Story 丨 Lei Jun's three -stage life trough

21st Century Business Herald reporter Bai Yang Beijing report

On the evening of August 11, Xiaomi founder Lei Jun's annual speech arrived as expected. This time, he did not talk about Xiaomi, but talked about some stories about the trough of life.

One

In 1996, the 26 -year -old Lei Jun was the general manager of Beijing Jinshan and encountered the first time in life.

At that time, in order to compete with the Microsoft Office, Jinshan tuned almost all programmers, and spent 3 years developing a new office software- "Pangu". However, after being released in April 1995, Pangu's sales were terrible, and at the end of the year, there was still no improvement.

The new products cannot be sold, the old products WPS can not be sold, the income is sharply reduced, and Jinshan is in trouble. At the worst time, Jinshan's account was only 100,000 yuan. Even the salary of the next month was very difficult. Lei Jun often insomnia during that time, and he couldn't sleep.

Lei Jun said that there were several nights at the time, he sat alone on the sofa, watching the lights on the opposite building extinguished one by one, and then saw the sky lit a little. Many colleagues also left one after another. The original lively office became deserted. During that day, Lei Jun felt very torment.

Why can't Pangu sell such a good product? Lei Jun was realized. As the person in charge of R & D, he felt that there was a problem with sales, so he decided to go to the front line to sell the goods in person.

In the largest software store in Zhongguancun, Beijing, Lei Jun stood for eight hours on the first day and talked about eight hours, but a set of software was not sold. The next day and the third day were still unparalleled.

On the fourth day, Lei Jun simply did not sell the goods, so he followed the best sales and study in the store. On the fifth day, he learned and practiced, and finally sold the first order. Subsequently, Lei Jun's performance was getting better and better, and on the seventh day, he became a sales champion in the store.

Of course, Lei Jun Station is not to sell many products, but to figure out why the product cannot be sold. In fact, after a few days of station stores, he did re -understand a reason that seemed to be very simple, that is, to be a product that users really need, not just the product that looks tall.

Lei Jun said that in 1996, computers had just begun to popularize. When he was in the store, users came to ask if there was a computer entry software every day. This made Lei Jun a little bit of understanding. Isn't it enough to learn a book to buy a book, but as he was asked countless times, Lei Jun suddenly thought that since so many people need it, it is not good to do one.

In fact, compared with Pangu, there is no technical content of such software. Therefore, the Lei Jun organization team immediately developed a software called "Entry Entry". Who knows that this "Introduction to Computers" has appeared on the best -selling software rankings once it was launched.

This incident brought a huge shock to Lei Jun, and it also made him understand that Pangu's problem was "closed doors". After finding the root cause of the problem, Jinshan also became simple to make a product. The later Kingsoft Ci Battle and Jinshan Poison Battles all became explosive products.

Lei Jun said that without this crisis in 1996, as an engineer, he may not have the opportunity to make up for such an important lesson to sell goods. And this experience not only helps Jinshan survive, but also become a valuable wealth of Lei Jun's career.

Second

After Jinshan found the way to survive, Lei Jun himself fell into a greater confusion, and began the darkest period of his personal career.

Lei Jun said that at that time, Jinshan wanted to compete with Microsoft. In fact, he couldn't see any hope, and to be a company that barely lived, he had no attractiveness to him. Therefore, he felt that he lost his ideals and lost his fighting spirit, so in April 1996, he submitted his resignation.

As for the repeated retention of Bo Jun, Lei Jun decided to rest for half a year. During that time, Lei Jun was depressed. He often went to soak with a few friends, and could jump crazy for a night without rest. In the process of soaking it, Lei Jun also began to like heavy metal rock. He felt immersed in this music and let himself forget all his troubles for the time being.

There are so many bubbles, and Lei Jun even thought about opening a bar in Sanlitun. But later, Lei Jun found a more interesting thing, BBS.

At that time, the Internet was not popular. Many enthusiasts built a call dial -up network CFIDO. Because of sufficient time, Lei Jun was soaked in CFIDO BBS all day. Due to the fast typing, Lei Jun can post 100 posts a day, the longest of the posts, tens of thousands of words.

Then, Lei Jun became a moderator. He said that the moderators were not big, but there were a lot of things. He started surfing the Internet at 7 am every morning and was busy until early in the morning. It seemed to be tired than going to work, but he had a fulfilling.

Some people think that watching novels, surfing the Internet, and playing games can only play things, but Lei Jun feels that as long as there is a certain self -control, entertainment is also a good way of learning.

