"Tencent Biography" QQ's predecessor, OICQ, escaped "premature death"

Hello everyone, today we continue to talk about "Tencent Biography", yesterday we talked about the OICQ online, but this thing is very expensive, it is a loss of money and yelling. At that time, OICQ users grew rapidly, with more than 500 people in two months, and soon became the largest download site in China, and the most downloaded product in the Huajun Software Park. So Tencent's three-to-five servers are not enough. China is no better than the United States, servers are very expensive and labor is cheap. So they will squeeze labor and invest energy to develop programs in order to compress storage and databases. Because wealthy Americans never did this, there was almost no experience to learn from. But even so, they went online in February, and they didn't even survive September, so they had to add new servers. The price at that time was 50,000-60,000. Ma Huateng couldn't afford the money at the time. They could only copy the server. Of course, the performance was far worse. The problem occurred every three to five times. As a result, the technician Xu Gangwu had to live within 400 meters of the company and solve the problem at all times. . They said they were afraid to go swimming at that time for fear of malfunction.

At that time, the earliest OICQ had a great hidden danger, that is, clear code transmission, which is most afraid of hackers. As for why it is not encrypted, the answer is simple, no one understands! At that time, Ma Huateng asked programmer Huang Yejun to develop it. This brother bought a copy of encryption principles and began to learn what encryption is. It shows how urgent Tencent was back then. People who can't afford it can only learn while doing it.

But soon the problem came. The hacker problem did not break out, and the funding problem appeared. In order to continue to feed OICQ, Ma Huateng and the others can only continue to receive livelihoods. This is good, they have earned tens of thousands of dollars. , It's completely inside. Later, these people recalled that they were a little frightened, and their scalp numb when they heard the sound of Didi. OICQ still lacks a logo. The earliest design was a pager. Later, the artist designed some cartoon animals. Ma Huateng's idea was to put them all on the Internet and let users vote by themselves. In the end, everyone voted for Penguin. Being thin is very different from the later fat QQ. Until an exhibition, Chen Yidan wanted to make a group of penguin image piggy banks, as image gifts, but the feedback he got was that the penguins were too thin to stand up! The suggestion is to change the penguin into a chubby man and add a black scarf. I didn't expect this image to be well received at the exhibition. In the end, Chen Yidan had his brains alive and decisively changed the offer to sell. He sold out all of them for 10 yuan and made all the counter rent back.

Later, this image was also spotted by a company called Donglihang. They bought out the development rights of penguin image derivatives for 300,000 yuan, and for every clothing toy sold, Tencent commissions 10%, which is great for Ma Huateng. Not only can I make money, I can still be advertised for me. But this kind of good thing was rare in those years. What followed was the great Tencent crisis. First of all, the United States sent a letter from the lawyer that OICQ had infringed and must stop using the domain names of OICQ.com and .net. The saddest thing is Yes, they have no money at all to fight this lawsuit. The second is that Tencent has more than 1 million registered users? Far away from domestic competitors, but it also means that they have eaten up too much cash. Tencent has only 10,000 yuan left on the book. Now there are only two options, increase capital and reduce salary, or sell the company.

The first plan required 5 people to take out money and invest hundreds of thousands. At that time, these people were not wealthy, and everyone’s salary was cut by half. After Ma Huateng and Zhang Zhidong’s salary cut was only 2500 yuan, that year That is to say, the level of university graduates, the other three have only 1,250 yuan, which is only enough for food and clothing. The road to selling the company is even more straightforward. Ma Huateng offered a price of 3 million yuan, but this experience made Ma Huateng reluctant to mention it again until later. It is so painful to look back. It is said that six companies cruelly rejected Tencent’s contract. And these companies have undoubtedly become the biggest fools of that era. Among them, the author only named two names, one is Shenzhen SEG, and the other is Zhongbei Paging Group. The executives of Shenzhen SEG have basically regretted seeing people. What they said at the time was that they didn't know what Tencent was doing and how to make money with this stuff! Some seem to be collecting tatters, bidding based on how many computers and tables and chairs Tencent has in total.

So Tencent could only help among the relatives of the company employees, and finally raised 700,000 yuan. Ma Huateng said at the time that he would give you some shares, I don’t know that the friend who borrowed the money was generous. I still have no confidence in Tencent at all. He turned out to be, you really have no money, and you don’t have to pay it back, but I don’t want your shares. If this buddy had bought Tencent shares worth hundreds of thousands at that time, he would be in the top ten for Forbes now. Therefore, your lifetime achievements often depend on your thoughts.

