Wangjing SOHO office building is like three hills, with a total area of more than 520,000 square meters and the highest point of 200 meters. It is the masterpiece of Zaha Hadid, a famous Iraqi-born British female designer, and her architectural firm practicing her magical surrealism in China.
In such a huge building that can be called a grand modern legend, another kind of "small revitalization" completely different from its style is rapidly incubating. AcFun (hereinafter referred to as Station A), the earliest ACG secondary barrage video website in China, moved from Wuhan to Beijing a year ago, and rushed into this wave of Internet entrepreneurship with the growth rate of recruiting 200 people in half a year.
Since the beginning of last year, with the promotion of shareholders and capital, Station A has not only moved the company to Beijing, but also started to introduce a team of professional managers like Mile Mile for corporate transformation.
"At present, the country is still changing wheels for high-speed trains." This is the first sentence that Zhang Xia, vice president of products at Station A, said to PingWest reporter after greeting.
In those most difficult times, many users at Station A like to vomit: "This stupid website eats jujube pills (homophonic: it will die sooner or later)." Over time, "eating jujube pills" has become one of the most famous A-station stalks, and the management and ordinary employees of the company will laugh at themselves.
Worst procrastination and best reform
Zhang Xia is better known as the wing of Icarus, and her friends and colleagues call her the wing or arm. In June last year, Wing joined Station A as the vice president of products, in charge of the products and operations of mobile clients, and later took over the Web side, which was followed by drastic reforms.
(Wings say that people won't know her if she shows her face. )
In the past, Station A has always existed as a personal website, living in Wuhan, a first-tier city far from the Internet and commerce. Several principals can be called webmasters, but it is not enough to ask for the title of professional manager of a company.
Station A, which mainly focuses on video content, once used four servers to carry millions of DAU (daily active users) for a long time. A staff member in charge of auditing spends almost all his time in front of the computer seven days a week; There are even rumors that the monkeys at Station A (synonymous with staff) are fighting inside.
The internal chaos and disorder reflected by user-level spit is even more exaggerated: the review time of video submission may be as long as 5 days; It is obviously the first time to log in, but the system may prompt the user that the daily login times have exceeded; Even mobile phone clients often can't watch videos normally.
Wing's most important task is to adjust her team, "open a group of people and recruit a group of people." With the addition of wings, the team strength of product managers in Station A has been significantly enhanced. Years of professional experience and good reputation inside and outside the circle have laid a solid foundation for Wing to form a team.
The main recruitment method of Wings is to send Weibo: "Weibo is particularly easy to use. Now my best product manager is my fan. " Wings once received a resume, which has two-dimensional and three-dimensional versions. Wings was impressed by the last sentence of his resume: "What do you ask me to be good at? I have special hair. " Finally, the author of this resume successfully joined Station A as an operation employee.
"You have to understand, because in fact, the users of the second element are quite special, and many times they will become very sensitive to what they love. If you can't make something users like, at least don't bother them, at least don't make people shocked. But this' thunder' point, the three elements can't be caught, it is very subtle. "
After the wings arrived at Station A, a small egg was added to the first version of the mobile phone client. When the user browses the homepage of the client, he can see an AC Niang (the representative image of Station A) at the end of the page. Pull down a little more and you will see a complete auntie. But this is not over yet, the user can continue to pull, and the more she pulls down, the longer she pulls. It feels sticky and needs two fingers to alternate, which further increases the desire to continue pulling down. Until I can't pull any more, ACNiang will occupy the whole screen, and there is a small line between my legs: "I think you can play with this leg for a year."
"This is not something that a ternary person can do." Wings has rarely set foot in first-line products, but occasional works will still be amazing. When she first joined Station A, Wing often encountered some things that made her feel helpless, so she had to teach these employees how to improve step by step.
