Three days after graduation, one million people took Wikipedia for five minutes to attract venture capital.
Invite experts as a guide to spread, and enable drifting books to establish a website system for free push.
Pan Haidong said that four years ago, I built an interactive encyclopedia website with 6.5438+0 million yuan. At present, the given market intrinsic value is 500 million yuan. After four years of development, Interactive Encyclopedia has become an encyclopedia website with 3 million entries, 3.37 billion words and 3 million pictures created by more than 6.5438+0 million users. Although the website has developed rapidly, Pan Haidong's team is not tired. Go to school, do long-term activities, and return to China on the third day after graduation.
Choosing to start your own business is a very inevitable thing for Pan Haidong. When Pan Haidong was studying PhD in the United States, he was keen to participate in and organize social activities. He is the chairman of the talent forum branch of MIT. Various activities have made him know many celebrities in the industry.
After graduating from Ph.D., Pan Haidong didn't stay in the United States to work and exercise for a long time like others. On the third day after graduation, he returned to China. Pan Haidong said: "I have dealt with many enterprises and executives during my PhD, and I have gained something from my work."
The reason why I chose to be an encyclopedia website is accidental and inevitable. When Pan Haidong was still studying abroad, his nephew, Kloc-0/2 years old, asked him a question: "What is an AV actress?" The nephew's question is baffled, doctor. For a 12-year-old child, it is impossible for him to search casually on the internet, and the content he found is likely to be some unsightly content. Pan Haidong has been thinking about it, but it came back to him when he started his business. 1100,000 set up an encyclopedia for five minutes to attract venture capitalists.
Pan Haidong, who returned to work in China, occasionally attended some summits and forums on Internet development. Video websites, which were rarely seen a few years ago, have sprung up several times in just a few years. At this time, if you want to start a business, you must look for a blue ocean of the industry. At the same time, in the face of the increasing number of network users in China, only products that truly meet the needs of users can be recognized.
The industry that can meet users' needs and doesn't seem to be very competitive is Wikipedia. Considering the nephew's problem, this project is decided by accident and necessity.
With this project, Pan Haidong and two buddies pooled one million yuan to set up an interactive encyclopedia. Pan Haidong said that if you want to accomplish something, you must cut off all the back roads. Pan Haidong, who has broken the back road, has been unambiguous since the establishment of the company. Because of the background of studying abroad, the company has set up its organizational structure according to international standardization since its establishment.
Although it has the nature of partnership, there is a clear division of labor between partners from the beginning, which is also based on the characteristics and advantages of partners themselves. Therefore, four years later, the company has never had a business crisis because of the rights and interests of partners.
One year after the company was founded, Pan Haidong went to Silicon Valley to attend an Internet forum. Present at the meeting were two heads of Silicon Valley Venture Capital (DFJ). After the meeting, Pan Haidong directly found two heads. He told the person in charge: "When I came to the United States to study for my Ph.D., when I met my tutor for the first time, I said that I had two requirements. First of all, I must get a doctorate, because my Chinese initials are PHD；; Second, I won't be a teacher after graduation, so please let me graduate as soon as possible ... "
It took others four or five years to get a degree, while the arrogant Pan Haidong got it in three and a half years. And through this conversation, Pan Haidong also successfully defrauded the first venture capital from DFJ.
Of course, Wikipedia in the United States also has a little credit, because DFJ has long had the idea of participating in the encyclopedia project. Coupled with the creation of the China Encyclopedia in the market of hundreds of millions of netizens in China, the number itself sounds attractive. Ask the expert group to be a guide and write a book for active communication drifting.
In the past four years, Pan Haidong has always emphasized that the development of interactive encyclopedia websites should combine online and offline, and seek differentiation.
In order to make the high-end and profound content of encyclopedia closer to the public, the interactive encyclopedia website has launched visual editing software. Through this software, netizens who don't know the source code of the software can also become creators of new terms and editors of old terms.
On the day of Michael Jackson's memorial service, millions of netizens used this software to constantly modify the "Michael Jackson" entry. A large number of netizens revised the entries at the same time, which once caused the website to collapse.
In addition to providing convenient software for registered users, the annual meeting and encyclopedia summit held by the company are also decided by users. All employees and users flew to Hangzhou for a meeting this year. Because this is drawn by the user.
