Edit | Yu Bin
Produced by | Chaoqi Network "Yu see column"
In the Internet circle, some companies seem to be caught in a strange circle, neither doing much nor dying. For example, some communities and social products in the PC Internet era are such embarrassing existences. For example, compared with Zhihu and Xiaohongshu, although they have ups and downs, but follow the trend and eventually rise, Tianya and Douban, which have some grassroots jianghu atmosphere, are also moving towards "obscurity", and although the pulse is slightly high-end, it is also one of the loneliest among them.
It has been observed that unlike other platforms that focus on making certain types of products and retain their core values, Pulse seems to have not yet found its own positioning and commercialization path. Therefore, it has also been tossed several times and repeatedly changed course. Recently, Pulse has begun a new round of self-transformation, announcing the launch of the company's review system. This move is indeed refreshing, and even ridiculed by netizens as the "Discipline Inspection Commission" of the workplace. Some people also image its company review system as a workplace version of the "public review".
However, the workplace is different from public life, and it is worth testing whether the logic of choosing a employment company is reliable by the comments of the workplace. Although Pulse tries to use this innovation to persuade capital to continue to invest more, the voice of doubt from the outside world is endless. Therefore, it also adds a lot of variables to whether the pulse can be supported by capital, whether the user buys it, and so on.
Survivors' "luck" and "misfortune"
Linkedin (LinkedIn) is the originator of social interaction in the workplace. Its model has become popular in many countries around the world, so it has also come to China, which has more than 400 million working people. At first, LinkedIn China, but also came with a big dream: to compile an Internet network based on workplace social relations, and then to achieve commercialization through advertising, recruitment and other services to achieve commercialization.
However, under the dream of aesthetic beauty, the result is somewhat unexpected. In the early years, LinkedIn "Red Rabbit" launched by China, and it was officially rolled off the production line at the end of July 2019. Moreover, on the track of workplace social networking, there is no shortage of local players, and even on the basis of imitating LinkedIn, some innovations have been made. However, in addition to the current pulse, it is still continuing to stage the final "stubbornness", and almost all workplace social platforms such as Skyline Network have been folded, and none of them have been spared.
According to the analysis of Internet professionals, this aspect is because in addition to general business cooperation, it is difficult to find corresponding scenarios, especially commercial scenarios. On the other hand, in the early years of social work, there was not enough market education. Moreover, the socialization of strangers based on the dimension of the workplace is not as strange as the strange social network of heterosexual dating platforms, and the needs are more urgent and rigid.
Therefore, it has also led to all platforms that try to break through from the workplace social network to be eliminated by the market very early, and the reason why Pulse has become a survivor is also because of its main community, not social. In particular, the anonymous spit section "Professional Speech" launched by it is "well-known" in the industry.
However, after many years, it seems that the workplace people only anonymously complain about the company, boss, and boss in the pulse, which is their only pleasure in the pulse. In the process of repeated trial and error of the pulse, its platform still has a certain scale of users, and has also become its runner.
It is understood that the pulse revolves around workplace social networking, which can be described as repeated defeats. As early as 2018, Pulse invested 1 billion yuan, and the "Ladder Plan" expanded the coverage of industries and carried out in-depth cooperation with 1,000 partners in various industries. At that time, the pulse platform accumulated more than 50 million high-quality white-collar registered users.
You know, this figure was only 800,000 in 2014. Its original intention is to empower enterprises and workplace people in both directions. In the end, however, the plan fell short. Pulse CEO Lin Fan even described Pulse's plan this way: he spent 1 billion yuan to buy the lessons.
The reason why Pulse at that time was so bold was also because it had just completed a $200 million round of financing. However, this is only about 2 years since Lin Fan defined it as a failure, and there has been little financing news since then.
Coincidentally, Pulse once tried the model of in-the-workplace push to get closer to commercialization, but it also died without exception. Fortunately, in the end, the pulse was anonymously complained about, which gave it a glimmer of life, which was a gathering place for employees of large factories.
For example, when someone reveals that the year-end bonus of a tencent game team exceeds one million, and some people complain that the company's 996 management system is inhumane, etc., it can always trigger a large wave of people to watch, and the pulse also harvests countless traffic.
However, anonymous spitting is a double-edged sword. Because it is anonymous, users do not have to worry too much about the problem of speech responsibility, so the information inside is also mixed, so that the melon-eating masses are difficult to distinguish between true and false. Therefore, the pulse has also been repeatedly pushed to the cusp of public opinion, and even lawsuits are entangled, often facing the court with the big factory.
You know, those famous enterprises and factories should have been the gold masters of the pulse. But now, because the pulse has become the opposite of it, it has also allowed the pulse to suffer its own consequences, and it is getting farther and farther away from its commercialization. Although Pulse claims to have achieved breakeven in its early years, the extent of revenue and profit is still unknown.
As the saying goes, poor people think about change, and through the action of repeatedly trying new models and new routes, the pulse at this time is obviously very anxious. Therefore, if Pulse stands out from a number of workplace social platforms and becomes a rare survivor, it is a blessing. Then, in the years when the mobile Internet developed most rapidly, it went around for several years, and it has not found its own positioning, as well as a sustainable business model, which is also unfortunate.
