Author: Zhu Mingqi
Source: Zhenghe Island (ID: zhenghedao)
Xi'erqi is the name of an ordinary subway station in the northwest corner of Beijing, but it is better known as the gathering place of China's Internet industry. 2 kilometers west of Xi'erqi Subway Station is the headquarters buildings known as "Dachang".
Just as Xi'erqi is to Beijing, Huaqiang North is by no means a geographical concept in Shenzhen, and for many 3C consumers, this is the cosmic center of "anything can be bought", the vane of global consumer electronics, and the place where countless pioneers with dreams fight back and create miracles.
This was originally two places where there was no intersection, when the Wave of the Internet wave after wave, the Internet upstarts who were bent on "ringing the bell" would definitely not think that one day they would have any intersection with the people who sold cottage machines in Shenzhen Huaqiang North, but when China's high-end manufacturing was called by the times, this was the two groups that inevitably needed to shake hands.
01
For grassroots entrepreneurs, the big era is like an elevator.
Pan Xiaolei's first "elevator" was in 2007, that year, Wang Xingdu was still buried in Huaqing Jiayuan to start a business, The Zhongguancun hypermarket was still bustling, shopping foreigners wore Made in China shoes and socks, clothing, bags, small household appliances, it was equivalent to Made in China, the protagonist of the Internet at that time was still a portal, Sohu Building in the south gate of Tsinghua, students passed by and looked up, the glass windows of tall buildings reflected endless clouds and sunlight.
Ten years later, pan Xiaolei resigned from Qualcomm, went south from Beijing, and moved to Shenzhen, becoming a member of Huaqiang North's tens of thousands of foundry.
The tide of globalization is receding, the East and west are shaking, the cheap labor force in Southeast Asia is trying to reorganize the world's factories, and the world-famous Chinese manufacturing is facing difficult transformation and upgrading.
Under the crisis, there are also opportunities. The internal circulation roars and flows, the big market is ready to go, the domestic consumer electronics industry is competing for thousands of sails, and the Internet, which also reaches the node, is using hardware to create new opportunities for Chinese manufacturing.
In 2018, Pan Xiaolei's foundry met NetEase Youdao, an Internet company in Xierqi, and what he did not expect was that the factory borrowed a smart hardware order to complete the counterattack and break a new road from Chinese manufacturing to China's intelligent manufacturing.
The sky is like a dome, shrouded in four wildernesses, and when the outlet is no longer the Internet and China's manufacturing shake hands, there are still first-line exits.
Pan Xiaolei's foundry Tianhe Zhiyuan was originally opened in Shenzhen Nanshan Science and Technology Park, because of Tencent, which is a blessed land in the eyes of many entrepreneurs, but Fuyin has been delayed, starting from its founding in 2012, for 4 consecutive years, losing money every year.
At the beginning, the company rented a remote house, and the owner of the mold factory visited, and he had to make 3 phone calls in a row to ask for directions: Where is your company?
Tianhe Zhiyuan's main product is a tablet computer, and the industry is called "public board". High-tech tablets, fading the aura in the factory, have become a standardized product with a unified Android system, with no technical content.
Those public boards that are ready to cross the ocean to Europe, America and Africa will be neatly marked with the logo requested by customers before leaving the factory, and since then these public boards have nothing to do with Pan Xiaolei, and he prefers to call them "white cards".
At that time, the white card factory was a business card of Shenzhen. All stalls in Huaqiang North are crowded with mobile phones, MP3s and tablets without brands. The shoe factory owner took the mold and dared to imitate Apple and produce tablet computers. Previously, when the iPhone 4 was on fire, Pan Xiaolei spent several months pushing a high-imitation machine of the iPhone 4 developed with the Android system - "Guguo Mobile Phone", which was famous for a while.
According to one report, just one month after the iPad launched, 60% of Chinese manufacturers launched their own tablets at a fairly affordable price. Within two years, industry news impressively wrote, "Of the five major tablet manufacturers, the only one whose shipments have declined is Apple."
Pan Xiaolei recalled that when the market was at its hottest, Huaqiang North's cottages and white-card tablets shipped tens of thousands of units a day, "At that time, it was really crazy."
