Text | Zheng Xiaowei
"Hello everyone, I'm Li Shi."
The fourth season of "Talk Show Conference" began broadcasting nearly a month ago, and the reputation of word of mouth continued to rise. The harsh Douban gave a high score of 7.5 points, and the total number of broadcasts of the program on Tencent Video reached 1.44 billion times.
A broadcasting platform has previously given more intuitive comparative parameters: "The Voice of China" broadcast two weeks earlier than it had 28 million times, "Heartbeat Signal" 12 million times, and "Talk Show Conference" broadcast 46 million times in two days.
Needless to say, this talk show has become the top of the current variety show.
In the first episode, the show was broadcast 200 million times. The phrase "two hours, happy" floating through the barrage proves that this is not a lengthy network that tests the audience's endurance.
And this is only one of the blockbusters launched by Xiaoguo Culture Company. Another of its ace networks, "Spit Conference", has been held for five seasons, and the latest season of 10 episodes has been played 1.68 billion times.
With the help of "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference", Xiaoguo Culture has not only become the first top content platform company to continuously produce 1 billion online comprehensives, but also continues to dominate social media. As of September 13, the Weibo topic #Talk Show Conference has reached 8.14 billion views, and the #Spit Conference has been read by 11.92 billion.
Ceo He Xiaoxi said proudly at the end of 2019, "Spit conference, talk show conference, Saturday talk show (in cooperation with Youku), this is our three largest IP online, we are also the first and only company in China with three 1 billion + IP." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="10" > from "human not worthy" to "human outlet"</h1>
The theme of the fourth season of the talk show conference is: talk show contestants from all walks of life, according to the topic of each episode, cut in from different perspectives, use professional comedy creation ability to output content, interpret the value proposition of "from industry to life", and compete for the annual "talk show king" crown.
This is the "comedic effect" that the program's chief planner Li Shi and his company Xiaoguo Culture have continuously developed. At the end of the second season of "Talk Show Conference", Li Yan expressed the perception that "everything is good, that is, the format is not fierce enough". By the third season, the show was adjusted to PK mode, "aggravating the friction" and completing the circle breaking as desired. This phenomenon-level variety show directly brought fire to the industry, and won a bunch of "big and small kings" such as Wang Mian, Li Xueqin, and Yang Kasa.
"Beijing News" once used the term "human pump" to vividly evaluate the third season of the talk show conference: many topics in the show are cut from the pain points of young people, and the contestants express their views on life in a self-deprecating way. What the program presents is not to blindly fight chicken blood and shout slogans, but to dare to face the difficulties of the real world, not to escape the embarrassment of life and work, to deconstruct the world with humorous passages, and to laugh at life with an optimistic attitude. This is the real "human pump".
The initiator of the "human pump" is also in contrast to Li Tian, who chants "the world is not worth it", forming a role contrast.
In the fourth season, Li Shi, who "controlled the whole field", was full of spring breeze, and the advertisement was soft - from milk to e-commerce, from toothpaste to electric vehicles, the sponsor's oral broadcast was twice as fast as it did not appear lengthy.
"Jindian organic milk has been fourteen years, Jindian has insisted on organic for fourteen years, and the talk show conference has insisted on having me for four years, all of which are rare and valuable persistence, and they are not easy." Li Shi joked in the advertising implant.
And like Li Tian, the Chinese talk show industry that xiaoguo culture has deeply cultivated has finally improved because of its valuable persistence.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="18" > a dominant but weak company in an emerging industry</h1>
Xiaoguo Culture was founded on May 29, 2014, when the number of registered employees was only three, and the correspondence address was an office, Room 523, 5th Floor, No. 555 Wuding Road, Jing'an District, Shanghai.
According to the "Southern Metropolis Daily", the development of laughing fruit culture began in 2016. 2017 can be described as a year of rapid progress in the history of the development of Xiaoguo culture, and the performance has turned into a profit. In 2016, the operating income of Xiaoguo Culture was 39.7356 million yuan, with a loss of 13.2288 million yuan; in 2017, the operating income of Xiaoguo Culture was 180 million yuan and the profit was 17.07 million yuan. On the other hand, the number of employees of Xiaoguo Culture has also increased from 45 in 2016 to 75 in 2017 and 110 in 2018, and the scale continues to grow.
2017 is the year of the beginning of China's talk show industry. The popularity of a series of programs such as "Spit Conference" and "Talk Show Conference" has achieved the culture of laughing fruit and also gained the spoils of capital.
