Hollywood Hunter

As a key project that Yigrete has been quietly incubating, all aspects of 58list have been carefully considered. Perhaps it was because of the clear consideration that the design of the first version of the homepage was directly killed by Simon.

Because it is too cumbersome.

Simon has a deep memory of the classified information website in his memory. At first glance, it is densely packed and a lot of redundant information rushes into your eyeballs, so you don't know what to do.

The 58list team initially made a similar mistake.

In order for users to realize that their services are sufficiently comprehensive and complete, the initial homepage plan has three screens.

Simon finally gave only a design space for the screen, and the requirements were simple, simple and simple. With the current mainstream dial-up network speed, it must be opened instantly without waiting.

This means that the homepage basically exists in full text form.

And most of the non-mainstream classified information services have been cut off. In the short term, three projects will be focused on real estate, work, and second-hand. In fact, this basically covers more than 80% of the content of classified information advertisements on paper media platforms.

The final page, in addition to the website LOGO and search box, is succinctly divided into four parts, with real estate, work and second-hand services as the main services, and a forum for customer communication is also provided.

As a company that single-handedly pioneered the World Wide Web era, Igreat has no problems in technology.

58list wants to succeed, the key is to operate.

For Simon, a latecomer, he knows better than anyone the misinformation, online fraud and other problems that the classified directory website will encounter during its operation.

Therefore, during the preparation process of 58list, the formation of the legal team became the top priority of this subsidiary.

Americans often use lawyers to speak. Once they encounter fraud and other problems when seeking services on the 58list platform, they will definitely target the wealthy Igreat for the first time.

The Internet classified information service has touched the foundation of traditional paper media platforms with annual revenue of up to 20 billion U.S. dollars. It is conceivable that as long as disputes occur, paper media will never be stingy to stir up public opinion to the top and push Eaglet to the forefront. .

It is almost a general trend that free Internet classified information services replace paper media fee-based services.

Simon believes that no one can stop this trend.

However, in this industry redistribution game that will never be peaceful, forming a strong legal team in advance and drawing up clear terms of power and responsibility can maintain the smooth development of 58list to the greatest extent.

Concluding the last meeting before 58list went live, everyone had a meal in the restaurant of Eaglet headquarters at noon.

During this period of time, Eaglet used the 1.5 billion U.S. dollars obtained from Goldman Sachs and Morgan Stanley to continuously invest in multiple start-up companies, but 58list is the only Eaglet company similar to Facebook, Google and Amazon. A wholly-owned subsidiary, so it can be seen that the senior management attaches great importance to this project.

58list's CEO is Michael Novarek, 35 years old this year, graduated from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and once worked at HP for five years.

After the establishment of Eaglet, Michael Novarek was hired to become the company's earliest employees.

As an energetic technical man with a Ph.D., Michael Novarek has participated in the development of the E-mail and web forum projects of the Eaglet Portal.

Simon, Bezos, Tim Bonas Lee and Michael Novarek sat at a table in the restaurant.

Everyone continued to discuss some of the 58list business model issues. Perceiving Michael Novarek’s complacency, Simon asked: "Mike, the traditional paper-media classified information advertising market of 20 billion US dollars, how much do you think will be transformed after 10 years? Revenue for the Internet industry?"

Michael Novarek said: "After 10 years, even if the entire US$20 billion output value cannot be converted due to the free nature of the Internet, I believe there should be an industry scale of about US$5 billion. Moreover, it is cheap. Operating costs will allow us to have a very high profit margin, which is unmatched by traditional paper media."

Simon looked at Bezos and Lee, and asked, "How many do you think there should be?"

Tim Berners Lee said: "I think there should be 5 billion US dollars."

Jeff Bezos probably felt Simon’s intentions and said: “What we are currently developing is only classified information services similar to traditional paper media. With the development of the Internet industry, 58list will be able to provide more classified value-added services in the future. Further expansion of the market, 5 billion US dollars, this figure is not too much."

Simon nodded slightly.

58list does not intend to pursue any profit in the short term. However, during this period, the Eaglet team has also formulated more than one sustainable potential business model.

The Craig Catalog used to be a classified information website that monopolized the North American market. Because of the founder's free operation concept, although it has huge traffic, its annual revenue is only a mere hundreds of millions of dollars.

Of course, because it has only a few dozen employees after many years of development, the profit margin brought by the annual revenue of hundreds of millions of dollars in the Craig Catalog is also terribly high, which has led to such super Internet giants as Yahoo, Google, and Facebook. Enter the classified information market.

The key to the success of Craig's catalog is free and monopoly.

This time, Eaglet started its layout ahead of schedule, and it is even easier to rely on its own advantages to form a de facto monopoly in this market.

However, it is also very difficult to obtain a large amount of revenue.

Simon and the others all expressed their opinions and put up **** and said: "200 million US dollars."

Even Bezos, who understands that Simon is pouring cold water on Michael Novarec, is a little surprised. If 58list can only achieve $200 million in revenue in 10 years, this business is simply not worth continuing.

Simon did not wait for the three to ask questions, and proactively explained: "According to the current free operating model, 58list is similar to a public service platform and will continue for a long time in the future. Fortunately, our operating costs are very low. If you completely ignore the identity of the subsidiary of Eaglet, I believe that to operate such a full-text public service platform, even in accordance with the user scale covering the entire federation, it actually only needs dozens of employees, including office space and server expenses. Wait, the annual expenditure will not exceed 20 million US dollars."

All three of Jeff Bezos have considerable technical foundation, Simon said, and all three nodded in approval.

