Environment and opponents can easily destroy your elegance and concentration.
Author 丨 He Yifan Source 丨Box Lunch Finance(id:daxiongfan)
Yesterday, Xiaomi submitted a listing application to the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, and one of the most anticipated IPOs of the year (the other is Ant Financial) opened. At the same time as the public prospectus, Lei Jun issued an open letter, of which the most touching thing to me is this sentence: in addition to Xiaomi, there is no mobile phone company, and after the decline in sales, it can be successfully reversed.
Cheng Si yan also.
Nokia, Motorola needless to say, after the sale has not seen any improvement; a generation of machine emperor htc has declined, ready to bet on VR; Xiaomi's old enemy Meizu successive strategic mistakes, high-level infighting, seeing from the mobile phone industry clear stream into a mudslide; LeTV, 360 appeared as a subversive posture, the first three axes disappeared; as for the hammer, there is no wave at all, there is no need to talk about any troughs. The consumer electronics industry is really a battlefield for Shuluo, one wrong step at a time, easy to be photographed on the beach, difficult to stand up.
Xiaomi was almost in a state of free landing. In 2015, it did not complete the target of 80 million to 100 million units of shipments, and by 2016, sales fell sharply, and the latest disclosed prospectus showed its exact situation at that time: Xiaomi's mobile phone sales in 2015 were 66.546 million units, and in 2016, sales fell to 55.419 million units. The performance of the new model is flat, the supply chain crisis is frequent, and this is exactly the two years of oppo and vivo's explosive growth in market share and shipments, Huawei is more taishan pressure, in 2016 p9 shipments exceeded 10 million, mate9 once again cooperated with Leica to impact the high-end market.
In 2015 and 2016, Xiaomi's revenue was 66.811 billion yuan and 68.434 billion yuan, respectively, and it rose slightly, but the air was filled with the smell of danger. In 2012, htc suffered a decline in revenue due to the failure of the one series. At that time, it seemed to be nothing more than a tactical mistake, but the next two consecutive years of failure, to 2015 there was a huge loss, even the soul figure Zhou Yongming also left.
Xiaomi flipped the ending, and in less than a year, it got rid of gravity, what did it do right?
Or rather, what did Lei Jun do right? The founder's style determines the style of the company, especially at the turning point. Of course, he is not a perfect person, but a person's shortcomings have nothing to do with you, and the advantages have a relationship.
First, be good at reviewing.
Environment and opponents can easily destroy your elegance and concentration. People who are good at reviewing, the action will not be deformed under pressure.
HTC was as fragile as Xiaomi in its supply chain control, it started from a foundry, lacked deep integration, had patent shortcomings in software, was hit by the pool fish in the war between Apple and Android, the hardware of mobile phone processors is various, and even the screen often makes Samsung card neck. Later, the htc one appeared to have a macular problem on the screen, which was due to poor compatibility after assembly.
HTC could have been described as the originator of the machine sea tactics, more than 20 models a year, around 2011, the general trend of mobile phone consumption from grocery stores to boutiques, htc also felt the wind direction, but after the defeat in 2012, the turn was too drastic, suddenly gave up the multi-model high and low and on the strategy, the new machine in 2013 basically belonged to the htc one series, although the price is high, the interface, the appearance is basically the same, the new design of the m7 is also lackluster, and then after a year, it has returned to the machine sea.
Meizu basically maintained the frequency of one machine a year in the early days, but under the shadow of Xiaomi, the style of painting changed drastically in 2016, and a total of 14 mobile phones were launched, but by 2017, only one pro7 was pushed, but it became a squib.
How did Lei Jun spend 2016? He did not tear down the east wall to make up for the west wall, busy with various growth indicators, but took advantage of the deceleration and went all out to "make up lessons". Personnel adjustment, welcome back to Li Wanqiang, replace Zhou Guangping, who is in charge of research and development and supply chain, rectify the supply chain, spread focus again, counterattack offline channels, claim to open 1,000 millet homes in three years, and adjust the product line to cooperate with offline channels - when the opponent does model subtraction, Millet begins to do moderate addition.
After this battle, Lei Jun now has the confidence to say that the comprehensive net interest rate of hardware will always remain below 5%, and the compression is mainly operating costs, and I don't know how supply chain partners feel when they hear it.
He likes to emphasize that going with the flow is not only to "gain the trend", but also to go along with the "contrarian trend".
Review is different from "reflection", people who like to reflect, often make "self-condemnation", feel that most of the past has been wrong. The review is different, iterative and corrective. Xiaomi seized the dividend period of the smart machine before, quickly sprinted to a volume of more than 40 billion US dollars in valuation, entered the stratosphere, is the most successful strategy, and the price is to overdraft the resources it can control, and the review is to make up for the overdraft.
Second, have the ability to think deeply about the "first principles".
Internet prophet Clay Sherkey wrote a book "The Way of Xiaomi" in 2017, which has a high evaluation of Xiaomi, believing that Xiaomi has reached the commanding heights of the Internet of Things revolution: from the mobile Internet entrance to the ecological chain of new species, it has built a traffic control center; from the design storm to the construction of a new retail system, creating a closed-loop system that improves user experience. Although this is overflowing, it also depicts that Xiaomi has cultivated a bamboo forest that seems to be independent but is connected to the ground in addition to the forest of Ali and Tencent.
Those familiar with Lei Jun should understand that the bamboo forest is not planted at one time.
