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Life is a gamer, death is a tribal ghost. With the blessing of the sacred aura of 70% investment success rate, Wu Dan, who pushed countless people on the edge of the entrepreneurial pit, hesitated for a long time, and finally could not resist the hustle and bustle, and took a leap with his good friend Ying Shuling and returned to the field he loved most.
This time, they want to play big.
About the Sharer:
Wu Dan, co-founder of Hero Interactive Entertainment. Prior to that, he was the vice president of Zhen Fund, the most successful game investor in the past two years, and successfully invested in games such as Shadow Blade, Superhero, Gunfight for All, and MtWait on behalf of Zhen Fund, including the mobile game "Vanity" recommended at the Apple iPhone6 conference.
Hero Interactive Entertainment was established on May 6, 2015, and landed on the New Third Board in June, and its current valuation has reached nearly 10 billion.
From an online game teenager to a game investor, from an investor to an entrepreneur. What kind of mental journey did you go through after several turns? What is his unique perspective on the industry that he may have to "consume" in the field of games all his life? Recently, Wu Dan shared his experience related to game investment on the "True Station", which is summarized as follows.
Investment: Before jumping into the entrepreneurial pit, I was responsible for pushing people next to the pit
My first official job was as a game data analyst at Five Minute Games. I had just graduated from the University of Toronto, ending a 7-day college career and 7 years of living overseas. He secretly said that he had found a job in the United States but had to pay the rent first, sneak back to China with money, and hide in Shanghai to live like a home. Because they all want me to go to an investment bank or a consulting firm to get a green card, but I really don't feel for Paperwork and Excel. I love games so much that I want to go back to china and play games. Later, although the game company hung up, that was the beginning and accumulation of my game industry. Every experience in life is precious, and in the future, you may be able to rely on your previous experience to eat. My investment success rate was 70% during zhen, thanks in large part to my previous experience in the game company. It let me know how a good gamer should do things and choose direction. Many investors who claim to play games every day so they understand games don't actually understand, just like watching movies and making movies are not the same. There is a world of difference between playing games and making games.
There are many ways to invest in games, and the pragmatic approach is to make judgments through the specific design of the product through the team's aura. Of course, there are still tricks, and the tricks I pursue are not superstitious stars, pay attention to the "rat generation". "Rats" refer to those whose ideas are suppressed under the big enterprise, who have ideas and hard work, but who have not been able to make big productions. My experience over the years has taught me that many entrepreneurs with prominent titles often lack execution, which makes me more fond of entrepreneurs who really want to do things and can do things.
For example, when I came into contact with the founder of Gunfight for All, I could clearly feel his love for the military.
His office was full of models of guns and tanks, and I said what are these? He introduced that this is ak47, that is point 38, and the names of various guns are so rare that I, a layman, can only nod my head and pretend to understand. His imitation guns are specially found on Taobao to find various relationships, indicating that he has a very deep thinking and persistent love in this regard. I asked him what type of game he wanted to make, and he said he was going to make a mobile crossfire. He told me very seriously about the parameters that need to be known to make a game, such as the recoil of the weapon, the rate of fire, etc., and when he said that it was rising, he took the model and showed it to me. I think that since he is so fascinated, he will let him fool around, invest - yes, it is not difficult to fool investors like me, and there is no so-called unattainable threshold for entrepreneurship, provided that you have to have precipitation in a specific field, and let interest guide you to tap the resources and potential in this field.
Another example is Liang Qiwei, the creator of "Shadow Blade". He is characterized by writing martial arts novels for 10 years, and he also draws some martial arts comics in his spare time. Chatting with him, I always felt like I was traveling back into the martial arts world. From time to time, tell you how much the internal function is used, how long the number of qi can support... Sounds like a pipette. Only such fanaticism can support him to write and direct himself and draw and self-drawn two unique martial arts games, "Shadow Blade" and "Rain Blood".
