In the past decade, before the advent of the smartphone era, feature phones once had a dominant position in the mobile phone market.
At that time, the domestic brand "Tianyu" mobile phone relied on its excellent quality and price advantages to win the opportunity among a number of mobile phone brands and won a place in the market.
"Tianyu" mobile phone from Tianyu Langtong Communication Equipment Co., Ltd., the chairman is a woman named Rong Xiuli, she looks amiable, no shelf.
However, such a gentle big sister was worth 4.2 billion yuan in 2008, occupying the 11th place in the Hurun IT rich list that year.
The entrepreneurial story behind her has attracted more people who want to find out.
Excellent character and learning
In 1963, Rong Xiuli landed on the ground in a working-class family in Henan, and her father often said: "People do not seek opportunities and strength", which deeply affected Rong Xiuli. Since childhood, she has been someone else's child.
On the way to study, Rong Xiuli can be regarded as a desperate sanlang, and her academic performance is always among the best, and even she will continue to learn the content of the back after learning her knowledge this semester.
At the age of 16, Rong Xiuli took the college entrance examination with the attitude of trying it out, and finally successfully entered the School of Mechanical and Automotive Engineering of Hunan University to study internal combustion engine.
Rong Xiuli's body is particularly tough and has a certain talent in sports. During his time at the school, in addition to his excellent studies, he also won the honor of Hunan Provincial College Sprint Championship three times.
Get the "Iron Rice Bowl"
After graduating from university, the outstanding Rong Xiuli was assigned to the Luoyang Tractor Research Institute not far from home as a researcher, with a stable job, equivalent to the current treatment of civil servants.
The positive and optimistic Rong Xiuli gradually received the affirmation and appreciation of the leaders in her work, and was slowly promoted from a basic researcher to a middle-level cadre, and had some achievements in her career.
However, for the young Rong Xiuli, she was not completely satisfied with the status quo.
Head north
In the face of reform and opening up, the national economic development is in a good new situation, Rong Xiuli came up with the idea of going to the sea to start a business, and wants to share some economic pressure for her family.
According to her interview in the "Half Moon Talk" column, "At that time, the house prices in some cities in Henan had risen to 4,000 square meters, and her salary as a middle-level cadre was only a few dozen yuan per month. ”
Rong Xiuli did not go directly to the sea like others, but first analyzed her own advantages and professional background. After the direction of development is determined, the relevant professional knowledge reserves cannot be less.
When he learned that there was a CEIBS MBA in Beijing at that time, he resolutely signed up for himself and studied business administration professionally.
That will not have to pay the cost of study, you can also receive a living allowance of 150 yuan per month, Rong Xiuli feels that it is higher than her previous salary, and she has been happy for a long time.
After more than a year of professional study, Rong Xiuli's professional knowledge mastered a large basket, and her vision also opened up a lot, after graduation, she entered the Beijing branch of Hong Kong Longcheng Trading Company and was responsible for the sales of communication equipment.
Not long after, the company received a large order, the other party is Finland's largest mobile phone agent Bai Li Feng, asked for help to see the current mainland market acceptance of mobile phones.
At that time, the most used by mainlanders was still the BP machine, the BP machine could not directly answer the phone, its role was to send a message to the receiver, so that the recipient called back.
Such an operation made the phone call more troublesome, and it was not as convenient as it is now. Fortunately, the application of landline telephones is more common, and many cities will set up phone booths on the side of the road, that is, fixed telephones account for a large part of the market share.
There is also a reason that the mobile phone belongs to the product that has just been developed, which is large and is called "big brother", with simple functions and unstable signals. The people who will use it are basically businessmen who are for face and big, and the average person has no money, and the other reason is that they are worried about losing their value.
Just like selling shoes to people on an island, people on the island are used to being barefoot and don't need it, and the quality of the shoes is not reassuring.
Rong Xiuli, who has always been optimistic, believes that she has found a big business opportunity, and she predicts that BP machines will definitely be replaced by mobile phones, and in the mainland market, the market field of mobile phones is still a blue ocean, and no one has yet developed them.
Real entrepreneurship
She wanted to be the first person to eat crabs. After doing the market survey, Rong Xiuli affirmed her own ideas more affirmed, and then when communicating with the boss about this matter, Rong Xiuli described the future business prospects of the mobile phone market with the boss, and persuaded the boss to directly take the agency right of Bai Li Feng and start first.
Under the persuasion of Rong Xiuli, the boss took over some of the sales orders for mobile phones.