In an exchange at the end of 2012, he said that "mobile phones are the center of the future world." At this point, he realized that integration has important strategic importance in the field of smartphones. Samsung integrates chips, manufacturing, core components, these are the front end of the industrial chain, and Xiaomi wants to integrate the back end of the industrial chain, including design, brand, market, sales, software, services. The significance of integration is to reduce channel costs and increase user stickiness.
In 2015, he said that the Millet ecosystem has four layers, and the first circle layer is the core, that is, mobile phones, TVs, and routers, which represent the layout of Xiaomi in the field of terminals, homes and smart homes. The second circle layer is the 100 smart hardware companies it plans to invest in, the third circle layer is the e-commerce platform, which is the main sales channel for Xiaomi products, and the fourth circle layer is the miui operating system.
By 2017, it began to focus on the triathlon, that is, "hardware + new retail + Internet". This positioning is related to valuation, if it is only a hardware company, the imagination space is at the top of $40 billion.
Although the specific expression has changed, in the process of deepening his thinking, the key word that he has always grasped is "dimensionality reduction strike": discovering the problems in the old model and then solving them with the new model. Note that the old model here is not necessarily a traditional industry. When Xiaomi entered the offline and integrated the supply chain, it learned a lot of experience from traditional industries, and Lei Jun also mentioned costco, Wal-Mart, Tongrentang and other inspirations to him many times. What he is good at is to deconstruct the essence of all models in the way of the Internet.
Third, Lei Jun's "thick road".
At the end of the open letter, he wrote: "The luck of the person who is generous will not be too bad", which shows that the thick way is his own person.
Of course, Meizu founder Huang Zhang may not think so.
The feud between Xiaomi and Meizu sounded as distant as the bet between Lei Jun and Dong Mingzhu, but this matter had a rather impact on Lei Jun at that time. At the end of 2013, I went to visit Lei Jun in The Colorful City and talked about Huang Zhang, his eyes were actually red for a moment, probably a little bit of "I would have been hearted to the bright moon, but the bright moon shines in the ditch" grievance.
He said that he thought Huang Zhang was quite remarkable, graduated from junior high school, did not have a high level of education, and started as a chef. "Probably what he does, if you're well educated and have a lot of resources, you don't feel like you're doing a good job. But when you add these few pieces, I think it's still quite inspirational, which is his strength. However, I feel he has his limitations. In September of last year (2012), he used insulting words, we tried to respond, and then he interceded with my friend and deleted everything that scolded me. Therefore, from my point of view, there is really no way to evaluate Huang Zhang, can you understand?"
So is Lei Jun considered "thick"?
Generous people in the absolute sense are not suitable for survival in real business at all. Lei Jun pursues efficiency, pragmatism, has the determination to kill, and does not put himself on the moral high ground, but he cherishes feathers more than many entrepreneurs.
His "thickness" is reflected in three points.
Empower those around you.
Lei Jun does not have too many friends, and it is estimated that as the first labor model in the domestic science and technology industry, there is really not enough time to socialize. He is also not a person with eight faces and a very high emotional intelligence. Xiaomi ecological chain model, attacking everywhere, in fact, it is easy to make enemies, and indeed has triggered a discussion of the new "public enemy of the whole people", but Lei Jun himself is still quite respected in the corporate world and has a good popularity. If it is said that on the eve of the listing, the icing on the cake is enough, but before that, his old colleagues in the Jinshan era were mostly proud of the years of fighting with him. Cheetah Fu Sheng, Fan Ke Chen Nian, Storm Video Feng Xin, yy Li Xueling, Blue Harbor Interactive Wang Feng, etc., all regarded him as a mentor and friend, and they had received advice from him that could be landed.
Xiaomi basically adheres to the principle of "no standing, no control, no exclusivity" for companies in the ecosystem. Lei Jun is also kind to the co-founders. The co-founders hold 30% of the shares, except for Lei Jun,33% of the shares of Lin Bin, the only one who has super voting rights, which is a real partnership to do things.
First-line big coffee, Ma Huateng gaoyuan, Ma Yun gaomai, Li Yanhong high cold, Lei Jun is not tall or short, just right.
In addition, he has a sincere heart for the product.
Dai Yuefeng, the founder of Yu Ni Fang, took shunwei capital investment. He met with Lei Jun for the first time and was ready to introduce the project, but after opening the ppt and talking for less than 10 minutes, Lei Jun took over the stubble and talked about Xiaomi's products for an hour and a half.
Dai Yuefeng told me that when he went out, he was a little disappointed, thinking that such a famous person, like a TV advertisement, always sells his own products, but he quickly realized that this is the love and pursuit of a product person for products.
Another point is decency and proportion.
In 2014, I also worked for China Entrepreneur magazine. On the afternoon of the last day of the annual meeting of Chinese business leaders, Dong Mingzhu suddenly accused Xiaomi and Midea, who had just established a strategic partnership, of being "two fraudulent companies and a thief group" in his speech. "I hope that Lei Jun's enterprise will go abroad, but unfortunately it was banned just after going out, and you stole someone's patent." A person who steals someone else's stuff is still called a great enterprise? I'm embarrassed to say anything about it. ”
There was also Lei Jun's award ceremony that night, and I was worried that he would not come because of this episode. As a result, he arrived as expected and responded to this provocation. "Invincible in the heart, invincible in the world, in fact, the purpose of millet and my own life is exactly the same, we hope that the more friends the better, the fewer enemies the better."
"Thick way" is a kind of savings, "thick way" is a kind of temperament, and "thick way" is also a value weapon.