be between the three of them.
Who will be the CEO? It probably depends on their respective operating results!
Although musical.ly took the lead and established a foothold overseas, it also has a certain foundation.
But Zhang Lan is very confident to surpass them. There are 1.4 billion people in the country. Once DouShi starts, it will be a matter of minutes to surpass musical.ly.
DouShi APP was quietly launched in major application markets without making any splash in the short video market.
Zhang Yida didn’t invest too much resources in promoting it. He decided to develop it slowly in the early stage and circled a wave of seed users first.
After users come in, they will observe and polish the products while operating.
After the product is polished and perfected, vigorous publicity and promotion can begin.
Although many competitors in the short video field, including Kuaishou, Miaopai, and Meipai, have noticed the launch of DouShi, they have not taken it seriously.
It’s not easy to mess around in this field. Even Weishi has been abandoned by Penguin, so what can one more Dishi do?