However, after a year of sales, the sales of mobile phones have not increased much, resulting in a large inventory backlog of mobile phones, can not be sold, if this situation continues, it will lose more than 1.6 million yuan.
Because Rong Xiuli's boss is a Hong Konger, there are other industries in the family, and there are profits and losses in doing business, this matter has not brought too much harm to the boss himself.
The boss saw that the situation was not optimistic, and was ready to terminate the project and stop the loss in time. Rong Xiuli felt particularly guilty about this matter, so she took the initiative to tell the boss: "I will bear the source of funds for this batch of mobile phones, I am responsible for this matter, I still want to do it well." ”
Rong Xiuli, who still has hope for this industry, puts the backlog of mobile phones and agency rights on her shoulders together, and wants to continue to kill her own Kangzhuang Avenue in the dark.
Until a later time, a person who bought this mobile phone before reflected to Rong Xiuli that the quality of this mobile phone is not good, sometimes the receiving signal is weak, or even no signal, Rong Xiuli suddenly realized that he found the crux of the bad sales of mobile phones.
The root cause of the problem has been found, and finding a way to solve it is the big thing in front of us, Rong Xiuli on the one hand recalls the poor quality mobile phone, and promises to replace the new mobile phone with good quality to the customer, on the other hand, it forces "Bai Li Feng", on the grounds of the huge market potential in the mainland, so that the other party will return the poor quality mobile phone to the furnace to improve product quality.
In order to stabilize the situation, Rong Xiuli carried all the losses herself, and it was not an exaggeration to use the four words "worse" to describe Rong Xiuli at that time. At that time, the family saw Rong Xiuli, who was busy all day, and she was distressed and anxious, so the atmosphere at home was also tense.
It is said that the misfortunes and blessings depend on each other, Rong Xiuli recalled the poor quality mobile phone in time, established its own good reputation, and the company gradually turned from loss to profit. In this emerging industry, she successfully fired her first shot.
At that time, mobile phones began to develop from analog telephones to digital telephones, and after technological innovation, the appearance of mobile phones became more and more small and thin, and they were more in line with the aesthetic needs of the public and the audience was higher.
Seeing that the situation is getting better, Rong Xiuli has won the agency rights of Samsung, Ericsson and other brands to expand their sales business, by 1998, the company's annual sales have exceeded 1 billion, and the team of Rong Xiuli has become one of the top ten communication equipment dealers in China.
At that time, as a mobile phone brand agent, most mobile phone brands implemented a national unified pricing, which meant that regardless of the price given by the supplier, the final salesman could only sell it at a fixed price, which had the advantage of being that the price of a certain brand and model of mobile phone was unified nationwide, which enhanced the trust of the brand.
The disadvantage is that mobile phone suppliers and agents, and final sellers often have contradictions because of the interests of all parties, suppliers accuse agents of not doing a good job of management, and finally sellers think that agents eat kickbacks, compressing profit margins.
Rong Xiuli, who realized the problem, decided to shift her position, pulled herself out of the whirlpool of contradictions, and entered the field of independent research and development of mobile phones.
Founded "Tianyu"
At the end of 2002, Rong Xiuli took out all her belongings of 10 million yuan and established Tianyu Longtong Communication Equipment Company.
At the beginning of the establishment of the company, Rong Xiuli went everywhere to dig up talents and reserve human resources. She recruited Zhan Jun, a scientific research talent from Silicon Valley in the United States, to her command, and wanted to create a new situation in the field of mobile phone research and development.
Zhan Jun is a doctor of electronics and the first generation of experts in mobile phone research and development in China. He had the latest technology in mobile phone research and development at that time, and Rong Xiuli wanted to build his own mobile phone brand, and the cooperation between the two could be said to be a natural thing.
Within half a year, Zhan Jun developed the first mobile phone for the company, which made Rong Xiuli extremely excited, and immediately organized production into the market, but she never expected that a lack of consideration for details made her lose 80 million yuan again.
Zhan Jun's research and development technology is not wrong, the fault is that the mobile phone products from the laboratory need a certain production process in the production process, and the complete implementation of the process flow can control the range of good products for each mobile phone. Due to the lack of checks on this pass, the mobile phones sold have been subjected to a large number of complaints in a short period of time, and the defective rate of mobile phones has reached 22%.
Luck and misfortune depend on each other, Rong Xiuli paid a great price for her own poor consideration, after painful thinking, she chose to pass on the risk, outsourcing all the parts made by the mobile phone, and her side was only responsible for assembly.
