Shi Yuzhu, a native of Anhui. After graduating from graduate school, he "went overseas" in 1989 and researched and developed the M6401 desktop Chinese computer software in Shenzhen. In 1992, Giant High-tech Group was established with a registered capital of 119 million yuan. It was listed as the 8th richest person in mainland China by "Forbes" in the July 1995 issue. It was the only entrepreneur who started in high-tech that year.

From Giant Hanka to Giant Building, from Melatonin to Golden Partner, Shi Yuzhu is one of the legendary entrepreneurs. From an entrepreneurial young man, to the eighth billionaire in the country, to the "poorest person in the country" with a debt of more than 200 million, to a capitalist with a net worth of billions, in 2001, Shi Yuzhu was elected as the "CCTV China Economic Person of the Year" ".

Chronology of Shi Yuzhu's major events

Born in 1962, from Huaiyuan, Anhui.

Graduated from the Department of Mathematics of Zhejiang University in 1984 and was assigned to the Anhui Provincial Bureau of Statistics.

In January 1989, he graduated from the Graduate School of Shenzhen University with a master's degree in soft science. Then he started his own business.

In the summer of 1989, Shi believed that the M-6401 desktop word processing system he had developed was mature as a product, so he contracted the Shenzhen Computer Department of Tianjin University for 4,000 yuan.

Although the department is called the Computer Department, it does not have a computer and only has a business license. At that time, the cheapest computer in Shenzhen cost 8,500 yuan. Shi received a "discount" of deferred payment for half a month at a price increase of 1,000 yuan and received a computer on credit. Shi used the software copyright as collateral to advertise on "Computer World" first and then pay, with a total promotion budget of 17,550 yuan. On August 2, 1989, Shi published a half-page advertisement in "Computer World", "M-6401, a historic breakthrough." On the 13th day, Shi received an odd amount of remittance. By mid-September of that year, Shi's sales had exceeded 100,000 yuan. Shi paid off the debt and invested the remaining money in advertising. Four months later, M-6401 sales exceeded 1 million yuan. This was Shi's first pot of gold. After that, Shi Youlu continued to develop M-6402, until M-6405 Hanka, and the operating income exceeded 1 million yuan after 4 months.

In 1991, Giant Company was established. Introduced M-6403.

In 1992, Giant's headquarters moved from Shenzhen to Zhuhai. M-6403 achieved a profit of 35 million yuan. The design plan for the 18-story Giant Tower has been released. Later, this plan was revised again and again, and it was raised from 18 floors to 70 floors. It was the tallest building in China at that time and required more than 1 billion yuan in funds. Shi Yuzhu basically raised funds by raising funds and selling off-the-plan properties, raising more than 100 million yuan without borrowing from banks.

In 1993, Giant launched the M-6405, Chinese notebook computers, Chinese handwriting computers, etc. Among them, the sales of Chinese handwriting computers and software alone reached 360 million yuan that year. Giant has become China's second largest private high-tech enterprise. Shi Yuzhu became the second batch of intellectuals in Zhuhai to receive heavy awards.

In early 1994, construction of the Giant Building started and was planned to be completed in three years. Shi Yuzhu was elected as one of China's top ten reform figures.

In 1995, Giant launched 12 kinds of health products and placed 100 million yuan in advertising. Shi Yuzhu was listed as the 8th richest person in mainland China by Forbes.

In 1996, the Giant Building was short of funds, and Shi Yuzhu decided to transfer all the funds for health care products to the Giant Building. The health care products business quickly flourished due to excessive funding and poor management. decline.

At the beginning of 1997, the Giant Building was not completed on schedule, and domestic off-the-plan property buyers came to ask for refunds every day. The media covered the Giants' financial crisis in a blanket manner. Soon the construction of the Giant Building, which was only built to the third floor, was suspended. Giant Group exists in name only, but has never filed for bankruptcy.

In 1999, "Shanghai Jiante Biotechnology Co., Ltd." was registered and established as a biopharmaceutical enterprise that produces health care products.

On December 21, 2000, "Zhuhai Shi'an Co., Ltd." was registered and established. Acquired the off-plan property of Giant Building in Zhuhai.

