Chapter 42: Back to the period before liberation overnight
In the middle of a dream, Xu Cheng was awakened by the sound of discussion in the living room.
After slightly moving away from the bedroom , Xu Cheng discovered that several of his father Xu Jianghe's colleagues were sitting in the living room, including Xu Jianghe's master Nie Yongjun.
In the past four years, Dad was actually a member of the faction of his master Nie Yongjun. Nie Yongjun was a senior executive of Jing'an Communications and seemed to be a director.
In the living room, a bunch of men were talking passionately about "top products", "industry benchmarks", "national brands", "independent research and development", "breakthroughs in key technical points", and "it all depends on ourselves"...
Xu Cheng's head hurts after hearing this. People in their 30s and 40s can't face reality before talking about ideals. What kind of technological breakthroughs can you make with such a small amount of funding...
If they are really allowed to continue independent research and development in this way, I'm afraid that the MP5 will be obsolete if they only produce a prototype.
"Can't you just dream after you have Yuanzi? And the key is... this market entry point is wrong!"
After they all left, Xu Cheng went to the bedroom and waved away the smell of smoke in the house with disgust.
"Dad, is your company going to make MP3s?"
Xu Jianghe nodded. "What's wrong? Did I wake you up?"
Xu Cheng shook his head and sat on the sofa to chat with Xu Jianghe.
"Dad, how long will it take for you to produce this? Give me a few. Several of my classmates will have birthdays in a few days, and I'll give them to them."
Xu Jianghe smiled and said, "A few days? Production is not as simple as you think. It takes several months just to design it."
"Ah? It took so long. Hasn't this thing already been made overseas? Why do you still need to design it? Can't you just disassemble the foreign products, reassemble the components and replace the shell?"
Xu Jianghe glanced at him and said, " What do you know as a kid? If you make something that has no characteristics or advantages of its own, will anyone buy it?"
Xu Cheng thought about it and said, "Yes, isn't cheapness the biggest feature? If you guys replace the components in the MP3 with other models and lower the price, that would be a great advantage!"
After a pause, Xu Cheng continued, "And... Dad, I've actually thought about it. We poor students don't care about the sound quality at all. We just think it's very cool and pretentious to hold this thing. As long as it's cheap enough, we will definitely choose to buy it!"
It is very important to grasp the entry point of the market. For example, Haier's Zhang Ruimin studied why summer is the off-season for washing machine sales. Later, he found that people had fewer clothes in summer, and washing machines consumed a lot of water and electricity, so no one used them. Zhang Ruimin directly found the entry point of the market and launched a small washing machine that saves electricity and water, which is specially used to wash small items of clothing such as underwear and stockings. It was indeed a best-seller.
In the MP3 industry, the main feature of the later domestic MP3 players such as Moonlight Treasure Box was the price-performance ratio, in other words, they were cheap. They used cheapness as a market entry point and made a name for themselves as domestic players.
After listening to Xu Cheng's words, Xu Jianghe narrowed his eyes and a light flashed before his eyes.
Is cheapness the biggest feature?
Why do I feel like what this kid said... has some truth in it...
But the adults still like to say, "What do you know as a kid? Even hardware integration requires considering circuit design, DAC decoding chips, power supply... a whole set of things, and there are also issues of purchasing and polishing components... "
Xu Cheng scratched his head. "Oh, I don't understand what you are saying, Dad. But I think it would be much easier to buy the hardware from other manufacturers and integrate them than to make them by yourself... As long as we can buy usable MP3 players with very little money, we students will definitely buy such cost-effective products!"
Xu Cheng went to the bathroom to pee, then slipped back to the bedroom to sleep, leaving Xu Jianghe alone in the living room.
"High cost performance? That's a good word..."
Although I feel that Xu Cheng is being unreasonable, I am easily confused by the situation. This guy just happens to be thinking from the user's perspective.
Cheap electronics? Have we been thinking in the wrong direction?
Compared to producing high-tech products, it seems easier and more convenient to open up the market with cheap... oh, no, with cost-effective electronic products, especially the Longguo market...
…
The next day.
Xu Cheng received a call from NetEase, and someone on the other end told him that the number of users of "16 Website Navigation" had continued to soar in recent days, and Xu Cheng needed to make up the payment to them.
It was like this. When Xu Cheng was about to start 16 URL Navigation, he discovered a very embarrassing problem. As we all know, the three basic elements of a website are: domain name, server, and program.
So the question is, Xu Cheng obviously can't afford to buy a server. Even in the early 2000s, when a large number of domestic Internet companies went bankrupt and second-hand servers were sold all over the place, Xu Cheng still couldn't afford it.
Fortunately, there was a very nice thing at that time. Many large companies launched conscientious services, providing netizens with server virtual space for free. The three major companies, such as NetEase, Sohu, and Sina, would divide their large servers into multiple virtual spaces with independent domain names and complete hosting functions.
The size is 20M. Most of the time, 20M is enough for you to get it for free, but in some cases, like Xu Cheng is doing now, 20M is not enough.
16 URL Navigation currently has more than 100,000 users, and Xu Cheng has to pay some extra money to NetEase. It’s not expensive, only 300 yuan, which is calculated for a year. The pocket money he usually saves is prepared for this moment.
I opened the piggy bank and counted the yuan inside. I opened the Xinhua Dictionary and took out the notes inside. I counted all the coins and change. It was 312.75 yuan, just enough to pay for this item...
Years of savings were emptied in an instant, and Xu Cheng's wallet was drained back to the amount it was before liberation overnight.
It's so uncomfortable!
Maintaining this website is like raising a daughter. You invest money and energy into it, but there is no return at all. You can only wait for Brother Du to notice you and marry you off with a huge gift.
"If only I could get the advertising fee..."
Unfortunately, Xu Cheng had no reasonable source of bank cards, so he missed out on this big piece of cake.
After asking NetEase for the remittance information, Xu Cheng went out with a thick stack of 300 yuan in his pocket.
Although he was a minor, he was still able to remit money. He filled out the remittance form and paid in cash. The counter staff was very surprised and kept asking questions.
"Little boy, who did you send the money to?"
Xu Cheng answered calmly, "It's for my uncle who works out of town. He has no money and my parents are busy at work, so they asked me to come over."
This set of reasonable answers immediately dispelled the counter clerk's suspicion.
How could such a cute and sensible child lie?
Xu Cheng heaved a sigh of relief. If they thought they were cheated by someone and started investigating, things would be troublesome.
Finally, I got a receipt from the post office and checked the name and amount carefully to make sure they were correct, so I was done.
Compared with the direct transfers through WeChat and Zhifubao later, it was indeed a lot more troublesome.
Coming out of the post office, there was a lot of traffic at the door. Xu Cheng suddenly found a familiar figure in the crowd. Although the presence was very low, he still caught sight of it.
She is small in stature, wears a loose school uniform, has black hair, and has a pair of captivating peach blossom eyes.
"Yu Yu? What is she doing here alone?"
Let's follow for a while...