"It turned out that when we operated the feedback question, we just threw a sentence' Dad, the website exploded' in the group. But this sentence doesn't really help. What should be the actually useful information? It is' Dad, under what circumstances can't I visit www.acfun.tv, what is the browser version, what is the line, and how many users feedback this question'. "
Wings' general reaction to these "helplessness" is to call names, and the names are particularly fierce and the words are not very nice. "I scolded a lot of products, and I think the product manager must be whipped. Because the product manager will make mistakes, and he is not the only one who makes mistakes. He led a bunch of people to make mistakes, and R&D, design and operation had to be buried with him. Often scold the product manager like a dog. Why don't you have a brain ! Is it stupid? ! Can you understand it according to the logic of normal people? ! "
Handwork and paper towels are the most common gadgets in the office of Station A.
Professional managers like wings are playing while recruiting, and station A is getting better and better.
The DAU on the Web side has tripled, and the DAU on the mobile phone client has quintupled. This is the transcript that Wing handed over at Station A for half a year.
Lu Zhu, a senior user, said that compared with half a year ago, the current mobile phone client at Station A is "underground in the sky" and "not the client that can't get on".
On Christmas Day of 20 15, Icarus Wings sighed on the Weibo: "To be honest, AcFun is the worst stall I have ever taken over, but it is also the best stall."
Dress in a dress and talk about demand
When reporter PingWest visited Station A for the first time, the young lady at the front desk seemed to have just arrived, and I didn't know who "wings of Icarus" or "wings" meant. In fact, as a station of a company, most employees, including many middle and senior managers, have not been employed for more than one year.
In May last year, Wing resigned from an audio client company, hoping that his next job would be related to the Second Hospital. The choices before her are Station A and Mile Mile, or starting a business with a secondary project. If she goes to Bali, she may be responsible for pulling a tourism-related department, but that's not what she wants to do. The position given by Station A is vice president of products.
Wings chose Station A because it was "bad enough". She feels that she can give full play to her strengths in Station A, and there is enough space to really do one thing and make a product.
"This kind of rescue feels great. I think the more difficult an enterprise is, the more I need it. If it rises to a certain level, I am not particularly good at doing 80 points 100 points, but I am better at dealing with getting up from the mud pond. "
Her name shows this temperament in her. When I was still at school, "Special II" liked to imagine the future, wanted to make sacrifices for the ideal, and dreamed of flying to the sun with wings, and finally fell because of waxing. Therefore, Zhang Xia took "Wings of Icarus" as his ID and used it for more than ten years.
Wing has a good reputation in the circle of Internet product managers in Beijing. One reason is that she really has rich product experience, and the other reason is that she "wears clothes to talk about demand".
Wing is a girl named lo, who wears Lolita's clothes for everyday use. The most eye-catching thing is that the skirt is particularly large. She wears different styles of Lolita clothes to go out to work almost every day, and people often express curiosity, "Is it cold to wear this in winter?" "Is it hot to wear this in summer?" "What should I do by subway?" Before going out, simply pat your wings in front of the mirror and send it to Weibo with the answer "It's not too hot or too cold to take the subway".
In other companies, wearing a "fancy dress" like Lolita to work may attract the attention of colleagues, but at Station A, this is just the norm.
"fish begins to stink at the head", reporter PingWest visited Station A of Wangjing SOHO several times, and always saw three or four employees of lo Niang Company shuttling around the office like cats. During work breaks, they take photos of each other and upload them to social networks.
Wings are one of them. "If I change clothes occasionally, people will not recognize me and say,' Who are you?' "Wings said," it won't have any impact on the work. If there is, it is positive. There will be more excellent secondary enthusiasts who are willing to become employees of Station A..
(Meng is just)
Wing completed the mentality change from a simple second lover to a professional manager very early, which is very important to her.
"The company hired you not to add trouble to the company, but to solve problems for the company."
She wants to recruit a product manager, and she has to ask three questions during the interview: 1. What is the standard for judging a product? 2. What should you do when your product plan conflicts with your superior (not necessarily who is good or bad)? 3. As a product manager, what do you pursue? What was your initial career goal? What do you want to do in the last two years? These questions test the product manager's understanding of the essence of the product, professional accomplishment and whether the goal is clear.
This is the professional judgment that Wings has made products for many years and set up a team. This judgment is the most important ability of product managers now. It is meaningless if we talk about creativity without judgment.
From the mainstream perspective of Station A, the secondary community website, as a company employee, must be professional enough for the company to operate well.
