Jiang Lei CEO: How To Pform Electricity Providers In Vertical Communities

And those who like to talk big.

The company boss is different, this year just 30 years old iron blood network CEO Jiang Lei has the age and does not conform to the steady and confessed, so the enterprise temperament of the blood network is also similar to its personality.

Although the electricity business of the blood network has become a model of vertical community pformation, but in the

It seems that iron is still a slow company and needs to establish a sustainable business model.

Commercialized blood

There is almost no difference between the entrepreneurial story of the gang and those of the individual owners. Perhaps the only difference is the legendary growth trajectory of the founder.

Jiang Lei, who was born in 1984, was only 16 years old when he founded the iron blood network. A few months ago, the Sichuan people passed the first prize of the National Physics Olympiad to Tsinghua University.

After the commercialization of iron and blood business, Jiang Lei, who had already read extensively, chose to quit school.

From 2000 to 2007, it is the second climax of the rise of the Internet community. Many vertical communities can be seen as the leaders of this wave, and have gained a large number of users in a short time.

After having many users, the network began to seek commercialization. In 2004, the company founded the technology.

At the beginning, Jiang Lei did not know how to turn interest into interest, and even less thought that the future will start to do business.

At that time, he was just a simple military fan, so he founded a military forum. At that time, he still maintained the website on his own hobby and interest: "at the beginning of the company's business, it only focused on the community and didn't care much about the external business models.

When the community grew bigger and bigger, and the funds were not enough to sustain the development of the website, "iron blood" only considered commercialization.

At that time, the cost of iron and blood had begun to pay for its authors, and the cost of broadband and servers was also increasing. Compared with the other vertical community websites, the profit mode of iron and steel was relatively single.

At that time, the main way of profit for domestic community websites was advertising, membership fees, virtual products, and so on. The first thing that did not get out of this area was: "but the business of advertising is not particularly stable, and every day, we worry about whether we can sell the advertisement next month."

In 2007, Jiang Lei hoped to find another way of making profits, and become the two leg of revenue simultaneously with advertising: "other websites will become carriers of advertising to operate and cash in, but they are all" help "websites, and its industry is ready-made, so long as the information service is done well.

But the military field website is "leisure", is to enrich people's spiritual needs, and daily clothing and eating is not directly related to, no such industry to give us line support, so there is no way to advertise like other portals.

Business opportunities brought by M65

Finally, Jiang Lei chose the electricity supplier, aiming at the military industry.

But unlike other electricity supplier industries, military products can not be supported by offline resources.

At that time, there were almost all military stores in every city, but the main contents were some labor insurance products of the PLA or some small shops that collect players themselves.

Jiang Lei jokes that these collectors are small members of the minority, and they are willing to pay a high price for an old military uniform full of bullet holes.

The shortage of resources under the line made Jiang Lei wonder if he could make money by acting abroad.

He spent a day writing e-mail to more than 20 foreign military brand manufacturers: Hello, we are the largest military website in China. There are many users. We hope to be able to represent your products and sell them in mainland China.

Letters were mostly washed up.

Occasionally, some people replied that there were agents in China, who could be contacted, or who refused directly: their goods were sold to Americans only.

A few days later, when Alfa received a reply from the US military brand that he was willing to cooperate, Jiang Lei was quite surprised.

He brushes his credit card and pays more than 10000 yuan for 17 M65 windbreaker.

M65 is the standard equipment for garrison troops all over the United States. M65 is a symbol for those who are obsessed with military affairs.

M65 received unexpected applause, which made Jiang Lei feel that the electricity supplier might become the stage goal of the blood network.

At the end of 2007, the conduct of the emperor was formally established.

According to data from third authoritative statistical institutions,

The average age of the users is mainly male, who is 18-34 years old. The occupation is mainly professional technology, business management, civil servants, military personnel and so on.

This user group likes to buy products through professional and technical forums. The purchased military products are mainly made up of foreign brands, and it is difficult for domestic market to have channel sales.

This is just an opportunity for the blood network to open up passageways for users to share and buy through the agency of foreign brands.

Most of the brands in monarch's conduct are exclusive agents, and the brand imported from China by popular blood fans is known by iron blood.

Relying on these most primitive accumulation of precise user groups, the iron and blood network has much more moisture than other electric providers.

From community to manufacturing

But Jiang Lei is not satisfied with the status quo. Because the reaction speed of foreign brands and the understanding of Chinese users' needs are not very fast and full, they can not fully meet the needs of Chinese consumers by relying solely on foreign brands.

