After being removed from the shelves, is Bullet Messenger going to be in trouble?

The news that Bullet Messenger was removed from Apple's App Store quickly spread on the Internet.

At 10 a.m. on October 9, a user left a message on Luo Yonghao’s Weibo, saying that Bullet Messenger had been removed from the iOS platform. A Weibo user who was certified as “Bullet Messenger Customer Service” replied at the time: “The Bullet Messenger App is under review. Please try again later.”

Around 1:00 p.m., the news of the removal quickly spread on the Internet.

At 14:40, Bullet Messenger posted on its official Weibo account: "Due to complaints that two pieces of information provided by our content partners may involve image copyright issues, Bullet Messenger has been temporarily removed from the App Store. We apologize for the inconvenience. We are verifying the specific situation with our partners and will inform you as soon as the download is restored. Bullet Messenger will continue to be updated in the near future, so stay tuned."

Luo Yonghao retweeted this Weibo post without any additional comments.

At 7 a.m. on October 10, more than 20 hours after being removed from the App Store, Bullet Messenger was back online on the Apple App Store and resumed downloads.

In fact, because Apple has very strict rules for apps, many well-known apps have been removed from the shelves. What really attracted attention about Bullet Messenger is why such a popular product fell silent in a short period of time. Is it possible for it, which was once expected to "challenge WeChat", to make a comeback?

From hot to cold

Just over a month ago, Bullet Messenger was launched and became number one on the iOS list. Luo Yonghao sometimes posted more than a dozen Weibo posts related to it a day, which were quite humorous, angry, and derogatory.

In those Weibo posts, he announced the good news of the explosive growth in the number of Bullet Messenger users, instructed the team to optimize certain functions, and from time to time lamented the crazy pursuit of capital, almost becoming the official spokesperson of Bullet Messenger.

According to the public information, Smartisan Technology, of which Luo Yonghao is the CEO, invested tens of millions of yuan in KuaiRu Technology (the parent company of Bullet SMS) in the angel round and is the major shareholder of KuaiRu Technology. Luo Yonghao is also considered by the outside world to be a decision-maker with important say in KuaiRu Technology.

The end of August and the beginning of September were also the peak times for Bullet Messenger. On August 29, Bullet Messenger added more than 1 million new users in a single day, and on August 30, the total number of activated users exceeded 4 million. At 13:00 on August 31, the total number of activated users reached 5 million.

The soaring number of users attracted investors with a keen sense of smell. One investor said in an interview with this magazine, "Social networking among acquaintances is extremely sexy, and it is easy to arouse the fear of missing out of venture capitalists." Luo Yonghao confirmed on Weibo that Bullet Messenger completed its first round of financing of 150 million yuan on the seventh day of its launch, with a valuation of 600 million yuan, invested by Gaorong Capital and Chengcheng Capital, and "more than 50 investment institutions came to visit, but I only met less than one-tenth of them."

Neither of the two institutions involved in the scandal officially announced the investment. Chengcheng Capital once told the Beijing News that “it was invested by our fund” but did not accept an interview. Gaorong Capital claimed at the time that it was “still in contact”.

An insider revealed to our magazine that Bullet SMS's Series A financing has indeed been completed.

On September 9, Luo Yonghao revealed in a live broadcast of "Let the Bullets Fly for a While" that the day after Bullet Messenger was launched, Tencent's investment department called to say that it wanted to invest. However, Tencent's investment department later responded through Tencent Technology that "there was no such thing, but there was a brief communication on WeChat a few days ago, and no investment matters were mentioned."

Luo Yonghao immediately responded with a sharp retort: ​​"If this is a misunderstanding, if Tencent Investment Department contacted our Bullet Team through various channels not to discuss investment cooperation, but to play mahjong, eat chicken, imitate cat meows, watch a movie, etc., then I apologize to Tencent Investment Department." He also wrote, "In the future, if Tencent Investment Department has any more news related to this that disgusts me subjectively or objectively (I will try to understand it in a kind way), I will directly publish the screenshots of the conversation to prove my innocence or stupidity."

However, even as this "war of words" was going on, Bullet Messenger had already begun to show signs of weakness. Qimai data showed that Bullet Messenger had been declining since it fell to No. 2 on the overall list (free) on September 2, and was already No. 133 on the overall list (free) and No. 11 on the social list (free) on September 9. By October 8, it had fallen to No. 1450 on the overall list (free) and No. 76 on the social list (free).

Bullet Messenger's ranking changes in the iOS list. Source: Qimai Data

"The number of downloads has indeed dropped," Luo Yonghao admitted on Weibo. In his opinion, after experiencing explosive growth, Bullet Messenger, whose basic functions have not been polished, has now entered a stable period, which is "in line with normal product rules."

On September 20, Bullet Messenger celebrated its first full month, and they also announced their total number of users, which is about 7.5 million. Compared with 5 million at 13:00 on August 31, the increase was 2.5 million, and the growth rate has slowed down significantly.

Data provided to this magazine by Questmobile showed that the number of new installed users of Bullet Messenger was 399,000 in the week of September 17-23. In comparison, the number was 4.75 million in the most popular week of August 27-September 2.

Is it really cold?

When Bullet Messenger still had nearly one million new users per day, the media once labeled it a "WeChat challenger." In the eyes of some people, WeChat brings users problems such as the lack of distinction between work and life and some functions are not optimized enough. These drawbacks may become the weight of Bullet Messenger's success.

Luo Yonghao is naturally unwilling, or does not want to explicitly put Bullet Messenger in opposition to WeChat. He repeatedly emphasized that he does not want to challenge WeChat, "just to be a niche area for people who care about communication efficiency." However, his ambitions are often revealed unintentionally, "Fast Technology does not expect to subvert WeChat, but it is possible to cut a piece of the cake. What if it is cut off?"

