An entrepreneurial story triggered by adopting an online pet

Give QQ pets

Be a "nanny"

The 24-year-old Gao Tao was born in Anqing City, Anhui Province. His father is a government civil servant and his mother is a state-owned enterprise employee. . In September 1999, Gao Tao was admitted to the city's key high school with excellent results. At this time, online games had just become popular in mainland China, and the pride of being "invincible" in the virtual world intoxicated many teenagers. Of course, Gao Tao would not let go of such an attractive game. He was especially obsessed with the online game "Red Alert".

After his parents found out, Gao Tao was scolded by his father. His mother was so angry that she kept crying, hating him for not living up to expectations.

Seeing his parents so sad for him, Gao Tao secretly made up his mind: give up playing games, study hard, and be admitted to a decent university in two years. He recorded the serial numbers of all his online games and vowed never to go online again until he was admitted to college.

In August 2001, he was admitted to Wuhan University of Technology with a score of 548. In the few days after he got the admission notice, he took three days off and played games online like crazy. To his surprise, the online game "Red Alert" two years ago had been eliminated and replaced by games such as "Legend" and "New Hero Gate". He did not expect that the Internet would develop so fast.

A bold idea came to his mind: There will always be many opportunities in the development process of new things. So are there any business opportunities in the Internet?

One day in December, Gao Tao logged into QQ and went online, and a message popped up: "Wow, your QQ number is a free 5-digit number. Now the applications are all 8 or 9 digits." It’s digital. Let’s discuss it and sell me your number. You give me a price.”

“The QQ number is a ‘treasure’ with so few digits.” Gao Tao was surprised. He thought that he still had an account, so just sell it. Immediately ask the other party what the price is. The reply I got was actually 3,000 yuan!

"Wow, no way!" Gao Tao was shocked. Soon, he sold his QQ account for 3,000 yuan. Next, he took the initiative and not only sold his other account at a high price, but also searched for five good accounts, bought them at a low price, and sold them at a high price. While some classmates were still worried about living expenses, Gao Tao had become a college student with a monthly income of over 10,000 yuan.

However, he is not satisfied with the status quo and believes that the technical content of this "business" is too low. He believes that to save more money, he must find unpopular industries and operate exclusively.

In the blink of an eye, in 2005, just as Gao Tao was preparing to take the postgraduate entrance examination, he heard some girls often talking about "it costs more than 100 yuan for pets to be sick" and "my pet can't work. It cost me more than 2,000 yuan in half a year." Sensitive Gao Tao thought: "Why do girls love pets so much?" He quickly consulted "experts" online, and netizens told him, QQ. Pet is a virtual animal launched by Tencent. It can work according to the owner's orders, but the disease rate is relatively high, and medical treatment costs a lot of gold coins (RMB is converted into QQ coins, and QQ coins are used to buy gold coins).

A strange idea suddenly flashed into Gao Tao's mind: Since QQ pets can get sick just like people, they must also need people to take care of them. There are so many QQ netizens in China, and people who keep QQ pets must also Quite a few. If we can find a set of methods that are conducive to the health care of QQ pets and reduce the disease rate, there will definitely be a market for QQ pets as "nannies".

To avoid acting blindly, Gao Tao searched the Internet and found no relevant information. He concluded that there is a gap in the "QQ Pet Nanny" industry market, and the business opportunities lie in the "blank".

Working with technical elites

Sincere cooperation

In order to learn more about the habits of QQ pets, Gao Tao decided to adopt a "penguin" as a child. Owner. Soon, after he clicked through the step-by-step procedures for adoption, nest repair and nest building on Tencent, he saw a "penguin" flying in front of him like a whirlwind. "Am I cute?" Gao Tao's mischievous look made Gao Tao laugh.

Next, he saw the little penguin make a weird movement and make a "gurgling" sound. Ah, I get hungry so quickly! Gao Tao immediately gave it "beef jerky". This meal consumed 40 gold ingots. Seeing that the 200 gold ingots brought by the pet would soon be squandered, Gao Tao quickly took it to the workshop to have a look. There are many places of employment, including construction sites, restaurants, neighborhoods, police stations, courts, etc. In order to let Penguin do easy and responsible work, he took the pet to the door of the police station, but they had not yet stepped through the door. , the gatekeeper turned them away——because the penguin level was not enough. In the end, he had to let his pet go to the construction site to work as a porter for 16 gold coins in one hour. Fortunately, if you save some money on this income, you can still make ends meet.