In 2000, Shi Yuzhu claimed that he and his original team started a business in Shanghai, Jiangsu and Zhejiang, and they were engaged in the "melatonin" business. He said: "I must repay the people's money." He also set a timetable for repaying the money by the end of 2000.

In 2001, Shi Yuzhu applied to register a giant company in Shanghai and sought to go public.

On November 18, 2004, Shanghai Zhengtu Network Technology Co., Ltd. was formally established, with Shi Yuzhu as chairman.

On November 15, 2005, "Zhengtu" officially started internal testing.

On July 26, 2006, Shi Yuzhu and 18 of his company executives officially registered "Giant Network Technology Limited" in the Cayman Islands. This company was registered in the British Virgin Islands through a company named "Eddia International". Group Limited" company controls 100% of Shanghai Zhengtu Network Technology Co., Ltd.

On June 11, 2007, "Giant Network Technology Limited" was officially renamed Giant Interactive Group Inc., which is the official name of the current listed company; at the same time, Shanghai Zhengtu Network Technology Co., Ltd. was officially renamed Shanghai Giant Network TECHNOLOGY LIMITED.

Shi Yuzhu and the Giant Group

Fanatic mistakes

Why did the Giant fall so easily? There are two more conclusive analyses. The first is a major investment mistake. The main reason is the 70-story Giant Building, which involves a capital of 1.2 billion. From the start of construction of the building in February 1994 to July 1996, Shi Yuzhu did not apply for a bank loan. He relied entirely on his own funds and money from selling off-the-plan properties. This self-owned funds were the giant's bioengineering and computer software industries. However, Giant's industrial strength in health care products and computer software was simply not enough to support the construction of the 70-story Giant Building. When Shi Yuzhu invested all the funds for production and advertising and promotion in the building, the Giant Building drained the blood of Giant's industry. .

Shi Yuzhu once said in an interview with a reporter in 1994: At this stage, I read more biographies and party histories. My deepest feeling is that running an enterprise is very different from establishing a political party and a country. We can learn a lot from the history of the Party. The more we look at them, the more similar they become. After any group reaches a certain scale, it must establish a strict organization. The role of organization in the group is very large. I think the current corporate organizations are similar to the four types of military armed forces before the liberation.

Second Entrepreneurship

Shi Yuzhu claimed that 1994 was a year of turning point for Giant Group. From January to August, Giant Group’s business conditions were in a state of hesitation, and even suffered a slight regression. 9 After making up its mind to carry out a comprehensive transformation in October, the company's growth rate accelerated in October, with the employee team growing at a rate of 200 to 300 people per month. Especially in bioengineering, the brain gold project started from scratch. In September we didn’t have a single factory, but now we have seven or eight factories.

Shi Yuzhu said, "I have been thinking about this issue for a while, which is why many private enterprises have developed to a certain point, the passion when starting a business disappeared, and started fighting among themselves. Like us giants, the benefits are better, but in the end they suffer." Big pot rice is more powerful than state-owned enterprises. Some people no longer consider contributing to the enterprise. This was very obvious in the first half of 1994. At first, I wanted to find experience from American enterprises to solve this problem, but I failed. The American management model is different. People have a very strong sense of professional ethics. For example, they never make personal phone calls during working hours because they believe that working time is bought by the company, and we can't do that. Later, I researched and found that this kind of problem is quite common in China. A number of private enterprises have gone through this process. Just as many private enterprises have carried out secondary entrepreneurship, "Sitong" and "Lenovo" have already been involved in this kind of process. It’s a problem, but very few actually do it.

Shi Yuzhu proposed a second entrepreneurship at the end of 1994... He claimed that the key to a company's second entrepreneurship is the human factor, which is the famous saying: After the correct route is determined, the cadres are deciding factors. The cadre team is the core issue of an enterprise's development.

Shi Yuzhu claimed that he conducted an experiment in the second half of 1994, simulating a war climate, putting some pressure on employees that would be impossible to complete under normal conditions, and forcing them to create miracles to complete. If they create miracles, they can get considerable rewards. Bonus, if he can't create miracles, he will be removed from his post, allowing him to be an ordinary employee within a year, and he can get another chance after one year. It turned out that two-thirds of the people performed miracles, so there was a strong team of cadres.