A has fallen behind in the history of competition with Li Li, and one of the most important reasons is that it has not carried out corporate operation in time enough, resulting in very bad user experience in all aspects. But when it comes to the secondary barrage website, no one will forget the older AcFun.
"Many excellent ghost works, including Jin Kela at the beginning, are on fire at Station A ... What impressed me the most were Brother Dali, Brother Hundred Yuan and Liang Yifeng in these two years." Lu said.
2065 438+2006 65438+ 10 CCTV news channel reported that "Alibaba (its Youku Tudou) and Tencent invested in AcFun and BLICK, respectively, and they were the first to cultivate two yuan". Soon, Station A announced the completion of a $60 million investment in Softbank China. Since then, Station A has officially become a medium-sized Internet startup company with more than 300 people.
More careers, more true love.
Many secondary enthusiasts have expressed their antipathy to the commercialization of secondary elements to PingWest reporters. However, in the past 20 15, this commercialization has been unstoppable.
At the beginning of 20 15, a second-time fan who is good at making ghost videos is still working hard for a job with a salary of 4,000 yuan. By the beginning of 20 16, he had been able to earn more than 100,000 yuan a month by taking video orders promoted by commercial cooperation.
The commercialization of the second element has brought great development opportunities to such a group of people. Li Li chose to be as silent as possible on this topic to avoid conflicts with users.
For station A, which once lost a lot of users, "being alive is the most important thing". Station A will not stop the owners from trying to commercialize, hoping to provide them with a "two-way choice platform", and whether it is commercialized or not depends on themselves; Station A also does not sign an exclusive treaty with the Up owner. "It does not stop people who want to make money from it, but also respects people who regard the second element as a pure hobby."
Up's "love plaything" has been at Station A since high school, and now she is engaged in financial related work. He has never understood the commercialization experience of personal websites: "In fact, when you step into the society, you will know that when you take doing something as an interest, you will be very enthusiastic and happy. When it comes to works, commercialization and profitability, there are some things that we can't say clearly, but everyone who knows them understands. Finally, Station A survived, which is a happy event for users. "
"What we really want to resist are those who use stolen pictures and videos as black-hearted money under the banner of two yuan." Wings said.
Copyright issue is the heart disease of any video content company in China. Less than a year ago, Station A was sued by later shareholder Youku Tudou for copyright issues.
If the full score is 10, Wing gives the current product, operation and technical team 8.5 points, and it is past the honeymoon period, and she still maintains a pretty good feeling.
There are still many "pits" left over from the past that need wings to fill step by step, including the problem of logging in to the system. The latest financing is also "finally rich and finally able to do something" for her and station A.
After arriving at Station A, Wing hoped that the players would be more comprehensive. For example, when she recruits a product manager, she will tend to be a small company, because the screw ability cultivated by the assembly line of large companies is relatively simple, and the skills of people from small companies are not as good as others. What's more, we can't get rid of the strong personal website color like the previous A station, which leads to difficulties in operation and many problems.
In order to create an atmosphere of respecting colleagues in technology research and development, Wing successfully created a new unit "Dad" at Station A-1Dad is a programmer's working day. Product managers often have to make an evaluation: "This demand needs about 7 dads".
"A lot of things, such as products need to be changed, bugs and so on, generally speaking, product managers will be particularly depressed, and the relationship with R&D will also be affected. Now they are not much better, and these things have not affected their feelings, which is particularly strange. "
(Wings say: Because you love the second element, you should treat it well and professionally. )
In the past, there were some operators in Station A, and they were very capricious. They rely on their hobbies, personalities and poor professional quality. Wings will tell them: In fact, there is no conflict between loving the second element and taking it as a career.
"Because you love the second element, you should treat it well and professionally." Wings said.
"But we can't say that we didn't love Station A before its operation, can we?" PingWest reporter asked.
"I love it, but I can't-my ability is not worthy of my love. For example, you like this girl very much, but you can't afford her. She likes luxury goods, or things she likes. You love her very much, but you can't afford to support her. That's the reason. Should she return your love? You shouldn't because you can't give her what she wants. Is your love true? Yes, but you can't give her what she wants. "
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