"Replacing WeChat is still too far away today." Li Ze (pseudonym), an investor who has had contact with the Bullet Messenger team, said in an interview with this magazine in early September, "The current situation is that they have made a pretty good phenomenal product, obtained a lot of resources, and have a certain number of registered users. It is a good start, but there are still very big challenges ahead."

When Bullet Messenger was first launched, it was difficult for the outside world to determine what its positioning was. It looked like a social software that combined WeChat and DingTalk, with a strong office flavor. Even Hao Xijie, co-founder of KuaiRu Technology, said in an interview: "In terms of the target population, we want to meet the needs of those who process a very large amount of messages every day, so that we can demonstrate efficiency."

But there is a question: how large is this group of people? After all, a group that can switch social software at will and wait for others to find them is indeed rare. Lao Luo may be one of them, and the elite groups in some cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou and Shenzhen may be one of them, but what else?

Yu Jun, the father of Baidu Tieba and former vice president of Baidu products, once proposed a formula: user net benefit = (new experience - old experience) - switching cost. When "user net benefit" is positive, the new product has greater value. This can also be regarded as a calculation equation when users accept a new App.

If we substitute Bullet Messenger and WeChat into this formula, we may find that there is not much difference between the new experience and the old experience. Bullet Messenger does not have some killer highlights yet. It is more of an optimization of certain functions of WeChat. These may make some people who feel pressured by WeChat choose to try it out, but it is not enough to stimulate people's desire to migrate.

Even if the new experience minus the old experience is positive, there is still a huge switching cost. WeChat already has 1 billion users, and almost all of the users’ family, classmates, and colleagues are on WeChat. Even if they choose to use Bullet Messenger, they will not stay there for long if they have no one to chat with.

Someone once analyzed that one of the important reasons why WeChat defeated MiTalk in early 2011 was that WeChat could import contacts through QQ, but Bullet Messenger could only import acquaintance relationship chains through the somewhat outdated mobile phone address book, WeChat Moments sharing QR code, etc. Such conversion costs are definitely higher.

Luo Yonghao certainly understands this. In a Weibo post on August 31, he wrote, "The most common complaint is that users feel that too few of their friends have installed Bullet Messenger. This is indeed a fatal problem for an instant messaging tool that focuses on acquaintance relationships." But he also revealed that a product manager proposed an "invincible solution," "We will use this solution to solve the migration problem of acquaintance relationships in a version in a week or two."

But now, more than a month has passed, and there is still no sign of this invincible solution. Many loyal users of Bullet Messenger are still trapped in the awkward situation of having no one to chat with. They left messages under Luo Yonghao's Weibo, asking him to attract new users as soon as possible, otherwise they will have no choice but to give up.

However, from another perspective, just like the early growth history of WeChat, it did not have very sexy functions at the beginning. In the first three months, WeChat and QQ did not show much difference. Some early users even commented that it was "completely redundant. You have to use a QQ account. You might as well use QQ directly! I thought it was free to send text messages, but I was completely deceived!"

However, with the addition of WeChat 2.0 version that can send voice messages, 2.2 version that can receive QQ offline messages, 2.5 version that opens nearby people, 3.0 version that adds drift bottle and shake function, and 4.0 version that adds Moments, the number of WeChat users began to increase significantly.

In the first three months after its release in early 2011, WeChat has been hovering outside the top 200 or 300 in the overall (free) rankings, and even fell to over 400 at one point. However, it quickly rebounded with the launch of version 2.0 and truly began to embark on the path of becoming a national software.

"From 0 to 1 million, from 1 million to 10 million, and from 10 million to 100 million, different capabilities are required. Bullet Messenger still needs to continuously iterate its products, come up with new things, and use each function point to attract users. So the future still depends on the product capabilities of the team." Li Ze said, "Venture capital is not betting on today, but the entire iteration process."

Some people thought that Bullet Messenger could become a challenger to DingTalk, but in an interview, Li Ze said that this was difficult. DingTalk is not just a social software. In addition to a small part of communication needs, DingTalk is more about clocking in, asking for leave, approval, and a series of enterprise ecosystems. If Bullet Messenger wants to be another DingTalk, it has to find a way to add these functions, enter the enterprise, and join the enterprise's relationship chain, which is also a difficult process.

A media person once wrote on Weibo, "Forget about challenging WeChat with Bullet Messenger. Instead, think about how to get out of the vicious circle of 'dying as soon as it becomes popular.'" Luo Yonghao immediately refuted, "It was you who said 'challenge WeChat' in the beginning, and it is you who say 'don't even think about challenging WeChat' now." He cursed and posted a link, suggesting that the other party should see a doctor as soon as possible. The link was to a hospital specializing in psychiatry.

An investor told our magazine that judging from Bullet Messenger's current performance, "round A+ financing may be in jeopardy. At least it won't be as easy to raise as round A." In his opinion, some investors who were previously attracted by the rapid growth of users may no longer follow up, but if the idea is to invest in the team, perhaps the institution will be optimistic about the team, "and may invest even if the valuation is lowered."

However, at present, social networking is becoming one of the areas of concern for investors again. According to statistics from the investment community, 69 social networking-related projects received financing in 2018, including some popular products such as Soul. On the "Jingzhun" investment matching platform, in terms of the popularity trend in the past quarter, the FIND APP, which focuses on fate social networking, and the stranger O2O dating platform Pinpinpengpeng are also ranked very high.

For Bullet Messenger, it has been less than two months since it went from being popular to being silent. It may be too early to draw any conclusions now.