A conversation with Wannianli CTO Luo Shilong about the programmer's brilliant transformation

[51CTO.com original article] In the Internet industry, we often use the word "bustling" to describe it, with all kinds of new concepts, new models, and new technologies emerging one after another. However, the perpetual calendar is like a breath of fresh air. Since its birth in 2010, it has always been very low-key, and even the company's senior management has rarely appeared in reports. But this calendar app has now achieved an amazing achievement of over 300 million users.

Over the years, Wannianli has been focusing on creating products with the best user experience, and has taken traditional Chinese culture as a starting point to achieve differentiated development in the entire Internet industry.

Recently, Luo Shilong, CTO of Wannianli, won the "2018 IT Industry Outstanding Person Award" in the "13th China Enterprise "IT Impression·Innovative IT, Empowering the Future" Annual Selection". In an exclusive interview with 51CTO, Luo Shilong shared the secret of how to successfully transform from a technician to a corporate manager.

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Perpetual Calendar CTO Luo Shilong

The gorgeous transformation from programmer to company manager

Today, Luo Shilong is in charge of the product design, R&D, and operation of the perpetual calendar. As the poem says, "Learning on paper is always shallow, and you must practice it to know it well." As a CTO, the craftsman spirit of careful research, the innovative spirit of courage to break through difficulties, the ability to judge future technological trends, and the leadership of strategizing are equally important.

In fact, before starting his own business, Luo Shilong spent a whole night thinking about his future career direction. At that time, he had an offer from a large company and was always unable to decide whether to do his favorite career on the road of entrepreneurship or be a screw in a large company. In the end, he resolutely decided to devote himself to the career he liked.

He admitted that he did not have much work experience. He started his business with two other partners after his junior year. Everything is difficult at the beginning, difficult in the middle, and even more difficult at the end. Luo Shilong recalled the entire entrepreneurial experience and said that although the process was tortuous, it was also interesting. He still remembers it vividly. In 2010, at the beginning of the business, three people started the research and development of the perpetual calendar app in an office. At that time, the iPhone had just entered China. Because the technology was very new, the development documents were not complete. In addition, the English level was limited at the time, resulting in a lack of thorough understanding, and it often took a long time to discuss a problem.

In order to solve a problem, we usually try every possible means, which can be described as "crossing the river by feeling the stones". At that time, the computing power of handheld devices was very limited. If we wanted to make these codes run smoothly on devices with limited computing power, we had to try many methods. "For example, we buried a lot of points in the code to count the execution time of the code. Now it seems to be a very inefficient approach, but at that time it solved a lot of problems and I was very happy," he said.

There is a saying that goes, "Failure can be used as a reference, but success cannot be used as a reference." Everyone makes the most favorable decision at the time when making a choice. If three people started making perpetual calendars in 2018, they might not achieve the same success. Because the time node has changed, the opportunities have changed, and doing the same thing may not achieve the same results. These are the results of continuous learning and progress, as well as persistence in goals.

Throughout the entrepreneurial process, the three partners experienced multiple role changes. At the beginning, they were all doing R&D and writing code. As the company's staff increased and the product variety became richer, they inevitably faced role changes, which required them to constantly put themselves in a new role and consider problems.

He said, "At first we were all confused. We had never done management and only knew how to write code. But after getting a management position, the best way to deal with it is to accept change, embrace change, and learn how to manage the entire technical team. It's like you haven't written iPhone code before, you need to learn the relevant knowledge."

When you are able to manage a technical team with ease, you need to further upgrade to the role of company operator. As a company operator, although you do not need to have professional capabilities such as personnel and finance, you must have the basic ability to communicate with them and provide guidance. You can continuously improve yourself by participating in various trainings and complete the role transition from technical manager to company operator.

Transform into a life service platform to provide high-quality user experience

The premise for a company to provide users with continuously iterated products and provide protection for employees is to ensure that the products can contribute to cash flow and achieve profitability. Usually, most people like to pursue small and beautiful things, but if a company only makes small and beautiful products, its overall revenue scale and profitability often cannot support the company's long-term development. Therefore, in the entire operating logic, the perpetual calendar will ensure that the core functions that users use most are within one step and at their fingertips. Users can even easily use the core functions in the form of plug-ins without entering the main interface of the App. On the other hand, in order to allow users to contribute sufficient cash sources to the company, some value-added functions will be launched, and ultimately a pure calendar tool will be expanded into a life service platform.