Under the huge dividend, the white card OEM has become an elevator for the rise of Huaqiang North. Mobile phones, tablets, wireless headphones and later e-cigarettes, small appliances, ear temperature guns... Here, the wave of global consumer electronics can all be condensed in a few kilometers.
In 2014, Taiwan Magazine reported that 13 years ago, Shenzhen's per capita GDP was only 1/3 of that of Taiwan, and 13 years later, Shenzhen's per capita GDP surpassed that of Taiwan.
Experts and scholars on the other side are worried, "When Shenzhen rushes into Silicon Valley and strives for the business opportunities of the third wave of manufacturing revolution, Taiwan has no strength to resist, will we be farther and farther away from Shenzhen?" ”
Public plates and white cards are the epitome of Chinese manufacturing in those years, and countless Chinese factories are busy like ant nests, but they are always repeating yesterday's days.
Shenzhen daylight is long, what Pan Xiaolei did not expect was that soon after the elevator speed slowed down, and even took a sharp turn.
Due to the explosion of flat plate production in a few years, the supply far exceeded the market demand, tens of thousands of white-label foundries rolled out of the bloody rain, and the foundry no longer made money. When the competition is fierce, the wholesale price of a "public board" is only 300 yuan, and the gross profit is only 5 or 6 yuan.
When the loss was the most severe, Tianhe Zhiyuan shrank from 130 to 30 people, nanshan could not stay any longer, and moved to Bao'an. The company meets quarterly to discuss whether to withdraw to Beijing.
After 2016, tablet orders increased, and the company finally began to make a profit, however, Pan Xiaolei always felt that it was not what he wanted.
Pan Xiaolei, a post-70s graduate student of the University of Electronic Science and Technology, has always had a hard-core hardware dream like many engineering students. After graduation, he went to foreign companies such as Siemens and Qualcomm, but after working for a few years, he still decided to start a business and make hardware.
After being frustrated in Beijing, he went south to Shenzhen and started his business in China's most factory-spirited special zone. However, the "public board" in front of him made him feel anxious.
At that time, Huaqiang North, and even the Pearl River Delta manufacturing industry behind it, still continued the traditional factory model, And Chinese manufacturing was equivalent to taking orders for export, without technology accumulation, and intelligent upgrading could not be talked about.
Pan Xiaolei believes that there is no innovation and technical content, no own products, in fact, the risk is huge for the foundry, a little careless, a batch of goods pressed in the warehouse, the entire company will immediately break the cash flow.
So, he began to try to upgrade himself and choose a smart hardware track. He recruited a group of R&D engineers who graduated from vocational colleges and took them to R&D.
At that stage, as long as it was related to AI, he did it, and Bitmain cooperated with the 3D face recognition terminal, and also helped an education company to make a large-size smart screen, as well as voice interactive robots, but has not been able to toss out a product that was eventually paid for by the market.
Before encountering NetEase Youdao, Tianhe Zhiyuan has run out of food near the end, and the company is ready to move, leaving only the last conference room, "After seeing youdao and then go, what if it becomes?" You can't leave the conference room without leaving."
02
At the meeting, NetEase Youdao supply chain colleague Qiao Yu flew from Beijing to Shenzhen, before which he had visited a number of well-known foundries in Shenzhen, including Wingtech, some factories estimated that the output would not be too large and unwilling to pick up, and some replied, your thing is very good-looking, but the circuit board can not be made, too narrow.
Some factory authorities took a shell and commanded Qiao Yu in turn, "You can sell this, why are you doing that thing?" ”
This is not arrogance, but the inertial thinking of Huaqiang Peking University factories, they have no intention of research and development, and most of the profits come from fluctuations in trade prices. They benefit from the cycle and are trapped in the loop.
The meeting between Qiao Yu and Pan Xiaolei was in the conference room of Trina Zhiyuan Company, and he pulled out an ID hand plate, that is, the appearance model of the second generation of Youdao Dictionary Pen.
Pan Xiaolei was a little moved, "The front glass back metal is a design that has never been designed before, and the metal thick shell and streamlined panel feel very advanced."
He imagined tucking AI and optics into the model, "if it could be made, the product would be dramatic."
