Top of the Great Era

Chapter 1598 Free Products and Paid Products

Weishu is an office collaboration software that pursues the digital online office in the new era. This concept is very good, and it is also a very cutting-edge direction in the world.

In the past, Microsoft's office series products have done very well from the product level, and they are definitely the world's number one in this field.But conceptually speaking, it has fallen behind.

The functions of the office series products are too powerful, and many functions require strong computing power to realize, such as some sorting algorithms of Excel tables, not to mention that smartphones cannot realize it, and ordinary home computers do not have such powerful processors.

Therefore, this requires a new concept - cloud computing.

The most complex calculations are done on the cloud, and the terminal is just a platform for sending and receiving signals. This can effectively solve this problem, and even complex problems can be handled on mobile phones.

Microsoft's layout of cloud computing is currently focusing on this direction.

However, Microsoft is oriented to the computer, ignoring the smartphone.

Zhou Buqi is a technical novice. If he has experience in his previous life, he simply cannot provide much guidance for the cloud computing industry.But this life has not been in vain, he is constantly asking scientists about relevant issues and learning.

He knows the general direction of the future world.

So when learning, you can draw inferences from one instance and make the most correct choice.It can be said that under the guidance of Zhou Buqi, Ziweiyun is definitely the real number one in the world in terms of strategic choice and product concept, and it is far ahead of all competitors in the initial stage.

However, there is no problem with the strategy and concept, which does not mean that he can understand the details of the product.Not to mention that Boss Zhou doesn't understand, even the domestic experts in the cloud computing industry lack relevant experience, and are groping forward step by step through trial and error.

When the domestic exploration is clear, it is estimated that the Silicon Valley giants have already divided up the world's territory.

Fortunately, Kurian is a veteran of the software industry.

Kurian said: "I found out that Weishu is free."

"In the early days, it was free, but when there are more users and the product matures, it will gradually turn to payment."

"This is the first mistake."

Kurian shook his head.

Zhou Buqi recognized the concept of free promotion of Weishu, and was surprised immediately, asking, "What's wrong?"

Kurian said: "Weishu is a B-end product. C-end products and B-end industries have different formats. Free will make it difficult to generate user stickiness, and free will also lead to blurred product boundaries, which will lead to products in the market. In most cases, it is difficult to meet the customized needs of users."

This is a bit too vague, Zhou Buqi didn't quite understand, "Be more specific."

Kurian said: "C-end products are conceptually different from B-end products. C-end products are more free, and they rely on traffic to sell advertisements to make money. B-end products should reduce advertising as much as possible and rely on the product itself. Make money. For the B-end business, the sooner commercialization is realized, the more conducive to the development of the enterprise and even the industry. The continuous payment rate of users is the core competitiveness of B-end products.”

"Oh, oh!" Zhou Buqi understood, shook his head and laughed, "This is due to different national conditions and different ideas."

The domestic B-end software market has not developed at all, pirated software is flying everywhere, and the ability to pay is too poor.

There is a free one, why use the paid version?

Weishu is a B-end product, but its domestic development is also promoted in accordance with the concept of C-end products. First, it is free to operate, and it is free for all individuals, enterprises and institutions to use.

First build up the user scale and stabilize the basic number of users.

Relying on free, cultivate users' usage habits.

Then it will slowly introduce paid features on free software, and guide users to subscribe to paid versions with better experience and more powerful functions.

However, developed countries such as Europe, America, South Korea and Japan have different concepts.

Making software products, in the final analysis, is to make money.

For product operation, free users are negative assets. They will not pay for the product, which will only increase the operating cost of the product and reduce the profit of the product.

Instead of this, it is better to charge as soon as you come up!
Or try it for a maximum of 1 month, and then turn on the charging mode, only for paying users, please leave for free users.All the operating costs provided to free users are used for marketing.

This is actually human nature, bundling users by giving up costs.

The same two products, one free and one paid.Users will not have any loyalty for free products, even if they enjoy the service without spending a penny; only those services that need to be paid for will affect their hearts and generate loyalty.

It's like playing a game. After playing a free game for 3 days, if you say you give up, you give up.A paid game has been recharged with 100 yuan and played for 3 days. You can’t just give up if you give up. You have to play it anyway. Maybe after playing for ten days and a half months, you will find the beauty of this game and keep playing it .

Another example is chasing girls.

If you want girls not to leave you, the biggest way is to keep accumulating the cost of giving up.On the physical level, took her first kiss, took her first time, and even took some private photos.On the material level, you need to ask her for gifts, love breakfast, flowers, shoes, watches, belts, and pillows, and ask her to spend money for herself.

The more she gave, the more she couldn't leave.