And on BBS, Lei Jun met a lot of friends, such as a programmer named Runxun's paging machine company called Ma Huateng, and an engineer at the Ningbo Telecommunications Bureau, named Ding Lei.

In this life, Lei Jun's emotions recovered a little bit. In November 1996, Lei Jun ended his half -year holiday and returned to Jinshan. After eight years of struggle, in 2005, Jinshan made WPS Office, a product that can compete with Microsoft.

Three -story

In the process of Lei Jun's reorganization of Jinshan, the outside world also changed dramatically. On the other side of the ocean, the Internet was listed in 1995. Yahoo was listed in 1996. It was founded in China. Netease was founded in 1997. Tencent was founded in 1998. The first wave of the Internet has swept from abroad. But Lei Jun was busy doing software at the time, passing by this wave. It wasn't until October 1998 that Lei Jun realized that the Internet wave was unstoppable, so he persuaded the board of directors to use the acquisition method to quickly attack.

Having said that, Lei Jun also rumored some rumors on the Internet. He said that some people said that Ma Huateng had to sell QQ to him when he started his business, and he didn't buy it; others said that Ma Yun was looking for him when he started his business, and he did not invest. In fact, these are rumors, neither Ma Huateng and Ma Yun have found Lei Jun.

And what really talked about the acquisition is actually NetEase. It was just founded by NetEase. There were only five or six people in the company. Lei Jun paid a price of 10 million yuan. At that time, it was not a small number. However, Ding Lei refused. Just two months later, NetEase financed 10 million US dollars, with a valuation of 60 million US dollars.

Lei Jun said that it was a crazy era. He couldn't understand it, but was shocked. So the acquisition could not be achieved, he decided to do it by himself, and then had an excellent network.

At that time, Lei Jun devoted a lot of effort on the excellent network, including insisting on the recovery and summary of the business of the day every night, and even created the earliest innovation measures such as many storage and self -built logistics, and 20 years ago, 20 years ago, 20 years ago, 20 years ago The 4 -hour delivery service was realized in Beishangguangshen.

It took only two or three years since it was launched in May 2000. Zhuoyue.com became the largest B2C e -commerce website at that time. Lei Jun said that the business of Zhuoyue.com is very smooth, and there is only one difficulty, that is, insufficient money, because e -commerce is too burning.

At that time, there was a process of the global Internet bubble, the downturn of the capital market, and the entrepreneurial process of Excellence. But the ideal could not be reality. In September 2004, Lei Jun couldn't stand it, and he sold it to Amazon to Amazon China.

No one expected that after more than half a year, a new round of Internet boom came, and B2C e -commerce ushered in the prosperity of a comprehensive rise. Lei Jun said that after the breakdown of the Internet bubble, Zhuoyue.com fell before the rise of e -commerce.

Lei Jun admits that selling excellence nets is a heavy creation, and his heart is extremely painful. Emotionally, it seemed to lose his child, and what was even more painful was that Lei Jun missed the entire Internet era.

He repeatedly asked him where he lost. In summary, it seems that luck is too bad, and when he is born, he will eventually retreat before dawn. Therefore, Lei Jun has always felt that entrepreneurship needs to be lucky and need to grasp the general trend. This is why he particularly emphasized the "wind".

It missed the PC Internet and also made Lei Jun earlier to see the mobile Internet. In 2005, Lei Jun faintly saw a big opportunity from the news of the 3G network. Therefore, he did two things. One was to become the earliest group of real users, and the other was the earliest participant in this wave.

It was also at that stage that Lei Jun's angel investment invested a number of startups, including UC browser. In fact, a story that Lei Jun did not mention in his speech was that because of the optimism of the mobile Internet, he had also made a mobile social tool -Mi Liao. If it wasn't for a strong opponent like WeChat, then China now in China Mobile social territory may also be rewritten.

at last

The above are the three stories shared by Lei Jun. Although they seem to have no direct contact with Xiaomi, Lei Jun also revealed that these experiences also provided valuable experience for the establishment of Xiaomi and Xiaomi development later.

Lei Jun said, "In the face of these setbacks and failures, I have also been confused, shaken, or even given up. But if there are no these setbacks and the accumulation of these setbacks, there will be no me today."

No one likes frustration and failure, but everyone will inevitably experience it. Since these pains are difficult to avoid, what can do is to face these pains and insist on moving forward in pain.

"Let us make the pain better, this is the meaning of pain and setbacks." Lei Jun said, "And all the setbacks and failures you have experienced, and even those things that seem to be meaningless to wipe time will become it will become a seemingly meaningless time. Your most precious wealth. "

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