AcFun: A "broken website" for taking jujube pills

"Just because you love the second dimension, you should treat it more properly and treat it more professionally." Icarus Wings said.

The Wangjing SOHO office building looks like three hills, with a total area of ??more than 520,000 square meters and the highest point reaching 200 meters. It is the home of the famous Iraqi-British female designer Zaha Hadid and her architectural firm. A representative work in which China practices its concepts of magic and surrealism.

In such a giant building that is a perfect blend of grandeur and modern legend, another kind of "little luck" that is completely different from its style is rapidly hatching. AcFun (hereinafter referred to as Station A), China's earliest ACG two-dimensional barrage video website, moved from Wuhan to Beijing a year ago and has rushed into this wave of Internet entrepreneurship with a growth rate of recruiting 200 people in half a year.

Starting from the beginning of last year, driven by shareholders and capital, Station A not only moved the company to Beijing, but also began to introduce a team of professional managers to carry out corporate transformation like Station B.

"The current situation is still changing wheels for high-speed trains." This was the first sentence Zhang Xia, vice president of product at Station A, said to PingWest reporters besides greetings.

In those most difficult times, many users of Station A like to complain like this: "This broken website is eating jujube pills (homophone: it will be finished sooner or later)." Over time, "taking jujube pills" has become one of the most popular The company’s management and ordinary employees will use this famous A-station meme to make fun of themselves.

The worst mess and the best reform

Zhang Xia is better known as Wings of Icarus, and her friends and colleagues call her Wings or Wing Ye. In June last year, Yiyi joined Station A as the vice president of product, in charge of the product and operations of the mobile client. Later, he also took over the web client, and drastic reforms followed.

(Yiyi said that others would not recognize her if she showed her face)

In the past, Station A had always existed as a personal website, located in Wuhan, far away from the Internet and business. Most of the first-tier cities are relatively far away, and several people in charge can be called webmasters, but if they are required to use the title of a professional manager of a company, it will be insufficient.

Station A, which mainly focuses on video content, once used 4 servers to carry millions of DAU (Daily Active Users) for a long time; a staff member responsible for review almost All the time has to be spent in front of the computer; there are even rumors of infighting among the monkeys at Station A (the nickname for the staff).

The internal chaos is reflected in the user-level complaints that are even more exaggerated: the review time for video submissions may be as long as 5 days; even though it is the first time to log in, the system may prompt the user that the daily login limit has exceeded times; even mobile clients often cannot watch videos normally.

Yi Yi’s most important task is to adjust her team, “open a group of people and recruit a group of people.” With the addition of Wings, the team strength of Station A’s product managers has been significantly enhanced. Years of professional experience and good reputation inside and outside the circle have laid a solid foundation for Yiyi to build a team.

Yiyi’s main recruitment method is to post on Weibo: “Weibo is very easy to use. Now the product managers I use best are my fans.” Yiyi once received a resume, which has a two-dimensional version. And the three-dimensional version, the last sentence of the resume impressed the wings: "You asked me what my specialties are? My hair is special." In the end, the author of this resume successfully joined Station A and became an operations employee.

"You must understand, because in fact, the users of the second dimension are quite special, and often become very sensitive to the things they love. If you can't make something that users like, at least don't let them Annoying, at least don’t be ridiculous. But this ‘thunder’ point cannot be grasped in three dimensions, it is very subtle.”

After Wings arrived at Station A, it was added to the first version of the mobile client. A little easter egg. When users browse the home page of the client, they can see an avatar of AC girl (the representative image of station A) when scrolling to the end of the page. Pull down a little and you can see an AC girl with a complete body. But this is not the end. The user can still continue to pull. The further the AC girl is pulled, the longer her legs will be stretched. It feels very sticky and requires two fingers to alternate, which only adds to the desire to keep pulling down. Pull it until it can no longer be pulled, and the AC girl will occupy the entire screen, and there is a line of small words between the legs: "I think you can play with these legs for a year."

"This thing makes three-dimensional people You can’t do it even if you do it.” Wings are rarely involved in the front line of products, but the occasional works will still be amazing. When she first joined Station A, Yi Yi often encountered some frustrating things, so she had to teach these employees step by step how to improve.

"It turns out that when we were running feedback issues, we just threw a sentence in the group and said, 'Dad, the website is broken.' But this sentence does not have any actual help. What should be the actual useful information? It's 'Dad, under what circumstances can www.acfun.tv be accessed, what is the browser version, what is the line, how many users have reported this problem'"

Wings is generally concerned about these "helpless" people. The way to deal with it is to curse people, and the curses are very harsh and the words are not nice.