The routine of frantic texting brushing the sense of existence does not work
As we all know, the marketing model of texting can even be traced back to the last century. In today's mobile phone SMS is only used by users to receive operator service information, Internet platform registration verification code, the function is very limited, the opening rate is low, can be imagined. But even so, pulses still use texting to bombard. Many netizens have also complained on the Internet, saying that they are overwhelmed.
For example, according to the "Red Star News" certification hundred number report, some users posted Weibo that the text messages sent by the pulse included "the average salary of your peers has been 3w/5w", "you have a student sister in XX company who wants to ask you questions", "XX company is interested in you and wants to talk to you" and other copywriters, suspected of fraudulent marketing, the same as the marketing routine of phishing websites. Even more jaw-dropping is that some users who have not yet registered for Pulse also said they received such text messages.
At that time, because Pulse was sued in court, he was sentenced to stop the relevant infringement and publicly apologized. However, the media said that since then, some people have still broken the news through Weibo, and Pulse has not fulfilled its commitments and continues to send similar text messages. Even users who have already uninstalled Pulse will also send sms again in an attempt to "activate" the user. Such a move will obviously make many users strongly disgusted.
In fact, from the founder of the pulse, you can see the thick technical gene. It is understood that Lin Fan is the former CTO of Sogou, in the early years of its service to some search business, but also different from the general "programmer" thinking, through the emergence of the pulse and continuous optimization iteration, it is enough to see that the founder team represented by Lin Fan can think more comprehensively about the product.
However, as a content community, compared with Zhihu, the pulse obviously lacks in-depth content, whether it is the rigor of its workplace knowledge, or the exaggeration of the community atmosphere and the flood of negative energy, which is its short-term difficult to reverse. What is even more fatal is that its only proud professional speech section is also because it magnifies the dark side of the employee's heart, so it is difficult to get rid of the labels of "spitting" and "gossip", so the capital side will also comprehensively consider its platform tone and development space while assessing its value.
According to observation, some media people frankly expressed regret that they used technology in the wrong place, believing that technology should have provided more efficient services for workplace needs, rather than relying on some "small tricks" that infringed on user privacy to develop more users who were not interested in the pulse.
In fact, because of the illegal collection of user information, the pulse has also stepped on the red line many times. According to reports, in October 2020, the website of the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology issued an APP notice on infringement of users' rights and interests, and Pulse was also notified for illegal collection of personal information.
In addition to its lack of scale in marketing, more people may question the pulse because as a workplace social platform, it does not provide more added value, but damages the image of the company and allows the negative energy of employees to erupt. So, this pulse is ready to go, trying to find a breakthrough from the perspective of the company's reviews, will it repeat the mistakes of the past?
Can pulses really be worth "100 billion DOLLARs"?
Although before the listing, Pulse has the right to keep a secret about the actual situation of its revenue and profits. However, through its user volume and business model, the outside world can also glimpse its profitability.
You know, even if the user quality and pulse are not at a level of knowledge, it is also painstakingly supported for many years, only to find a commercial road, and finally successfully landed in the secondary capital market, but now the market value is only 2 billion US dollars.
In the early years, Pulse founder Lin Fan revealed that Pulse will be listed in 2019, when it was expected to be valued at $10 billion, but after Pulse was interviewed the following year, the listing plan has been stranded so far. Since then, founder Lin Fan also said in the face of the media that he hopes that Pulse will become a company with a valuation of 100 billion US dollars. However, over the years, Pulse seems to be a valuable but not profitable company.
According to the relevant information released by the enterprise investigation, as of now, Pulse has experienced 4 financings, with a total financing amount of 300 million US dollars. However, its most recent financing is still in 2018, which was led by DST, followed by three old shareholders of IDG Capital, Morningside Capital and DCM. And Zhaopin was also a strategic investor in Pulse. According to the level of investment, the latest valuation is only hovering around 1 billion yuan.
Pulse's obsession with the pursuit of traffic has not been abandoned. However, there are lessons learned from LinkedIn's failure to return in China, and after that, Renren.com sold itself for $20 million. The way to get traffic through content is obviously too slow in this ever-changing Internet era. However, the pulse has taken the old path of the first two, and it is trapped in traffic thinking and cannot extricate itself.
As we all know, even in the recruitment field closest to money, it is now a long time ago, and the new recruitment model of Boss direct recruitment has long crushed the traditional recruitment platform, and the pulse tries to cut a hole in this vertical track through the review mode, which is obviously not so easy.
epilogue
As the earliest enterprise to take root in the workplace social track, Pulse also has a brilliant moment of rapid user growth. Moreover, in the face of the general market competition of the big waves, the pulse also maintains a strong vitality. Moreover, in its ups and downs of development, Pulse has also repeatedly tried to change itself, for example, Pulse has also changed the past "flower name" model, turning the user ID into a "unique nickname" and encouraging users to speak more responsibly. Pulse has also tried to solve the recruitment problem of enterprises through workplace pushing.
Now, after many years of going around, Pulse has begun to introduce new concepts, trying to provide solutions for the potential needs of the workplace recruitment scene through the logic of reviews. However, through multi-faceted analysis, it can be predicted that this is not a smooth road. Whether Pulse can once again have the luck that stood out in the early years under the new market turmoil, I am afraid it is difficult to predict. However, in the era of the endless emergence of various new product forms, there is not much time left for the pulse to try and make mistakes again.