Regarding "The Purge," Zane, after seeing the box office results, put down the weight in his heart and decided to head to Silicon Valley.
You know, at the same time the movie was released, Zane's other company, LinkedIn, officially launched its website on the market.
LinkedIn Company.
"Jeff, what's the situation with the current registered users of LinkedIn?" Zane asked.
Hearing that, Jeff Weiner, the president of LinkedIn, didn't look very good.
Zane's heart suddenly sank.
"Boss, the LinkedIn website has been on the market for ten days, and the effect is very average. In the United States, there are currently less than 800,000 IP addresses that have logged into the website and just over 14,200 registered users. The conversion rate is only 1.77%, which is much lower than our expected 5%," Jeff Weiner said solemnly.
"So... it doesn't matter, just keep working hard."
Zane's surface was calm and composed, but his heart was filled with frustration and unwillingness.
$10 million in publicity funds!
It's important to know that the USD spent by the messaging app ICQ when it launched was only $1 million. However, the market quickly accepted it shortly after its launch. Registered users skyrocketed to over 300,000 in just ten days. Yet, the current LinkedIn website, with ten times the publicity funds of ICQ, produced completely unsatisfactory results.
This made Zane deeply realize the difficulty of starting a business!
Deeply frustrated.
Think about the chain stores around SpongeBob's house, think about investing in Netscape stocks, Yahoo stocks, investing in ICQ, creating Wald Pictures, acquiring the UPN Television Network, acquiring California Standard Bank, creating Water World Animation Studio, launching the "Talent Show" program...
Thinking about the experience of the past two years, Zane had achieved incredible, almost divinely-assisted successes!
But!
This time, Zane had stumbled with the LinkedIn project!
Ten days ago, when the LinkedIn company website launched on the market, although the data wasn't high, Zane didn't pay too much attention. After all, his main focus at the time was on the film "The Purge," and it was hard to split his attention. Now, looking back, he had to grit his teeth and accept the situation of LinkedIn's poor performance.
Save it?
Of course, it must be saved!
Not to mention how brilliant LinkedIn the company would be in the future, not to mention that Microsoft's acquisition of it would cost $26.2 billion, but just for the $10 million in previously allocated publicity funds, Zane couldn't just give up.
Of course, if the $10 million publicity fund was spent, it didn't mean it was completely gone.
The publicity contracts signed with major media, internet, and television companies after the $10 million publicity fund was spent were mostly not short-term contracts. Generally, the publicity period was 3 to 6 months.
"Boss, I admit I made a fatal mistake, but I don't think we've completely failed!"
Just as Zane was thinking, Jeff Weiner said suddenly.
"Oh?"
Zane immediately became interested. "Tell me more specifically."
A fatal mistake? !
What mistake!
Jeff Weiner said solemnly, "Boss, here's what I think. Our LinkedIn company is a company whose main function is online recruitment. It is fundamentally different from instant messaging like ICQ, portal sites like Yahoo, and e-commerce websites like Amazon."
"Our LinkedIn company is essentially a professional social networking service company. The target user base is mainly working professionals and job seekers, including social elites who are looking to change jobs and secure higher salaries."
"But!"
"The current major user groups on the internet are young people like high school students and college students. They don't have the social pressure of finding jobs, so they can't quickly become our users in a short period."
Zane understood as soon as he finished speaking.
Zane nodded and said, "In other words, the mistake you made before was that you didn't focus your publicity on job seekers?"
"Yes, boss."
Jeff Weiner admitted his mistake frankly. "The promotional plan I devised before only promoted LinkedIn the company and ignored the current internet audience. This is an unforgivable mistake I made."
In fact, it was exactly as he said.
He had made a huge mistake.
The target audience was completely wrong. How effective could you expect the publicity to be?
It's like you were originally in the restaurant business, and now you switch to the car business. If you continue to promote it according to the old restaurant publicity methods, you are bound to encounter miserable failure!
Crossing industries is difficult!
Jeff Weiner was clearly more sober after his failure.
"Sigh~~!"
Zane immediately sighed deeply.
"I am also responsible!"
"For a long time, smooth sailing made me feel that if I found the right person, I would definitely succeed. But today's reality tells me that things aren't that easy!"
Look at the two students from Malaysia and the young horse. Tencent and Alibaba weren't built overnight. They experienced failures again and again, and even faced the risk of bankruptcy many times before succeeding.
"So what if I failed once?"
"If you can't do it once, just do it a few more times. I still don't believe in this evil!"
Suddenly, after a hundred turns in his mind, Zane regained his fighting spirit.
Zane looked at Jeff Weiner, who was gritting his teeth, and said solemnly, "Jeff, the failure of the promotion isn't your responsibility alone. As the boss, as the sole shareholder of LinkedIn, I didn't invest all my energy during the promotion period. I also have an unshirkable responsibility."
"Boss, I..."
Jeff Weiner was too moved to speak.
Causing the boss to lose $10 million—if it were anyone else, they would probably be fired on the spot. But how could he not be moved and ashamed by Zane's actions now?
Zane shook his head and smiled wryly.
In fact, Zane admitted he was wrong, and it was true!
One's energy is limited!
Those protagonists in novels who are both bosses and directors are really awesome. However, in reality, it's too difficult. It's almost impossible to achieve success without devoting yourself wholeheartedly to one thing. Even if it exists, the probability of success is very low.
Look at the big directors in Hollywood!
For example: Spielberg.
In the 80s and 90s, he was one of the most famous directors in the world. As long as the films were produced by him, they were all big sellers, and he was highly sought after in Hollywood!
But!
When he and others founded DreamWorks, everything changed!
At the beginning of DreamWorks' establishment, Spielberg was still able to direct a series of best-selling works and win Oscar awards. But after the DreamWorks operations expanded, many of Spielberg's films underperformed. After entering the 21st century, he hardly had many works that could achieve great success.
Even such a big director can't guarantee his energy, so of course Zane can't do it either.
"My dream of directing hasn't officially started yet, and it's already messed up!"
This is like the protagonist of a martial arts novel who has been practicing hard in the deep mountains for many years. Once he leaves the mountains, he wants to experience the pleasure of the martial world, but suddenly finds that he is invincible. This kind of thing isn't easy to accept!
There's no joy of leveling up and fighting monsters at all!
Is there?
Zane feels like this now.
"I'll just be the big boss honestly in the future. Well, I need to set up an assistant team; otherwise, my energy will definitely not be enough," Zane thought.
In the following period, Zane and Jeff Weiner, along with a group of senior executives at LinkedIn, adjusted their promotional plans to focus on the target group of professionals and job seekers.
....
"Ding Ding Ding!"
That same evening, Zane received a call at home.
The caller was surprisingly attorney.
"Boss, the equity swap negotiations with Amazon are basically done!"
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