Luo Yonghao officially announced that a new startup company will enter the AR industry

Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will enter the AR industry

Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will enter the AR industry. In the Make a Friend live broadcast room, Luo Yonghao announced that his new startup company will be named "Thin Red Line" (translated as thin red line, the official Chinese name has not been announced). Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will enter the AR industry. Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new start-up company will enter the AR industry 1

Not long ago, Luo Yonghao announced that he would leave the management of Make a Friend and officially withdraw from Weibo and all social platforms to focus on entrepreneurship again. The new entrepreneurial direction will be chosen AR industry.

Last night, in the Make a Friend live broadcast room, Luo Yonghao and Zhu Xiaomu, the Hammer 001 employee, chatted about the progress of their entrepreneurship and announced the name of their new startup company "Thin Red Line" (translated as Thin Red Line). Red line, the official Chinese name has not been announced), the new company is preparing to recruit people, this time it is mainly recruiting product managers and designers, and the recruitment email address of the new company's domain name has also been made public.

At present, the company’s official website has no substantive content, only a “thin red line” and a caption: AN OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE DIRECTLY IN THE PLATFORM-LEVEL REVOLUTION (Direct participation opportunities for platform-level revolution). Luo Yonghao has previously launched the "thin red line version" of the Nut mobile phone, and the naming of the new company may be related to this.

Regarding the time of the next press conference, Luo Yonghao said that the new product press conference will be held in at least two years, and it may be an overseas press conference.

Luo Yonghao said in a previous interview that the essence of VR is more like a game console, while AR is the next generation computing platform. Their hardware team will develop an engineering machine every year. In principle, it will not be sold to the outside world and will only be used for internal development. It will not be sold until the commercial sales conditions and the overall environment are generally mature. In the future, I want to be the first to make something like the 2007 iPhone+iOS in the AR era, and become a company like Apple on the next platform. Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will enter the AR industry 2

About Luo Yonghao, this is a man of great influence. In the past, Smartisan Technology, which he founded, brought many interesting new inventions to the mobile phone industry. However, after fierce competition, Smartisan Technology finally faded away from the mobile phone market. Its founder Luo Yonghao chose to start live streaming after owed a large amount of debt, which also attracted the attention of many netizens on the Internet. , which brought a lot of popularity to it.

On the evening of July 10, in the Make a Friend live broadcast room, Luo Yonghao announced that his new startup company is called "Thin Red Line" (translated as Thin Red Line, the official Chinese name has not been announced). In addition, "Make a Friend" Weibo also announced that Luo Yonghao's new company is preparing to recruit people, mainly product managers and designers.

"Tomorrow I will officially quit Weibo and all social platforms, and start my own business again." Late at night on June 12, Luo Yonghao's Weibo attracted many netizens focus on. On the afternoon of June 13, Luo Yonghao once again "farewelled" through social platforms including Weibo account and WeChat official account, and announced that his new entrepreneurial project was AR. However, will Luo Yonghao really "quit the Internet"? How long until the finale of "True Return"? Will his business be successful this time?

Luo Yonghao wrote this notice on Weibo on the afternoon of June 13: "Later today, the Weibo of 'Luo Yonghao' will also be changed to the official Weibo of 'Make a Friend Live Room' ." That night, the Weibo account of "Luo Yonghao" became "Make a Friend Live Room".

Also on the evening of June 13, Luo Yonghao once again appeared in the Douyin Make a Friend live broadcast room and continued to deliver goods live. When a colleague was introducing a certain type of oatmeal, Lao Luo picked up a bowl of oatmeal and ate it while asking netizens in the live broadcast room to confirm again, "I am going to start a business again" and confessed that he was "going to burn money."

At the same time, Luo Yonghao also opened a new Weibo account. According to him, colleagues from the new startup AR company opened a new Weibo account for him called "Product Manager Luo Yonghao".

However, Luo Yonghao said that he "really doesn't want to communicate on social platforms anymore" and just out of consideration of retaining a "place to formally refute rumors and clarify", he plans to change the new account to "Luo Yonghao's rumor refutation account" and do a V certification. . As of 10 a.m. on July 11, "Luo Yonghao's Rumor Refutation Account" had 51,000 fans.

One noteworthy detail is that the bottom of the picture accompanying Luo Yonghao’s farewell Weibo shows “Sent by Smartisan Notes”, and when this Weibo was posted, the Weibo certification was still “Shuimei Technology CEO”. Although Luo Yonghao's entrepreneurial journey did not start with "Hammer", Hammer Technology did occupy an important position in Luo Yonghao's entrepreneurial journey.

In 2012, Luo Yonghao founded Smartisan Technology, focusing on making mobile phones. But the good times did not last long, and Smartisan Technology left Lao Luo with huge debts a few years later. Media reports show that Smartisan Technology has owed about 600 million yuan in debt to banks, partners and suppliers since its business crisis in the second half of 2018.

In a conversation with the media, Luo Yonghao said: When I was working on Smartisan Technology, because of my personal influence, I did a lot of things for the company that other entrepreneurs would find difficult to do, such as in marketing and public relations. ***The dissemination benefits are obvious. But the benefits of this kind of personal influence add points to the company, and correspondingly, the points I lose due to my character shortcomings are reduced.

I am naughty by nature, speak out loud, and have an aggressive personality. After I became the person in charge of a company, I often failed to restrain myself and caused a lot of unnecessary trouble for the company. If you calculate the general ledger, you can’t even tell whether my personal influence is a plus or minus for the company as a whole.