If it is completely used as a free public service platform and does not pursue commercial operations, 58list does only require dozens of employees and similarly not many other expenses.

Moreover, doing so can ensure that 58list has almost no competitors monopolizing the field of classified information services.

After monopolizing the market, it will be very easy to ensure proper commercialization on the basis of free services.

However, the revenue of about 200 million US dollars will probably be a limit.

US$20 million in fixed-cost expenditures are exchanged for US$200 million in annual revenue. At that time, the small days of the platform will be very moist, but there will be no breakthroughs.

Seeing that the three of them were lost in thought, Simon stopped talking, picked up the tableware and continued his lunch.

After a while, Simon’s lunch was almost eaten, and Michael Novarek smiled bitterly: “If we kill a 20 billion US dollar industry and only get a new market of 200 million US dollars, will it fail too much? some?"

Simon put down the tableware and said: "From the public's point of view, it is actually equivalent to saving them 20 billion US dollars each year. Many people have to thank us."

Jeff Bezos said: "The paper media group will want to kill us."

Simon said: "Every technological change means that many industries are eliminated. When the steam loom first appeared, traditional workers rushed into the factory to destroy the machine, but they would never be able to restore their jobs. On the contrary, those who followed the trend started mechanization. The people in the textile factories have made a fortune. The steam revolution, the electrical revolution, every time. Now, we are at the beginning of a brand new information revolution. Inevitable."

Tim Berners Lee couldn't help but said: "The beginning of the great era."

"Yes," Simon smiled, pointed to a few of himself, and then to the other people in the restaurant, and said: "A big era that we created ourselves."

Jeff Bezos and Tim Berners-Lee both had a little more high spirits in their expressions.

Michael Novarek was also a little excited in his heart, but, remembering what Simon had just said, he said: "I still care more about my project."

Simon retracted the topic he had just turned off and said: "In fact, the scale of the $20 billion industry is still there. What I just said is just the worst result. How much can be transformed depends on your work results. However, Mike, I need to remind you that 58list can continue to try to explore various business models, but never worry about making money, users should be put first. All 58list services must follow the principle of user first. If Our platform services can make users feel value for money, they will naturally take out their pockets. On the contrary, if everyone thinks this is a platform that is rampant by scammers, is rampant with false information, and only knows the charges but cannot provide equivalent services, Use your own advantages to monopolize the entire industry. Compared with the potentially larger potential market, what you end up with will only be a small piece of cake that has shrunk seriously."

Everyone knows the truth, and it has always been easy to do.

For classified information services, what Simon can do is to remind the 58list team not to go in the wrong direction.

Moreover, compared to Eaglet’s huge layout in other fields, this part of the business is not the core after all. If Michael Novarec messes up, Simon will decisively adjust this subsidiary to a free public service platform. It is regarded as a charity act of Eaglet.

After the meeting of the day, 58list was quietly launched on Wednesday, August 11.

The threat of this service to traditional paper media is too obvious. Therefore, the Eaglet portal did not give any fanfare. In fact, it also largely avoided the direct outbreak of user needs and gave the 58list team a relatively full exploration. space.

However, as a classified information service platform centered on the same city model, if other start-ups do it, they may only choose one or two cities to conduct business. 58list has strong technical support from Igreat, which will directly cover it after opening. The capital cities of the fifty states of the United States and other metropolitan areas with large populations.

Although it has not been widely promoted, it is a service interface application that parallels Facebook, Google, and Amazon on the homepage of Eaglet portal, and it can also log in directly through Eaglet mailbox. The service is completely free. In just a few days, 58list The website flooded in with a large number of users. In just three days of opening, the number of posts on housing rentals and sales, employee recruitment, second-hand transactions, etc. in each section exceeded 1 million.

Classified information advertisements on newspaper platforms have different charging standards based on circulation and other factors, roughly ranging from tens to hundreds of dollars.

58list's number of posts exceeded 1 million in just three days. If the newspaper platform's fees are followed, it is equivalent to bringing potential losses of 50 million to 100 million US dollars to the paper media industry.

In recent years, many people have never thought that the rise of the Internet industry will bring too much impact to traditional media. With the launch of 58list, everyone has finally clearly felt a real threat.

Even though most of the paper media platforms instinctively show an evasive attitude towards the popularity of 58list after the launch, and even the Eaglet portal itself keeps a low profile with the mentality of quietly entering the village, the launch of this online service will inevitably cause A few people’s attention.

A financial talk show on CNN even made a special topic on 58list on the following Monday, detailing the popularity of this online service and its potential threat to traditional paper media.

As a result, the news naturally began to spread.

In addition, the 58list interface is placed on the homepage of the Igreat portal that is necessary after the IE browser is opened. It is also very convenient to use, and some users who were not interested in it also quietly clicked in.

More professional real estate or recruitment information may not be available for a short time, so the second-hand market has become the target of most users.

The second-hand trade in the United States is very developed. Whether it is car furniture or toy pets, as long as you want to get it, someone will sell it and some will buy it. What's more, this platform is not like a newspaper. You don't need to spend a penny. Some things you don't use for a long time at home can be put on hand. If you can sell for dozens of dollars, why not do it?

In order to expand business, many service platforms in Simon's memory are always used to conceal the potential risks of related services from users.

58list did not do so.

Before a user posts a post, the first thing to read is the website terms and anti-fraud statement carefully drafted by the 58list legal team to remind the potential risks of using the platform to conduct transactions, and only after the user clicks the agree button, can the post be continued.

Even so, scams happened quickly.