Shi Yuzhu’s “Three Major Battles”

Shi Yuzhu claimed that the development of his enterprise is to fight battles. When he established his three leading industries in 1994, Shi Yuzhu called it the “three major battles”. Battle”, that is, computers, medicines, and health care products. Indeed, these three major battles created miracles for Shi Yuzhu in early 1995. For example, the brain gold battle started at the end of 1994. From January to March 1995, the amount of money collected from brain gold actually reached 190 million. Even when health care products were at their best, Shi Yuzhu did not forget the computer software on which he started:

Shi Yuzhu claimed that the most important thing was still the computer industry. Starting from August 1995, he entered into the product structure To adjust, we have done the following: In the future, products will be mainly software, and hardware will gradually be abandoned. This requires great determination. China's computer industry is currently at a trough.

Shi Yuzhu believes that if China's computer industry wants to get out of the trough, it must make a breakthrough in Chinese software. To develop according to our strengths, we must at least occupy the domestic market first. Chinese software development has very high requirements for organizational management. Chinese management cannot keep up, but foreign companies have begun to set foot in this field. None of China's current trap-type computer companies have left the development of Chinese software. For example, Stone Company's Chinese typewriter is actually a set of Chinese character processing software. The giant also relies on the giant Hank to get stuck. Chinese software covers a wide range of areas, including not only word processing, but also educational software, commercial software and other fields. The launch of several revolutionary products in various aspects and the creation of new demands can save China's computer industry from its trough.

Shi Yuzhu and Zhengtu Network

Zhengtu Network plans to broadcast advertisements on CCTV for about a month. According to rough calculations based on CCTV advertising charging standards, it is expected that Zhengtu Network will invest nearly 20 million yuan in advertising costs on CCTV one and five sets.

Zhengtu online game players are targeted at white-collar workers aged between 18 and 35. They invest heavily in advertising on CCTV, which I believe will not directly increase the number of Zhengtu game players. However, as an emerging online game operator, Zhengtu Network's popularity will be greatly enhanced. At the same time, Zhengtu’s image advertisement was chosen to be broadcast during the Asian Games in the hope of conveying to more people that online games, like other sports, are a healthy form of entertainment.

This time, Shi Yuzhu broke through the policy blockade and launched an image advertisement of an online game company on CCTV. Is this suspected of challenging the national regulatory standards? Many and varied.

The reason why CCTV agreed to put Zhengtu Online’s advertisements on the screen is said to be closely related to the fact that Giant Group has been advertising on CCTV for many years. CCTV's advertising censorship has always been very strict. What Zhengtu placed was only corporate image advertising, not online game products, just like the image advertising of some tobacco companies. Through Zhengtu’s move, we can see the rapid development of China’s online game industry.

In any emerging industry, there are always "spoilers" who do not follow common sense. In the online game industry in 2006, Shi Yuzhu and his "Zhengtu" have always played the role of such a "spoiler".

Whether it is "Journey" or Melatonin and Golden Partner, Shi Yuzhu's business thinking is so unreasonable. It is this marketing technique with a strong Shi style that has achieved his market success. The new competition rules of online games changed with the arrival of Shi Yuzhu in 2006.

In November 2004, Shanghai Zhengtu Network Technology Co., Ltd. (hereinafter referred to as "Zhengtu Network") was officially established. Three or four years ago, Shi Yuzhu thought about investing in online games. Before entering online games, Shi Yuzhu sought expert consultation and also visited executives in some industries. The conclusion is that the growth rate of online games will remain above 30 for at least 8 years or more. In Shi Yuzhu's view, Chinese people's demand for entertainment is growing day by day, and the proportion of Chinese gamers is relatively low, so there is huge growth potential. Therefore, Shi Yuzhu asserted: The current online game market is definitely a sunrise industry.

Shi Yuzhu has always believed that the success of online games depends on two things: money and people. Shi Yuzhu is not short of money. Years of accumulation in the health care product business and investment income have brought Shi Yuzhu a huge accumulation of funds. A few years ago, Shi Yuzhu was interested in online games, but he did not have a game team at that time. Wang Yan from Sina once told him that the reason why Sina did not make online games was because of a lack of people.

