New York 2006

Chapter 298 Luo Ji’s future giant company

August 2009, 8, Robin's house in Brooklyn.

Robin stood in front of the mirror and helped her ex-husband Luo Ji tie his suit and tie.

"You're so handsome." She praised, and then said softly: "My dear, are you going home tonight?"

Luo Ji thought about the party tonight, so he said, "I'm not coming back. There are a lot of things at the company today, so I'll live on Broadway."

"Then I'll take the two children to your home on Broadway to stay with you?"

"Uh... don't bother. I'll come see you the day after tomorrow."

"Ok."

"I'm going to work."

"Bye, my dear." Robin took the initiative to kiss Luo Ji goodbye.

When he got to the car, Luo Ji touched his head in confusion.

I don't know why, but since Robin came back from filming a movie in Los Angeles, she's been kind to herself.

Now she also started calling herself dear.You know, since the two divorced, she has been calling herself Fili or Logic.

Hahaha, maybe his charm has increased, Luo Ji thought to himself.

…………

Nowadays, except for close family members and some people whom Luo Ji cares about very much, there are very few things that can affect Luo Ji's wide range of mood swings.

However, the first stop of today's inspection of the company made Luo Ji very unhappy.

Holi is now a large company with billions of dollars. It is common for people to be sued. Small lawsuits have little impact.

But there was only one case that related to the company's real interests.

The thing is, Holi "imitated" the social game "Mob Wars" last year and launched its own "Mafia Wars".

As a pioneer in social games, Holi Company relies on its huge number of users and publicity resources. The "imitation" "Mafia Wars" certainly rubs the original "Mob Wars" to the ground.

Naturally, the producer of "Thug Wars" was not satisfied and launched a lawsuit against Holi Company in April this year.

It is obviously impossible for Holi Company to give up this game. Now this game can bring Holi Game Company 500 million US dollars in revenue every month.

How could such a huge benefit be let go? Of course, we must go to court directly.

The game "Mob Wars" is the first game "imitated" by Holi Games.At that time, the work was relatively rough and almost copied.

The result given by the company's legal team is that if the jury decides, there is a high probability that the case will be lost.

Although the outcome may fail, the lawsuit will still be fought.

The two companies have been battling in court for two months.But yesterday, things took a turn for the worse. The other party’s legal team bribed a former employee of Holi Company.

He was willing to testify in court and pointed out that Luo Ji had said at the company at the time that the company's employees should copy new social games with relatively high growth rates on the market to keep Holi at the forefront of the industry.

This is a tempo to force Luo Ji, the chairman behind Holi Company, to go to court!

The legal business of Holi Game Company is handled by Jamie Law Firm, and he sent a female lawyer partner.

Luo Ji had known her for a long time. He had met her when he first went to Jamie Law Firm.The female lawyer also wanted to influence Luo Ji's political leanings.

An acquaintance is an acquaintance, but Luo Ji showed no mercy and asked loudly: "Holi Company spends so much money every month to hire you? Why does the resigned employee dare to leak the company's secrets? Is this what you lawyers do?"

The female lawyer hurriedly said: "Of course we signed a confidentiality agreement with him, but he is obviously not afraid of paying liquidated damages. The other party's legal team must be willing to pay the money."

Luo Ji said loudly: "I don't want to hear any excuses. Now go and sue that former employee."

The female lawyer hurriedly advised: "Once we file a lawsuit, we will be able to prove that the former employee is telling the truth. The judge and jury will completely believe him."

CEO Yang Jian tried to smooth things over: "Logic, don't be angry. Our case with "Mob War" is the focus. Don't lose the big for the small."

"Okay." After Luo Ji finished speaking, he said to the female lawyer solemnly: "Don't let me appear in court, or you will get out!"

The female lawyer quickly agreed: "No, definitely not."

Luo Ji didn't want to go to court and give perjury. You should know that giving perjury in an American court was a serious crime.

If they later come up with solid evidence such as recordings, they will go to jail.No one knows what they have in store.

Luo Ji asked, "What do they want now?"

"They want us to pay 1500 million dollars in compensation, and also want the company to withdraw the "Mafia Wars" game." After the female lawyer finished speaking, she continued: "But they are obviously a lion with a big mouth, and there is room for bargaining."

CEO Yang Jian responded: "It is impossible to remove Mafia Wars from the Internet. This is the company's bottom line."

The female lawyer hurriedly said: "Yeah, I know."

Luo Ji made the final decision: "Let's find an opportunity to reconcile with them. The company will launch Series C financing at the end of this year. I don't want to see this case affect the financing."

"Ok."