Dictionary and pen cooperation landed, the last conference room did not have to retreat, Tianhe Zhiyuan in a group of more than two thousand Huaqiang North peers, breaking through and turning, looking for a new exit.
However, making hardware is a long and difficult process.
In December 2018, NetEase Youdao and Tianhe Zhiyuan contacted, the project was officially established in January, the design was verified in March, the comprehensive verification was carried out at the end of April, and the small batch test was originally scheduled for June, but it encountered twists and turns, and the research and development was carried out until July.
This is a completely different work rhythm from the previous Huaqiang North years, Pan Xiaolei led the team all the way, betting on life and death, and even more betting on the future.
Because everything is from scratch, and the dictionary pen is different from the mobile phones and tablets that have been standardized in the market, there are many technical problems in research and development that need to be overcome.
Because of the curvature of the shell, it needs to be redesigned; because of the scale of production, it is necessary to establish a flexible supply chain, because of the precise identification technology of the nib OCR, it needs to be considered in the design and assembly; because it is an educational product, it needs countless iterations and tests.
The original circuit board production has also encountered new challenges. The slender body of the dictionary pen requires an extremely narrow internal circuit board, and in a very narrow space, it needs to be exquisitely done. The technical team did a lot of polishing work, and the circuit board was repaired little by little into the shape of a pen. Eventually, after the chip is placed on the board, only a millimeter gap remains.
Everything needs to be refined. Camera calibration, need to develop algorithms to solve, WiFi connection is unstable, the team needs to tackle a month to solve.
In Pan Xiaolei's view, the set of playing methods of youdao engaging in hardware is not the same thing as the Internet thinking he knows. The Internet pays attention to only fast and not broken, while hardware believes in slow work and fine work, which takes time to polish.
"Youdao polishes the product meticulously, from technical indicators to quality, to product design, it is different, and the hardware experience is very deep." Pan Xiaolei realized that in the past few years since he went to Shenzhen, the Internet has also undergone profound changes.
Pan Xiaolei once went to Beijing Xierqi for a meeting, stood at the "Internet crossroads" where NetEase, Baidu, Sina and Tencent converged, recalled that he had started a business in Zhongguancun, and lamented the changes of the times.
What he saw was another era elevator. Over the past decade, the big factories that survived the portal era have moved their headquarters here; a new species that originated in the mobile era has made their home here; and countless startups have scattered and arched, waiting to be among the big factories.
Here in the café is talking about algorithms, canteen topic hot discussion code, in the car back seat of the conference call, a tens of millions of traffic projects gradually out of the prototype.
Xi'erqi is like a banner that attracts the country's top technologists and creates the story of the next era. Unlike HuaqiangBei, Pan Xiaolei in Xi'erqi, and the discussion and collision with these highly educated technical developers always made him feel the pleasure of racing on the accelerator.
With the development of the dictionary pen project, Tianhe Zhiyuan and NetEase Youdao continue to collide, the Internet's research and development thinking, fine control of products, subtly changing Pan Xiaolei and his team.
Many people have the feeling that before starting the project, they are the technical workers of Huaqiang North, and as the project progresses, they find the feeling of a product engineer.
When the West Erqi met Huaqiang North, a new story was born. In July 2019, mass production of Youdao dictionary pens began, with the first 12,000 units.
At the celebration banquet, everyone drank hi, Pan Xiaolei told the team and NetEase Youdao partners that every sales exceeded 20,000 units, please eat lobster.
Based on the past shenzhen manufacturing experience, Pan Xiaolei's expectation in his heart is 200,000 to 300,000 units a year, which is already the sales standard of the explosive models in his heart.
What no one expected was that in the beginning of the school season in September of that year, the sales of dictionary pens exploded, and in the following two years, NetEase Youdao dictionary pens have always been in the top of Jingdong and Tmall.
In the beginning of the school season in September 2020, Youdao dictionary pen orders were added in days, and during the "Double Eleven" period, more than 2,000 offline stores in Youdao were out of stock several times, and "the whole market is boiling".