The mobile game "Shadow Blade", which has been praised as a "work of art",
It is worth noting that the entrepreneur cannot be comprehensive, and he cannot be all-encompassing in the early stages of the business. Like the founders of Gunfight for All, although they initially knew a lot about the game, they lacked the basic concept of currency. He doesn't know how to build an ecosystem that can continue to make money. Don't know how to make money? Our method was simple – forcing him to go to the supermarket. Why go to the supermarket? This is elaborate. In order to sell you something, the supermarket will sometimes set up a table to try it, you eat a piece of it and think it is delicious, and the shopping guide will tell you the price. If you want to buy more, she said pack to buy three get one free, or buy big get small. In short, it is a variety of promotional methods, and how to price to stimulate the desire to buy, these are very critical, and it is also where we hope that founders understand. We also let him study how the product is packaged and advertised, for example, there is a facial cleanser to find Wu Yanzu endorsement, sales can be very good, then how to promote the weapons in our game to make players have the desire to buy? Maybe it's good idea to introduce where the metal material of this gun comes from, how many processes it takes to build it, how powerful the bullet is, and so on. And these ways of generating income are very grounded things.
Ideal template 🌚
As an investor, I don't expect the founder to be a generalist, but he should continue to use the existing conditional area to learn, and it is best to be able to touch the bypass in daily life.
Entrepreneurship: Gamers who don't consider the big picture are not good entrepreneurs
Ying Shuling (hero mutual entertainment CEO) this guy, since we have known each other from robbing customers, he has always wanted to pull me and him to start a business, and he has persuaded more to move. Of course, I was not confused, and finally I ran to ask for the advice of Teacher Wang Qiang and Teacher Xu Xiaoping, and unexpectedly they were very supportive of me and wanted to invest money in me. They believe in giving their employees growth and freedom that can bring long-term returns. Even if we later had difficulties in defining corporate values and corporate culture, Teacher Xu would spend 4 or 5 hours to chat with me every time. When starting a business, the process of two-way selection between investors and entrepreneurs is actually important, although money is important, but in addition, whether investors can accompany you to "fool around" and whether they can give you spiritual encouragement is also a very critical issue.
Hero Interactive Entertainment was established on May 6, and now half a year has passed, and it is already a unicorn company with a valuation of 9.5 billion, which is currently the fastest speed in the capital market. Because we put a lot of emphasis on execution, everything that is taken into account has to be implemented urgently. For example, in May, after angels got the money from Zhenge, Sequoia and Huaxing, we pushed forward several things at the same time.
The first thing is to spend 3 million yuan to buy a three-board shell, and put the assets directly on the new third board through the shell loading business. The reason for this is because the new third board has just risen, the window period is very short, if you wait for two more years to have a qualification listing, all game companies are on it, so the leading dividend must be grabbed.
The second thing is to acquire CP and introduce products. Products, including Gunfight for All, were moved in at that time. At the same time, we are also talking about the second round of financing, in addition to the business line 4, 5 products are in development, the capital line we also have 4, 5 in the deformation.
At that time, we slept less than 4 hours a day, and we felt that there was only one window to the opportunities in this industry, and it was gone if we missed it. When I was working in the five-minute company, it was also the hottest time of the company, and there was a dau (the number of daily active users) for stealing vegetables for the whole people, but they did not take Tencent's investment, and they felt that they were very good, so they did not want any support, so they wanted to go it alone. As a result, when QQ Farm came out, everything was late, and that experience told me that I had to hug my thighs hard, and if I missed the dragon head dividend, I often had to hang up. Domestic entrepreneurs, especially those who make games, are too close to money, so many people have a very small pattern. Sometimes in order to complete the profit even dare not recruit people. I have seen some teams, the company's turnover has reached 100 million, there are only 20 people, relying on 4 technical employees and Tencent's 300-person team to work, the reason is that they are afraid of recruiting people to lead to rising costs, and profits cannot be paid to lose the bet. Although this small account is well calculated, the big account is confused. To do any company, we must look at the pattern as big, not calculate small accounts. When Hero Interactive Entertainment raised funds again, Wang Sicong came in, asking us to give him a discount, because he is Wang Sicong, there is appeal, even his dog is an Internet celebrity, what can you do?
