The iron-blooded community announced that it is about to close, and the e-commerce of military products can not find a breakthrough?

Wen 丨 BT Finance, author | Aoyama Egret

Once the most important gathering place for military fans, the 20-year-old iron-blooded community is about to close down permanently.

On December 20, the predatory community suddenly issued an announcement that the predatory community will stop user posting and replying functions on the same day, and permanently close the predatory community from March 1, 2022. The announcement has only one sentence for the reason for the closure: "In the boom of mobile Internet and Internet of Everything, we have not been able to keep up with the development of the times." ”

The announcement also states that before the closure of the Predator Community, users can still log in to the account to download historical articles and transfer important personal information, and the data will be retained for three months.

The former "China's first military community", the parent company Iron Blood Network also successfully landed in the iron blood community of the new third board, why did it finally escape the fate of closure?

Jiang Lei and the Iron Blood Net

Speaking of the iron-blooded network and the iron-blooded community, we cannot fail to mention one person- Jiang Lei.

Jiang Lei has too many labels on his body, the founder of the iron blood network, 16 years old to send to Tsinghua, 20 years old to send a doctorate, 22 years old to give up the doctorate to save the iron blood network...

The iron-blooded community is an important part of the iron-blooded network, and to put it bluntly, it is the BBS of the iron-blooded network.

Jiang Lei was born in 1984 in Nanchong, Sichuan. After being escorted to Tsinghua University at the age of 16, Jiang Lei's usual hobby of reading military news and military articles was fully released.

However, Jiang Lei found that when the Internet wave had swept Through China around 2000, it was rare to see professional military news and military articles on the Internet, so Jiang Lei came up with the idea of creating a military website of his own.

Jiang Lei soon used the free resources on the Internet to build a website, named "Virtual Military". After operating for a period of time, Jiang Lei felt that the name was not domineering enough, and in September 2001, he changed the name of the website to "Iron Blood Military Network", and the Iron Blood Community was born with the Iron Blood Network at that time.

Jiang Lei's website does not have any financial support, and it is completely dependent on personal hobbies. Until a search engine website in the United States found the first advertising fee, although only 600 yuan but helped Jiang Lei a lot, Jiang Lei used this money to buy the domain name of Iron Blood, and rented a server, which laid the foundation for the development of Iron Blood Network.

Although Jiang Lei usually spends a lot of time maintaining the iron blood network, his academic performance is still excellent, because his grades are among the best, and Jiang Lei was guaranteed a doctorate degree from Tsinghua University in 2004.

Although the number of users has been growing, the popularity of the website has also been increasing, but the iron blood network has not found a good profit model since the operation, which has become a piece of Jiang Lei's heart disease, in 2006 Jiang Lei finally decided to give up the doctorate, set up a company to operate the iron blood network, fully engaged in entrepreneurship.

Jiang Lei tried a variety of business models to put the iron blood network into a virtuous circle. For example, starting a community, developing a game, starting an e-magazine, etc., but the situation is not very optimistic. In the end, Jiang Lei still placed the profit point of the iron blood network on the periphery of military fans, such as the sale of military uniforms and so on.

Jiang Lei quickly contacted several foreign military manufacturers to buy goods, e-commerce was still not popular, when Jiang Lei hung the general products on the iron blood network, soon many military fans ran to the office of the iron blood network to buy, the goods were quickly sold out. This strengthened Jiang Lei's confidence in doing military e-commerce.

Because of the iron blood network, Jiang Lei has been listed on the Forbes Chinese list many times as "China's 30 Under 30 Entrepreneurs".

Highlight moments for the Iron-Blooded Community

Speaking of the glorious moment of the iron blood net, it is the most sacred place in the hearts of Chinese military fans.

Iron-blooded reading is the real cradle of China's military literature, and now more than half of the excellent works in film and television dramas are born from literary works in iron-blooded reading, such as "Special Warfare Pioneer", "Second Gunner", "Infiltration" and so on.

Even a monument in the history of Chinese cinema, Wu Jing's self-directed and self-acting military-themed movie "Wolf Warrior", actually has the shadow of an iron-blooded network behind it. The movie "Wolf Warrior" is written by the veteran author of the Predator Network, and the exclusive copyright works "Code Name Sparrow" and "Hummer Hot Sun" have also achieved good audience reputation. At that time, the iron-blooded network held a large number of high-quality military literature works, and the SCALE of IP it was even estimated to exceed 10 billion yuan.

Around the military culture brand, the iron-blooded community from the beginning of the simple BBS model, but also diversified into a large-scale theme community of media, social networking, e-commerce, reading and games, around 2015, the iron-blooded community was named China's first military community.

Because Jiang Lei's sales attempts for military peripheral products were relatively smooth, Iron Blood Network abandoned a single advertising revenue model very early and began to explore the military peripheral e-commerce model. In 2008, Iron Blood Network established a military e-commerce website - Iron Blood King Character Line. Soon signed the world-renowned military brands, such as ALPHA, Cockpit, etc., and introduced the world's classic military styles such as M65 military trench coats and A-2 air force flight jackets to China.

After the introduction of the M65 trench coat by the iron blood network that year, it triggered the enthusiasm of military fans to buy, and all the M65 trench coats were snapped up, and the iron blood finally had a relatively stable source of income. Iron Blood Network has finally verified the feasibility of China's community + e-commerce model.

However, Jiang Lei was not satisfied with the introduction of military brands, and he decided to create his own military brands. In 2011, Iron Blood Network finally had its own military brand "Dragon's Tooth Tactics". All styles and fabrics are completely independently developed. Since 2013, the sales of "Dragon's Tooth Tactics" have reached 30.6148 million yuan, and in 2014, sales climbed to 47.3223 million yuan. "Dragon's Tooth Tactics" even participated in the bidding project of China's military and police procurement.

In 2015, the iron blood network ushered in a highlight moment, and Beijing Iron Blood Technology Co., Ltd. was officially listed on the New Third Board on November 5, 2015. After 15 years of development, Iron Blood Network has officially become the first military website in China to land on the New Third Board, and the first community e-commerce company to be listed on the New Third Board.

According to media analysis, the number of core military fans in China has exceeded 10 million, and the number is still growing, and the future of the iron blood network and the iron blood community is immeasurable.

But what I did not expect was that with the advent of the mobile Internet and the rise of e-commerce, the iron blood network and the iron blood community soon fell behind, and even the announcement of the iron blood community admitted that in the boom of mobile Internet and Internet of Everything, we failed to keep up with the development of the times...

According to the financial report of Iron Blood Technology, since 2019, Iron Blood Technology has fallen into the quagmire of loss. In 2019, the loss amount was 18.8425 million yuan, and the loss in 2020 was 10.4622 million yuan. In August this year, the semi-annual report of Iron Blood Technology turned slightly, and its operating income was 142 million yuan, an increase of 159.73% year-on-year, and the net profit was 9.6819 million yuan. However, around 2015, when its revenue was the best, its operating income was still not optimistic.

The Iron Blood Community announcement said that we did not leave, but moved to a new battlefield. Especially the Iron Veterans Charity, as well as the Dragon's Tooth Tactical Costume, we will continue to grow and develop unswervingly...

Without the iron blood community, where will the iron blood network go, BT Finance and you continue to pay attention.