In this way, Gao Tao will play with the penguin for a while after school every day. Click its feet with the mouse and it will start walking; click its ears and it will play with you like hammer, scissors, etc. cloth; point at it and press the mouse for a second, and its body will fly into the air. Once you release the mouse, it will fall freely. This cute little thing relieved Gao Tao's fatigue in preparing for the postgraduate entrance examination, and also made him understand why many people are willing to spend thousands of yuan to maintain such a virtual thing.

One night, after putting the penguin on the construction site, Gao Tao went out to do errands.

When I came back, I saw the penguin was shaking all over and sneezing constantly. Bad, pet is sick. Immediately go to the hospital, find a doctor, buy medicine... When the disease is cured, I count and spend another 70 yuanbao.

In just 40 days, Gao Tao spent 1,400 yuan on pets. However, he found a way to save money and upgrade. The first is to improve the pet's "mood value", which is the basic condition for the pet to quickly upgrade. The method is to click on the pet's right foot and let the pet walk back and forth 6 times. The mood value will reach the highest; second, there is also a need to pay attention to the purchase of goods. If the pet is hungry, Buy "cantaloupe jelly" or "fish-shaped cookies" every time. Although the price is the same as similar foods at 60 yuan, the above-mentioned foods are generally highly nutritious; third, after each work is completed, follow the first method to let the pet's " "Mood value" returns to its highest value.

At the same time, Gao Tao also summarized a set of matching methods for selecting the best part-time jobs at different levels, which not only earns more gold, but also enhances the charm value. The use of this method greatly reduced the illness rate of pets and accelerated the upgrade speed. In just two months, his pets climbed to the first place in the QQ pet rankings.

However, Gao Tao believed that this method still could not change the situation of people taking care of pets. He began to think about how to make pets take care of themselves like humans. If he became a "QQ pet nanny" It would be great if the software could automate all feeding, bathing, and medical treatment. The idea is good, but he is a technical layman.

At noon on a Sunday, Gao Tao went out to do some errands, and the storytelling "Liu Bang of the Han Dynasty" happened to be playing on the radio station. Listening to the storytelling, Gao Tao suddenly realized, "The founder of the Han Dynasty, Liu Bangwen, was not as good as Zhang Liang, and his martial arts was not as good as that of Han Xin, but he was able to lead them to conquer the world. Although I don't understand the Internet, I can cooperate with technical elites!"

< p>After returning home, Gao Tao posted in various forums inviting like-minded people to create the "QQ Pet Nanny" business, and soon there were nearly a thousand comments. After some exchanges, Gao Tao identified eight college students from different regions as partners.

Gao Tao asked four of them to develop software and the other four to build the website. A week later, the "QQ Pet Nanny" software was released. After several debuggings, it fully achieved the desired effect.

When Gao Tao called to ask everyone how to use this achievement, the four R&D classmates agreed that the software should be sold at a good price. As a result, Gao Tao objected, and he told everyone clearly: "If the software is sold, we may earn some hard money, but it will also block our own way. We will not sell this software, and I have asked other people to The four of us are setting up a website, and within a few days we will put the 'nanny' software on our own website to attract many netizens."

"Pet Nanny"

Earn two million

In June 2005, the website with Gao Tao as the webmaster was officially launched, and the "QQ Pet Nanny" software made its debut as a blockbuster bait.

The teamwork has initially yielded results. In order to ensure the long-term regular development of the website, they held a "telephone conference" at which the division of labor was clearly defined: Ant (Gao Tao's online name) and Taiyuan were responsible for the overall planning of the website, Shitou, Dandan, Yiyi, Magic, Wuqiu, and Laomiao are responsible for software development, and Spinach is responsible for forum security maintenance. Gao Tao also specially hired netizen Suki to be responsible for advertising.

Because "QQ Pet Sitter" can be downloaded for free and can reduce a lot of worries for pet owners, everyone downloads and uses it one after another. At the same time, everyone also started to communicate on pet wedding matching and common problems in the forum. The number of visits to the website continues to rise.

As the number of netizens increases, problems also arise. When they first built the website, they used a small server in a school that could only accommodate 200 people online at the same time every day. By August 2005, the server was far from meeting online requirements. At the critical moment, Chongqing netizen "I Love Hehe" took the initiative to provide a private server, which can withstand 500 people online at the same time. The number of clicks during this period has reached more than 900,000.