In July 2016, Xiaoguo Culture obtained angel round financing from Wang Sicong Pusi Capital, in April 2017, completed a round of financing of 120 million yuan, and in May 2017, it announced the completion of the A+ round of financing, led by Tiantu Capital, Chinese Culture, Youzu Culture and Nanshan Capital. In April 2019, a new round of industrial and commercial changes was completed, the registered capital increased from 1.83 million yuan to 1.89 million yuan, and the new investors Nanshan Xingyao and Tiantu Dongfeng were added, both of which also participated in the A+ round of financing.
Last year, it was reported that the valuation of Xiaoguo Culture had reached 3 billion yuan. According to the enterprise investigation, Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media Co., Ltd. currently has a registered capital of 2.08 million yuan. The major shareholder Ye Feng holds 31.5% of the shares, the company's CEO He Xiaoxi holds 6%, and Li Shi (real name Li Ruichao) holds 4.5%.
As the founder and chairman of the company, Ye Feng now only appears on important occasions, such as throwing out "Don't forcibly embrace the post-00s" at the 2019 Annual Meeting of Chinese Business Leaders. A large number of pre-stage affairs and behind-the-scenes work are mainly handled by the latter two shareholders.
Li is the "soul" of the company, witnessing the development of Chinese talk shows from scratch in less than five years. In the past five years, he has started from the screenwriter to achieve the "industry industry chain coverage" of pre-planning, post-editing, knocking guests, on-site execution, business docking, pre-collection of drafts, screenwriter reading, performance on stage, theater operation, talking about customers, talking about investment, talking about platforms, talking about signing contracts, and talking about termination, and is most proficient in the talk show industry. In his own words, "Online and offline, in front of and behind the scenes, I should not do it, and I have done almost all the things related to talk shows." ”
In Li's view, most of the work in the talk show industry is related to creation. Li Is not only the leader, participant and co-worker of the Xiaoguo Culture Creative Team. He instilled in the new employee training manual the value and significance of the establishment of this company, "The essence of the work is trading, we are using our time and talents, through a company, to exchange money with the market." ”
This pamphlet was recently published in a new book, "Li Birthday Talk Show Work Manual". In the book, Li Yan defines Xiaoguo culture as "a large but weak company in an emerging industry", "Because of the particularity of the industry, I always encourage everyone to make this broken company better as much as possible, we face the market together, and reduce the transaction costs of the talk show industry facing the market." ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="28" > get up every day to write five paragraphs before playing on the phone</h1>
In this "for my colleagues" booklet, Li Shi made a positive frame for the company's culture and gave a kind reminder to the employees of the company. For example, "creation can not rely on thunder, creation should be able to split yourself when you are fine", "storytelling is also a value", "performance should pursue a kind of highly controlled loss of control", "practice yourself fiercely, the stronger you are, the more you find your audience"...
This kind of follow-up guidance covers the details of the work, "Is your quantity enough?" Can you get up every day to write five paragraphs before you play with your phone? Can you change the five paragraphs you wrote in the morning better every day before going to bed? ”
Professional - has become a high-frequency word in Li's book, "keep professional, always be professional, so that the people who come into contact with you will not look down on you, and are willing to trust you." ”
Li Shi once went to meet a guest with the screenwriter who was very difficult to cooperate with, and brought a very good manuscript, but the guest was unwilling to accept it and grinded for several hours. After coming out, the screenwriter asked Li Shi, "Do you say that people will be so stupid after they become successful people?" Li Shi replied, "It doesn't matter, just do the work." In the end, the guest did not change much content on the stage, and Li Yan slowly persuaded the other party to use the preparatory content, and the performance effect was also very good.
Another time, Li Shi and the screenwriter together to find a guest to write. It was a very good guest to work with, but the content requirements were very high. Li And the screenwriter spent hours overturning everything before and writing a new manuscript. The guests also performed quite well on the spot.
Li concluded afterwards, "I must have been angry when the first thing happened. But these two experiences are only happy to recall, and I feel that both treatments are professional. ”
The guest who did not respect people, Li Shi had never publicly said bad things about him. The explanation given by Li Shi is, "We must protect the privacy of agents." In this way, everyone, including potential agents in the future, will understand that you are professional and can rest assured. ”
"Professionalism" has also appeared within the company". For example, in the earliest screenwriting reading meeting, most of the manuscripts were vacant, and most of the employees came to think about it, and they didn't think there was anything wrong with it. Nowadays, everyone will basically come to the conference with a complete first draft.
Li Yan admitted that the work of many people in the company's initial period was very loose, there was no process to speak of, and it was more like an "interest class". "Now the so-called stinky problem of the content industry, our company has at the beginning."