"Go out."

The female lawyer walked out of the conference room with a disappointed look on her face. Luo Ji and CEO Yang Jian were the only two people left in the room.

Luo Ji looked at him and said, "What is the company's estimated revenue this year?"

Yang Jian looked happy and said excitedly: "The revenue is expected to reach 3.5 million US dollars, the social game revenue is 3 million US dollars, and the mobile game revenue is 5000 million US dollars."

Luo Ji was a little shocked: "The revenue in the first half of the year was only [-] million meters. How come it grew so fast in the second half of the year?"

"Recently, smartphone games and the social game industry have developed rapidly. Social games, in particular, are likely to experience explosive growth. In particular, the game "Stealing Food" has become a popular game around the world. In China China, Japan, South Korea, and Russia are also very popular.”

Luo Ji nodded: "Tell us more about the revenue distribution of social games."

"Okay." Yang Jian began to introduce: "Social games are mainly dependent on social platforms, so we divide the revenue into two main parts, one is from Facebook, and the other is from non-Facebook."

"Yeah, keep talking."

"The company's revenue from Facebook accounts for 60% of its revenue. You should know this. I will mainly introduce the non-Facebook revenue."

"it is good."

"In terms of non-Facebook revenue, 10% of the revenue is revenue from cooperation with other small social platforms, such as Myspace, classmates, etc."

"Uh-huh."

"The remaining 30% of revenue is from our cooperation with local social monopolies in China, Japan, South Korea, Russia, etc., such as Tencent in China, VK in Russia, and Naver in Japan and South Korea. Our agreements with Tencent in these regions It’s the same, a small agency fee + 30% revenue share.”

Luo Ji was surprised: "These regions only have a 30% share, but their income is so high."

"The game industry in East Asia is very big." Luo Ji laughed: "It seems that our globalization plan was successful."

"Yes." Yang Jian said: "Although Facebook is strong, it is not at the level of global dominance. Our strategy of not putting our eggs in one basket is very successful."

Luo Ji sighed: "Well, those of us who make content are not as good as those who make platforms. Those of us who make platforms can make money just by watching us game companies fight."

Yang Jian also has some regrets: "There is nothing we can do about it. We started our business too late. Those platforms have basically grown big and have not caught up with the good times."

"Hmm. Let's not talk about it anymore. Will Holi make a profit this year?"

Yang Jian shook his head: "No, even if the revenue is so high, we have to continue globalization, which is very expensive. Moreover, mobile games have been developing rapidly recently. I plan to acquire some studios to expand the company's strength. "

"Okay." Luo Ji said with some sigh: "It seems that the insiders are right. Without more than one billion dollars, it is really difficult to build a global Internet company."

…………

In the smartphone industry, in addition to investing in Apple and Google stocks, Luo Ji has also been making plans.

Holi Game Company's smartphone games are one of its plans, and this year's revenue may reach 5000 million US dollars.

Although mobile games have begun to generate income, and it is not low.But what Luo Ji attaches most importance to is WeChat, a mobile application.

Just because mobile games are about content.And WeChat is the platform company that Luo Ji has been thinking about.

Look at Tencent’s QQ and Facebook.These two companies, relying on social software, have grown into companies with a market value of tens of billions.

This is enough to illustrate the importance of social software.

……

Luo Ji sat in WeChat's office and looked at Deborah Liu, the Chinese female CEO in front of him. She is an elite graduate of Duke University and Stanford Business School.

She played a big role in the growth of Facebook.

The previous CEO of this company was a software engineer poached from Holi Game Company.

However, after WeChat was launched in January this year, several months have passed. Even with the global data network provided by Holi Game Company, the number of WeChat users has not improved.

Luo Ji was so angry that he fired the CEO directly.Then he found a headhunting company and hired this Facebook elite.

On the surface, Deborah Liu reported on the focus of her work in the past few months, but in fact she secretly told her own contribution: "After I became CEO, I analyzed the company's global data."

"Yeah, keep talking." Luo Ji said that he was listening.

"I found that the growth rate of the number of users of this mobile application in the third world far exceeds that of developed countries in Europe and the United States. And the activity is much higher than that of developed countries in Europe and the United States. After in-depth analysis, I found that our software Perfectly captures a pain point for third world users.”

"What's the pain point?" Luo Ji was curious.

"Sending text messages is free." Deborah Liu said with a smile: "SMS charges in Europe and the United States are very cheap, and ordinary people can hardly notice it on a daily basis. But it is different in Southeast Asia, India, and Latin America. They do not have their own communication equipment manufacturing. The company imports everything. Therefore, those communication operators set text message fees higher than those in European and American countries. People in their countries have to save money when sending text messages, and our software solves all this perfectly. "

"So, you mean we vigorously promote in those underdeveloped areas?"