Later it was Tencent’s destiny, and finally met the nobleman of this penguin, this is IDG. At that time, the company was spreading the net in Shenzhen to salvage the company with the word technology. The person in charge at that time was called Wang Shu, invested in Zhongkejian and Kingdee Software, and Zeng Liqing contacted him through a relationship. Tencent has made sufficient preparations, but for profit, no matter how it is compiled, it seems impossible to get through. Wang Shu is also a fox for thousands of years. He has long seen through Tencent's confused prospects, and he will die immediately if he doesn't give money. He only asked one question after listening to the report. What do you think of your company's future? Ma Huateng blurted out, I don't know. This made Zeng Liqing suddenly look confused, what about the big brother's mind? You are vague, how can investors give you money? But on the contrary, when Wang Shu heard Ma Huateng's answer, he felt that it was a very real company and a very real leader. After that, they repeatedly communicated the business model, but the final conclusion is still the same. OICQ is a product that everyone likes, but everyone does not know where this is or how to charge it. So there is no way other than continue to lose money.

IDG also didn’t want to understand at the time. I don’t know if you like free or Tencent’s OICQ, so you can only choose to gamble. First, there are indeed a large number of users, and maybe they will slowly find a way to make money. Secondly, AOL did acquire ICQ at a sky-high price, and it is okay for IDG to become a second-tier dealer in the future and sell it at a good price. So how much should I invest, and how should the unprofitable Tencent be valued?

Ma Huateng is unique, saying that Tencent is worth 5.5 million U.S. dollars, this time the sale of 2.2 million U.S. dollars, which is 40% to IDG, Wang Shu is so daunted, how do you calculate of? High-tech! Ma Huateng said that it is very simple, we are short of 2 million US dollars, which is a year's expense. And we don't want to lose control of the company, so we have this plan. At this time, the other investor is the second son of the old superman Li Ka-shing, Li Zekai’s Yingke. At that time, Zeng Liqing ran on both sides and flicked on both sides. When he went to Hong Kong, he said that IDG has already finalized and signed it. Master Li Er, hurry up. Back in Shenzhen to brag and say that Young Master Li is optimistic about Tencent and is ready to take it away. You have to vote for IDG, and it will be eaten up by Hong Kong people when it is late. In the end, Yingke was hesitant and IDG was more refreshed, but to bet on the number of users, first half of the bet, if not reached within a certain period, then the second half of the money will not be given. But the shares won remain unchanged. At that time, Tencent did not have any bargaining chips, because it had already run out of ammunition and food, and could not even wait for the contract to be sent back from the United States. Wang Shu quickly used the relationship and found someone to pay 4.5 million to Tencent for emergency.

The reason why Tencent has a good fate is that the agreement was signed in April 2000. In March, the Nasdaq Index broke the 5,000-point mark, and the world has entered a technology boom. in. And if in the next few weeks, the Nasdaq will collapse completely. Even if Wang Shu had not allocated 4.5 million emergency funds beyond his responsibilities, then this contract is likely to be invalidated with the burst of the Nasdaq bubble. In this stock market crash, Nasdaq fell from 5000 points. At 1,000 points, all outstanding American high-tech companies and venture capital companies have lost 80% to 90% of their market value during this period, and ordinary companies have gone bankrupt. Before all this happened, Tencent got the life-saving money, and Netease Sohu Sina successfully landed on Nasdaq and got the IPO money. But a year later, these Chinese portals all received delisting notices. To this day, Ma Huateng and Zeng Li Qing recalled this experience with lingering fears and death. The vast majority of entrepreneurs, in fact, are not lacking in strength, nor are they not working hard, but died of luck.

After having money, Tencent got through the ghost gate by chance, and there is still no clue as to how to develop afterwards, but the person who can actually bring a turn for Tencent before the financing has come to the company, this is Ren Yuxin, he was previously at Huawei, Later, when I recommended games to Tencent, I chatted with Ma Huateng and joined Tencent. Compared with Huawei, which is under military management, it is easier to join Tencent. Ma Huateng and the others do not have a fixed working time. They usually arrive at 10 o'clock and leave after 10 o'clock in the evening. At that time, the arbitration in the United States came down. Tencent undoubtedly lost completely. OICQ refused to let it be called. Then everyone has to think of a new name. What is it called? At that time, it was troublesome for netizens to call Tencent's OICQ, which was generally referred to as QQ for short. So Ma Huateng saw it and settled on it and called it QQ.

But at this time the financial crisis of the Internet bubble did not dissipate, and the previous IDG itself was in constant trouble. It invested in 80 startups and invested hundreds of millions of dollars, but not many succeeded. Only Kingdee went public, and 8848 fell. On the last threshold before listing. For Tencent, not to mention going public and even making money in the foreseeable future, IDG is gradually losing confidence, so what will happen next? What death threats will Tencent encounter when it has just stepped out of the ghost gate? Let's talk about it tomorrow.