He also lamented: "The current (mature) model is achieved by our efforts little by little. ”
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="39" > self-driving force is a quality that needs to be perfused</h1>
In the first half of 2020, Li Shi's laughing fruit culture suffered multiple blows, not only many rounds of national and global tours were cancelled due to the epidemic, but also because of multiple rounds of public opinion storms were sent to hot searches to swallow bitter fruits. This made Li Shidu laugh at himself in "Talk Show Conference", "I underestimated 2020, and I also underestimated this company." ”
He Xiaoxi, CEO of the company, also "went out of the circle" in one of the rounds of public opinion storm and was named by the pool.
Chi Zi was once a well-known artist under Xiaoguo Culture, and there was a conflict between the two sides in early 2020. After being "removed from the company group chat" by He Xiaoxi, Chi Zi posted a screenshot on Weibo, and He Xiaoxi shared the official statement.
In He Xiaoxi's view, Xiaoguo currently "has more than 90% of the top talents of China's young comedies", who can not only act and edit, but also have continuous content output. This is also in line with Li's original intention to make stand-up comedians a technology producer and innovator in the comedy manufacturing industry.
After the "pool storm", the outside world is also very curious, how should these talented young people manage, how can they output a steady stream of creativity? Will the loose nature of literary and artistic creators exposed in the public opinion storm restrict the development and leap of this "dominant but weak company in emerging industries"?
He Xiaoxi also thought and responded to this, "Calm down and think, in fact, it (public opinion storm) reminds me that the company has entered different stages." It's not that the previous things are wrong and should be overturned, but when it comes to upgrading and adjusting, the income structure, organizational capabilities, business models, these need to be adjusted. ”
What He Xiaoxi is talking about is actually the standardization and institutionalization advocated by most modern enterprises.
Li has long realized the importance of management upgrades after the company's scale - although he still jokingly describes the self-owned company as a "broken company", laughs that "I will not care about the life and death of this company", and "encourages everyone to take me out of the future to create a better company". But the conversation turned sharply, "Of course I still do my best to maintain this industry and this company, and of course I still hope it is good." ”
He once stressed to his friends, "Don't think you should have any privileges because you have done creative work." Don't be inexplicably proud and feel aggrieved when no one is paying attention to a profession that no one is forcing you to do. Don't think you can be late, you can insult clients, you can scold your colleagues for not knowing how to create because you're creative— unless you're doing it particularly well — even then, it's best not to. ”
In an interview, Li mentioned that Hulan is one of his most admired employees. Even though the two had been drinking until four o'clock in the morning the night before, and at nine o'clock the next morning, Hu Lan was still able to return to the office on time for a meeting. Li Shi concluded that this kind of professionalism and self-driving force is the quality that needs to be infused in the laughing fruit system.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="50" > talent has the greatest say</h1>
As a big parent in charge of a group of literary and artistic youth, CEO He Xiaoxi also emphasizes the proportion of "self-driving force" in the company's culture. In a keynote speech, he simply named the sharing "Cultural Company Management as We Understand It – Self-Driven Companies."
In He Xiaoxi's view, the management method of the cultural and entertainment content talent team is not complicated, "the best management is: to make a product that everyone thinks is particularly cattle, which can solve 90% of the management problems." Because everyone comes together for the sake of good products, which is why we do the lowest logic of these products, on the one hand, it is a good product, and it is also a good management tool. ”
What Li Shi cherishes the most is also the management system he created in the company, "My most important work is not which program, which show, or which book, but the culture and system of the reading meeting that I established within the Laughing Fruit Culture, the atmosphere, method and the spiritual temperament of everyone working together in it." I think reading will be my most important work. ”
All of the works of the stand-up comedians under Xiaoguo Culture are produced through the reading committee mechanism. At this meeting, everyone has to take out the manuscript for performance, and the effect of the program is directly judged by the response of the venue. "It's cruel, it's direct, nobody cares who you are." He Xiaoxi commented and emphasized, "In Xiaoguo, talent has the greatest right to speak." ”
Under this mechanism, the "old driver" is afraid of losing face in front of the new person and needs to show a good performance; the new colleague will also feel motivated and hope to perform in front of the seniors. "I'm in meetings with the best people, and one day I'll be able to be like them, and that's the biggest driver in the industry." He Xiaoxi also appreciates the team motivation model created by "Birthday President".
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="56" > future talk show directors are produced from boot camp</h1>
Of course, what He Xiaoxi has to consider is not only the online blockbuster, but also the development layout of the entire industry.
In fact, He Xiaoxi is currently the legal representative of Shanghai Xiaoxing Culture Media Co., Ltd., which was established in July last year with a registered capital of 1 million yuan and wholly owned by Shanghai Xiaoguo Culture Media Co., Ltd. Compared with the business scope of Xiaoguo Culture, the new company is a new addition in terms of commercial performances, performance venue operations, and film distribution. This is regarded by the outside world as "in addition to the development of xiaoguo culture in online talk show variety shows, it will further increase the operation of offline performances."