Luo Shilong believes that the transformation of the entire company is a gradual process. The perpetual calendar was originally a tool product, efficiency was the top priority, and solving the problems encountered by users was the most important thing. However, with the changes in the times and user perceptions, the perpetual calendar is not just a simple tool app, but has gradually transformed into a life service platform, providing a variety of life service information such as calendar, lunar calendar, weather, notes, reminders, constellations, information, traditional cultural consultation, etc. At this point, the perpetual calendar has also transformed from a tool that prioritizes efficiency to a distribution platform that prioritizes content.

In fact, at the beginning of the development of the perpetual calendar, the launch of functions was based on the needs of the partners themselves, and there was no data to support it. But as more and more user data accumulates, the perpetual calendar will also conduct regular user demand surveys. At the same time, it will not blindly launch new functions, but will conduct sufficient user preference surveys to obtain initial sample data before deciding whether to start research and development. At the beginning of the launch of new functions and new modules, the perpetual calendar will first launch a test version for some users to use on a small scale, and then decide whether to launch the official version based on user feedback data.

In terms of user experience, Luo Shilong believes that achieving optimal user experience is an unattainable goal, because an App can never be liked by all users. The most important thing is to find a compromise between user experience and commercial realization, that is, the doctrine of the mean as Mencius said. For an App to be commercialized, it is inevitable that users who refuse to pay will feel uncomfortable, but the user scale generates benefits, and these users are equally important. On the other hand, users who are used to paying tend to have a certain degree of tolerance, and the services launched by the perpetual calendar are not a disturbance to them, but a required function.

For example, advertisements are also a kind of information, which solves the problem of information asymmetry. If an App is pushed to someone who has no demand, he will think it is an advertisement and be disturbed, but for someone who has demand, the advertisement will become useful information and will not be disturbing. Perpetual Calendar is seeking a balance point that is acceptable to both the platform and users, and controls the commercialization of the entire platform by continuously analyzing background data, optimizing and adjusting.

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Continue to cultivate traditional culture and launch innovative businesses

Every tool app faces the same dilemma. In the early stages of development, it is relatively simple and easy to attract a large number of users by casting a wide net. However, when the number of users reaches a certain scale, what value can be provided to users, or how much revenue can users contribute to the company, are challenges that every tool app faces. The solution to these problems requires in-depth exploration based on the core capabilities or areas of expertise of each tool product.

At the beginning of the design of the perpetual calendar, there was no far-reaching vision. It was through continuous exploration and experimentation that it took out its own unique development path. The perpetual calendar is a product with strong cultural attributes. Some tool apps do not have cultural attributes, and it is easier to promote them overseas, so they are suitable for going overseas. However, the perpetual calendar has strong traditional Chinese cultural attributes, and overseas expansion is a challenge. Just like when the iPhone entered China, its calendar did not conform to the usage habits of Chinese people. Therefore, the perpetual calendar will enrich its cultural attributes through third-party apps, making it more suitable for Chinese people to use. This is also the original intention of the perpetual calendar.

Chinese traditional culture is a very large market. Relying on the strong cultural attributes of the perpetual calendar, the future development direction will continue to deepen the cultural field. Based on this, the perpetual calendar launched the characteristic cultural and creative e-commerce "Liangchen Jiwu" and the traditional cultural consulting platform "Jiming Culture", hoping to bring users a unique spiritual and cultural experience. The perpetual calendar's self-operated mall "Liangchen Jiwu" provides users with cultural and creative products such as intangible cultural heritage handicrafts, traditional auspicious objects, creative national trends, exquisite home furnishings, etc.; it conveys to users the life concept of picking up national style and emphasizing tradition, in order to create an oriental time and object selection platform. At the same time, the perpetual calendar "Jiming Culture" takes the traditional Yixue consulting service as the starting point, focusing on the combination with Buddhist, Taoist, and Confucian culture, and provides users with consulting services such as career advancement, personal finance, marriage and emotions, and the selection of auspicious days in the lunar calendar.

[51CTO original article, please indicate the original author and source as 51CTO.com when reprinting on partner sites]