"I scold the product a lot, and I think the product manager must be beaten. Because when the product manager makes a mistake, he is not the only one to make the mistake. He brings a bunch of people to make the mistake, and R&D, design, and operations all have to be 'buried' with him. I often He scolded the product manager like a dog! ''Isn't that stupid? ''Can we understand it with normal people's logic? ''

The most common gadgets that appear in the office of Station A)

With professional managers like Yi Yi recruiting and hammering at the same time, Station A is getting better and better.

The DAU of the web client has tripled, and the DAU of the mobile client has tripled, which is the report card that Wings has delivered at station A in half a year.

Senior user "Luzhu" said that compared with the current mobile client of Station A half a year ago, "it's just like the heavens and the earth" and "it's no longer the client that I couldn't use back then." .

On Christmas Day in 2015, Icarus Wings lamented on Weibo: "To be honest, AcFun is the worst job I have ever taken over, but it is also the best job."

Wearing a dress and talking about needs

When PingWest reporters visited Station A for the first time, the girl at the front desk seemed to have just arrived and didn’t know what “Wings of Icarus” or “Wings” were. Who is referring to. In fact, as a company's A station, the vast majority of employees, including many middle and high-level employees, have not been employed for more than a year.

In May last year, Yi Yi resigned from an audio client company, hoping that his next job would be related to the second dimension. The options before her were station A and station B, or to start a business with a two-dimensional project. If she goes to Station B, she may be responsible for a tourism-related department, but that is not what she wants to do, and the position given by Station A is Vice President of Product.

Wings chose Station A because Station A at the time was “bad enough”. She feels that she can use her strengths at Station A and have enough space to really do one thing and create a product.

"This feeling of salvation is very good. I feel that the more difficult a business is, the more it needs me. If it reaches a certain level, I am not particularly good at doing something from 80% to 80%." to 100 points, and is better at getting up from the mud."

Her name reflects this temperament in her. When he was still in school, he was a "special second grader" who liked to imagine the future and wanted to make sacrifices for his ideals. He would also fantasize about flying to the sun with wings. In the end, he fell because the wax melted. So, Zhang Xia He took "Wings of Icarus" as his ID and used it for more than ten years.

Yi Yi is well-known in the Internet product manager circle in Beijing. One reason is that she has rich product experience, and the other reason is that she "wears a dress and talks about needs."

Wings is a lolita girl, that is, a girl who wears Lolita clothing as daily clothes. The most eye-catching feature is that the bustle is extremely large. She wears different styles of Lolita clothes to go to work almost every day. People often express curiosity, "Is it cold to wear this in winter?", "Is it hot to wear this in summer?", "What should I do if I take the subway?" Wings simply wear it. Before going out, take a picture of your outfit that day in the mirror, and post it on Weibo with the answer "I won't take the subway if it's neither cold nor hot."

In other companies, wearing "fancy clothes" like Lolita to work may attract unusual attention from colleagues, but at Station A, this is just the norm.

"The upper beam is not straight and the lower beam is crooked." PingWest reporters went to Station A in Wangjing SOHO several times and could always see three or four Lo Niang company employees, shuttling around the office like cats, during work breaks. They take photos of each other and upload them on social networks.

Yi Yi is also one of them. "Occasionally if I change my clothes, others will not recognize me and say, 'Who are you?'" Yi Yi said, "This will not bring any impact on my work. If there is any impact, it is also positive. There will be more outstanding two-dimensional enthusiasts willing to become employees of Station A.”

(Cuteness is justice)

Wings is very early. This completed the mentality change from a simple two-dimensional enthusiast to a professional manager, which is very important to her.

"The company hires you not to cause trouble for the company, but to solve problems for the company."

When she recruits product managers, she must ask three questions during the interview: 1. What are the criteria for judging the quality of a product? 2. What should you do when your product plan conflicts with your superiors (not necessarily who is good or who is bad)? 3. As a product manager, what do you pursue? What are your initial career goals? What do you want to do in the next two years? These questions respectively test the product manager’s understanding of the nature of the product, professionalism, and whether the goals are clear.

This is the professional judgment developed by Wings over many years of making products and leading teams. This kind of judgment is the most important ability for current product managers. If we talk about creativity without the basis of judgment, it is meaningless.