Youdao Dictionary Pen debuted at the 2022 Boao Forum for Asia
After the youdao dictionary pen was on fire, a large number of competitors appeared in the market, Huaqiang North counterparts began to imitate the trend, dozens of small-scale enterprises launched products, and finally even the Antarctic people who sold cotton sweaters also sold dictionary pens. However, the market share of these companies together can not catch up with youdao dictionary pen.
Today, Tianhe Zhiyuan has revenues of hundreds of millions of dollars and annual net profits of 20 to 30 million, and more well-known companies have begun to seek cooperation with them.
Of course, there are also aspects of loss. Because of the lobster promise, Pan Xiaolei invited many lobsters, and finally simply wrapped up the seafood street near the company and went to open it to eat.
03
The times elevator is running non-stop, both the rising stage and the unstoppable downward cycle.
Pan Xiaolei may not realize that the Internet "elevator" has long stalled, and the dictionary pen he made is actually an "accelerator" created by the Internet for itself.
Since the traffic peaked, the Internet, which has experienced countless outlets, has begun to shrink for the winter. The business line of the big factory was completely abolished, the Internet headhunting became a single difficult, and the transformation was done into a red bride business, and thousands of membership fees were charged every quarter.
Ten years ago, Shenzhen changed cages for birds and moved out to low-end productivity. Compared with the workers who have left the closed factory, the white-collar workers who are now packing up their cartons and leaving the big factories may have no different looks. There is a consensus that this winter is cold and long.
And those who stay on the internet, struggling to find new lifts for the falling elevator.
Last year, the implementation of the double reduction policy, the focus of education shifted to schools and families, and smart education hardware became an export, from dictionaries and printers to learning lights, new hardware grafted with AI capabilities emerged in an endless stream.
The "2022 China Education Intelligent Hardware Industry Report" released by the Duo Whale Education Research Institute estimates that the compound annual growth rate of China's education intelligent hardware market will reach 26%, and the market size will exceed 100 billion in 2024.
Different from each elevator before, the export of the Internet this time is no longer a traffic outlet, but relies on the hardware manufacturing industry chain, returns to the real industry, draws strength from the entity, and gives the entity new vitality.
In intelligent education hardware, the dictionary pen is a successful attempt.
Under the competition of dictionary pens, a new incremental market was opened up. And the product is not limited to dictionary pens. Some foundries with AI technology have opened the road to self-operated brands.
Today, Tianhe Zhiyuan R & D personnel doubled, the company started a comprehensive upgrade of research and development, established an independent product line, has its own laboratory, can directly do the whole machine test, environmental test, reliability test and other professional experiments.
Tianhe Zhiyuan has bid farewell to the traditional foundry model, and the technical confidence even gives it the courage to say NO to the disapproved Party A. Pan Xiaolei finally broke free of those years of being bound by orders. Those days and nights, only repetitive work, no concept of product.
The kernel of evolution is the reorganization of genes in two eras.
A gene originated from Shenzhen's strong industrial base. In the 40 years of reform and opening up, Shenzhen is the biggest beneficiary, the traditional manufacturing industry has its limitations, but the accumulation of a solid industrial production chain and supply chain system. Like in martial arts novels, where the small wuxianggong of martial arts is copied, the other side of Huaqiangbei's "cottage" label is a deep internal force cultivation.
Another gene is the innovative technology represented by the Internet, and the power represented by it is destruction, remodeling, innovation, and replacing backward productive forces with more advanced productive forces. When artificial intelligence lands on hardware products, all technologies and content have new forms of connection, and innovation will occur naturally.
At a deeper level, this is also a fusion of two spirits.
One is from the West Erqi, which is the Internet's never-ending exploration of the future world; one comes from Huaqiang North, from the resilience of China's manufacturing industry and the courage to dare to be the first in the world. This is the way to succeed in Youdao Dictionary, and it also gives the entire industry new guidance: the cross-border empowerment of the Internet, opening up new exports for the industry.
In 2022, the sudden outbreak of the epidemic has divided the world into an island, people looking forward to economic revitalization will look to the south, the upgrading of Chinese manufacturing to China's intelligent manufacturing is imminent, and everyone is waiting for the roar of the economic engine to restart.
This is an experimental model for China's manufacturing transformation, which is also a new attempt for the Internet to empower industry. In this story, there is no outlet, only an outlet.