Deborah Liu said: "No, on the contrary, we have accurately promoted those areas in the past few months. With free text messages, the number of users has increased a lot without spending much money. In the past few months, we have been We are concentrating on conquering countries such as Japan, South Korea, China, Europe and the United States."

"How's the effect?"

"The growth rate of the number of users is 50% higher than before."

"How did you do it?"

"We said that this mobile app can be used to hook up and meet new friends online." Deborah Liu said it openly and without any shyness.

Um...is pornography really so promising?
Luo Ji had been doing this before he became famous, but he didn't expect that after a few years of going around in circles, his own company would also use this reason to increase the number of users.

Luo Ji gave her a thumbs up: "Well done."

The Chinese-American female CEO was not distracted at all. She just smiled and got down to business: "The number of users of the company is indeed growing very fast, but profitability is a big problem. Although we have developed an enterprise version, we have received some internal feedback from the company. Exchange software orders. But this income is far from making up for the company’s consumption of funds to expand.”

"Do you have any idea?"

Deborah Liu said: "I plan to add a function to the software, similar to the QQ space launched by Tencent QQ in China, where you can upload your own personal updates. Temporarily named it Moments, and then we will rely on the Moments, You can make money through advertising.”

These are the ways to play social software nowadays, so it’s not surprising that she can think of it.

"Your idea is very good. You can communicate with the company's software engineers."

Luo Ji first confirmed her idea, and then continued: "However, let's not mention the monetization of Moments through advertising for the time being. This will arouse users' disgust. Facebook only introduced advertising after several years of development. And we It’s not that there are no competitors now, just like WhatsApp in Silicon Valley, which copied us, didn’t it recently have a successful Series A round of financing?”

"There is also Line launched in Japan and South Korea. WeChat launched by a small company in China, especially this small company in China, we call it WeChat, it is called WeChat. It is so obvious to copy."

"These are our competitors. The most important thing now is the number of users. After we defeat all competitors and form a monopoly, we will then consider advertising profits."

Deborah Liu said: "WhatsApp is still very weak now. It is not as good as us at all, and its funds are not as strong as ours."

Luo Ji looked at her: "Facebook was very weak back then, isn't it pressing Myspace to the ground and rubbing it now?"

"Okay." Deborah Liu was very anxious about the future of the company. She continued: "But we don't have a large amount of cash flow income, which is very dangerous for an Internet company. You must know that Internet companies are It’s very expensive.”

"I originally invested 2000 million US dollars, and the government also provided [-] million US dollars in low-interest loans at the beginning of the year. Why are you anxious? When the money is almost spent, you can raise funds. You don't have to worry about me as the fund."

"I am thinking about the future. The company needs revenue to develop in the long term. If there is no revenue, even if it raises financing, it will not get a high valuation." Deborah Liu has option rewards in the company, so she is so dedicated. Try your best.

Luo Ji thought for a while and expressed the idea he had been thinking about for a long time: "Well, you contact Holi Game Company and develop a mobile game together. We provide our WeChat social graph and try to copy the social game strategy on the mobile phone. . Let’s see if we can succeed. For our social graph, we will charge a 30% licensing fee as usual.”

"Ok."

"If it succeeds, we can also make our own mobile games." Luo Ji can also be regarded as poaching Holi Company's wool to subsidize WeChat.

"Uh-huh."

Luo Ji raised his hand and looked at his watch. It was already five o'clock in the afternoon. He had to attend Avril Lavigne's party in the evening, so he said, "If nothing happens, I'll leave first."

Deborah Liu hurriedly said: "Logic, there is one thing I can't figure out. Why did you set up branch companies to operate WeChat independently in Russia, Japan, South Korea, and China? This increased the number of companies. operating costs.”

"What do you think?" Luo Ji asked.

Deborah Liu thought for a moment: "It should have special strategic significance!"

Luo Ji burst out laughing: "Hahaha, you are wrong. This is because American Internet companies cannot compete with their local Internet companies in these places, so I made the disguise."

"Um...this." Deborah Liu touched her head: "I really didn't expect your reason."

…………

Luo Ji sat in the car and looked at the signs of Holi Game Company and WeChat hanging on the office buildings in New York's "Silicon Alley".

For New York, an established city, this sign is too conspicuous and too young.These are my two Internet companies and are my core assets.

I don’t know whether these two companies will grow into giant companies like Facebook and Tencent in the future.

(End of this chapter)