In 2011, Jiang Lei decided to start his own tactical equipment brand, and launched the Dragon tooth tactical equipment: "at the beginning we wanted to be a multi brand retail channel, but later we considered the needs and experience of domestic users and made this independent brand."

As a Internet Co to launch a clothing brand is not easy, from the introduction of dragon teeth tactics to this brand recognized by the public, Jiang Lei paid a lot of effort: "we are not familiar with traditional manufacturing, production, quality control, raw materials, we are laymen, but our position is very high, so we look for the most senior professionals to help us get beyond this threshold."

Jiang Lei has targeted the best factories in many industries, working with factories that produce foundries for top brands, so that dragon teeth have the best quality guarantee.

Dragon tooth is also buying some original design team, excavating studio and small brand with design talent, giving them a big platform to show their design concept and enhance the original characteristics of dragon tooth.

Some people are asking, what exactly is the tactical equipment of dragon tooth? What is the difference between outdoor gear and outdoor clothing?

In Jiang Lei's view, dragon teeth are defined in the cross boundary between outdoor and leisure, the appearance of casual clothes, and the function of outdoor clothing: "daily wear, but at the same time you can experience moisture absorption, sweating, waterproofing and quick drying."

Jiang Lei also doesn't think that tactical equipment is digging the corner of outdoor industry: "the crowd of Chinese Army fans is very huge, so long as they concentrate on the field of military fans, it will be fine."

In his view, the concept of good service for military affairs and recognition of the high quality of military representatives are all potential consumers of dragon teeth.

"Slow" iron blood's future journey

Talking about the electricity supplier, some people think that it is a fast burning money, fast money collection industry, but Jiang Lei thinks iron blood is still a slow company, this slow has its necessity: "iron blood is in the rhythm we can control to develop," is because foreign brands are slower, we only created Dragon teeth to meet domestic users.

And we have very high quality requirements, do not want to be mediocre products, in terms of material and technology, they need to slow down and do a lot of work online.

In Jiang Lei's eyes, iron and blood are the most influential websites and communities. The electricity providers only provide income for users while providing users with services to ensure the operation of websites.

At any time, military elements are always the characteristics of iron and blood.

Now around the military theme and army fans, iron blood will organize and design some practical and distinctive offline activities every week, such as live firing, fishing, riding, hunting in the wild, etc. at present, shooting activities are better done, not only limited to shooting experience, but also teach participants to dismantle guns and ordnance knowledge.

Jiang Lei wants to give military enthusiasts an unprecedented experience through specific activities under these lines.

It may be that iron blood is a slow company. It has been commercialized, and it still keeps the pursuit of dreams and the persistence of ideals.

Not only "care for food and vegetables", but also "face the sea, spring blossoms".

In 2013, tie blood established the veteran's public welfare fund. At the very beginning of its establishment, it donated 500 thousand yuan to mobilize volunteers from all over the country to visit and help those veterans who have done their best for the country, paying close attention to their old life and warming their spiritual world.

Jiang Lei thought very plainly: "we feel that these things bring us a sense of achievement more than a psychological satisfaction, rather than a material pursuit."

Very many media said that the iron blood net is the vertical community pformation electricity supplier's model, but the iron blood is still looking for belongs to own next opportunity.

For the future of iron blood, Jiang Lei's idea is very clear: "in the future, we must establish a sustainable business model and give full play to its influence in military enthusiasts to achieve better guidance."

Young entrepreneurial team

According to Jiang Lei, although the iron blood network was established for a long time, the entrepreneurial team was relatively young, and the oldest one was only 78 or 79 years old.

In this team, Jiang Lei is more likely to play the role of the explorer.

In 2001, at the age of 16, Jiang Lei entered the Tsinghua Yuan, and published a webpage of virtual military (later renamed the military network of iron blood). Then he joined Ouyang, a law student from the same floor.

Subsequently, the iron and blood network has expanded several times, and is similar to some professional vertical social networking sites. Most of the members of the entrepreneurial team are also military enthusiasts, giving them unique cohesion.

In view of the current popular phenomenon of student entrepreneurship, Jiang Lei, who started making websites from freshman year, has a unique view: "students entrepreneurial team must pay attention to that, in the team must have an absolute leader, at the very beginning, we must plan out a reasonable organizational structure, which is more important than products and other content."