On November 1, 2007, Giant Network Company successfully logged into the US stock market to raise more than 1 billion US dollars, becoming the largest private online game company in China overnight. The founder Shi Yuzhu 's value exceeded 50 billion .
Ten years ago, he was not so glorious.
In 1997, Shi Yuzhu's capital chain was broken due to the construction of the 70-story Giant Building, and the company was facing bankruptcy. For a moment, the customer blocked the door, the employee's salary was arrears, and Shi Yuzhu was penniless, and he evaporated and disappeared.
In 2000, after three years of dormant, he returned to the world and resurrected with the " Nao Platinum " and " Zhengtu " game software, and is full of vitality. Not only did it pay off its original debt, it has been on the Forbes Global Billionaire List for three consecutive years.
01 First entered the Shanghai
In September 1962, Shi Yuzhu was born in Huaiyuan County, Bengbu City, Anhui Province. In 1984, Shi Yuzhu graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University and was assigned to work at the Anhui Provincial Bureau of Statistics. Because of his love of programming, he later entered , Shenzhen University to study for a postgraduate degree in , and obtained a master's degree in soft science in 1989.
Shi Yuzhu, who was hit by the Shenzhen entrepreneurship tide for three years, was full of restlessness. He quit his job and then went into business.
At this time, Shi Yuzhu's only capital was the 4,000 yuan he had in his pocket and the M-6401 desktop layout printing system software he had worked hard to develop.
He decided to make a big gamble and called the advertising department of " Computer World ". He told the staff that he wanted to publish an advertisement worth 8,400 yuan in the magazine: "M-6401--- Historic breakthrough in office automation", and the only requirement is to send advertisements first and then pay.
"M-6401" really made him realize 's "historic breakthrough". 13 days later, he received three bank remittances, totaling 15,820 yuan. Two months later, he made 100,000 yuan and grabbed the "first pot of gold".
Shi Yuzhu, who tasted the sweetness, invested all the money into the advertisement. Four months later, he earned the first 1 million yuan in his life. Not only did he settle all his debts, but his own life was greatly improved. Shi Yuzhu went from an unknown programmer to a tall, rich and handsome man envied by young people in one fell swoop.
Just as Shi Yuzhu was still immersed in the joy of success, a Chinese office software called WPS quietly landed in the Chinese market and soon occupied part of his market.
Faced with the competitor's conquest, Shi Yuzhu felt a sense of crisis. plunged head-on into the student apartment of Shenzhen University, stayed in front of the computer for a full 150 days and nights, and developed a new Chinese character processing system.
The programming work day and night has finally achieved good results. He created the M-6402 word processing software series product , named " Giant Han Card", successfully retained its market share.
The market crisis this time also made Shi Yuzhu realize that even with his own strength, he could not achieve greater results. In 1991, he came to Zhuhai from Shenzhen and registered the high-tech company "Giant". He wanted to build China's IBM in Zhuhai and become an oriental giant in the IT industry.
02 The peak of career
The giant was born shortly after it was born. In order to promote the giant Han card, he made another big gamble. In 1991, he held a nationwide sales conference in Zhuhai. Participants only ordered 10 Giant Han card, and the meeting fee was exempted. For a time, more than 200 dealers came from all over the country, and Shi Yuzhu thus weaved the largest sales network in the computer industry. The following year, Giant Hanka's market share reached the championship, and the company made a profit of more than 10 million yuan that year.
Giant Han card order continues to fly into Giant, allowing the company to expand rapidly. Shi Yuzhu became a boss with a net worth of over 100 million, recruiting more than 100 employees, and Giant became a high-tech group company with a 100 million yuan level.
Shi Yuzhu has huge wealth and began to plan and layout the company's long-term development. Not only did develop a series of computer products, including Chinese handwritten computers, laptop computers, , fax cards, electronic cash registers, financial software, antivirus cards, etc., also expanded its business scope to clothing, real estate and other fields, and even invested in health products .
Enterprise diversified development brings huge profits to giants . Giant has become the leader in the Chinese computer industry, and Shi Yuzhu's career has reached an unprecedented peak. A young man from a small county in Anhui took only three years to become an idol of intellectuals across the country, but also a model for Chinese intellectuals to start businesses. In 1992, he was named one of the "Top Ten Reform Figures in China".
03 Hit into a trough
Shi Yuzhu, who was infinity, has been blinded by success. A very happy decision made him fall to the bottom of his life.
In 1992, Shi Yuzhu, who was at the top of his career, decided to build a 38-story Giant Building. Some people suggest that the Giant Building should be built into the tallest building in the country, become a landmark building in Zhuhai City, and win glory for Zhuhai. This is exactly what Shi Yuzhu wants, and the building was finally designed to be 70th floor.
38 to 70, the budget soared from 200 million to 1.2 billion , with a construction period of 6 years. This not only has a huge gap in funding, but also has been filled with various variables over time. However, Shi Yuzhu was full of confidence.