Gao Tao looked at the rapidly rising numbers and was worried that the server would be in crisis again in the near future. He made a prompt decision and bought another server with his own money.

Member suki was very puzzled by this and asked him: "Ant, I haven't seen any clues about making money yet, how come you still spend nearly ten thousand yuan investing in it?" Gao Tao said in I put a smiley face on the Internet and replied: "Brother, you have too little vision. You have to find a unique way to start a business! Just wait and see!"

By December 2005, Gao Tao devoted himself wholeheartedly. During the intense study for the postgraduate entrance examination, Taiyuan reported to him the number of visits every day. On December 12, Gao Tao received a text message on Taiyuan's mobile phone: "Ant, the number of visits has increased rapidly recently, reaching 7.18 million today." Gao Tao promptly replied: "The opportunity will come soon. While everyone is on vacation, we will promote it. Be prepared to research all instant chat tools."

Sure enough, on December 18, Gao Tao's cell phone rang. After seeing the soaring popularity of the website, an advertising company in Shanghai wanted to place an advertisement at the top of the website and went to the webmaster to discuss the matter. Gao Tao asked the other party what the price was, and it turned out that the advertising company's export price was 100,000 yuan, and the condition was that it would be published for 18 months. Gao Tao immediately contacted Suki and asked him to draft a contract and agree to Shanghai's request. This time Suki was so happy.

In January 2006, the number of visits exceeded 20 million. At this time, two more game developers came to the door, and they received another 160,000 yuan. All the members were shocked. They never expected that the website would produce such fruitful results just six months after its establishment. Gao Tao's far-sightedness convinced them even more.

After the preliminary examination for graduate students, Gao Tao asked for everyone’s opinions on how to spend the 260,000 yuan? As a result, everyone agreed to listen to his arrangements. Gao Tao made a decisive decision again and invested all 260,000 yuan into improving the server.

In March 2006, all team members held their first face-to-face meeting in Wuhan. It was decided at the meeting to set up branch servers in Shanghai, Zhengzhou, and Chongqing to increase website traffic. At the meeting, Taiyuan raised a very sharp question about the "QQ Pet Nanny" software: "From the background statistics, there are fewer and fewer netizens downloading the pet 'Nanny' software. Will this give us a negative impact in the future?" Development has an impact?”

Gao Tao smiled: “Actually, the pet nanny software is just a gimmick. People originally want to play with their pets. The reason why our software is attractive is the curiosity of pet owners. Psychologically, once it becomes automated, it becomes boring. Therefore, our main focus in the future is to use the website platform and our own technical strength to explore new markets.”

The success of the party further inspired the members’ motivation. Technicians began to seriously study the technology development of QQ edge industries and chat tools such as MSN and UC. At the same time, the traffic of the website is also rising at a rapid rate. In April, the number of daily visits was around 1.8 million. By June 1, it exceeded 100 million.

The huge number of visits attracted more merchants, and dozens of merchants such as "Hacker Animation" and "Warcraft" came to visit one after another. The increase in customers has naturally brought them generous income. As of mid-June, total advertising revenue has exceeded 2 million yuan.

At this time, workshop-style operations can no longer meet their needs. In order to ensure more formal development in the future, on July 1, 2006, at the suggestion of member suki, they registered and established a "Network Information Co., Ltd.", with Gao Tao serving as the company's CEO.

On New Year's Eve in 2007, the revised website was no longer just a "QQ Pet Nanny" website. It also added a variety of instant messaging projects, but "QQ Pet Nanny" still served as the website. The main product of the website.

Regarding Gao Tao’s entrepreneurial story, relevant personnel said: “Traffic is the primary productivity of the website, and nanny software is a peripheral field of QQ. For entrepreneurs without certain funds and practical experience, discovering The blank field of the Internet is indeed a better choice.”

Readers, what do you think after reading this entrepreneurial story? In fact, Gao Tao is just good at thinking and summarizing things around him. As long as you are a thoughtful person and try boldly, you may be the next millionaire.

College students explore blank fields——

In the virtual online world, many people keep various pets.

Internet pets are very squeamish and love to get sick, causing their owners a lot of headaches. However, a layman who didn't know anything about network technology saw business opportunities. He successively formed a team, established a website, established a company, and earned millions of wealth... …