Where did all those guys who made routers last year go?
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In October 2013, Lao Wang contacted Zhai Kejun through an email. More than half a year later, Zhai Kejun met Lao Wang, who had hurried over, in a cafe in Hangzhou. The weather was a bit hot, and Lao Wang was a little out of breath. After unpacking his bag, he began to wipe his sweat. During this period, Lao Wang and Zhai Kejun kept in touch online. For a while, Lao Wang called himself "Fatty Wang". Now he doesn't seem to be that fat. It seems that entrepreneurship makes people lose weight (of course, it does not rule out the case of becoming fat). Lao Wang made a set of light smart home system, which is simply a router. After sitting down, he took out two versions of the router from his bag, one version was uglier than the other (optimistically speaking, one version was more beautiful than the other). No money, no router. Around January this year, Lao Wang sent Zhai Kejun a photo of the engineering version, which was almost the same as it is now. The conversation was roughly like this: Have we made any progress in the past six months? Not much progress. - One reason, no money. When they started in 2013, Lao Wang and his partners raised less than 1 million yuan and worked for more than a year without taking any salary. In the meantime, Jilu Router raised funds, and Xiaomi, Baidu, 360... (the list is very long) announced that they would make smart routers, and then nothing happened. Lao Wang said that they have almost finished the software and hardware, but they don’t have the money for mass production, and they are in urgent need of an angel. But when the investor met him, he only said, "Xiaomi (360/XXX) also makes routers." At present, there are colleagues in Lao Wang’s team who work part-time outside; when Zhai Kejun visited, the company’s site just expired. Lao Wang is planning to move, and met another group of investors in the morning. He feels that he can lose some weight this month. Lao Wang said that earlier, a domestic home appliance giant wanted to acquire them, and there were many considerations in the middle, but in the end they did not agree. Now this giant has provided them with a R&D and underwriting contract, but due to the payment period, they still have a funding gap of 2 million yuan. Routers are all in the same boat Let's take a look at the router products from last year to this year: Baidu Router, gone; Guangzhou Zhi Router, gone; Chengdu Ruyiyun, hugged the thigh, the second generation has not been seen for half a year; Shenzhen Spotted Cat, built momentum for several months, disappeared; Xunlei Router, not mass-produced; Leco Router, not mass-produced; Magic Bean Router, not mass-produced; To sum up, the students above are basically gone or invisible. Among the students who are in mass production, Xiaomi and 360 have very small sales, Huawei Honor has just started selling, and finally there is Ji Router, Ji Router's profit margin was forced to decline severely after November last year. Lao Wang's team is also one of the above. For the teams that have transformed or given up, everyone is relieved and has found other opportunities. The hardest is the team that is still persisting. Lao Wang believes that there is still room for routers to be made now, based on the following reasons: Xiaomi and Huawei's routers both have built-in fans. Fans that run 24 hours a day can only last for two years and will leave hidden dangers of stability and even fire - so a large number of users will definitely return them for repairs within two years, and they will not be able to enter the operator channels; For Ji Router, the hardware profit margin is too low after the price adjustment, and the current product has no software-side revenue; All (smart) router manufacturers added together will not exceed 15. Wang believes that even if 15 companies come together to replace a batch of light smart homes for the market of 300 million households across the country, there will be great potential. As a winner of Toutiao's Qingyun Plan and Baijiahao's Bai+ Plan, the 2019 Baidu Digital Author of the Year, the Baijiahao's Most Popular Author in the Technology Field, the 2019 Sogou Technology and Culture Author, and the 2021 Baijiahao Quarterly Influential Creator, he has won many awards, including the 2013 Sohu Best Industry Media Person, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Beijing Third Place, the 2015 Guangmang Experience Award, the 2015 China New Media Entrepreneurship Competition Finals Third Place, and the 2018 Baidu Dynamic Annual Powerful Celebrity. |
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