The website will also invite experts with professional knowledge background to be "guides" for the activity groups organized by users themselves. Of course, there are various activity groups organized by users. For example, if you want to lose weight in the near future, you can join a weight loss group. Here, professional nutritionists give you a whole set of healthy weight loss suggestions. In addition to scientific life advice, you can also participate in public welfare and popular science activities with the guide. Of course, you can also join the "collection" group and go to Panjiayuan to be a tunnel hooligan. ...
During the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games, the company also produced the drifting book "Olympic Highlights". After the drifting book is labeled as drifting, it will spread among netizens. After reading the book, the collector will leave the collection time and name on the drifting card, and then put the book in public places such as parks, subways, cafes and stations. After reading the book, the book picker floats the book into the public environment in the same way and keeps circulating. Now this book has spread all over the world. This brand-new way of communication activities has truly realized the integration of offline and online. Push the "Rebuilding Homes" campaign, and each scheme will be funded by 300,000 yuan.
From the beginning, Pan Haidong tried to make his enterprise realize both commercial value and social value. During the Wenchuan earthquake, Pan Haidong, a Sichuanese, provided a living allowance of 1000 yuan to 1050 students in earthquake-stricken areas who went to university in Beijing.
After the earthquake, Pan Haidong put forward the project of "Rebuilding Home". Twenty-eight undergraduate teams from 14 university put forward their own reconstruction project plans, and then the submitted plans were reviewed by expert teams. The reconstruction plan involves kindergartens, schools and hospitals in the earthquake zone, and the final evaluation team selected the 14 reconstruction plan. Pan Haidong's company provided 300,000 reconstruction funds for each of the 14 teams.
Pan Haidong's company is not on the donation list, and not many people know these things. It is through this non-media way that he realized his low-key social value. The conference room was named after the planet according to the dominance test.
Like other companies, companies entering Pan Haidong have to take an exam, but this exam is not an IQ test or a psychological quality test. This is a 34-item advantage test with encyclopedic characteristics. Every new employee must pass this test before taking up his post, so as to find out his own advantages, or choose the position that suits him best through the determination of advantages.
At this year's annual meeting in Hangzhou, Pan Haidong "persuaded" an employee who had the intention to resign. Compared with the four-year company, this employee is an old hand. But after working for several years, he felt that he was not suitable for this job, so he had the intention to resign. Through analysis, Pan Haidong agrees with this result. At the annual meeting, Pan Haidong supported his resignation and advised him not to hesitate, so that he could find a job where he could give full play to his advantages as soon as possible.
Determine your dominant position, and you will have the absolute right to speak in this position. In the interactive encyclopedia, Pan Haidong is an honorary leader, but the controller of various powers is the executor. In this inverted pyramid power model, employees do not need to play office politics, but also give full play to their initiative.
In addition to the encyclopedia orientation test, the name of the meeting room of Pan Haidong Company also embodies the characteristics of encyclopedia orientation. Don't be surprised if you hear someone in Pan Haidong's company say that someone is on the earth and someone is on Mercury. The earth and mercury are discussing the conference room. It turns out that all the conference rooms in the company are named after planets.
In Pan Haidong's company, you can not only have an imagination as vast as the universe, but also inspire your fighting spirit through sports at any time. In the office space occupying one floor, there is a room that is neither used for office nor for meetings, that is, the table tennis room. While encouraging employees to exercise in the company, Pan Haidong also encourages them to participate in group entertainment activities. To this end, the company provides every employee with 50 yuan's entertainment funds every month. Promote the free website building system, meet the competition and design skillfully.
In order to promote the development of Wikipedia in China, Pan Haidong's company developed the first free and open source encyclopedia website system in the world-HD Wikipedia. The system has been applied to more than 20,000 websites and channels, and has been used as an internal application by more than 50,000 domestic and foreign enterprises such as Sina Real Estate Channel, Rose Magazine and Shanghai Hotline.
The software has been released for free. Some people will say that Pan Haidong is not afraid of competition because everyone has encyclopedic knowledge? On this issue, Pan Haidong said without hesitation that competition is welcome. In fact, Pan Haidong is confident. Although there are many people who do encyclopedias, either regionally, focusing on one field or as auxiliary products, his interactive encyclopedia is out-and-out and the only Chinese professional encyclopedia website in the world. With this specialty and uniqueness, Pan Haidong is full of confidence in the future.
Because there are many free users, the maintenance fee will be charged accordingly when the software is updated and upgraded, which will generate commercial value at that time. In this way, Encyclopedia has truly achieved a win-win situation of social value and commercial value.