In China, MediaTek's chip technology is very mature, is suitable for the best supplier of chips, other mobile phone parts handed over to Foxconn, Dongxin and other domestic word-of-mouth foundries to do.
Because the mobile phone that Rong Xiuli made at that time did not have a mobile phone license, no mobile phone research and development history, and no mobile phone production capacity, it was called a copycat mobile phone by the industry.
Later facts proved that Rong Xiuli had a unique vision, seized the market opportunity, and effectively integrated resources.
After the official release of this clamshell copycat version of the mobile phone with the label of Tianyu, Rong Xiuli adopted a two-step strategy. The first step is to change the agent's supply model, their own side is only responsible for selling to the agent at a certain price, and the agent's subsequent transaction price is determined by the agent himself, which greatly encourages the enthusiasm of the agent.
It is said that the agents who came to purchase at that time lined up at the door of Tianyu Company and asked for the purchase of goods.
The second step is to adopt the strategy of "rural encirclement of the city". Because the big brands at that time, Nokia, Motorola, etc. have occupied half of the country in big cities, and the market share is very stable, so that the Tianyu mobile phone, which is still a "novice", enters at this time, which is tantamount to hitting the stone with a pebble. Tianyu mobile phone price is low, reliable quality, choose to start from the countryside, which meets people's consumption needs.
From 2006 to 2008, the annual sales volume of Tianyu mobile phones ranged from 10 million to 17 million, and then to 24 million, and the sales volume once surpassed Huawei and became the first brand in China, only slightly inferior to Nokia's domestic sales in the same period.
Rong Xiuli won an overwhelming victory in this market war and won the title of "Godmother of Functional Machines".
At this time, Rong Xiuli should have stood at the highlight of her life, but she did not stop moving forward, and the first generation of mobile phones with camera functions was also out of her creative hands.
Rong Xiuli's influence in the industry has even expanded overseas, and in the context of the 2008 economic crisis, an American venture capital invested 530 million yuan in Tianyu Longtong, which indicates that the development of Tianyu Longtong has entered a more rapid period.
The "Celestial Language" declined
Since 2009, China has ushered in the 3G era, with the introduction of iPhone mobile phones, mobile phones have entered the era of smart phones, which means that the mobile phone industry will usher in a new round of reshuffle.
No one can predict the future, Rong Xiuli is the same, at that time a variety of mobile phone systems came into being, Rong Xiuli first introduced the Microsoft system into the Tianyu mobile phone as the main system of the mobile phone, because the market response was cold, had to replace the system. Later, with the use of Ali's research and development system, the decline is still difficult to avoid.
The reason for this is that the Android system at that time won the reputation in the competition and seized the opportunity.
Another is that the audience of mobile phones is younger, vivo and oppo rely on celebrity endorsements to enhance their popularity, and the Tianyu mobile phones that have not expanded publicity have quickly become second- and third-line mobile phones, and gradually no one cares.
For this period of history, Rong Xiuli once said frankly: "No industry is as fast as the mobile phone industry, and correspondingly, no industry is as fiercely competitive as the mobile phone industry." ”
Until recently, the news of a "copycat machine godmother", 60-year-old flipped and earned an IPO" attracted the attention of the public, and the name Rong Xiuli was once again concerned by the public.
Founded "Weijie Chuangxin"
After the decline of Tianyu mobile phones, Rong Xiuli, as the leader, did not collapse and disappeared into the mobile phone industry. Just as she chose to abandon agents and switch to mobile phone manufacturers, now, her "Weijie Chuangxin" is a processor specializing in the production of mobile phone chips, and she has embarked on the top of the mobile phone production market.
At the beginning of the establishment of "Weijie Chuangxin", in order to seize more market share, Rong Xiuli occupied a certain share in the market through price war, and even its old friend, MediaTek, also had a 28.12 stake in "Weijie Chuangxin", which has to be said that rongxiuli's strength still exists.
The news shows that "Weijie Chuangxin" intends to raise 2.5 billion yuan. Of these, 1.9 billion was spent on R&D and production projects and 500 million for working capital. Former competitors - Xiaomi, Huawei, etc. also hold 1.57% and 3.57% of the shares.
From a scholar to a R&D engineer to a business leader, Rong Xiuli shines as a woman in the new era. No matter what kind of environment you are in, you are still like a dazzling sun, emitting your own light. Because she understands that a crisis is a turning point, and nothing is set in stone. Only by using one's own wisdom and striving to move toward one's goal is the last word.