On the contrary, if she doesn't give anything when she is in a relationship, she has been beaten several times on the physical level, and there is nothing to give.There is no financial bleeding at all, relying on boys to bear everything like a dog, this must not end well.

The less she pays, the lower the cost of giving up, and she can easily kick the licking dog away.

Boys want to chase girls, and they can even make many girls chase them back. The core key is to turn themselves into expensive "paid products" and let them pay the cost of communication, instead of becoming "unloyal" Free product", throw it away like a shoe.

Kurian said: "B-end products do not require personal payment. After the government and enterprises purchase them, they are handed over to employees for use. Because payment is not an individual behavior, the cost is not so important. B-end users will pay more attention to the security of services. Reliability and empowerment. However, there are hidden dangers in the free model, which will bring about an increase in the operating costs of service providers and the emergence of a mixed situation in the industry."

Zhou Buqi nodded, "You are right, but China and the United States have different national conditions. We still need to be divided into two teams to be responsible for the mainland business. The mainland business is in charge of the mainland business. You sort out the overseas business. Pay model to do it.”

Kurian said: "Well, you should still pay. C-end products focus on user experience, and B-end products focus on sales capabilities. From cloud computing to collaborative office, an elite sales team is needed."

Zhou Buqi was a little dumbfounded.

This is the same as selling health care products. A group of salesmen with excellent eloquence go to universities, governments, government agencies, and major companies to sell their own software... It feels like it has become a traditional industry.

Really no internet at all.

However, this can be regarded as an industry practice. World-class software giants like Oracle, Adobe, and SAP often need two ace teams under their banners, one is the product team and the other is the sales team. Both are indispensable.

C-end products can attract users through Internet marketing, but it is difficult for B-end products.

Ordinary people have no say in the choice of B-end products. They can only use what the dean of the college or the general manager of the company buys.

In other words, for products such as cloud computing and collaborative office software, the effect of advertising is relatively limited, and it is more necessary to send out excellent salesmen to talk to these CEOs, presidents, general managers, principals, and deans. , to demonstrate the superiority of their own products to them, to convince them.

Kurian also said that this type of software product is mainly sold in four modes, ranked from high to low in importance, namely——

First, the direct sales model is to organize a sales team by yourself and let them go to the market to sell their own products.

Second, the distribution model is to find powerful distributors and ask them to help with sales, and then get a 20%-40% sales commission.

Three, drainage mode.

This is normal internet thinking.

When users use Yahoo, MSN, Google and other products, they can be guided to their own products to complete the payment.Drainage tools can also get 20%-40% sales commission.

Fourth, the advertising model.

Build your brand through advertising.After the brand is established, when a certain company needs to use cloud computing services or collaborative office software, it will take the initiative to buy its own products.

Zhou Buqi couldn't say anything.

Ziweixing's team has absolutely no relevant experience in this style of play, so they can only let professional people do professional things, trust Kurian, and let him do it freely.

This is not over yet, what Kurian just said was just a difference in sales philosophy, and then he talked about product philosophy.

"What is the product positioning of Weishu? What is the purpose? Is it for platform construction or for connecting users? Or is it for tool construction?"

"What do you think?"

Zhou Buqi was at a loss, so he could only ask back.

Kurian said: "I think these three directions need to be available, but they cannot be concentrated in one product. This is self-contradictory. Just like some people always say that it is impossible to be utopian Illusionary. If there are many, it is impossible to be fast, and if it is good, it is impossible to save. If it is for public connection, product design cannot be too complicated. If it is for platform construction, it means that there will be many interfaces, and the design cannot be too simple. If It’s just an office tool, so it needs some special functions that others can’t do.”

Zhou Buqi used to brag that he was the best product manager of Ziwei Star, but now he was showing his secrets. He felt powerless in front of such a cutting-edge topic, so he could only ask, "What do you think?"

Kurian said: "Weishu has many functions, the design is very complicated, the document function is also amazing, and the OKR performance appraisal system under development is also really amazing. Therefore, I think Weishu can be a self-powered tool. Platform-based products. It’s like... just like Amazon, with both self-operated products and third-party station-based products.”

Having said that, Zhou Buqi was enlightened.

Well, that's fine!

That's what he thought about at the beginning.

Weishu has some very competitive functions of its own, just like Amazon's self-operated products.At the same time, Weishu also provides many APIs to provide ports for other office software.In this way, other financial software, personnel software, stock software, and data analysis software can be connected to Weishu.

Weishu is equivalent to a platform. Users purchase third-party software services through Weishu, and Weishu can get a commission from it.Just like Amazon wants to take a commission from the transaction volume of third-party stores.

However, there is one more question.

What is the mass connection he is talking about?

Boss Zhou is too embarrassed to ask!
(End of this chapter)