In recent years, Xiaoguo Culture has indeed made an intensive layout offline, such as creating talk show clubs in 30 cities across the country, allowing each actor to participate in urban performances. The WeChat public account Xiaoguo Factory operated by Xiaoguo Culture shows that recent performances include Guangzhou (tickets from 120 yuan), Zhuhai (from 120 yuan), and Shanghai (from 80 yuan). Among them, the tickets for the Shanghai Huangpu Theater Small Theater have been sold out.
"We inspire people to go to talk shows, and not being able to buy a ticket is the effect we want." In He Xiaoxi's view, the development of talk shows into national tour products will help talk show actors feel their own "industry dignity".
In addition to performances, the commercial play of laughing fruit culture is also enriched: trying to stick talk shows with some of the more fashionable cultural labels, prompting the public to more actively integrate into the march of comedy itself.
Based on this creative attempt, on May 20, 2018, the Laughter Offline Comedy Center Puwo HUB, which integrates talk show performances, comedy theme bars, and pop-up shops, was officially opened in Shanghai. This is considered by the outside world to be an important node in the layout of the Laughing Fruit Line.
At the end of August of that year, Xiaoguo also laid out offline in Beijing: in a 2,000㎡ venue in The Collaboration Hutong, 17 talk shows were held in 3 days, namely the big coffee special session, the newcomer field, the Roast battle, the double pooling field, the women's special session, the comic talent special session, the magic special session, the English special session and the Cantonese special session.
These performances, along with talk shows, together create a "comedy weekend" of laughter.
"If the previous talk show performances started at 7 p.m., the audience came at 6:30 p.m. and ended at 9 p.m. Then, when you come to the 'Comedy Weekend', you can also go for a walk, drink, chat, and see the exhibition. In the process, we can expand everyone's activity space and increase their contact points, consumption points and communication points. In He Xiaoxi's view, this is exactly the offline performance 2.0 model they want to try: with content as the core and peripherals as the auxiliary, constantly lengthening the time and space line offline.
On September 4 and 5, 2019, Xiaoguo took a big step forward and realized the "cultural out-of-the-sea" - premiering overseas in Melbourne, Australia. If it were not for the sudden outbreak of the epidemic, last year would have performed 20 global tours in Japan, Australia, New Zealand, the United States and Canada.
In the design of the laughing fruit culture, the Pu Hoo Club undertakes the function of transporting personnel for the company's offline scene. At present, puo clubs have been established in the north, Shanghai, Guangzhou, Shenzhen, Hangzhou, Suzhou, Nanjing, Chengdu, Chongqing and other places. The basic model is to arrange an open wheat for each club, where new actors polish their works, "old drivers" help revise, and every year a group of "potential stocks" emerging from all over the world will be selected to be trained in Shanghai training camps. It is reported that in addition to the charges charged by the shanghai strongholds, the performances of other clubs are basically free. In the view of Xiaoguo Culture, this is a "long-term investment that always loses money but must be done for talents.".
Li Hopes that the future director of a talk show can be selected from the boot camp.
<h1 class="pgc-h-arrow-right" data-track="69" > work hard to make "broken companies" better</h1>
In the talk show industry that Xiaoguo culture strives to create, wang jianguo, Hulan, Rock, Pang Bo, Wang Mian, Yang Kasa, Yang Meng'en and other big soldiers and small generals have emerged. He Xiaoxi's victory in Wang Mian's "Talk Show Conference" last year made He Xiaoxi feel very pleased, after all, this champion player was trained by Xiaoguo's training camp system. This makes the laughing fruit culture more determined to believe that it is doing "difficult and correct things".
In the past, there was a passage circulating in the circle: Chinese people who do talk shows can't take a bus, in case of a car accident, China's talk show will be over. Today, Laughing Fruit Culture is trying to make the talk show industry bloom and fill a theater.
Although this is a "broken company" that even Li Tian wants to jump ship at any time, all employees want it to get better and work hard for it.
It is said that Wang Jianguo and Rock rarely take business, and the reason for the refusal is usually "wait until I ("Talk Show Conference") is eliminated"; Hulan's original manuscript has no commas, almost no segmentation, in order to restore the situation more completely on the stage; and Yan Yiyanyue's verbatim draft is very clean, and when creating, he likes to share a graphite document...
At each reading meeting, everyone will give examples of how Happy Twist is done, how Deyun Society is doing it, and how Pixar and Disney are doing it.
Take the law and get it in the middle of it - this is the words that Li Shi often hangs on his lips.
Perhaps, as "Nativity" said: "I am not so much of a person who can achieve great things in essence, and can accept bad results." But of course I still do my best to maintain the industry and this company, and of course I still want it to be good. ”