In addition, I have a serious social fear. Although I have been extremely active on public platforms for many years, if possible, I still hope to live a quiet life for a few years. This requirement is usually a luxury for entrepreneurs with public influence. Fortunately, the AR company did not need publicity and publicity work in the first few years, so I wanted to take this rare opportunity to withdraw from the public eye and make products for a few years with peace of mind.

In addition, when Luo Yonghao talked about the current debt situation, he said that the direct debt that has been incurred so far is less than 100 million. According to the plan, everything should be paid off before the end of March this year. However, due to some unexpected disputes at the end of last year, it will not be completed until around November. In order to pay off his debts, Luo Yonghao tried many projects, and finally embarked on the road of live streaming.

In fact, Luo Yonghao has made many announcements about starting his own business again. In January this year, he revealed on social platforms that "see you on the next generation platform." In March, Luo Yonghao directly announced that "what we want to do is AR." Luo Yonghao has also stated on many occasions that live streaming is not his career pursuit. He has always wanted to return to the high-tech field to continue his business.

As for why it is AR, Luo Yonghao once answered in a dialogue article posted on a social platform: "Almost from the day when it was confirmed that Hammer Technology had an accident, I was thinking about what to do. What will you do when you come back after paying off your debt?" Over the past few years, Luo Yonghao's judgment was that "the next generation computing platform will most likely only be AR, and it is unlikely to be anything else." He said, "We believe AR is the next generation computing platform."

Regarding future plans, Luo Yonghao revealed that the hardware team will develop an engineering machine every year. In principle, it will not be sold to the outside world and will only be used for internal development. It will not be launched until the commercial sales conditions and the overall environment are generally mature. for sale. Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will enter the AR industry 3

On the evening of July 10, Luo Yonghao officially announced that his new startup company will be called "Thin Red Line" in the "Make a Friend" live broadcast room. , to enter the AR industry. The company is currently recruiting product managers and designers, and has made its HR email address public.

The company’s official website, thinredline.com.cn, has been launched. There is only one line on the main interface – “AN OPPORTUNITY TO PARTICIPATE DIRECTLY IN THE PLATFORM-LEVEL REVOLUTION” (an opportunity to directly participate in the platform-level revolution). At present, the official website has no other functions except email communication.

Luo Yonghao (right) in the "Make a Friend" live broadcast room Source: "Make a Friend" Weibo screenshot

Qichacha information shows, The company associated with the official website is "Beijing Thin Red Line Technology Co., Ltd.", which was established in 2018 with a registered capital of 100,000 yuan and its business scope covers technology, software, design, advertising and other aspects.

It is worth noting that Luo Yonghao currently does not hold any shares. Legal representative Xu Han holds 99% of the shares, while Huang He, general manager and executive director of "Make a Friend", holds 1% of the shares. However, public information shows that both Xu Han and Huang He were Luo Yonghao’s partners when he founded Smartisan Technology. Xu Han once served as the director of Smartisan Technology, and Huang He once served as the product director of Smartisan Technology.

During the live broadcast, Luo Yonghao said that he "believes AR is the next generation computing platform" and VR is more like a game console. At the same time, Luo Yonghao said that he is not optimistic about Apple's AR glasses and "basically has no expectations for their product innovation." And he hopes that his company can be the first to create an epoch-making platform like the iPhone+OS in 2007, and create a new Apple company that will "put everything in."

The last business venture: Lao Luo’s ups and downs in the business world

Public information shows that Luo Yonghao only has a middle school education and dropped out of school in his second year of high school. Despite this, he started as a teacher at New Oriental and embarked on a rather bumpy entrepreneurial journey.

In 2001, after failing two interviews, Luo Yonghao wrote a letter asking Yu Minhong to give him a third trial teaching opportunity, and eventually became a teacher at Beijing New Oriental School. In 2006, Luo Yonghao resigned from New Oriental and successively founded the "Niubo.com" blog, an education company and Smartisan Technology Company.

However, Smartisan Technology’s mobile phone business is not progressing smoothly. At the end of 2018, Smartisan Technology’s capital chain broke, and 46-year-old Luo Yonghao owed a debt of 600 million yuan. Luo Yonghao has tried to get involved in mobile social networking, but all attempts have failed.

Photo source of Smartisan mobile phone conference: /ar/597.html

It seems that AR has such a broad prospect, and countless capitals around the world have entered the market, but other Technology still hasn't come a long way. According to iiMedia Research's "2022 Internet of Things Industry Trends and Hotspot Tracking Quarterly Report - Home/Personal Internet of Things", many vertical head display manufacturers, head phone companies, and traditional optoelectronics companies have officially announced to the outside world that they will enter the AR track. However, the core pain points of the industry chain—insufficient software ecosystem and mismatch in software and hardware iteration speeds—have not yet been resolved, and companies are gradually exploring joint efforts to build software and hardware ecosystems.

Perhaps Luo Yonghao’s “putting everything in” AR startup this time is due to the richness of AR application scenarios. At the same time, there is currently no mature and absolute “leader” in AR’s soft and hard technologies. .

"Those companies that are now forcibly selling products must be selling one unit at a loss." Luo Yonghao said that vertical AR devices for specific purposes, such as education and complex skills, It is entirely possible that AR glasses for training and special industries can be successfully commercialized within two to three years, but the commercialization of general-purpose AR equipment will take five years or even longer.

We can even guess that Luo Yonghao’s Thin Red Line company’s destination is still to enter the metaverse. In the end, the metaverse where technological interconnection and industry innovation are born may be the ultimate strategic goal of all companies entering the industry.