In a two-dimensional community website from a mainstream perspective like Station A, as a company employee, you must be professional enough to keep the company running well.

Station A has fallen behind in the competition with station B. A very important reason is that it did not conduct corporate operations in a timely manner, resulting in a very poor user experience in all aspects.

But when it comes to two-dimensional barrage websites, no one will forget the more established AcFun.

"Including Jin Gaola at the beginning, many excellent ghost and animal works became popular on Station A. The most impressive ones are 'Dali Brother' and 'Hundred Yuan Brother' in the past two years. ', 'Liang Yifeng', etc." Luzhu said.

In January 2016, CCTV News Channel reported that "Alibaba (under Youku Tudou) and Tencent respectively invested in AcFun and bilibili, which were the first to delve into the second dimension." Soon, Station A announced that it had received a US$60 million investment from SoftBank China. Since then, Station A has officially become a medium-sized Internet startup company with more than 300 employees.

More careers and more true love

Many 2D enthusiasts once expressed their disgust towards the commercialization of 2D to PingWest reporters. However, in the past 2015 , this commercialization has become unstoppable.

A 2D enthusiast who is good at making ghost videos was still working hard for a job with a salary of 4,000 yuan in early 2015. By the beginning of 2016, he was relying on video orders for commercial cooperation and promotion. I can already earn more than 100,000 per month.

The commercialization of the second dimension has brought huge development opportunities to such a group of people. Station B chose to remain silent on this topic as much as possible to avoid conflicts with users.

For Station A, which has lost a large number of users, "living is the most important thing." Station A will not prevent Up owners from making some commercialization attempts, hoping to provide them with a "platform with two-way choices". Whether they commercialize or not depends on them; Station A does not sign an exclusive treaty with Up owners. "We don't stop people who want to make money from this, and we respect people who regard the second dimension as a pure hobby."

Up owner "Love's Plaything" has been on site A since high school and is now engaged in finance-related work. He has experienced the process of not understanding the commercialization of personal websites to understanding: "In fact, it is only when you enter society that you You know, when you do something as a hobby, you will be very enthusiastic and happy. When it comes to work, commercialization, and benefits, there are some things that we can’t explain, but people who know it understand. It’s a happy event for users.”

“What we really need to resist are those who use stolen pictures and videos to make money.” Wings said.

Copyright issues are a concern for any domestic video content company. Less than a year ago, Station A was sued by its later shareholder Youku Tudou due to copyright issues.

If the full score is 10, Yiyi would give the current product, operation, and technical team 8.5 points. It has passed the honeymoon period, but it still maintains a pretty good feeling.

There are still many "pits" left over from the past that need to be filled step by step, including the issue of logging into the system. The latest round of financing means to her and Station A that "I finally have money and can finally do something."

After arriving at Station A, Wings hopes that team members will have more comprehensive abilities. For example, when she recruits product managers, she will tend to prefer those who come from small companies, because the screw skills trained on the assembly line of large companies are relatively single and not as skillful as those who come from small companies; they can no longer be like the previous A station, and they can't get rid of them. The strong personal website color makes the operation difficult and full of problems.

Because we hope to create an atmosphere of respect for technology research and development colleagues, Yiyi has successfully created a new unit "Dad" at Station A - 1Dad is a working day for a programmer. Product managers often have to make assessments: "This demand requires about 7% of the demand."

"For many things, such as changing product requirements, bugs, etc., generally speaking, product managers will be very depressed, and the relationship with R&D will also be affected. Now they can't be better. , these things have not affected the relationship between them, it is very strange.”

(Yiyi said: Because you love the second dimension, you should treat it more well and treat it more professionally)

There used to be some operation employees at Station A who would be very willful in doing things, relying entirely on their own hobbies and personalities. Their professionalism was relatively poor. Wings would tell them: In fact, there is a difference between loving the second dimension and taking it as a career. There is no conflict at all.

"Just because you love the second dimension, you should treat it more properly and treat it more professionally." Yi Yi said.

“But we can’t say that the previous operators of station A didn’t love it?” PingWest reporter asked.

"I love it, but not in a right way - my ability is not worthy of my love. For example, you like this girl very much, but you can't afford to support her. What she likes is luxury goods. , or she likes something. You love her very much, but you are unable to support her. That’s why. Should she respond to your love? No, because you can’t give her what she wants. Is love real? Yes, but you can't give her what she wants.

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