How did Chen Danian create an application as large as WeChat by working only 6 hours a day?

As a tool product that already has 900 million users, WiFi Master Key has never been considered high-profile, although its founder Chen Danian has several eye-catching labels - "founder of Shanda Network" and "younger brother of Chen Tianqiao." As his second entrepreneurial project, in just four years, the total number of installed users of WiFi Master Key has exceeded 900 million, and the number of monthly active users has exceeded 500 million. Its number of users in China is second only to WeChat and QQ. Its users cover more than 200 countries and it ranks first on the Google Play tool list in 49 countries.

Chen Danian once said, "When I was working at Shanda, I was always worried about missing any opportunity. Now I feel that to do the right thing, I have to slow down. Maybe you arrive a little later than others, but your gains will exceed your imagination." In an exclusive interview with China Business News a few days ago, he also talked about how he ran LianShang Network (WiFi Master Key) with this mentality. Huxiu has excerpted several important questions. You can click here to read the full text.

Where do 900 million users come from?

The countryside surrounds the city

"To be more precise, 900 million users means 900 million independent mobile phones. We count them based on one mobile phone as one user. Although our actual number of users is less than WeChat, our growth is faster than WeChat. The reason why we grow faster than WeChat is related to the business model. Social software like WeChat has a relatively long and slow start-up period. No social software explodes on the first day. Tool software comes to the high-speed growth stage earlier. For service companies like WiFi Master Key, as long as our services are in place, users will firmly use my products. From a long-term perspective, our growth rate will not slow down. Users rely on word of mouth. The larger the base, the greater the power of word of mouth. But the path we take in the end will be increasingly different from WeChat. It is a social software, and we are an Internet service. These two directions are different.

I don't deny that WiFi Master Key has gradually spread from second- and third-tier cities to mainstream cities. Although there are more novice users and fewer experienced users now, the deviation from what everyone imagines is much smaller. Looking back at the past 20 years of the Internet, the very successful companies all expanded from second-tier cities to first-tier cities, with the exception of Didi. All companies with a massive number of users adopt the strategy of surrounding the cities from the countryside. ”

Don’t compete for “locust” users

"When we were making games before, we had a concept: don't compete for "locust" users. That is, don't compete for the group of users that everyone is competing for, although from another perspective, the cost of attracting new users to games is the lowest. Shanda always goes after new users, those users who didn't play games before, and these users are the ones who really drive the healthy growth of your games. Now 30% of WiFi Master Key users have never used WeChat, which means we are constantly bringing new users to the mobile Internet . The increase in the number of users and the length of time users spend is beneficial to the entire market, and we are really working hard to give everyone a longer period of traffic dividends."

After acquiring users, how to make money? Connecting people and scenes

"Making money is not my main concern at the moment. I will try my best to make the company not lose money. Our primary goal is still to provide users with free Internet access. WiFi Master Key is just one of our products for network connection. It solves the problem of users not having an Internet connection outside and wanting to connect to WiFi. But there are still many scenarios that require the Internet. In some places where WiFi is not covered, we also have to do some work. We may launch new products in the future.

From a business perspective, connecting people and scenes must be the next development direction of WiFi Master Key. The biggest feature of WiFi Master Key is networking. Behind the networking is a router, and the location of the router will not change easily. If we calculate the locations of all routers through big data, it will become a very efficient location information platform.

The scenarios represented by these positions will become a new and huge gold mine that can be developed in the Internet field. We will gradually open up these resources to other companies for use. In this process, we do not steal the business from companies like Meituan Dianping and Didi. They make recommendations, and we help them push their services. We serve as a channel for interaction between people and scenes.

In fact, I think Tencent’s slogan “Connect Everything” best represents our LinkSure. I'm actually not worried about competition right now. The biggest mistake I made in the past was that we always think that life is short and if we miss an opportunity, we will never see it again. But the fact is that if you are not prepared, then even if you act earlier than others at that point in time, you will still die. Looking back, most companies were defeated by themselves because they made the wrong choice. If you have everything ready, you will get enough rewards even if you do it late. This is one of the most important reflections I have had in recent years. ”

Probably the laziest CEO

"Now I only work 6 hours a day." The corners of his mouth rose slightly. "An investor came to me a few days ago and said that I was the laziest CEO." But I told him that this shows that the company is healthy and your investment is safe. Chen Danian implemented a rotating president system within the company. Sometimes he deliberately stayed in Singapore instead of returning to Shanghai in order to let the team make decisions. "A good company cannot rely on a star manager, it should be a strong group." As rotating president, he learned to let go, which he said he learned from Ren Zhengfei of Huawei.

However, in the view of industry insiders who are familiar with Shanda’s past, learning to let go and slow down is the biggest change for the Chen brothers. Chen Danian recalled the pace of his work at Shanda, "I arrived at the company at 10 o'clock every day and went home at two or three in the middle of the night. I only had six or seven days off a year during the Chinese New Year, and the rest of the time was all at work." Chen Danian explained that this subversive change began when he became ill. When you are seriously ill, you will have a very subversive perspective on life.

It was precisely because of slowing down that he began to observe and think more carefully. He reflected on Shanda, read a lot of information and spent time studying Tencent, Alibaba, and Huawei, and found that the real success of a company lies in those key nodes. To do the right thing, you have to slow down. He no longer simply emphasizes big and strong or small and beautiful, but focuses on pursuing the long-term survival of the company.

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This article was compiled and published by the author @陈大年 (Qinggua Media). Please indicate the author information and source when reprinting!