In 2004, a team from Shanghai Shanda, which had given up the development of large-scale online games, was preparing to leave Shanda and hoped to find a suitable investment partner, and contacted investors in Taiwan. After Shi Yuzhu heard about this, he immediately found the team to meet. After the meeting, Shi Yuzhu's enthusiasm for investing in IT was rekindled and he decided to invest.

After the formal decision was made, Shi Yuzhu asked himself: If it fails, what might be the reason? One is the product, the other is the loss of personnel, etc. During the questions and answers, Shi Yuzhu listed more than a dozen key points and found solutions one by one.

Shi Yuzhu, who was new to online games, could not fully compete with his opponents, so he formulated a strategy of "focus, focus, and then focus again." Zhengtu Network only makes one product, and only chooses the 2D field in the MMORPG category. Shi Yuzhu claims to be the "final work on 2D games." Judging from the current results, Shi Yuzhu's focus strategy has achieved a certain degree of success, and the online number of "Zhengtu" is already ahead of its direct competitors.

For the online game project, Shi Yuzhu estimated in advance that he might lose up to 200 million yuan, so he prepared 200 million yuan in his account. However, after the initial investment of 40 million yuan, "Zhengtu" soon entered a healthy development and started to make profits during the public beta stage. As a result, Shi Yuzhu officially entered the journey of changing the landscape of online games.

Some game colleagues bluntly said that Shi Yuzhu was too unconventional and unconventional. However, they also believed that it would be helpful to put the company's advertising on CCTV and apply Melatonin's ground promotion experience to online game channels. Creativity.

Shi Yuzhu claimed that he had gone to rural areas and shops to chat with consumers who bought melatonin and other health products to understand their habits and preferences. If you want to understand the psychology of online game players, Shi Yuzhu saves you a lot of trouble. On the one hand, he is a player himself, and on the other hand, he can also communicate with players online very conveniently.

When Shi Yuzhu was playing online games, faced with the boring task of defeating monsters and upgrading, he simply paid someone to help with power leveling. After developing his own online game, he asked his development team, why does it have to be so boring? The developer replied that this is true for all games. Shi Yuzhu was very dissatisfied with this. In the end, the development team adopted Shi Yuzhu's opinions and added an upgrade method.

Although it has been preempted by Shanda many times, the strategy of "Zhengtu" being completely free and paying players wages has also achieved good results in the market. Now, among all the users of "Zhengtu", 83% are free users, and only 17 are actually paid users.

Shi Yuzhu believes that free users are very important to bring popularity to themselves, while the market potential of paid users in terms of power leveling and equipment trading is much greater than the ordinary point card time-based charging market.

Shi Yuzhu claimed to have a deeper understanding of market research. Shi Yuzhu claimed to have gone directly into Internet cafes to chat with players. After investigation, Shi Yuzhu discovered that, like online games and health care products, the real biggest market is below, not above. The Chinese market is in the shape of a pyramid, with cities such as Beijing, Shanghai, and Guangzhou at the top, and big cities such as Nanjing, Wuhan, and Wuxi in the middle. The real largest online game market is in rural areas. The number of people playing online games in rural areas is greater than that in county towns combined. Much more.

The outside world generally believes that the key to the success of Shi Yuzhu's health products is advertising, but Yuzhu claims that the most critical link is actually ground promotion. Now, Shi Yuzhu has applied his marketing experience in health care products to online games. According to Tang Min, deputy general manager of Zhengtu Network, Zhengtu Network currently has nearly a hundred ground offices and plans to grow to thousands.

"If online games were allowed to advertise, the number of users of "Zhengtu" might have exceeded one million." Shi Yuzhu, who claims to like advertising very much, does not seem to have much room for display in online games, because Due to regulatory policy restrictions, online game products cannot appear in TV advertisements. The advertising method does not seem to be very effective for players, but not long ago, Shi Yuzhu could not bear the loneliness and put the image advertisement of Zhengtu Network on two CCTV channels, and opened an online game company to advertise on TV. First of all.

Struggle with giants

When he first entered the online game market, Shi Yuzhu did not take foreign game companies seriously. An exhibition in 2006 completely changed Shi Yuzhu's view. At the ChinaJoy exhibition in Shanghai, Shi Yuzhu saw that few of the impressive works were made in China, and almost all were masterpieces by foreign companies. Among the big products that will be launched on the market next year, almost all are European and American games, and some products are even larger than "Warcraft" in scale.