Hero Interactive Entertainment CEO Ying Shuling
But if you are stuck in this small account for too long and miss the outlet, it will be difficult to fly. Moreover, we have raised the money of Wang Sicong and Huayi, which means that our peers cannot find their money and endorsement, because they will not invest in a second e-sports game company. In the end, this account is still beneficial to us. Reluctant children can't trap wolves, this is the truth.
Future: Reality is already unfair, so why amplify the gap between people in the game?
Hero Interactive Entertainment positions itself as a mobile esports company. Making games is just our basic business, and we are looking forward to developing competitive games into a sports model.
In this regard, the lol end game has a very successful precedent. Lol is currently the largest game in the world, they have broadcast, events and teams, and have achieved professional operation. A very interesting thing happened this year, before the Lol Finals in Berlin, the NBA and Espn talked stiffly, because the NBA had to add money to ESPN. At this time, Lol jumped over and asked Espn to broadcast their family's finals, and posted $10 million. This heralds the arrival of a new business model. Because most of the NBA's revenue sources come from tickets and stars, the business model is relatively single. But games are a cornucopia once and for all, and as long as they are popular, they can always make money. Although lol has posted the money, it can radiate more users through broadcasting and cultivate groups with a sense of cultural identity with the game itself. And for the media, such a upside-down content business, who can refuse?
Straight to the countless Ying (lu) male (gou) wrestling lol
Therefore, we hope to replicate this model on the mobile side, when a mobile esports "Olympic Organizing Committee". The game's audience is far greater than that of sports, such as the Lol Global Finals, which has 45 million people watching online, while the NBA can only reach 27 million at most. As smartphones continue to evolve, big-budget games become more lightweight, making mobile-side e-sports equally potential. We will continue to produce event content, spread it through live broadcast platforms such as Douyu, Huya, yy, etc., and even talk to Hunan Satellite TV about some variety shows. In this way, we hope to capture the market, cultivate the culture, and then tap wealth from it, so as to say goodbye to the single business model of the past. This is why Hero Interactive Entertainment initiated the establishment of the China Mobile E-sports Alliance, which we believe represents the future direction of e-sports.
Finally, live streaming is no longer the only one...
Our target demographic should be 12 to 30 years old, but unlike other gaming companies, we prefer to let players create content. When you have more than 100 million registered users and 30 million monthly active users, you will find it too difficult to grasp the tastes of these people. We simply set up an open system for players to design and let them participate, which I think is the most efficient way and the trend of the times.
We're also looking to create a fair response where every player doesn't have to pay for it to be treated fairly within the game. Over the past 10 years, Chinese games have tried every means to make you pay money, trying to bind you deeply, make you addicted, spend a lot of time playing on it, and be overtaken by others if you relax slightly. I think it's tiring because we're all people who play all kinds of games along the way. We want players to come back and play even if they haven't played for two years. Even if you spend 5 or 10 yuan a month, the actual experience will not be worse than that of RMB players. Hearthstone, for example, is a good example, and it can be done in 10 to 30 minutes. Enjoyment and happiness are the most important, and when consumers can calculate shrewd accounts and find that they spend the least amount of money in our place but are happiest, our goal is achieved. Originally, the game was designed to make people temporarily leave reality to entertain, if you still have to burn money in the game, the game will change its taste.
I forget on what occasion, I once heard Teacher Wang Qiang say that if you conquer a market, your vision, mind, and vision only need to be a little larger than the market you want to win. If you want to take down the world, your vision must also be a little bigger than the world. This is the only skill that must be practiced. Here, I would like to borrow the words of Teacher Wang to encourage you, hoping to help you explore in the field of your choice.
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