Because Shi Yuzhu believes that the giant has over 100 million assets, and the M-6403 Han card sales are booming, with more than 30 million yuan in annual payment, so the funds for building the building are not a problem at all.
Wu Xiaobo wrote in "The Great Defeat": "Shi Yuzhu made a mistake that many young entrepreneurs are prone to making: treat the expected profits as actual returns, and use this as the base to set up his own plans."
As the project continues to advance, Shi Yuzhu found that this building is like a "bottomless pit" and consumes all the working capital in the company's account.
The house leaked and encountered rain overnight. In 1993, with the ban on exporting computers to China in the west in expiration, internationally renowned computer companies such as Combat , HP , IBM and other renowned computer companies entered the country, and the situation in the Chinese computer market changed suddenly.
When there are strong enemies outside, Giant Group has exposed the hidden danger of stagnation in the development market capabilities. Shi Yuzhu did not focus on product research and development, but focused on health products that make money quickly. quickly launched a health product called Brain Gold, and launched an advertisement to promote it "Let 100 million consumers be smart first".
However, health products are a consumer product that mainly seeks efficacy. To enable consumers to have continuous purchasing behavior, they must rely on the effect of taking the product itself, which is exactly what Giant Health Products lack.
What's worse is that Shi Yuzhu made a low-level mistake of slandering his competitors, saying that Wahaha contains hormones that cause premature puberty in children, which caused serious damage to Wahaha at once. Wahaha reduced sales by nearly 50 million yuan that year, causing direct economic losses of 6.7 million yuan.
Wahaha had grown into the largest beverage and food company in China at that time. She would never give up and directly sue the law to maintain the reputation of its own products. The court ruled that the Giant would compensate Wahaha 2 million yuan and held a press conference to publicly apologize. The giant's brain gold was hit and its sales quickly shrank.
The market is stagnant, and the Giant Building is like a money-eating device with a big mouth, waiting for a lot of money to feed every day. Shi Yuzhu had to tear down the east wall and repair the west wall, constantly withdrawing funds from the health care products company to fill the construction of the Giant Building, which eventually led to the outbreak of the financial crisis of the Giant Group.
Creditors who bought the Giant Building Building flocked into the Giant Group and demanded a refund. In addition to the incident of apologizing to Wahaha, the Giant's image in the public and media was defeated, and the huge "giant" quickly collapsed.
Shi Yuzhu ran away with a debt of 250 million, and disappeared from the public's perspective.
04 Make a comeback
000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000 He brought his few remaining employees to Tibet . When he was climbing Mount Everest , he and his three companions got lost in the glacier. oxygen was about to run out of . He saw that he was on the verge of death, but the desire to survive made them find the way down the mountain again.
This time, the experience awakened the soul that fell in Shi Yuzhu's heart: a person can be destroyed, but he must never be defeated. He came to Nanjing, settled down, determined to start over.
Wherever you fall, you must get up from. This time, he still targeted the health care product market. Shi Yuzhu borrowed 500,000 yuan of start-up capital from his friend to produce "Nao Platinum". Shi Yuzhu's marketing talent has been further demonstrated. The advertising slogan of "I will not accept gifts during the Chinese New Year this year, but only receive gifts from Nao Platinum" quickly dominated the prime time of major TV channels .
Countless consumers are flocking to it, and a lot of money flows into Shi Yuzhu's account. I made enough money through Naobaijin, and as soon as possible, Shi Yuzhu paid off all his debts.
Although the health care products industry has made Shi Yuzhu come back, what he still misses in his heart is his old business, the computer industry.
At this time, the Internet game industry in my country is booming. Shi Yuzhu has seen the "blue ocean" of , and can create infinite wealth in the future .
In 2004, a brand new game by Giant, "Zhengtu" was launched. This game subverted the business model of the game industry as soon as it was released. The game is free, and props cost . In order to stimulate player consumption, Shi Yuzhu has set up a ranking mechanism and player interaction mode. "Zhengtu" has become Shi Yuzhu's money-making weapon.
After the game "Zhengtu", Shi Yuzhu became silent in the business world, handing over Giant Network to others for management, and he started charity in a low-key manner. Just like his Weibo name, Shi Yuzhu became a "big idle person".
He claimed to be a "famous loser" and summarized the four major reasons for the failure of the giant: one is blindly pursuing the speed of development, the second is blindly pursuing diversified operations, the third is difficult to adapt to the development of the enterprise, and the fourth is that technological innovation is not placed in an important position.
In fact, the key to the success of giants comes from early technological innovation. When the computer industry reached a trough, it ignored the magic weapon for the survival of this enterprise. This is the real reason why "giants" came down from the altar.
Ren Zhengfei said, "If an enterprise wants to survive and develop, the key point is innovation" . Hitml2 Shi Yuzhu, who fell to the bottom of his life, once again took on the banner of "innovation" and transformed the traditional sales model of products, thus obtaining huge profits, making himself a global rich man again, and becoming a generation of strangers in the business world.
Author: Mingyan
References: Wu Xiaobo "The Great Defeat"
