You call this entrepreneurship?

Chapter 115 Helping Our Competitors Grow
Taylor smiled and took the lead in applauding, "John, I like your strategy. It's very aggressive and ambitious."

Investors from Microsoft and Goldman Sachs looked at each other. They also agreed not to try to start a profit model first, but to capture the market first.

"We will not consider the business model until Facebook captures more than 70% of the market." Qin Shaoyan said very optimistically, "We are ready to contact PayPal and reach a cooperation agreement."

"No, no, no." Goldman Sachs investors waved their hands, "We don't care about how Facebook makes money at this stage. What we care about is how Facebook can capture more and faster markets."

Qin Shaoyan showed a more confident smile, "Relying on the funds obtained from financing, we have formulated more promotion plans."

Microsoft investors asked curiously: "Can you tell us a little bit?"

"I'm sorry, these plans are still confidential and I can't disclose them for the time being." Qin Shaoyan said regretfully, "But I guarantee that these plans are more effective and sensational than Popular Stars."

"The current popularity stars are enough."

"By selecting popular stars from various schools, we will launch the first large-scale talent show on the Internet."

"This will be the first batch of stars born through an online talent show in the United States. We will bring popular star candidates together through the Facebook platform and let them showcase themselves."

"At the same time, we will cooperate with TV variety shows to push the winning popular stars to the screen and use the popularity of the popular stars to expand the influence of Facebook."

"We will set up a special agency to sign contracts with these popular stars, and then a professional planning team will arrange their subsequent activities!"

“I call them influencer programs.”

Qin Shaoyan smiled and gestured, "Let ordinary people on the Internet have the opportunity to become stars."

"Tell those thousands of ordinary people that all you need to become a sought-after star is to register for Facebook and a little bit of luck."

Everyone present smiled, and Taylor clapped and praised: "This plan is very cool, I like it."

The Microsoft investor also smiled and nodded, "If you want to become an Internet celebrity, hurry up and register on Facebook. This is a good gimmick."

Everyone quickly reached an agreement and were very optimistic about Facebook's development prospects.

After review by a team of lawyers, Facebook signed investment agreements with Sequoia, Microsoft, and Goldman Sachs.

Sequoia invested US$10 million for a 10% stake, while Microsoft and Goldman Sachs each invested US$ million for a % stake.

Qin Shaoyan will also provide an additional 10% as an equity pool for implementing employee equity incentives.

After the celebration dinner, Qin Shaoyan took the team straight to the Facebook headquarters in Boston without delay.

After checking the development of Facebook in recent times, Qin Shaoyan called George, Fred, and Zhang Pingyi together.

"It will take some time for the venture capital money to arrive in the company's account." Qin Shaoyan looked at the excited partners with serious eyes, "Don't be happy too early."

"Getting investment is a good thing, but it means we have more responsibilities."

"Although Facebook has achieved great advantages now, we still face many problems."

"There is an old saying in China, which is to live in sorrow and die in happiness. We must establish a deep sense of crisis so that we will not be overtaken and defeated by competitors."

"Now let's all list the problems we all have, Fred, starting with you."

Fred was stunned for a moment, and then replied after thinking for a moment: "Competitors, Facebook has many imitators now, especially Harvard recently had a nasty guy who is imitating and plagiarizing us." Qin Shaoyan frowned, "That What’s the guy’s name?”

"Mark Zuckerberg or something like that. He opened a website called Graph." Fred said with some annoyance. "At first, the website was very simple, but then he gradually copied some of our functions."

Qin Shaoyan nodded and encouraged: "Very good, are there any other imitators?"

"There are some, but they are all trying to make some differences to avoid being too similar to us." Fred cited several website names, "Only the Graph website is the most similar to us."

"George, let me tell you." Qin Shaoyan looked at George.

"Well, our market share is not high enough." George said immediately, "At least there are Facebook users in Seattle. We have to capture the market on the West Coast as soon as possible."

"Very good, let's write this down." Qin Shaoyan continued to ask, "Is there anything else?"

"Maybe we should do something more interesting," Fred interjected.

"This is also a good suggestion." Qin Shaoyan nodded, then stood up and came to the whiteboard.

"Competitor, West Coast, interesting stuff." Qin Shaoyan wrote three items on the whiteboard.

"Let's talk about the third point first, interesting things." Qin Shaoyan circled the words, "Content on social networking sites is king. We must encourage users to upload more interesting things to Facebook."

“Fred will create a function to mark the most popular content on Facebook every day and push it to more people.”

"Develop a creator incentive plan. Anyone who reaches a certain level of popularity can get some monetary rewards from us."

Fred nodded, "OK"

"The West Coast is our focus in the next stage." Qin Shaoyan circled the West Coast, "Whether it is portal advertising, TV advertising, or offline advertising, we must quickly occupy the universities on the West Coast."

"At the same time, we can try to develop our users in Canada."

"No problem." Fred agreed quickly, "We can send someone there to be responsible for conquering Canada."

George looked at the last item on the whiteboard, "How are we going to deal with our competitors?"

"The best way to deal with them is to make our own content better." Qin Shaoyan knocked on the whiteboard, "Find someone to keep an eye on their website to see if there are any interesting features, and bring it over as soon as possible to make micro-innovations."

"Of course, before that, let's get rid of the Tupu website first." Qin Shaoyan looked murderous, "Are Rachel and those people still working at Facebook?"

"Uh, yes." Fred immediately replied, "Following your instructions, I asked them to work part-time as photo reviewers, but they kept complaining that they didn't earn enough from reviewers."

"Call them all over." Qin Shaoyan said calmly, "Tell them that you have a new job."

"Go and find some professional photographers and makeup artists. Just the ones we worked with last time."

George frowned and asked with some confusion: "John, what are you going to do?"

"What to do?" Qin Shaoyan showed a meaningful smile, "First, increase the popularity of our competitors."

(End of this chapter)