"I think next year everyone will be able to feel that the market share of European and American games is rising rapidly. In three years, foreign games will dominate the Chinese market." Shi Yuzhu said.

While the market has entered a very obvious era of large-scale production, most domestic online game companies are still in the stage of small workshops. Shi Yuzhu believes that it is no longer possible to develop products with a research and development cost of less than 40 million yuan. This is completely different from two or three years ago. "Forty million yuan spent on the research and development of "Zhengtu" is considered too much in China, but most European and American games have research and development expenses in the unit of tens of millions of dollars. This is equivalent to investing three to five million yuan to shoot a TV series. Compare it to Hollywood blockbusters.”

According to analysis by gaming peers, Shi Yuzhu’s marketing planning capabilities, if supplemented by the game production capabilities of foreign multinational companies, should be an excellent match. Shi Yuzhu said that he would not rule out this possibility, but he has not yet considered acting as an agent for foreign games. But privately, Shi Yuzhu said that he doesn't like playing foreign games.

After learning that Shi Yuzhu was planning to pursue research and development in online games, Chen Tianqiao, who had become an opponent, still conveyed his suggestions to Shi Yuzhu several times through Duan Yongji. One of them was: the road to research and development is full of traps. This reminder made Shi Yuzhu more cautious in research and development.

In order to cope with the challenges of multinational giants, Zhengtu Network's second game is now under development, and its name is "Giant". According to Shi Yuzhu, the investment in the development of this game reached 100 million yuan. There are many innovations in the product itself.

When working as the second golden partner of health care products, Shi Yuzhu began to instill his "crisis awareness" into the team: The second product is destined to fail according to industry regulations, what measures should we take? Avoid failure. Aware of the crisis, the team entered a state of emergency, working seven days a week, 15 hours a day. It is precisely by putting oneself to death in advance that Golden Partner has become the only successful product in the health care product market in the past five years.

Shi Yuzhu has made it clear that the second game must be treated like a golden partner.

Listing is for greater security

When Zhengtu Network was first established, there were rumors that Shi Yuzhu’s investment in online games came from Duan Yongji, chairman of Stone Holdings (0409.HK). Planning, and also said that after Zhengtu Network develops and grows, it will be included in Stone Holdings. Shi Yuzhu came forward to clarify that the online game business has nothing to do with Lao Duan, and the goal is not to be included in Stone Holdings, but "to run this online game company step by step and eventually promote it to Nasdaq."

In fact, in the early stages of Zhengtu Network's planning, Shi Yuzhu did hope that Duan Yongji could participate together, but Lao Duan did not pick up the slack. However, after "Zhengtu" became popular, the two communicated again , Lao Duan joked that it was because Shi Yuzhu didn't tell him clearly at the time.

Shi Yuzhu has expressed to the public several times that his goal is to take the journey to Nasdaq, regardless of domestic A-shares and Hong Kong, because Hong Kong investors do not know enough about the IT industry. Now, after actually entering the listing process, Shi Yuzhu never talked about any details of the listing, only saying that it was going through the process.

Why did Shi Yuzhu, who had always claimed that he had ample funds, consider going public in such a short period of time? Shi Yuzhu's answer is that it can make the company safer. In addition, it can also allow entrepreneurs to truly test the value of the company, and at the same time create a few multi-millionaires.

The health care products industry has given Shi Yuzhu a precedent. Although companies such as Taiyangshen and Haci have fluctuated in their operations, they will not lead to the demise of the company because of a certain fluctuation. In addition, with more abundant cash reserves, acquisitions can be made after encountering good acquisition opportunities. In addition, Shi Yuzhu believes: "Listed companies can be calmer, while unlisted companies have fewer restrictions. Sometimes investment mistakes will be made, and the probability of making mistakes will be much smaller after listing."

However, for Shi Yuzhu, going public There are certain variables in the timing and location selection. There have been rumors that Shi Yuzhu's secret listing direction is likely to be Japan, and Nomura Securities may be his main listing team. Finally, Shi Yuzhu led Giant to successfully list on the New York Stock Exchange on November 1, 2007.